Chantecaille Summer 2018 Swatches: Bronzer, Eyeshadows, Lipgloss, Eyeliner

Chantecaille's Summer 2018 makeup collection has launched, and here are swatches of the entire collection! And close up product photos! I know these aren't exactly the earliest swatches, but I thought better late than never.

The collection is inspired by vacation and beaches, and has an appropriately themed colour selection with limited edition packaging (for the bronzers and eyeshadows). The rest of the collection (Lip Sleeks, Mermaid Eye Matte cream eyeshadows, Les Perles Metallic Eye Liner) are all permanent.

Let's take a closer look at the collection.

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 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!

Elizabeth Arden Summer 2014 Swatches: Summer Escape Bronzers, Gloss Stick, Highlighters, Cream Eyeshadows

I have lots of swatches from Elizabeth Arden's Summer 2014 Summer Escape Collection for you guys! This includes the Pure Finish Summer Escape Bronzing Powders, Pure Finish Cool Radiance Highlighter, Pure Finish Cream Eye Shadows, and Beautiful Color Gloss Sticks! I was at a bloggers' event, and we were supposed to give ourselves a makeover using the Summer 2014 products. And I did that, but I was also busy swatching, because that's what bloggers do, right?

Elizabeth Arden Summer 2014's Summer Escape has a wide range of products to offer.

As you can tell, I pretty much swatched everything I could get my hands on! So yes, there is a lot for us to get started on, so without further ado, let's start! The swatches are in indoors warm lighting, and I've tried to correct them as much as I could, but if they aren't perfect (and they aren't), please forgive the lighting!

Sleek Glo Highlighter: Peach Shimmer Swatch/Review

In addition to the well-received Blush by 3, Sleek has also launched their Glo Face and Body Highlighter, which also looks set to be popular this summer. Unlike the Sleek Blush by 3, which (as the name implies) focuses more on blush, the Glo Face and Body Highlighter is a little more versatile - you can use it as a blush if it's the right shade, or a highlighter or bronzer. It's a pretty nifty multitasking product, and who doesn't love that?

The Sleek Makeup Glo Highlighters come in small, square black plastic cases that are just the size of my palm. That's not huge, but it's a pretty decent size for me. Also, the boxes that feature the colours of the highlighter on the boxes! I thought that was sort of a cute touch. And the colour on the boxes was pretty accurate too.



Don't believe me? Here's the actual thing! It totally looks like the box, haha. These come in three shades - a peach, a bronze, and a gold. The shade I have here is Peach Shimmer, the lightest shade available.



Anyway, I found these to have pretty good pigmentation and texture. The shimmer in these is a little frostier and shinier than the shimmer I found in the Sleek Blush by 3 range, because these are highlighters. They're pretty illuminating, so if you have really large pores or deep wrinkles, these can highlight those areas as well.



Here are swatches of the colours swirled together. I didn't bother with individual swatches of each of the stripes - I figured that the way all the colours are crammed together, noone's going to use them alone.



Since the shimmer can look rather metallic when piled on, a little goes a long way. If just the right amount is applied, you get a very pretty pearly glow with some peachy colour. It makes for a great highlighter, but also for fairer girls, would look great as a peachy blush with a hint of bronze. Overall, I think this is pretty great value for money - it reminds me of more expensive products like Dior's Amber Diamond and Too Faced Snow Bunny, but for much less. Good quality makeup at affordable prices - now who wouldn't like that?

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

Stila Striking in South Beach Palette: Bringing South Beach to Asia!

Stila releases their Striking in South Beach Palette in Singapore in August, thus bringing Summer at the beach right here to Asia! The paette contains four eyeshadows in shades of blue and grey, as well as a blush in pink, and a bronzer. All the colours look very well put together, and the palette looks gorgeous!

The cover of the palette features an illustration of the classic Stila girl, tall, lean, and skating! This is a great throwback to the Stila packaging of old - the cute drawings of the Stila girls, the paper cardboard packaging, the pretty, whimsical design. As one of the girls who collected Stila eyeshadows and hoarded them back in the day when those eyeshadows came in the silvery paper cardboard packages, this brings forth a bout of nostalgia.



Here's the layout of the palette. The entire palette can fit into your clutch or bag, and is quite small and slim. However, if you are travelling around with this, I recommend that you bind the entire palette with a rubber band or something, since it will probably open up. The colours are laid out quite nicely, and look pretty coordinated.



The eyeshadows consist of a light, shimmery grey, a medium blue-purple (or blurple, if you read nail blogs), a shimmery dark navy, and a shimmery soft black. All the shades are shimmery, but not overly so. No big bits of glitter or anything that is too OTT.



There is also a blush, a cool-leaning pink, as well as a bronzer which is a reddened brown. It actually looks like another blush colour to me actually, since there's quite a lot of pink in it. I think it would make a great summer blush shade!



And the palette even has cute instructions on the inside of the palette cover! How cute is that?



Here are swatches of the entire palette, so you can see the colour coordination of the palette. All the colours can definitely be used together, there aren't any weird colour combinations here.



Here are closer swatches of the eyeshadow. I kind of feel like the photo turned out a little more blue than it looked in person, but blue eyeshadows tend to be hard to photograph. Pigmentation of the eyeshadows is very light - these aren't the most pigmented eyeshadows around, but they are buildable. Texture is also smooth, but a little on the dry side.



Here are swatches of the blush and the bronzer. As you can see in the swatches below, the bronzer actually looks to me to be more of a rusty red blush than a proper bronzer, which shouldn't have much red in it. And I think I actually like it better as a blush than as a bronzer. The pigmentation of the blush and the bronzer are pretty good.



All in all, I rather like this palette, and the look it gives is not a dramatic dark blue smokey eye, but more of a subtle smokey blue look. I do think that this look would give you more of a rosy cheeked look, with a little bit of a pop of blue on the eyes, which is so much more appropriate for the heat of summer, rather than a nude-cheeks-and-dramatic-smokey-eyes kind of look. If that's the look you're going for, this palette is definitely worth checking out.

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

Lancome Miel Glace vs Jelly Pong Pong Brazilian Sun: Dupes or Not?

Having a makeup stash as large as mine, every now and then there are products that look pretty similar. In my recent ravings over the Jelly Pong Pong Brazilian Sun bronzer, I couldn't help but notice that it was actually quite similar to Lancome's Blush Subtil in Miel Glace.

Now for those of you not in the know, Miel Glace is one of Lancome's more celebrated blushes, and is a classic as a nude blush - you know, the type of blush you wear when you want some colour on your cheeks, but don't want it to be obvious.

Here are photos of both blushes side by side. Don't they look similar?



And here are the products swatched beside each other. As you can see, they are actually quite similar, although Miel Glace is a blush, and Brazilian Sun is a bronzer.



Although they are similar, there are still some differences between the two. Miel Glace has more shimmer than Brazilian Sun. However, the base colour is actually quite similar, although I think Lancome's blush pulls a little more ruddy than Jelly Pong Pong's bronzer.

So which one would I recommend you get, if you only could pick one? This is a tough choice, really. I guess it would boil down to whether you want to use it as a bronzer or a blush, and whether you'd want to apply the product over your body, or just the face. If you intend to use it for the entire body, I'd probably opt for the Jelly Pong Pong version, since you get 19g of product, versus the 5.1g of blush you get in the Lancome compact. However, the packaging (big paper tub) of Jelly Pong Pong's Brazilian Sun might make it harder to use than the Lancome's Miel Glace, which comes in a more accessible compact. I guess ultimately, it would be about packaging and price.

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

Jelly Pong Pong Brazilian Sun Bronzer and Wide Awake Palette

Think of cutesy makeup, and Jelly Pong Pong immediately comes to mind. I swear, the brand finds a cute way to package even the most mundane of products, and their recently-released Lavish Gift Bags are no exception to the rule.

There are two Gift Bags, Gift Bag A and Gift Bag B. In my last post, I looked at some of the Gift Bag products, namely, the Jelly Flush cheek stain and Lip Frosting. Today, I'm completing my peek into the items by featuring the Brazilian Sun Bronzer, and the Wide Awake Palette.

Okay now, let's gush at the packaging together! Ahhh, so cute! *Happy squeals* However, unlike the previous products featured which smelled of sweet edibles, these two products don't have any fragrances added to them.



The Brazilian Sun Bronzer is probably one of the cutest-packaged bronzers I've seen in my entire life. To be sure, the huge packaging is kinda clunky and not very travel-friendly, but it's just so cute. I was wondering why the bronzer needed such a large box, and when I opened the lid, I was quite surprised to see this:



My first reaction was - what is that? There's a flower in my bronzer! But it's not a flower. It's actually a powder puff for the bronzer, but it has the cutest flower top ever.



So what about the bronzer itself? The bronzer pan is glued to the bottom of the entire container, and it's a pretty big pan of bronzer. Since it's lodged inside the container, though, you'll have to use either the puff, or your own bronzer brush to apply the powder.

The colour of the bronzer is also very pretty. It's a medium brown, that doesn't run orangey or look too brash. It's actually quite wearable. It has some shimmer, so this probably won't be your best choice for contouring.



Here's a swatch of the Brazilian Sun bronzer, applied perhaps a bit more heavily than a normal person might apply. On me, it looks a little ruddy, so I'm actually considering using this as a blush colour, in addition to being a bronzer.



The last item that I have to cover is the Wide Awake Palette. This is also a very pretty palette. The packaging is clad in paper, though, so you wouldn't want to put this on your sink, or anywhere it would get wet.



The packaging is so pretty! I love the flower and bird illustrations on the cover.



The Wide Awake Palette consists of an illuminating cream, which is a cream highlighter with a beige colour, a soft lemon yellow highlighting cream, and an eyebrow sculptor, which consists of a trio of eyeshadow powders.



Here's a close-up shot of the products in the palette.



I've swatched the two cream highlighters side by side. Honestly, on my skin, they both turn kind of off-white and look quite similar. The good thing about the creams is that there isn't any discernable shimmer, and both creams are good for highlighting the high points of the face, or even acting as a concealer or brightener for the skin.



Here are swatches of the eyebrow sculptor powders. There is a good gradation of powder colours in the set, consisting of a tan beige colour, a medium warm brown, and a lovely neutral dark brown. A pretty wide array of shades are covered with the colours in this palette. The powders are also actually very soft and pigmented. I actually kind of think they could double up as eyeshadows in a pinch.



Would I recommend these products? I love the bronzer and would recommend it, cute flower puff and all. The palette is also very useful with its variety of creams and shades, but I wouldn't recommend it if you are planning to bring it along for travel. But if you are planning to use it at home, or if you want something with pretty packaging, this would be a good choice to check out.

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

Mememe Blush Me! Blush Boxes Swatches

Mememe has recently launched four boxed blushes that are packaged exactly like the Benefit's blush boxes, right down to the square paper box and included brush, and are probably meant to imitate them - after all, Mememe already has dupes for Benefit's Benetint and Posietint, so I guess it was only a matter of time before they tried to dupe the powders.

However, while the packaging is similar, the colours are nothing alike. That may be a bad thing for those looking for a dupe (I know I'd love a dupe of Dallas that wasn't so expensive!), but the colours themselves aren't too bad. There are four colours - Coral, Pink, Bronze, and Rouge. The quality of these isn't too shabby, either - the powders were reasonably soft and pigmented, with the exception of Pink.

Here is the entire Blush Me! range swatched:



Coral is a coral that veers orange. I kind of think Rouge is what my idea of Coral should look like. Probably a better shade for the warmer-toned girls among us.

Pink is a light neutral pink, and this one wasn't very well-pigmented. It was quite sheer, and the texture was a bit harder than the other blushes. But it's a really pretty colour though.

Bronze is a light yellow-bronze. I'm surprised that this isn't too dark, so if you're fair and warm, this might work for you. All the Blush Me! shades are shimmery, but the shimmer is especially apparent in this shade, so it's probably not going to be useful for contouring, although for bronzing your cheeks etc it might be good.

Rouge isn't very rouge to me...I'm not sure about you, but when I think rouge, I think of primary red. This is actually a very pretty coral, and it's less orange than the Coral shade. This is my favourite of the bunch, and it seems to be the most popular too.

Out of all the four shades, Bronze and Rouge had the best pigmentation, while Pink had the worst. Coral was somewhere in between, it was decently pigmented. All the shades were also quite soft, except for Pink, which somehow seemed a bit harder to me. These are cheap and cherry, and if you like your blushes in cute little boxes, you'll probably like these.

Edward Bess Bronzer Swatches on Zuneta!

Remember Edward Bess? I'm sure you do - when his makeup range was launched in the UK, it caused quite the hubbub. And for good reason too - the colours are pretty, wearable, and neutral, and the quality is excellent. One of the standouts in his range are his bronzers. And since it's summer, 'tis the season for bronzer!

I know you're going to want to see swatches, so head on over to The Zuneta Blog to check out my guest post!

Summer Cheek Stains: Bloom Bronze and Rose

Today's swatches are another summer staple - cheek stains! These are from Bloom, an Australian brand that's carried in Australia and other countries. They're most famous for their nail polish among other items, but other than their polish, they seem to be pretty underrated. Anyway, like Benefit, they also have cheek stains.

The interesting about the Bloom stains is that not only do they have a Rose (or Rosie according to the website - I'm not sure which is the correct name) tint that every brand has, they also have more uniquely, a bronze tint, that functions as a bronzer! This is pretty unique, especially at the drugstore beauty level, because most bronzers I've seen to date have been in powder or cream form. This is pretty much the first gel bronzer I've seen, especially in a drugstore context.

Anyway, here are swatches:



Rose or Rosie (whatever the correct name is), is a deep cool-toned rose shade, while bronze is a muddy brown that probably needs to be tried on before you buy it - I'm not sure how this shade would translate onto most skintones. It seems like a really odd shade of brown to have, and honestly, it kind of looks like something you'd find in the bathroom...

Anyway, the texture of these cheek stains was in a gel form, so they weren't too liquid, and unlike previous stains I've swatched, these come in a tube with a brush dispenser. This makes it a little more convenient for travel than other stains which come in an oversized-nail-polish-like bottle, although I'm wary of the brush dispenser because it just looks like a breeding ground for germs. I personally like the Rose (or is it Rosie?) shade a lot, but the Bronze shade is a bit more dubious to me.

I wonder if anyone has tried the Bronze shade? How did it turn out on you?

Summer Bronzing: Barry M Natural Dazzle Bronzer Swatch

It's summer, so I'll be attempting to swatch more summer items, like bronzers! Now personally I'm not a fan of bronzers, as being Asian I've spent my entire life being indoctrinated with the kooky belief that fairer=good, and as a result I always want to be that shade of pale that's always out of my range. LOL! Nevertheless, I can certainly appreciate a beautiful tan on another girl. And why not? A tan is so summery, and it makes a lot of the seasonal colours so in vogue now pop a little more. So while I'm intent on sloughing on all the sunscreen I can lay my hands on, for everyone else who is more normal (LOL!) I'm swatching a couple of bronzing items for you guys!

Today we start off with a cheap but good one - good ol' Barry M. Barry M strangely only has one (yes, one) shade of bronzer, and this is called Natural Dazzle. So that makes the Barry M Bronzing line easy to swatch, hah! Anyway, given that this has to be a one-size-fits-all shade, I think they've done a pretty good job. The bronzer in question is a nice shade of medium neutral brown, although there still is a teensy hint of orange that might make it not too great on very pale girls with cool undertones. It also has some shimmer, but not enough to be horribly distracting or OTT. I think it's a good amount, and the shimmer is fine enough to not be too obvious.

Here is the swatch:



As you can see, the name "Natural Dazzle" is a bit of a misnomer, because the shimmer isn't THAT dazzly. But tht's what makes it good, in my opinion. I think the level of shimmer is just nice. This would make a good bronzer, although I doubt anyone would want to contour with it (the Sleek contour palettes are probably better for that), because in general contour shades used to shadow your face (the ones that are darker than your skintone) should ideally be devoid of shimmer. But for light and medium girls with neutral-to-warm undertones, this would probably work well as a bronzer.

theBalm Blushes, Bronzer and Face Powder Swatches!

Today is another swatch post, and this time we're swatching more theBalm products! I'm starting to quite like this brand, as they have some pretty good quality stuff. Last time we talked about theBalm, we saw swatches of their pencil eyeliners (cutely named Pick Up Liners) and their lipsticks (which I thought had a nice decent range of colours). Today, we're looking at the blushes and other powder products in their range, which are the stars of their line.

These have been getting a lot of raves, and I can see why. They come in some very beautiful colours - in fact, some of them are near-dupes for some famous colours in more expensive brands. They're also nicely pigmented, yet not too pigmented, and have a very nice texture and application - these are some of the nicest ones I've seen. And they come in the cutest packaging, too, with pictures of pin-up girls adorning the cover of each blush. Unfortunately, it's also made of paper, so you wouldn't want to be too rough with it.

Here are swatches:



L - R: Down Boy, Cabana Boy, Hot Mama, Bahama Mama, Sexy Mama

Down Boy is a very pretty neutral pink. I know usually I get really bored by neutral pinks, but this isn't your typical pastey pastel neutral pink. There's something about it that makes it more than the sum of it's parts. It's very pretty, and pretty much as universal as a blush can get. It's beautiful. I know the swatches make it look grainy and powdery, but it's not. It's got a good application. I've noticed that my swatches tend to make things look really grainy and powdery, because I pile the product on and don't bother to dust off the excess. Oops.

Cabana Boy reminds me of NARS Sin, and is my favourite of the bunch. This one caused a big hoo-ha when it first came out, because it was apparently hard to find (the commotion has since died down and it's easily available now). It's a beautiful pinky-plummy colour, and unlike NARS Sin, it's not shimmery. I'm so tempted by this. I think I need it. Like NEEEEEED it (Oh, who am I kidding. I don't need anymore makeup...But still...)

Hot Mama is an orgasm lookalike, and although I'm not sure if it's a 100% dupe, because it's been awhile since I last had it, it certainly does look similar. This one also has a shimmery finish, like Nars Orgasm, although it doesn't have glitter bits that are as big. I may be wrong, of course, but I do believe the finish on this one is finer as the glitter bits are smaller...It's more like fine shimmer than big glitter. I do think that it could potentially get a little frosty if layered though, but it's still one lovely colour.

Bahama Mama is a bronzer, and although I don't use bronzers or contouring powders, I think this is one of the best I've seen so far. Most bronzers make the mistake of being either too shimmery, or too orange, so that you either look like Data from Star Trek got a tan, or an Oompa Loompa, or both.

You know, think a cross between this shininess:

Image from Wikipedia

and this orange-ness:

Image from notsuchayummymummy.wordpress.com

Anyway, the good thing about Bahama Mama is that it's NOT orange based, and it's NOT shiny. Which means cool-toned people can use, and people who wish to contour with it (as opposed to putting it on the high points of their face) can use it. I personally think it's great, even if I'm inflicted with the "must-be-fair" Asian skin preference.

Lastly, Sexy Mama is a transluscent powder. It's not 100% transluscent though, so I wouldn't recommend it for anyone too dark. It does show up a little if built up, but you'd have to use a lot (like I did when swatching heavily). But for most people, I think this would definitely get the job done.

I really like these, so if you're lemming any of them, just get them already!