Wow, I've really been falling back on posts the last couple of months...anyways, here's a quick little update. I bought box of potions what I think was a couple months back, but as I didn't have any imaging programs installed on my netbook, neglected to post my review here of the products in this kit. The Box of Potions retails for $65 and is available only at Sephora. Each item inside this set is full sized, making this a pretty good deal if you wanted to try out the products in this set. Unfortunately, most of the products in here were misses for me.
Pore Perfecting Primer: This one feels like a much thicker, less slick version of Smashbox's primer. It definitely does minimize the appearance of pores though..mine were pretty much invisible after using it. I don't think my foundation slid off at all when I tested this out, though I did find that my Shu brow pencil wouldn't really apply evenly on top of this..Additionally, I got the worst clogged pores from this product, which I still haven't fully resolved after a month and a half and my nightly cleansing ritual involves cleansing oil, washing my face again after, and toner (among other things). I'll stick to my Smashbox primer for now
Brightening: I should have retested this as far as lasting power goes since I wore a different foundation than I did with the Pore Perfecting primer since my powder foundation has never had super great lasting power, but I really didn't notice any brightening effects with this primer, so I left it alone. It's much less heavy feeling than the pore perfecting primer though, and also less thick. My powder foundation did go on smoothly over this, which was nice, but faded within a few hours, as usual.
UDPP: I accidently opened this when I was grabbing for the lash primer in a rush and got the primer instead, but it's got the newer angled wand. This product has been a staple in my makeup routine for 3 years now, and will probably stay one for a long long time.
Lip primer: I'm really impressed with this one. I tried this with one of MAC's Lustre formula lipsticks (Cute-ster) at around 5:20 AM and by 8:30 when I took my first break, there was still some lipstick left on me..although barely. Granted...I wasn't eating or drinking anything really, so I don't know how it really holds up against that, but MAC Lustres usually last like 20 minutes on me, so it's definitely working. It does seem to mattify the lipstick just a tad though. Once the color wears off, you have to wipe off your lips completely and reapply both the primer and the lip color, or the color won't apply evenly. I kind of felt like this left a slight film on my lips, as my lips felt weird after, but I am sensitive to sunscreens so that may have had something to do with it (this product has spf in it)
Lash Primer: I was not impressed with this at all, but I have stick straight asian lashes that point down slightly. This wilted my curl completely and made it ridiculously hard to recurl them after the mascara was on. It did lengthen a bit, but it gave no volume for me...actually I felt like my lashes looked more sparse after for some reason, possibly because it's not real good with separation on me. I have heard of other people liking this product though, so I guess it's one of those things you have to test yourself to decide whether or not you like it. Personally, I tend not to use lash primers anyways, though I have tried a couple, and I'd say there's definitely better primes out there.
All in all, I returned the set, though I did rebuy the lip primer for my MAC lustres. Price wise, it's a great set, but I personally didn't like the products in it. I'd recommend grabbing samples of the face primers in store if you wanted to test them out, but be warned that the pore perfecting primer can clog your pores.
Anyways, that concludes the review portion of today's updates. Here's a few things that will be coming up as updates in no particular order:
-Swatches of NARS Pleasures in Paris palette (Doucers de Paris)
-Swatches and Reviews of Global Goddess products
-Swatches and Reviews of a few Becca products (Demi-matte shadows, a couple of blushes, and bronzers)
-Swatches of theBalm blushes
-Review with some swatch involvement of Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy
-I also finally got around to ordering more Fyrinnae Inks, so I should end up with all of them except Ninja, since I really don't need another black liner
I also need to catch up on some topics I started but never finished, but we'll see how that goes. My free time's been cut into a lot recently, so I haven't really had the time to test and review products, but I'm working on it.
The last palette included in the Eyeshadow book was the Wet/Dry Eyelining palette, which retails for $32. This palette was probably the only disappointment in the book as the colors don't quite apply all that smoothly wet and are somewhat unimpressive to me dry. You can use these as eyeshadows as well, but they're a bit chalky, so I'm not sure any of these will see much use, if any. I swatched each color wet (left) then dry (right) for comparison.
Tahiti is probably my 2nd favorite quad in this palette. It's a nice collection of cute, bright summery colors. It contains a light yellow-green, a green, a teal, and a blue. The yellow-green color is the softest texture-wise in this quad and also has the most shimmer. The texture and shimmer on the other 3 are all around the same level.
Bermuda contains another yellow-green shade, that's more muted than the one in Tahiti, a satiny, neutral brown, a bronzy brown shade, and a orangey copper shade. The texture of this quad is nice, and none of the shades are chalky
I actually loved Shanghai less than I expected I would, considering that it contains my favorite type of e/s color: taupe. This quad contais a frosty white, a shimmery beigey peach, a pink with gold sparkle, and a taupe that pulls purple on my skin. Of the 8 quads in my palette, this one has the softest texture
I accidently deleted the picture of Toronto that I was originally going to use, so when I retook this picture, the sun was close to setting, so the lighting for the picture of the quad itself is very cool toned. Nevertheless, Totonto is a collection of blue-greys and a chalky sparkly black shade. Of the 8 quads, I find that Toronto has the worst texture, with the sparkly black being the chalkiest and the shade to the left of it being the softest.
Baja is a quad that contains 2 bronzes, a peach and a frosty pink shade. On my lids, I can't particularly tell the difference between the two bronzes, but I have small lids. The difference is decently clear in the swatch photo though.
Barcelona is my favorite Cargo quad, with two purples, a blue, and a cool toned green.
I was quite ready to love Vienna, but the bronze in this quad is definitely very very warm. PAst that shade, it also contains a shimmery. warm beige, a darker, peachy beigh, and a shimmery blue with slight grey tones.
Here's the palette opened up in warmish indoor lighting without flash:
Here's another pic of the palette open, but with flash. This palette's so big and my room's lighting is so crappy that it was difficult to take really clear pics of the sucker.
I'm going to split up the swatches into groups because there were over 30 pics in this swatch set overall, which I think is a bit large for 1 post. I'm also splitting it up because both my laptop and netbook are out of commission, so I have no way of uploading new pics for a while. Pics were taken in cool natural indoor lighting for the most part.
The swatches for this palette may look a bit dry and chalky looking, but I assure you that it isn't an issue so much with the eyeshadows as it was with how dry my skin was when I started swatching. The rest of the photos should be fine after this one. The Warm neutral quad contains a light matte beige, a slightly darker, warmer matte beige, a slightly satiny, warm, light brown, and a darker somewhat satiny darker brown. The first two shades pretty much dissapear on my lids since I'm around NC35 or so right now.
The cool neutral palette is my favorite of the 3 it contains a lightly shimmery beige, a fawn color, a matte taupe, and a darker slightly taupey grey. The crease shade in the giant palette pulls a lot more purple than the original though for some reason. Either way though, it's quite nice.
Wow, I've really been falling back on posts the last couple of months...anyways, here's a quick little update. I bought box of potions what I think was a couple months back, but as I didn't have any imaging programs installed on my netbook, neglected to post my review here of the products in this kit. The Box of Potions retails for $65 and is available only at Sephora. Each item inside this set is full sized, making this a pretty good deal if you wanted to try out the products in this set. Unfortunately, most of the products in here were misses for me.