Category Archives: Blush

Amazon Makeup: Haus Labs and Zeesea Cosmetics

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The Amazon Prime deals that started on June 21st included 60% off Haus Laboratory Products and 20% off Zeesea Cosmetics. These deals were enough for me to take the plunge into both brands for the first time!

Also, before we get started, I’m going to address the Oompa Loompa in the room. I took these photos just after I returned from my trip. Because I had gotten darker, I needed to resort to mixing foundations and I did not realize I looked so orange until I finished everything. Sorry about that! I don’t always publish a post in the order that I work on them, so this is why my skin tone looks “warmer” than usual!

Haus Labs

Haus Laboratories Heat Spell Bronzer Highlighter Duo in Volcanic & Lava

This bronzer is the darkest in the Haus Labs line, but it will only show up on someone of my skin tone or lighter. The range could definitely use a darker option, but it’s the perfect shade and depth for me. I was impressed by how smoothly it looked on my skin despite how dry it felt to the touch and how patchy it looked when I first tried it on my bare face. This is one of those formulas that work best over a foundation. It doesn’t take much building to show on my skin, it blends very quickly, and it lasts on my face through a full day.

When using the bronzer, it looks perfect with so few swipes that I get the impulse to continue blending it in (because I’m not used to a product blending so quickly), and that’s when I run into problems. If I keep trying to blend or build up more product, it turns an unflattering darker color and starts to get patchy. The best way to use this is to apply it to the skin and when I blend to the point of, “Wow, this looks nice,” is where I have to stop or things will only go downhill after that.

The highlighter in this duo is the right depth for me too. However, it is very lightly pressed in the pan. It is extremely powdery with so much kickup. It doesn’t make a difference if I use a natural or synthetic brush, the result of the absolute barest touch in the pan leads to my brush being coated in an excess of product. I have to wipe some off my brush every time I use this product or else I will look way too sparkly for my liking. Also, it mostly sticks wherever you first place it, so blending away the edges to avoid a highlighter stripe is not easy to do. My remedy to this is to switch my usual application order and apply the highlighter before my blush, that way the excess of highlighter can be blended out while I’m blending the blush. The blush edge also partially covers it.

This highlighter is a mix of small particle shimmer with some larger shimmer particles spread throughout the pan. Because the larger sparkles are sparse enough to not draw too much attention, I don’t mind as much. I still have to be careful to use the smallest amount on my face though, and an example of a light application is in the photo on the right.

Although I can get really nice results with this duo, I’m not sure if the quality is consistent across the entire Heat Spell line. I can get stellar results if used in the specific manner I mentioned, but the fact that it can easily go wrong is why I would say these powders are similar to what Makeup Revolution and BH Cosmetics produce, but better. They’re both inexpensive brands with face products that aren’t exactly the highest quality, but they will get the job done. This duo at full price is $26, but from the view of these as two separate items at $13 each, it would be in the ballpark of those brands. While I think this is good for the price, the Kaja Bento Trio formula is an upgrade for $1 less for slightly less product spread across three pans. I also think the Beauty Bakerie Bars (Neapolitan, Brownie, and now Lemon) have the better blush and bronzer as well, though there’s way less product at $18.

All that being said, I could see myself reaching for the bronzer again, particularly for a matte look. However, my top favorites tend to have a satin or shimmer sheen which won’t be replaced by this. The highlighter in the duo is also a bit troublesome having to be used so delicately, so I won’t get use out of Lava.

Haus Laboratories Head Rush Blush/Highlighter Duo in Rock ‘N’ Rose & All Night

There is one other blush duo deeper than this one, but I’m not interested in berry tones, so I got this instead. The blush looks pigmented, but the thin powder still requires building up. In addition, it gets muddy when blended too much, especially in the spots where it overlaps with a bronzer regardless of the brand used. For the photo below, I had to wipe some of the Heat Spell bronzer away to get the pink color to show instead of the murky brownish-pink it turns. The blush is pretty, but I think the quality is lacking.

The highlighter shade is pretty interesting. I thought for certain it would look terrible on me, but it’s not too bad! It’s actually a somewhat duochromatic pink and light gold that reminds me of the Kaleidos Space Age highlighters. The Head Rush highlighter did not have the powdery kickup issue like the Heat Spell highlighter, but it’s not as soft either. It’s a decent highlighter/blush topper, but it shows a lot more of the larger shimmer particles, which deters me from wanting to use it.

I had some reservations about recommending the Heat Spell duo, but I can easily say I don’t recommend the Head Rush ones. The market is filled with so many incredible blushes and highlighters that are superior in quality. They might not be part of a duo, but a better blush and highlighter separately can be found at any price point. Nyx, Milani, and Colourpop all make better and cheaper blushes and highlighters. The Maybelline Master Chrome is another highly rated highlighter option. At the very least, the Colourpop Cheek Palette Quads come with three blushes of comparable quality and a better highlighter for $12. For that reason, even at the $15.60 price I paid for this duo, I don’t think it was worth it.

I have no feelings positively or negatively about Lady Gaga, but considering Haus Labs is owned by someone as well known as her, I had an expectation that the products would be on the higher end of drugstore prices but have even better quality. I’m not certain they lived up to even that, so my interest in trying more from the brand has dropped to zero.

Zeesea Cosmetics

The Zeesea palettes I purchased are possibly the most beautifully packaged products I own. The lining around it is a gold color, the top is slightly rounded and shiny enough to see myself in it, the design is partially raised in texture, the background design is an ombre of colors, and the designs are just beautiful. I love ancient history, particularly ancient mythology, so it was an absolute given that I needed something from the Egyptian collection. The Kitty quad I purchased as an inside joke, but I thought the color story was very cute too.

Right off the bat though, I need to give the warning that these palettes contain PET (polyethylene terephthalate) glitter. Although it is “cosmetic grade,” it is still made of plastic which is dangerous around the eye area. I hate pressed glitters because of the sticky formula and the difficulty with removing them. Only one shade in these three palettes have that clumpy pressed glitter formula, but my stance on PET glitter is that I try to avoid all shadows that contain it, regardless of the consistency and formula. When I saw how reflective and sparkly and large the particles were in person, that’s when I suspected these had shadows that were not eye safe. I did a few looks with these palettes, but I will not be using them anymore because I so easily get makeup in my eyes. Even when I’ve used the tape trick to remove the glitter, there’s still always some left behind and one of my eyes was irritated for a few days. So, these are being kept purely as collector pieces. However, I have still played with them enough (especially before I looked up the ingredients to confirm my suspicion about the shimmers) to be able to give a full review.

ZEESEA The British Museum Egypt Collection Eyeshadow Palette in #05 CRUX ANSATA

The Crux Ansata, or Ankh, is one of my favorite Egyptian symbols. This was also the palette with the color story that suited my tastes the most out of all the Zeesea x British Museum collaboration palettes (at least before the release of #09 Crystal Skull).

Shades 1, 2, 3, and 13 are all very soft, smooth, and pigmented. Shade 1 has a lovely ankh imprint in it, Shade 4 has a sphinx imprint, and 13 has a scarab beetle. Shades 4 and 15 are a little drier but still smooth and pigmented. Shade 6 is a thin powder but smooths out nicely. Shades 9 and 16 are a little drier and rougher and tend to stick to the skin where you put them, but they still blend out in a reasonable amount of time and don’t stay patchy. Shade 16 also has an eye of horus imprint in the eyeshadow.

Shade 5 is a stunningly beautiful and softly packed highly reflective glitter shade with the largest glitter particles in the palette. Shade 7 is a creamy satin with a little sparkle and Shade 8 is a reddish orange creamy duochrome with a little gold sparkle. Both 7 and 8 had a sparsely glittery top layer that seems to be mostly gone after using them a few times, so I’m not certain if it was just the top layer only or if the glitter still runs throughout.
Shade 10 is another creamy feeling shimmer with a strange mottled combination of green, blue, pink, white, and yellow which turns into a pale icy green. Shade 11 is mainly a green and aqua blue sparkly duochrome with a slight pink shift. Shade 12 is a beautiful rusty orange-red satin, and Shade 14 is a copper metallic shimmer.

ZEESEA The British Museum Egypt Collection Eyeshadow Palette in #06 EYE OF HORUS

I also chose this palette because of the iconic Eye of Horus symbol and the color story was unexciting but still wearable. I can’t pretend I didn’t want to know what Shades 9, 10, and 12 were like in person.

Shades 1, 4, 11, and 16 were that smooth and pigmented formula I noticed in most of the mattes in the Crux Ansata palette. Shade 1 has the eye of horus imprint. Shade 3 is very powdery and had to be smoothed out. Yellow shades don’t stand out easily on my eyes and this is another example of that. Shades 2 and 5 are creamy shimmers. Shades 6 and 14 are subdued satin shades. Shade 7 is a badly formulated pressed glitter which stuck to itself in the pan and I had to scrape it to get enough product to swatch on my arm. The texture was so unlike other pressed glitters I’ve felt in the past that I didn’t realize it was one at first until it swatched terribly. Shade 8 is not an opaque shimmer and takes some building up, which surprised me considering how pigmented the other shimmers are.

Shade 9 is what I can only think to call a demi-matte white because it looks matte but there’s still a sheen to it, and not strong enough of one to be considered a satin but it looks like the kind you get from mica powder. It’s also the strangest mix of cream, blue, gold/brown spots blanked out in white. I’m not sure what the purpose was in making this shade. I have no idea if they were trying to accomplish something with the pattern or if it’s just to have a different look. Shade 10 is a somewhat putty-like shimmer in lines of silver, bronze, and gold that pulls mostly gold. Shade 12 is another duochrome like in the Ankh palette as an iridescent white to blue but with a light purple shift.

Shade 13 is a super wet (not creamy) thick chunky shimmer. I really did not like the texture of this one. Shade 15 is smooth but not quite as soft as the other mattes. It still performs well though.

ZEESEA Tipsy Kitty Eyeshadow Quad in #03 Fruit Punch

This quad was my newest purchase, which did not come from the Amazon Prime Day sale, yet it was the first one of the three I started using. Shades 1 and 3 take some building up, as these mattes are thinner than some of the ones from the Egyptian palettes, but the end result is pretty and worth the extra effort to have a nice soft look. I had an easier time using Shade 4. These tones are also very nice and complimentary to each other. Shade 2 is a bit wet and a little chunky, but using MAC Fix+ helps it to spread and increases the color saturation.

Because Zeesea is a Chinese brand which creates products for the style that is popular in China, as well as catering to lighter skin tones, I am limited in the types of products from them that I can use. The quality is better than what I expected from the brand, but I can’t in good conscience recommend them beyond purchasing purely for the packaging. The British Museum palettes are pretty enough that if I had a stand to put them on, I would display them in the house, not just with my makeup. However, for those wanting to use the actual eyeshadows, I really caution against those plastic based glitters used. I wish Zeesea would exclusively use the safer alternatives like synthetic fluorphlogopite and sodium or aluminum calcium borosilicate. Even some versions of bismuth oxychloride can be quite reflective and sparkly. When I briefly perused Zeesea’s ingredient list on the website, I could see that they contained some of those alternatives but still had them in addition to the plastic glitters, which is quite a shame.

That’s all for my exploration of makeup brands on Amazon! I don’t think there will be a part 2 to this. I hope you have a fantastic day! Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

Armani Beauty Neo Nude Melting Color Balms

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This product also goes by the name of the Armani Beauty Neo Nude Color Melting Cream Blush. “Balm” is a less accurate description because it implies there’s a glossy or sticky texture, which this blush does not possess. It’s creamy to the touch and reminds me of a putty texture (but softer) or a Colourpop Supershock Blush (but with less slip). Tara Lynn on YouTube was the first to accurately described the consistency as being similar to Natasha Denona’s cream-to-powder eyeshadow formula. I began working on this post in July and overall, this has been one of the strangest product launches I’ve seen.

Wacky Availability

Other than the initial sneak peek from Trendmood1’s Instagram page, I saw barely any mention of this blush around social media or on Youtube. Two weeks after it released, there were still only four videos I could find. There was very little promotion for it across other platforms as well, including from Armani themselves. It released first to Sephora and Armani’s US site in only five of the nine blushes. Then Neiman Marcus got seven of the nine. Then it disappeared off Neiman’s website and appeared at Saks Fifth Avenue in the full range, but as a pre-order for July 17th. By July 19th there was no trace of the blushes on the Saks website. Then on July 22nd, all the blushes returned to Saks’ website as yet another pre-order, but with a note on the page that they were, “not shipping until August 17th at the latest.” They also returned to Neiman’s at some point. On July 24th, Sephora joined the other retailers (including Macy’s and Dillard’s) in having seven shades available and by July 29th, Sephora had the complete range listed but with the last Shades 51 Peach Pink and 60 Warm Plum still unavailable. By September 13th, the only retailer I found that had those last two shades actively in stock was Selfridges.

Production and Formula Issues?

When the Melting Color Balms kept going back and forth between being available and then wiped off websites entirely, I wondered if they were merely behind on production and could not supply everything to all retail partners at once. That explanation would at least account for the severe lack of promotion for the launch on Armani’s part. The fact that my 30 Warm Coral shade arrived with the blush pan separate from the compact and 60 Warm Plum was partly dried out and hard led me to suspect the delays might be due to flaws in the manufacturing process and a quality control problem with the elusive missing 51 Peach Pink and 60 Warm Plum shades. I can’t think of other reasons it was unavailable from the rest of the line, including Armani’s own website, for nearly three months. I even tried searching for it online while I was in Germany in case it was available in Europe.

Regarding the detached pan, when my order arrived, I instantly took it out of the box to begin taking photos. I noticed it felt very warm to the touch. It was a hot Florida day and it was likely even hotter in the delivery truck. When I turned the compact over to take a photo of the back, I heard a clink sound and opened the compact to see the pan plop out onto my hand. Glued products when left in a hot vehicle can melt enough for pans to detach. Then when it cools down, if the pan isn’t touching the glue anymore (as the ring of blush on the mirror of my compact suggested) the glue can dry back up and leave you with an unstuck product.

I noticed a hole at the bottom of the compact (the sticker on the bottom is peeking through from the other side), which usually indicates the product is recyclable and/or refillable. So, I thought if it’s refillable then the pans should attach to something on their own. I cleaned off the bottom of the blush pan and put it in a custom magnetic palette to see if it would stick, but it did not. Then I wanted to see if the compact would hold the pan without glue, so I cleaned off the glue bottom as well as I could, but it wouldn’t stay in. Because this isn’t a powder product and I don’t have to worry about it breaking, I figured I could keep using the blush while loose in the compact as long as I was careful with it. I’m not sure if the pan suddenly adhered to the remnants of the glue again or if the pressure from my brush hitting the pan into the compact got it to attach, but it somehow stayed within the compact again, even when I held it upside down!

As for Shade 60 Warm Plum, my experience with it was completely different to Shade 30, but I’m willing to bet Shade 30’s consistency and performance is the way the line is actually intended to be. Unfortunately, what I got with this one was a blush that took quite a lot of effort to get product onto my brush and even on my fingers. The blush was so hard that I could barely scratch the surface with my nail and what I was able to scratch away broke off in a hardened chunk. I contacted Selfridges inquiring about a possible batch issue and they informed me they were unaware of one but would look into it. Then they refunded me, which is nice considering the level of dryness and difficulty to work with it will only get worse with time. So with the refund, perhaps I’ll buy it again in the future and hopefully it’ll be in the beautiful creamy formula that 30 Warm Coral has.

This photo demonstrates the amount of product that gets picked up with one swipe of the Plum shade versus a single swipe of Coral.

30 Warm Coral Review

This product is so pretty on the skin! It’s described as, “a lightweight oil-in-powder formula that seamlessly adds color to cheeks and eyes for a natural matte makeup look.” The shade range is quite unique, seeing as how there aren’t any true pinks. The blushes are on the warmer or cooler sides of brown, with the most colorful pops leaning orange and plum. Specific shades in the line are intended to be contour shades. Because these tones are so natural, there’s a limit to how much you can build them. I can make Shade 30 fully opaque on my cheeks, but the color is somewhat camouflaged against my skin tone, so it still appears a bit subtle in person and on camera. I do like that it’s impossible for me to go overboard with this shade, but I only enjoy it on days I’m specifically in the mood for a warm-neutral look.

I love how this melts into my other products. It embodies the best that a cream product can offer in terms of the finish and application process. This doesn’t leave a wet or heavy feeling on this skin, but it transfers heavily and easily since it does not dry down. Powder helps to minimize the transfer, but this is the type of product I only suggest to those who don’t touch their faces a lot.

This product looks great when blended with a brush or a sponge. When I apply with my fingers, it looks alright, but it’s not as perfectly smooth on my skin as it would be if I used tools. The formula is likely the reason because it’s prone to transfer, so the fingers simultaneously smooth the product with each tap and also picks some of it back up.
Multiple layers with a brush is easily eclipsed by 1-2 dips into the product with a sponge, so the sponge will give the most color payoff in the quickest amount of time. My guess is that it has something to do with the water in the sponge and the oil in the blush repelling each other and preventing the blush from getting too soaked into the sponge, therefore applying more product onto the skin.

The Melting Balm is long-lasting and wonderful when applied on top of foundation, but on bare skin, the product got absorbed within hours! I reapplied during the first non-foundation wear test to see if I just didn’t apply enough at the start of the day, but the same thing happened! On day two of testing, I skipped foundation again, but applied setting powder all over my face to see how the blush would perform on top of it. Once again, my skin soaked up the product within hours! Realistically, I wouldn’t want to wear these kind of shades on a minimal makeup day anyway. If I’m going to wear nothing but blush, I prefer for it to be a color that stands out a bit more. But it’s important to note that those with dry skin should wear this over a cream or liquid foundation. Then there should not be longevity issues.

Besides the cheeks, this can also be used on the eyes. It looked fine when I tried it in the crease, and lasted all day as well, but when I tried to use it all over the eye without any other eyeshadows, I could see that it settled into the lines of my eyes. This happens regardless of whether I apply the product onto my bare eyelids, on top of set or unset concealer, or over a MAC Paint Pot. This also happens even if I try to set with power after applying. If I were to continue using this on my eyes, I would keep it in the crease only.

Shade 30 is around the entire eye in the top half of the photo. In the bottom half of the photo, it’s applied only in the crease with Natasha Denona Metropolis shadows.

60 Warm Plum Review

Whatever happened with the formula of this particular shade caused it to feel significantly less creamy, which also gave it a drier feeling on the skin. When I finally get the intensity of the blush that I want, which is still relatively subtle, I would say that it dries down. It still transfers like the Coral blush did, but the transfer is minimal and it is just as long lasting on my skin when applied on top of my usual liquid foundations.

Because of how long it takes to build up the color, using my fingers to apply the blush is impractical. The formula issue makes it prone to patchiness. With a brush, I have to use hard pressure in order to get the product onto my cheek and the force needed to blend it can disrupt my concealer and also where I put bronzer if I’m not careful. Just like with Coral, a damp sponge will give the most pigmentation with the least effort. I actually like how this looks when it isn’t applied intensely, so I put on the blush with a sponge and then use what’s left of my foundation brush to sheer the edges and get a deep pink on my cheek since it only looks plum-purple when heavily applied.

When used on the eyes, I have the same creasing issue. Technically this is worse because of how many layers I have to apply to get it to show up. No matter what I do, the creasing happens within five to ten minutes. Then within an hour it moves, breaks down, and fades in places. With Shade 30, it will last longer in the crease of the eye but not the lid. With Shade 60, it doesn’t last anywhere.

Regardless of all the complications associated with these blushes, I don’t regret buying them. They aren’t my favorite cream formula, but something about the particular tones stand out in my collection. The packaging is also aesthetically pleasing and makes me so happy to see them on my dresser. Judging based on Shade 30 alone, I’m still not certain they’d be worth the price to everyone, but somehow I still really like them. The benefits are so special to me that they outweigh the negatives I normally wouldn’t want, especially for such pricey blushes.

One extra bit of information left to note is that according to the packaging, these should last 24 months after opening, which is quite a big claim for a cream product. We will see if that holds up with Shade 60 if I continue to use it with a sponge.

That’s all for today! I’ve certainly tried my hardest to give the full picture of the best these blushes can offer, along with potential issues. I hope this has helped!

-Lili ❤

Products I Changed My Mind About (for better or worse)!

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If I have a strong negative or positive opinion about something, you can expect that to stay the same. This post will mainly center around the items I had mixed or indifferent feelings about in my reviews, but I’m now definitively on one side.

Dior Backstage Face and Body Powder No Powder

I remember saying that for my personal needs, I wasn’t certain if this powder was worth $40. I initially didn’t notice that much of a blurring effect because if I take my time blending and concealing all my problem areas, the powder doesn’t make much of a difference except adding a flattering sheen. However, it’s when I’ve been in a rush to put on makeup that I have noticed a dramatic difference! The blurring effect is so much more noticeable from blending out harsher lines of bronzer or contour, toning down a blush, adding some life to a look that’s too flat or dry looking. This has saved me so many times from having to restart a makeup look. I’ve grown to love this powder so much and wholeheartedly recommend it now because I think everyone has those moments when we just don’t have time to make things as smooth as possible, which this powder helps with, assuming it works with your skin type.

All foundations eventually settle into the smile line on the right side of my mouth. This powder fills and smooths it over so that you can’t even see it! After several hours it starts to be visible again, but the fact that it can make this dramatic of a difference at all is amazing to me!

The left side of the photo shows my mouth area after six hours of wearing the Becca Dewing Skin Tint as foundation. It had not been set with powder all day. The right half of the photo shows what the area looked like after I applied the Dior Powder-No-Powder to that spot. It completely freshened up the area.

Rituel de Fille

I was already at a disadvantage with this brand because of my sensitivity to lanolin (which so many of their products contain). When I discovered mold growing around the outer rim of one of the Nectar Balms, I decided that I am no longer interested in any products from this brand that are not powder based. That eliminates practically everything they sell. That Nectar Balm was only 8 months old and I only used it a few times. Then 6 of those 8 months it remained clasped shut and inside a resealable pouch. So, I do not trust how the brand preserves ingredients (it’s supposed to last 12 months after opening), on top of the lanolin issue and the waxiness of other products and certain items being overpriced.

Kaleidos Space Age Highlighters

These were on the cusp of me liking them, as having visible glitter particles is not my preference, but they weren’t so sparse for me to stop using them altogether. However, I’ve embraced my highlighter preference as there are so many reflective illuminating smooth products that suit me, so I decluttered all three of them. If the glitter/shimmer in a highlighter isn’t fine enough, I will just not continue to use them. I have decluttered other highlighters that don’t fit my style such as Fenty’s Trophy Wife Killawatt Highlighter and the Oden’s Eye Solmane Palette.

Tarte Shape Tape Ultra Creamy Concealer

Other than this Instagram post, I haven’t shared my finalized thoughts about this concealer until now. Unfortunately, I really do not like it. I decluttered both from my collection. My love of the original Shape Tape runs pretty deep because I practically need Spackle to cover my dark under eye circles. The main downside to Shape Tape is that it can look dry, so the Ultra Creamy version seemed like the perfect remedy. The finish is nice, but it provides way less coverage than the original, creases significantly, and is not long-lasting. The only thing I find similar about them is the packaging. Even the original 53N Deep and Ultra Creamy 53N Deep have different undertones despite them both being labeled neutral. The original leans golden, which I like, but the ultra creamy leans pink.

Mixing the new and original concealers together improves the performance, but the combo is still worse than if I used the original on its own. Even in reviews I watched where people said they liked it, to me, their under eyes did not look as nice as usual. So, I definitely don’t recommend it.

Final Thoughts

It would have been nice to end this post with a list of five products in total, as five is a nice number, but I could only think of these four. There still a few things I haven’t made up my mind about, such as Makeup Geek eyeshadows (which I will officially review at some point this year), and Viseart shadows after being unimpressed by the Dark Mattes Edit Palette in my last Viseart purchase, but I need a bit more time with them in order to decide.

As a sort of honorable mention, I can say that the ELF Instant Lift Brow Pencil has reclaimed the top spot as my favorite brow product over the ELF Ultra Precise Brow Pencil. I liked how thin and easy it was to draw those realistic brow hairs, but I still missed the Instant Lift after I used it up. Then one day, when I went to use the Ultra Precise, I don’t know if it dried out but the whole product just slid right out. It was unusable at that point. I don’t know if it was just a fluke or if that tends to happen with the Ultra precise, but since I loved the Instant Lift anyway (and it’s cheaper and I know I can use up the entire pencil without issue), I decided the Instant Lift deserves the crown and I’m now on brow pencil #2.

That is all for today!

I have one review scheduled for next week, but my consistent return to Monday postings will not begin until September 13th. I hope you all are doing well!

Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

Makeup by Mario Soft Sculpt Collection Blushes Review

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Sometimes I really am a curious cat. I’ve made it no secret that most of what Makeup by Mario releases aren’t exciting enough to compel me to make a purchase. However, this third collection launch revolves around highlighters, blushes, and bronzers, the latter two categories of makeup which have become a Herculean task to resist. I managed to talk myself out of the bronzers (and highlighters), but the best I could do was limit myself to three blushes. If you sign up for emails and use the code WELCOME15, you can save 15% off your first purchase from the official website. In addition, ground shipping is free. Of course, I could have saved even more money if I waited for a sale but…that’s the price of impatience!

I have two Soft Pop Powder Blushes in the shades Creamy Peach and Poppy Pink. Both products are equally smoothing on the skin. They give good color payoff and are buildable. In saying that, I have to point out that most brands know how to make a decent quality blush. It’s more common to find a good one than a bad one. Between all the brands, the main differences come down preferences of the levels of pigmentation someone wants, the shade and tone, how finely the powder is milled, the finish, and excluded ingredients (if you subscribe to the “clean beauty” trend). What I consider a top tier blush is whichever of those qualities suit my particular preferences the most. Anything deemed above standard is technically subjective. The Makeup by Mario powder formula is faultless, which is what I expect of any blush. However, what makes these unique comes down to longevity. The majority of powder blushes last a full eight hours on me. With the Mario blushes, I noticed that by the end of the night they looked nearly fresh! I went as far as a twelve hour wear test with Creamy Peach, which is very subtle on me to begin with, and other than slight fading on the apples of my cheek where I applied the least amount of product, it looked like I had only worn it for a few hours instead of twelve! This test was done with no setting powder or setting spray, it was just applied on top of a face primer and foundation. Based on previous 8-9 hour wear tests in which I used a powder as well, I believe it would increase the longevity even more. The long lasting results occurred with Poppy Pink too. I have dry-normal skin, so I cannot say whether other skin types will have as much luck with these as I did, but I recommend anyone who has trouble with the staying power of blushes to look into these. They are by far the longest lasting blushes I own with the least amount of fading when applied on top of foundation.

On completely bare skin, the blush started to significantly fade after 6 hours and by 8 hours it was pretty much gone. I expect a makeup artist brand to create products intended for use on foundation, not bare skin, so this test was purely for those who sometimes put on a blush and go about their day. I do that occasionally, so I know to reserve these blushes for days that I’m wearing foundation.

On Sephora’s website, Creamy Peach is listed as a shimmer formula and Poppy Pink as a matte. When I turn the pan in the light, I still see tiny sparkles here and there in Poppy Pink, but that doesn’t translate to the face. It still looks matte (though not dry or flat). As for Creamy Peach, the shimmer particles are easier to see, but it gives the effect of a satin finish. In my previous review on the Pat Mcgrath “shimmer” blush formula, I mentioned that Nude Venus didn’t have as much of a shimmery look on the skin, and Creamy Peach is even less so. I’d consider it a demi-matte. Below are swatches of some shimmer blushes I have in my collection to compare the amount of particles that can be seen.

I don’t consider this to be a negative aspect, just a warning for anyone expecting Creamy Peach to be very shimmery, reflective, or glowy. Instead, it’s a subdued satin radiance.

I watched some of Mario’s demonstration videos, and his intent was to create a soft, everyday natural “makeup for real life” kind of look. Poppy Pink is quite a vibrant shade, so using a fluffy lightly packed brush helps to achieve the vision Mario had in mind. I only need one or two dips with my brush. It’s the perfect blush draping color which I’ve been loving to apply further back on my cheeks, leaving the apples bare. On the other hand, because the tones of Creamy Peach blend into my skin tone so much (and it’s a little less pigmented than Poppy Pink), I have to heavily pack on 5-6 layers to get it to show. The nice thing is that even after applying so much product, it doesn’t look at all powdery on my skin. And the lack of reflective shimmer actually works in my favor because any other shimmer blush would have me beaming like the sun if I put that much on. The shade darkens a tiny bit, when it has had time to settle into my skin, but it’s never going to give me more than a subtle flush of color. This goes hand in hand with MAC Melba and MAC Mocha, Pat Mcgrath’s Nude Venus, and Hourglass Diffused Heat as shades that are barely deep enough to work for me, but I love them anyway.

One thing that I found to be odd was that during the first week of the launch there were skin tones recommendations for each product on Sephora and Mario’s websites. Now they only have it for the highlighter, powder bronzer, and shaping sticks. The note that Creamy Peach could still work on medium-dark skintones and up to dark skin tones for Earthy Pink is the reason I felt comfortable taking a chance on those shades. Maybe they thought the advisory notes were too limiting and removed them, like Poppy Pink being listed for medium dark to deep dark skin tones even though it’s a pretty universal shade. Or perhaps there were some complaints for the blushes and that’s why they were removed, such as me being medium-dark and having Creamy Peach technically work for me, but only if I really pack it on. It’s still difficult to see on camera (clicking the image to enlarge it helps) but it’s visible in person.

For $24, these are an easy recommendation if you actually need a blush or just want something nice. As I mentioned before, the only aspect that really puts this above others on the market is how long lasting they are, so if that’s not an amazing feature to you, you may not find these blushes to be that impressive. I’m glad I have them, though.

I have no business continuing to purchase cream blushes, especially in the stick form which I don’t like as much, but my rationale was that I could use the special brush at the other end of the stick with my other cream products. That way, when the Soft Pop Blush Stick eventually goes bad, I’ll still have something usable out of it. I purchased the shade Earthy Pink, as I thought it would look the most natural on me.

I think this is a nice product. It’s like a slightly dewier version of the LYS Higher Standard Satin Matte Cream Blush. The LYS blush is only $16 for 6.5 grams. The Blush Stick has 10.5 grams, plus a brush, for $28. So, I do think the Mario Stick is fairly priced. It’s also only $2 more than the Fenty Match Stix Shimmers (which come in blush shades) which have 7.1 grams and, in my opinion, a lower quality formula.

Because I noticed the similarities of ingredients between the cream product in the Makeup by Mario Master Eye Prep and Set to MAC’s Foundation Stick, as well as the Master Metal Manipulator to the Mehron Mixing Liquid, I was curious to see if there were any products that came before which had similarities to the Stick Blush formula. The ingredients that follow the same order are highlighted in yellow. Underlined yellow means they all contain it but in different orders. Underlined red shows the ingredients unique to that formula and underlined blue shows an ingredient shared by two but not all three. The three products are the Glow Cream Base from the Natasha Denona Love Glow Cheek Palette, Makeup by Mario Blush Stick, and the Highlighter end from the Uoma Beauty Double Take Sculpt and Strobe stick. I own a Uoma Stick and can confirm they actually don’t feel the same. The one from Uoma has a bit more slide/glide to it. They have similar griping power on the skin but Mario’s has more of a tacky feel whereas Uoma’s has more slip. I own a different Natasha Denona Cheek Palette and the Cream Base formula for the version I have contains different ingredients, so I don’t know if they are similar or not.

The ways I recommend applying this product are as follows:

  • Swipe the blush onto the back of the hand and pick up the product with the brush end to stipple it onto the cheeks. This method gives the most control in terms of being able to build up the product and leave a slightly less shiny finish. A second option is to dab the blush directly onto the cheek and stipple with the brush. This leaves more shine on the skin and reduces the amount of cleanup. I do not recommend swiping the stick across the cheek as that can move the foundation underneath.
  • Use your fingers or a different (less dense) brush for a sheerer application. I personally do not like the look of the product when applied with the fingers. On bare skin it took me longer to blend and over foundation it kept getting splotchy.
  • Swipe a slightly damp sponge across the surface of the blush stick and bounce it onto the cheeks for the (surprisingly) most opaque non-foundation-disturbing application and for the dewiest finish. For a sheerer application, dab the product onto the cheeks first and then bounce with the sponge to blend it out.

As seen in the four photo collage further up, a setting or finishing powder will lighten the cream blush and instantly mattify it. Any powder, including powder blushes, will both set it and ensure it lasts on the face looking quite fresh for at least eight hours. I have not done longer wear tests on it. Putting a powder blush on top of the cream looks nice, but it also looks fantastic when the blush stick is applied on top of a powder blush (like the Patrick Ta method). I’ve tested this with a few other brands’ powder blushes, but using the Makeup by Mario blush stick and powder blushes together absolutely locks it onto my face and they work together so seamlessly and beautifully.
If you don’t use powder, the cream blush will set on its own after a few minutes. However, it won’t be fully dry which means it will mostly stay on the face if touched. Regardless of me applying it over foundation or on my bare face, it fades around 6 hours if not combined with a powder in some way. Perhaps a setting spray will work to avoid powder, but I have not tried that out. The finish isn’t very dewy on my skin anyway, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on the luminosity by using a powder. It’s easier for me to just do that or apply a powder blush on top when using the Stick Blush.

I mentioned that I used other brushes with this product. With my Sonia G Keyaki Mini Base brush, it worked fine but was a bit sheer. I thought perhaps the natural and synthetic bristle mix caused this effect but I had the same result with my Smashbox Cream Cheek Brush which is fully synthetic. Between the three, I prefer to use the Mario brush with the Mario blush.

I also tried the Makeup by Mario brush with the Patrick Ta cream blush from the powder/cream blush duo, as well as an LYS cream blush. It works fine with them, though I still prefer the Sonia G Keyaki Mini Base with my other cream products because the bristles are softer.

Speaking of the Mini Base, did you know that the new Sonia G Fusion Series is launching at Beautylish tomorrow? The same fiber mix in that brush is used for all the bristles in this series. Photo credit goes to Mel Thompson who was the first person to put out a video.

I will be getting two or three brushes. Considering how much I rave about the Mini Base, I wanted anyone who may be interested to know it will be available June 22nd! Okay, back to the review!

The foundations I used in the wear tests were the Nars Soft Matte Foundation, Dermablend Cover Drops, and a mixture of the Uoma Beauty Say What Foundation with Beautyblender Bounce Liquid Whip Foundation. The primers used were the MILK Hydro Grip Primer, Good Molecules Silicone-Free Priming Moisturizer, and Tatcha Liquid Silk Canvas. The brushes I used with the Poppy Pink blush were the Chikuhodo KZ-4, rephr 05, and HS-2 Hana Sakura Blush Brush. The brushes I used with Creamy Peach were the Bisyodo B-C-01, rephr 24, and Chikuhodo FO-3. The rephr 24 was most helpful because it’s so dense (as long as you keep it in a brush guard after washing) which meant I could layer up Creamy Peach easier. To those who read my last Fude update, do you remember that the rephr 24 was the one other brush I wanted to try, but it was always out of stock? I finally got it! It happens to be my favorite of the rephr brushes I own now. No figure!

Additional notes about the detachable Makeup by Mario Blush Stick brush is that any residue is easily wiped away with a microfiber cloth. I fully washed the brush once so far and the bristles maintained their shape and did not fray or become looser packed.

Because I already have cream blushes I like and the Mario brush is only superior when used with the Mario cream blush, in hindsight, I should have only bought the powder blushes. My inner makeup goblin talked me into it, and while I don’t regret it, I could have gone without the blush stick.

That’s all for today! One final thing I wanted to mention is that every so often I feel it is necessary to put a disclosure that all products reviewed in this post were purchased by me. I always disclose if I did not buy something, even as far as mentioning if the product was a birthday or holiday gift from a friend.

Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

Artist Couture Love Sprung and Supreme Nudes Palette Review

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I’ve toyed with the idea of making an “Influencer Brands” review, but I kept pushing it back as I haven’t been inspired by the products in mind for that post. So, I decided to give Artist Couture a solo review. The brand is owned by Angel Merino, also known as “mac_daddyy” on social media. I heard the name mentioned many times by Jackie Aina when I used to follow her, but I’m more familiar with the brand than the owner. I remember when Artist Couture first started out with loose highlighters at Sephora. I wanted to try the brand, but I wasn’t interested in the products until the Midnight Maven palette. I did not end up buying that palette, but in 2021 my wish to try some of the products was finally too strong to ignore, especially near the peak of my blush obsession.

Artist Couture Love Sprung Face Palette Version 2

Fun Fact: In my order from the Artist Couture website, this was actually listed as VII, which looks like roman numeral 7. I was very confused when I added version 2 to my cart but the confirmation page had what I thought was Love Sprung 7, until I figured it out.

This was actually my first Artist Couture product! I purchased it before the Supreme Nudes palette, even though Supreme Nudes is an older release. I had no idea what to expect, but I was hopeful that it would be great. The satin blushes are both quite pigmented. They look like mattes in the pan but they are technically satins since they have the tiniest amount of sheen to them.

Infatuated is my preferred type of shade because I like blushes with a little bit of orange, but leaning more on the side of brown or pink. This one is described as a terracotta peach, which is just what I like. Bold oranges don’t look as nice on me.

I was surprised how pretty I thought Lotus Love was, considering I typically don’t go for berry blushes, but this isn’t a deep berry. Perhaps that makes a difference. I find it fascinating that oranges and berries, shades touted as being best for deep skin tones, are present in this blush palette, but in ways that make them more interesting and different from what is common on the market. These blend well into the skin, but they aren’t the longest lasting. They fade a bit quickly on my cheeks at around the six hour mark, and also when I’ve use them as eyeshadows. I don’t mind that as much, but it’s important to note. Also, the satins have an extreme amount of kickup! I haven’t seen kickup on a blush like this since reviewing the Milani Baked Blushes!

I’m also not certain if the pigments in these blushes have something that throws off cameras. It seems like a standard formula, but I attempted to take photos of these blushes four different times over the course of four different days before I finally settled on these. I literally had over over 500 unusable photos. I had to change my camera settings to properly get them to show up. I also had to wear specific clothing colors and lipstick colors to get the blushes to show true to color on my cheeks. I always struggle with my camera and lighting, but never to this extent!

The shimmer blush in the center, called Angel Energy, is a mauve-pink intended to be more of a highlighter or blush topper than a standalone blush. It feels very wet to the touch and when I first opened the palette, I noticed part of the left side of the pan looked darker than the rest. It resembles the uncommon occurrence when oil separates from a creamy shimmer eyeshadow. I figured perhaps this shade wasn’t mixed well, but I looked at the ingredient list and saw the amount of emollients: the dimethicones, forms of glycerol, the oils, and waxes. It’s definitely not an issue of being mixed improperly. This is intended to feel slick. Sephora describes it as being a “bouncy” formula, which gives the impression that it would feel similar to a Colourpop Super Shock Blush or putty blush, but it’s not bouncy to me, just wet.

I’ve highlighted the ingredients that to my knowledge are emollient/slip/moisturizing ingredients in Angel Energy. I may have missed some or mismarked some as I am not a cosmetic chemist. As a makeup enthusiast, I did my best research.

Overall, I do recommend this palette. The packaging is cute, it blends well, the shades are pretty, and the price is pretty good. Of course, it’s only worth buying if you love the color story. The formula isn’t holy grail status by any means, just nice.

Artist Couture Supreme Nudes Palette

I wrestled with my decision to buy this palette for an entire year. I kept talking myself out of it because it’s a neutral palette when I prefer colorful ones, it has quite a lot of those light brown toned shades that tend not to show up on me, and the shimmers looked pretty but I knew they could never compare to the quality of shimmers from indie brands. During the last Sephora VIB sale, I couldn’t hold back and decided to get it. The shade Supreme was pretty much the sole reason I could not let go of this palette. Olive leaning antique gold type of shades are my Kryptonite.

The edited photo above represents how I expected this palette to work for me: repeat brow bone shades, repeat golds, a warm brown shimmer, antique olive green shimmer, a warm deepening shade, and a cool deepening shade. I wish I could say it turned out to be more diverse than I predicted, but it did not. While I can see the differences in tone among the six shades I marked above as being brow highlighting shades, it’s not enough to make a significant difference. Exposed and Stripped look cooler or warmer depending on what eye base I use; their own tones don’t matter. I’m glad that they at least are not stark or ashy on me like some light shades are. Nudist, Transcend, and Eccentric all blend into my skin and look like my natural skin tone, regardless of the color of the eyeshadow base. Silhouette looks like my natural skin color as well, but a cool tone version.

All the mattes in this palette are equally pigmented and blendable. There is a bit of kickup that I have to clean after each use, but it’s nowhere near as messy as the Love Sprung Blush palette.
As for the gold shades, Opulence has larger shimmer particles and takes on more of a copper gold tone. Lavish is a yellow-toned gold with finer shimmer, and when I put I these two next to each other on each eye, I could see the difference. However, as time went on during the day and the shadows started to dull, but not fade, they looked less different than before. In the future, I will likely stick to using Opulence on the lid for the sparkle factor and Lavish on the inner corner so I can worry less about it getting in my eye. They serve different purposes due to their consistencies and not as much for their color.
When it comes to the two deepest shades, Aesthetic slightly darkens the outer corner but isn’t deep enough to give me any real depth. For that purpose, I can only rely on Minx, but it makes all my eye looks a lot cooler-toned when I use it. I expected Aesthetic to be much warmer but it only stays warm if I use it on bare skin. If I use it over a base (whether a traditional eyeshadow primer or foundation/concealer), it deepens to a neutral toned brown, even if the base has fully dried down and even if it has been powder set as well.

The two most distinct shades in the palette are Bronziana and Supreme. Bronziana is much prettier than it looks in photos. It’s a bronze shade, but I believe it has reddish specks in the shimmer as well. It’s what I imagine the Hot Chocolit Fenty Gloss Bomb would look like as an eyeshadow.
As mentioned before, Supreme is a dark shimmery olive, but it doesn’t look on me the way I had hoped. I didn’t think it would be dull and muted. I can make it shinier if I spray my brush with MAC Fix+ and make it brighter by lightly patting Lavish on top. You can see how it looks on its own in eye look #1 versus eye look #6. Wetting it also helps to last longer because my eyeshadow looked just as good 10 hours later on the day I sprayed it in look #6.

Left eye and Right eye after 10 hours of wear.

I would have been crazy for Supreme if it had a touch more green in it, similar to Antheia from the Natasha Denona Mini Gold palette. In fact, if I could recreate this palette, it would be a combination of shades from the Mini Gold, and I would add a brighter or darker green and turn up the saturation of the red in Aesthetic and the yellow in Eccentric.

Of course, my desires would make it a far less traditional “Nude” palette. It’s clear to me that besides usability, every time I’m drawn to a neutral palette, it’s never as exciting as I anticipate. I knew Supreme Nudes wasn’t going to suit my tastes, but I still bought it anyway, and that’s my own fault. But what’s amazing to me is the fact that every time I use this palette, I find it to look so boring on my eyes until I put liner and mascara. Then suddenly I appreciate how soft the colors are, and how blended it looks, and the way the shimmers sparkle when they catch the light just right. It’s not my favorite palette and yet I can create pretty looks with it. They aren’t diverse looks, but at least they look pretty.

While my main goal of wearing eyeshadows is to create a pretty look, I need to have a desire to keep using it in order for it to be worth the purchase. I’m not confident in how I feel about this palette. The quality is great. The color story will be diverse enough and perfect for some but redundant and limiting for others. What I appreciate about neutral palettes is the ability to create a complete look, which technically this does because of Mink, but I would prefer to use a deep brown or black from another palette instead. I do like this palette more when I have another one to supplement it with. The packaging is so pleasing to look at, touch, and use (and this goes for the Love Sprung Palette as well). Something about the smooth shape, rounded edges, and shiny black surface makes me happy on some strange emotional/psychological level. The actual smooth surface literally feels nice under my fingers in a tactilely pleasing way. Regarding the functionality, it has a great mirror size and I love that the lid fully folds back so that those of us with vision problems can bring the mirror closer to the eye. It’s also a compact size, with the right amount of product, and is priced fairly. Of course, there’s also the extreme hype regarding this palette. I think it was in most beauty gurus’ “Best of 2020” videos. Because of my love of colorful shadows and my preferences regarding the depths and tones of shades, it didn’t live up to the hype for me. However, I do think I will continue to get use out of it when I pair it with other things. It does bring me joy to have it in my collection. If you’re a fan of neutral shades, I could easily recommend this to you. If you are my skin tone and wouldn’t get as much variety from this palette, assuming you want more variety, I would say maybe think twice about how useful this will be.

For those who are a fan of the Supreme Nudes Palette, it may interest you to know that Artist Couture has released a similar palette called the Supreme Bronze Palette. If this palette had been released during the Sephora VIB sale earlier this year, I would have still chosen the Supreme Nudes instead, purely for the olive Supreme shade.

Photo and information credit goes to Trendmood1 on Instagram.
It is now available for purchase at the Artist Couture and Sephora websites.

Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

War of the Rose Blushes

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I noticed how many of the newer blushes in my collection had ‘Rose’ in the name, and thought it would be cute to make a play on “War of the Roses” as the title of this post. It was intended to be a lighthearted review, but I admittedly went on a rant in the BareMinerals section. If you’re strictly interested on a discussion of the product and not about issues with the beauty industry as a whole, I suggest skipping that portion of this post.

BareMinerals Gen Nude Blonzer in Kiss of Rose

At least with Ofra’s Blushzer, they gave us a split pan of blush on one side and bronzer on the other, but the concept of the “Blonzer: blush and bronzer in one” is a gimmick to me, and similar to the way Becca tried to market their zero pigment foundation. These Blonzers are just blushes in a combination of bronze and rosy toned hues that add warmth to the blush areas of the face. Even Kiss of Copper, the most bronze-like of the three, still just looks like a warm blush shade. I would look ridiculous if I tried to use this on my forehead or jawline where I sometimes apply bronzer. In fact, BareMinerals recommends applying this in the “W” area of the face. I was familiar with the C and 3 patterns, but I hadn’t heard of this technique until I watched this video.

Photo taken from Sephora’s Website.

Issues with marketing aside, something about the imprint and shades of these Blonzers infatuated me. I made myself wait until the Sephora VIB sale in order to get Kiss of Rose, the darkest shade. There are only three in total and Kiss of Rose is right on the line of being barely deep enough to work on me. If it was the tiniest bit lighter, it wouldn’t show up on my skin. Although it’s no longer showing as a “Top Dupe” on Temptalia’s blog, I have to give credit for where I learned that the Kiss of Rose shade was extremely similar to Charlotte Tilbury’s Walk of No Shame blusher. Kiss of Rose is practically a slightly more shimmery version of it.

This fact almost stopped me from purchasing the blonzer because I want to avoid adding dupes to my collection. However, I never reach for Walk of No Shame because trying to use solely the dark ring of that blush (the highlighting center part lightens the blush too much when mixed in) was such a hassle. I thought that shade was beautiful, so the idea that I could have that without the ring is what caused me to buy it and I have no regrets! I am so happy with this purchase. I love the shine on my face from this blonzer. It looks so flattering, and although it doesn’t take the place of a bronzer for me, I’m happy to continue using it in the “W” formation.

Also, when I wear this, I tend to skip using highlighter. This blonzer lasts at least 8 hours on me, which is usually as long as I test makeup for. I recommend this, even at full price, but I hope BareMinerals expands the range. It’s silly to include “bronze” in the name and call this the equivalent of “deep” when it’s not. For two months, Sephora had Kiss of Rose listed as being suitable for deep skin tones, even though BareMinerals hadn’t specified that.
“Deep” from the Western/Euro-centric perspective is not the same as “Deep” on the spectrum of all human skin tone possibilities between the lightest and darkest. For example, on PUR Cosmetics’ chart of their 100 foundation shade range, I am most likely DG4 in the Dark category. I believe Kiss of Rose would appear ashy, icy, and more like a highlighter on someone in the actual Deep range, even starting at DPG1. This admittedly does irk me when the last shade in a paltry range is automatically called deep, just because it’s the darkest one they have. I wonder how many people bought Kiss of Rose thinking it would suit them because of Sephora’s misleading description, only to find out it’s too light for them. And how many of them are like me and kept it just because they hate returning things?

I’m sorry for the rant, but it gets very tiresome. Testing out beauty products is my passion and hobby of mine. I love it. When brands aren’t being inclusive, it limits what you can use for your hobby. If you take race and skin tones out of it and think about any other hobby, like painting, imagine if you went to a store and saw they were selling the most beautiful paints in all kinds of gorgeous finishes. You buy the paints and take it home but the paints won’t stick to your particular canvas. It’s repelled. It doesn’t show at all or the paints that do stick look dull and lifeless on your canvas. The store tells you, “Sorry, we only make paints for these specific types of canvas boards. Maybe one day we’ll make one for yours.” And you see all the beautiful artwork everyone else can create, but not you. Imagine flowers that won’t grow in your garden but will for your neighbors or pans that won’t heat the food you try to cook in it. I see the comment far too often on social media, “If they don’t make it for you, just don’t buy from them,” and that misses the point entirely. It ignores the pain of how frequently you’re limited in something you’re passionate about. How bad it feels when you see others have the world at their fingertips and you have to make do with less, and they don’t care that it isn’t equal. I wish more people had the compassion to understand this concept. We’re all part of the beauty community and when a new launch is hyped up, we want to be able to take part in that. It’s so disheartening when you then realize you can’t be part of it because they didn’t make a product you can use. Great for my wallet, but not great in feeling part of the community.
If I don’t have a perfect match, I feel comforted if someone deeper than me at least has an option. Kiss of Rose is beautiful and it works, but I can’t pretend it doesn’t bother me that I’m where it ends because this is actually a great product!
I think I’m especially bothered because at the time that I started working on the draft for this post, 6 out of my last 10 purchases wouldn’t work on anyone darker than me. There have also been several items I wanted to buy, but they weren’t even deep enough for me either. Is this not 2021? Anyway, I’m putting my objective hat back on!

Sigma Cor-de-Rosa Blush Palette

This is a very medium-tone selection of shades, so those with a lighter skin tone will have to be careful not to overapply, especially as the blushes are pigmented. Those deeper than MAC’s NC/NW 50 might not get much use out of these shades, other than Nearly Wild and perhaps Bronze Star.
I like that the matte blushes give good color payoff because I prefer to use my natural hair brushes on powder products, but if I use them on a sheer blush, it can take so long to build up, if at all. So, I’m glad I don’t have that issue.

Cor-de-Rosa is the namesake of the palette and also my favorite shade out of the six! I thought my favorite color would be Nearly Wild, but it’s a close second. The peachy-brown tones within Cor-de-Rosa is more of my preference over the deep rose of Nearly Wild. They’re both very pretty, but I like when there’s a little brown. Señorita is a tad light for me to use as a blush on its own, but it makes a stunning blush topper! I mentioned that Cor-de-Rosa was my favorite blush color, but when it comes to what actually looks the most beautiful on my skin, I think it’s Bronze Star. Bronze Star is just a hair darker than MAC’s Extra Dimension Blush in Hushed Tone, which is one of my favorite blush shades in general.

The matte blushes in this palette are decent, though they don’t feel as soft as I’d like. They’re a bit on the powdery side and look dry on my skin the way Clinique Cheek Pop blushes look on me. However, the shimmer formula is fantastic! This depends on the brush I use though, as can be seen in the differences between my two Bronze Star photos. Some of my brushes just pick up the shimmer and therefore don’t add much color to my cheeks. If I were to give them grades, the mattes would all get B- but the shimmers get A’s! Unless, of course, I pick the wrong blush brush. Then I’d rate the shimmers B- as well.

I expected Coral Dawn and Pashmina to be too light for me, and they are, but they weren’t as far off as I anticipated, especially if I take the time to really blend them into my skin. If they were a shade or two darker, I would have been able to use them too, but 4ish out of 6 is a better ratio than I’m used to having! I can still wear the lighter shades in the blush palette if I layer them on top of one of the deeper blushes.

This palette retails for $49 but I didn’t realize Sigma had sales and deals so frequently. I could have gotten this for $40 (shipping fee included) if I had waited just two weeks after the launch. Although I like this palette, I don’t know how often I’ll use it. Unlike eyeshadows where I never reach for singles and always prefer a palette, I typically grab singles when it comes to blushes. And although the quality is decent and the tones are nice, I literally have 1 and a half drawers of blushes, so I’m not sure if this is something I want to keep if it’s just going to take up room and won’t be used. It survived my recent blush declutter, but it may not last through another. I’ll just have to keep using this for the time being to see if my enjoyment of it dwindles or grows.

Winky Lux Cheeky Rose Cream Blush in Crown

How red this looks in the globe packaging is not how deep it looks on the skin. It’s a medium toned warm pink that closely resembles Fenty’s Strawberry Drip. Lys’ Self Love came first to mind, but Self Love leans more mauve and is more pigmented. Strawberry Drip is a touch lighter and less pigmented than Crown. Also, and this is likely due to the consistency needed to maintain the rose shape through multiple uses, the texture of this blush feels like a dry oil. It’s a cream product, but it doesn’t feel creamy or waxy or balmy to the touch. It feels oily and dry at the same time, though it does blend very well into the skin.

This blush is recommended to be applied with the fingers or a brush. I prefer using my fingers with wetter textures, so it makes sense that I prefer to use a brush instead. I’ve only used Crown a few times. If I wear it without powder on top, it eventually dries down on its own. However, it noticeably begins to fade around 5 hours, but will still cling on by my 8 hour testing minimum. If I set with powder, the powder diminishes the color, but the shade it becomes is the color it stays for the full 8 hours. So, to ensure it stays on, I pack on the blush to its maximum level of payoff before setting it with powder.

There are five shades in total on the Winky Lux website and four of those are available at Ulta. They are listed at $20, but I got mine on sale for $13. I’m glad I have a product that is more than just cute and can actually be used, but it’s middle of the road in terms of quality. I’m not excited by or disappointed when I use this. To anyone who wants this purely for looks, I’d say at least it isn’t bad. Otherwise, the LYS blushes and Glossier Cloud paints rank higher on my recommendation list.

Pat Mcgrath Labs Skin Fetish: Divine Powder Blush in Nude Venus and Paradise Venus

At the beginning of the post shows what the pans look like outside and inside. The inside photo is more accurate to the shade. The photo above was taken at night, so my lights made it look a bit lighter and slightly more cool toned. The photo below is a clearer version of an indoor photo and was taken in the daytime.

These blushes officially launched at Sephora on May 28th, and normally I take a few weeks of trying something before I review it, but I thought it would fit well with today’s theme due to the rose imprint. Designs in powders are my weakness, but surprisingly that aspect had zero effect on me! As I mentioned in my Hindash review, my blush collection feels complete. I wasn’t interested in this launch until I saw non-promotional images from real customers. The gorgeous tones looked much better in their pictures than the official Pat Mcgrath photos (with the insanely built up swatches). My favorite blush colors are medium toned warm pinks, warm pinkish brown, and reddish brown shades, so Paradise Venus was easily my first choice. I had some points and gift cards to use, so I allowed myself to choose one other shade. Desert Orchid looked so beautiful, but it was just a hint of color on Alicia (Kinkysweat), so I knew it would be too light for me. This was later confirmed when I watched Tina (TheFancyFace) try it on, and you could only see a hint of shimmer and nothing else. For shade reference, I am about 1-2 shades darker than her, depending on the time of year.
Electric Bloom was another shade that caught my eye as it looked so vibrant, almost neon, in the pan. However, the swatches and how it looks on the skin seemed a lot like the KVD Everlasting Blush in Poppy. I asked Tatianna (Tatianna Anesa) in her comment section how they compare, and she said they are very similar. Side note, did you know the KVD Blushes with the rose compacts are refillable? I saw that Sephora recently released the singles on their website. Then I checked the back of my compact and noticed the small hole near the top. I’m guessing that was the intent all along and goes with the brand’s initiative to create less waste. Nice job, Kara Veritas Decora! I still think their second attempt to make the K-V-D initials work is silly, but I give them kudos.
I almost never use Poppy or MAC’s Loudspeaker or News Flash, so I skipped getting Electric Bloom as I probably would not use it that much either.

*UPDATE June 24th, 2021 – I bought Electric Bloom and the closest shades I have to it are Fenty’s Strawberry Drip and MAC’s Heat Index, but they aren’t super close.

I’m not the biggest fan of berry blushes, but Lovestruck appeared to be more of a raspberry pink than a deep berry, so perhaps during a good sale I might get it. While I was trying to figure out the best shade for me, I noticed Sephora secretly made Nude Venus available early for about 12 hours. Again, based on how it looked on Alicia, I thought perhaps it might be just rich enough and pigmented enough to show on me.

Luckily, that turned out to be the case! At about three layers, Nude Venus shows up well enough to appear on camera. It’s faint but still visible.
I’m not the biggest fan of how these blushes look on my bare skin. They have a harder time lasting on my cheek, as though the blush needs something to grip onto besides moisturizer. Nude Venus specifically pulls a little ashy over the areas of my face with dark discoloration, so I have to at least cover those areas with concealer if I want to wear this shade without foundation on minimal makeup days.

However, over foundation it goes on smoothly and is a more noticeable flush of color. Pat Mcgrath mentioned that these blushes look beautiful with a deeper shade towards the back and a lighter or brighter color in the front. I do enjoy pairing this with Paradise Venus. I almost bought Desert Orchid to combine with that one instead, but I think both Venus shades are perfect together. In the photos that I’m wearing yellow, I have the Bobbi Brown Face Base Priming Moisturizer as my primer and the Nars Soft Matte foundation. In the photos that I’m wearing black with pink polka dots, I have the same foundation with the Milk Makeup Hydro Grip Primer. I’m not wearing any bronzer or contour products, as I didn’t want those products to be mistaken for Paradise Venus.

Nude Venus is described as peachy-pink with golden pearl. Sometimes shimmer can improve the look of a blush, but I don’t feel like the pearl in this shade adds enough glow to make it any more special than the satin finish of Paradise Venus. If Nude Venus was demi-matte, I think it would have looked just as pretty. I mention this because I felt compelled to have one shimmer and one demi-matte blush from the collection, and while the shimmer formula is of course more glowy than the demi-matte sheen provides, it’s still far more subtle than other shimmer blushes I own. The shimmer doesn’t count against it though. It’s beautiful shade with a flattering finish.

Regarding Paradise Venus, I can get the level of pigment I want from just one dip in the pan. I still have an issue of fading when it comes to bare skin (only the lightest layer will cling on), but as I mentioned before, the lasting power is phenomenal over foundation. I usually apply the blushes first before setting with powder. Powdering afterwards can tone down the blush, so I apply the lightest layer, if any at all. For the sake of the review, I also tested these over a powder set base. I find that I need to use more blush that way, but the end result is still nice.
So far, I have only applied the blushes using the Sonia G Cheek Pro, which I noticed picks up more of the shimmer in Nude Venus, and the Bisyodo B-C-01 Highlight / Cheek Brush. They’re both goat hair and I always do layers of just one tap. I don’t swirl my brushes in the pan, as these are soft powders and prone to a lot of kickup if you don’t do a gentle tap. Here are some tips from Mother herself regarding the application process!

I can’t emphasize enough that these are highly pigmented (but not over pigmented like the Shocking shade from Wayne Goss’ Vivid Azalea duo), and while that is fantastic news for me because it means I can wear a shade like Nude Venus, those with a lighter skin tone will need to be especially careful when applying the deeper half of the range. Using a setting powder or the leftover foundation on your brush or sponge can help with overapplying.

One of the things I wanted to know most before purchasing was if there were any shade dupes. According to my YouTube history, I literally watched 53 videos involving these blushes and yet I’ve seen very few comparisons. From my own collection, I was unsuccessful at finding a dupe for Nude Venus. The closest is Lunar Beauty’s Stargaze, though it is a matte blush. Lunar Beauty’s Soleil looks somewhat close as well, but in person it has a very strong golden shimmer that gives a different effect than Nude Venus on the skin. As for Paradise Venus, I found that MAC’s Burnt Pepper is the most similar color to it that I own.

I’m happy to have the Pat Mcgrath blushes, but I wonder if some of the hype is driving my excitement for them. Although I don’t think anyone would be disappointed by these blushes, there isn’t a pressing need to rush out and get them like I did. If I didn’t have the points and gift cards, I would have waited for a sale because I already have blushes of comparable quality in my collection. I appreciate that for a high end brand, these are still a few dollars less than Hourglass, Charlotte Tilbury, and Natasha Denona charge for their blushes. I certainly prefer this soft smooth formula over Natasha’s and I prefer the pigment in these over Charlotte’s. If you’re on a low-buy and wondering if it’s worth getting, I’m here to say they aren’t reinventing the wheel. They’re wonderful and top tier, but not so amazing that you’re missing out by not getting them, provided you already have blushes you love. If you don’t mind splurging on something nice, these are a great option to consider.
In addition, the average blush is between 4-6 grams. These blushes are 9 grams and because they’re so pigmented, they would take even longer to use up. That is yet another difference between the Divine Blushes and other high end and luxury ones on the market.

Who Won The Rose Blush War?

Out of all the products reviewed today, the BareMinerals Blonzer is my favorite and the one I have continued to use the most. I was still occasionally reaching for Nearly Wild and Pashmina from Sigma, but that came to a halt once my blushes from PML (I’m going to get out of the habit of writing PMG) arrived.

BareMinerals won the spoils of war, Pat Mcgrath Labs still profited, Sigma survived the battle, and Winky Lux retreated to return another day.

The final thing I wanted to mention is that this post reminds me a lot of why I started making videos and blogging in the first place. In 2014-2017, I had the hardest time finding photos and videos of people with my skin tone trying out products. My nearest standalone Sephora is 50 miles away, my nearest Ulta is in the next town over and both Ulta and my Sephora-JCP don’t carry the products in store that I want to buy. I rely on seeing the product on others to judge if a shade will work for me when I order online, and I wanted to be a resource for others in cases like these where there are barely any options to view.
The only person in the tan and deeper category I’ve seen try the BareMinerals Blonzer is Karen Harris and other than the haul video, I can’t remember which video she actually tried it in, so I can’t link it. For the Winky Lux blushes there are small sections between two of Tina’s videos here and here and from Peachy D, but those are the only ones. For the Sigma palette, it’s once again just Karen. There’s no shortage of Pat Mcgrath videos, but everything else I reviewed is quite limited on the tan and deeper spectrum, so this is extra motivation to keep posting and fill a void.

That’s all for today! I hope you’ll return again next week. Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

Hindash Beautopsy Palette Review

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The idea of having a product that I can customize my shade of powder, blush, bronzer, contour, eyeshadow, etc. all in one palette appeals to the wannabe minimalist in me. I call myself a wannabe because I enjoy having a large beauty collection while simultaneously being overwhelmed by the amount I possess. This is why I love the concept of face palettes, but it’s very uncommon for me to find one where the majority of the makeup in it suits my preferences and needs. I’m curious to see if I will continue to like this palette after prolonged use and continuously mixing shades, but so far I am impressed! There’s pretty much no kickup and if I get a lighter imprint on a deep shade, or vice versa, I can sweep it away with a brush and it’s good as new! Perhaps this is possible because I combine shades by tapping into each color I want; I don’t swirl in one and then swirl my brush into the other.

A palette like this can seem intimidating, and I was initially unsure if I would buy it for that reason. Some aspects were as tricky as I expected and some parts were easier than I thought, almost intuitive. For instance, using Beautopsy for blush is pretty straightforward. Boy, Wonder, Love, and Kills are four easy options for that. Overall, while I wouldn’t go as far as to say beginners wouldn’t like this, I think it would be most enjoyed and utilized by those with an intermediate skill level and above.

Brightening and Setting Powder

For setting under my eyes, I use the leftmost sides of Tan and Feel and rightmost side of Paint with my usual Real Techniques Setting Brush to create a pale yellow-brown. I was shocked when I realized it actually had a blurring effect and made my under-eyes look smoother! Certain concealers of mine don’t play well with powders, but so far the blurring has been a consistent feature to setting under my eyes with the light shades in the palette! The photo below shows what it did to my Tarte Shape Tape and Pat Mcgrath combo (which was not originally set with powder at all). The lines under my eyes are still there, but less pronounced.

If I want to brighten my under eyes, and not just match my skin tone, I can use pretty much any of the four lightest shades without them looking stark because they blend with the concealer. Additionally, there isn’t much difference between them when applied to my skin. On a lighter skin tone, they are distinct enough, but on me they’re all essentially white with the tiniest differences in tone. That being said, they somehow don’t look ashy on me like other pale shades tend to do, but I still try to use the combinations I think make the most sense based on their color descriptions: Lines as a pure white, Tan as a soft tan, Wet as a beige shade, and Paint as a pale yellow.

While I could probably set my whole face with a mixture of Feel and Paint, I wouldn’t want to use a small brush for that task, and I have dry skin anyway, so I don’t always set my full face.
Also, I can technically use this palette to brighten the high points of my face, but I love my shimmery highlighters and I would never be satisfied with using these matte powders to highlight anywhere other than the eye area. So, in a traveling situation, I would probably bring along a separate setting powder, plus my Kaja Play Bento Sculpting Trio for the subtle shimmer highlighter and to have extra variety. The Kaja Bento in Mochamallow was previously the only all-in-one face product I had where I loved and could use every color in it. Beautopsy now joins the ranks of the best suited face palettes in my collection.

Brow Powder and Eyeliner

I’ve spoken before about how any dark eyeshadow can be used as eyeliner and for filling in the brows, so it didn’t surprise me how well Fatum worked for that purpose. I used the darkest part of Fatum as the liner. If I want to wear just a liner and no eyeshadow, this isn’t black enough for my preference. However, when I’m trying to deepen up eyeshadow looks, Fatum is dark enough for that, and quite lovely. Hindash mentioned that you can use Fix+ to transform any of these powders into liners, but I haven’t tried that.
I like to use dark shades, but not black, to fill in my brows. The middle where Intra + Fatum meet is a shade that works for defining the eye, but was too warm of a brown for my liking. So, I switched to using the center of Fatum where it still has a little of the chocolate brown shade but is also dark enough to use in my brows. I messed up a little spot in the front and didn’t notice it in person, but of course the camera picked it up. I was a bit impatient, which is why my brow isn’t perfect, but it also brings up the point that brow pencils are so much faster for me. I know I wouldn’t use this again in my brows, purely for the time factor, but I’m glad I have the option.

For those who prefer a cool-toned dark brown or soft black for their brows, Fatum mixed with Real could probably do the trick. Real + Feel might look nice on blondes and maybe Feel and Love or Feel and Intra for those with red hair, but don’t quote me on that!

Blushes

For blush, my favorite shades to use on their own are Wonder, which gives me a light but bright pink flush, and Love, which is a reddish-orange. Kills is a bit too deep for my preference to use alone, but I could always use it if I mix it with something lighter. Boy is a wearable peachy-pink for those with a lighter skin tone than mine. It shows on my skin, but I don’t think it’s as flattering on me as Wonder. If I want to give myself a peachy or coral look, I think of creating a different kind of orange with a little pink. So, I dip my brush mainly into Paint and Love with one extra tap of Wonder and buff it into my cheeks. If I want it a little less bright, I add some of the brown from Feel. I try not to mix more than two colors together because it tends not to look as nice on the skin, but this particular combo of 3-4 still works for me.
I’ve enjoyed using my Sonia G Cheek Pro and Wayne Goss The Artist Brush – Large to apply blush, as they aren’t too big for these pan sizes.

The head sizes of my brushes compared to the size of the pans. It’s not a coincidence that my smallest face brushes were all made in Japan.

There are so many combination possibilities! I experimented with some on my arm to give more examples. I put them on my bare arm, but the blend would look much nicer on the face with primer and foundation under them.

Contour and Bronzer

To contour my nose, I can use Feel on its own, but I prefer the look of Feel and Real together to create a proper shadow. I can use pretty much any small brush, but I’ve been liking the Scott Barnes Eye Winger #63 because the unique shape automatically creates a symmetrical line if I contour between the bridge of my nose and my brows. Most of the time I skip contouring my nose, but when I do, I like to keep it as subtle as possible and just add shadow where I need it. For instance, sometimes all I do is add contour powder on either side of the bridge of my nose, just in the middle where there’s no definition. In order to do that though, I definitely cannot use a warm/red toned contour powder, which is often what is available on the dark-deep end of contour shades. I need something cool yet not too dark, which has always been a challenge for me to find.

To contour the rest of my face, I tap my brush into the center where Feel and Real meet. I can use something with a flat top like the Chikuhodo Z-3, but I also prefer a brush with a tapered tip like the Wayne Goss Air Brush, Wayne Goss Artist Large, and Chikuhodo KZ-05.
For bronzer, I use the leftmost sides of Intra and Feel. Sometimes I use just Intra. I’ve tried different brushes, but the Chikuhodo FO-2 is my favorite to bronze with this palette. Since I only use the leftmost sides of the powders for bronzing, I dip the right half of my brush into the powders (without getting anything on the left side), I can apply with that half of the brush and blend out with the half that didn’t get any product on it.
It was a little funny to me when I discovered that the Beautopsy palette wasn’t created with bronzer as much in mind, since Hindash likes to use cream products for that purpose, yet I was able to find a bronzer combination that worked so well for me!

I’ve tested this palette over matte and dewy foundations. When I use them on matte foundations or bare skin, the blend of these powders on the face looks so good! On dewy products, it’s almost as if these don’t want to stick to the skin. It takes longer to blend and the end results looks okay, but not nearly as nice as it looks over a matte one.

Eyeshadows

I believe Beautopsy is foremost a palette for the eyes, and ironically, this is the one aspect that having only mattes as options isn’t entirely satisfactory to me. It has been quite a few years since I’ve created all matte eyeshadow looks on a regular basis. When doing an all matte look, there is no room to hide, nothing to cover up any mistakes or distract from poor blending the way shimmers can. It is a craft that looks so simple but requires immense skill to perfect. Plus, I just love putting a shimmer on my lids, so if I was on a trip, I would have to bring at least a small magnetic palette of shimmer eyeshadow singles with me.
As much as I admire sultry smoky eyes, I mainly prefer to do colorful eyeshadow looks, or at least to have a neutral crease with a bright color on my lids. This is another reason I would want a supplemental palette.
This also doesn’t give intense payoff right away, and this makes perfect sense for Hindash. As a makeup artist, he would want a product that builds up and blends well. When I say that this doesn’t fully line up to how I like to do my eye makeup, it’s not me saying the palette is bad. It’s just obviously suited for those with a different eyeshadow style than mine. In addition, the buildable nature that I don’t like as eyeshadows is what makes them so fantastic as face powders. Plus, the slow build issue I get is only when I try to use a regular eyeshadow primer underneath. If I use a complexion product as a base, I have no qualms with how long it takes, but more on that in a moment.
Regarding the texture of the shadows, these remind me a bit of Viseart. However, Viseart shadows give a little more pigment per brush stroke, but the Beautopsy powders feel a little silkier. Zea Mays is the second ingredient in the Beautopsy palette, and it does have that cornstarch feeling to the touch, which could account for the added silkiness over Viseart’s shadows.

Preferences aside, my biggest challenge was finding the right base for these powders as eyeshadows. I absolutely hated using the Gerard Cosmetics Clean Canvas. I had to keep making alterations because it wasn’t blending the way I wanted and it took so incredibly long to get it in a state that I thought was presentable. I had to start over again several times. I didn’t have much luck with my tried and true MAC Paint Pot either because it was as though the shadows didn’t want to build on the eye and at one point I switched to my finger to try and pack it on. Usually I only have to do that with shimmers. I got better results when using the Urban Decay primer potion, but surprisingly the best results I’ve had were when I used concealers and foundations as bases! I discovered this first when I used the Tarte Shape Tape and then again when I used the Pat Mcgrath concealer, although that one creased badly when I left it unset for too long. I’ve been using the MAC Foundation Stick as an eyeshadow primer, so I wasn’t as surprised to see that the shadows blended well over it. However, out of all the bases I tried, the best results I’ve had were with the Dermablend Flawless Creator Foundation Drops. Those drops are basically a foundation and concealer hybrid. So, if you have this palette and you’re struggling to use these over eye primers, I recommend using a complexion product as primer instead. This discovery changed my opinion of these as eyeshadows for the better and I’ve enjoyed using them so much more!

One issue I still haven’t resolved is that the shades in the top half of the palette disappear off my eye by the 5-6 hour point. It happened regardless of the base I used. The bottom half of greys, black, browns, and reds lasted 9-10 hours before I ended the wear test. Perhaps this is caused by a difference in how the lighter shades are formulated/the amount of pigment in them. That’s my best guess, although the shadows have the same ingredient list, excluding Love, which is listed separately.

I usually go into details about how I create a look and which shades I used in the eyeshadow portion of my reviews, but I mixed so many things that I lost track.

Looks 1 and 2 are both over the Gerard Cosmetics Clean Canvas.

This look is over the Pat Mcgrath Concealer. It was my attempt to recreate what I was trying to do in Look #1. The shimmer in the bottom half of the photo is Sun Scorched from Terra Moons Cosmetics.

The peach-pink-orange-red ombre look is over the MAC Foundation Stick. The look below it is over a MAC Paint Pot.

The grey look is over the Urban Decay primer potion. The shimmer on the lid in the bottom half of the photo is Helix Nebula from Terra Moons Cosmetics.

I used the Dermablend Flawless Creator Foundation Drops as the base. This shimmer on the lid is called Kamakura #10 from the Viseart Coy palette that I bought as a single shade. This green look was photographed many hours after I first applied it.

I have used eyeshadows as blushes and blushes as eyeshadows in the past. This palette is the first time I’ve ever preferred the secondary usage over the intended one. I was so surprised at how seamlessly these powders worked together as face products. These were not my first choice for eyeshadows until I found the right base, and now I very much like them too. They are of great quality and I foresee myself continuing to use the last 6 shades as the framework for my shimmer lid shadows.

Overall, the formula of these powders are truly special to be able to be as versatile as they are. In Hindash’s launch video, he said it took a couple of years to create this gradient palette. I tend to roll my eyes whenever influencers say that, but in this case I believe him. I can clearly see the labor of love that went into the Beautopsy Palette. I also say this from the perspective of someone who admittedly didn’t know who Hindash was until the release of this palette. I did a little research for the purpose of this review. I respect Hindash’s artistry and the way he and/or his team has been supporting smaller and larger creators equally, even liking my photo of his palette on Instagram. There still isn’t a parasocial relationship there, so I can say from a fully unbiased perspective that this is a great product and I do recommend it. It’s become for me more than just a cool and innovative release. For the past 6 weeks I’ve had it, I’ve used it for at least one purpose every single time I’ve put on my makeup, whether it was to add depth to an eyeshadow look, do a quick nose contour, to set a cream blush, etc. I store most of my makeup in drawers, but I’ve been keeping it in my train case which holds products I use the most often or am trying to pan, because I want the easy access.
Whether the cost is worth it though depends on how often one would utilize something like this for the eyes, face, or both. There are several times I’ve owned something of fantastic quality, but for whatever reason it remained unused. So, that is something that has to be factored into the decision to purchase. I’m glad it worked out for me.

Does this palette interest you? Let me know what you think!

-Lili ❤

Indie Brand Spotlight: Oden’s Eye Review

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As a lover of mythology, and of course makeup, I’ve been drawn to this company from the moment I heard about it. When the Swedish brand first established themselves, they stated, “Oden’s Eye is inspired by ancient Nordic mythology, and our products and collections will also be built around this theme.” Their initial collections were very light and whimsical with eyeshadow palettes that reflected a too-light color story for my taste. I was so happy to see the release of the Norn’s Collection in their most beautiful palette artwork to date and color stories that have a better range of light, medium, and deep tones. I decided this was the time to place my first order. And second. And third. Then they released Mystery Boxes. I intended for this post to come out in March, but each new order required that I push this back to do further testing, reviewing, and rewriting. Now, it’s finally complete!

Before I get to the few products I bought out of the Norn’s Collection, I will start with their older products in my possession.

Oden’s Eye Blushes

Alva Flower Blushers in Sweet Tulip, Water Lily, and Little Jasmine

Oden’s Eye currently has three shimmer shades in the Alva Flower Blusher series. Most of the visible glitter specks is on that top layer and they disappears after a few uses. What remains is more of a satin finish with a natural looking sheen. However, the more I try to build up the color, the more radiant and reflective it becomes from the actual shimmer building up on my cheek. So for me, it’s best to stop at a medium amount of blush as building to the maximum payoff results in it looking lighter than before! For example, the shimmer in Sweet Tulip is a bit silvery and looks icier when I’ve packed it on.

I purchased Sweet Tulip first because it’s the deepest blush out of the original six and I wasn’t certain if that shade would even be dark enough to show on my cheeks. Sweet Peach is the darkest of the mattes, but I couldn’t tell if it was more on the mauve or cool toned side. If a shade is a little too light for me, I can sometimes pull it off if it’s mauve, but the cooler it is the less I like it. It was hard to tell the difference between the shades on their website versus Instagram.

Have I mentioned I have a very bad habit of doing 1-3 am shopping? The majority of my excessive spending happens during that time while I think I’m still capable of making rational spending decisions. Then, after I fall back asleep and wake up later, I realize that it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. This is how I ended up making a third order and then a fourth when they released Easter mystery boxes with free shipping. I purchased the 25 Euro box and was still able to use a discount code on top of that, but more on the mystery boxes later.

I love these blushes so much! In the Sweet Tulip photo on the left, I do have the tiniest amount of highlighter on my cheekbone, but I could have almost skipped it because I love the gentle glowy sheen that the shimmer in this blush provides. It’s long lasting, pigmented, and the tone is quite flattering! The blending is so quick that I can finish applying color to both cheeks in under a minute! I see the potential for this to be in my top favorite blush formulas. The Little Jasmine shade shocked me that it still showed on my skin tone despite how much brown there is to that shade. It’s my second favorite of the four, and maybe even tied with Sweet Tulip. Little Jasmine is the warmest one I bought and the shimmer shows more golden when built up. Water Lily is darker, yet it took a ridiculous amount of building up to make it visible on my skin. I don’t think it is an issue of the color match or hard pan. I can see the powder getting picked up on the different brushes I’ve tried. I believe there’s just less pigment in the formula of this specific shade. The blushes are good for 36 months after opening, but my Water Lily package was the only one with an actual expiration date printed on it (November 21st 2022). Because I have 18 months instead of 36, I wonder if the Water Lily shade is already performing differently. Regardless of the reason, I appreciate that there’s an actual date on that one so I know not to keep it around as long as the others.

Alva Fruit Blusher in Sweet Peach

There are three matte blushes in the Alva Fruit Blusher line but I purchased only one of them. The Sweet Peach shade looks much more mauve than peach on me. I was pleased to see it show up, but it looks a little ashy. I think this shade is a bit too light for my skin tone. This is the darkest of the Fruit Blushes, so the other two shades in the matte formula would not work for me either. I can at least say the matte formula is nice and if the brand releases dark colors, I would be interested in trying them.

Small Mystery Box

Oden’s Eye released a small (25 euro) and large (55 euro) mystery box in celebration of Easter and the company’s anniversary. Affiliate/Influencer codes worked on the deal, so I was able to get my small box for 22.50 euros with free shipping. The Norn’s collection was excluded, but nearly everything else was a possibility. I anticipated I would get a palette, lip product, and brush. I only hoped the shades would work for me and that I would not get a product I already own, so I was happy that all expectations were met. The brush that came with my order will be discussed in the brush section.

Solmåne Highlighter Palette

Ljus (light in Swedish) is a pale gold and has the smooth shimmer formula I like, but it’s too icy looking on me. Stjärna (star) is a beautiful iridescent shade that looks white in the pan but is blue with a tinge of purple. These two would make beautiful inner corner eyeshadow highlight shades. Sol (sun) and Måne (moon) remind me of the Kaleidos Space Age Highlighters, but with sparser glitter particles, which is not a feature I like in highlighters. I could use them as eyeshadow toppers, but I don’t know if this palette will survive an end of the year declutter. I’m still happy I received it because my curiosity about the formula would have led me to buy it eventually anyway.

Alva Matte Lip Stain in Ripe Papaya

The first thing I noticed about this lip stain was the strong but pleasant fruit candy smell. Then I realized the formula was not the typical watery texture of a stain that I was used to. The consistency is more similar to a liquid lipstick. I can get nearly opaque results with one layer, but I need a little more to cover the dark patches on my lips. One time I made the mistake of applying too many coats, which turned the smell from nice and fruity to an unpleasant cherry cough syrup smell. On the bright side, I discovered it layers up well. It’s definitely matte and makes my lips look and feel uncomfortably dry. I cannot wear this by itself, but it looks amazing under a thick shiny gloss. In matte form, it’s transfer-proof but comes off with an oil based remover or just some oil. If it’s under a gloss, it will last on the lips if left alone, but it’s easy to transfer at that point. Considering how much I loved the color but needed a more hydrating formula, I wonder if I would prefer Oden Eye’s Cream Lip Stain formula. One day, I will find out!

Oden’s Eye Brushes

Double-Ended Highlighter Brush

This brush is made of synthetic bristles. The fluffier end is very floppy and loosely packed, but it makes a fairly nice blush brush. The stiffer and tighter packed end is slightly angled. I can use it on its widest side to brush the highlighter in small sections of my cheekbone. With this one, the bristles can rub harshly when I do that. A smooth and soft application occurs when I turn the brush to the side and use one long sweep with the tips of the bristles to spread highlighter across my cheekbones. I don’t foresee myself continuing to use the stiff side, but I will probably use the soft side for blush every now and then.

Eyeshadow Blending Brush

This brush was a surprise addition to one of my earlier orders. I’m not sure if there was a deal going on at the time, if it was a mistake or intentionally gifted for free, but I appreciate having it all the same. The bristles are synthetic and balance softness with medium-packed tightness so that I can get a decent blend with this brush in a light to medium application. The bristles are too long to get a really intense blend. It also becomes looser packed with continued use.

Norn’s Series

Norn’s Eyeshadow Palette

This palette’s eyeshadows are a wild mixture of different textures, finishes, and levels of opacity. Swatching each shade was like unraveling a mystery; I got quite a few surprises! I instinctively switched between using my brushes of various shapes and fibers and density versus my fingers, when to use a glitter glue, when to spray it, etc. to create the looks I wanted. Although it was fun and not too time consuming to discover the ins and outs of this palette, this is technically not beginner-friendly. The very fact of having a palette with so many different textures lends to the challenge. I think it would be easy for anyone to create a pretty look because the mattes are pigmented while still being super blendable and the shimmers make an impact (by mainstream standards) without extra effort. In that sense it’s beginner-friendly, but maximizing the full potential of this palette takes intermediate level and above. There were certainly times I had to restart an eye look or do swatches on my arm to test how some of the shades paired with each other, since the effects were sometimes unexpected.

There are four mattes in this palette. Dazed is a cool grey. I was impressed with the level of pigmentation and how a shade like this didn’t look patchy or ashy on me. I think it’s because there is a little green to the tone of that shade which goes well on my warm yellow-toned skin. Mist is a cool light purple. This is another shade that would usually appear a little ashy or patchy on me, but I have zero issues with this one! Pragmatism is a medium brown that deepens up the more it is applied. I prefer to use it in the crease to create depth there, but it’s not quite enough for my tastes to deepen the outer corner. Outsider is a gorgeous peacock blue or ocean blue or medium blue leaning teal. I’m not sure what the best name for this shade is, but I don’t think the description from Oden’s Eye as a, “retro green” is that much better.
Sometimes mattes swatch beautifully, but don’t perform as well on the eyes. I’m happy to report that these mattes do both!

Pink Chameleon is a multichrome! The brand only describes this as having a pink, yellow, and green shift, but I swear it also looks a bit more orange or red or peachy depending on the light and angle. On my finger, this multichrome had clear and obvious shifts. On my eye, this color looked very different depending on which shades I put it next to or on top of. For instance, sometimes it would only pull peachy-pink or yellow-gold, or yellow-pink. In rare occasions I could see pink-green. The green element being the least visible on my skin and especially on camera. I had to do a lot of experimenting with Pink Chameleon to figure out which combos would give me the effect I wanted.

There’s another shade called Green Chameleon in this palette. The website has this listed as an, “Olive green chameleon eyeshadow, multichrome shift,” without describing what what the other colors are. Honestly, I don’t see any shift. The texture of Pink Chameleon is that slick recognizable multichrome texture like Clionadh’s Jewelled formula, Devinah’s Aurorae Flares, the shade called Fake from the Juvia’s Place Wahala 2 palette, etc. Green Chameleon feels like the other four diamond shimmers in the bottom row of the Norn’s palette. The two best ways I’ve been able to detect multichromes is to swatch them on the palm of my hand and rotate my hand around, or to apply them to my fingers and hold them vertically and raise my fingers up and down so that it moves closer then further from the light. All I can see is it going from an olive green to a slightly lighter olive green or a greenish yellow. Its not a difference anyone will notice if you put this on your eyes. It’s still a pretty shade, but I don’t count it as a multichrome or duochrome.

There are two easily recognizable satin shades in this palette, or as Oden’s eye says, “metallic eyeshadows that look like satin.” Metallic shades are different from my perspective, so I’ll just refer to them as satins. One is Realism, a gorgeous medium-dark brown. Realism has visible copper reflects, but I prefer to have more of a contrast in my eyeshadow looks. I don’t mind doing a neutral eye from time to time, but if I’m going neutral I want a bit more sparkle. So, what I love to do is combine this shade with pretty much any of the more sparkly shades in this palette. There are so many options to choose from that are so pretty. The outcomes are different enough that I wanted to demonstrate several of them.

The other satin is a “red velvet” shade called Passion. Although pretty, I don’t think this particular tone of red goes that well with any of the other colorful shades. Even though reds and purples or reds and oranges are usually a match made in heaven, I find that this shade clashes with anything other than the neutrals or surprisingly the Pink Chameleon shadow.

Amber Palace looks marbled in the pan and I’m happy to report that it’s not an over-spray and the pattern doesn’t disappear once you’ve used it a few times. This “sparkling diamond shimmer shadow” is a mixture of gold and silver that runs throughout the entire pan. I consider this a topper shadow because the amber orange-brown base matches my skin tone so much that I just see the sparkle. It doesn’t look like there’s a base at all until I swatch it on my palm.

There are five other diamond shimmers listed in this palette. In fact, all the sparkly-glittery shadows in this palette are referred to as diamond shimmers. The first is Optimism, which looks similar in swatches to Amber Palace except the base color is purple. It’s another shade I consider a topper because the base is so sheer. I prefer to use this shade with cooler toned looks and Amber Palace for warmer ones. Next is Hallucination, a blue-green shade that’s like a medium toned turquoise with pink and purple shimmer. The texture of this shade is wetter than the others and doesn’t feel as well bound to the sparkles as the others. It feels like it was intended to be a shimmer version of a cream to powder formula. It leaves a residue behind on the finger, the way cream products do, and takes a bit of smoothing to give it less of a chunky appearance. The color is beautiful but I’m not a fan of this particular formula. It reminds me of the texture my homemade eyeshadows feel like when I use slightly too much liquid binder. Self is a stunning purple with teal, silver, and perhaps green sparkles. It’s very much my kind of eyeshadow shade. Glamour is an orange and gold shadow that reminds me of the pressed glitter shade I wanted from the Juvia’s Place Nubian Glow palette (but depotted and thew away). I’m so glad to have this version as a regular non-pressed-glitter shadow! The eyeshadow palettes from Oden’s Eye’s previous collections had some pressed glitters in them but there are none in the Norn’s Collection.
Lasly, Charming is like a blue-purple duochrome with teal, purple, and pink shimmer.

Then there are two other textures that stand out. Obsessed, the “violet with pink and purple diamond shimmers,” feels is like a cream to powder shadow. It feels wetter than the two satin shades in this palette, but not as full on creamy as the cream shadow shades Natasha Denona has in the Metropolis palette. Obsessed takes several dips with a brush to get an opaque layer on the eye. It’s slightly easier with a finger, but the product sticks a bit more to the finger than the eye, so it tugs on my skin more than I’d like. Colourful Black felt like Obsessed in the beginning, but after a week it felt a lot more dry, like a typical shimmer eyeshadow. This goes on the skin very easily with a brush, so there’s no need to use a finger to apply it. It’s very pigmented straight out of the gate, but it can be blended to appear in a lighter and sheerer layer. According to Oden’s Eye, this shade, “…contains all colors of shimmers. Different usage will create different effects.” It makes for an excellent deepening shade, liner, and base. Although I can see the sparkles in the pan, the effect is satin-like with more sheen than a matte but without seeing the glitter particles. Usually all I require for black shadows is for them to be dark enough and blendable. This is one of the few times I can say I actually like the shade for its color and not just about its depth.

In Look #8 I forgot to mention that Colourful Black was also applied all over the lid before Charming was added on top. This is what caused the stronger blue tone to the shade.

URD Mini Eyeshadow Palette

This palette is gorgeous but all the minis, in my opinion, are overpriced compared to the larger palette prices. You get 6 shades for $21 versus 16 for $36. $3.50 per shadow compared to $2.25 per shadow. For that reason, I had to decide between the Urd palette and Skuld palette. As much as my eyes were drawn to the colorful nature of the all shimmer Skuld palette, I knew I could get a complete look with Urd and that green was irresistible!

This has the same great shadow quality as the Norn’s palette and it was so easy to create a look. I used the same shades for both of the eyes, but the change in technique and color placement made them look surprisingly more different than I expected! The Luxury shade on the lid is gorgeous! It’s mostly green with yellow gold reflects of diamond shimmer. Luxury has a black base which I noticed darkened the crease shade on the eye that I used the MAC Foundation Stick as a primer (look #2). In Look #1, I used a MAC Paint Pot and this did not happen. I also used the Nyx Glitter Primer on both lids.

Memory is definitely a bright “light gray-green matte” but just as it was the case with the shade Dazed, it’s somehow not too stark for me. That green tinge works! Oden’s Eye describes Nostalgia as a “matte grey olive green,” and those grey tones come out on the eye to create more of a khaki green tone. I wish it was a little less grey, but it goes well with the other shades in the palette.

Gloden Year & Time are the split pan shadows. I believe ‘gloden’ was a printing error because the website description says, “Golden year: Silver metallic color, the golden year is just a silver memory in the past” and “Time: Colorful shift of multiple colors against a semi-transparent base.” Golden Year is much smoother and the shimmer particles are much closer together than the shade Time. Time is a chunky flaky topper formula that I can clearly see as gold toned in person, but my camera only picks up a silvery hue.

Lastly, Past is a dark coffee brown matte. It’s a perfect addition to add a bit of smokiness to the look. This color story was well thought out and even though I think $15 would have been a fairer price (more than the $2.25 but less than $3.50 per shadow), I’m happy I bought this.

Norn’s Silk Scarf in Pink and Purple

There were pink, purple, and blue versions of this scarf available and Oden’s Eye was adding one for free to any Norn’s Collection order above 50 euros. At the time I bought them, they were on sale for 50% off.

I just purchased these because of the design. The print is so pretty to me and I wanted another item that had it, even though I have zero use for scarves and I never wear them.

Also, I could have sworn there was nothing written about the scarf being “artificial silk” until I made my last order because I remember being surprised at the low cost and wondered why silk would be used by a cruelty-free brand, but perhaps I just missed it.

Additional Information

All of the powder products have a slight powdery talc-like smell. In 2014, I owned a Coastal Scents palette that smelled incredibly chalky. Nothing I’ve purchased since then has ever been that bad, but I try to keep track of that kind of thing and share that information with others.

When ordering from the website, the default prices are listed in euros, but they have a tab at the top where you can change the currency. Although Oden’s Eye is based in Sweden, their products are made and shipped from China. My favorite independently owned brands to support are the ones who make their own formulas like Lethal Cosmetics, Terra Moons, Devinah, Clionadh, (or on the larger side Ofra and Colourpop), etc. For some reason, I was under the impression that these were created-in house, so I was a little disappointed. However, I know this is the norm. Juvia’s Place and Kaleidos palettes are made in China. Even indie brands whose products are formulated in the US don’t necessarily make them themselves. A separate cosmetics lab is usually responsible. With this thought in mind, it bothers me a little less. It’s also pretty neat that some products in their line are still handmade, like the Amber Palace shade within the Norn’s palette and the Norn’s Mesmerizer Highlighters. Oden’s Eye posted a fascinating video showing the Highlighter process on Instagram that can be viewed here.

I’m not sure what the shipping fees are for other countries, but I paid six euros (a bit over $7 USD) the first two times I ordered. They do offer free shipping over 50 euros. My initial order shipped within 24 hours but took exactly 3 weeks to arrive. Oden’s Eye emailed that my package would be delayed due to Chinese Lunar New Year and then there was a delay at customs. They ship through DHL and transfer to USPS and state that 7-14 business days is typical. My second order took 17 days (14 business days). The transition between DHL to USPS is where it was held up quite a bit. The third order only took 8 days of the 8-12 business days if you choose the upgraded USPS first class option for eight euros. Two extra euros for the package to arrive 2 weeks before regular mail is quite a good deal. The Mystery Box took 13 days.

I appreciate that for a small brand, they still make an effort to try and feature a variety of skin tones in their promotional photos and their Instagram. Of course I wish there were more swatches on deeper skin and in a variety of lighting settings, as well as clear pictures of what the products look like on the face, but they put in more effort than some other brands I’ve seen. The Fancy Face has received PR from them, so I recommend viewing her channel for extra swatches with her take on this collection. At the time I started working on this post, she was the only WOC on Youtube with a review of Oden’s Eye beyond reviewing a single palette, and her video was made after I had already placed all three orders. In fact, at the time I started my first draft of this post, she just had this video available with sneak peeks of the review to come. I wish I had this video as a resource before placing my order, but I’m still happy with the items I chose. Sometimes I get lucky and my guesses work out. Tina is close to my skin tone, but a little lighter than me. There’s one other youtube channel I found by someone a little darker than me with several more Oden’s eye products, which can be found here. For anyone wanting to see swatches on a tan skin tone can click here, and for pale to medium skin tones there are a plethora of options to choose from on Youtube like from Amy Loves Makeup, Morgan Turner, and Angelica Nyqvist.

Lastly, about the palettes, the eyeshadow pans are smaller than the standard 26mm. There is slightly more than 1 gram of product per pan, which is what I always like to see. I do wish the pans were slightly larger because most of these shades apply better with a finger and I have limited space to rub and pick up the shadow on the pads of my fingers.

That’s all for today! I hope this was helpful if you were considering placing an order with Oden’s Eye. If you do, don’t forget to use an affiliate code for an additional 10% off! FANCYFACE, MORGANTURNER, AMYLOVES, and ANGESCHKA are a few of them.

-Lili ❤

A Little Luxury: My First Hermès Beauty and Dior Backstage Purchases

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I’m as much addicted to getting a good deal as I am to collecting blushes, so when I was able to get Rose Feu (the only shade I wanted from the Rose Hermès line) just ten days after the product launched, and for significantly less money via Mercari, it felt like I had reached the pinnacle of my blush obsession. This is the first, and most likely last, time I will ever exceed my $40 maximum for a single blush. I also know I will likely never get a deal as good as this one on a luxury makeup product again.

This special circumstance of obtaining a product that would normally be out of my reach has made new blush launches less exciting to me. For once, I finally feel like my collection is complete. That being said, I still have a plethora of blushes from my collection (and newer ones I purchased just before this one) that I have not reviewed yet on my blog, so the blush content will continue along with eyeshadows, face palettes, and other makeup I love.

Hermès Rose Hermès Silky Blush Powder in Rose Feu

The powder is soft to the touch and there is very little kickup when I dip my brush into the compact. The amount of blush I pick up with one tap of my brush is all I need per cheek. This blush gives good color payoff without sacrificing how well it blends into the skin, but I cannot confirm if all the other shades within the line are as pigmented.

I have quite an unreasonable amount of blushes, so I was surprised how difficult it was to find a color dupe for Rose Feu. It is described on the Hermès website as a, “purple hibiscus, fiery, intense, illuminated with a hint of carmine.” I see a slight plum tinge when I look directly at the pan, but it is a rosy terracotta hue on my skin. Perhaps the fiery claim comes from that.
I’m glad it’s somewhat unique to my collection because that makes it more special. However, when it comes to the formula and performance, Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blushes and many of the blushes from MAC are just as good as this one. Rose Feu matches, but doesn’t surpass, the quality of my absolute favorites despite the vast price differences.

Rose Feu on the cheeks and in the crease of the eye.

How it looks on bare skin differs from when it’s applied over foundation. While dry, it takes on the rosy-terracotta I mentioned. The closest match I found was MAC’s Pinch Me, which is slightly more coral than Rose Feu. The Nearly Wild blush from the new Sigma Cor-de-Rosa Blush palette is close as well, but slightly too pink. Another somewhat similar shade, but in a shimmer formula, is Water Lily from Oden’s Eye.

Swatches over bare skin with flash off (left) and flash on (right).

As demonstrated in the photo below of the swatches over foundation, the most similar shades I have are CoverFX’s Spiced Cinnamon and MAC’s Burnt Pepper, depending on the light. The more Rose Feu is built up over foundation and blended in, the more red it becomes.

Swatches on top of foundation with flash off (left) and flash on (right).

I think this blush is beautiful and performs well, but you’re paying for the name and aesthetic on this one. I can’t even include the feel of the compact in what you’re paying for, only the design of it because a common complaint among luxury lovers is that the compact is plastic instead of metal, or at least that the component isn’t comparatively as weighty as the Hermès lipsticks. I’m so used to plastic packaging from brands whose blushes I love, such as Nabla, MAC, Lys, and Hourglass, that it felt on par with what I’m used to having. Patrick Ta’s packaging is probably the only blush compact I have that feels more expensive than the one from Hermès. It feels light for a luxury product, but certainly not cheap. I do admit, I would have been very unhappy if I paid full price (plus tax) for this blush because at that price point I expect Pat Mcgrath level of packaging.
As much as I like this blush, I recommend skipping it for those who want it purely for the quality. There are so many brands that charge less money for the same great performance.

According to this Youtuber, the refill pans that Hermès is selling for $48 will not stick in an empty magnetic palette. Naturally, one would think that a great way to have the blush, but save money by not purchasing the packaging, would be to get a refill and pop it in a magnetic palette. A magnetic sticker that can be attached on the back of the pan would be required to get it to work for that purpose.

Dior Backstage Face and Body Powder No-Powder in 4N and 5N

The photo on the left was taken with my camera and shows the more neutral tones to these shades. The photo on the right was taken with my cell phone. The photo below, taken using my camera with flash on, is the most accurate depiction of what the powders look like.

I mentioned my luck with the Hermès blush. Ironically, I had a chance to save money on the Dior Backstage Powder, but I purchased the wrong shade during the Sephora VIB sale and the one I needed wasn’t restocked before the sale ended. I was impatient to get the right color, so I purchased it at full price from the Dior website.

In the initial reviews I saw for this product, the recommendation was to get a shade lighter than your Dior foundation match. This made sense because Dior described this as being a product intended to “warm the complexion,” in addition to setting makeup. To have that “sun-kissed effect” they advertised, the shades would need to run slightly darker. In my particular case, I should not have gone lighter. 4N was nice and did give the promised “luminous matte finish” without looking glittery, or even that shimmery. However, it was a touch too light to use all over my face. It worked great as an under-eye brightener, but I didn’t want a $40 powder I could only use under my eyes. I returned that shade to Sephora and purchased 5N directly from Dior’s website. I was impressed by the presentation when it arrived. The gift bag is cute and I like that Dior gives free samples and offers free shipping.

In terms of what the powder can do, it does set the face without looking powdery. I can pack on multiple layers and it doesn’t ever looked textured, cakey, or dry. I also really like the sheen it leaves on my skin. However, because it still contains micro shimmer, it doesn’t remove shine from the face. It may mattify the oils a little, but areas will still have a sheen, so I’m not sure how much those with oily skin will like this powder. It also doesn’t blur* or extend the wear of my makeup. I don’t consider it a must-have product, but I liked the way it made my skin look, which is why I still wanted to have it in my collection.

*May 18th, 2021 UPDATE: I cannot see a blurring effect when I apply this powder over foundation, which attests to the quality of the foundations I use most often. However, when I applied the Dior powder over my skin on a minimal makeup day when I skipped using foundation, I was able to see the blurring properties. So, I have to amend my statement and say that it does blur, but the results range from minimal to very noticeable depending on what other products are paired with it.

I’ve also seen the recommendations to get a deeper shade to use as an actual bronzer. I’m intrigued by that idea, but considering my difficulty getting a shade for my face, I fear I would have trouble figuring out how dark of a powder I would need to get a product like this to show. Plus, I suspect the outcome would be similar to the effect and performance of my Nabla Skin Bronzing powder in Profile. In fact, my first thought when I tried the Dior powder all over my face was that it’s exactly how I imagine a Nabla Skin Glazing Setting Powder would be like.

This also brings me to the point where I have to give Dior praise for these powders running so deep. It’s not a common thing to see. I just wish they offered more than neutral powders and included some warmer options as well. That being said, in the product photos, some shades look a bit red toned. 5N would have been perfect if it was a little more golden, but I’m happy with the shade match. It’s close enough to my skin tone that you can’t see a difference in photos between when I’m using it and when I don’t have it on. I’m wearing it in the Hermès cheek swatch photo, but the luminous look to my skin is from the Uoma Beauty Foundation, Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter, and a Jaclyn Hill highlighter. Although this powder doesn’t break the bank as much as the Hermès blush, I don’t know if I fully recommend it either. It all depends on whether it’s worth $40 to have a nice sheen that will never look powdery, with minimal additional benefits.

Lastly, I try to remember to mention whenever products have fragrance in them. The blush has a floral perfume-like scent and the powder has a soapy perfume-like scent. I can smell them when I first apply them, but it doesn’t linger on the skin.

That’s all for today! Much love!
-Lili ❤

Glossier Cloud Paints vs Colourpop Serum Blushes

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As of right now, the Cloud Paints, Cheek Dews, and Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Liquid Blushes (in the mini size I reviewed last year) are the only liquid blushes in my collection. I’ve heard great things about the Flower Beauty Blush Bomb Color Drops and Chantecaille Cheek Gelee Blushes, so when the Flower Beauty Drops went on sale a few days ago, I bought one. However, I am going on record to say I will not purchase anymore liquid blushes in 2021. Liquids and creams don’t last as long as powder products. I have so many cream blushes I enjoy and want to get a lot of use out of, so I shouldn’t add to that challenge by loading up on anymore liquid formulas either.

Glossier Cloud Paint Cream Blushes

These cost $18 each or $30 for a set of two, plus 10% off your first order on their website. The free shipping minimum (at least for the US) is $30. I have three of the eight shades: Beam, Spark, and Storm. In my order, I also received a sample card of the shades Dusk and Dawn. I bought the shade Beam as a peachy mixer to lighten Spark and Storm if I wanted, but after seeing the sample of the “brownish nude” Dusk, I wish I bought that as a mixer instead. I only had enough product in the samples to do one arm swatch and apply a small amount to my cheek. Dusk is lighter than my skin tone, and brown, so it just blended into my skin. There was only a hint of color to my cheek (in person) which surprised me that I could see anything at all for such a light shade. Dawn is described as a “sunny coral” that comes off more as an orange. It’s very pretty, though I’m not crazy about how orange blushes look on me, despite how many of them I’ve purchased over the years in an effort to find one I love. Beam gives a faint flush and looks prettier on camera than in person. It’s just a matter of it being too light, but that was intentional on my part. Just like with Dusk, I’m surprised it showed up at all.

Glossier’s makeup has a reputation of being low coverage and intended for people with amazing skin already: smooth, poreless, scarless, even skin tone, etc., so I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of pigment I got from these Cloud Paints. Spark is one of their newer shades and described as, “a bright poppy.” As with oranges, I’m a little particular when it comes to red blushes, but I do tend to like them more. I think it’s quite a pretty shade on me when I use a very small amount to create a slight flush of red.

Storm is a dark warm rose and the shade I was looking forward to the most. The consistency is a little different from Beam and Spark. It feels almost gel-like and less opaque, but I think that’s what allows this color to work for a very wide range of skin tones. It makes it easier for someone lighter than me to wear without over-applying and someone darker than me to be able to build it up.

I’m very happy with Storm and Spark. The other three shades in the line that I haven’t seen in person are Puff (light cool pink), Haze (deep fuschia), and Eve (rich mulberry). Based on what I’ve seen online, Haze and Eve are definitely dark skin friendly. The model shots on Glossier’s site are better than many other brands’ photos when it comes to depicting how the blushes would actually look on different skin tones.

Any method to apply these will look nice, but I prefer to use my fingers. I feel I have the most control over where the color goes and how it blends. I can really press it into my skin with my fingers. It looks beautiful on bare skin and over foundation. I like that they aren’t super dewy and set on their own without powder. I like the finish. I like that they are long-wearing (though I have dry skin and most makeup lasts on me). They have a period after opening of 18 months.

I can’t think of anything else to say about these except that I really like them and I absolutely recommend them!

Colourpop Cheek Dew Serum Blushes

These cost $7 each, but Colourpop offers a deal that 2 or more gets the price reduced to $6 each. I was able to use a discount code in my order but the percent off only applied to the other items in my cart and it didn’t stack with the serum blush deal. The free shipping minimum is $30 for US customers or $60 internationally. I have three of the nine available shades.

When I saw product swatches for this, I thought these were going to be terrible in terms of getting the color to stay on the cheeks and not move around. I believe my assessment was correct. These are certainly no dupes to the Glossier Cloud paints.

From left to right: Psst, Rumours, Beyond

Upon initial application, some spots will be stronger in color while other sections have patches that look like clear gel is on my cheeks. If I try to use tapping motions to blend the color evenly, it sheers out tremendously and I have to apply more. When I finally have enough product for the color to show, my cheeks are far dewier and glossier than I want. It doesn’t look natural, which is the point of having a product of this type. With so many layers, it takes hours to set, but it won’t completely dry down if it isn’t powdered.
Those with pale to medium skin tones may not have as much trouble with the darker shades because the end result of blending will likely still be pigmented to show on the skin in the amount that isn’t enough to show on me. Whoever can get away with using less product will have significantly less time to wait before it dries down to a non-sticky finish.

Rumours, “a vivid red orange,” is the shade with the most even coverage that doesn’t require nearly as much product as the other two. Beyond, “a muted deep rose,” is one of the darkest shades, but there’s less pigment in it than Rumours. Psst is “a warm mid-tone rose” that definitely shows up on my cheeks at first, but is so sheer that I have to apply so much for it to show. Not all mid-tone shades work for me, so I didn’t expect too much from Psst, but Rumours and Beyond are certainly dark enough that there shouldn’t be such an issue getting them to show. Rumours is like a sheerer Glossier Spark and Beyond is like a patchier sheerer version of Glossier’s Storm. I have found some ways for these to work, and I will discuss them here for anyone who still wants to buy these and try them out.

A “normal amount” for using Psst is two layers with my fingers. I will not get enough coverage if I use another application method. My pictures here don’t even showcase the extent of the glossiness on my skin. I’ve gone from being an all matte lover to loving natural/satin finishes to liking a little bit of dew. These are far too much for me, but these may be for you if you love the sheer glossy look. In order to tone down the gloss to the level that I’m comfortable with, I have to apply a powder on top of it. As seen above, doing this does diminish some of the already low pigment. When I applied the tiniest bit of powder over Psst, it was over a third heavy blush layer, which is pretty much the maximum color payoff I can achieve. It just doesn’t build up more than that.

I didn’t bother showing what a normal amount of Beyond looks like because it just looks like clear gloss due to the brown tinge matching too well to my skin tone. The built up photo had three heavy layers and I struggled the most to get this shade to not look so patchy. It’s surprisingly even more sheer than Psst and it looks way worse with a sponge and brush as opposed to using my fingers. It looks dramatically subtler after a light layer of powder. This is the kind of shade I would only use as a dewy base. In the last trio of photos, I applied the Oden’s Eye Sweet Tulip blush, which has a satin finish, over the top of it. I liked the end result despite the fact that the powder blush went on less intensely than it normally would over just primer and foundation.

Rumours has the most even coverage of the three. I could almost get away with one heavy layer with my fingers, but I used two light layers of product to avoid patchiness. This is the only shade I’d feel comfortable wearing with just powder on top and not layering with a powder blush over it. However, I still wanted to see how it would look with a matte blush on top. I chose Ofra’s Blushzer in Squad and even with it being matte and having a blur powder on top as well, my cheek still looks dewy. So, for anyone who wants to give a matte blush a more dewy finish, applying one of these serum blushes can do that. However, some powders will tone down the glow more than others.

Rumours still does not look great with a brush, but it’s the only one that looks acceptable with a sponge. I still think the finger application looks better.
Whenever I get a new blush, I always test it on bare skin first. In my “bare cheek” photo, I’m wearing a little concealer under my eyes and a little around my mouth, but I have no other product on my face. This is what Rumours looks like with a single light layer when it can actually dry own. Anything heavier than a light layer turns it just as glossy as it looks in the other photos. This shade is the only one that will show up with a thin layer. At first I thought it looked okay, but after seeing a comment (not directed at me) about how this blush looks like smeared ketchup, I couldn’t unsee it. Rumours does look a bit like ketchup on bare skin.

While I was successful in finding a way to make these work by either setting them with powder or using them as a base for powder blush, I don’t see a scenario when I would actually ever use these again. If I want a glowy blush, I’ll use one of my many shimmery blushes. If I want a cream base, I already have one in my Natasha Denona Bloom palette. I also have face gloss products such as the Danessa Myricks Dew Balm and Pat Mcgrath’s clear highlighting balm I could use as bases or to add shine to the cheeks too.

I was able to get three Cheek Dews for the price of a Cloud Paint, but I believe a single Cloud Paint is a better purchase. While the dew level is a preference thing, the way the color moves around while trying to blend and has gaps where my skin shows though is why I don’t think this is a good product and can’t recommend it. I’m not encouraging anyone to get this, but if you do, at least it won’t break the bank to throw one into your cart if you’re already making a Colourpop order. I can’t fault anyone for being curious about them, like I was, and maybe others will have more success than me.

Thank you for reading.

-Lili ❤