Too Faced Candlelight Glow Highlighting Powder Duo - Review and Swatches

I'm embarassed to admit how long I've had this product for and still never got around to reviewing it. I bought this in May last year, photographed it, swatched it, maybe even wore it, but never managed to write up a review. Not sure why. Anyway, I am doing it now, so never mind.

Too Faced Candlelight Glow Highlighting Powder is a split pan powder, one side being white gold, the other very light pink. When swatched, the pink side is slightly pinker, but to be honest, the difference is barely noticable. This is the description I copied from BeautyBay:

"Too Faced Candlelight Glow is a luxurious highlighting powder duo which warms and brightens the complexion for instant radiance. Inspired by Too Faced’s original Absolutely Invisible Powder Candlelight this new formula offers a more intense luminosity and a more ethereal glow. Photolite Technology filters, fractures and diffuses harsh lighting to create an enchanting, youthful glow and preventing skin from looking washed out or chalky. With a duo of multi-use shades the pressed powder formula is easy to apply for a quick all over glow. The sheer golden powder warms the skin tone whilst the gilded rose shade brightens and illuminates the complexion. Use each shade alone to target specific areas or swirl together for instant radiance."

It is different from the original Candlelight powder in that this seems to be a more pressed, creamier version (the original one kicks up a lot of dust when you swirl your brush in it). It's not a cream product, mind, it's still definitely powder, just a lot less powdery. Colourwise it's pretty much the same, like I said, I struggle to see the difference between the white gold and the pink halves. It is also very similar to Nars Albatross highlighter, so if you own that or the original Candlelight powder, I don't think you need this as well. I got it because it's so pretty and I'm a sucker for pretty powders. It does give a nice glow and it's certainly not shimmery, so if you're looking for a subtle highlighter, this may be for you.

You get 10 g of product and it costs £25. You can find it at Boots and BeautyBay, and other online retailers. I don't think this is a limited edition product since I bought it nearly a year ago.  

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Guerlain Rose Aux Joues Blush Duo 06 Red Hot Swatches and Review

This is the last one of the (not so) new Guerlain Blush Duos that I've finally managed to get my hands on. After reviewing all the other shades I didn't feel like paying full price for this, so waited until I could find it much cheaper on eBay. I have to say though I'm actually pretty happy with this shade.

Red Hot is made up of 2 shades, a reddish brown shade and a lighter coral-red. Both of them have a satin finish, no shimmer to speak of, but they do give a nice sheen. I have worn them separately as blushes, but you can also use the darker shade to contour and the lighter shade as a blush. The beauty of this is that you can do whatever you like.

Both of them have okay pigmentation, I find that they apply better than they swatch (I use my fingers to swatch usually). I didn't have to be too careful not to overdo them, but they can be layered, so they will work well for darker skintones.

These blushes cost £32.50 and you get 6 g of product which is not huge. I probably wouldn't pay full price for any of them, although they are nice, but I feel there are better blushes around for a lot less money.

If you have missed my reviews of the other shades, you can check them out here: Peach Boy, Over Rose, Pink Punk, Chic Pink and Golden High.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Chantecaille The Evening Duo Review and Swatches

As you know, I love Chantecaille palettes, especially the pretty ones. The duo I'm going to review today I wasn't sure about buying for ages. Normally Chantecaille palettes retail around £75 for 4 shadows, whereas this duo retailed for £70. Ouch! However, since it was reduced to half price in the SpaceNK sale, I finally decided to buy it. So was it worth it?

The palette comes in a box about twice its size which causes a bit of a surpise when you pull the compact out of the box. The compact itself is shiny pewter decorated with 7 large(ish) and 7 small Swarovski crystals. Inside you find the two eyeshadows (Charmeuse and Carbon), as well as an eyeshadow and an eyeliner brush, and a full size mirror in the lid. The eyeshadows appear quite large (maybe because the palette itself is so small?), and in fact they are 2 g and 1.5 g each respectively.

Charmeuse is a light metallic pinky-nude colour with tiny sparkles and Carbon is a matte jet black. They are both smooth, they glide on effortlessly, blend really well and are well pigmented. You can use Charmeuse as an all over colour and Carbon as a liner, or crease colour which is what I did (plus used Freesia in the middle of the lid to blend the colours together and Perle on the browbone to highlight). You can see the pictures of the look at the bottom of this post. The eyeshadows lasted on me all day on top of a primer and looked really lovely.

All in all, this is a lovely palette, but not for £70. I know it's Chantecaille, but still, £70 for 3.5 g of eyeshadow is a bit pushing it. I'm happy I got it for £35 though. Sadly I don't think it's available anymore, but you might find it on eBay if you're lucky. It is still available on the Chantecaille website (US) at full price.

See more pictures including swatches and a look I did with this after the jump!

Urban Decay 24/7 Double Ended Pencil Duo Set Review and Swatches

Urban Decay 24/7 eyepencils are one of my favourite eyeliners and I can safely say I have pretty much every shade available now. So when I saw that this set was available on the Urban Decay website I knew I really wanted it because it contains a shade, Sabbath, I didn't own. Luckily it became available in the UK as well, so I could finally get my hands on it.

The set contains two double ended eyepencils and a Grind House Double Barrel Sharpener. The shades included are Zero (black), Corrupt (dark metallic brown), Stash (antique gold) and Sabbath (matte navy-blue). This set contains the essential shades, Zero is great black eyeliner, Corrupt is my favourite brown eyeliner, Stash is lovely with golds and greens, and Sabbath is a gorgeous smooth dark navy colour. Corrupt and Sabbath aren't available individually, although Corrupt has been included in a couple of sets before. Together with the sharpener, this would make an excellent starter set for someone who doesn't have many eyeliners.

All of them are really pigmented, smooth, they go on easily and stay put for hours. I use Urban Decay 24/7 eyepencils almost every day and would wholeheartedly recommend them to everyone. 

The eyeliners are 0.5 g each (well, 1 g per double ended pencil), so you get 2 g and the sharpener for £19. This is nowhere near as good value as the other eyeliner sets as you get just over £30 worth of products, but it's not bad. The sharpener retails for £7 alone, although I can live without it quite happily, and there's still £23 worth of eyeliner in there.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Guerlain Rose Aux Joues Blush Duo 05 Golden High Swatches and Review

I have managed to get my hands on another shade of the new Guerlain blush duos, this time I have Golden High to show you. If you have missed my reviews of the other shades, you can check them out here: Peach Boy, Over Rose, Pink Punk and Chic Pink.

Golden High is a mix of reddish brown and light peachy pink. The reddish brown shade has a slight sheen to it, the light peachy pink shade doesn't. This blush is the worst texture wise of the 5 I have tried. The reddish brown shade is extremely hard and very difficult to pick up with your brush. The light peachy pink shade is softer, but even that's not very soft. I don't know if this is just a dud, or this shade is simply this hard to work with.

Then upside of the hard texture is that's it's really not easy to overdo this blush. I had to swipe it twice with the brush to get the colour you will see on my cheeks in the picture at the bottom of the post. It gives a very natural result. The peachy pink shade works well as a subtle highlighter, or if you're very light skinned, maybe even a blush.

These blushes cost £32.50 and you get 6 g of product which is not huge. I'd like to point out that I have not paid full price for any of them (thanks to eBay) and probably wouldn't, although they are nice, but I feel there are better blushes around for a lot less money.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Illamasqua Nail Duo Bright - Glitterati and Viridian

I bought this set of two Illamasqua nail polishes from Debenhams, named Nail Duo Bright. The set includes Viridian, a metallic peacock green and Glitterati, a glittery plum shade.

My first impression was that neither of these polishes looked as bright or glittery in person as they did in the stock picture on the Debenhams website. Fair enough though, things never do. I still think naming them as "bright" is a bit misleading because they're not.

Viridian is rather dull, darker and a lot less metallic than I expected, even based on what it looks like in the bottle. I ended up jazzing it up a little by Zoya Maisie, a blue/green flakie polish.

Glitterati is very misleading in the bottle as you can see loads of sparkles, but they mostly end up being sandwiched between the layers you apply (I did two) and also just floating inside the polish. The end result was much less glittery than I thought it would be.

Both manicures took 2 coats to look opaque, the formula was nice, not too runny or thick and they applied evenly. Both started chipping slightly in the first 24 hours, even though these polishes are supposed to be "extremely hardwearing and chip-resistant" according to Illamasqua. Once I applied Zoya Maisie on top of Viridian, it lasted really well (3 more days), but that credit goes to Zoya Maisie. Glitterati was very badly chipped on me by the end of day 3.

The set costs £22 from Debenhams (currently £19.80 in the sale - ends tonight!) and interestingly £24 on the Illamasqua website. Single polishes cost £13.50 and as both are full size (15 ml each), this is a good value set. (I can't actually see Glitterati on the website, maybe it's exclusive to the set?) Whether I'd recommend it is another question. If you don't mind that they're not as bright as advertised and aren't chip resistant like Illamasqua claim, then I would. I'm myself a bit disappointed with this set, and since these are my first Illamasqua polishes, not sure this was the best introduction to the brand's nail polishes.

See lots more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Accessorize Baked Duo Eyeshadows #12 Maia Review and Swatches

A while ago I was walking around Superdrug and found a few reduced eyeshadow duos on the Accessorize stand. I don't know if those particular shades are being discontinued or not, but I decided to pick up Maia anyway as it looked very pretty. I love the packaging with the pretty butterflies and the product inside is realy lovely too. (I have reviewed 4 other shades in the past, to read my review please click here.)

It is a baked formula and the eyeshadow is domed in the pan. Maia contains a frosty white gold shade (similar to Nars Albatross, but frostier) and a satiny olive green shade with bronze flecks. Both are nicely pigmented and smooth, apply really nicely and stay on all day without creasing (over primer). The swatches below were done dry, but these can also be used wet to intensify the colours.

I can't find this particular shade on either website, in fact the Superdrug website isn't showing any of the baked duo eyeshadows, but on the Accessorize website the other shades retail for £4. I can't remember how much I paid, it was between £2-3, so not much. You get a generous 4.5 g of product for your money.

See more pictures including swatches and a look I did with this after the jump!

Guerlain Fall 2012 - Rose Aux Joues Blush Duo 02 Chic Pink Swatches and Review

Hope you're not sick of all my Guerlain fall collection reviews, because I have more to come! It's pretty much the only autumn/fall collection I have bought anything from, other than the gorgeous Estee Lauder Vivid Shine and Cyber Metallic eyeshadows. There are just so many lovely products and a lot of them were available on eBay for around half the actual price, so I couldn't resist.

This time I actually managed to buy the proper compact rather than a tester, so I can finally show you what the blush duo compact looks like. This is shade 02 Chic Pink, that contains a very wearable slightly shimmery rosy pink shade and a very light peachy pink matte shade. The top half is really pretty and well pigmented, but unfortunately the lighter shade doesn't really show up on me. As it's matte, I don't find it very useful to highlight and is obviously way to light to contour. The darker shade shows up well, but is subtle enough for an everyday look. I guess lighter skintones would make better use of the lighter shade.

In the compact you also get a small brush which is pretty useful for picking up blush from the smaller pan as it's a bit small for a regular size blush brush. The small brush is also useful for contouring. There is of course also a mirror in the compact and it comes in a velvet pouch inside the black outer box.

I'm not sold on these blushes yet to be honest. For starters they are really expensive at £32.50 for 6 g. I also find that some of the shades don't work well for me, so while you get 2 blushes in one compact, one might not be all that great. I do like Peach Boy and Pink Punk the most (check out this post for swatches), although the darker shade in Chic Pink is also very pretty, it's just not £32.50 pretty if you see what I mean.

Have you bought any of these yet? Let me know what you think in the comments!

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Bobbi Brown Bronzer/Blush Duo Bahama Brown/Pink Peony Review and Swatches

Now this is one confusing product. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I see the words bronzer and blush, I think brown and pink. But when it comes to this duo, you have to reverse that. The blush is brown, the bronzer is pink. Say what?

This bronzer/blush duo contains Bahama Brown Shimmer Blush and Pink Peony Illuminating Bronzing Powder. For some reason Bobbi has many pinky shades of the Illuminating Bronzing Powder available, including Antigua and Maui. I couldn't see myself using these as all over bronzers, but they make very nice blushes.

I actually have Pink Peony in a full size compact, it came out with a set I think, but I wanted to try Bahama Brown and this also makes an easy compact to travel with. I found this version a bit harder, less easy to get a good pigmentation out of. It still works fine, but my other one is softer. It is a very pretty corally pink colour. You can see me wearing it in this look. Bahama Brown Shimmer Blush is a shimmery brown shade (unsurprisingly), it can be used for conturing with Pink Peony on the cheeks. It's too shimmery to be used as bronzer all over thoough, but also makes a nice blush too. Not too dark or muddy for my medium light complexion.

You get 9.6 g of product for £27 which is a pretty good deal as 4.8 g of each product would be £21.60 and £14.40 respectively which adds up to £36. Plus Pink Peony isn't available otherwise (except on eBay) and Bahama Brown doesn't seem to be on either website I've looked, so I guess it's easiest to buy the two together. Available from Bobbi Brown's website, Debenhams, House of Fraser and other department stores.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

New Permanent Mac Mineralize Eyeshadow Duos Review and Swatches

Mac has changed the permanent* line of mineralize eyeshadows and being a mineralize eyeshadow nut as I am, of course I had to go and buy them all. (They're only permanent for 6 months, so really still limited edition, but less than other collections if that makes sense.) To be precise, I only bought 4 of the 5 eyeshadow duos because one (Love Connection) of them is a repromote and I'd already owned it. So please keep that in mind, since the formula of the new eyeshadow could be different to the one I already had. I also have the 5 mineralize eyeshadow singles (Style Black repromotes) that I will be showing you soon.

And here they are (top to bottom, left to right): Water & Ice, Love Connection, Fresh & Mint, Joy & Laughter and Sweet & Sour. They all have a side with one solid colour and the other one with a marble effect mix of 3-4 colours. Water & Ice is sterling silver on one side with a melange of creamy peach with blue and silver veining on the other. Love Connection is warm gold on one side with a melange of pale beige with gold and blue veining on the other. Fresh & Mint is icy green on one side with a melange of white with silver and green/blue veining on the other. Joy & Laughter is icy pink on one side with a melange of dirty pink with hot pink and charcoal grey veining on the other. (I did think this was a lot like Pink Split in the pictures, but in person it's more purple.) Sweet & Sour is yellow gold on one side with a melange of dirty gold with green and deep blue veining on the other.

I haven't worn this on my eyes (except for Love Connection a long time ago), but out of the 5 Sweet & Sour seemed to have the worst fallout. The marbled side especially was quite chunky. They are all pretty sheer if applied dry, but as the colour can be amplified by using them wet. I have swatched them both ways, so you can see what they all look like.

These mineralize eyeshadow duos cost £16.50 each and they are slightly larger than regular Mac eyeshadows at 2.2g each.

See more pictures including lots of swatches after the jump!

My Recent Laura Geller Haul

I bought these Laura Geller products from eBay a little while ago, but never got around to doing a post about them with all the excitement about Mac Semi-Precious collection. These are actually from more than one collection although to be honest with you I'm not entirely sure exactly which ones as I tend to pick up bits and pieces from eBay as and when I see them and I've not seen these products pop up on QVC UK yet. Anyway, the products I got are Baked Cheek Dreams Highlighter and Blush in Vanilla Peach Cobbler, Eye Elements Baked Eyeshadow and Highlighter in Amethyst Skies and Baked Marble Eyeshadow/Eye Rimz in Toasty Pink/Berry Flambe. Bit of a mouthful, eh? 

I like Laura Geller products and I'm always looking out for them on eBay. As you know I have quite a collection of blushes (you can see my collection photos here), but I also have lots of baked eyeshadows (singles and duos alike) by Laura Geller. (Do you want to see a post on my Laura Geller baked eyeshadows stash by the way?) They are always high quality and pigmented, and the eyeshadows can be used dry or wet, even as an eyeliner.

So let's look at the products I got in detail. First up is the Baked Cheek Dreams Highlighter and Blush in Vanilla Peach Cobbler. This is very similar in style to the Neapolitan blush I've already reviewed and swatched here as it also has a highlighter, a blush and a contour shade. Neapolitan is a bit cooler than this, but really the only difference is in the blush shade as the highlighter and the contour are pretty similar in both (maybe a tad cooler in Neapolitan, but not much). I like it that the blush strip is slightly wider in this, because although the compact is a pretty good size (9 g), the middle strip in my Neapolitan is quite thin and it's not easy to just pick up the blush unless you use a very small brush. The powder is soft and finely milled, as all my other Laura Geller blushes.

Read  about the other two products and see more pictures and swatches after the jump!

Accessorize Icon, Baked Duo and Merged Eyeshadows Review and Swatches Part 1

Today I only have time for a quick post with some more Accessorize eyeshadow swatches (it's my daughter's birthday today and we were busy with her party this afternoon). I actually bought these back in November, but never really got around to swatching them, or even wearing them much actually, which has now changed because I have been trying new looks out every day this and last week with these and my newer Accessorize eyeshadows (the baked ones I reviewed here and here, and there will be one more review in the next few days with part 2 of single eyeshadows).

In this post I have 9 eyeshadows to show you, one of the older Baked Duo Eyeshadows (not available at Superdrug anymore, but you can still find them on the Accessorize website), 2 of the Merged Eyeshadows and 6 of the Icon Eyeshadows. The Baked Duo Eyeshadows (BDE) are pretty similar to the ones I've reviewed before, but in this you get 2 solid colours rather than a mixed one and a solid one. The Merged Eyeshadows (ME) are basically one colour with different coloured veins, much like half of the new duos. The Icon Eyeshadows (IE) are the softest, almost creamy powder eyeshadows ever and they come in a good range of colours. I have another 5 to show you and I think they are all pretty amazing. They don't crease or fade, are very easy to apply and blend, and they're cheap, plus their packaging is very cute. You will see in the swatches below that they are extremely pigmented, all the swatches are one swip dry swatches and look amazing! I recommend them wholeheartedly. They cost £4 and you get 2.5 g per eyeshadow. The Baked Duo Eyeshadows are currently £2.00 (were £4.00) and you get 4.5 g, and the Merged Eyeshadows are £4.5 for 3 g each.

See more pictures and swatches after the jump!

Accessorized Baked Duo Eyeshadows Review and Swatches

Today I'm going to show you the new Accessorize Baked Duo Eyeshadows. Not so much a review than mostly just swatches as I haven't worn these enough to have a proper opinion on them. But I can say that they all swatched really nicely (all swatches were done dry), they are smooth and similar texture to the trios, not very soft or buttery, but still with a good colour payoff. I also didn't experience fall out or creasing with the one I have used (the purple and pink one), but it did fade over the course of the day, however I also managed to overblend it somewhat, so I need to give this another try.

These new Baked Duo Eyshadows are available in 6 shades (I think) and I got 4 of them. The shades I bought are: Venus (purple and pink with silver veining), Freya (gold and light brown with gold and burgundy veining), Thalia (chocolate brown and white with brown veining) and Zoria (champagne and turquoise with green and purple veining). All in all, I love the colours and the price (£4.50 for 4.5 g each). These are available from Superdrug and Accessorize.

See more pictures and swatches after the jump!