Palettes and Collections | Beauty and Fashion Tech

Mar 4, 2013

Makeup Wars: Pantone Emerald and Green Makeup For St. Patrick’s Day

March 4, 2013 By Carleenp 12 Comments

Saint Patrick’s Day is coming up and emerald is the Pantone color of the year. How convenient is that? This week, the Makeup Wars bloggers take a look at everything emerald and green.

Outside of Saint Patrick’s Day, green is not a color that I wear much, or at least not any green as bright as emerald. So, I decided to do a bit of looking through my collection to see what among my extensive collection of palettes had the best greens. It was kind of slim pickings, but I found a couple of nice shades among a few of my favorite palettes. Interestingly, the best selection I found was in one of my most affordable palettes. I’ll save that for last.

Starting with a few more expensive choices, Urban Decay came through on both. The Theodora Palette has two nice Greens in it and it is an awesome palette all around. You can see my previous review of it with swatches here. Below are swatches of the greens from Urban Decay Theodora.

Next, the Urban Decay Vice Palette, another great UD choice, has a beautiful duochrome green/blue in it called Junkie. Depending on how the light hits, it looks emerald or it looks like a vivid blue/green. See my full Urban Decay Vice review here.

Here is a swatch of Junkie.

But here is the best source of greens I found in one palette, and you can get this one for only $13 right now! The BH Cosmetics Party Girl Palette has a nice selection of well pigmented green shades. You can see the full review here.

BH Cosmetics does a good job at providing palettes with numerous great shades at excellent prices. The pigment in their shadows is surprisingly good for the ultra cheap cost. Here swatches of the greens from the Party Girl Palette.

For more selections of green makeup, polish and more, click on through the sites below!

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Filed Under: Collections and Looks, Eyeshadow, Makeup, Makeup Wars, Palettes and Collections Tagged With: BH Cosmetics, Collections, Makeup Wars, Palettes, Swatches, Urban Decay

Feb 28, 2013

Sephora Natural Instincts Swatches and Review

February 28, 2013 By Carleenp 1 Comment

The Sephora Natural Instincts Palette has been getting good reviews on the Sephora website. But I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it offers 14 shades at a nice price ($28). However, there were various issues I had with it that I’ll detail after the initial photos. The palette itself looks quite attractive in photos. Here is Sephora’s picture of it.

In reality, this is a rather thick palette, measuring half an inch to a three quarters of an inch thick, which struck me as odd. Here is my photo, although I never caught one showing how thick the thing is.

When I swatched the Natural Instincts shades, a couple of this jumped out at me. First, some of the shadows were softer than I would like, with a lot of fallout, yet others were on the hard side. So that was perplexing. Next, two of matte shades seemed lacking in pigment a bit, but the others and shimmers were quite well pigmented. So again,the inconsistency was odd. Finally, these are very cool toned shades, even among the items that would be viewed as neutral. Almost everything has a cool undertone, so those of you who like warm shades might want to skip this one. Finally, the blue shades had a gray cast to them that I don’t necessarily dislike, but don’t love either.

Here are swatches of the Sephora Natural Instincts Palette, top row. The second from the left is one of the shades that was both hard and under pigmented.

Here are the bottom row swatches. The first shimmer was softer than I would like and the third from the left was another matte that lacked pigment a bit.

Overall, I am OK with the Sephora Natural Instincts palette, especially at the price. But it is definitely more for cool or neutral toned skins and it isn’t perfect. Still, it is a decent value, especially if the shades are of interest to you.

Buy it at Sephora

Filed Under: Eyeshadow, Makeup, Palettes and Collections Tagged With: Eyeshadow, Palettes, Sephora, Swatches

Feb 26, 2013

LORAC Mint Edition Swatches and Review

February 26, 2013 By Carleenp Leave a Comment

The LORAC Mint Edition Palette offers a retro vintage look and feel. With 8 shadow shades, 4 matte and 4 shimmer, in soft feminine hues, a highlighter, and a blush, it delivers a nice package for spring. Also included is a rose pink gloss in the shade Retro. This Mint Edition palette is an online exclusive at Sephora and there is a smaller LORAc Mint palette, with six shadow shades, the blush, and a different lip shade available here at Ulta.

This is Sephora’s photo of the LORAC Mint set:

Here are my photos and swatches.

The matte shades are very pretty, although I felt that they were a bit chalky.

The shimmers are good utilitarian shades.

The highlighter and blush are quite pretty. The blush in particular is a nice coral shades that reminds me a bit of Nars Orgasm.

Here are swatches of the matte shades from the LORAC Mint Edition Palette. I love these shades, but unfortunately, they are a bit on the chalky side for my tastes. I really was looking forward to the light blue, but it just came out too chalky for me. I might try doing a look layering it with a shimmer and see how it fares with that.

The shimmer shades in the LORAC Mint palette fared better for me. Here are swatches:

Below are swatches of the blush and highlighter.

The gloss also disappointed me. The color and wear are great, but the applicator brush is small, hard, and sharp (seriously hard and sharp!). I won’t use it simply because it is a bit uncomfortable to apply. Here is a look at the brush on the LORAC Retro gloss. That tiny little tip is all there is for an applicator.

Here is a swatch of the LORAC retro gloss.

Overall, I love the look of the LORAC Mint Edition set, but the matte shades left me a bit disappointed, as did the frankly terrible brush on the gloss. If I was buying again, I would probably go for the smaller Ulta set over the Sephora one. Or, if you want some real quality LORAC items, go for the LORAC Pro and LORAC Unzipped palettes, which are some of the best shadow sets out there that you can buy.

Shop for LORAC at Sephora