Monday Makeup Madness: Glamour to Go III

Bonus Post! Since I have these swatches ready and they're also Too Faced, why not post them today? Glamour to Go III goes for $19.50 and consists of eight eyeshadows, four lipglosses and a blush. Here are pictures taken next to the Natural Eye palette for size comparison purposes:




And here are the swatches. Had I been more awake when I did these, they might have been straight on my arm. :P If I remember correctly, I didn't have the easiest time with the purple and black, but the other colors went on easily. That brownish shade in the top left corner is close to what I expected Bob's Your Uncle (that one messy shade from the Queen for a Day quad) to be. It's a nice little set overall, and I'd definitely recommend it as a gift.



Next week I'll either do some Kat Von D (the 500 pt. bonus palette + the lipstick & lipgloss sets) or some odds and ends (Korres pencil set, Stila glitter liners). We'll see how it goes. I need to find my camera, too. It went missing on me over Thanksgiving break, but it's definitely at home somewhere.

[edit: It's been foggy-rainy over here lately, and as a result I haven't been taking pictures. Sooo the next post will probably be about the recent FTC guides and my Lancome haul at Macy's over the weekend.]

Monday Makeup Madness: Queen for a Day

The Queen for a Day collection is one of the Too Faced holiday items that came out a couple of months ago. The set consists of what you see above: a makeup bag, a bronzer, an eyeshadow quad, a special edition Flatbuki brush, a mini Lash Injection Pinpoint mascara, a lipstick (Lip of Luxury in the shade Free Love), and a full-sized Shadow Insurance primer. I picked this up during Sephora's Friends and Family sale, mostly because I was drawn to the bag and the brush (note: the handle of the Flatbuki is actually a bright green, like the green flowers on the bag). The bag was actually smaller than I thought it would be, but that happens a lot with Too Faced items for some reason. I took a picture holding it to give you an idea of its size. (Kindly ignore those lines on the silhouette, the flash reflected off of some marks that I didn't notice were there until right now. They have been rubbed out and now it looks just fine.)



On the other hand, the eyeshadow quad and Snow Bunny bronzer were larger than I expected. I think this packaging for Snow Bunny is exclusive to the set, but I'm not entirely sure. Isn't it lovely?




According to the outer packaging, the pink and matte shades of the quad don't have "real" names--they are referred to simply as "Pink" and "Matte"--while the other two are called Totally Toasted and Bob's Your Uncle. I'm gonna go ahead and say the shiny brown/bronze color is Totally Toasted since it's also the name of a couple of shades in the French and Fabulous Palette (which, by the way, I also want but certainly don't need). Totally Toasted also reminded me of Push-Up from their Natural Eye palette, so I did a quick comparison swatch. I also swatched Silk Teddy* and the Pink eyeshadow, not because they're similar, but so that I could tell the browns apart. :P


* I had originally typed Nude Beach - I have corrected this to Silk Teddy both in the post and on the photo. Nude Beach is the crazy glittery shadow from Natural Eye that I don't use. :P

Now, without further ado, the swatches:



The first three eyeshadows are nice. The last one...is a disappointing, glittery mess. You may even want to click and look at the larger image to better see the mess. The promo pictures made Bob's Your Uncle look like this lovely shimmery taupe, and frankly, the color probably would have been fine without the glitter. Similar disappointment was found over at Jeweled Thumb. It's not enough for me to want to return the set, though, because I love everything else. Especially Snow Bunny. I'm rather fair, so this is perfect for me. The lipstick is a little on the frosty side for my liking, but I like the shade, so it will definitely get its fair share of use. Overall, I'm glad I got it, but I probably wouldn't have paid full price ($45) since I consider that one shadow to be a dud.

UD 24/7: I'm thankful for more important things, but I still like these very much.

Took this picture last Saturday as part of Friends & Family Aftermath (which will be the topic of the next Monday Makeup Madness--gotta start that up again, and since I have next Monday off, I really should post something). This is a comparison of the (at the time) six set-exclusive UD 24/7 shades paired with what I believe to be the closest colors from their permanent line. Honey and Eldorado really are quite different, aren't they? Anyway, I meant to post this a couple of days ago and even thought about doing some sort of poll asking which shade would be the best addition to the permanent line. Well, I'm glad I didn't do that, because on Tuesday, four of those shades were officially added to the line: Oil Slick, Binge, Mildew and Crash. All are lovely, but it bums me out a bit that Corrupt didn't make the cut. That brown suits me much better than Bourbon does. Oh well.

Today is Thanksgiving here in the US, so Happy Thanksgiving everyone! :D

Monday Makeup Madness: Friends & Family

In case you haven't already heard about this: the Urban Decay Friends & Family Event is on through November 20th. Use coupon code FNFW1 to get 30% off your entire order. So now would be the time to get UD presents and/or those sets and palettes you've been eyeing. :P I've compared one of the set-exclusive 24/7 Eye Pencils with some similar shades:



Left side is indoors, right side is outdoors. Crash is the exclusive shade in the Stereophonic 24/7 set (regular price $29). I'd say it's just the slightest bit more red than Rockstar, plus it has silver sparkles. Do I think you need Crash if you already have Rockstar? No. That said, I do like Crash. I've found that reddish plums look like crap on me, but this color is purple enough that it works. It makes my green eyes stand out on top of that. Anyway, to recap, if you have Rockstar, you're good here unless you Must. Have. Every. Pencil.


Back to the Friends & Family topic for a bit. I picked up a few things during Sephora's F&F that are due in tomorrow. If I remember, I'll post pictures next week. I looked at a lot of things that I liked but didn't bother to get. A couple of examples:

Kat Von D True Romance Eyeshadow Palette in True Love, $34: I am a fan of this brand (and I picked up the 500-point bonus palette with my order), but I have enough purples that look like those and the brown side looks like it'd be too warm for me.

MAKE UP FOR EVER Aqua Eyes Collectors' Set, $249: My thought when seeing this was "ooh, that's pretty...but no." Even with 20% off I wasn't tempted. I know it's a deal, considering, but I'd use half of those colors at the most. I could see getting this if I had no eyeliner at all and frequently did artsy sorts of looks (and that's a no on both counts, heh).

Random Tuesday Music: Eighties Roundup

I felt like linking to a bunch of videos this week, so that's what I did! I don't know how accurate the years are; I used Wikipedia to find out single release dates. They're likely correct, but who knows. On with the music!

1980: Hall & Oates - You Make My Dreams
1981: The Human League - Don't You Want Me
1982: ABC - The Look of Love
1983: Journey - Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
1984: Duran Duran - New Moon on Monday
1985: Whitney Houston - How Will I Know
1986: Howard Jones - No One Is to Blame
1987: Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive
1988: INXS - Devil Inside
1989: Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus