We're Goin' Places!

Monday, October 20, 2014

Bite Sized Reviews of Rimmel!

We're talking Rimmel Scandaleyes eyeshadow sticks!

I talked about one of these a little bit once before, here, and had a real Murphy's Law type of experience with it, so I was hopeful this one would go different.

I used two of the colors, Bulletproof Beige. Bulletproof Beige is a nice, shimmer gold, that if you're fair skinned, could easily double for a highlighter. Then we revisited my old nemesis, Paranoid Purple, a matte royal purple, which is also the one I had so much trouble with in the post that I linked.

Pleasantly, the trouble I had was not duplicated. I had no trouble getting the lid off, no breakage, no nothing! Great!

These are uber-simple to use - if you can use a crayon, you can use these. I was interested to see how well multiples blended together though. Awesomely, as it turns out. I'd tried the Almay stick eyeshadows (read those details, here...), and they didn't blend at ALL, and I admittedly expected the same from Rimmel.

I set the bar too low, as it turns out, because these colors stayed nicely, blended well, and layers together great!

Here's a few snaps. I ran out of daylight before I could get daylight snaps, so all of these are swatched indoors, which isn't great admittedly, but I did what I could do for you, right? :D



The product on. See what I mean? Blends really well, looks nice on.



The colors swatched on the inside of my arm. That's Bulletproof Beige closer to the camera, Paranoid Purple farther away. Bulletproof Beige could easily work as a highlighter in the Highlight and Contour step (for fair to medium skin tones. After a medium skin tone...probably not as much, hah!). Paranoid Purple also makes a nice eyeliner, if you sharpen the pencil to a nice point.

You know, had I been left to my original experience to decide whether or not I'd recommend this product to you, I'd give it a solid "...meh? Maybe?", but I was much more impressed with the product - in terms of wearability and longevity the second time around, so I'd give this a solid yes. This is an impressive product for the cost!

All that, and my google spell check is still in one piece!

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

We're back for Wet N Wild Wednesday!

We're back for a special Wet N Wild Wednesday, and we're talking eyeshadow!

I already pitted the Summer 2013 and Summer 2014 eyeshadow collections against each other once, here, and we're back for round two!

In this corner, "To Muse and Carouse!"

This trio is a nice matte sky blue, a matte tan, and a deeper matte brown tone.



The colors didn't have the payoff that I was expecting to see (I'll admit, I was a little nervous of the potential impact of that blue!), but they went on nicely, and blended well. In fact, when you see the color on me, you'll see it with primer, and it still didn't have a ton of color payoff. But, it's a nice set of neutrals, and you can never have enough of those, right?



In action. I try to take pictures outside when I can, but it was pretty rainy this week, so these are all taken in the light of the big window in my living room. You can see - nice, and I actually like how the color plays off my eyes a lot, but if you're wanting big, splashy color - this isn't your guy.

In this corner, from the Summer 2014 collection, "Who's Carpooling?"

This collection is a matte white, matte kelly green, and matte royal blue. And unfortunately, suffers from far FAR too much of a good thing.

These colors are all CRAZY pigmented. Make no mistake - what you see in that pan is what will show up on your eyelid. Which is FINE, if you need a great matte royal blue, or kelly green. And had I been in the market for either one, I would have been thrilled. As matte kelly green and matte royal blue go, they're top notch. Seeing this much fire power in a drug store brand is truly impressive.

But unfortunately, everybody doesn't want all fire power all the time. I was just telling someone else about this, and I made the comparison to cooking with jalapeno. You don't cook full blast, all jalapeno, all the time, right? That's kind of what this palate suffered from. It needed some...something to dilute it. A little shimmer never hurt nobody!

And as if parsing down all this fire power wasn't enough, there was the problem that the minute I tried to blend these to dilute them, they started going EVERYWHERE. Let me start at the beginning.

I use my primer (Fergie "Take On The Day", also by Wet N Wild), and apply the white all over. Things are going swimmingly. I decide to follow my own color scheme rather than the Wet N Wild suggestion (royal blue across the lid, green in the crease, white to the brow), and decide that I'll go green across the center of the lid, and blue on the outside. I battle through the FOUR safety stickers Wet N Wild applies, and finally reach the product. White all over, great. Dip my brush into the green, apply to the lid. Ooh, boy. You guys, I may as well have gone across my lid with a green sharpie. The colors beautiful, but WOW. So I panic, and decide I have to have a new plan. I swirl the green through the white, which gives me a bit of a lime color, some of which is now deposited on my undereye, despite my not-at-all-aggressive-blending, and decide I'm going to use a dense bristled eyeshadow brush, and the blue liner, to give myself a pseudo eyeliner line.

I finally gave up, and decided I didn't have time to play with this, wiped the entire thing off, and went to work virtually bare eyed. What a disaster!



In action, with the three pan shadow in question. Also taken in the light by the window in my house, because it's still rainy and gross in Michigan! :)

So the dilemma I had was this;

Summer 2013's entry, "To Muse and Carouse", is a generally solid performer. Not exciting by way of color payoff, nothing to get excited about by way of longevity, but otherwise, a solid entry.

Summer 2014's entry, "Who's Carpooling?", is a bit more erratic of a performer. REALLY exciting by way of color payoff, but the color drift also calls the longevity in to question too, right?

So, based solely on wearability, I have to give this battle to - Summer 2013! Of these two, I believe that "To Muse and Carouse" is the superior eyeshadow. If you could only pick up one, "To Muse and Carouse" would hands down be my recommendation!

Monday, October 13, 2014

I didn't forget you, my lovelies!

I didn't forget you today! However, I DID manage to chip TWO nails while trying to open a new eyeshadow! :( I wanted to do a side by side comparison of two shadows, so I'm not ready to show you that yet, and I have to fix the nail polish before I can show you THAT! Which is a long, highly punctuated way of saying I'm having technical difficulties, and I'll see you all as soon as they're fixed. Probably Wednesday. :D

Monday, October 6, 2014

I'm really conflicted this week!

This week, I took on the Almay Intense i-Color Shadow Stick. Actually, if we're being fair, I took on THREE Almay Intense i-Color Shadow Sticks. The blue eyed, hazel eyed and green eyed version. I'm really conflicted on what I think of them.

First, let's get to what we know;

These colors, like almost every other eye color in the Almay stable, is "matched" to you based on your eye color. You pick your product range according to your eye color, you're ready to go. This entry, the "shadow stick" is sort of like the Almay answer to the 5 minute face. Two shadows, paired easily in to one pencil form. Nice creamy formula, easy to use - if you learned to color in kindergarten, you can use this - no muss, no fuss.

Which is great, but the problem? If you're a person who wants some color BANG for the buck, these aren't your guy. These are nice, and soft, and go on smoothly and easily, but don't offer anything by way of exceptional color payoff. In fact, I had to swatch these on the inside of my arm, because I felt like you didn't even get much of a look at it, otherwise.

Let's go to the pictures!



The product shot. From near to far, you see the blue eyed version (a light bronze, with a darker brown. This was the highest pigmented one of the three). Then in the middle you see the hazel eyed version, a light pink, and a brown with a pink undertone. I found this one most lacking in terms of longevity. By the end of the night, it was virtually gone. And the farthest away one is the green eyed version, a silver with a cool toned purple. I found this one the most interesting, because that's not a combination you go to a lot.

More pictures!



The blue eyed stick, swatched on the inside of my arm. Pic taken in as much natural light as the overcast skies would allow me. :)



Blue eyed stick, in action. Not for nothin', but the red lip is courtesy of Jordana. Pretty magical, for the price, right? :)



Green eyes, swatched.



Green eyed stick, in action. I've been battling the elementary school plague, and I think you can really tell it in this picture. Also, there wasn't nearly as much sun as the blue eyed stick got. But, still. ;)



Hazel eyes, swatched.



I don't know about you guys, but I think my makeup game was on point on this day! ;)

So, my conflict is that these are all not like the others. The blue eyed stick is the best pigmented, and longest lasting. But the green eyed stick is the most interesting combination. And the hazel eyed version is...there? I think of the three, I'd recommend the green eyed version for interest (and it did the most to play up my own eyes) or the blue for the pigment and lasting, and I'd tell you to just all together skip the hazel version. That one's not worth it.

See you soon, my lovelies!