Swatchery Version 2.0!

Baby Lips! Here we go again!

I've been challenging myself to wear red lips this week, so I thought I'd go back to "Cherry Me", a color from the Baby Lips standing line.

Now, my husband and son have both said this was clearly red. I offered my son some once when he said his lips were dry, and he turned me down, because he didn't want red lips. I don't think it's all that. Check it out:

...that's not clearly, obviously red, right? Am I crazy?! I mean, it's redder then my natural lip, but not by a lot.

I've been known to recommend this particular color to people who wanted to learn to wear red lip color though. Red, without being RED, right? If you're a cherry chapstick sort, this is a nice way to ease in the direction of red.

I'm a bit of a packaging junkie, but I also appreciate that this is a bright, colorful package - orange with red letters - so it will stand out, wherever you are.

It doesn't break the proverbial mold as far as formula, or longevity is concerned, so just to give you the short strokes on that - nice formula, terrible longevity. Sometimes these come a little scented, this one wasn't. The scents are never overbearing. They're almost kind of fun - I routinely make the comparison that these are like lip smackers for adults, so they take you back a little bit. :)

Stay beautiful, everybody!

I literally can not stop purchasing Baby Lips. It's a real problem! But at least you get to see them on someone before you buy, right? Everybody wins!

Swatchery...

I've talked at pretty good length about Maybelline Baby Lips. If you're new, here's the short strokes: I'm a big fan. They're generally a nice little pop of glossy color. Low fuss, low maintenance. Which is great, cause sometimes that's exactly what you're looking for.

Rather than give you the schpeil again about my opinions, here's a quick swatch!

This shade is "Melon Mania", which was brought back at Christmas as part of their "customer favorites" display.

Where some of the Baby Lips colors also have a bit of flavor, this one doesn't really. You'll also notice, it's mostly gloss, there isn't a lot of color to speak of with this one. Maybe a bit of pink, that's about it.

Baby Lips aren't terribly long lasting. And mileage varies on how long lasting they actually are. But like I've said before, I buy them for the little low maintenance pop of color, which unfortunately, this one doesn't deliver on that anyway, it's too similar to the color of my own lips.

So I like the formulation in general, but not this color in particular.

There's my two second opinion! What say you, beautiful?

Two seconds not enough? I can talk about Baby Lips for a long time! No really, a long time!

Almay Knows Their Blues!

A few product beauty shots for your Thursday, since we've been out of touch for so long! :) It's not been that long, but it feels long. I love you guys!

Last week, I talked a little about Almay Shadow Softies. I counted it up, and realized I had eight of them. I don't have four posts worth of unique things to say about them, but I did want to show them all off. Especially these, because I think the colors are really unique. Almay does some great work with blue eye shadows in particular (someone on their color development team must be a fan!), they're always really unique.

These shadows are soft and gentle. If you want a nice, soft wash of color, you will get along nicely with these. They're an interesting texture - they're not as hard as a typical powder shadow, but they're not as soft as a cream? See what I mean? It's interesting. Don't let it scare you away though. Think of these as the special snowflakes in your makeup bag. ;)

Midnight Sky, a royal blue with a slight shimmer running through it, and Seafoam, a powder blue with a little shimmer of its own. Don't let the depth of that blue intimidate you, it's not nearly as pigmented as it looks like it would be - in fact, of all the colors I've tried in the line, it's one of my personal favorites!

Just for the sake of curiosity, I swatched both with primer and without, to see if it'd make any real difference. This is Midnight sky, the bottom streak is no primer, the top streak is with primer. Fergie for Wet N Wild's "Take On The Day" primer, which if you've been reading a while, you know I'm a big fan of. In this case, it made a little bit of difference, not a lot. This is in natural light, standing by the big window in my living room. I got a little excited yesterday - Michigan got its first sunshine in a while, and I thought I could go outside bare armed. I pretty quickly learned the error of my ways! 

This is Seafoam, and this is also where the benefit of primer becomes a little more obvious. Bottom is primer free, top is with primer. You kind of have to look a little to even tell that there's a bottom swatch, right? And while the top is still awfully delicate, it's much more easily defined.

With fair skin, blonde hair, and blue/green eyes, I'm probably the poster child for "Ooh, child, you should NOT be wearing blue eyeshadow!", but I can totally pull these off, and I love them a lot. You should give them a try!

See you later, beautiful!

The Naked Truth makes a return!

When last we all chatted back in November, I was raving over "The Naked Truth" 5 pan shadow kit from Wet N Wild. (Check it, I really was! Really!) Problem was, that while I showed pictures of me wearing the shadow, I never showed pictures of the actual shadow.

As my opinion never changed (it's a well curated set of colors. They go on nicely, blend well together, and you get decent wear time with them. Wet N Wild sometimes misses the mark, but when they hit it, they really hit it, and they did here), I decided to take a different way, and give you some glamour shots.

The requisite shot of me, in the shadow.

And eyes closed;

And eyes closed, smirking at my wall. And if I can get sidetracked here for a second; that lip color that you see is FLOWER lip butter in Wispy Wisteria. Wal-Mart is closing out some FLOWER makeup right now - mainly, it seems like, because they're changing out some packaging designs, and I snapped up this little guy for $3.50. If you're like me and love to look pretty, without parting with some pretty pennies, a stroll through your Wal-Mart makeup aisle is in order. But I'll speak more to that another day. Back to the matter at hand - 

Swatched on the inside of my arm. The dark line you see at the middle of my arm, from there to the left, that is swatched, with no primer (yes, there are five swatches there). Above the dark line is with primer.

So, no, the pigmentation is not super intense. But...say, if you had a 15 year old who thought they were going to die if they didn't get to own the Naked palette, and you're pretty sure you're going to die if you have to pay for it? This is close enough that no one will know.

My guy!

A matte cream as the "base" shadow, a shimmery pale gold for the "browbone", light brown with a fine glimmer for the "eyelid", copper with a gold glimmer for the crease, and a matte deep brown for the definer. Dig it! :)

I like this shadow set a lot. I'd recommend it to a friend. Oh, look at that, I just did!

Later, gorgeous!

Go, go, Electro!

(From left: Minty Sheer, Pink Shock, Oh! Orange!)

Maybelline Baby Lips and I have a weird relationship. Like, I don't want to admit that I like them...but I also own like 10 of them. So we've apparently got a better than average relationship with each other.

A friend noticed me carrying in my pocket, and asked what they were like, and if she could swatch it on her hand. I said she could, and I made a comparison that was probably more apt than I realized at the time, even. Without thinking, I went "They're like Lip Smackers, for grown ups!"

Think about it - I'm right! Tinted, but not overly so. Flavored, but not overly so. Mostly just a nice, low maintenance gloss, that looks flashy coming out of your pocket, and has completely worn off in about an hour.

Now to be fair, that makes it sounds like I don't like these at all. And I do. Gives a quick, easy, glossy lip. Little color - the color varies a little. Like, in this electro set, the pink and orange have more pigment to them than the green color does. Which might not be what everyone is after, some people would happily rock a neon green gloss all day long. It's not my scene though. :D

I wore this pink a lot over the summer. Bright and kicky, looked nice with a tan.

If you're looking for a low maintence, glossy little kick, that's easy to carry in any pocket or bag that you've got, you'll like these. The biggest critique I see of these is that they're not long lasting - if you're looking for long lasting...keep looking, you haven't found it.

A few swatches;

On the inside of my arm:

Each color, of course, is next to it's respective swatch on my arm, of course. Little bit of pigment - some, not a lot.

Swatches of me in each respective balm. In a moment of girlish insecurity, I had planned to crop these pictures - apparently, new face wash, new primer, new foundation and new makeup brushes make your makeup get weird. Who knew, amirite? But turns out, crops...magnify things. And far away bad things are less awful than close up bad things, as a general rule. See what I mean? Learning new things about blogging every week!

A collage, so I'm not boring you with piles of pictures I've already confessed to not liking. And I'm sure they're just fine, we all know full well we're our own worst critics, but just the same.

At any rate, that's me, from left to right, in Minty Sheer, Pink Shock, and Oh! Orange! Each tinted, glossy, nice. Wears well, but not for a long time - which most of their critics are quick to point out. You know what I think I might like most about these? Coming it at an average price point of $3, they're great for when you need that "new makeup" fix, or your look needs a little pick me up, but don't have a lot of money to spend. Maybe that's part of the friendship we've developed. 

Some stores are closing out their Electro colors, so if you're intrigued enough to try any of these for yourself, you might want to act fast!

The eyeshadow, by the by, is from the Wet N Wild "Comfort Zone" 8 pan shadow kit, which is so awesome, it practically deserves a blog of it's very own.

Like Maybelline? Me too! I talk about it all the time!

Wet N Wild ... Thursday?

Two weeks or so ago now, I posted several nail polish swatches from the Wet N Wild Megalast line of nail polish swatches. I had a little bit of difficulty photographing them, but they looked good on my laptop, and I published them. (See them here.)

I checked out the blog on the computers at the library yesterday, and long story short, I came straight home and reshot all the pictures!

Wet N Wild's nail polishes are free of toluene, pthalate and formaldehyde. They have a wide brush (you can do your whole nail in about three strokes!), and go on smooth and easy. The colors, or the ones I've got experience with thus far anyway, come out really true to what you see in the bottle - so I know that I'm pretty pale, and I'm swatching the polishes on a white nail wheel, but they all come out looking true to the bottle every time.

Wet N Wild promises you five days of chip free color, and that's pretty universally what you get. You might get six if you're lucky, but that's about it. Although of course, having said that, I don't have a job where I use my hands a lot. If you do, you may not get five.

I've gotten the most comments about "Under Your Spell", a nice brownish red with a light glitter running through it. Although I think Heatwave - a bright summery orange - may be my favorite so far.

"Haze of Love", a really pretty deep mauve. When I looked at it, I immediately thought of "Marsala", which was just named Color of the Year (oh yeah, that's a thing...), which makes this color so on trend right now, that it's out of control. If you don't own this, you need it. Sephora is selling Marsala nail colors for between $10 and $20 a bottle. Wet N Wild has your back for $2. Yes! Do this!

"Heatwave", a straight up, no foolin', orange. If you're one who always wants your colors to be seasonally on point, Heatwave isn't your guy now, but remember him come summer! You'll want this one!

"On A Trip", a fantastic, kicky lavender. No glitter, no foolin'. I can see this one being super fun like, in the Spring when you're out hunting for Easter eggs, right?

"Through The Grapevine", a deeper purple. Not as much red to it as "Haze of Love", more of a true purple. It's not quite a marsala, but it's probably close enough that you could fake it. 

"Under Your Spell", a nice red-brown, that has a slight bit of fine glitter running through it. This is the one that I get the most comments on when people see it. I don't know that I think it's the most unique one of the group (I think that honor probably goes to Heatwave, at least so far), but it's quite the eye catcher!

I appreciate the care that Wet N Wild puts in to their packaging. It's an inexpensive line, but their packaging doesn't look it. Look at this;

You could see each of these bottles turn up at any nail salon, and you wouldn't question it. You want a splurge feeling, on a didn't splurge budget? Wet N Wild is your brand!

(Bottles are pictured in order; Haze of Love, Heatwave, On A Trip, Through The Grapevine, Under Your Spell. Unfortunately, the bottle pictures were not reshot)