Monthly Archives

June 2015

HAUL! Coastal Scents Eyeshadow Hot Pots

A few weeks ago, Coastal Scents was having a great sale and I went a little crazy! All of their eye shadow hot pots were only $0.99 each and I couldn’t resist. I nearly walked away with one in every color, but I restrained myself and only purchased some warm shimmery shades perfect for summer. Want to know which ones I grabbed? Read on!

I was so stoked when I saw on Instagram that Coastal Scents had restocked all their shadows and they were having a sale to boot! The company often has some pretty awesome deals, but most of the time nearly all their eye shadows are always sold out. So this was a huge win for me and I immediately went to order #alldashadows.

I ended up *only* getting 16 shadows and in total, I spent $20 including shipping. This is a great deal on shadows! To compare, I could get 2 MAC shadows, and 3 Makeup Geek shadows for this same price. I’d say 16 beats 2-3, what about you?

I know what you are thinking: “But how do these compare quality wise?”

I’d say these were pretty good! Not stellar, but totally worth $1. My budget shadow go-to’s are typically from Morphe Brushes. Their single shadows are only $2, but their shipping is a flat rate of $8 anywhere in the US and that’s what normally kills the sale for me. I rarely order from their website. Shipping for Coastal Scents was around $4 to Georgia, but it varies depending on your location.

I wouldn’t say these were even Morphe quality, but I maybe something similar to Wet ‘N Wild. You definitely need a primer and there will be some fallout. But the color are gorgeous and (as I will keep repeating) you can’t beat the price tag! The shadow pans are also the same size as a MAC or a Makeup Geek shadow.

On this go round, I purchased all shimmery, warm colors. I’ll probably grab some deeper mattes in the fall, but these will do for now. I was able to swatch the colors without primer on my arm and they did fine. However, when I went to put the colors on my eyelid, I needed the primer. The colors didn’t have the same vibrancy on the darker skin color of my eyelid that they had on the smooth area of skin I swatched on my arm. I use the HD primer from NYX for nearly all my eye looks so this wasn’t a turn off for me.

My Order:

Frosty Taupe
Chocolate Berry
Cherry Chocolate
Copper Pot
Dark Golden Olive
Lava
Bright Copper
Amber Bronze
Raisin Berry
Watermelon
Light Bronze
New Penny
Deep Cantaloupe
18 Karat Gold
Mauve Frost
Light Apricot
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R-L: Mauve Frost, Watermelon, Bright Copper, Lava, Raisin Berry, Chocolate Berry, Cherry Chocolate

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L-R: Light Apricot, Light Bronze, New Penny, Amber Bronze, Frosty Taupe

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L-R: Dark Golden Olive, Golden Lemon (MAC Pigment), 18 Karat Gold, Deep Cantaloupe, Copper Pot

Review: Babydoll Beauty Cosmetics Ultimate Highlighter Bundle

When I opened up this package, I was the happiest person on the planet at that moment. I knew immediately that I was going to be glowing from ear to ear for the rest of year with these six beautiful highlighters that I purchased from Babydoll Beauty Cosmetics. With names like ‘Luxurious’ and ‘Mermaid Skin’, this had to be a good buy, right? Will the pros outweigh the cons? Find out below!

It’s no secret that I am constantly on Instagram scouring the makeup pages looking for amazing looks, products, and beauty fans! I came across Jess G.’s page a few months ago and fell in love with her brand immediately. She (all by herself) makes some of the most popular indie highlighters on the market through her company, Babydoll Beauty Cosmetics. She began months and months ago when there were very few people coming out with their own makeup brands and using social media to push products into the hands of consumers. I truly admire the work she has put into her company and wish her the best as she plans to expand her cosmetics line in the future. I should also mention that a portion of her profits go to R.A.I.N.N (Rape Abuse Incest National Network) to help women affected by sexual violence.

When I first decided I was going to purchase these babies in February, Babydoll Beauty had put all new business on hold. Jess was trying to fulfill orders and had become backlogged with work and stated she would not reopen her online shop to new orders until all existing orders were fulfilled. So I waited patiently until April when the shop was finally reopened and I ordered the bundle within an hour of the shop’s grand reopening announcement.

I tell you all of this back story so you can really understand that when I say it took a looonnnggg time for my package to come, it took a looonnngggggg time. Jess was very upfront on her Instagram account saying that orders would not begin to ship for at least two weeks after purchase.

However, my order did not arrive for nearly six weeks.

I understand that Jess is a one-woman crew and that she is trying to balance a lot, but hell, we are all trying to balance a lot! At the beginning of the third week of waiting, I emailed Jess at her business email address requesting an update on my order. No response. At the beginning of the fourth week, I took to her Instagram page (which she is very active on promoting products and what not) with the hope that she would see my comment on a recent picture asking her to respond to my email. At the beginning of the fifth week, I received an email from her personal email address with a tracking number and not much else. No “sorry for the delay” or anything like that.

I wasn’t and still am not an ‘angry’ customer. I understand that things happen and sometimes a little extra time is needed. However, small business (and large business) need to remain transparent with their customers AT ALL TIMES. If things aren’t going as planned, send a professional email update just to let people know you haven’t run away with their money. All I wanted was a little security that someone was working on my order and that my money wasn’t floating in cyberspace. Even if you run a business that is primarily advertised via social media, sometimes a post on social media about a serious issue isn’t the best response.

I’m writing this all as a big disclaimer if you do decide to order from Babydoll Beauty in the future. I believe Jess is still backlogged, but working diligently to fulfill orders. I wasn’t scammed or anything, the proper communication just wasn’t there and most likely won’t be there until Jess gets some help building the empire of her dreams.

Now on to the ACTUAL review of the products I ordered!

These colors are absolutely beautiful! I purchased the loose highlighters that come in 20g jars. The jars include a sifter, but I found it a little hard to get the product out with the sifter so I just popped it off to get closer to the product.

Three of the colors (Gold Digger, Luxourious, and J-Glow) look very similar on my skin. I would say that J-Glow has most bronze flecks in it, Luxurious is a pale gold, and Gold Digger is a true gold. My favorite of the three is J-Glow because the bronze blends smoothly with my skin allowing me to pack on as little of as much as I like without it getting too bright.

My favorite from the bundle is pink diamond. As you can see in the picture, it has some gold reflects to it making it one of the most unique highlighting colors I own. I have plans to pair this with my MAC ‘Love Thing’ blush and I know it will be breathtaking.

So was the whole ordeal worth it? While I was very pleased with the products I ordered, I probably could find the colors somewhere else with a shorter processing and ship time. I do love to support small business owners, but in this case, I would rather be safe than sorry. I may order from the company again in the future maybe after they grow a bit more. Happy shopping makeup lovers!

Review: ColourPop Cosmetics x CoffeeBreakWithDani ‘Metamorphosis’ Eye Quad

As a self-proclaimed ColourPop fanatic, of course I was going to buy this quad from one of my fav vloggers! You guys should know me well enough by now to know that I purchased this the second it released. This quad contained one matte finish eyeshadow, one satin, and two with a  sheer opal finish, a new finish for ColourPop, that is similar to a duochrome finish from MAC or Kat Von D. What did I think? Keep reading!

I’m so glad we have established that this purchase was a no-brainer! I hope you guys felt the same way! If you haven’t seen any of Dani’s YouTube videos, you should definitely check out her channel. Dani is one of the most interesting vloggers that I watch because she isn’t a pro makeup artist and instead, chooses to review products for you in an awesome way! Her style is very “if I knew you in real life, we would be besties4lyfe” kind of way. She’s very personable and has definitely gained my trust from her honest first impressions and detailed reviews.

While Dani has collaborated with ColourPop before on a lippie stix and pencil, this is her first eye shadow collab with the brand. The quad has a much deeper meaning than most of the collabs released by bloggers today. The name of the quad (‘Metamorphosis’) and the names of the individual shadows (‘Kindness’, ‘Hope’, ‘Strength’, ‘Bravery’) aren’t typical of eyeshadows currently on the market. Most of the time I expect a name like ‘Super Orgasm’ from NARS or ‘Sin’ or ‘Virgin’ from Urban Decay .. something a little raunchier than ‘Kindness’.

But the names made me curious about the naming process and production process in general, which led me to Dani’s explanation that she hoped these shadows would encourage consumers to ‘be the change’ they wanted to see in the world. To use the names of the shadow to spur a similar action from the user. Dani wants us to be strong in the face of adversity, be brave when venturing into the unknown, be kind to yourself and others, and hope that everyone else would do the same. Now if you watch Dani’s channel, this detailed though process shouldn’t come as a surprise. If you haven’t seen any of Dani’s videos, this is classic Coffee Break lingo.

Now on to the review of the individual shadows! I was most excited to try out the new sheer opal finish shadows. The swatches provided by ColourPop on their website made these colors out to be duochromes similar to the finish you would get from a MAC ‘Blue Brown’ pigment or a Kat Von D ‘On The Road’ Shape Shifting eye shadow. When I popped these open and finally stuck my finger in for a swatch, I could immediately tell that the product wasn’t as gelled together as the original formula satin finish shadows. The product immediately started flaking as soon as I swatched my finger across my arm. You can see in the picture how the swatch of ‘Kindness’ isn’t as clean as the swatch of Bravery or Strength. ‘Hope’ did a bit better, but the product was still much harder to control than the matte or satin finish colors.

Since sheer opal is a new finish for ColourPop, I don’t have any other shadows in this finish to compare to the one’s in the Metamorphosis quad. This might be just a batch problem or ColourPop could still be working out the kinks in the formula. I remember when they introduced the matte formula, some of the matte shades were quite a bit drier than the satin finish shades, but ColourPop has since made changes to the formula and now they are of the same quality. I’m hoping that they will continue to work on their sheer opal formula before they release any more colors.

Once I had these colors swatched, a few possible dupes came to mind and I went ahead and photographed them. I found out that I don’t have anything similar to ‘Kindness’ even though I own several red/green duochromes. ‘Castor Gray’ is from the Sephora + Pantone Universe Facets of Marsala Limited Edition Palette (read my review). ‘Pay Dirt’ is from Ultimo Cosmetics (read my review). ‘Blue Brown’ is from MAC Cosmetics.

Surprisingly, I found that I had a dupe for ‘Hope’ and it was another ColourPop goodie! The Super Shock Cheek Peralized shade ‘Monster’ would be identical to ‘Hope’ with just a few more layers. Two layers of each shade seen in my swatch above.

‘Bravery’ and ‘Strength’ were exactly what I expected from ColourPop. Both are reliable transition and highlighting shades that can be worn a variety of ways. I expect to get quite a bit of use out of ‘Bravery’ this summer because it is the perfect transition shade for my dark skin. I’m a big fan of ‘Mittens’ in the winter, and this is a tad bit lighter – perfect for the current weather here in Atlanta.

If you guys have any more questions about the colors or the quad in general, let me know in the comments below and I will get back to you!

Review: MAC Cosmetics The Matte Lip Collection – Stone, Whirl, Men Love Mystery

This was probably the most popular non-special packaging collection MAC released this year because you can’t get enough of a good matte lip! Interested in how these babies perform? I’ve got the rundown of three of the most hotly anticipated shades below!

Last week, MAC released a ton of new matte lipstick shades! There were 22 shades in The Matte Lip Collection with a mix of re-promoted shades from their existing permanent line, limited edition colors making a comeback, and a handful of brand new colors. All these colors will now be added to the permanent line so there isn’t too much of a rush to buy any right away (unless you are a makeup junkie like me).

Since the announcement of this collection, all eyes went immediately to two shades: Whirl and Stone. Both shades were initially sold as lip liners and were sold out everywhere largely in part to Kylie Jenner’s love of the overlined, 90’s brown lip color trend. Upon hearing these colors were now being made into a lipstick, lipstick lovers shrieked with delight!

Another shade that stirred up some talk was Men Love Mystery, a gorgeous lavender violet color. After the success of Dodgy Girl and Lavender Jade, two limited edition lavenders released in 2014 and 2015 respectively, MAC was long overdue for a lavender permanent addition to complement Heroine and Up The Amp in this color range.

The big question is, how do these perform? So far, I’m a fan!

I also have the accompanying lip pencils for Whirl and Stone and was very impressed at how close the lipstick colors match the pencil. Sometimes, I don’t want the dry feeling of the pencil all over my lips, but I still want the color. I will now have a creamy matte lipstick option on those days. The lipstick formula doesn’t seem any different than the pre-exisiting permanent colors. The standard vanilla lipstick scent is there, the bullet is there, I’m a happy camper.

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Men Love Mystery, Stone, Whirl
(NC50 Skin)