Palette of the Month: Too Faced Natural Matte palette

The eyeshadow palette I've been using this month is the Too Faced Natural Matte palette.  It consists of 9 neutral matte eyeshadows.  The colour payoff is moderate, with minimal fallout and it blends really well. Great as a standalone palette for quick, everyday natural looks for work or for school, or as a complementary palette to balance bolder shades.  It's probably the most fool-proof palette I've ever used, since it's so easy to blend and there is no overly dark or bright colours, so it's suitable even if you are an absolute beginner at applying eye makeup.  Can't really go wrong with this.  The off-white colour on the top left goes on pretty sheer.  I've also been using Sexpresso on the top left as my eyebrow filler. I can't recommend it enough!

Palette of the Month: Tartelette in Bloom

This month's palette is Tartelette in Bloom.  It's one of those cult neutral eyeshadow palettes, and maybe you can guess by now that I am totally nuts for neutral eyeshadow palettes! The eyeshadows smell faintly like some sort of vanilla-chocolate powder, the colour payoff is intense and the texture is soft and blendable, and unlike the Lorac eyeshadows there is not a lot of fallout. The shades range from creamy-white to near black and every neutral shades inbetween. Out of the 12 eyeshadows in this palette, 3 of them are shimmer and the rest are matte, which makes it suitable for everyday use for school or work, yet also has something a bit more dramatic for special events!

I don't know if you can see but I use Charmer and Flower Child the most as base colours, and Activist (middle row, far right) as brow colours). Lid shades vary depending on what I feel like on that day ;).

The eyeshadows are so easy to use that I feel like it's so foolproof, it requires next to no effort for me to figure out what eyeshadows to put on in the morning because everything seems to go together and blend so well.  It's such a pleasure to use that I'm happy to use this every day, and unlike some of the previous POTMs, I don't particularly look forward to the day I am due to move on to the next palette. In fact I would be quite content just using this until I hit pan on everything...maybe!

Palette of the Month: Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette

I didn't want to get this palette for a long time.  It was super hyped up by all those YouTube influencers and beauty gurus touting that this is one of their holy grail neutral/brown palettes, and as someone who loves neutral eyeshadows I didn't entirely agree.  Sure it has lots of browns but it has this one weird pink (which was so off-putting looking and made me not want to get this for a long time), purple and many of the neutral shades can be classified as green or burgundy.

I'm pleasantly surprised how much it's growing on me.  The shades that looked kind of crazy on the palette actually come off very subtle - for example, the large cream coloured eyeshadow and the pink come off very sheer and the green and burgundy looks more neutral brown on the lid.

As for the texture, it's very pigmented and intense and it's not as powdery, so there's not much fallout with this palette. It's a welcome relief since the eyeshadows I used before, like Lorac and Urban Decay eyeshadows are prone to tons of fallout.

HAULS: November 2016

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this month's haul is much bigger than usual. I know I blew a whole lot of money this month. My bank account is crying but but...I just love and want and have to have these eyeshadow palettes! Blame YouTube XD.

OGX Renewing Argan Oil of Morocco Intense Moisturising Treatment

OGX Thick & Full Biotin & Collagen Weightless Healing Oil Treatment - So far I'm very impressed by this. I think the combination of oil & collagen is really good for my hair.

INNISFREE Green Tea Fresh Skin - I was so confused. All this while I thought this was a toner, but this product is called a 'skin'? I heard they're two different products in K-skincare speak. The website uses the term skin and toner interchangeably. Maybe skin is another term for a hydrating toner (the Asian concept of toner), as opposed to the Western cleansing/astringent toner?

 INNISFREE Green Tea Fresh Essence - hydrates and nourishes while controlling sebum.

 INNISFREE Skin Clinic Mask in Peptide and BHA

 INNISFREE The Green Tea Seed Special Kit - a deluxe sample set that I got because they had a promotion which gave out this set if I spent over $50 in a single purchase. It consists of: serum, cream and eye cream.  I'm currently using the eye cream.

INNISFREE Jeju volcanic pore scrub foam

BOURJOIS Contour Edition Lip Pencil in 07 Cherry - I was looking for a dark red lip pencil and I swatched this in store and fell in love with it right away; it was so pigmented, smooth and creamy. Far better than the MAC lip pencil I used to use years ago (I don't use a lot of lip pencils so that's the only point of reference I have).

 

BECCA Ever Matte Poreless Priming Perfector - I was so chuffed that this arrived just in time just as my MUFE mattifying primer is about to run out! Heard amazing things about this, and as it's bought on Black Friday it's a much better value than the MUFE primer as well.

AUSTRALIS Velourlips in Mel-burn - I guess we all need a black lipstick in our collection these days (why oh why weren't they as ubiquitous when I was in my goth days!? HMPH)...but I didn't find it to be black enough so I bought the NYX black lip liner to help with it, which is the next entry:

 NYX Suede Matte Lip Liner in Alien

THE FACE SHOP The Solution Face Masks in Soothing, Hydrating, Nourishing, Brightening and Pore Care.

 

THE FACE SHOP The Therapy First Essence - my mum is a VIP member of The Face Shop and was really selling this to me. She was even kind enough to buy this for me as well. She really convinced me to buy it saying that it's good and putting this on makes everything else go on really smoothly after. This first essence comes with a pack of cotton pads that are embedded with find jade particles that "act as a mild exfoliant to leave to skin clean and refined." Apparently they work synergistically if used together.

THE FACE SHOP The Therapy deluxe sample set - came with the purchase because my mum bought a lot of other stuff too! Set includes, from left to right: first essence, cream and foaming cleanser.

NOW comes the good part! :) My Sephora Black Friday haul!

TOO FACED Natural Matte palette

TOO FACED Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar palette

 KAT VON D Shade & Light Eye Contour palette

URBAN DECAY Naked Ultimate Basics

TARTE Tartelette palette

TARTE Tartelette In Bloom palette

ANASTASIA BEVERLY HILLS Modern Renaissance palette. This isn't from Sephora, and it's my most coveted purchase this month. It was out of stock for a long time and was SO incredibly hard to get. I bought this from a local online shop immediately as I was notified of it being restocked, and in 45 minutes it was out of stock again!

 And here it is all together! :D :D :D Aren't they just SO beautiful? :D

Palette of the Month: Lorac Pro Matte palette

This is the palette I have been using for this month.

It was good!

It's intensely pigmented and easily blendable but at the same time very powdery. As you can see in the picture it kicked up a LOT of powder.

I didn't think I was a very fair person but didn't think that the second fairest shades (Latte and Pink Mauve) would be as dark on me as they are, but they are.  I've been using them as lid shades for this month.

Bare is about the same colour as my skin so it doesn't really show up and Linen isn't as white as I thought - it blends into nothing, like a translucent powder almost.

In my opinion, Corduroy and Chocolate is a bit too similar!

I love it!