Beauty bites: Revlon product haul

Saturday's a really chill day for me, I just had a tumultuous last night that I'm not going into the details of... Let's just say I'm drowning out everyone with Miike Snow "Animal" remixes and The Glitch Mob's "Fortune Days", yeah?

R&R, R&R. Wid sum pizzuh rolls on da side.

HEB had a 40% off all Revlon cosmetics upheaval sale from the later half of February to late March. For all you non-Texan residents, HEB is a brand of grocery distribution stores mainly in western/southwestern/southeastern Texas. It's amazeballs. We all know Walmart ("Evil Empire") sucks and they're trying to remarket themselves as all-American (DO I HEAR AN L-O-L?) but compared to HEB, HEB is like valkyrian Valhalla with classic vanilla ice cream on top. I'm actually not too sure what that's like but it sounds like a great thing so hey. Props to you, Howard E. Butts.
Returning back to the haul: I purchased these goodies maybe... two weeks ago? 

40% off Revlon! I picked up: Revlon's Colorstay Ultimate liquid lipstick in Ultimate Orchid, Revlon's Just Bitten Kissable balm stain in Darling, their Brilliant Strength nail polish in 080 Enchant, their gel-creme liner in Blackest Black, and their ... Colorstay Whipped Creme foundation. Gross.

As you know, I love Stila's Stay All Day liquid-creme lipstick in "beso"... so getting a lovely lilac-mauve shade that complimented my skin and made me seem glowing from within at a cheaper, further discounted price was a big hit for me. I'm wearing the shade in my Blogger/Google+ profile picture at the bottom of the entire blog. The ColorStay Whipped Creme foundation smells like goat cheese and I am not lying cross my heart and swear to die. It oxidizes on your face to a deeper shade - and 150 Buff is the second lightest color they had meaning this selection is not pale-girl-friendly. Even in an all-bases-covered foundation selection, I should be the 4th or 6th color down the line in the lightest of fair-skinned bases.

Oh, and, "I could use this as a bludgeoning weapon" should not be the first thing that crosses your mind when you pick up your foundation. The glass jar packaging was not friendly in any way, working woman or stay-at-home mom or high-schooler-who's-getting-into-makeup or drag queen or guys-who-like-makeup-too REGARDLESS, it was a poor choice on Halle Berry to promote this through their televised ads. And Revlon for actually manufacturing it that way. And why does it smell like goat cheese?

AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON HOW STRANGE AND DIFFICULT THE REVLON GEL-CREME LINER IS. The built-in screw-top-pop-off-two-piece brush combo I don't even like how do I even start just no who is your product development team you should fire them???

Without further ado: The swatches are below!

"Ultimate Orchid", "Darling", and the "Blackest Black" gel-creme liner. I personally think the liner falls short of Maybelline New York's potted gel liner which I've been loyal to for YEARS.

Out of all the drugstore brands up for offer, Milani, Revlon, and Maybelline New York are my true-blue favorites, though Maybelline New York could be thrown out of the running because of its horrible reformulation of its Dream Smooth/Matte line... ick.   
I swear Pantone (the beauty tyranny that thinks it can predict the next "it" color but it kinda doesn't really) didn't persuade me to buy lilac/pink shades that mirror "Radiant Orchid" (are we naming nail polishes or something?). Sternly speaking, purple was a big color way before Pantone ever predicted it. Hello, MAC's "Heroine" was BIG last summer, and the summer before that. Anyways... As a fair-skinned Asian with yellow and pink undertones - code for neutral - I look best in pretty much any color. I just prefer cool-toned hues because they brighten my complexion, like blues, blue-based pinks, purples, lavenders, lilacs, baby pinks, true reds and rubies, emerald greens... 

Another color I wanted was Revlon's "Primrose" Super Lustrous lipstick but I had to forgo that for Ultimate Orchid (which is drying so I do recommend lip balm underneath). What did you guys find worthy of purchasing?

xoxo

Beauty bites: ULTA's 21 Days of Beauty

ULTA comes into my mailbox with in-store events and coupons but surprisingly (at my house we sort the mail according to the recipient) I hadn't seen my ULTA catalog anywhere... so I missed out on ULTA's first 19 days of their 21 Days of Beauty extravaganza.

Yesterday, Too Faced's Sweetheart Blusher was slashed in half to $15 a piece - and I found this out through Tumblr. Tumblr, the land of photoblogs and Etsy store promos and scroll-throughs for hours and hours on end. I love Tumblr. 
Unfortunately, they were sold out of the blushers when I got to the nearest ULTA (Sugarland/First Colony location) yesterday... but Too Faced is pushing out new products (is the season upon us already???)!!!

The only product I feel worth mentioning from Too Faced is the new Melted liquid lipsticks. Think of Stila's Stay On All Day cremes, Kat Von D's Painted Love liquid lipsticks, and Ardency Inn's Lip Vinyls. I swatched all of them on my left fist - which I hope is hygienic enough (pleasepleaseplease if you want to swatch a lip product on your lips, both ULTA and Sephora have applicator wands for lipsticks, glosses, mascaras, and everything you'd ever need).

Too Faced's Melted Liquified Long Wear Lipstick: Melted Nude, Melted Peony, Melted Coral, Melted Violet, Melted Fuchsia, and Melted Ruby.

Swatched straight from the tube product onto my left fist, in the same order as above. The only two that caught my fancy were Melted Violet (which is actually more purple than in the photo) and Melted Fuchsia (which is more electric Barbie pink in real life).

Speaking of electric colors, Urban Decay has a fresh (but probably not NEW new) palette out: The Electric Pressed Pigments Palette! Sorry Urban Decay, but Naked collection with or without, your original colors are pretty conservative and muted. I'm so serious. Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics breaks more "what's comfortable and what's not" color-wear boundaries when it comes to studio-quality makeup. And I like OCC more and more because their cosmetics helped fund a gender reassignment surgery to one of their beloved coworkers!

Urban Decay's Electric Palette as seen for demo at ULTA.

Urban Decay's Naked Basics Double-Ended Pencil in Venus + Crave. The highlighter end reminds me of Benefit's  High Brow Glow but more white-gold than champagne, and the burnt brunette end is perfect PERFECT for my eyebrows (i received the pleasure of being the first person to demo the tester)!

Aside from dogging Urban Decay on their always-have-been-pretty-darn-conservative-if-you-ask-me-its-just-how-they-makeup-their-editorial-photos-really their NAKED collection has got me taken with their dedication to neutrals and nudes. I'm fond of the Naked 3 rose-hues and this eyebrow/eyeliner pencil, which was probably birthed from the popularity of prim-and-proper tamed brows on the streets and catwalks of pretty-much-everywhere. (Personally, back in middle school and the earlier years of high school, which was 2006-2010, girls at my school would overpluck or draw "Sharpie" eyebrows and it was devastatingly hideously not well done and good Lord I was appalled for them.)

So after an hour of playing around... 

The only thing I happily left ULTA with was this super-mega-deluxe-sized Original Mineral Veil (without its neat little box, sadly) for $32+tax. Normally, these babies are $20 for 6g of product - but this is 24g - 4x MORE of everything you could ever want, and I could've paid $80 for four separate accounts of needing a new posh Mineral Veil but nope, all it was was $32+tax. And I even received a marvelous moxie lip gloss in Rebel! Yeah, sometimes the freebies at ULTA beat Sephora.

Mineral Veil gives a soft-focus effect. It's very lovely and feels wonderfully smooth. And the marvelous MOXIE lipgloss in "Rebel" is somewhat of a cool-toned mauve pink, something like a mauveish translucent Melted Peony.

According to ULTA's website, the color of the marvelous MOXIE lipgloss (can we call just start saying LUCIDALABBRA?) is supposed to be in "Maverick" - but hey, "Rebel" suits me just fine... because... I am one? Yeah? Okay.

Today's 21 Days of Beauty Sale is the bareMinerals' Try It. Believe It. Love It. kit that normally retails for $20 and sells for $10 today in-store and online. And... it's all gone. Let me elaborate that I love bareMinerals again. We can blame all the greedy, grubby, nasty people on eBay who bought all of it and are now selling it for a premium off $35+ - why? Just why? It originally costs $20, no one wants to buy your funk... Yeesh. People. Sometimes you want to burn them at the stake, and sometimes... sigh.

xoxo

Target haul! Seasonal merchandise clearance!

A flagrant faux-pas was staring me in the face in one of my pictures: it just occurred to me that my mineral foundation is a touch too dark - it ruins the entire "lit from within" and eternally transient sense of youth I was going for. Sigh. 

With that, I ordered my first bareMinerals foundation (oh, I should mention, though I love bareMinerals I've only ever used the samples they give out like candy to children at JC Penney Sephoras). Even though I love my e.l.f. Studio Powder Brush, I found myself in the market again for something fresh, a new brand to experience and such.

So I headed to Target to begin my quest. And, guessing from what I've seen upon traipsing in like an innocent shopaholic, I guess spring cleaning is infectious over at drugstores and huge chain distributors: almost everything in the beauty aisles are on sale!

Brands in competition such as Revlon, CoverGirl mascaras, L'Oreal, alba botanics, Avalon Organics, Burt's Bees, Boots No. 7, J. R. Watkins apothecary goods, Champneys, pixi cosmetics (mostly seasonal palettes and eyeshadow singles), Almay shadow sticks to name a few (or a lot?!). All on clearance and discounted prices. Vacuum them up before they're gone!

As for me, I had to maneuver and snoop through the shelves to find things that weren't pried open, disturbingly "tested" (some of these brands, like Boots No. 7, have testers out on the floor! Jeezus!), or broken. There was a gorgeous russet red Sonia Kashuk powder blush that was $3 but it was damaged beyond repair (I'm kidding, I just wasn't feeling very MacGyver-y and you could easily fix broken powders in a snap!).

This is what I got!

This was part of a designer notebook set, but still on the shelves. Remember how I have a thing for stationery? Yup. Had to have it. And the sales associate even let me have it at a generously paltry price of $1.60+tax!

From left to right: e.l.f. Studio Flirty Lash Collection kit (x2) at $1.20 each, Iman Luxury Eyeshadow in African Violet at $3.98 (originally $7.99), Maybelline New York Studio eye quad in Luminous Lights at $2.98, e.l.f. Studio Kabuki Face Brush at $6
Sally Hansen insta-Gel Strips in Walk the Catwalk for $2.68, Sonia Kashuk eyeshadow duo in Neutral Ground at $2.68 (originally $8.99)
Sonia Kashuk Eye Definer in Olive Suede at $1.78
Sonia Kashuk Synthetic Pointed Eyeliner Brush at $1.78

This is the aftermath of me waltzing into Target for a buffer brush.
Half of these items were dirt cheap, so even if they fall something short of sub-par (which I would doubt because I believe that Target has great beauty collaborations, and I heard from an insider that they'll be receiving shipments of more luxe items too!) I wouldn't have really taken a hit financially - but more me gaining insight and experience on a positive note. 

I'll be swatching the eyeshadows later, but for now my lovelies, I'm gonna catch some ZZZs!

xoxo