Christmas Gift

Hello hello!

For Christmas, my family and I did a secret santa draw. We have so many adults in our family that it was starting to get expensive. Well, this year, my lovely little sister Mary drew me and got me the Coastal Scents 88 Matte Color. OMG...I was so surprised. I was actually going to get it too but I chose the 88 Warm first.

Today, I decided to play around with some colors and was inspired by the vibrant colors. Since I usually always do a purple/pink/red/brown/black -ish look, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and decided to throw in some blues, yellows, and greens. To my surprise, it came out very very nicely. Take a look:

In this particular look, I used an eye pencil from NYX (in MILK) and used that as a base. Next I patted the bright green all over the bottom part of my lid. I then too a clean brush and blended the color into the MILK base to get rid of the harsh line. Next, I took a crease brush and dabbed it into the sparkling turquoise blue and created a light outer v and blended that three quarters of the way into my inner eye area. Next, blend, blend, blend...next, I took a fluffy blush and dabbed it into the yellow-mustardish color and filled in where my inner corners are and lightly under the brow. Next, I took L'Oreal's Extra Intense Liquid Eyeliner Pencil (my absolute fave by the way) and lined my water line both top and bottom. Next, I took a smaller crease brush and went back into the blue and lightly patted it onto my lash line. For the lips and cheeks, I chose to go with a natural peachy color to not take away from the dramatic eyes. Voila! All done...

Next up, I decided to go for more of a traditional, brown/black look. I have to say that knowing how to do one of these is essential to every girl. I want to compare it to a smoky eye, but I don't think it really was. Plus, I decided to do this one Malissa-style. Malissa is my little sister and she always applies her eyeshadow using her fingers. I did a look inspired by her a long time ago and it came out very nice. Although, I prefer using brushes, once in awhile, I will apply my makeup like she does. Today...this was one of them. I took the sprakling brown from ELF's Neutral Book of Shadows and patted that all over my eye and about 3/4 up towards the brow. Next, I took the color Creep from Urban Decay's Naked Palette and dabbed it on top of the brown. Next, (after cleaning my fingers) I lightly blended the lines to get rid of the harshness and then lined my water lines (top and bottom) with L'Oreal's Extra Intense Liquid Eyeliner Pencil. A coat of mascara and light bronzer on the cheeks pulls off the look in full.

Please excuse my eyebrows, they were overtweezed and I'm trying to grow them out so that I can go to the Brow Bar. My brows take FOREVER to grow back and it's very very difficult for me to just let them go but I am trying....any suggestions, let me know! :D

Have a great New Year's Day!!!!

Naked vs. 88 Warm

I love neutral and smokey eye looks. I think those two are the quintessential looks that every chica needs to know how to do CORRECTLY on their own eyelids. I, myself, have monolids, Some people have hooded lids, and others have creases, small, medium, and large. Regardless, it is important that each of us know and learn the technique to best accentuate our eyes. But in order to pull of that look, one must have the tools to do so. I am just going to cover ONE of those many tools: the eyeshadow. What's more perfect than these two palettes to do so? Urban Decay's Naked Palette vs. the 88 Warm Palette.

 vs.

First, let's start off with the Naked palette. The consistency and the pigmentation of the colors from this palette are incredible. I don't know why that comes as a surprise to me since it is an Urban Decay product. In my experience, I've found that UD's eyeshadows are EXTREMELY pigmented, however, some of them have way too much glitter and sparkle to the point where I can't even tap the color onto my lids and not have glitter all over my cheek. I don't really have that problem with this palette. Granted, there is still glitter falling to my cheek, but not as excessive as some of their other eyeshadows. The range of different colors in this palette allows the user to create lots and lots of different looks. One of my favorite shades is Hustle. I'm not sure if you can tell, but it has a purple undertone to it that comes out really effectively. Creep is their black shade and it has some sparkle to it, but it is still "matte" enough that you can pull off a dramatic smokey eye. Virgin is great as a highlighter shade and also to use around the inner ducts of your eyes for that extra "POP". 

In addition to the eyeshadows, the palette comes with a smaller tube of the Eyeshadow Primer Potion and a double ended 24/7 Glide On eyeliner in Zero (black) and Whiskey (dark brown). These two (or three, however you want to consider it) additional products are excellent! I LOOOOVVVEEEE the eyeliner pencil and LOOOVVVEEE how the black comes out. The quality of these are perfect! It is extremely creamy, smooth, and really does glide on very easily. There's nothing I hate more than an eyeliner where I have to really push into my sensitive eye skin just get a little bit of color to it.  I love how great it is to even do a little smudge just to soften it out but if you want that sharp line, it can pull that off just as easily. I don't usually wear anything but black eyeliner, but I'm really starting to enjoy the look of the brown eyeliner on me, which makes me want to experiment with other colors...hmm...another blog post for another day LOL

Okay, moving onto the 88 Warm palette...I was very excited about receiving this, and was THRILLED when I finally got it, but upon opening it up, I was slightly disappointed. Don't get me wrong, I still love the palette, but the shape of each color was soo tiny. I know, it does say dime size, but c'mon....Anyhoo, moving onto the colors, I swatched a couple of them on my fingers and I wasn't too impressed with the pigmentation. It worked well, but compared to other drugstore brands such as L'Oreal, or CoverGirl, it just didn't seem to "sparkle" enough for me. I do love the quantity of this palette though, and the WIDE range of colors. This palette has all the neutral and expected brown, gold, light brown, black, and gray shades, but it actually comes with some very nice purple, mauve, and even green shades! The greens don't come out as well on the pictures, but they are a very pretty, light green color with shimmer that I am absolutely going to try.

I used this palette quite often the first week I got it, just to challenge myself to use it everyday, and it worked out well. Of course, you really do have to use an eyeshadow primer with these colors, but overall, not too bad. One look that I was able to do that I enjoyed (as well as others around me) was the neutral eye look. Sometimes I am guilty of just overdoing my eyeshadow makeup but one day, I just played around with all the matte colors and was able to pull off a look where it looked like I hardly had ANY makeup on and still looked good. For me, that was surprising. For just a couple of dollars, this palette is worth it's price. I still plan on using it often and am going to challenge myself to use the other colors in the palette such as the greens, purples, etc. 

Okay, so for the final comparison, I'm gonna have to give it to Urban Decay. I really believe it is worth the money and the wait. The colors are amazing, the pigmentation stands out, and the quality of the product overshadows the 88 Palette. Not to mention the packaging of the Naked Palette is superb. I'm sure that UD is banking on this one, and they sure do need to hurry and produce more so that everyone else can get one. 

Below is the test run that I did to compare these two palettes.  I used four colors to do a brown smoky eye look from the Naked Palette and then on my other eye, used similar colors from the 88 Warm palette. It is a close match, so if you're tired of waiting or don't want to spend the money, you can still do other looks using the 88 Warm. Hope you enjoyed this blog and COME BACK SOON!! 

I used both palettes on my eyes and I'm not sure if you can tell the difference in these pictures but the pigmentation from the Naked Palette does stand out more than the 88 Warm Palette's. 

Right eye using 88 Warm

Left Eye using Naked Palette