Benefit Bright Lights, Big City Set

It's been really overcast and gloomy here the past few days so I haven't particularly been swatching anything (though I do have some lip swatches I'll post later) so today's post is more of a review post than a swatch post. I absolutely adore my "That Gal" primer, so when these Benefit sets went on sale at Sephora for $35, I picked one up. The set contains 3 full sized products ("That Gal" (retail $28), eye bright (retail $20), and BADgal Blue Mascara (retail $19)) and a cute little mirror with a really nice magnifying side and a regular side.
Anyways, on to the products themselves;

"That Gal" is a peachy pink primer that helps brighten your complexion. The tube that I got in this set is a backup for the one I picked up during the Friends and Family sale back in October, but I am currently on my 2nd tube of this stuff and I absolutely love it. Oddly enough though, in the 1 year that I've had this product I've never once used it under a foundation even though it's a foundation primer. Instead, I've used it mixed with Benefit's Some Kinda Gorgeous to make a nice tinted moisturizer (which isn't too bad, but when I applied it myself it didn't wow me like when the SA did it). Instead, what I love it most for is for a quick fix. My skin isn't too awful, but when I had to continuously wake up at 4 am and be out the door by 5 am for work, I generally wasn't awake enough to apply a full face of makeup, and my complexion was suffering a bit from it. It also didn't help that whatever lit parts of my workplace were lit by bad flourescent lights (the evil kind that makes everyone look more zombielike than they already did..honestly...my lips looked a little purpley and corpselike in that lighting..though part of it may have been due to poor circulation in the mornings) Anyways, one day, I reached for this stuff in my stash and was pleasantly surprised that I could get away with just using this primer with some concealer to cover up scarring and a light dusting of powder on top to set my concealer and be good to go for the day. I actually think it controls oil just a bit too..so no complaints there. It's also got a delightful grape scent to it that fades away quickly.

Eyebright is a light pink pencil with some shimmer to it. The instructions on the back of the box say to apply this product to the inner and outer corners of the eyes and blend lightly. Maybe I'm not doing this right, but it just sort of shows up light and pink on my skin...it does brighten a bit, but the light pinkiness is fairly apparent to me on its own. I lucked out genetically and have barely visible dark circles under my eyes, so I'm not particularly sure how this would work on those. A friend of mine loves this stuff though, so maybe it has some effect on them. She is also a lot lighter skinned than I am so it's possible that it looks better on lighter skin as well. On the flipside, I really like Smashbox's Photo Op, which is a bit darker and more golden, to brighten under the eyes while she hates it so it might really be a skintone thing. The consistency of this is soft and easy to apply; there's no tugging from this whatsoever so that's a plus at least.

BADgal Blue is a blue mascara with a fat brush. It's got a fairly dry formula, but it's not really a bad mascara; it lengthens and thickens nicely, but unfortunately I don't really see any blue on my lashes and it won't hold my curl (I was bless with short, stick straight asian lashes that point downwards, so a waterproof mascara is necessary to hold my curl) so this mascara isn't really for me..but it's definitely a nice mascara if you like drier formulas.

I attempted to swatch the primer and the eyebright, but since the lighting in my room is warm, both turned out peach instead of pink...oh well