RMK Makeup Spring/Summer 2017 Swatches: Color Change Collection

RMK's Spring/Summer 2017 Color Change makeup collection is officially launched, and I come bearing swatches! This makeup collection also coincides with RMK's 20th anniversary, and RMK's Creative Director, Kaori, selected the two shades of pink and beige to head up the Color Change collection, as they are integral to any make up look. The number of products in this collection is also pretty large - there are 6 eyeshadow duos, 6 lipgloss duos, 7 lipstick shades, and 7 blush shades, and 6 nail polish shades. So you can imagine my arm after all that swatching!

This isn't even half of RMK's Spring/Summer makeup!

RMK isn't kidding when they say the collection is made up of pinks and beiges - literally every product here is in pink and/or beige, and basically pinks and beiges make up like 95% of the collection. RMK also has a nice quality of makeup, with generally soft textures, and buildable pigmentation, allowing the products to be applied sheerly or packed on for more colour, and this collection does fall quite nicely in line with the quality in the standard RMK products.

Pixi Multibalm Review, Swatches, Ingredients Analysis

Pixi Beauty's Multibalms have been out for a couple of months now, and I've finally gotten around to reviewing them! The Multibalms are basically a stick of cream colour that dries down to a powder, and can be used both on lips and cheeks, for a "quick touch of colour to the face". The Multibalms also claim to be "infused with aloe vera, shea butter, and rose hip oil" as an extra perk, too.

Pixi Multibalm: A multi-tasking product for lips and cheeks

As you know, Pixi has been known for some of their great beauty products for awhile now, and the brand has gained a reputation for its affordable, but still high quality, products. In particular the Pixi Glow Tonic has been extremely popular, growing from its cult beauty status to even receiving praise from mainstream beauty press. So, I was pretty excited about the Multibalms, hoping that they would also be just as worthy of praise.


Pixi Multibalm: With 5 shades covering all the basic colour families
Of course we're going to have swatches of the Multibalms, too. But first, let's look at my favourite part of the product to analyze, the ingredients list!

MAC Flamingo Park Swatches and First Impression

The MAC Flamingo Park Collection is the brand's first Spring 2016 makeup launch, and it was recently launched here. I happened to be at the store during the launch, and I managed to get swatches of the products for you! It was quite an ordeal swatching the products, because it was very crowded in the store, with people buzzing around and swarming around the collection testers, so I'm happy to have swatched everything I could!

MAC Flamingo Park Collection

But before we move on to the swatches proper, I'd like to mention that the lighting in the swatches might be a bit lacking due to the fact that these were all swatched in-store.

Also, as you can see from the above photo of the Flamingo Park setup, it seems like for some reason the collection differs slightly here in Singapore. Not all the "official USA" shades were displayed in the Flamingo Park Collection display, and some permanent shades were put in the display as part of the Flamingo Park Collection although they didn't appear in the US version of the shade lineup. I'm not too sure why this is the case, but in any case, I've just done my best to swatch everything that was on display, so any incongruency with what was launched in the US is just due to whatever was in the display in the store.

Etude House Snowy Dessert Swatches and Quick Reviews: Pudding Tint, Ginger Cookie Blusher, Contour, Play 101 Pencils, Scented Tablets

Etude House's Snowy Dessert Holiday 2015 Collection certainly seems to be a hit this year. Between the food-themed items, the absolutely adorable packaging, the attractive products, and the affordable prices, I think Etude House has basically ticked all the boxes for a winning Christmas collection! I've taken some swatches of the colour makeup, namely the Pudding Tint, the Ginger Cookie Blusher and Contour, and the new Play 101 Pencils, so without further ado, let's check out the swatches!

Etude House Snowy Dessert Collection

First up, though, I have to apologize for the swatches. I had some items from the collection but not all, so I tried to get the full range of swatches by going into the store to swatch the shades I didn't have, but I think the lighting in the store was less than optimal. Still though, I think the swatches are good enough to give you ad indication of the colour!

Too Faced Christmas in Paris Swatches and First Impressions

Too Faced's Christmas in Paris Collection is quite hotly anticipated, and after previously bringing you swatches of the Le Grand Palais set, I've decided to (finally!) post the rest of the swatches! Better late than never, right?

Too Faced Christmas in Paris: A holiday collection that looks super festive!

The Holiday 2015 items I have here are the Melted Kisses and Sweet Cheeks set, the Le Petit Tresor set, and the French Kisses melted set. Most of these sets consist of existing shades from Too Faced's permanent collection, so I guess if you're already familiar with the shade range these swatches may not excite you as much, although the Le Petit Tresor set does contain one exclusive shade.


Too Faced Christmas in Paris: Sets featuring some of their most popular products
As with the Le Grand Palais swatches, I also took these photos indoors at a restaurant, and was multi-tasking (eating while swatching makeup is fun, but not easy), so pardon any less-than-perfect swatching! I hope these swatches help, however!

Too Faced Le Grand Palais Swatches and First Impressions

Too Faced's Le Grande Palais is one of the key items in the brand's Holiday 2015 collection. It's basically a set, with a palette of 18 eyeshadows, two blushes, a bronzer, and a highlighter. It also has minis of the Melted Lipstick in Peony, the Better Than Sex Mascara, and the Shadow Insurance Eye Primer. I've gotten a lot of interest ever since I posted about this on my Instagram (and one person even bought it when it came out on account of the Instagram pic), so I figure I'd better get around to swatching this!

Too Faced Le Grand Palais: One of the stars of the Holiday 2015 collection

Le Grand Palais is a Sephora exclusive, so if you want it, you know where to get it! Also, this is limited time only since it's a Christmas item. So I wouldn't wait too long to get it if you're interested! Swatches of the other Too Faced Holiday 2015 makeup items will be up soon too - I've just been busy, and there are a ton of Christmas collections out now!

Too Faced Le Grand Palais: 18 eyesahdows and 4 face colours are the highlight of the set
Without further ado, let's move on to the swatches! Before we start the swatches proper, though, let me apologize for any lack in quality of the swatches. These were made over lunch indoors in a restaurant, so I had the ultimate first-world-beauty-blogger-cum-foodie problem of eating and swatching makeup at the same time! Obviously it was a good problem to have, so I'm not complaining! I've tried my best with these swatches, so I hope they help somebody!

Too Faced Love Flush Blush Swatches

Too Faced's Love Flush Blush is the new release from the brand, and these seem to be all over my Instagram account - I keep seeing all these pretty previews on my Instagram page, and I managed to actually swatch these at an event, so here are the swatches!

The Too Faced Love Flush Blush comes in 6 shades, that cover both light pinks, nudes, and deep intense plums, and the shade range accommodates deeper-skinned ladies as well as fairer girls. The shades are decently soft, and really pigmented - I think these are best applied with a stippling brush or some brush with less dense bristles in order to avoid a colour overdose! The packaging is also really pretty - each of these comes in a heart-shaped case, with really pretty embossing, too.

Anyway, without further ado, let's look at the swatches! Apologies for the indoors lighting!

Etude House Dreaming Swan Swatches and First Impressions

Etude House's Dreaming Swan collection just launched here in Singapore, and like most Etude House makeup collections, it's as cute as can be, with a very girly ballerina theme, too! I saw it, and I knew I just had to swatch it for you guys. After all, you can't look at a limited edition collection (yes, it is limited edition) without swatching a few things!

Etude House Dreaming Swan Eye and Cheek duo blush and eyeshadow

The collection is not a large one - there are 5 shades of Dreaming Swan Dear My Wish Lips Talk Lipstick, 5 shades of Dreaming Swan Eye and Cheek, which are products that double both as a blush and eyeshadow, and 1 shade of Dreaming Swan Veiling Pact, which is basically compact powder. There are also 5 limited edition Any Cushion cases, which are cases for the Etude House Any Cushion range of BB cushions. The cases are empty, and you pop a refill for their BB cushion into the case. The collection is also seriously pretty, packaging-wise. I mean, look at the Dreaming Swan Eye and Cheek Blush/Shadow and the Dear My Wish Lips Talk Lipsticks!


Etude House Dreaming Swan Dear My Wish Lips Talk Lipsticks
Anyway, enough of me blabbering about the packaging. Let's move on to swatches! These were taken indoors at Etude House's new store at Vivocity, which has the collection, so the lighting isn't that great, but I think it's good enough to get a sense of the individual shades.

Ettusais Heart Cheek Color and Creamy Lip Crayon Valentine's Day 2015 Swatches

Ettusais has launched two shades of blusher and two lip pencils for Valentine's Day, and as might be expected, both are limited edition.This consists of two blushes, the Heart Cheek Color, as well as two shades of Creamy Lip Crayon, both in shades of pink and orange.

Ettusais Heart Cheek Color and Creamy Lip Crayon

Let's go on to the swatches and my quick thoughts on them!

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!

Etude House Disney Princess Happy Ending Swatches and Review!

Etude House's Disney Princess Collection, Princess Happy Ending, recently launched in stores. If you've been following me on Instagram, you'll know how much I love this collection - I feel like the Disney Princess theme really fits in very well with Etude House's girly, innocent, princess-like aesthetic. So this is definitely bound to be a match made in heaven! I mean, just look at all that gorgeous boxes and packaging!

Etude House Disney Princess Happy Ending Collection: That's a big collection this time round!

There are a lot of products in this range - three glitter eyeshadows, two blushes, two lipsticks, one mascara, four nail sets, and two BB creams. The colours in the collection are inspired by some of the Disney Princesses - there are colours after Jasmine, Belle, Cinderella, and Snow White. What you see above in the photo is the entire collection - which I will review in stages, but I thought, since I've been getting requests for swatches and reviews, I thought I'd do some swatches of the makeup items in one post first, so that the post will be just in time as you guys contemplate what to buy from the collection.

As usual, packaging is Etude House's strong point. I can't quite think of a brand that has packaging quite as girly and as cute as this, without venturing into girly-overdose territory. For the Etude House X Disney Princess Collection, the packaging has been made to look like story books - the nail sets. Everything except the eyeshadows and lipsticks have these super cute boxes. Just take a look below!


Etude House Disney Princess Happy Ending Collection: The packaging looks like cute little fairytale books.
But I know that this is supposed to be a swatch post, not an ogling-over-the-packaging post (again, if you've been following me on Instagram, you'd have seen that already), so without further ado, here are some swatches of the makeup items in the Etude Disney Princess Collection!

Benefit Majorette Booster Blush Review and Swatches

Benefit's Majorette Booster Blush, its first-ever cream blush offering, has been making waves online, as people have been raving about it. And if you've seen this Instagram post of mine, as well as this post, you'll know that I've been testing it out and have been meaning to write a review on it for awhile! Now that it's finally Friday and I can settle into the weekend, here's the review!

Benefit Majorette Booster Blush: A cream-to-powder blush

The Majorette Booster Blush is billed as a "cream-to-powder" blush that can be worn either by itself as a blush, or under a powder blush of your own choice. Benefit also describes it as having a peach-pink colour, but the colour appeared more like a nice wearable coral to my eye.


Benefit Majorette Booster Blush: With majorette-inspired packaging!
Like almost all the Benefit Cosmetics products I've come across, Majorette is just full of quirky girly cuteness, packaging-wise. From the marching, baton-twirling inspired name to the little drum-like packaging, it's cute from the moment you open it.

MUFE HD Second Skin Cream Blush Review

MUFE's HD Second Skin Cream Blushes have been launched already, and I've finally managed to get down and give you guys a review! It's definitely one of my favourite cream blushes at the moment, and for a variety of reasons.

MUFE Second Skin Cream Blushes

I've already swatches of the MUFE Cream Blush, so I won't re-swatch them, but I'll just go a bit more into detail about how I use them, and what I think of them.


MUFE Second Skin Cream Blushes

MUFE HD Blush Second Skin Cream Blush Swatches!

MUFE's HD Second Skin Cream Blush has just been launched, and I am so excited about how awesome these are! I will be putting out a proper review of these soon (and soon meaning the next couple of weeks), but in the meantime, here are swatches of these blushes!

How awesome are these? (Photo from my Instagram)

Anyway, these are pretty good quality overall - they are quite radically different from MUFE's previous HD Blush, the Microfinish Cream Blush. Those were super pigmented, and in liquid form, and you basically used a teeeny tiny bit and blended out a lot to get a rosy glow. These? They're layerable, so you can apply lightly for a wash of colour or use more for an intense flush, and although the Second Skin Cream Blush starts off as a cream, when you apply it to your skin it sort of dries down to a smooth finish. When I was swatching these, the quality reminded me of the Chanel Cream Blushes, with the same drydown effect.

MUFE HD Blush Second Skin Cream Blush swatches

If you want to see my commentary on the individual shades, feel free to read on!

Chanel Le Blush Cream De Chanel Swatches

I recently gave Chanel's cream blush, Le Blush Cream De Chanel, at a Chanel counter one day, and I just had to swatch these babies for you. While, as you might know, I do have quite the collection of cream blush, I've tended to stick closely to my favourite three brands (which are still unchanged from this Formspring question from long, long ago), Stila, Bobbi Brown, and, to a lesser extent, Becca. So I came to the Chanel counter kind of expecting the Le Blush Cream de Chanel to be the same.

Instead, I found that these were really different, both in terms of texture and application. The Chanel cream blushes are lighter than the Stila, Bobbi Brown or Becca, and less "oily" feeling. They feel a bit more dry and less sticky, if you will. My guess on why this is so would be that the Le Blush Cream De Chanel seems quite heavily formulated with silicones or polymers with similar silicone-y feel, so they do have a nice skinfeel and a very light texture with good slip. This means that they feel lighter and less weighty than the Bobbi Brown or Stila blushes. Comparatively, the Bobbi Brown and Stila cream blushes feel a little more like traditional cream blushes, i.e. kind of like lipstick. I suppose which brand you prefer would depend on your personal texture preferences. I'm loyal to my Stila, Bobbi Brown, and Becca, and the heavier texture has never caused any application problems for me, but I couldn't help but drool over the Chanels, too.

Le Blush Cream De Chanel Swatches

Above are my swatches. If you want to see my commentary on the individual shades, feel free to read on!

Pantone Colour of the Year Radiant Orchid: Look at the Radiant Orchid-ish Stuff I Already Have!

Pantone has officially announced Radiant Orchid as the Colour of the Year 2014, and this time, I'm actually pretty excited for it because, as I've been saying in my previous blogposts, purple is my favourite colours. If you've been reading for a while, you'll also know that I think that this whole Colour of the Year thing is just another means of making them companies more $$$ through commercialization of a single colour shade, and those feelings still hold, but hey, at least this year I'm going to have companies try to make money off me with a colour I actually can get on board with! I wasn't feeling last year's Emerald or the previous year's Tangerine Tango, so FINALLY! Come get my money with a colour I actually like, companies! Haha.

Radiant Orchid is Pantone's Color of the Year for 2014. Here are my Radiant Orchid-ish makeup items!

Anyway, before I get all ready to get my commercialization on (yay retail therapy!), out of curiousity, I thought I'd just run through my beauty stash and pull out all the Radiant Orchid-colour-alikes I already have in my stash, and show them to you guys - and really also to myself, as a reminder to not bust my budget when Sephora puts out their Sephora X Pantone Radiant Orchid Limited Edition Makeup Set with Unicorn Whiskers, or whatever they have up their sleeve. Just a little reminder to myself. So here we go!

All the Radiant Orchid products we'll be bombarded with soon in the coming months! LOL! (Source)

Benefit Rockateur Review, Swatches, and FOTD

Benefit launched its Rockateur powder, which is a blush and highlighting powder in one! Rockateur is supposed to be a blush-cum-highlighter, much like their other boxed powders. I've always been fond of Benefit's boxed powders (they're one of my favourite items from the line), so I had to write about this and give you guys a review!

Benefit Rockateur: Rose gold blush and highlighter

One of the things I really love about Benefit is their excellent ability to find a colour that is universally flattering, while still being interesting (think Bella Bamba and Hervana as particularly good case studies), and I do think this is part of the reason why there is such a following behind their boxed powders.


Benefit Rockateur: Even the box is fancy with a textured lid! Love the lace print.
Pretty box, check. Nice scented product, check. Enclosed brush? Check. Talk about stunning presentation - this has definitely upped the ante on their boxed powders! Now let's open the box and take a further peek!

Sleek Haul: Mostly Blushes and one Eye Dust!

I hauled from the Sleek Makeup website sometime back, and now I'm the proud mama of four Sleek blushes and one Eye Dust! I'm pretty excited! I actually really liked ordering from the Sleek website, the swatches provided on skin really helped to visualize the products (although there are already tons of Sleek swatches out there, including mine). But it was the delivery that was a little bit problematic. I have no idea what went wrong, but the order had to be shipped out three times before it got to me. Fortunately I was third time lucky! But all this was back at the end of last year, so I hoped whatever caused that snafu has been cleaned up.


Anyway, let's get to the haul. My previous experiences with Sleek blushes have all been good, so I was really very excited to get ahold of these babies! I'm just going to spend some time drooling over these now, because they just look so gorgeous. The photos below are provided for you to join in the gratituous drooling! Take that, overly-expensive, crappy makeup! Sleek's got your ass kicked!

Majolica Majorca Puff de Cheeks Swatches

The Majolica Majorca Puff de Cheeks are some of the cutest blushes I've seen, packaging-wise. You gotta hand it to them for the little tins in pastel colours, with their yummy-sounding names!

Source
Over here we have just two of the shades, so without further adieu, here are swatches:


L: PK 301 Peach Macaron - a pale baby pink
R: OR 302 Apricot Macaron - a pale peachy pink that's abit more peach than pink

Both hae no shimmer, and nice texture and pigmentation. The paleness of the shades mean that they might look a little chalky on deeper complexions. I feel like the colours are kinda run of the mill but quite nice otherwise.

Silkygirl Blush Hour Swatches

Silkygirl is the Asian equivalent of Wet n' Wild - cheap, cheery, and sometimes the product quality is actually on par with that of higher-end brands. One of their most popular products is their blush. You can check out the Silkygirl site to see the name of this blush - I'm not actually sure whether the name is Blush Hour (which is the name on the store label) or just Blush. Anyway here are searches:


01 Nectar Blush is a light pinky peach.
02 Dune Rose is a light pink duskier than Nectar Blush.
03 Flashing Rose is a light warm pink, more pink than Nectar Blush, brighter than Dune Rose.
04 Honeywood is actually a nice warm nude that's quite wearable, although it just doesn't stand out as much against the brighter, lighter pink shades. It's not too dark for fair skintones.