MAC Eyeshadows: Brule, Malt, Haux....and new MAC Rewards Program!

It's been a minute since I've placed an order with MAC or even browsed their website. I was drawn to their web page after receiving an email from the brand telling me to claim my 'Anniversary gift.' Say whaaaaaaat????  Turns out I joined MAC's new reward program a year ago and its totally legit. At the most basic, bottom tier level, you get a free eyeshadow once a year (your choice of colors in store and online you get a choice from their top selling shadows, a $16 value). While browsing the website, I discovered that MAC offers free shipping to the US with ANY order, no minimum, AND all eyeshadow refill pans are now only $6. I'm guessing this was either done to be more competitive with brands like Makeupgeek ($7 pans) or because MAC is doing a reformulation and is pushing out old stock. We shall see if the new price tag sticks! 

For my free eyeshadow, I chose the satin cult favorite, Brule. It came in a little 'Adore You Reward You' cardboard sleeve. Well done, MAC! I also got pans of the colors, 'Malt' and 'Haux' to pop into my z-palette. I highly recommend pans as they are less cumbersome when you can open a palette full of 12-20 colors and do your whole eye look from there rather than be digging through and opening multiple containers for one look. I do love getting more special colors that I know I'll want to travel with in pot form so I can take my z-palette with my basics as well as my pots of special colors. 

Top to bottom: Brule, Malt, Haux

Brule is a satin shade and is a creamy, bisque color. It is a tanner, yellower, cream shade that I love for packing all over my lid as my base. 'Malt' is a color I got hoping to dupe my current favorite shade in the UD Naked Smokey palette, Combust (more on that below!). Malt is a neutral pink shade that shifts a bit purple orange. 'Haux' is a medium purple brown. 

Above is 'Haux' swatched next to Lorac's Unconditional from the Unzipped Palette and UD Nooner from the Naked 3 palette. It is definitely a more unique color and I've been loving putting this color in my outer V to deepen a neutral eye look. 

Here is 'Malt' next to UD Combust from the Naked Smokey palette, UD Limit from the Naked 3 palette, and Stila Understanding from the Eyes are the Window palette in Mind. Malt is a bit warmer than Combust and a bit less gray, but I think the colors are pretty close. As you can see, Malt is far less pinker than UD's Limit which I think makes it a more versatile transition color.

Here is an eye look I've been doing with just these 3 colors from MAC! I lay Brule down all over my lid and hit my browbone hard for that highlighted effect. Then I buff Malt into my crease and add Haux in the outer V for some extra depth. I tightline my lashes with some brown eyeliner and add some mascara and voila! That's it for a simple, professional look that took all of about 2 minutes. I've also loved adding rose golds, taupes, and pinks to the lid for some extra pizzazz, but just these 3 colors are definitely enough for a complete eye look.

Check out MAC to get a great deal on cult eyeshadow faves! Again, pans are only $6 each right now with free shipping, no minimum!

xxSJ

Milani 'Luminoso' Blush: A review and possible dupe for NARS Orgasm?

Milani Baked Blush in the color 'Luminoso' is  a gorgeous pure peach that I've been wanting for a couple years. My reason for lusting for so long but never taking the plunge is that whenever I saw it in CVS I always thought that $9.99 seemed steep for a drugstore blush. I waited until I had some extrabucks (CVS's drugstore reward system where you can treat their extrabucks like cash!) to make the splurge on this item and **spoiler alert** I'm SO happy I did! 

The blush comes packaged in a gold reflective plastic container. The blush flips up to reveal a small brush underneath. I definitely prefer my own brushes for application but the mini brush can be helpful in a pinch if you stick this in your purse or forget a blush brush while traveling! 

The color is a pure peach with some reflective gold shimmer in it. It is so beautiful and I think would work on all skin types from cool to warm and light to dark! The powder itself is really soft and has the perfect amount of pigmentation--just enough to show up with a tap of a brush but still sheer enough that it is buildable with out being clowny. A lot of people claim that this is a drug store dupe for NARS' famous Orgasm blush... let me just lay to rest all those claims right now:

No. Just, no.

I'm sorry to upset everyone out there who thought they might get an Orgasm dupe for a third of the cost but here's the thing: Luminoso has SO much more to offer than just being a dupe for NARS Orgasm! I think there's reason to buy it with out that tantalizing claim and, in fact, since I've purchased this blush I've worn it every single day to achieve a perfect glow as we enter into Spring.

This blush is a no-brainer: it has perfect pigmentation, is a gorgeous color, and will surely look great on you.  At $9.99 this blush also shouldn't be too hard on your pocketbook and Milani often has buy one get one half off sales!

xxSJ

Rimmel Exaggerate Full Colour Lip Liner in 'East End Snob' and 'Red Diva'

Whoa.... I found a new favorite lip liner and its from the drugstore.  Now I don't consider myself a makeup snob by any means... I love drugstore makeup and have found plenty of high quality products there. I don't discriminate! However, in the lip liner department, over the years I thought the drugstore options were a little lacking. I found pencils were either way too hard and tugged at my lips, or they were soft and creamy but had the staying power of a one night stand (see ya).  My drugstore lip liner woes have been solved now that I have discovered the Rimmel Exaggerate Full Colour Lip Liners.

These twist up liners are so wonderfully creamy that they glide on the lips with ease and they come with this angled tip that makes it so easy to apply--I would definitely recommend these to a beginner!  They also have fantastic staying power and lasted me through drinking, meals, and kept my lipstick from feathering. 

I picked up the colors 'East End Snob,' a pinky nude, and 'Red Diva,' a blue toned red.

These lip liners make my lips look full, luscious, and healthy and their creaminess means they're so easy to blend with whatever lip product you're wearing on top. I don't recommend wearing these on their own because they can be a bit patchy when you try and fill your whole lip in. Everything evens out when you put lipstick on top of them though.

I got these lipliners for about $7 each and they were buy one get one half off. I think these are outstanding particularly East End Snob (which is a dupe for Charlotte Tilbury's lip liner in 'Pillow Talk'). I've been wearing that one non-stop since I purchased it.

xxSJ

NARS Lipgloss: 'Orgasm'

NARS just relaunched their lipglosses with whole new formulations and brand spankin' new packaging. To help promote this relaunch, Sephora had a mini version of the new gloss as a 100 point perk in one of the most popular shades, 'Orgasm.'

It's so cute!! I knew I had to get my hands on this to try out the new ish. First off, let's start with the packaging. The classic NARS matte black rubberized texture is used on the cap with the bright white logo printed on to it. I think it looks super classic and sheek. The container is now a perfectly clear acrylic as opposed to the almost completely opaque old packaging which allowed you to see a hint of the color inside. This new packaging gets an A+!

The new spongy doe-foot applicator is really nice and my favorite type of applicator for glosses. The most important detail of this gloss for me was the smell. The old NARS lip glosses smelled like plastic and chemicals. It wasn't necessarily the most pleasant thing to have on your lips all day, and for that reason, I never reached for the NARS glosses I owned. This new formulation has NO SCENT whatsoever. Yay! They must have taken a hint from what seems to be the number 1 complaint of NARS lovers out there and taken out whatever smelly bandit was stinkin' up the place!

Orgasm is a peachy pink gloss with gold glitter streaks running through out. It is the color that I always tend to drift toward and also is my favorite blush color (jumpin' on the band wagon... I know).

The gloss on its own adds quite a bit of pigment to the lips and the wear time is about 3 hours with no touch-ups or reapplication. The glosses are noticeably less sticky than the original formula, but still have a stickier feel to them which is good because it means the gloss isn't sliding anywhere off your lips!
I noticed that this gloss looks extremely similar to another lipgloss I own, which is Revlon's Super Lustrous gloss in 'Peony:'

Peony is a little bit more dark pink, but otherwise, its pretty damn close. This dupe alert brings me to another point about NARS' new glosses: The price. These glosses will set you back $26 a pop and the reformulation included less product per container compared to the old ones. That's pretty steep for a gloss considering a MAC gloss will only set you back about $16.
The glosses are gorgeous and are of much higher quality than their predecessors, but I think if you can find as close a dupe as this Revlon gloss, go for the cheaper alternative. For the more unique colors in the new collection (they've kept the 23 old colors and tacked on 7 brand new ones!) there's nothing wrong with a splurge here and there if you're a gloss or NARS junkie. Guilty!

xxSJ

Dupe?? MAC 239 Brush

A pretty well known brush dupe in the beauty community is of the amazing MAC 239 shader brush. This brush is seriously amazing and I did a blog post WAYYY back explaining why I thought this brush in particular was worth the splurge. The well known dupe for this brush is the Loew-Cornell 270 3/8 of an inch Maxine's Mop (I know, quite the mouthful). I finally got my hands on this $5 brush and thought I'd compare:

Here are the brushes side by side. As you can see, the Loew Cornell Brush is about an inch longer than the MAC brush with a bit of a shorter ferrule (quick brush lesson: That's the metal part that holds the bristles in place!). Both handles are painted wood and both bristles are made of natural hair. The LC brush has goat hair and the MAC brush has either goat or pony hair... MAC is very hush hush about their brushes and where they get their animal hair from!

As you can see, the brushes are VERY similarly shaped. The LC is on the left and that brush is a tad bit more tapered and with more of the bristles showing, the brush is not quite as stiff as the MAC 239. Other than those differences, these brushes are very similar and work in similar ways. These brushes are so perfect for packing color onto the lid as natural hair brushes can pick up more product than synthetic bristles. They also have a small enough shape that the placement of color can be very exact. Both brushes also have minimal fall out.
All in all, both brushes are excellent. The MAC 239 may reign supreme by a tiny amount, but the $29 pricetag may make the Loew Cornell brush a bit more user friendly!
I found my LC brush on Amazon for $5. They can also be found at Michael's and Walmart (both in store and online). If you can get your hands on this brush you should definitely try it out! You won't be disappointed.

xxSJ

NOTD: Just Spotted The Lizard

Today I'm sportin a color from O.P.I.'s Amazing Spiderman collection, 'Just Spotted the Lizard.'

I think two pictures are necessary to capture how frikin cool this color is!!! It's goldish green in some lighting, but when in the shade or darker lighting, there is a dark green/blue that shines through this color.

You can kind of get an idea of this color's innate awesomeness by looking at all the colors in the bottle, but really, you just gotta try this manicure out yourself to understand how amazed I am by this color! I got so many compliments while I was wearing it (by girls and guys alike!) and as an added bonus, this color is an exact dupe for Chanel's 'Peridot' nail polish.  Google comparison photos and you'll see what I mean.

Would you wear this reptilian color on your fingertips?