Palettes | Beauty and Fashion Tech

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

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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

Filed Under: Blush, Collections and Looks, Eyeshadow, Lip Products, Makeup, Palettes and Collections Tagged With: Blush, Collections, Eyeshadow, Lip Gloss, Lorac, Palettes, Swatches

Feb 18, 2013

Makeup Wars, Travel Makeup

February 18, 2013 By Carleenp 18 Comments

This week’s Makeup Wars is pretty relevant to me since I am traveling to Texas as I write it. What do I pack for a weekend away? See below! Also, for information on air travel with makeup in your carry on bags, see my previous article: Flying With Makeup in Your Carryon.

Purely Pro Cosmetics, which I will be reviewing soon, sent me some samples in what turned out to be a great travel bag. So I am using that for this trip.

The bag folds out to reveal a number of pockets and holders, and it has a hook for hanging.

For makeup, I almost always travel with this Laura Mercier palette. It is no longer available, but Laura Mercier tends to have something similar out at any given time. I love this one because it has neutral shadows for day or evening looks, eye liner, cheek color, bronzer, and highlighter.

For the rest of my makeup, I have a Nars tinted moisturizer, Make Up For Ever Duo Mat Powder Foundation, a powder blush, and a variety of lip products. I usually grab one lip crayon one or two lipsticks and a gloss. Here I happen to have a Sonia Kashuk lipstick and gloss combo for that. I also always have a lip balm in there. Then, I add just a couple of brushes (here I have 2 Dara Z eye brushes and a MAC blush brush), a makeup sponge, and an eyelash curler. I have a sample size mascara here that I am trying to use up and a new Maybelline Lash Blast Length mascara that I am testing (and am not a big fan of so far, review coming soon) .

For makeup removal and skin care, I normally pack samples. On this trip, I remembered that MAC, way back, sent me some of their travel items. You can still get these as far as I know. They are nice basic items for travel, although the set includes Strobe Cream, which breaks me out something terrible, so I left that at home.

I had done a glitter bomb manicure the day before I left and I knew that it wouldn’t last the whole trip without chipping, so I also packed these Cutex nail polish remover pads. Having once had polish remover leak in my luggage, I love these for travel. That won’t ever happen to me again!