Makeup Empties: Eyeshadow, Eyeliner, Lipstick, Liptint, Powder

In addition to the skincare empties that I blogged about, I've also actually emptied some makeup! I'm particularly happy about my makeup empties, because it typically takes me longer to use up a makeup item than a skincare item. Anyway,

Makeup empties accumulated over the past few months!

This time round I've got some staples - like my Coastal Scents loose powders - as well as some new appearances! Most of these are products I love and would totally use again, and as we go through each of these items, I'll explain why.


Makeup empties: Lipstick, liptint, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and powder!
Without further ado, let's get started!

Stuff I've Used Up! Super Mega Empties Post: Skincare and Makeup

This is a pretty major empties post, because the last time I blogged about my empties was half a year ago in December last year (it was also a pretty large post, that I split into two parts, part 1 and part 2). This time around, I have even more stuff!

The nice thing about empties is that, for me, using a product up comes with a sense of accomplishment (as in, hey, I actually stuck to something long enough to use it up!) and also a sense of permission (as in, hey, I've used up a lipstick, now I can buy another lipstick)! So for a beauty junkie like me, it's both gratifying and enabling!



Obviously, there's a lot to go through, so without further ado, let's jump right in!

Urban Decay Vice 4 Palette Swatches and Review

Urban Decay's Vice 4 Eyeshadow Palette is probably one of the Holiday 2015 makeup items. Urban Decay's Vice Palettes have always been popular, starting with the original Vice Palette launched in 2012, the following iterations on the Vice themed (named Vice 2 and Vice 3) were also really popular, and tend to sell out pretty fast. If you're an eyeshadow lover, you probably already have Vice 4 on your radar - if you haven't already gotten it!

Urban Decay Vice 4 Palette: New for the Holiday 2015 season

The Vice 4 Palette has a whopping 20 eyeshadows, like the 3 other Vice Palettes before it. And according to Sephora, the palette "is formulated with Urban Decay’s own Pigment Infusion System™, a proprietary blend of ingredients that deliver rich, velvety, blendable color that lasts and sparkle that stays in place". Urban Decay's eyeshadows are famous for their pigmentation and good texture, so I'm happy to hear that!


Urban Decay Vice 4 Palette: A great complement to the existing Vice Palettes
Anyway, without further ado, let's move on to the swatches!

Urban Decay Naked Smoky Palette Review and Swatches

Urban Decay's Naked Smoky Palette is the latest eyeshadow palette addition to Urban Decay's Naked range of palettes, and the fourth in the range (after the original Naked, Naked 2, and Naked 3). Urban Decay traditionally has been known for its bright and bold eyeshadow shades, but the addition of the Naked Palettes has helped to really establish the brand as not just for neon lovers, and brought the brand to a whole new audience.

Urban Decay Naked Smoky Palette: The fourth palette in the Naked Palette series.

I'm a pretty big fan of Urban Decay's eyeshadows, I have some in the really old packaging with the old logo and in the tin packaging, and the quality of the eyeshadows now is just as good as it was then. Of course, the brand image has gotten a bit more glamorous and a bit less grungy over the years, but the quality is still pretty great.


Urban Decay Naked Smoky Palette: The shade range consists of both smokey and everyday shades.
Anyway, without further ado, let's move on to the review and swatches!

Pantone Colour of the Year 2015 Marsala: Shopping My Makeup Stash

Marsala is Pantone's Colour of the Year 2015, and unlike some previous years' Colour of the Years, I'm actually pretty excited for this, because as a makeup junkie, I feel like Marsala is pretty versatile on lips and cheeks. (I wouldn't be keen to wear it on my eyes, though.) Naturally, you can expect lots of commercialization with the Colour of the Year - like the Sephora X Pantone collections, and to be honest, the whole "Colour of the Year" thing always feels a bit enforced/commercialized to me - for one, the colour of the year is a decision that is made a year in advance by a small number of people in the industry, as Wiki helpfully points out: "Twice a year the company hosts...a secret meeting of representatives from various nations' color standards groups. After two days of presentations and debate, they choose a color for the following year...the color for summer 2013 was chosen in London in the spring of 2012." So yes, for some reason, people we don't know choose a colour for us a year in advance, and deem it the "Colour of the Year". It sounds arbitrary and a tad bizarre to me, but there it is.

My Marsala-ish coloured makeup stash!

At least, this year's Colour of the Year looks pretty good to me. Unliek 2013's Emerald, which I found a tad unwearable makeup-wise (emerald eyes just aren't my thing, let alone lips or cheeks, although I did rock an Emerald eye look in 2013!), and 2014's Radiant Orchid, which I liked personally but can imagine how some people with warmer skintones might find unwearable, Marsala looks pretty universally flattering, and actually wearable when it comes to makeup.

The closest things I have to Pantone's 2015 Colour of the Year

I'm definitely eyeing some of the items in the Sephora X Pantone collection this year, but I thought, as an excercise in frugality (don't look at me like you're not convinced - I said frugality, not futility!), I should attempt to dig through my makeup stash to see what Marsala-coloured products I already have in my stash, to see whether I am already all up to my eyes in Marsala products, or whether I still have room for a few more!

Travel-Friendly Makeup and Skincare: What I Brought for my Holiday

If you've been following me on Instagram or on Twitter, you'll know that I recently went to the north part of Vietnam for a holiday! And I figure that perhaps some of you may want to know what beauty items did I pack along with me for my week-long holiday?

Travel-Friendly Makeup and Skincare: Here's what I packed!

The weather in Vietnam was good, ranging from just above 10 degrees Celsius in the mountainous areas at night, to a good mid-20s degrees Celsius in the city areas during the day. We expected it to rain when we were in the hilly paddy areas of Sa Pa at some point, but it didn't, so that was great! The next thing you know, though, it started snowing (a rare occurrence for that area) once we left the area, so there you go, the weather can be unpredicatable. But for the most part I brought along my usual staples when it came to skincare. And for makeup, it was a mix of usual staples, as well a "cheap stuff that I won't cry over if it gets lost/gets broken/get banged up and that does not suck". So without further ado, here you go!

Olympic-Inspired Eye Look: Gold, Silver, Bronze

So, I've been following the Olympics (who hasn't, right), and I just felt inspired by all the atheletes and the action to do a quick Olympic-inspired eye look! I just decided to go the easy way out and use gold, silver and bronze. Just like the mdeals!

Source
After looking at a few photos of the medals (above), I realized the medals were actually rather dull in colour. Not that the medals themselves are dull, but a lot of the metallic shades I originally thought of using were not quite the same shade as the medals - they were either too flashy-looking, too shimmery, or too orangey, or so on. So I ended up rummaging through my stash to find colours that were similar.

So in the end I used Urban Decay's Maui Wowie for the gold, and the silver and bronze were from the Sleek Glory Palette that I blogged about sometime back. The shades I used were Bakerloo and Jubilee.


My plan was to put Maui Wowie on the outer lid, Jubilee (silver) on the inner lid, really just at the inner corner, and Bakerloo (bronze) on the contour area. That was the theory anyway. In reality, I think the gold and bronze colours got kinda muddied up together, so you can't really see the contrast :( But there are too different colours there, I swear!


But anyway, that's my way of getting some of the Olympic Games fever out of my system! Is anyone else following the Games? What are your favourite sports?

Sleek Eau La La Eyeliner: Swatches, Reviews, and Comparisons

Sleek Makeup has just released their Eau La La Eyeliners, which are pencil eyeliners that promise vibrant, well-pigmented colour, and are touted to be long-lasting as well. I'm always on the lookout for a good and cheap eyeliner, so I was all over this like white on rice. Sign me up, already, will ya?

The Sleek Eau La La Eyeliners come with a really sleek (ha, ha) black casings, and look quite nice. These also have a cap that's really tight - when I opened the caps, I could literally hear a "pop" sound. I guess it's got some sort of airtight seal in the cap? That's usually a good thing, as higher end eyeliners tend to have more airtight caps, to prevent emollient ingredients from evaporating.

This is a wooden pencil, so you'll have to sharpen it. Here's a close up shot of one of the eyeliners (Tonic), to give you a better idea of what the eyeliner nib looks like.



The Eau La La Eyeliners come in a large variety of colours. I have three to show you - Canary Yellow, which is a bright happy sunshine yellow, Tonic, which is a gorgeous shimmery forest green with a metallic finish, and Noir, which is a matte black, pure and simple. You can see the swatches here:



As you might guess, Tonic is my favourite, since it has that gorgeous metallic, bejeweled quality to it. How pretty is that? All three eyeliners were very nicely pigmented, and felt smooth and creamy going on. In terms of pigementation and texture, these actually rival high-end brands with really good eyeliners, such as Urban Decay and MUFE.

So, we know they swatch well. But how do they hold up against other more famous brands when it comes to long-lasting-ness (if there's such a word)? Well, I knew that would be a question you guys would want to know, so I took the trouble to compare these with some of my other favourite eyeliners.



In the photo above, you see the Sleek Eau La La Eyeliners swatched. Next to them, there is Urban Decay's 24/7 Eyeliner in Stash, MUFE's Aqua Eyes Eyeliner in 3L, and GOSH Velvet Touch Eyeliner in Golden Moss. These are three of my favourite eyeliner brands, as I've found them to have the best colour range and quality, both in terms of pigmentation and lasting quality.

In order to test these eyeliners out, I drew the lines on my arm, and let the eyeliners "set" for 5 minutes (although I know in real life wee don't always wait 5 minutes before rubbing our eyes and so on). I then subjected them to three tests: 1. Frantic rubbing with my finger test (you know, like when you rub your eyes really hard), 2. Putting them under a running tap (so like when you wear them to swim), and 3. Rubbing them frantically while putting them under a running tap (so if you rub your eyes underwater, I guess).

So after these three crucial tests, how did all these eyeliners hold up? See for yourself below:



Wow. I have to say, I'm impressed! I'm already familiar with the Urban Decay, MUFE, and GOSH eyeliners, so I knew they would be good (that's why I tested the Sleek ones against these), but the Eau La La Eyeliners really performed just as well too! I think actually the MUFE one did the best, and some of the Sleek ones smudged a little more, but the difference is pretty marginal. I was expecting them to be all wiped off, but they're still there. I guess the only key differernce, thebn, would be how fast these set - so maybe I should repeat the experiment with a shorter waiting time, eh?

Anyway, I love these, and I'd definitely recommend them if you liked the Urban Decay, MUFE, or GOSH eyeliners, since the Sleek Eau La La Eyeliners are pretty similar. For me, I think I've just found another brand of eyeliners I love.

(Sleek product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Metallic Gold EOTD: Evil Shades Morning Star

Ooh, I'm finally stepping out of my comfort zone and wearing metallic shades on my eyes! OMG! What's next? Blue eyeshadow? LOL. Well, this came about because just awhile back I was raving about Evil Shades The Stars eyeshadow collection, particularly the shade Morning Star. I was going on and on about how it looked so cool once it was foiled, and I was just so excited that I had to do an EOTD (eye of the day) to show you guys.

So, ta-da! Here it is. I know it doesn't look like much, but I swear it looks better in real life. Photos seriously don't do this colour justice.



I'll be honest with you guys: being the glitter-phobe that I am, I seldom, if ever, wear glittery eyeshadows, so this was one of the few times I had to experiment with such a glitter-laden eyeshadow. Hence the fallout, so please pardon my newbie attempt! That said, I really love the shiny, sheen-y, shimmery effect this gave. Everytime the light hits my eyes from a different angle, I get all excited! It really does look much more vibrant and alive in real life...the photos just kind of flatten out the colour.



I paired Morning Star with Urban Decay's Twice Baked eyeshadow, a warm brown, because I'm boring like that, and it seemed like a sensible choice. I love Twice Baked, It's got some hint of shimmer, but not too much. I feel like it seems more of a matter to me than a true shimmer. It's awesome for pairing with zingy colours and for giving the eye a little bit more of a contour.

And another photo with my eye in this really weird angle. It was one of my failed attempts at capturing the complexity and blingy-ness of this colour.



Here's the breakdown for anyone interested:
Evil Shades Ice Star (applied dry for a highlight)
Evil Shades Morning Star (applied damp on lid)
Urban Decay Twice Baked in crease
Urban Decay Bourbon 24/7 Pencil Liner
Rimmel Lash Accelerator Mascara

I hope I did a good job at capturing the colour, and at not getting fallout all over my undereye and lashes!

(Evil Shades product was sent to me for review. Review is my honest and complete opinion. I am not affiliated with the company.)

MAC Coco Pigment and Urban Decay Eyeshadow: Dupes or Not?

If you love makeup as much as I do, you will probably have heard of the legendary MAC Coco pigment. It was released once as a limited edition shade in May 2005 (that's five whopping years ago!), promptly sold out, and was never released again. Right now, if you can find any, it goes for handsome amounts on Ebay and other scalper sites. It was hailed as the perfect complex taupey neutral, that looks good on almost every skintone. And it's runaway popularity and success was all the more impressive because it happened in the days when beauty blogging was still wearing pampers, so there weren't any bloggers to toot its horn and post photos (there were online forums, though).

Anyway, awhile back, I managed to get my hands on a small sample of the notorious Coco pigment. And while I cradled my precious in my hands, I couldn't help buy notice one thing: beautiful as it was (hello complex taupe!), it looked familiar. Eerily familiar. Like, don't-I-already-have-a-similar-colour-in-my-stash familiar.

Excited at this awesome possibility that Coco pigment might have a dupe, I went to my stash to dig out all my eyeshadows, and found the potential dupe - the humble and totally underrated Urban Decay eyeshadow in YDK.

Here they are in their containers. Similar, no?



L-R: Mac Coco Pigment (in sample jar), Urban Decay YDK

But of course, the million-dollar question is, how are they swatched? So here you go:



L-R: Urban Decay YDK, Mac Coco

There you go! I do think they are dupes, or at least on my skin they are. I think one might be a tad browner than the other, but I honestly think that if you already have YDK, and you pay insane amounts for MAC's Coco, you're going to be disappointed that you paid for something you already have a dupe for.

On me, they're virtually identical. It may vary on other people, as to some extent what passes for a dupe is partly dependent on your skintone. Not so much for nail polish, but more so for makeup products. Still, I think UD's (Urban Decay) YDK is going to satisfy a lot of lemmings for MAC's Coco.

Which might make some of us wonder - if MAC's Coco pigment was all that and a bag of chips, why isn't UD's YDK taking over the world and being sold out at Sephoras and other makeup stores all across the world? It could be that MAC has that hardcore fanatic fanbase that makes every LE item a must-have while UD doesn't, or it could be that Coco was such a long time ago that people forget they ever wanted it and have moved on to other things. I guess this just shows that some makeup products are just totally underrated. And UD YDK is one of them.

Anyway, to sum up my post - both colours are TEH AWESOMEZ, like SRSLY. LOL. No seriously - it's hard to fine such a complex taupe. It's taupe, sure but they have hints of other colours - bronze, plum, champagne, purple, brown - that make it so unique, and so universally flattering. And also, that if you missed the boat on Coco pigment, you can still catch the YDK one.

FOTD Fail: Attempt at the Christina Aguilera Golden Globes Look

I hate celebrities. Remember when I blogged about how NARS and Christina Aguilera were ganging up against me here? Well, someone told me that she wished there was a tutorial on this look. And that sparked off an idea. I may not have the makeup skills of NARS, and I may not have the gorgeousness of Christina, but what the hey, who's to say I can't attempt to dupe her look?

And so I did. And the result was a moderate FOTD success, but an major dupe-the-look fail. And this, of course, is why I hate celebrities, because they'll always look better than us minions who don't have money, time, personal trainers, diet planners, and (in my case, at least) a willingness to sweat. And they sell tons of products promising that you'll look like them, but of course there's no way I'm going to look like them, even if I try.

Nevertheless, I'm sure you're curious to know how the results turned out.

The key to this look is the eye. I know NARS India Song and one half of Cordura was used, but India Song, although a practical duo, isn't very unique - it's actually comprised of a very dupable creamy beige, and a dark brown that has golden sparkles (however I've read reviews that when you actually wear the brown, the sparkles don't show up on your skin, so you're left with just a blah brown). Easy enough to dupe. And the side of Cordura used for her lower lash line was just a bronzey brown. So, I thought, this can't be too hard. I have billions of beiges and billions of browns, I can find something similar. And her eye makeup isn't actually very dark. It looks more like a brown with a hint of taupe, more than a dark brown. And goodness knows I have plenty of taupes and browns.

And the cheeks were also similarly dupable. I know the description uses at least 3 products, the blush being Mata Hari, but Mata Hari is a bright lilac-purply-pink, and looks nothing like what it looks like on Christina, due to the layering of blush with bronzer and highlighter. The end result just looks like a nude blush. Easy enough to dupe, too.

And of course the lips were easy. Nude pink lips? Check.

So with that in mind, I assembled my dupey look colours, and began work on the eye. Of course I had to modify placement of some colours (like crease colour) to adapt the look to my tiny, hooded near-monolided little Asian eye. It turned out like this (ignore the brows, by the way):





Eye:
Milani Snow Frost for the highlight, Bourjois Brun Nylon for the Lid, NYX Iced Mocha for the crease (just a little) and outer V, and Urban Decay Bourbon 24/7 liner for the lower lash line. And Bobbi Brown No Smudge Mascara for the lashes (I know, I know, it's drying up and I need a new tube.)

So I didn't really look like Christina. Oh well, nevermind. Maybe with the blush and the lippie?



Cheeks: Stila Peony Convertible Colour
Lips: Jane BePure Mineral Lipbalm in Amber (I thought it was nude enough, but of course my lip colour was trying to stay in the spotlight that day. I should've used a more nude nude.)

OK, fine, Christina, you win. And that's why I hate celebrities. Obviously I look nothing like her, and will probably look nothing like her even if I bought everything she used. LOL. But that's my adaptation of the look for a simple girl.

And did I say, a really nerdy simple girl? (For the record, I really love my specs. I don't know why. I've never felt a desire to get contacts.)



But anyway, that's my FOTD Fail for the day. Although it didn't quite live up to it's lofty dupe-the-look goal, I don't mind it, actually. It's probably as close as I'll ever get to looking anything like a celebrity, considering that I have to get up at 7.30am and slap on my face in half-darkness while still in snooze mode.