Elf Blush Palette

Today’s post is a fun one. Blush is by far the most fun cosmetic to buy (in my little world, at least). And what’s more fun than a blush palette with 4 gorgeous blushes?! I was doing the usual spending an hour in the Real Canadian Superstore beauty section looking at their newly re-vamped brand list. The world has answered my hopes and dreams and FINALLY started carrying Milani and Wet n Wild, and a bigger ELF section. I picked up the ELF blush palette after seeing some buzz on the internet.

ELF Studio Blush Palette in Light – $8.00 CAD

Your eyes are not betraying you, that’s a blush palette that contains 4 blushes for only 8 bucks. Here in Canada we get royally screwed with dollar conversions. When our dollar is awesome things are still more expensive, when our dollar is the pits (like right now) things are even more expensive. Americans have it good, that’s all I’ll say. Anyways, tangent aside, 4 blushes for 8 dollars is still a great deal.

The palette contains 4 blushes: a cool toned bright matte pink, a warm terracotta matte brown, a warm matte pink, and a shimmery coral. The blush palette is a pretty decent size with a very nice sized mirror in the lid. What’s really cool about this palette is that each pan pops out, so you can mix and match with the other ELF palettes (foundation palette, contouring palette, etc). Each pan is very decently sized, and pops in and out pretty easily from the back. You could even stick on a magnet and add these blushes to a z-palette.

Texture wise, these blushes are really nice. Surprisingly nice. They’re soft, but not too soft, and don’t kick up any fall out when you tap your brush into the product. They’re just that perfect consistency where they give you nice colour pay off, but you don’t have to be insanely careful about applying them. The lasting power is also really lovely. I’ve applied each of these blushes to bare cheeks (unpowdered) and they’ve lasted me all day without any touch ups.

Swatched above are the blushes in clockwise order. You can see the first 3 shades which are all matte have really awesome pigmentation. The last one that has some shimmer particles running through it is the least pigmented of the 4, but it’s still a really gorgeous colour. Not going to lie I kept staring at that brown shade and thinking there’s no way that’s going on my cheeks. It runs really warm, I compared it to all my bronzers and it was significantly more warm toned, but I gave it a shot and I was very pleasantly surprised. Sometimes you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone, you know?

Below are photos of me wearing each blush, I’ve photographed them in the same order as the swatches above. (If you’re wondering why my hair looks jacked up in these photos, read here).

I had to colour correct the last photo just a smidge as the sun was straight BEAMING into my room and it was crazy orange, but the colour of the blush shows true. Overall I’m really loving this palette, especially for summer. I find myself reaching for it all the time, and I’m very very curious about the contouring palette.

Talk soon,

Xx Brianna

The Duo Fiber Collection

When it comes to cruelty free make up brushes, you seriously cannot beat Real Techniques. With great prices and an ever expanding line, they’ve really got a brush for every purpose you could think of. One collection I had been wanting to try out forever is the Duo Fiber Collection, and I finally picked it up.

Real Techniques Duo Fiber Collection – $24.20 CAD

This collection has 3 brushes, all obviously duo-fiber in nature. You’ve got a big fluffy face brush, a smaller more precise face brush, and an eye brush. We’ll get specific in a moment, not to worry. The handles are all white, and I think for the price, just about 8 pucks per brush, this set is of good value.

From right to left, there’s the Duo-Fiber Eye Brush, Duo-Fiber Contour Brush, and Duo-Fiber Face Brush. I was most excited for the eye brush, as I already have the face brush from the Nic’s Picks collection. Overall my thoughts on this collection are quite mixed. I understand the concept of this collection as being for a light finish, which is something I really like for summer. As these are duo fiber brushes, you’re meant to pick up less product with them, making them great brushes for super pigmented products. I’ll break down how I feel about each brush below. As with all Real Techniques brushes, these hold up great, wash really well, and do not shed at all while being super soft.

The Duo-Fiber Eye Brush: This one is kind of a weird one. I thought it would be much fuller at the top, but the bristles at the end of the brush are so sparse I cannot see actually applying any shadow with this brush. Instead I use it to just buff out the edges of my shadow as a final blending effort. I like it for that purpose, but I don’t think it’s an essential brush.

The Duo-Fiber Contour Brush: This one I actually really like for contouring. It’s quite small and narrow, so you can really get into the contours of your cheeks with this brush. Again you pick up just a very small amount of product so you don’t look like you’ve got stripes on your face, and the bristles are able to blend product out nicely. I also like this brush for applying highlight, and even for buffing out an eye look.

The Duo-Fiber Face Brush: I’m really happy to have a back up of this brush. I really like this brush for applying blush, powder, bronzer, you name it. It gives a super natural and light finish, which is excellent for summer. I like having two, now I have one for powder and one for blush and there will be no cross-contamination. I think this is the stand out of the bunch, as it’s got the best size, best density, and doesn’t shed.

Overall I’d say if you like a light finish, you’ll love these, if not, I’d steer clear.

Talk soon,

Xx Brianna

Flower Brows

Brows are here to stay, for 2015 at least. Having a polished and filled in brow is one of the easiest ways to make your look pulled together. While everyone and their dog has been raving about the Anastasia Brow Wiz, and it is a cruelty free product, I just can’t bear to shell out 27 bucks for a product I know I’ll go through really quickly. So I turned to the drugstore for a brow pencil.

Flower Beauty Raise Some Brows Defining Brow Pencil – $5.98 CAD

This pencil comes in three shades, Blonde, Light Brown and Dark Brown. Pictured above is Dark Brown, and I have to say off the bat I’m super impressed with the shade. A lot of drugstore brow pencils are very warm toned, which often translates to orange eyebrows, which is not ideal for me. I’ve got very dark brows, and the shade match is fantastic. It’s a very cool, almost ashy dark brown that I think could suit a lot of people.

As far as packaging goes, it’s a mechanical pencil with a sharpener on the end. The actual pencil is quite thick, so the sharpener saves the product from being too big. I find I don’t really need to sharpen it often because I’ve got quite full brows to begin with, but if your brows are sparse I’d recommend giving it a quick sharpen before each use.

Above I’ve swatched quite heavily on the left, and more lightly with numerous strokes on the right. You can see the tone of the brow pencil much better here. As for consistency, the pencil is very hard and waxy, which is what you want because you don’t want too much colour pay off and end up with sharpie brows.

 

Above, I have filled in my left brow and left the right bare for comparison. With this brow pencil, all you need is a little gel to set your brows in place and you’re good to go. I’ve really enjoyed using this pencil when I get a little bored of using powder, I do tend to go back and forth between pencil and powder, but for now I’m loving this method.

Talk soon,

Xx Brianna