Eyes Lips Face Cosmetics Haul

There were some awesome after Christmas sales last month.  Elf cosmetics had everything half off, so I bought a bunch of products that I wanted to try.  I almost forgot about elf in my cosmetics shopping spree.  It had been at least a year since I last purchased from them and I wasn't impressed with the eyeshadow palettes that I got at the time.  But elf seems to have raised the quality of their merchandise now.  Or at least on some things.  

Here is everything I got from eyes lips face.

I bought a ton of customizable palettes and eyeshadow pots for the palettes.  They are my new favorite thing, I had already bought bh cosmetics and coastal scents customizable palettes (also during the after holiday sales). The elf version doesn't have anywhere near as many colors as the other 2 stores, but they do have pretty colors that get rave reviews for their quality. I'm kinda mad that I didn't come here first because their empty palettes are much cheaper than the other 2 stores'.

 

I bought some lip products to try.

Other products I could use as highlighters & shadow bases.

As I said before, my previous elf palettes basically sucked, so I am skeptical about this geometric one.  But it gets great reviews and I mostly want it as art, because it's so pretty. 

I stopped by Target a few days after buying this stuff and there was a lot of elf Christmas items at 75% off! I only picked up the small neutral eyeshadow with base set, and another kaleidoscope palette! I was thrown off by it being white and thought it was a different color scheme,  but no it's the same as the one I got off the website.  So I guess I got more art.

 

This was a record breaking haul! I got so many items! It was actually hard for me to spend up to the $35 in order to get free shipping (I hate paying for shipping). So many items were only 50 cents!  So far I've liked everything that I've tried. 

Did anyone else take advantage of eyes lips face after Christmas sale?

Nude Plum Eyeshadow Tutorial

Here's an eyeshadow look using the palette I showed you last time,

Urban Decay Naked 2 - Like Eyeshadow Palette Only $10, Swatches and Review.  I started with an elf primer and only used the 2 sided brush included in the palette.

It's a plum smokey nude kind of look. Numbering the colors 1-12 starting from the left (beige);

1. I used the matte beige (color 1) on my brow bone
2. copperish brown (4) on my entire lid
3. plum (11) on my lower lid and lash line
4. matte black (12) to line the outer half of my lash line and winged it out a little, 
5. shimmery beige (3) in the inner corner/tear ducts and blended towards mid lid, and 
6. used matte taupe (5) to blend the colors together so that there were no harsh lines on my brow/crease area.

 

 

I'll do a few more looks with this palette soon.

Urban Decay Naked 2 - Like Eyeshadow Palette Only $10, Swatches and Review

I was looking for a Naked type of nude eyeshadow palette and came across this one on Amazon for $12 (prices fluctuate).  The picture on the site showed a seemingly plain gold palette so I was surprised to receive it with the Urban Decay Naked 2 label on it.  The palette came in a cardboard box (sorry threw it away) also labelled the same way.  It's a big discount from the $50 something that the real Urban Decay Naked palette costs and I think it's good enough to be a dupe for the real thing.

Here are more pictures of the palette.

 

The palette itself is pretty big, bigger than my hand.  Inside there's a pretty large mirror the size of the palette.  The brush looks similar to the Urban Decay Naked palette brush.  It has a fluffy end and a smaller compact end.

Now for swatches...

The top half of swatch is on my bare arm, the bottom half is over elf eyeshadow primer (a way too thick layer).

I have to say, the 12 shades are very true to how they look in the palette.  The primer doesn't seem to make a difference in pigmentation.  Be aware that I did pack on at least 3 swipes of eyeshadow for the swatches, but they come out pretty well pigmented.  There are 3 matte shades, 1st color, 5th color, and the black color.  The black is the best, super pigmented and applies pretty evenly.  The other two are kind of splotchy, but they are useable.  I absolutely love all of the other shades which I would consider metallic (I'm not well versed in eyeshadow finishes).  A couple of shades are beige/off white, a few are taupe/grayish, and a few are medium toned brownish colors (in addition to the 3 mattes).  They're very pretty.

I don't have a real Urban Decay Naked 2 palette but here are some picture from other bloggers to compare.

 

The top picture is From Head to Toe, here is her post on the Naked 2 palette.  Besides the obvious difference in camera quality (I need a real camera badly) there isn't too much difference in shades.  By me actually looking at my palette and her swatches, the most obvious differences are the 1st shade (my palette is lighter, like off white) the 6th shade (my palette is again a lighter shade of brown) and the 11th shade (my palette is more of a plum-brown color, very pretty though).

 

In this pic from the Temptalia Naked 2 palette review (top), you can see how similar the two brushes are.  Tmart look alike that is $10 is on the bottom.  

All in all, I'd say that this palette that you can get for about $10, is a great dupe and alternative to the Urban Decay Naked 2 palette.  The brush is really great as well, I love it.  Hey, you can even pretend that it is the real thing because it looks close enough.  Either way, it costs about 75% less than the original and isn't significantly different in packaging or shades.

And you can get some really cute makeup looks with the variety of nude shades.  This palette is a great deal!