Review: City Color Cosmetics: Be Matte Blush.

Nothing to Disclose

Good morning guys and gals! I'M BACK!!! How is everyone recovering from the holidays? I can absolutely say that this Christmas and New Years was the best ones yet of my adulthood. It was filled with spending so much time with family and friends, it was glorious. I even reconnected with family that I hadn't seen in over a decade.

However, rambling about my Christmas and New Years holiday is not what this post is about. I'm here to give you my review of two blushes that are amongst my favorite in my makeup collection.

I'm sure some of you have heard of City Color Cosmetics, if you haven't you should check their website, HERE !

I have found most of their products at my local Five Below, but if you visit their website you can see everything.

Today I'm going to show you two blushes I picked up from their Be Matte Blush line. I will confess that I purchased these two sometime during the fall and have been using them ever since, but on my last visit to Five Below they were still available and they also had more colors from the line.

These blushes are a nice size, they are almost the size of my palm. The two colors that I purchased were Blackberry (on the left) and Fresh Melon (on the right).

The texture on these are smooth and soft, although Blackberry was slightly more silkier feeling. One circle with your finger will give you quite the color pay off.  Lets take a look at swatches!

In both photos Fresh Melon is on top and Blackberry is on the bottom. As you can see they look different in whatever light your in. In the sun both blushes look like normal pink blushes but one is just darker than the other. In the shade however  this is where Blackberry shines, you can see the beautiful purple color that shines through making this a unique blush for my collection. Fresh Melon takes on a  more neon pink appearance.

One tip I do have is for the application of Blackberry, while both have great pigmentation, do not have a heavy hand with Blackberry, the first time I put it on I barely swirled my brush in it and I looked like a clown.

If I can recall, I paid I believe $3 for each blush. I know sometimes Five Below runs deals on the makeup they carry so look out for that. On the City Color Cosmetics Website the Be Matte Blushes are $4.99 and they always offer free shipping on orders $25 and over!

Overall for the price, size and the way these blushes perform I am over the moon for them! They currently hold a place in special drawer on my vanity where only my frequently used blushes reside!

Have you tried any products from City Color Cosmetics? If so let me know and if you have any recommendations for anything let me know in a comment below!!!

Tarte Sweet Indulgence 3 in 1 Holiday Collection from QVC! Photo Heavy!

Good morning lovelies! Its 8 days until Christmas! I am about half way done with my Christmas shopping, I'm hoping to finish this week and if I have to I will to go to the store on Christmas eve. Any store on Christmas eve is a scary place.

Today I bring you a closer look at a holiday gift set that I showed fairly quickly in my Current Favorites video on YouTube.

It was also my very first purchase from QVC. Back when my aunt was alive she was obsessed with QVC and I could never really understand why, until now.

I purchased the Tarte Sweet Indulgence 3 in 1 Holiday Collection that was originally a Today's Special Value back in the beginning of November. I bought mine on Black Friday for a featured price. The original price of this set was $71.50, on the one day it was the TSV it was $59, then it was at a featured price of $65.94 and it was on Easy Pay.

Easy pay is when you can pay for a product on QVC monthly instead of footing the whole bill at once. I believe that QVC does it to products that can have monthly payments of three months or longer.

It didn't take long for my gift set to get here, I ordered it Black Friday and it was here that following Tuesday! So thanks QVC for having amazingly fast shipping.

Sadly I hate to say this now at this time this set is no longer available on QVC. Cue the sad faces I know, BUT, there is hope, you will have to wait until May 2015 to get it. Tarte will be releasing a spring version of this gift set then! So if you missed out this time around you can get the Spring Version! You can even see what its going to look like on the QVC Website, you just have to scroll down the page to a tab called "Second Shipment' and it shows you what will be coming in May!

Okay so enough rambling lets look at what came in this set!

In this amazing set you get three boxes set inside of a larger box. Each box contains something different. Lets take a look at the turquoise box!

 I think the turquoise box is by far my favorite. I mean I love all the boxes but I am a huge blush and lippie girl so this was fantastic. You get two full sized Tarte Amazonian Clay 12 hour wear blushes that are exclusive to this set! Then you also get a full size Tarte Lipsurgence Lip gloss and two Tarte Lipsurgence Lip Pencils!

The blushes are called Pampered and Savored. Papered is a bright light pink blush. The texture is smooth and its highly pigmented. I didn't see any visible shimmer in when I applied it to my cheeks, but you definitely cannot have a heavy hand with this blush, otherwise you will come out looking like a doll. Savored is a mauve-rose pink blush that also has a smooth texture but you can see it has a ton of shimmer too it. Savored unlike pampered is not a pigmented. When I swatched it I had to go back a few time to the blush to get the color you see in the photo  but on the cheek you still get great color payoff, you also still have to have a light hand so you don't get so much shimmer on your face. Its like the color knows when its on your cheek versus your arm.

Next in the turquoise box is the three lip products. I absolutely adore the lip pencils, they are right up my alley. I am not a huge lip gloss lover but I will wear this to use it up, I don't think it would be fair to let such a pretty color just sit there. The two lip pencils are called Wonder and Rare and the lip gloss is called Indulgence.

I like that all of these are bright pink colors, its very different for a holiday set, I'm still getting used to wearing bright lip colors. I have only just mastered wearing red. Each lip product has a minty scent so if your not into that they you may not like these. I have tried the lip pencils and I love the staying power of these, even when they wear off I can still see a stain of color on my lips!


Next in the purple box you get two 8 pan eye shadow palettes. I heard that this was a big hit this year since it didn't happen last year in the holiday collection. If you saw my Current Favorites video on my YouTube Channel then you saw I briefly mentioned this set and how much I loved the eye shadows and how wearable they are. They do stay in the neutral family so it suitable for anyone really.

You get a great mix of matte and shimmery shade with these two palettes and lately I have been using  matte shades to create eye looks. One of my favorite shades in this palette is the gold shade in the purple palette. Its called Dare to Be Gold. At first I thought that it was just a shadow with a glitter overlay but the glittery goodness goes all the way through! I have a feeling it will be in my look that I wear on Christmas eve at work next week!

Lets take a look at swatches!

These first two swatch photos are of the shadows in the purple palette. I forgot to add the names of each shadow in the photo so I will list them here.  We have; Pinky Promise, Taupe of the World, You Look Mauveless, Just Malt Away, Pampered Pink, Dare To Be Gold, Show Plum Love and Wind Down Brown. 

These are the shadows in the Teal Palette; Vanilla Candles, (which is my skin tone shade and can't see), Coming Up Roses, Hazelnut Bon Bons, Champagne Bubble Bath, Bronze Cuff, Feeling Grey-t
Espresso Yourself, and Cinnamon Latte.


All of these shades are super buttery and very pigmented, especially all of the dark shades. I found using a cleanse off oil was the best way to get them off without leaving any residue behind.

And finally in the last box, the gold box you get two full sized Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes, 4 in1 Mascara. That's right TWO! Plus you get three eye pencils.

I'm not a huge fan of the eyeliners, but look at what other bloggers were saying is that they were not fans either. These eye pencils sad to say are not long wearing and not water proof and smudge easily. I wore one as a liner on my upper lash line one day and when I accidentally rubbed my eye without thinking, boom, there went my eyeliner. 

However the mascara makes up for the bad eyeliners, hell everything else makes up for the bad eye liners. Can I say how much I freaking love this mascara! I think I might have found my holy grail mascara here, Lights, Camera, Lashes gives me the longest, most full, and curled without a lash curler lashes I have ever seen! 

I'm still getting used to the formula on it though. Its much more wet than in any other mascara I have used before. But I can say that it has been a standout in testing. I haven't seen any smudging or flaking at all when I wear this. It holds up way longer than a normal 8 hour shift and I am just so impressed with that. The only downside I have about this mascara is that it makes your lashes very crunch and hard and can be a bit stubborn to get off. But I think that's the price you have to pay for all the pros you get.  

Overall I think this was a great investment piece for myself. I think its a great beginners set too, if someone you know loves makeup and doesn't really have a collection going or needs one then this might work. Like I said above and in my Current Favorites video this particular set isn't available any more but by the looks of the QVC Website they are getting a whole new set in May! So if you are looking to get this you will have to wait, but I think it will be worth it! 

I hope you guys enjoyed this post! I will talk to you all next week! 

<3 Nicole 

Review: NYX Matte Finish Setting Spray.

Hi lovelies! How are you? Can you believe that we are only 15 days away from Christmas??? I haven't even started shopping yet! Hopefully I'll be able to get a few things this weekend.

Today I am going to bring you a short review on a product I bought back in September. I remember it was right after my vacation because I had picked up two NYX Butter Glosses from Target while I was away and then came home to see that my local CVS had gotten in a NYX display. I couldn't tell you how excited I was.

I picked out quite a few things from that display including the title of this blog post, the NYX Matte Finish Setting Spray.

As a makeup enthusiast I had never tried a setting spray before, I just never thought to buy one let alone use them. When I first got into makeup I had only heard of Skindanavia, if that's even how you spell it and I knew it was way too expensive for my teeny wallet.

That's why today I am glad that brands like NYX that are more affordable have these products available to the masses who can necessarily afford the high end makeup.

Above is my attempt at taking a cool photo using nature as my background. While I think its cool, I'm mad I cut off the bottom of the bottle.

To use the NYX Setting spray all you have to do is first off your makeup, then according to the bottle you hold the bottle out away from your face, close your eyes and spray a couple times letting the light mist settle on your face.

I have used this stuff a few times now, especially on occasions where I really need my makeup to last, I have found that it does help my makeup stay put. I used this most recently when my niece was baptized back in November and I had been out from about 10am until 6:30pm and when I got home I can safely say my makeup still looked like I had just applied it. I also have to say that I was wearing a  few other products to help prevent makeup breakdown but I do feel the setting spray had a hand in everything.

I think this is a good product if you need your makeup to last for a special event, as for using on a regular basis just when your putting makeup on for a work day I don't find myself reaching for it.

If you want to get your hands on the NYX Matte Finish Setting Spray you can get it at Target and CVS as long as they have displays which I'm pretty sure most Targets do, I think its select locations with CVS.  NYX is also available at Ulta and of course online as well.  The setting spray cost me about $8.49 but on the CVS website says $7.99. I have mentioned before that my CVS does mark up in price because its in a tourist location. NYX also makes a dewy setting spray as well, which I haven't bought because I have naturally oily skin and I don't like that look.

However NYX has steals and deals all the time you just have to watch out for them!

I hope you enjoyed this review and I will talk to you all in the next post!
<3 Nicole

Urban Decay Vice 3!

Hi lovelies!

How was your Thanksgiving? For those of you that celebrate it of course,  I hope you ate tons of food and slipped into food coma's, and for those of you that don't celebrate it I hope your day was wonderful and still full of good food!

My Turkey day was non-traditional this year, my mom and I made Eggplant Parm and Meatballs in marinara sauce. It was delicious!

In today's post I wanted to share with you my swatches and my thoughts on the Urban Decay Vice 3 palette! If you saw my most recent video on my YouTube Channel then you know I FINALLY got my hands on this beauty!

Ever since I opened this palette I fell in love with it. Hell I was in love with it when I saw all the amazing Beauty Youtubers talking about it, and then its all I thought about after seeing it in person in Sephora. Oh the things Sephora does to us! Am I right?

Lets take a look at the packaging.

The Vice 3 comes in this beautiful case that you can either keep your palette in or use as a makeup bag. I plan on keeping this as a carrying case for my palette, especially if I do any traveling I'll feel better about it being protected. Not that I do a whole lot of traveling anyway. The design on the case is just amazing it reminds me of a sunset or something from the 1980's but I can't put my finger on what it is.

And of course the actual palette has the same design which on the metal-ish/plastic casing looks just stunning. I could not stop staring. The Vice lettering is a lime green raised plastic, that I'm not going to lie, I ran my fingers over a few times because of the texture. Call me weird if you must.

The only downside that I found and I think a lot of other blogger did too was that the outside case is fingerprint city. I have a compulsive thing about the outside of the case looking nice and I know its a waste of time cleaning it off every time especially if I use the darn thing every day!

Look at all those gorgeous colors. Seriously you guys I didn't want to touch this palette when I first opened it, I didn't want to mess them up, but I didn't spend the $60 bucks on this just to stare at it.

So I dug in.

You get five columns of outstanding colors. Each of them in their own color family and giving you five potential looks. But I don't always go by that. I go for what I feel .

I'll get this out of the way now since I will be saying it about all the colors in this palette. The texture on these are buttery and smooth and just one circle around with your finger or a few dabs with a brush you will get lots of color. Especially with some of the darker shades like Bondage and Reign. There are a few colors that are too light or powdery, I found those to be Alien (too light), and Truth (too powdery).

Lets look at swatches.

 In the first column you have your matte/transition shades. Like I mentioned earlier Truth was the powdery shade. Obviously as a skin tone shade you don't need it to be pigmented but because its a matte shade its can be powdery so I mainly use it to blend out the edges of my eyeshadow to highlighting my brow bone.

Undone, Downfall, and DTF are great crease shades and transition shades that help when your using a ton of colors in one look.

 In the second row column you have some of the not so normal colors. I have never worn blue or green eye shadow before and yet Dragon is calling my name to be used some how very soon. I think my next afternoon off I'm going to be playing around big time.

 In the third column we have some lovely shades. I've used Vanity in my outer corner already. Its a nice change up to using a dark brown or black. In the palette it comes off pretty vibrant but on the eye its more muted.

 The fourth coloum is all the pinks and reds. Look at them, they are just so ugh unbelievable. I think part of my decision on buying this palette was based of of Sonic, and Alchemy. As you can see Alien (At the top) is that one shade I wish was just a little more pigmented. In the palette it has so much potential, it has this amazing gold shimmer to it just screams 'Oh yes come to mama!. On the eye its barely a sheer wash of color and you don't see any of the gold.  I've used Bondage quite a bit and create a lovely smokey eye with it. My co-workers enjoyed it too.

The last column we have one of my favorite shades Last Sin. Its just this amazing shimmery neutral shade that when you have a dark crease and outer corner it helps blend everything together on the lid. Even wearing this by itself is nice if your going for that, 'wearing makeup, but I don't want to look like it' look. As for the last three shades I haven't delved into them too much yet, I'll get there, I saw a really pretty smokey eye on Pixwoo's YouTube channel Revolver and Defy could be great for!

And there you have it my lovelies, my look and thoughts at the Urban Decay Vice 3 Palette. This Palette retails at Sephora, and on Urban Decay's website for $60. Amongst all the other holiday palettes out there I'm glad I got this one!

I'll talk to you all soon! <3 Nicole

Review: Hard Candy Fierce Effects Eye Shadow Duos.

Good Morning lovelies! i hope you all are well!

Today I bring you a review on a new product from the Walmart exclusive brand Hard Candy! Every time I go to Walmart I always check out the beauty section and check to see if there is anything new, so I was so glad a few weeks ago to see that some of the newest Hard Candy products had made its way to my local Walmart shelves.

The first product I picked up that caught my eye was these new eye shadow duos called Fierce Effects. From what I saw at Walmart they have four different duos to choose from. Plus they all look like each color compliments the other in the pack.

The duo I picked up is called Slow and Steady, one shadow is a shimmery champagne color and the other is a dark brown.

Here is what the packaging looks like from Hard Candy's Website. (I accidentally threw mine out before taking a photo of it.)

Credit: Hard Candy Makeup. 

"Hard Candy Fierce Effects Shadow Duo Eyeshadow features a unique hybrid texture that is not a powder or a cream and provides velvety texture with luminous color. Each shade is intensified with a second pigment for a multi-dimensional pearl finish. With intense staying power, these cushiony silky pigments offer a comfortable, long-wearing formula." --Hard Candy's Description from their website. 

I would have to agree with Hard Candy's description of the Fierce effect duos, they are very soft and velvety smooth, and are very pigmented. As for saying whether they are a cross between a powder or a cream, I would say they lean more towards a loose powder pigment. 

These eye shadows remind me greatly of the L'oreal Infallible 24 hour loose eye shadows. The packaging is very similar and after doing some research I didn't see any information that L'oreal (or their parent company) owns Hard Candy. 

Here is what the L'oreal Infallible Eye Shadow I have looks like. 

And here are the Hard Candy Fierce Effects duos.

Inside the shadows the set up is the same too where you have a little disk with a handle pressing the pigment down so it doesn't go all over the place.

If you guys follow me on here or on Instagram or Twitter, you know I love my neutral eye shadows and its my go-to look 90 percent of the time. So it was no clue that I would love these eye shadows.

These are perfect for me when I go to work early in the morning, I don't have to keep switching back between different palettes and rummaging through my stash at 5am.

Lets take a look at swatches.

The first photo is of the duo in sunlight. The champagne color is my favorite of the duo. Its not just a shadow for your lid but I love using it in other looks as an inner corner highlight. 

Here are the colors swatched in the shade. I should also say that these are swatched over no eye shadow primer! How awesome is that? 

As for staying power, without primer, I've noticed with my combination skin they last about 4-5 hours. If I use primer I get about 6-8 hours of wear, especially if I don't touch my face. I have this tendency to hold my head in my hands or if I get an itch on my eye, I forget I'm wearing makeup and tend to rub. 

I think these duo's are great. I do have one request though and that is maybe making more colors available. Out of the four duos they have Slow and Steady and one other called Lost and Found are ones I would wear. Who knows though, maybe in 2015 Hard Candy will come out with more options. 

If you want to get your hands on these Fierce Effects Duos they are available at Walmart for $5 bucks! 

See you guys in the next post, <3 Nicole. 

*All products mentioned in my post are purchased by me unless otherwise stated. I am not affiliated with any companies mentioned above and I am not being compensated.*

Milani Cosmetics Bella Eyes Eyeshadow First Impression!

Hi lovelies! How are you all! Happy Monday, although I am not a fan. As you are reading this I am working a 6am to 230pm shift today and I still have three more 8 hour shifts to go before my first day off. I hate getting up early but I don't mind the hours and of course the $$.

But all of that nonsense aside its time for some makeup!

Today I bring you my first impression and swatches of the new Milani Bella Eyes Eyeshadows.

I have been waiting and waiting for my CVS to finally get these in, I've been seeing them everywhere  and couldn't wait to get my hands on some.

Before I ever go to CVS I alway check my email account linked to my Xtra Care Card, I do this because lately CVS has been issuing 20-30% coupons, now mind you while they don't work on sale items they do work on regularly priced items and it just so happened that Milani wasn't on sale.

It took forever for me to choose what colors I wanted or how many. I chose three colors since my spending amount was limited, there was one shade I wanted badly but it wasn't in stock and that was Champange but for the shades I did get, wow!

Here is a look at the three shades in their packaging.

Bella Rouge 

Bella Espresso 

Bella Sand

First off lets talk packaging. I love the packaging, (its true I'm a sucker for it) they're basically like the baked blushes but mini! I love that they are so compact that they are going to be very travel friendly. I am going to have so many options to choose from when packing for vacation in September. I also love that each of the eyeshadows have seals on them, so if you don't see a seal you know its been opened and touched by grubby hands not of our own. So a huge THANK YOU to Milani for doing that! 

Next is texture. I love love love the feel of these shadows! There are smooth and velvety, they are very finely milled, and even though when you first look at them you see they have a texture to them you don't feel it. Plus that imprint doesn't go away which is kind of cool, makes the shadow constantly look new. 

These are highly pigmented shadows. One to two circles of your finger will get you a lot of pigment, that equals to about 2-3 swipes with my brushes.  As for staying power, I wore them Sunday for 8 hours with a primer underneath and when I left work at 6:30pm I still had a decent amount of shadow on my eyes, not that I packed it on or anything. After 12 hours (right before bed) I noticed, most of the shadow was gone, but I had rubbed my eyes and such so I can't say it was the shadow naturally wearing off.  I will try to put a selfie on Instagram using the shadows so you can see. 

Click to enlarge

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Each swatch that I did is one to two circles of my finger around the shadow and NO PRIMER! I will try to update this post and swatch them over a primer to see if it makes a difference.  I love all three of the colors that I chose. I can do a natural look with the Bella Sand and Espresso or a more colorful look with Bella Rouge and Espresso with Sand as a highlight or inner corner highlight.  

And what makes these even more of a plus is that there not all the same finish. You have Matte shades, Satin Matte shades, Shimmers, and Metallic. I added the underside of the packaging to the swatch photos so you can see they are clearly marked what type of finish they are.  

Okay so price point: At my CVS they retailed for $4.79, and you get 0.05 ounces or 1.4 grams of product. For a single eye shadow from Milani that is a decent price, usually at CVS Milani is expensive. 

I hope that in the future that CVS will run Buy one get one half off sales or something of that nature so I'm more inclined to spend more money. Oh what the hell I probably will spend money on them whether they are on sale or not. 

So if your looking for some awesome single eye shadows that are highly pigmented and a great color array, these might be for you. 

I hope you guys enjoyed this post and I will see you all at the end of the week! <3 Nicole 

*All of the products in this post were purchased by me with my own money. I'm not being compensated by any companies, all reviews and opinions are my own.** 

I'm on Youtube!

Good morning lovelies! I hope you all are doing well!

I first off want to apologize for the lack of posts here over the last week or so. I've been busy with life things and something really really exciting!

You may have already seen this on my Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, but I'm gonna share it here too!

I made a YouTube video!! I have been wanted to make a YouTube video for a long time and every time I would start something would go wrong, the camera would be out of focus, whatever it was I kind of gave up on it for a little bit.

But I took the leap of faith over Easter weekend and filmed my first video, ( now that I knew how to focus the camera properly and the weather was cooperating!).

Its titled Whats In My Bag where I show you the contents of whats in my big ole' purse. I was inspired to do it after seeing Missglamorazzi's video.

So below you will find the video I hope you guys enjoy it. If you like what you see please please subscribe and comment, I want as much feedback as I can to improve my videos.




That being said the same goes here on the blog. I will still post a ton here too, so please don't be afraid to comment on a post! I want to know what you think! I value my readers opinion a lot! 

Stay tuned to the blog for so much more coming up and of course any videos I post to Youtube I'll try to post here too!

I'll talk to you guys soon! <3 Nicole

Urban Decay Cosmetics Naked 3 Palette!

Hi guys! Its Monday again, but that means its also new blog post day!!

I apologize for my post going up so late, but we all know real life can get in the way. I so wish that blogging was kind of my full time job.. I love it so much!

Today I bring you a post that I have been putting off because I think its my favorite one yet, and if you saw the title then you already know where this is headed.

Back in March I placed a Sephora order and bought myself the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette. I did this after much consideration of other eye shadow palette from other companies. I literally did research for months on what palette I wanted.

How important is doing research on a beauty product you want to purchase?

So in the end I'm pretty sure that I made the right decision, I have used this palette almost every day since I got it and now after a couple months of using it I want to tell you what I think.

 
First off, the packaging... I have said over and over I am a sucker for anything rose gold... and this makes no exception. I love that its a metal case that snaps shut so you don't have to worry about it opening up during travel. Its slim so it will also travel nicely as well. Its not as thin as my LORAC Pro Palette but its compact enough. I like that this palette has a texture top to it, I think it adds a little something extra that we don't always see.

All these shadows for the most part are warm rose toned shadows. I'll be the first to admit I never wore much pink eye shadow when I started playing with makeup with I was a kid. I always thought it washed me out. Turns out I was just using to pale of a pink.

Formula wise these are all soft and easily blendable. I found them all really easy to work with except Dust which is a little too sheer for me. 


Lets take a look at swatches:  All swatches are photographed in sunlight with no primer underneath.

Here we have the first three shades, Strange, Dust and Burnout. Strange is a shade I use most definitely for highlighting. Its not a complete matte, more of a satin finish. Dust is a very light shimmery pink, its a nice color but too light for me and it doesn't really show up on my eyes. Burnout is slightly darker than Dust, and I love using this as an all over lid color and blend it out with a nice light brown in the crease for a wearable look for work.

Next up we have Limit, which is one of the two only matte shades in this palette. I like using it as a transition color when I'm working with some of the darker colors. Next is Buzz again a medium pink that is kind of like Burnout but a little less pigmented, I still like it as an overall lid color. Lastly in this set is Trick. Trick is one of my favorite colors in the palette. Its a warm peach, color that is super shimmery/glittery and its just looks like foil on the lid, ( at least for me it does). I would beware the fallout with Trick, when I tap off any excess I can see the glitter go everywhere!

Now we are getting to the darker side of the Naked 3. We have Nooner, Liar, and Factory. Nooner is the only other matte shade in the palette. I like to use it as a crease shade when I don't want a smokey eye or to use a brown. Its a nice change of pace when I need a different look. Liar is a rose gold shade that I just can't believe I never used earlier.

I can successfully say I have used all the shades in this palette at the time of this post! I have aways been fearful of darker colors for fallout and the fact I suck at blending darker shadows without getting it everywhere.

Factory is a mid tone brown shade that I used on my outer corner most of the time.

Finally we have the last three shades, the ones that are the most pigmented, Mugshot, Darkside, and Blackheart. Mugshot and Darkside are darker brown shades that have a pink undertone to them, once again I use these as outer corner colors and in my lower lash line. Blackheart is a really dark brown with red shimmer running throughout. The red shimmer doesn't transfer to the eye as well though. That doesn't bother me so much but if its something you look for you can always add red glitter on top to bring it out more.

You can see even without primer these shadows can pack a punch, but sadly they don't stay long on my lid without primer. When you purchase the Naked 3 ( It retails for $52 at Sephora, and $54 on Urban Decay's website) you also get a four pack of UD Primer Potion samples. You get original, Sin, Anti-aging, and Eden which is a long wear primer. You don't necessarily need the UD primers to get the shadows to strut there stuff. The Hard Candy long wear primer does just fine.

You also get a double ended brush with your purchase. It's just as adorable as the palette. One side is a small paddle brush the other a larger fluffy blending/paddle brush. The smaller paddle brush is not my favorite, it's stuff and I have a hard time packing on color. The fluffier end however is amazing for blending out color and placing color in my outer corner! 

Overall I love this palette, I get pretty much everyday use out of it, and I never get tired of pairing it with other eye shadows I have. The price point is a little iffy for me. I never spent $52 bucks on make up before. I can see why now though, you definitely get what you pay for!

If you are looking to purchase the Naked 3 you can do so at Sephora stores or online and I'm sure they have it at Ulta, and also on UD's website! I hope maybe this review swayed you on whether or not you wanted to purchase it or not!

I'll talk to you all on Wednesday! <3 Nicole

Benefit Cosmetics: Rockateur.

Hey all! Happy Wednesday, and happy 10 days until spring! I am so excited for spring, I have had enough of the snow!

Today's post is going to be a review on a product that purchased in my latest Sephora order. Now I don't get to order from Sephora often, usually its once to maybe twice a year when I get my tax refund or if I have a little extra money. Its kind of turned into this yearly thing for me where I can stock up on my favorite body products and splurge on some high end make up!

I have never been able to try anything from Benefit Cosmetics before, I have always seen YouTube videos and blog post about some of their amazing products, and now I am so glad I finally own one!

The Rockateur blush was something that I heard a lot about in the beauty community. I heard how pretty it was, how it was a natural rose gold blush that all my favorite gurus were using. I am a SUCKER for anything rose gold. I have at least 5 nail polishes that are rose gold in color from all different brands and I will totally buy more when I come across them. Rose gold, whether its in jewelry, makeup, clothing, or nail polish it seems to suite a multitude of skin tones which is awesome.

So when I heard about Rockateur it became a lemming of mine that is now finally squashed.

I like the packaging on Rockateur, its girly with the lace yet a little edgy with the fake snake skin and black square studs. I'll be honest I couldn't really see the studs at first and thought something was on my blush!

Upon seeing the blush I thought wow this is really tiny! The Internet sure makes things look bigger! But that doesn't mean this blush won't pack a punch, a light natural looking punch but a punch none the less.

Look at all that rose gold goodness! It is so beautiful I almost didn't want to use it! As you can see it cut off there is a decent size mirror with the packaging, this also comes with a brush but I don't usually use them. This blush is scented, its a nice floral scent that doesn't bother my nose at all, but if you are not a fan of scented makeup then this might not be for you. You can smell it when you apply it to your cheeks but thats about it, you definitely do not go throughout the day smelling the blush.

As I said above this blush is made to give you a natural flush. I have never been huge on bright blushes so this was right up my ally.

Here is a concentrated swatch of Rockateur. I still can't get over the rosy goldness of this blush. I literally have used this every day since I got it!

The price tag on this beautiful piece of makeup is $28, even though I was doing my annual Sephora splurge don't think that I didn't research this blush till I was blue in the face.  I think I took it in and out of my shopping cart 10 times before saying 'screw it you only do this once a year!" Although to someone who doesn't have extra money all the time,  it is pricey but then again it is high end.

I hope that maybe this review gave you an insight to Rockateur amongst the other hundreds of reviews out there. Whether it sways you one way or another that's up to you but I love it and am glad it has a place in my makeup collection.

Until next time!
<3 Nicole

New Spring 2014 Hard Candy Cosmetics!! (Photo Heavy!)

Hi guys!! Happy Friday!! I hope you all have been well!! I've been doing okay, little bit stressed out with some stuff at home but I'm slowly starting to feel better. I am also counting down the next 8 weeks until school is officially done with. I'm not graduating but after this semester I only have three classes left to take and I figure I can take them one at a time so they are less stressful.

Any way I'm sure that you did not come to the blog today to hear me rant about school or work, you came for whats in the title!

That's right Hard Candy put out a ton of new products for Spring 2014 and after seeing a master post on Nouveau Cheap  (Clicky click the link so you can see too!! ) I made a mental note of some of the products I most definitely wanted to try!

I have been a huge fan of Hard Candy when they hit Wal-Mart stores what seems like forever ago! The first thing I ever bought from them and sadly don't have anymore is a five shade eye shadow palette that came with a shadow primer. I thought I was so cool to finally have a shadow primer, and one that work well too!

Well with that said, Hard Candy has done a major upgrade to their eye shadow primer and has released it to be sold on its own not just with eye shadow sets.

Their new eye shadow primer is called Eyes The Limit and it claims to be a long wear eye shadow primer. The tube itself reminds me of the Too Faced Eye Shadow Insurance packaging but I think the Too Faced one is shorter and a little wider. I don't own the Too Faced Primer but I have seen it many times.

The tube contains just under half a fluid ounce of product, and a little goes a long way with this so I don't think I'll be running out anytime soon. The primer is skin toned colored, unlike the original primer that Hard Candy had where it was just a whitish-translucent silicone primer. This one feels silicone-y too but it sinks in to the skin nice and doesn't leave a slippery surface where your eye shadow would fall off.

Yesterday I did put the primer to a first impression  under some shadows from my new Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette. ( I just got it in my Sephora order!) I did a simple look for school yesterday morning since I don't normally have a ton of time to invest in to a detailed makeup look. Any how being at school for three hours by the time  I got home I noticed the shadow was still in place and the color was still visible even though I know I had been touching my face throughout the morning. You know how it is trying to stay awake! Before I ran out to do errands later that afternoon I touched up my makeup a bit more, adding a little bit more shadow and then proceeded to wear the look for about 8 hours, so around 915PM I went to take it off and there was no creasing, or fading, everything was still intact!! That makes me so happy! It outlasted my LORAC Behind the Scenes Primer!

For $5.00 I would totally recommend this eye shadow primer, its totally worth it!!

Next I was impressed when I saw that Hard Candy was introducing new Ombre Lipsticks. Just from the blog post I saw them in I knew I wanted to try them.

I picked up two # 759 Confidence which is a red and hot pink ombre and # 837 Faithful which is a hot pink and light rosy pink ombre. These lipsticks will run you $6.00 a piece if you want to try them and there are 10 shades to choose from!!

# 759 Confidence 

# 837 Faithful 

As you can see these don't look like traditional lipsticks, they are indeed square, with the darker shade being only about a quarter of the lipstick. I'm still unsure how to apply these to my lips, I tried the other night and I had the darker color on the outer portion of my lips, and to me it just didn't look right. I may have to try it with the larger color part as the outermost part and the darker color on the inside of the lips.

Here are some swatches.

Faithful 

Confidence 

The only downside I see with these is the shape of the lipstick, the square shape does kind of make applying it tricky. I found it hard staying on the  inside the lines of my lips and that these have a lot of shimmer and or glitter particles in it. Once I took it off I could see the glitter all over my face, even when I applied it some pieces fell out. . Otherwise the texture of the lipsticks are super creamy which is always nice, the colors are vivid and even if I  can't get the ombre effect and they just blend to one color I'm sure they will look really cool!

Lastly I got two cheek products. They are aptly named Cheeks and Balances, they are a cream blush and highlighter duo. There are three shades to choose from, with two I got being the only blush shades and the third is a contour/highlighter duo. The are $7.00 a piece.

I picked up # 767 Cheeky Pink and # 805 Sweet Cheeks. Both are rosy mauve pinks with a highlighter on top. I initially thought that the highlighter was the same on each, that was until I swatched it.

Sweet Cheeks

Cheeky Pink 

Now the blushes are very similar but Sweet Cheeks is tad bit darker and more rosy then Cheeky Pink, and as for the highlighters, Cheeky Pink's highlighter has a golden tone to it where Sweet Cheeks has a pink pearl tone to it.

Cheeky Pink 

Sweet Cheeks 

You can definitely see the difference in the photos above. I haven't tested these out on my face but when I did blend it out on my hand the color wasn't super prominent but the highlighter took over and made it look like a nice overall highlight. I'm not sure if I just didn't put enough on to really get it going. I will have to update this post the second I put them on my face!!

So that's it for today's post! I hope you found it useful and maybe peek your interest as to see if you would like any of these new products! These are just a handful remember so make sure you check out Nouveau Cheap's blog post linked above to see her master post, there are also new concealers and eye shadow and mascaras!!!

Talk to you all soon! Nicole <3