Sleek Pomegranate Blush

I recently had the opportunity to do a swap with BeautybyJJ in the U.K.  The last swap that we did, I had received some Sleek products and was really impressed.  So I requested some more.  Among the items she sent me was Sleek's Pomegranate blush.  It is a lovely raspberry color with a shimmer finish.  And by shimmer, I don't mean glittery.  It just gives off a nice sheen to where a separate highlighter is not needed.  The staying power is normal, lasting about 6 hours on my oily skin before starting to fade.  And it is highly pigmented so a lite hand is recommended.  As you know Sleek is very inexpensive with this blush costing $6.99.  I highly recommend their products!

Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blush

Natural Beauty, Tipsy

I heard the hype surrounding the Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour blushes and had to try them.  12 hours of wear, sign me up!  This blush claims to hydrate dry skin, remove surface oil to mattify skin, and improve the appearance of skin clarity and texture.

I have to two colors, Natural Beauty and Tipsy.  Natural Beauty is a gorgeous strawberry red and Tipsy is a lovely coral.  Natural Beauty is matte and Tipsy is satin.

Natural Beauty, Tipsy

I love these blushes!  They are highly pigmented!  They are a little powdery, but that doesn't bother me.  I don't know about 12 hours but these lasted a good 10 hours.  I normally get oily on my cheeks half way through the day.  With this blush, I didn't notice that happening.  It didn't fade throughout the day like some blushes have a tendency to do.  As far as improving the appearance of my skin, I'm not sure about that.  I guess time will tell.

I really like these blushes but wish they would expand their color range as most of the colors are not unique.  These two colors were the only ones that I didn't have something similar to in my collection.  These retail for $25 and can be found at Sephora, Ulta, and tarte.com.

Sleek Makeup Blush In Sahara

Some months back, I did a swap with one of my favorite UK beauty gurus on YouTube, Jennie of BeautybyJJ.  As part of the swap, Jennie sent me this blush from Sleek Makeup in Sahara.  Sleek Makeup is a drugstore brand in the UK.  It produces high quality products.  Sahara is a beautiful burnt orange.   It is similar to NARS Taj Mahal but lacks the beautiful gold pearl that makes Taj Mahal so special.  The pigmentation is nice, though it is not crazy pigmented.  You can really build up the color depending on how deep you want to wear it.  This was one of two blushes that I took on the cruise and it looks phenomenal on tan skin.

The best part of this blush is that it is only $6.50 for 8 grams of product!  Us Americans can purchase products from Sleek from their website www.sleekmakeup.com but be prepared to pay at least $10+ in shipping costs.  Jennie and I have another swap planned soon, so I will definitely be asking for more Sleek products.

Another NARS Blush...

I went ahead and placed a teeny tiny NARS order to take advantage of the 20% off promotion.  I actually got two blushes but will show you just one on this post.  I got the infamous Exhibit A.  I'd read several blogs stating this was a MUST for women of color and I totally agree.  However, I think this is a MUST for all women of ANY color!  It is a beautiful orange based red with a matte finish.  And boy is it pigmented!  A light hand is needed even if you are of the darkest skin tone.

 

I wore it today and it gives the most natural looking flush.  I highly recommend this blush to every woman who wears blush!

Exhibit A is available wherever NARS is sold.  Their blushes retail for $27 but if you hurry, you can get 20% off with code NEWNARS through today with free 2 day shipping!

NARS Wild At Heart 15th Anniversary Palette

The NARS Wild at Heart palette was released in conjunction with their 15th anniversary.  It contains four eye shadows, three lipsticks, one lip lacquer, one blush, and one cream bronzer.  It's a good way to try a lot of NARS products without paying full price for all of the products.

The quality of NARS products are unmatched.  Especially when it comes to their pigmentation.  We already know they have highly pigmented blushes.  Their eye shadows and lipsticks are no different.

Pandora, Ashes to Ashes, Alhambra, Abyssinia

Eye shadows:

Abyssinia-is a beige with a satin finish.  Lovely has a highlight.

Alhambra-is a champagne color with a satin finish.  Great as an all over lid color.

Ashes to Ashes-is medium taupe color with a hint of purple.  Also great as a lid color and a can be used as a crease color as well.

Pandora-is a matte black.  Great to deepen the crease or to use as a liner.

Orgasm, South Beach

Blush:

Orgasm-their most famous color, a lovely peachy pink that is supposed to resemble the color you flush during its name sake.

Bronzer:

South Beach-a lovely golden bronze.  I use it as a cheekbone highlight. Gorgeous!

Baby Doll, Red Lizard, Manhunt, Fire Down Below

Lips:

Baby Doll-a bubble gum pink lip lacquer, similar to a gloss.

Red Lizard-a blue based matte red lipstick.

Manhunt-orange based red satin lipstick

Fire Down Below-bordeaux wine satin lipstick

As with all NARS products, the packaging is matte black.  It is very susceptible to dirt and finger prints.  I wish they would change that.  That is my only gripe with it.

This has instantly become one of my favorite palettes as it is so convenient and will be great for travelling.
It is available at http://www.nars.com/ and Sephora.

MAC Surf Baby-My Paradise Blush

The only thing I wanted from the MAC Surf Baby collection was the My Paradise blush.  What can I say, I'm a blush whore!  It was just too pretty to pass up.  It is a super pigmented orangey coral with a gold hibiscus flower embossed on it.  I mean, how can you not want that?!  The gold is more than just an overspray.  It won't actually come off with just a swipe of your brush.  I think it adds a nice highlight.  As expected, it sold out with in hours on MAC's website, so I stalked Nordstrom.com for it.  I was able to get it and I love it!  Check out the arm swatches:

Coral, Gold, Mixed

It was $28 and you get 12 grams of product.  That's twice the size of a regular MAC blush!  Get it if you can!

MAC Wonder Woman-A Small Haul

The MAC Wonder Woman collection appeared online about 10 days early.  I was only interested in the two blush duos (go figure) and knew that they were likely to sell out.  So I quickly placed my order and I received them this past Monday (thanks to the ice storm we had here).  These blushes are super sized coming in at 11 grams/.38 US oz. That is twice the size of a regular MAC blush.  They were also priced slightly higher at $24.  They are housed in a red and blue compact, with the MAC WW logo and a mirror.  There were some mixed feelings regarding the packaging, some felt it was tacky.  I personally feel that it was appropriate given that it was a comic book themed collection.  It is what it is.


Mighty Aphrodite blush duo



light side, dark side, both blended together

Mighty Aphrodite blush duo is a warm peach coral with gold pearl and bright coral pink with gold pearl.  The texture was more silky than their normal blushes and it was very pigmented.

Amazon Princess blush duo



light side, dark side, both blended together

 Amazon Princess blush duo is a bright yellow pink and a deep blue pink with gold pearl.  Again, the texture on this was very silky and it was very pigmented, even more pigmented than the Mighty Aphrodite duo.

The lipsticks and glosses looked nice but I passed as they were dupeable.  The mineralize skin finishes looked nice also, I may pick those up later.  The eyeshadow quads weren't colors that I felt I needed in my collection, nor were the polishes.

Overall the blush duos were the stand out products of this collection.  The packaging didn't bother me like it bothered some.  If you can get past the packaging, I highly recommend these blushes!  The collection hits counters and stores February 10.  Are you planning on picking up anything from this collection?

Newest Blush Acquisition-Rock & Republic Shameless

I'd heard a lot of rave reviews about Rock & Republic blushes so when Haute Look had a sale on them, I jumped.  See these blushes retail for $40, but Haute Look had them for $16.  Shameless was the only color that I purchased.  It is a rosy bronze color with shimmer finish.  It's one of those "goes with everything" colors.  The shimmer is not glittery at all, more of a nice glow on the cheeks.  This blush is very finely milled and has an incredibly silky texture.  It is very pigmented and not a lot of product is needed to achieve a healthy flush. 

The packaging is super luxurious in a metal casing with a large mirror and has a nice weight to it.  You get a lot of product at 9 grams.  I've taken a comparison photo to show you how much larger it is compared to a MAC blush which is 6 grams.

If you get a chance to catch these on Haute Look or any other discount site, scoop them up!  You can also frequently find these on sale at Rock & Republic for 50% off.

NARS Taos Blush-The Perfect Rose Color

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Make Up For Ever HD Blushes Are Impressive



#6 Quickie (left), #8 PDA (right)



Make Up For Ever (MUFE) is a brand that I recently started to try products from.  Most recently, I have been using their HD microfinish blush.  They are cream blushes that come in a bottle with a pump.  There are 14 colors in their range and they retail for $25.  I was sent two of them by the lovely Christine of Temptalia as I was her July contest winner.  I was sent #6 Quickie and #8 PDA.  Quickie is a salmon pink and PDA is a pinky nude.  You get .33 oz per bottle which doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me, it is.  You don't need much to get the color to show up on your cheeks.  These babies are VERY pigmented.  It takes only a very slight squeeze on the pump to get enough color to do both cheeks.  These bottles will last you for quite some time.



#6 Quickie (left), #8 PDA (right)



The finish is a satin finish, it is matte, but gives a healthy glow.  They blend seamlessly into the skin and look very natural.  And they last ALL DAY!  The application is easy.  I squeeze some onto the back of my hand and use my fingers to place the color on the apples of my cheek by dabbing it on.  Then I take my MAC 130 brush and blend it.  I find the MAC 130 brush to be the best brush for this.  I tried it with my Sonia Kashuk brush, but it was too dense and wiped the color away.  When wearing a powder foundation or setting your face with powder, do that after you have applied the blush.

slightly blended



wearing #6 Quickie



Overall, I love these!  They look very natural and are easy to apply.  You just have to be careful when squeezing the pump.  You could easily squeeze out too much.  MUFE products are sold exclusively at Sephora.  Have you tried any MUFE products?

MAC Venomous Villains Collection

I was invited to the VIP unveiling party of the much anticipated MAC Venomous Villains collection.  It was held on September 21 at the Galleria MAC store.  The collection is a collaboration between MAC and Disney for Disney's most notorious villains.  While the collection will not officially launch until September 30, I was given a sneak peak and allowed to purchase to my little hearts desire.  The party was quite fun, there were hors d'oeuvres and cocktails to go around.  There were makeup artists that would transform you into your favorite Disney villain.  It was so crowded that I wasn't able to actually view anything up close, but I already had an idea of what I wanted.  I purchased two blushes and a nail lacquer.  Cue the pictures!
 



Bad Fairy Nail Lacquer in the center

 

Bite Of An Apple, Darkly My Dear





 I was also interested in Briar Rose Beauty Powder but wanted to view it in person to see if it suited my skin tone.  I guess I'll have to wait until September 30th.  I also picked up an emply 15 pan eye shadow palette so I can store all my MAC shadows in one place.  It gets real annoying in the mornings going through all of those eyeshadows to find which ones I want to use!

The Cat's Out Of The Bag With MAC's Fabulous Felines Collection

MAC released another new collection, Fabulous Felines, today at counters and stores and online this past Tuesday. I ordered some items online and also picked some up at my favorite MAC counter. It was a massive collection! It's focus was rich Fall colors that are very wearable. It also introduced MAC's new Superslick Liquid Eyeliners, which were nice but I prefer gel eyeliners. The eyeshadow quads were also nice, but each contained a color I already owned, so I skipped them. I picked up six items, two lipglosses, two pigments, a blush, and a lipstick.

left to right: Wildly Refined, Spree, Drive Me Wild, Utterly Game, Lithe, Bloodline

Wildly Refined (mid-tone coral with gold shimmer), Spree (champagned pink), Drive Me Wild (warm coral with gold shimmer)

Utterly Game Mineralize Blush (warm peach with subtle gold pearl)

Lithe Pigment (peachy nude with gold shimmer)

Bloodline Pigment ( plumed brown)

That was my haul. My favorite item is Drive Me Wild lipstick. I actually picked up two! I am on vacation from work next week and will be doing some clothes and accessories shopping. I have actually already started. Here is a sneak peek of one of the pieces I bought. Complete post on everything to come!

Blush Obsession-NARS Taj Mahal

NARS Taj Mahal is the newest addition to my blush collection. It is described by NARS as being burnt orange with shimmer. I like to describe it as GORGEOUS! As I was so impressed with my other NARS blush (Deep Throat), I purchased this without having actually seen it in person. I had heard that it was a "brown girl's staple", and after getting it home and seeing it in person, I can see why. I looks very scary in the pan, but as with all of NARS blushes, it is highly pigmented, meaning a little goes a long way. You barely have to tap your brush in the pan to get the color. You have to be very careful not to over do it since it is so highly pigmented. It shows up on me as a nice golden peach with a beautiful glow (I am NC42 in MAC foundation for reference).

not blended out

NARS blushes retail for $26, a little on the pricey side but worth every penny as you will have this forever. I got free shipping since the purchase was over $25 and a free mini lip gloss duo in Striptease and Dolce Vita by using the promo code TEMPTALIA.

Striptease (left), Dolce Vita (right)