I will be taking a hiatus from my website; I’m not sure if it will be permanent, but for now I won’t be working on it. The reason is I am working full-time right now, while taking 2 summer classes and am really busy. Sharing all of my reviews and makeup tutorials has been a lot of fun, and I did it in hopes that it would help people. I wanted to pass on my experiences to you and I enjoyed every minute of it. However, a lot of people have left negative comments, while I had hopes they would find my videos useful.
Anyways, this blog started out as a hobby, but now I am just too busy to keep up with it. In any case, I hope you, my readers and youtube subscribers, have benefited from it! I might be back some day, but thank you very much to those of you who have subscribed to my youtube channel and read my blog!! I also really appreciate all of your positive comments — you guys are the best!!! :D
If you have droopy eyes, small or uneven creases or even mono eyelids, I’ll show you how to make your eyelids appear lifted and more prominent. You don’t have to resort to cosmetic surgery!
Watch my video tutorial if you want to know how to achieve more prominent or double eyelids without surgery:
Here’s how my eyes look with the eyelid tape:
I’m also wearing M.A.C.’s Studio Fix Fluid in this pic….stay tuned for the review on that!
For the next post, I’ll be doing a continuation of the last post I did on the Makeup Application Product Review of Eye shadows - I’m going to review some other eye products such as Shiseido’s Eyelash Curler, Benefit’s Mascara and a Dior Eye Shadow Palette.
Here is Part 2 of my makeup application product reviews:Eye shadows.
I received my Coastal Scents (CS) Hot Pots a long time ago, but never had the time to properly review them until now. CS Hot Pots are the cheaper alternative to M.A.C. eye shadows - they are the exact same size (26mm pans) and look identical to M.A.C. Eye shadow Pro Palette refill pans.
Price: Hot Pots cost $5 a piece, compared to M.A.C. refill pans at $13.
With my order, CS gave me three free 12 piece palettes!
I arranged the hot pots into the palettes according to three color categories:
Blues & Purples
Greens & Browns
Peaches & Pinks
I have been playing with the colors in these palettes and have been comparing them to my M.A.C. eye shadows. I made 2 videos showing these comparisons and swatches of the CS Hot Pots.
Here they are:
If you can’t watch the video, I also have pics of the swatches and M.A.C. comparisons. All shadows were swatched over UDPP (Urban Decay Primer Potion). The left column is with flash and the right is without.
Blues & Purples Palette
S02: is a beautiful whitish blue, pretty light blue undertones, perfect as a highlight when applying blue eye shadows.
S14 & M17: are very beautiful dark colors - good for dark smokey purple or blue eyes.
M15 & S19: are good M.A.C.’s Parfait Amour dupes, very nice light purple colors, good for a nice, fresh spring look.
S08: is a very pretty shimmery pale violet color.
Browns & Greens Palette
S30: has nice little gold shimmers in it. The shade is in between a satiny and frosty brown.
S11: a very shimmery, pretty aqua color.
S10: has the same texture and pigmentation as M.A.C.’s Sumptuous Olive except Sumptuous Olive is more golden olive. S10 is grayer in shade.
S28: is very powdery - beware!
S29: is somewhat of a champagne color; it’s very beautiful as a highlight especially if you’re going for a brown, neutral color look.
M22 & M16: are good dupes for M.A.C.’s Charcoal Brown; M22 is closer in color because it’s darker than M16.
Peaches & Pinks Palette
S04: has dual tones, it has a nice undertone of gold in it - very beautiful color. Not many hot pots have dual tones but definitely get S04 if that’s a quality you like in eye shadows. It is definitely comparable to M.A.C.’s Zonk-bleu! and especially Talent Pool in terms of texture, pigmentation and dual tones,
S33: is a beautiful, natural pink peachy color - great for natural look!
M18: is a great hot pink color
S07: is a beautiful highlight color with pink undertones, perfect for highlighting your brow bone.
S07, S31, M13, & M18: are 4 pink shades that range from light to dark - perfect if you’re going for a pink eye shadow look.
S09: is a very pretty pale pink/peachy, shimmery color.
S06 & S13: are very similar in color, except S13 has slightly more reddish tones.
S21 & S16: are almost identical, except S21 is lighter.
Overall Rating:
Pigmentation: 4/5
Texture: 3.5/5
Blendability: 3.5/5
Longevity: 4/5
Similarities to M.A.C.:
- Intense color pigmentation
- smooth, rich texture
Differences from M.A.C.:
- no dual tones (typical of most of the hot pots, except for S02, S07, S04, and S10)
- they’re not as easy to blend as M.A.C. eye shadows, which are smoother.
- some of the matte colors were chalky, the quality of those were similar to their 88 matte and 28 neutral palettes.
All in all, don’t expect M.A.C. eye shadows ladies! They are a good value for the money you spend, but again they don’t have the distinct dual tones that makes M.A.C. eye shadows so unique. If you’re looking for pigmentation, but don’t want to spend a fortune, these are a good investment and a good alternative for M.A.C. But once again, CS Hot Pots are NOT M.A.C. I’d say stick with CS’s bigger eye shadow palettes - the 88, 78, 26 and 28 piece palettes. They really offer the same quality for a lot less money!!
That’s it for part 2 of the Makeup Application product reviews. I have a bunch of other eye products I want to review - stay tuned for that in the next post!
Also, Part 3 of the Makeup Application Product Reviews is coming up: Foundations. I will be doing a video on reviews of three of the most raved about foundations: M.A.C.’s Studio Fix Fluid, Revlon’s Colorstay Foundation and Makeup Forever’s HD (High Definition) Foundation.
Other upcoming posts are:
- more DIY Facial masks, ex: Avocado Mask (great for dry skin)
- Step-by-step makeup application guide and video tutorial for the Smokey Eyes Look.
I recently got a lot of new makeup products and this post would be way too long if I blogged about all of them and gave you their respective reviews, so I broke down my Makeup Application Product Reviews into three parts: Lipsticks, Eye shadows, and Foundations.
This post is Part 1 of the review and I will be talking about NYX Round Lipsticks.
I have nothing but good reviews about this product! But first, here is the video I compiled of swatches of 6 of my favorite shades of these lipsticks.
I really wanted to try another shade, Tea Rose, but it’s been out of stock for a long while now. NYX is re-stocking these lippies on their website sometime in June, so be on a look-out for them. Other places you can buy them are at: www.cherryculture.com and www.nonpareilboutique.com. They often have sales on these lippies, so definitely check these sites out!
I personally ordered my lippies from Nonpareil Boutique and I have to say this company is fantastic! I live in Canada and the shipping was so fast (it arrived within 3-5 days) and the package was carefully wrapped.
Here is a photo of the swatches of these lippies:
The left side is with flash and right side has no flash.
Rating:
Pigmentation: 4/5
Texture: 4.5/5
Longevity: 3/5
Pros:
they’re very creamy and soft in texture,
highly pigmented,
and inexpensive.
Cons:
they smudge easily upon application
and don’t last very long.
They also have a subtle rose scent to them. This is neither a pro nor con for me, since it doesn’t affect the quality of the product. Overall, these lippies are a great value and I definitely recommend them.
I’ll be back with Part 2 of the Makeup Application Product Reviews: Eye shadows.
