I Depotted the Physician's Formula Butter Palette

Depotting the products in this palette was something I had considered as soon as it arrived in the mail. I am learning that I am not a fan of all-in-one face palettes, but I had assumed that it was a guarantee that all the products in this palette would be equally fabulous and therefore worth keeping them all together in that packaging.

That was not the case.

It is pretty clear, for someone very familiar with the texture and scent of the original Butter Bronzer, that what is included in this palette is a watered-down, less pigmented, stiffer, version.

I also discovered that the formula of the silver glitter highlighter, Galactic, was incredibly soft, as it ended up cracking in the pan on me the second week of owning the palette. After I did not do anything to it.

With this in mind, and considering the bulkiness of the palette, I decided to depot. And I know there were concerns about the product drying out, but the new palettes I placed the product in have the same amount of "protection" than the original, so I am not bothered.

1.) How did I do it?

Before using a depotting tool to lift out the pans, I pried out the layer of plastic that held the pans from the cardboard base. This easy to do. The plastic was relatively thin and flexible so I was able to cut around each pan with a scissor. Once I had an individual shade, I pulled pack the plastic to make space to stick my depotting tool in and pop out the pan.

The only one I did not do this for was Galactic. Because that product was already broken and a mess, I used my depotting tool to deposit the product into an empty Colourpop Super Shock Shadow container, which I then pressed.

2.) Results:

We have Full Moon and Butter Bronzer in my large highlighter z-palette. I was not thrilled about putting the bronzer there, but I don't have anywhere else to put it. 

Ideally, I want Full Moon to be in a single, because it is hands down my favorite. 

Natural Glow Blush with the rest of my blush. I think the placement of this works. 

Finally, Galactic in the Super Shock Shadow Container. Hopefully I breathed new light into this product, and I will use it as a gittery eyeshadow, perfect for that glossy eye look.

Small Eyeshadow Single Declutter

Well, after careful consideration, the time has come to be 100% honest with my collection and let go of the things that I no longer need.

1.) My sample of Urban Decay lounge. Let's talk about this pigment, shall we? I have a feeling it's one of the most commercially easy duochrome highlighters to produce, which is why you have been seeing it everywhere, including the drugstore. The thing is,though, even though technically it's a blue-brown  pigment, the brown is so very red that my eyes look horrible with this. I have been holding on to this for two years already. I need to give it a rest.

2.) Three (more) depotted shadows from Kat Von D. This is when I discovered that my local shops were selling discounted high end. I lost my mind, and so made rather ill-informed purchases. So now I am letting these mattes go. I don't need to have Kat Von D shadows in my collection in order to feel good about it. And to be honest, I really don't like her formula. Sorry about it.

3.) Speaking of formulas, it took me a long time to accept the fact that I simply dislike ABH titanium formula. How do I know this? Because I am decluttering Rosette and Emerald. I have tried very hard to like both of them, especially because Tempalia rated them so high, but they are just not working for me. The formula reminds me of old Makeup Forever shadows- kind of play-doh like, and I found I got hard pan on them pretty quickly. So, I am letting go of these two albatrosses.

These are the decluttered shadows:

And this is my z-palette now:

A Z-Palette Update!

Hi hi hi!

I wanted to give an update about the shadows and organization of my z-palette. It is a 12-pan palette from Coastal Scents. The reason I chose a 12-pan is because I have a separate extra large z-palette, but this one forces me to curate the specific ones I use daily, as well as rotate through my singles collection.

As of today, and after some decluttering, this is what the palette looks like:

So, I tried to organize by color family. Sort of.

First row: Angel Face, Soft Gold, Making Moves, Glass Bull
Second row: Pumpkin Pie, Tangy Dijon, Team Captain, Fudge
Third Row: Berries 'n Cream, Cone, Blueberry Swirl, Rosette

All in all, I think this palette definitely is "me." There's a nice balance of warm and cool, and I love all of these shadows. Except Rosette. That one is in there to force me to use it for something, but that is it.

Thanks for reading!

Z-Palettes: Update!

Howdy! I thought I would take the time to talk about my recent changes to my z-palettes. During Black Friday, I bought an empty 12-pan palette from Coastal Scents. I have been trying to do something creative with it. Last week, I was trying to dupe my own "Yes, Please" palette, but found I just did not have to colors for it to even slightly resemble that palette. 

Instead, I made this my own personal palette of colors that I constantly reach for/am panning. 

The keys to the shadows is as follows:            

Soft Gold ABH	Angel Face Coloured Raine	Pumpkin Pie Coastal Scents	Tangy Dijon Vanessa’s Vanity
Cone EyesCream Palette	Peach Coastal Scents	Amber ABH	Dark Goldenrod Coastal Scents
Fudge ABH	Dark Salmon Coastal Scents	Topaz ABH	BH Cosmetics Foil Palette

In terms of reviews, there's only two I want to talk about:

1. Dark Salmon:
Even though this shadow is technically a shimmer, it is loaded with a dark reddish peach pigment that can be really blended into the crease. This is an impressive shadow, and I put it into this palette when I was trying and failing to dupe the Yes, Please palette. I kept it in because I want to use more of it.

2. Topaz:
I haven't had a chance to use this on my eye yet. I just wanted to talk about how we had a little accident with it. I did drop my palette (not a huge drop at all), and when I went to pick it up, this one had cracked. This is a testament to the formula, I think, and how soft it is.

I also went ahead and re-arranged my z-palette, this time according to color, to get a more aesthetically pleasing look that will encourage me use more of the palette.

My Highlighter Z-Palette!

Today I thought I would share an update regarding my highlighter z-palette. I think I might have posted one of these before, but there are some developments that I want to discuss.

So, this is what it looks like.

Let's start from the beginning, left to right.

Wet n Wild Precious Petals highlighter. This is a really nice highlighter that I do have to be a bit careful with, because overdoing it is very easy. I would say that since I purchased this, I am getting a lot of use out of it.

Wet 'n Wild highlighter in Royal Calyx. I love the name of this highlighter. It does have a different formula than Precious Petals- it is drier and less pigmented, which actually is fine with me. I have only used it 2-3 times sine I've purchased, and plan on really using it on Halloween. 

Urban Decay eyeshadow sample in Fireball. This did nothing for me when used as an eyeshadow. As a highlighter, however, the effect is obvious and pretty.

Vanessa's Vanity, 6 pm sparkler. This truly is a blush topper. On it's own, its a white-grey powder that shifts pinky peach, with flecks of sparkle. When placed on top of blush, it really shines. I love using this on days when I want my look to have extra sparkle and sheen.

Mary Lou-Manizer, The Balm. I am trying very hard to pan this. It is not obvious, but there is a bit of a dip in the pan. It's a pretty highlighter, and I do enjoy using this.

That little square pan is a sample highlighter from The Balm, which I have no need for at the present, but I am still keeping this around.

We then have Hustle and Glow, my current highlighter fave, from ittse. I really think this was a good purchase, and do not regret buying this. 

The oblong shaped shadow is from the Tarina Tarantino Floriculture palette, which I actually decluttered long ago. I decided to save my three favorite shades and depot them. Deep Dahlia, a dark burgundy/plum that is so on trend right now, went into my eyeshadow palette, while Taurella, a white gold frost is here pictured. I have only used it as a highlighter once, but I intend to give this a try on the weekend.

We then have the Sin highlighter by Urban Decay, which I also like a lot.

The bottom is two contour color powders. One is a light grey contour from Lunatick Cosmetic labs, which I do not get much use out of. The other is Hollyhock, from the Floriculture palette, which I think can perform well as a contour. I've only tried it once, and am not sure of the results. 

Thanks for reading! 

Makeup Organization Post

Hello!

Once in a while I like to post about the way I organize my makeup, and how it's changed over the last couple of months. I have two acrylic organizers- one to hold my brushes, eyeshadow palettes, and other miscellaneous things, and the one below, which is more for foundation and lips.

The picture below is from August 2017. Now, it has not changed very drastically, but I did use up a couple things, as well as declutter a couple of things that I had not talked about before.

So, let's begin!

Looking at the back of the organizer, one can spot the Estee Lauder Advanced Night repair. I have decluttered this because I've had this for over five years, was not using it, and it began to smell off. I did not purchase this myself- it was a gift. Did it work? It moisturized really well, and my skin looked healthier in the morning. But I would not recommend it as a wrinkle-reducer.

The blue bottle to the right of the EL serum is the Boscia cooling essence, which is also a moisturizer. It is also supposed to reduce redness because of its cooling effect. It certainly had a cooling effect, but the container is awful. The product gunked up around the top, and eventually screwing it off was impossible- it would not budge.

One can also see the top to The Ordinary's Retinoid 2%. Still using it and still loving it, almost used it up and will probably repurchase.

Lastly, I never much liked Bourjois' Healthy Mix Serum foundation. The color is too warm for me, and I have to use it with a mixer. It smells heavenly though, which is why I've had such a hard time decluttering it. I am hoping to use it more once it gets colder out and my skin gets drier. Planning to use it with a white mixer.

We'll skip over the lip product stuff- not a whole lot of interesting developments there.

The front contains all my primers and foundations. One can see Too Faceds Hangover Rx, which I used up completely. I am not going to repurchase, though. It felt nice and soothing on the skin, and is not a silicone based primer, but Ipsy sent me the LXMI creme du nil face primer, which is even better (but offensively expensive for me).

Decluttered the no poreblem primer from Ipsy because I hated the name, and it also felt like it was silicone-y.

I still am using the Maybelline concealer, though I don't think it is super impressive. I ended up repurchasing the Age Rewind because I like that one a little better! However, I still am on the hunt for a better concealer, as I don't think the Age Rewind has any brightening effects for me. With that in mind, I just purchased the Pixel Triple Boost Gel Concealer, because I love trying new brands, especially those recommended by Zabrena, whom I trust very much when it comes to reviews. We'll see how this one goes. If it does not end up working out, I will probably end up buying the Colourpop one, but not for a while...

That's it for now! I'll follow up with an overview of my other makeup organizer in the near future!

Organization of My Blush and Highlighter Pans + Swatches of Ittse highlighter

Welcome!

Today I received in the mail an order I placed with Ipsy last week. It is an ittse palette, with two highlighter pans, all for $15.

I decided, however, to use the ittse palette for my blushes, and I am very happy with the result. All the blushes fit perfectly, and I know I will get much use out if it. The palette itself it sturdy and substantial, and has a plastic sheet to protect the mirror from the powder. I didn't think I would appreciate this, but I definitely do.

This is what the palette looks like on the outside:

It is a cool-toned gold faux leather casing.

In the palette, the first four shadows are my depotted Tarina Tarantino dollskin palette blushes. I do not regret depotting those, because the packaging was awful. The bottom two blushes from left to right are Makeup Geek Puppy Love and Pixi in Beach Rose. The Pixi blush was super easy to depot, and I am so pleased with the result. Not to give myself too much praise, but this looks like the scheme to one of those Nars holiday blush palettes. It makes me excited to use more of this.

In addition to this palette, I've got four other blushes, and one of them I am about to finish up. They are also all drugstore/budget-friendly. Overall, I feel as though my blush collection is pretty manageable.

Now, in order to place all the pans in this ittse palette, I had to take them from my medium z-palette, which originally contained blushes and highlights. As the ittse palette became my blush palette, the z-palette is now my highlighter palette. This includes the two ittse highlighters I got in the mail today.

This is what it looks like:

I'm not going to review every single one, but what I've been doing this week is mixing the two largest pans: Wet 'n Wild Precious Petals, and Mary Lou-Manizer. By itself, Precious Petals is a little too orange. 

To fill up space in this palette, I also moved my eyeshadow sample of UD Fireball to this palette, because I want to see what it would look like. I also depotted my sample of The Balm's Kuwakaribisha to place in there, because it is a highlighter but I was keeping it with my eyeshadows. 

Let's take a closer look at the ittse highlighters. I've never used an ittse face powder or eyeshadow before. 

The two on the left, from top to bottom are Run the World and Hustle and Glow. Also, the pan on the bottom right that looks white is from Vanessa's Vanity, a sparkler called 6 pm. (I'll provide a separate review for 6 pm, all I will say is that I believe this is a TRUE blush topper).

Run the World and Hustle and Glow (H & G)  are from a collaboration with a YouTuber. The full collab included four highlighters, and I personally think the ones Ipsy was selling were not the prettiest ones in the collab.

They still are pretty, though. Run the World is on the left, and  H & G is on the right:

It's not clear from the picture, but Run the World is very sparkly. I don't know if I can see myself using this. H & G, however, is gorgeous. It reminds me a little of Laura Gellar's Gilded Honey or even Champagne Pop- very metallic. I am much more partial to this one. I will provide a formal review of this stuff after I have more time to test it out.

In addition to the z-palette, I also own three highlighters, all drugstore. I do think my highlighter collection is a bit crazier than my blush collection, but I can say with certainty that I've got no repeats or dupes.

Thanks for reading!