Kat von D Shadeshifter Review-Love Letter (with swatches)

Loveletter in the box. The image shows the color on.

Kat von D's Shadeshifter eyeshadows are described as duochrome shadows meant to be used wet. There are three shades in the series besides Love Letter: On the Road (Green-brown), Devotion (gold-copper), and Stockholm (blue-purple). This series is limited edition according to the Sephora website (this seems to be supported by the fact that one of the shades is out of stock and two are no longer listed). This shadow is a Sephora exclusive.

Teianna's Swatches of The Chocolate Bar Palette

So Lotus left her Chocolate Bar palette at my house, and I finally got the chance to swatch it. My phone camera is the quality of a potato, so as always, I apologize.

National Lipstick Day!

Since it's National Lipstick Day, I figured I'd swatch all my lipsticks for yall. Brand and color from top to bottom according to the pictures.

Maui Film Festival FOTD

Teianna and I attended the Maui Film Festival on Saturday. It was a pretty good experience, in my opinion. If you like that sort of thing, I would definitely recommend it.

I just did a pretty simple peachy-coral look. Nothing too intense. 

Review: Estee Lauder Pure Color Long Lasting Lipstick

L-R: Candy, Melon

I got these two lipsticks as part of a gift with purchase from the Estee Lauder counter at my local Macy's. It was really nice, I got these two full-sized lipsticks, a large pink detangling comb, a Lilly Pulitzer tote, mini of Sumptuous Bold Volume Lifting Mascara, 0.5 oz mini of Resilience Lift Firming/Sculpting Face and Neck Creme, and a 1 oz mini of Perfectly Clean Multi-Action Foam Cleanser/Purifying Mask with the purchase of a bottle of Doublewear foundation (which I'll review on a later post). Not bad for the purchase of one item. If my math is correct, it's a little more than $80 in value, not counting the comb and tote.

What's In My Make Up Bag?

So I just did a thing for my friend where you empty the contents of your purse and photograph it. After doing so, I thought that since I haven't posted in a while, I should do a make up bag version of it for y'all.

I have all of my make up bags in the (folded up) coach reusable shopping bag. So, let's dump it out and take a gander, shall we?

NOTE: I couldn't find every single product that I have for the lists, but I tried my best. I also tried to link to the shade that I use.

Tutorial: Fairy Gothmother

Is it too early to be planning for Halloween?

I think that red would have been even better than orange, but I have yet to acquire a red eyeshadow, unfortunately.

L'Oreal True Match Foundation Review+FOTD

Today's review is for L'Oreal True Match foundation in W7 Caramel Beige. This foundation line runs in three different undertones: warm (W), cool (C), and Neutral (N). The depths of the shades are numbered from 1-10, with 10 being the deepest. If you go somewhere like Wal-Mart, however, they may not carry every shade.

According to the L'Oreal website, this is an oil-free light-to-medium coverage foundation with a natural finish. Some shades are SPF 17, but some do not have SPF, so be sure to check your bottle if that's a concern.

Why can't I get my eyes to look like the tutorial?

Skip to TL;DR because I talk too much.

I used to ask this question all the time. Every time I tried an eye makeup tutorial, it was a hot mess. Following tutorials basically went like this:

"Place the eyelid color on your eyelid, up to the crease."

Uh...okay. I'll put it on this half-centimeter strip of skin I guess.

"Place the crease color into your crease and along the lashline, into a v-shape."

...I assume it's the tiny line there? But I can't see anything when I open my eyes. What's the point of this? 

"Place the highlight shade all over your browbone."

Wait. This whole massive section has to have a highlight? I thought a highlight was supposed to be subtle? 

Merging Eyeliner Trends

I didn't go out today, so I figured I'd just do a little something real quick for the blog. 

 A+ for tacky mirror shots

My Collection May 2014: Eyeshadow Palettes

I've got a decent collection of drugstore and mid-end eyeshadow palettes, so I think it's time for some mini-reviews of all of them. I may do full reviews later. These are just quick and dirty overviews, so none of my own photos.

Drugstore
Wet n Wild
738 Comfort Zone: one of their eight-pan palettes. I bought mine probably around two years ago. It's fairly well-traveled. The definer shade in the bottom right corner is a dupe for MAC Club/Blue Brown pigment. On my skin, both browbone shades look the same. The crease color on the right side and the definer color on the left look the same on me (black with glittery bits).

 736 Petal Pusher: another eight-pan palette. Based on purples. The browbone shade on the left is interesting, it has a duochrome effect to it. I don't know if Wet n Wild reformulated their shadows, but I bought this in March and it is nowhere as buttery and pigmented as my Comfort Zone palette.

737A Poster Child: yet another eight-pan palette. Matte brights. I bought this when I bought my Petal Pusher palette. I have the same complaints about it. There was so much potential...squandered because it is neither pigmented enough nor as easy and pleasurable to apply as Comfort Zone.

To Beginnings

It wasn't until I was midway through my first semester of college that I got the guts to actually wear makeup in public. I'd played with it before, yeah, alone at 3am in the dim, jaundiced light of the bathroom in my house. I grew up in a very anti-enhancement household—no haircolor, no piercings, no tattoos, no makeup.

The first time I wore makeup and didn't wash it off immediately, all I did was fill in my eyebrows and wear winged liner, with a little mascara on my top lashes. And it was terrifying, because I was afraid of it smudging all over, of looking stupid, of being judged and ridiculed. But it turned out okay. The world didn't end, and no one made fun of me.

Not bad for a first attempt at wings, eh?

Dinner Date with Lotus

I just got this lipstick a few days ago, and am in LOVE! Decided to throw a little purple in my eye makeup to match it.

Kat von D Monarch palette review (with swatches)

Kat von D Monarch palette ($46)

I have done a less thorough review of this before. Click here for an older album with swatches on a sunnier day.

SKIP TO: color descriptions | texture descriptions | swatches | comparison with Ladybird

I was really excited when I saw this palette because I have the Ladybird palette, and I love it to death (I'll do a review later). As far as I've seen, most of Kat von D's products are pretty consistently high quality. The Monarch palette has a sister palette, the Chrysalis palette, which is quite cool and has some lovely purples and blues. I was also really tempted to buy the Chrysalis palette, but didn't because a) I didn't have that much money and b)I would probably only ever use the purples and maybe a couple of the more neutral colors, because the colors don't suit me as well. For me, the Chrysalis palette would be more of an accent palette and not really something I'd wear on its own. 

But seriously, I was so excited for this that when I heard it was coming out, I tried to take the bus to swatch it at my nearest Sephora, because the internet lied to me and told me they had it. Unfortunately, a bus ride, a train ride, and a walk later, I was informed that neither Chrysalis nor Monarch was in stock. These two palettes, as with all of Kat von D's cosmetics, are Sephora exclusives.

Basic Face Product List

So I (Teianna-Lei) use these products every day. 

With the exception of the Naked palette, assume at all times this is what has been used, in the order that they appear. This is the end result.

Foundation: Bobbi Brown Natural 4

Basic Face

For my first post, I might as well let yall know what my basic go-to face is. Excuse the derp faces. The product list and explanation can be found here.

~Teianna-Lei