Butter London Fruit Machine

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Excuse my absence for the past week,  I was on a trip to Hawaii to visit relatives. Ahhhhh.

Wanted to quickly share my Valentine's nail color:

 Butter London Fruit Machine from the Spring 2013 Sweetie Shop Collection.

Excuse the messy edges please. Don't let my poor painting skills fool you, this polish is a winner. Beautifully smooth cream formula and incredibly easy to work with. I reviewed the green color in this collection, Fiver, and Fruit Machine's formula is better in quality and application. Completely opaque after two coats. This soft pretty cool pastel pink is definitely worth the $15 price tag.

Hope your day is filled with love and sweets galore!!!

MAC Archie's Girls Veronica's Blush Pearlmatte

I think I have found a new Holy Grail. *chorus of angels singing*

I have been loving MAC Archie's Girls Veronica's Blush Pearlmatte as an all over face powder. Let me tell you, as a person with unbearably dry skin, it is frustratingly hard to find a face powder that will not highlight all my dry flakes and texture.

What's that?

Why does someone with dry skin even need powder, you ask?

It's not for oil control, but powder does help foundation last that little bit longer and can add an all over pleasing glow.

 MAC Veronica's Blush Pearlmatte adds a beautiful, natural, beautiful, natural and did I mention naturally beautiful, glowy, flattering sheen to my skin.

[insert sighs of contentment here]

MAC Veronica's Blush Pearlmatte has a base color of silvery pale pink goodness. The hearts give off a subtle blue based medium fuchsia pink color. Swirled together, the colors create a pretty light pink hue.

MAC Veronica's Blush Pearlmatte swatches in natural light by the window

MAC Veronica's Blush Pearlmatte swatches in indoor lighting with flash

MAC Veronica's Blush Pearlmatte swatches in direct sunlight

MAC Veronica's Blush Pearlmatte retails for $30.

Excuse me while I go bask in a some glorious rays of sunlight while my skin is awash in this otherworldly beauty.

 Ahhh, I understand now, this is what it means to feel happily content.

MAC Archie's Girls Flatter Me Pearlmatte

Picture bomb!

MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte box

MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte

MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte ingredients

MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte

Too cute for words, I tell ya!

Ahem, I'll be honest, when I ordered the Pearlmattes from MAC Archie's Girls collection I had no clue what a pearlmatte even was. Was it a cheek product? A face product? A highlight?

 In fact, it is all three!

The name pearlmatte literally describes the product, the base color has a pearlescent sheen and the hearts are matte.

MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte is thing of beauty. The base color is a light, pale pearly peach. The hearts are a bright, sunny matte apricot. Swirled together, you get a beautiful hint of ripe peach blossoming over your skin.

MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte Swatches in natural light by the window

MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte Swatches in direct sunlight

MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte swatches in indoor lighting with flash

The color level in this product is sheer, but don't get the wrong idea, it is not due to poor pigmentation. The sheerness of this product means you can wear it as an all over face powder to add a natural glow to your skin, or layer it to achieve a pretty flush of color on the cheek. Just picking up product from the base color gives you a beautiful highlight color. The texture is firm, but at the same time so utterly soft and silky smooth. I kept swatching the product with my finger because I couldn't believe the gorgeous texture, then I realized I was wasting product, haha. You can see in the swatch pictures how beautifully the product melds into skin.

Overall, I like using MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte as a blush the most, because the beautiful pop of peach on my NC15 skin just brightens up my face in a naturally flattering way. Come spring, this will be one of my effortless, go-to products.

I can't say for sure, but darker skin tones may not enjoy this product as much, because the sheer pigmentation may mean it does not show up well enough to use as a blush, and the lighter color may turn ashy on the skin as a highlight. This would limit the pearlmatte's use to solely being a face powder (but what a beautiful powder it is!).

I purchased MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte from maccosmetics.com for $30.

Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette Rose Champagne Glow

I was very intrigued when people mentioned that Wet n Wild came out with a product that looked like MAC Mineralize Skinfinishes. I'm talking about the new To Reflect Shimmer Palettes that are a part of the Fergie collection.

Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette Rose Champagne Glow

I purchased Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette Rose Champagne Glow out of the three choices available. The other two looked as though they would show up orangey on my lighter skin.

Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette Rose Champagne Glow Ingredients

First off, this is very dry to the touch, a little more so than baked products usually are, in my experience. It is not powdery and there is no fall out when I use it, which is a major plus. It's a pretty light, champagne pink color with golden shimmer.

Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette Rose Champagne Glow

I'm not fond of this as a cheek highlight because this is filled with very visible shimmers, even when used with a fan brush. There is a difference between natural, light enhancing shimmer and the type that if worn outside during the day one looks like a walking disco ball. This product is the latter. For this same reason I also can't use this as a cheek color. When built up it it has a very visible metallic finish. As for wear time, it lasts on my cheek well, but I don't generally have a problem with cheek products fading because I have very dry skin.

Despite me not liking it on my face, I do have a good use for this product. Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette Rose Champagne Glow makes a beautiful shimmer powder for the decollete on nights out.

Here, are some swatches: In the second picture I show the swatches out of focus to show the intense shimmer level of the product.

Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette Rose Champagne Glow Swatches in sunlight

Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette Rose Champagne Glow Swatches out of focus in sunlight

Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette Rose Champagne Glow Swatches indoors with flash

It is a bit of a shame, I think this would have made a gorgeous eyeshadow, but I'm not sure if this is eye safe or not, so I am not going to try it out. I purchased Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette Rose Champagne Glow from drugstore.com for $5.99.

Wet n Wild Fergie Lipstick Ferguson Crest Cabernet

So I raved beyond belief about Wet n Wild Fergie Lipstick Old School Glam, here.

I bought another color I was interested in Wet n Wild Fergie Lipstick Ferguson Crest Cabernet.

Wet n Wild Fergie Lipstick Ferguson Crest Cabernet

Wet n Wild Fergie Lipstick Ferguson Crest Cabernet

While the formula on this one is nice, it's not as great as Old School Glam. The texture on this lipstick is drier and emphasizes lip lines more. The formula is slightly less creamy as well.  The high pigment level is there. However this lipstick is incredibly versatile, because of the color, and pigment you can wear this color as a full on vampy lip, or lightly dabbed and blotted over the lips as a stain.

Wet n Wild Fergie Lipstick Ferguson Crest Cabernet Swatch

The shade is a purple wine, I could definitely imagine this on some cabaret performers lips. If I were placings these Wet n Wild Fergie lipsticks in the terms of MAC lipstick finishes, Old School Glam would be an amplified creme, while Ferguson Crest Cabernet would be more of a satin finish. This is  a great end of winter lip color to wear right now.

Bare lips in sunlight

Wet n Wild Fergie Lipstick Ferguson Crest Cabernet Lip Swatch in Sunlight

I purchased Wet n Wild Fergie Lipstick Ferguson Crest Cabernet from drugstore.com for $3.49

Butter London Fiver

Butter London released a Spring 2013 collection called Sweetie Shop. As soon as I saw the promo pictures I was immediately obsessed with the color Fiver. I knew I had to have it.

Butter London Fiver Swatch indoors with flash

Fiver is a beautiful, ultra pale mint green. So perfect for spring. The formula is pretty decent. It has a good thinness to it. Fiver definitely isn't thick and goopy as cream polishes can sometimes be. Fiver spreads across the nail easily. It was a little streaky going on, but by the second coat you can see it evened out, and is completely opaque.

Butter London Fiver Swatch in sunlight

What I absolutely love about this polish is that it dries down to a high shine finish. A high shine, cream polish that is opaque and smooth in 2 coats with a gorgeous color to boot? Count me in!

For what its worth, while in store at Ulta, I went and held the bottle of Butter London Fiver next to Essie Mint Candy Apple. Fiver was paler, and greener, while Mint Candy Apple was darker and had more of a blue tone mixed with the green.

I bought Butter London Fiver from Ulta, where it retails for $15.

Maybelline Color Whisper Cherry on Top

I was very interested in trying the new Maybelline Color Whisper Lip Colors. Unfortunately when I was at my local Ulta, I could only limit myself to purchasing one color, the shade Cherry On Top. It wasn't because I wasn't interested in the other colors, but since these aren't sealed in anyway, literally every other lipstick in the display had been used. It was gross.

i

Maybelline Color Whisper Lip Color Tube

Anyway, despite my little rant, I think I was actually lucky that I was cornered into buying Cherry On Top. It is a pretty reddish pinky cherry color. Despite people comparing these to Revlon Lip Butters, I do not find Cherry On Top similar. Lip Butters are creamy in texture, while this Color Whisper has a thin, slightly slippery texture on my lips. The pigment of Cherry On Top is a sheer, see-through color with natural shine, its definitely a "whisper of color".  It is less pigmented than the lip butters I have tried, which makes it an easy, slap-on-and-go everyday color.

Maybelline Color Whisper Cherry on Top

Maybelline Color Whisper Cherry on Top does not dry out my lips, however, it does not moisturize them either. Due to the slippery texture, and sheer qualities of this product, it does not last long on my lips, and definitely does not last through any drinking or eating I do. I think of it as synonymous to a tinted balm, but without the moisture.

Maybelline Color Whisper Cherry on Top Swatch in Natural Light by the Window

Bare Lips in sunlight

Maybelline Color Whisper Cherry on Top Lip Swatch in sunlight

See, it is a gorgeous hint of color. One of those colors that brightens your face and makes you look natural and pretty. I do wish the lasting power was better since this is such a pretty color.