My Curated Spring Succulent Palette: Overview and Swatches

Hello hello!

If you've ever given the "makeup organization" tag in my blog a gander, you'll see several posts dedicated to curated/themed palettes that I created out of my single collection. I stopped doing this, to my unhappiness, because I just wasn't being inspired. It's not that the color combinations I chose were not inspiring, it's that they were being housed in utilitarian, plain black palettes. After I gave up on that, my z-palettes were organized into three categories: shimmers, neutral mattes, and "fun" mattes. This was working for me for a while, until I got sick of it.

So enter Colourpop. I thought the palette I ordered from them would be larger, which was my one disappointment. Other than that though, I unintentionally was very much inspired by the design of the palette, and decided to see if I could fit some of my singles into it to build a palette around the design.

Here are my results:

I think this looks so pretty! And I like the balance of warm and cool. We'll go into each shade, and- if I feel like it- why I chose it for the palette. Swatches for each shade, in order of the palette, can be found below. 

1. Clionadh, Strawberry Mousse. While this pink is very light and is hard to see on my skin tone, I do think it looks pretty when built up over primer. It is also useful for blending out the edges of pink and purple looks. 

2. Clionadh, Maize. This is a cooler-toned yellow, which I appreciate it. Overall it's just a happy, vibrant, easy to blend yellow. 

3. Colourpop, Howlin'. This is a matte light warm lilac. I find this shadow really easy to work with. 

4. Nabla, Lotus. This is the one shadow that makes me think I do NOT need the Linda Hallberg Spectral palette. This matte is the perfect purple-pink for me and I love it. 

5. Colourpop, Lay Low. I bought this last summer, but this shade is still going strong. The quality of this shadow is excellent, but I didn't get much use out of it so far, which I don't get. 

6. Dose of Colors, Blueberry Swirl. From my old Eyes Cream palette, which feels like eons ago. It doesn't swatch all that great, but it is a useful muted cool-toned mauve to have around. 

7. BH Cosmetics Neon Chartreuse, depotted from the Back to Brazil palette. One of the few shades that stood out to me, quality wise,  from that palette. 

8. Looxi Green Apple, a warm light yellow-green. 

9. Coastal Scents, Tangelo Tint. 

10. Looxi, Pumpkin Spice Life. 

11. Coloured Raine, Princess. One of my favorite neutral pinks. 

12. Clionadh, Toasted. A very warm brown matte. 

13. Dose of Colors, a cool-toned brown from the Eyes Cream Palette. 

14. Colourpop, Team Captain. This shade is very soft. I barely use it, which I am trying to change. 

15. Sydney Grace, Tiara. A stunning metallic taupe. My description barely addresses how complex and multidimensional this shade is- it can be paired with a multitude of mattes. 

16. CP, On a Whimsy. A soft, pigmented, cool-toned true silver. A stunner. 

17. Looxi, Charmed. A duochromatic highlighter/topper. Excellent for layering or inner corner.

18. Nabla, Calypso. I have reviewed this on my blog before, check out my post here. 

19. Sydney Grace, Officer. This blurple-toned dark grey matte is so effortless and easy to work with and pair with a whole host of colors. 

20. Nabla, City Wolf. A warm grey matte. I've used this a lot and like it. 

21. Sydney Grace, Moon Landing. A brown-taupe matte, also very blendable and surprisingly unique.

22. Sydney Grace, a very interesting and frosty champagne duochrome with a lilac base. I love wearing this on easy, one-shadow days. 

23. Sydney Grace Siren. A blue-toned pink shimmer. Also complex, beautiful, gorgeous shade. Can't be more effusive. 

24. Looxi, Bohemian. A warmer rose-gold that is very intense. I put this in for another pink option, just warmer. 

Please click on the pics for a better view!

In many ways, this palette feels like a culmination of all the collecting I've been doing for that last couple of months, and I really feel I have something that is both inspiring and "me." If it were not for the cool packaging of Colourpop's palette, I don't know if this would ever come to fruition.  I look forward to continue using it!

As always, thanks for reading!

3 Looks of the Week: Shimmer and Dark Mattes

I am not going to call myself an ABH stan. I own none of their face or lip products, and only (~oNlY) three of their eyeshadow palettes. But the reason I have three is because I just like the composition of their palettes.

Color-scheme wise, I think the ABH is super usable, and that colors are selected and grouped in very intentional and useful ways. This makes it a pleasure to use the palettes, and a reason I think I stuck to the Modern Renaissance and Norvina palettes- mostly- this week.

If my eyeliner looks weird this week there is very good reason- I am using the Mac eyeliner pot in Blacktrack, and am trying to get the hang of it.

Look One:

Incense in the crease, Volatile on lid, crease, and outer corner, Dazzling on 2/4 of inner lid, and Dazzling on center.

After the entire day passed, I came home and decided Dazzling should have been on the rest of the lid:

Wednesday:

Reds from the Maybelline Matte Bar and Modern Renaissance. Lid was Norvina Rose Gold. 

Thursday:

Basically the same combination of mattes, just less pink.  The lid was a combination of Looxi's Bohemian on the inner 2/4, and then Flamethrower, a copper-pink duochrome from LoveLuxeBeauty. 

Thoughts:

This week I definitely embraced the darker warm mattes, especially red. I really like how it brings out the green in my eyes. I think this weekend I am going to avoid wearing mascara because I did feel like my lashes were a bit more difficult this week.

That's all I have for now- thanks for reading!

Today's Eye Look: Orange and Brown

Today's eye look was the result of four shades:

•   Dawn, from the Subculture Palette
• New Wave, from the Subculture Palette
• Toasted from Clionadh Cosmetics
• Boujee, from Looxi on the lid

Basically, I love New Wave as a shade. It is the perfect "Mac 'n Cheese" yellow-orange. I do agree that the shades from the palette are trickier to blend. You can see how the brown matte on my outer corner, Toasted, is hardly blended with the orange.

On the lid is Boujee, from Looxi Cosmetics. I think this was a good choice because the warm gold matches the other colors, but this shadow has a blue shift, which complements the warm tones nicely. The shift is hard to make out on camera. 

Lastly, I was using a relatively new product. I am trying to get the hang of gel liners, because even though the brush tip eyeliners have been my HG, especially from Physicians Formula, I am getting bored with them, and getting frustrated with how easily I go through them. So I bought Mac's Black Track gel eyeliner pot. I am not sure I am using the best brush, but I do feel like I have more control with the product, so I am eager to keep using it on my eyes. I like the wear time, but I am not sure how I feel yet about the formula.

I went with a brighter, warmer look today, because I was mostly wearing pastel cool tones- blue and grey.  If I don't "plan" a look ahead of time, usually I just try to have it complement whatever I am wearing. Tomorrow I might wear a darker blue or black, so my eyes might be pink or purple. Maybe. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Anyway, thanks much for reading!

This Week's Z-Palette: The Pink Amber Palette

Hello hello! I decided to take inspiration from Angelica Nyqvist, who does weekly quads. To get more use out of my singles, I want to do weekly z-palettes, and then post my results. 

Of course, as I constructed this palette I already had some shades in mind, and then I really just worked around those. I ended up really liking how the names and colors went together, so I am going to call this the Pink Amber Palette.

From left to right, we have:

1.) Angel Face, Coloured Raine (CR). This is a very pale matte peach, excellent as a transition/lid setting shade. I have a considerable dip in this shade already, so my goal is to hit pan.

2.) Lay Low, Colourpop (CP). The quality of this shadow is so good, but I barely got any use out of it this summer. It is a warm leaning pink, so I think it is going to play nice with some of the oranges in this palette.

3.) Tangelo Tint Coastal Scents (CS). I very much enjoy this shade. It works really well on the skin, and provides a nice bit of brightness. I used this a lot a while ago, and am hoping to use more of it this week.

4.) Tangy Dijon, Vanessa's Vanity (VV). All the excitement I had getting this shade came out of the Subculture palette debacle. And then I didn't use it. I actually have been using more and more of it lately, but want to  be more consistent.

5.) Your Majesty, CR. This is such an intense and reflective gold shadow. Again, I don't use it enough even though it is so brassy.

6.) Doll Face, Looxi. This is a recent purchase that I have only swatched. I knew I wanted this to be in the z-palette, so I brought it Lay Low to give myself more options. This shade is a pressed pigment, with a pink base and strong gold shift, so I knew it would work well with the colors in this palette.

7.) Pumpkin Spice Life, Looxi. Another shade from Looxi that is somewhat recent but unused. It is really nice quality, too. This is a bright medium orange, brighter and a little darker than Tangelo Tint.

8.) Durty, Looxi. This one is actually a total surprise for me, in terms of quality. It is a light-medium matte brown that leans quite red-toned on the skin, and works well with a host of colors.

9.) Empress, CR. This is a very interesting and somewhat frustrating orange, because on my skin it looks very pink. I am hoping that pairing it with the other oranges in this palette will keep the look orange.

10.) Royal Prerogative, CR. A matte medium brown that blends so well.

11.) Chauffeur, CP. A shimmery orange-gold slight duochrome. Again, I made a fuss about buying this, and have yet to actually use it.

12.) Boujee, Looxi. This shade I have gotten some use out of. It's a rather insane shadow. In the pan, it looks like a regular gold shimmer, but it has a shift from red to blue/green. It definitely can make a typical neutral look more complex and interesting, and I think it fits well in the palette.

I am so excited to use this palette this week, and I will be sure to update the blog with some lewks!

Thanks for reading :)

Greenery: EoTD

 How did I get this look? I used the following products:

-Wet 'n Wild Eyeshadow Primer
-Too Faced Glitter Insurance Glitter Glue
-BH Cosmetics Take Me Back to Brazil Palette
-Colourpop Good Sport Palette
-Colourpop Single Team Captain
-Looxi Green Apple Eyeshadow Single
-LA Splash Ark-i-tekt Limer
-Essence Lash Princess Mascara

 -After applying primer, I used the chartreuse pigment in the BH Cosmetics palette. As discussed elsewhere on the blog, it is probably one of the better shades, quality wise, in the palette. I ran that in the crease and up towards the brow bone.

-I then took Green Apple and blended that into the crease and on the lid.

-I then took, very carefully, Team Captain from CP, and Trophies from the GS palette, and blended that into the outer corner.

-To diffuse the look a bit more, I used the chartreuse pigment again, blending it down a bit towards my lower lash line.

-Finally, I used two shimmers from the Good Sport palette, after applying glitter glue to the first half of my lid. I used the gold shimmer Licious in the inner corner and inner part of the lid, and then the green shimmer EBB on the rest of lid, as seen below.

All in all I really like this look and would probably wear it again. Maybe not to work, though....

Thanks for reading!

Looxi Beauty Aurora Shadows (Swatches and Review)

So I guess my haul was not 100% over with. As one last hurrah, I did a bit more research into duochrome shadows, and found the brand Looxi Beauty. I picked up a couple of more work-friendly duochrome colors, for $20. Using Angelica Nyqvist's code almost covered the shipping fee that was already pretty minimal for me.

The four colors I got were:

1.) Boujee. This was the winner for me- hands down. I was not sure what the site meant that it contains all the colors of a rainbow- but after wearing and swatching it, it totally does. So on the surface, this appears to be a copper/gold with a metallic yellow reflect, but it has reflects of blue, which also shine a bit green and purple at times. On my eye it looks really elegant.

2.) Bohemian. I am kind of disappointed in this one, because it definitely reads warmer and copper on me than I would have liked. Aside from the fact that it is high quality with bits of purple microshimmer in it, I do have shades like this in my collection. That is my own fault, really, for not selecting shades carefully enough. However, it really is a gorgeous shadow and I do intend on using it.

3.) Mirage. I hate to say it, but the formulation on this one confuses me. It's not smooth, it creates a lot of fall out, and it didn't behave with Fyrinnae's Pixie Epoxy. I have never meet a shadow that doesn't play nice with PE! For my swatches, I have a dry finger swatch, and then on top of primer, but even then there does not seem to be much of a difference. For what it is worth, the colors are pretty, but I could not do a complex look with it- I imagine it would be good as a one-shadow color. Maybe.

4.) Charmed. This is a light lilac with blue-green reflect and is super pretty. It also wears well as a highlighter.

Swatches, and eye looks:

(l-r) Charmed, Bohemian, Boujee, Mirage

Mirage on top of WnW eyeshadow primer. Not much of a difference. 

For this look, I used Bohemian on top of Mac Paint Pot in Painterly. I regret doing this and won't do so in the future. Because the eyeshadow is so intense already, it got kind of muddy in my crease on top of Painterly. The color is super pretty, though. On me it just needs a drier base. 

The above is my eye look with Mirage. I used Wet 'n Wild eyeshadow primer, and then the Physician's Formula matte shadows to set it and deepen my crease. On top of that I used Fyrinnae's Pixie Epoxy, which did not agree with Mirage, which flaked a lot, and created a lot of fallout. 

I used the same process with Boujee, but as you can see, Boujee looks a lot nicer. I will be wearing this look in the future.

Final thoughts:
 Looxi has gorgeous shadows, but I need to be more careful about the formulas and shades that I choose. I do plan on picking up more in the future, though! If there are any that are in the more pink-brown-gold family that you think are worth it, please let me know!