Friday, September 16, 2016

Cargo Cosmetics Land Down Under Palette

I'm in love with Cargo Cosmetics.

After being permanently scarred by the total disappointment that was Mermaid Palette, I'm totally drawn to eye colors that I feel like are going to live up to my hopes and dreams as far as pigment goes.  Cargo Cosmetics is killing it.

For reasons that I cannot properly articulate, I have also fallen in love with gold eye shadow.  Though it sounds tacky as hell, its actually universally flattering and looks fabulous on literally any skin tone. Of all the amazing gold eye shadows, and there are many, and I know this, because I've worn them all in the last week or so, Mojave is the absolute best.  Please stop what you are doing and buy it immediately.  It's even on sale!

Cargo has all of these amazing rich shades, and I love them all.  Mojave was my first love, and so, because its sort of a sand-like color, I picked a sea color to go with it, one called Aegean.  Behold:


I mean, look at those! Tell me you don't want to dive in and swim around.  These pots typically run $16.00 apiece, though various websites currently have them on sale between $8.00 and $12.80.  I can tell you though, that for your money, you'll get a huge amount of product. Cargo's single eye shadows are 3.5 grams.  By comparison, Urban Decay's single shadows are 1.41 grams and $19.00 each.

After falling so deeply in love with these two colors, I just wanted to replicate them over and over.  Luckily for me, Cargo makes a palette for that!  The Land Down Under Palette is nothing but sand and water colors and they are just as rich and deep as the colors that I originally fell in love with.



In addition to the twelve gorgeous colors, the palette comes with a two sided brush, one side for blending and the smaller side for smudging.  The brush is really firm, but at the same time, the bristles are very soft.  I can already tell it will be one of my favorite brushes.

The last thing included is a black eyeliner pencil.  I typically prefer using gel pencils, rather than the old school ones that look like colored pencils, because those tend to be chalky and cheap and not apply well.  This one is an amazing exception.  Even though it looks like an old school pencil, it slid on like a dream.  I was so impressed.

I actually had to blend the colors a ton so as to not look like a clown.  The only downside to these colors is that they powder up, like baby powder, very easily, so there was a lot of dust, but I really had to tone it down despite using a super light tough to apply the colors.  The pigment is crazy good. 

When I got home, I decided to separate out the sand colors from the sea colors and see what they looked like on their own.  About half way through, I remembered I have an almost two year old daughter who is completely obsessed with makeup, and simultaneously totally destructive to anything she touches.  I knew she would never stand for me doing two totally different sets of makeup, so I did one on each eye.  I look bananas, just put your thumb over one side of my face or something.

The bottom line here, and this cannot be said enough, is that I am so super pleased with these eye colors.  I seriously don't think there are any I've liked more.  Also, I'm not kidding about the gold eyeshadow, it really looks good on everyone.  Try it out, you wont be sorry.






Tuesday, September 6, 2016

The balm- Balm Voyage Palette

Well, the Mermaid Palette this weekend was a total bust.  I really had high hopes for it and I was super bummed out by how poorly it performed.  I really needed something to lift my spirit.  Enter, The Balm's Balm Voyage Palette.

You guys.  This is everything.

The palette is designed to be all the face you need when you go on vacation, as it has eye, cheek, and lip colors, including contour and highlight.  Much like the balm products I talked about before, these smell delicious and the color payoff is amazing.  Also, look how cute:


Have I mentioned how much I love their packaging? Because I love their packaging.  The whole website is just chalk-full of gorgeous retro kitschy chic packaging.  This makeup could seriously not be more fun to look at.

And the colors:


As you can see, "bienvenido" and I have already become very good friends.  Seriously though, the pigment here is really fantastic.  As face colors go, I am sticking to the left side.  The contour shade, Croeso, is way too dark for me, but for someone blessed with a little more melanin, it could be fantastic.  In the pictures, I am wearing the highlight and blush on the left, and I love them both.  They are light but pigmented. 


I am also wearing my very favorite balm lipstick, Trustworthy, in the photos. You can see that gorgeous, shimmery, Bienvenido, over top, on the center bottom of my lid.  Ugh, I love it, the color payoff is amazing.


Even though it took me forever to hear about the balm, I am definitely making up for lost time!  This product is cruelty free, talc free, the packaging is gorgeous, it smells amazing, and there is crazy good color payoff.  Okay, yes, its a little bit more on the expensive side, but its so nice to pick up a color and see it actually transfer to the eyelid.  I cant wait to branch out and try some of their other products!  I know if you're like me, you hate to shell out money for more expensive stuff, but in some cases its worth it, and this is one of them!!





Sunday, September 4, 2016

Makeup Revolution Mermaid Palette + bonus lip colors

The universe heard my cries, because the last time I wrote, I was talking about how I've tried everything at Ulta.  I went yesterday, and they had completely re-arranged the store, and had so many brands that I had never even heard of before.  Lucky me.

The reason I went yesterday is because  I wanted to check out the Makeup Revolution Palettes. I had only just heard about Makeup Revolution, but the online reviews were comparing them to the Morphe Palettes.  I would consider Morphe a prestige brand, but for being one, they are incredibly reasonably priced.  I also think Morphe has excellent quality.  I have nothing bad to say about Morphe, other than you can only buy it online.  I hate paying shipping, and I vastly prefer to go into brick and mortar stores.  The Makeup Revolution palettes are $5-$7 cheaper than Morphe + no shipping, so if the quality was on par, I was switching.  I'm disloyal like that.

I wasn't sure what palette I wanted, there are so many pretty ones, but I have plenty of neutrals, so, magpie, that I am, I opted for the big, shiny one.  The Mermaid Palette.

The palette runs $15 and for that money, you get 32 colors.  I was pretty excited!  I also bought two lipsticks.   I bought two of the Amazing Lipsticks.  I wanted a nude and a red.  I picked the colors "Love Nude," and in honor of my nephews and niece who call me Aunt Lady, a bright red color called "Lady."  It was made for me.

I couldn't wait to get them home and try them out.  I mean, look at all these beautiful colors:


Unfortunately, I soon discovered that these colors are not pigmented at all.  I started with the color, "Bay" as my base color and I couldn't see anything.  I have on my Arbonne eye primer, which usually makes colors go on so smoothly and deeply, but there was just nothing there.  When you see the pictures, note that I am wearing ALL of the following colors:
Bay
Ariel
Pretty
Princess
Sea
Waves
Turtle
Land
Mineral
Whale

See what you can see when you seen the pictures.  Not much.  I will say that the colors are very blendable, and the matte colors especially do seem to build a little, but I was really disappointed.  I may end up just giving this palette to my toddler daughter to play with because there just isn't much danger of her making a mess.

As for the lipsticks, they are pretty colors, but very, very, sheer.


I already broke Love Nude because I was pressing so hard to try and get some color transfer.  I will say, the lipsticks have this awesome, sweet sort of orange creamsicle flavor.  They taste great.  I am a big fan of that.  The texture of the Love Nude is also stickier than Lady.  Love Nude is sort of difficult to apply, but Lady slides right on.  Love Nude is also very much a matte, whereas Lady has more of satin finish.  Honestly, for $3, I  am not going to complain about either one, because I do like both of the colors.  The website does describe the line as "everything from matte to creamy" but doesn't say which colors are which.  I guess you just get to be surprised.  If you buy these colors, Lady is on the creamy side, and Love Nude is definitely on the matte side.  For a matte though, it is not drying, and even though its hard to apply, once its on, it isn't hard to wear.

First up, here's Lady:



It wasn't the true red that I was expecting, its pinkier, but that is probably because it is so sheer.  It does build, and sort of becomes red, but it takes a little work.  I actually really like it though.

And here is Love Nude:



I really like this color too.  I broke it trying to get a color transfer, so I had to be pretty gentle with it but it did eventually provide a transfer and its  nude that I really like.  I probably would buy more lipsticks from this line.

When I was buying the products, the checkout lady said that from Makeup Revolution, she really likes the blush palette and the eyeliner.  They are all really reasonably priced, so I may try them out.  As for the eyeshadow palettes? Stick with Morphe.