Swatch-fest

On Monday, I made an impulse purchase of Smashbox eyeshadow palette and yesterday I got my Ipsy bag and it gave me a bit of motivation to go through my makeup and re-discover it all after not really wearing any for a little while except my Skinfood BB cream and Benefit benetint.

I started swatching to see which shades in my MUA palette and Back to Basics Quo palette were similar to my new Smashbox and from there I started swatching all sorts of eyeshadows that I haven't used in forever and realized that i have many that I don't plan on using. And the swatches basically made the decision for me. Here's what I kept:

Here's what's going (+ a bit more), some that I'll offer my mom, some that is just trash:

This continued with my lip products as well with probably 5 leaving my stash. For my skin makeup, a broken MUA bronzer had to go to the trash, it was making too much of a mess but I kept the rest. Here are my quickly-done swatches of blush, bronzor and highlighting products. i thought i had kore variety there.

All in all, a nice cleanup/purge, a nice rediscovery of my products, a lot of fun!

shadow swatches

lipstick swatches

bad blush swatches

Impulse-buy - Smashbox palette



Already in my stash, my MUA primer and Mirabella primer PLUS
my NEW Smashbox palette!



I went to Winners with no intention to buy any make-up... Isn't that typical? I ended up seeing a Smashbox palette for 15$ and I've never tried any of their products so I went for it. I found out its from the fall 2009 collection so it's far from a current collection but it is what it is! I'm trying out Smashbox so I'm satisfied with this for now, though it was a disappointment to find out it's so old.  

It's a 6-shadow palette called Monarch from the Reign collection. It has the more matte (less shimmery) colour in the middle with the more shimmery one around the outside. These colours are exactly the type of colours I would wear normally. I like the packaging on it overall except that the having one colour on the outside and one on the inside isn't exactly practical.

Monarch palette by Smashbox from the Reign collection, with my Pinkie Pie sticker from my iPad showing in the mirror ;)

I swatched the eyeshadows twice, once with my Mirabella primer (from my Ipsy bag) on the left and once with my MUA primer on the right. You can see the difference between the performance of both of these primers (Note my first swatch is a bit off, I think I had some leftover of a darker colour on the brush). The MUA one which is made only for eyeshadows unlike the Mirabella one, helped the colours adhere and pop a whole lot better. I don't exactly have much experience with primers overall, but upon application, the MUA primer is better. I have no idea how it performs compared to other eye shadow primers... Like Urban Decay which is a lot more expensive than this one but is a go-to primer for a lot of people and I imagine performs extremely well. These swatches were with a brush I have which really doesn't swatch as pigmented as just using my fingers...

I'm pretty happy with my purchase! These colours are right up my alley :)

Random: Our new Pet!

My daughter found and adopted a cute lil snail. It's a little bit low-energy for a pet when compared to my slightly hyper daughter, but she loves the heck out of it. Her name is Safiyah:

Essie Sleek Stick Nail Appliqués - stickers and stones REVIEW

I was at Walmart the other day and after passing by the Essie nail sticker display multiple times, I decided to try a set. Afterall, it was to have nice nails for my daughter's birthday party. Any reason is a good reason to try a new product!

What are they, what do they come with?

This product by Essie is basically a sticker for your nails. It is not a nail polish strip like other brands, where the product after applied is more like nail polish on your nails and must be removed as nail polish. It's really a sticker. The product comes in a sleek white envelope that has the design showing through and it includes 18 stickers of various sizes, a cuticle stick and nail file.

Application and ease of use

The instructions recommend pushing back cuticles and wiping down the nail. You then pick the appliqué that fits your nail size the best, stick it on and file the end off.

Sounds easy, but I had bit of a hard time. First hand I put them all upside down (with the squarer part at my cuticle and rounder part being filed off) so the fit was just not good since my cuticle area is round. My mistake! Application on the next hand went more smoothly and the stickers fit better. I found that the edges I was filing off looked a bit jagged and I wasn't able to get a look of perfection with them but I think that was noticible only to me.

I had a few of the bigger nails left and I will try cutting them to try on my daughter. Hopefully that works out, and if I'm able to make a manicure for her with the leftovers of my stickers it'll be that much more worth it.

Durability

I never manage to have nail polish looking good more than 24h and these stickers looked good for more than 24h, but there was wear on them pretty fast and I removed them after 4 days. With better application, I think I'd be able to keep them an extra couple days but I can't imagine having them on more than a week.

Removing these was easy, they just peeled right off and a bit of sticker-glue left on the nail was easily scratched off and probably could be wiped off easily with a wipe or something too. I loved being able to remove them without any product.

Overall experience

The first thing that I have not mentionned anywhere yet is: MY GOD THESE STICKERS ARE GORGEOUS! For that reason alone, I want to repurchase. For the price of around 10$ and based on my experience I wouldn't go out and get them regularly but for a special occasion, these are just too beautiful to not be my top choice at this point. I will definitely prefer to purchase these than to get a professional manicure. Next time I am at Walmart, I'm getting Oh My Gold to wear at my co-worker's wedding in June.

Recommend: Yes, I do. But they are not perfection...

My Little Pony

I made these My Little Pony stickers (which will be cut) and I have others personalized with each guest's name and they'll receive it with the corresponding nail polish colour as a party favour :)

I love MLP, I'm excited for my daughter's party! Lol

Anti-Glymm Box Box, Free from Nail Polish Canada

For all of you who were subscribed to Glymm and got payments withdrawn without getting the promised products in return, Nail Polish Canada has something for you!

How generous of them to provide a free 25$-value box for clients who got ripped off by Glymm! Follow this link:

http://www.nailpolishcanada.com/products/glymm.html

It will cost you 3$ for shipping, OR if you purchase some polish with that, you can get free shipping.

Fruits&Passion Cucina hand soap and cream

I LOVE Fruits&Passion! I've been a fan of their delicious products for some time (bath bombs, body creams, soaps, etc) and I recently got the chance to try their new fragrance, Pompelmo! It's a new, fresh and zesty fragrance of grapefruit.

I've been trying out the Pompelmo hand soap and Pompelmo regenerating hand cream by Fruits&Passion from their Cucina collection. I've tried other hand soaps from this collection and I really like them a lot. It's already my go-to "fancy" soap which I only occasionally buy for myself but like to get as a gift for others when I draw a blank. Everyone washes their hands, right?

The soaps are delicately scented and rinse off really well. They leave a light fragrance that I really enjoy, and honestly, I really don't want to go back to Dial after using this for a couple weeks...

I received for review this really gorgeous textured glass bottle (above) that looks and feels really fancy for hand soap and I'm enjoying that a lot. I had not seen this type of container for hand soap, I really thought it was bubble bath when I opened it because it was not with the pump, it was a plug-cap top.

The second product I receieved was what they call the Pompelmo regenerating hand cream. I've been liking this. It absorbs into my hands completely differently than other creams do. It becomes whiteish as I first rub my hands together and then it sinks in and I'm left with hands that I can only describe as having traction. They're not slippery at all but I wouldn't say they're wet or that the cream doesn't absorb. I can't say it's better or worse than what usually happens with hand creams, only different. My friends also found it different but fine. 

I love the smell so much I've been mostly only using this one for a week though and I'd definitely recommend trying it out. I was at Fruits&Passion today and they have cool sets of soap, scent diffuser and cream among others in this scent (and others). For anyone who likes grapefruit or citrus smells, you'll want to try it!

Who else likes Fruits&Passion??? Any go-to fragrance for you? Which products do you prefer?

* Products provided for an honest review.

Seasons Box March Edition

I got a nice surprise yesterday when FedEx came with this month's Seasons Box! The package is always so adorable, like a real gift for ME :P


Here's what was in the box:

1. Incense cones. They smell nice and I like the packaging on this. I learned that half a cone at a time is sufficient for a smell-sensitive person like me.

2. Octavia Tea Company, green tea. This is loose tea so I need to find the thinger to make it with. I'll buy some mint because I love the Moroccan style green tea with a lot of mint in it :)



 3. Soap. Irish style soap, spearmint and peppermint. I'm looking forward to trying this in the bath! I don't use bars of soap really but I like the idea and I'll see how it goes.

4. An umbrella! This is an eco-friendly umbrella made with recyclable, recycled and renewable materials.

Here's a shot of my box!