MILANI Conceal + Perfect 2-in-1 Foundation + Concealer

00A Porcelain

This is here because it's the best foundation I own for when I'm taking pictures. It's a combination of medium coverage and a lovely satin finish that does the job, but also 00A is a perfect match for my skin tone, which is very rare. It's quite a thick foundation and yet, it never looks nor feels heavy on the skin, so I can wear it in hot weather too. 

BOURJOIS Radiance Reveal Concealer

Concealers tend to last ages when it comes to my stash because I always use only small dots of the product, but I ran out of this one recently and I made sure I repurchased it as fast as possible. It's my favourite concealer, even though it's not full coverage, but I always prefer the natural skin-like finish to full opacity. It looks so natural and hides imperfections without drawing attention to them by looking too matte or cakey. I use it under my eyes and on my nose, while for spots I reach for my more opaque stash. 

MAX FACTOR Creme Puff Blush

Lavish Mauve

This is my go-to/"looks good with anything" blush because it's a quite a neutral, gently defining type of colour. It's a natural, muted pink shade, not really mauve on my cheeks as the name sugests. It's got a nice pigmentation and a smooth formula that's easy to blend, and to me this is definitely one of the best blush formulas in the drugstore.

CATRICE Kaviar Gauche LE

Highlighter C01 Éclat D'Or

I've been reluctant to put this into favourites for months now because what's the point of you knowing that this is awesome if you can't get it anymore, but maybe with the next Catrice update, they'll have a similar formula. I've been using it almost exclusively in the last months because it's such a pretty highlighter. It's a lovely champagne shade with finely milled shimmer that looks like natural glow. I'm so glad the pan is so massive and I know it'll last me ages. I hope Catrice puts a similar formula in their permanent range because this is just an amazing.

ESSIE Nail Lacquer

Eternal Optimist

Everyone loves this shade when they see it on my nails and I get asked a lot which it is. It's a muted warm pink that I think will suit so many and it's one of those shades that's appropriate for almost every occasion. It's one of the best shades Essie makes.

SALLY HANSEN Color Therapy Nail Polish

180 Chai on Life

I don't like this that much on my hands because it looks a bit too yellowy beige, but for some reason it looks so perfect on my toes. It's a great nude for fair warm skin tones. Formula could be a tiny bit more thick because now it spills on my cuticles when I'm applying it, but it at least it lasts well. 

AVON Luck La Vie 

eau de parfum

I feel Avon fragrances are the underdogs in the beauty world, at least some. Granted there are plenty of generic fruity-florals, but they have some really nice scents (their old Herve Leger was just dreamy and Avon Mesmerize Black is such a great comfy winter scent). Luck La Vie appealed to me because of the beautiful bottle, but it's not just that. It is a fruity-floral, but without the boring vanilla and the base here is the interesting cedar, makes it more mature without losing the fruity-floral flirty character. I said in stories it's a fragrance that will appeal to Daisy fans and the green, fresh floral note in this is represented by lily-of-the-valley which is paired with non-candy smelling strawberries. The base reveals the cedar note, but it's still got that a fresh fruity-floral and green character, which makes it youthful, but still serious enough that you'd be comfortable wearing it to the office. Compared to the original Luck, La Vie feels greener and less smooth, that's why a lot of people prefer the original and I plan to get my hands on it one day too.

BATH & BODY WORKS Body Mist

Oahu Coconut Sunset

I mentioned this on stories as a deeper version of a beachy scent that reminds me of Lolita Lempicka Elle L'Aime. It's a beachy coconut fragrance for those who don't like coconut being the centre of attention because here it's mixed with this oriental base of amber and incense. There is a juicy note in the first minutes, which reminds me most of that sweet mango that was in Escada Taj Sunset, but quickly the creamy coconut and tiare flower come into prominence and give it that typical fancy sunscreen scent, but due to amber this could easily pass as fragrance that's not exclusive to summer. Staying power is nice, I get several hours, which is really good for a body mist, but even so, there is a very generous 250 ml in the bottle which will last a while. I'm getting kind of obsessed with these BBW mists, they are so good and I'd love to have a larger collection.

BATH AND BODY WORKS Pocketbacs

I was a bit ill this month, though it didn't last long, since I tend to bounce back quickly, but regardless, I used hand sanitizers all the time and everywhere. There Pocketbacks are so cute and they smells so nice, they just make you feel better. All have a strong scent, which I like and actually Sorry I'm Latte has been my fake fragrance several times so far because the scent lasts so long. I particularly love Spiced Apple Wood, even though it's an autumn scent, but it's so unique with its lovely woodsy note and fresh apple. I so wish I had some beachy and fresh scents too. I love that they come in such a cute size because I can easily carry it anywhere. Soap & Glory Hand Maid is another sanitizer I rate high and I feel the texture is even a tiny bit better, plus it smells like candy.

ORDERED

Midi Floral Skirts - White with roses and pockets, $13.74 // Dark blue with mauve flowers, $11.00 // White with cherry blossoms,  $9.45 

WISHLIST

Catrice is doing another update in the next months and this time I'm actually interested in some of the new stuff. I have my eye on the new HQ Radiance foundation, since I've actually started to appreciate the HD Liquid Coverage a lot more (good skin care improved my skin texture and foundations I hated started to look decent). They are also releasing new blushes and given my experience with Catrice's blushes, I have high hopes for these. The Metal Sensation eyeshadows look so tempting too, but I need to see their pigmentation first. Peel off glitter nail polishes look nice too, but I'll only get them if I like the shades in person. 

I'm tempted by more BBW body mists. In particular Bali Blue Surf which is described as a fresh beachy coconut scent (I'd also love At the Beach, In the Sun and Beach Sand, but Salma doesn't have them). Sensual Amber and Brown Sugar sound like warm, comforting scent I might like since I love Twilligt Woods so much. Pocketbacs are also on my mind at them moment, especially beachy and fruity fresh scents, but they are expensive on ebay with shipping.  

Have a great day!

I don't recall if Max Factor had any contouring products before, but they recently released their sculpting palette and they made it an all-in-one & fits everyone type of product that will probably appeal more to makeup artists or those who often do makeup for other people than your average makeup user. There are similar palettes on the market, though not that many that are sold in drugstores here, most of the competition is online. There are eight cream products in the palette, four are contours, two are lifting concealers and two are highlighters. 

Texture: The creams in this palette are more on the thicker, waxier side. While this means it's a lot less messy than creamier formulas, it also means they work best when they've been warmed up a bit before application, so I find fingers are actually the best way to pick up and apply these on the skin. For blending you can use a brush for a more speedy result, though for concealers I still find it's best to tap them on the skin with fingers for a more seamless blending result. Pigmentation differs and it's quite simply that the lightest have the least colour pay-off, while the darkest shades hold most pigment. Contours work ok and are pigmented when you apply them, but they are also very blendable, which means you need to build them up slowly, which at contouring isn't a bad thing, but it takes time. I can only grab the colour with fingers and apply it on the skin because not even my densest brushes could pick the colour, but they blend easier and better with a brush once on the skin.

Shades: 

Contours

There are four contours in this palette, three are warm and one is a cool taupe one. 

Top left - a warm caramel shade.

Bottom left - deep chestnut brown.

Top right - cool taupe. This is the only shade that fits my porcelain skin tone. 

Bottom right - a medium brown. This one looks almost cool in the palette, but it's warm on my face.

Concealers

Both concealers lack pigmentation for any significant coverage. It'd say they've got light-medium coverage if I layer it.

Top - a neutral pale shade. It's a tiny bit too dark for my NC-W10 skin tone, but it should be perfect for NC15.

Bottom - a warm NC25 shade.

Highlighters

I can't call these highlighters on my skin tone, since both aren't pale enough to create a lighter/brighter effect on my skin tone and neither do they have shimmer to create an illuminating effect. They should work on darker skins a lot better. Pigmentation is the same as at the concealers, so not particularly good. 

Top - neutral pale shade. I'm impressed that Max Factor created something so neutral and not pink.

Bottom - yellow toned pale shade. 

 Lightest contour, concealer and highlighter. You can't see the last two.

Staying power: I could only check how long the contours last, since the concealer and highlighters did a poor job of covering anything and I couldn't tell when they were gone. The contour lasted decently for a cream product. I couldn't say in hours, but it holds on quite a while, though not to the end of the day. It's of course a lot better if you have a good base and if you set it with powder.

Packaging: The palette has a tight closing system, which is very important at creamy products. I also noticed the pans at the back kind of look like the could be replaceable, but I haven't tried to push any of them out and I haven't seen any individual replacements being sold.

Price and availability: The palette is sold in drugstore and I think I was the price tag was 19.99 €, which comes at 2.5 € per pan.

I like the idea and it's great that they created such a product, but it could be a bit better. I can work with the contours and even from that just two colours, while the rest of the palette is sadly a waste for me. The concealers are not the best in terms of coverage (they can be used as highlighters on darker skin tones) and the highlighters need to be shimmery for me, because my skin tone is already too pale for creating light areas. But for those have a darker skin tone or need something like this when they do makeup on other people, at least the contour shades are a nice thing to have. For me I'll stick to L'Oreal's Infallible Sculpt palette in 01 because I don't need any extra shades and I don't even use contours much.

Have a great day!

*PR product

If only this palette wasn't so warm. I'm still on the fence about Makeup Revolution eyeshadows, as they tend to differ in quality a lot inside one palette. It's actually no different in this one either, but the scales are tipped to the good side and especially mattes are nice in this palette. The Sophy X palette was created in collaboration with SophDoesNails (I'm not familiar with her) and it's very similar to the most popular palettes at the moment like Naked Heat and Renaissance palette. 

Texture: Like I said the quality varies, but most of the eyeshadows are very impressive for the price. Shimmery shades are all very pigmented and creamy, which in some cases that's not such a great thing because brushes don't pick them up well and it's best to use fingers to apply them. The best shimmery shade is Sparks Fly, a gold shade, which is really quite impressive. Pink Champagne, on the other hand, is least willing to apply nicely. The mattes are really great in this palette, though not all. Some are so pigmented and smooth, plus they blend so well, but those are mostly the reddish shades that don't suit me that well. Least impressive is Mug Cake, a shade that I'd normally use a lot. Considering how bad some matte shades were in previous palettes, this is a big improvement. 

I won't go through individual shades, but if you're interested, Petra described them well here.

Shades: Palette contains a mix of 14 matte and 10 shimmer shadows, most of the are warm, but there is a possible combination that looks like my usual neutral, defined eye. Overall this is definitely the palette for those with a warm undertone, while on me most of the reddish combination make me look either ill or just strange. My favourites shades are the first three in the second row - they are such nice metallic shades. I had very high hopes for the old gold Pine Tree, but it's greener than in the palette. There are some nice copper shades and corresponding matte reddish shades, a warm purple, a Mac Club dupe Petrol (duochrome green-brown) and some lighter warm matte transition shades.

 Pink Champagne, Mugcake and Rosewood

 Sparks Flay and Rosewood

Pine Tree

 Smokey Bronze and Rosewood

Staying power: Though I find the quality of eyeshadows nice, staying power didn't impress that much. They don't crease or fall down, but they do fade faster than my other eyeshadows. I'd recommend a primer with these.

Packaging: I really like how the palette looks. Peachy shade together with rose gold looks so modern and pretty. As usual there's a big mirror included which is very handy.

Price and availability: It's sold on Ličila.si for 14.99 € and Makeup Revolution site. I believe this one is also sold in DM's.  

If you're a fan of all the rosy-coppery-reddish palettes that have been popular in the last years, you'll like this one two. It's one of MR's best so far in terms of quality, especially when it comes to mattes, they've made great strides. You won't regret spending those 15 € for it, but use a primer. It's way too warm for my undertones and I'm in general not a a fan of reddish shades even though my eyes are grey, but for all of you with a warm undertone, this is a nice one.

Have a great day!

*PR product

Though this is Max Factor's latest mascara, it's been a while since it launched and like most of their releases of the past years, it has a plastic comb. I like most of Max Factor's such mascaras because they know how to combine definition with great volume and particularly their Voluptious is amazing. Dark Magic mascara is nice too, but it hasn't quite wowed me as much as Voluptious.

The plastic brush has short bristles and a double hourglass design. Since the bristles are short, it doesn't comb the lashes as easily as Voluptious and I need to comb them slower, so I can make sure I catch every lash, however, it's a far more comfortable brush. It's still great for definition and it deposits enough product on the lashes in two coats for a good level of volume, which is similar to Voluptious. However, though the effect is nice, it fails at the most important thing for me - lifting and holding the lashes, even if I curl them. A mascara can create amazing volume, but if it doesn't hold my lashes up, it's like I didn't use much mascara. If you don't have problems with difficult to curl lashes, Dark Magic will work just fine for you.

Formula is one of the thicker ones, but not the super wet, messy variety.  Overall, it's not the type of mascara that would make much of a mess, which I appreciate. It's also fairly easy to remove.

The packaging has a partly rubberised cap, which makes it easy to hold, however, it also attracts dirt and the mascara never looks pretty and clean.  

Mascara cost 14.99€.

To me this is merely an ok mascara, but purely because of the poor curl holding abilities. If I don't take that into account, it a nice defining + voluminous mascara. However, Max Factor has done a lot better and in particular I got more impressive results from their Voluptious mascara. 

Have a great day!

*PR product.

Urban Decay's latest palette, Born to Run, is a travel-themed palette that looks like the brand's typical Vice palettes, but slightly repackaged. 

And I won't be buying. 

Born to Run costs $49 and has 21 eyeshadows. Urban Decay offers free shipping on orders over $50 before tax, which means that, at $49, Born to Run conveniently does not qualify for free shipping. At the time that I am writing this post, Urban Decay is offering a special promotion of free shipping and a sticker pack with this palette, but it is unclear how long this promotion will last. Domestic shipping starts at $8, and Urban Decay has no direct international shipping. They have partnered with MyUS for international shipping, and while the website claims that the shipping fees are "deeply discounted," I can only imagine that shipping rates are still incredibly high. Therefore, outside of the special promotion with free shipping, this palette will cost upwards of $60 with tax and shipping if ordered from Urban Decay. This will be lower when ordering from Sephora or buying in-store. 

I've heard a lot of buzz about this palette and heard several people say that they have not purchased makeup in a long time because nothing has been interesting to them, but they don't think they can resist Born to Run. And I have to admit that I don't particularly understand that. Yes, I think that it is a pretty array of shadows, but it looks like so many palettes that have been released lately, and, more importantly, like so many Urban Decay products that have been released in the past couple of years. 

Before I get into the actual product, I would like to talk about the name, theme, and packaging:

If you have ever dated online or had to fill out any questionnaire about yourself, you will know just just how not unique it is to say, "I love to travel." When people are asked what they wished they could do with their lives or what they would do if they had endless funds, the first answer is usually "travel." And yet there is this interesting concept we tell ourselves that only a few in the world people have "wanderlust" or are "born to run," and we are one of them. The reality is that most people feel that way. But we like thinking we are one of the few. Urban Decay is smart for tapping into this impulse, and the packaging of this palette certainly gives me feelings of longing for vacation and travel. 

But that is the entire idea. 

Looking at the packaging, I am nostalgic of the summers I spent in by the beach in Southern California, the road trips I have taken across the US, the afternoon I spent at a seaside restaurant in Sausalito (outside of San Francisco), the summer nights I had in Paris, and the lazy evenings in Tuscany I spent drinking wine with friends. These are all memories of mine that are evoked by the images on this palette's packaging, and these aren't even my photographs! 

This is some of the most well-done, manipulative packaging that I have seen in a while. Buying this palette would give me good feelings, and not just because it fulfills my desire to buy more makeup and get new things. The "born to run" concept makes me feel special and unique, and the packaging makes me feel worldly and adventurous. 

The irony here is that if we spent less money on makeup that we already own, we could put that money toward traveling more. This is something I try to think about when a new palette or makeup item comes out that I really want but know I don't need it because I have something either identical or comparable already in my collection. It seems like just $20 here, $50 there, but if I were to actually start a savings fund and move the money that I would have spent on makeup into it, how much would I have at the end of the year? 

At the end of 2017, I actually tallied how much I spent on makeup and skincare, and the number absolutely shocked and disgusted me. And this was last year, when I was writing this blog and buying considerably less than I used to. I definitely could have taken a nice vacation with the money that I spent on makeup. I'm curious to see what the number will look like at the end of 2018, because I have found a way to cut down on the cost of skincare, and I have no plans to buy significant makeup for the rest of the year. 

It is certainly worth thinking about what else you could buy with money spent on makeup that you don't need, and I think it's interesting that Urban Decay is almost baiting us with those possibilities but hoping that we will instead buy the eyeshadow palette because it will give us the illusion of traveling. 

Let's look at the palette:

When I first saw this, I immediately thought of the recent Urban Decay Heavy Metals palette:

As well as Vice 4:

And After Dark:

This is what I just don't understand about Urban Decay. They are trying to sell me a palette that they have already tried to sell to me three other times, including six months ago with the Heavy Metals palette. This is also why I don't understand people saying that they haven't been tempted by anything until they saw Born to Run. If you weren't tempted by Heavy Metals, why are you tempted by Born to Run? All of the shimmer shadows can be found in Heavy Metals, and all of the matte shades are found in Naked Heat:

and Naked Petite Heat:

It's almost as if Urban Decay only has 20 or so shadows and they keep recycling them in every single palette they release. Born to Run even includes Smog, which is in the Naked palette and has been in countless other Urban Decay palettes. It's a gorgeous shadow and one of my favorites from the brand, but no one needs seven pans of it across different palettes. 

Let's look at swatches:

I'll say this: Brands are slowly getting better about thinking about inclusivity and diversity in their marketing images, but it serves little purpose to show how swatches look on three different skin tones if they look nearly identical across the skin tones. This is obviously not how these shadows are going to look on various skin tones once applied to the eye. No one packs on pigment that much on an eyelid. 

It's also worth mentioning how different the swatches look in the promotional images from the images Urban Decay released on their Instagram:

Granted, the lighting is not great in the above image, but you can still see that the swatches were applied very heavily (more than someone would put on their eye), and the colors are significantly less vibrant than in the promotional images. 

Born to Run not only looks like so many Urban Decay palettes, but it also looks like so many existing palettes in general. If you take out the four blue, green, and black shades, you have Huda Beauty Desert Dusk:

As well as Morphe x Jaclyn Hill:

It also looks like Tarte Be a Mermaid:

NYX Earth:

And Morphe 39A:

to name just a few. 

Honestly, it seems like the aspect of this palette that Urban Decay cared the most about and put care into was the packaging. Not just making it travel-themed, but in creating a different style of palette. I've heard so many people express excitement over the mirror in the palette, but that's just the mirror. It's not the actual product. The Heavy Metals palette was heavily criticized for the poor packaging, and it seems like Urban Decay decided to just redo that palette. They made some packaging upgrades and then added some of the traditional matte shades they throw into every palette to give the illusion that it is somehow different. It's not. It's the same thing that Urban Decay has been doing for years. 

And for the record, I like the packaging changes. I think the palette looks sleek, and it actually looks like the Sephora Pro palette packaging that I love. But new packaging is never a good enough reason to spend $50 to $60 on products that you already have. 

I think Born to Run falls short in a lot of ways, and two of the biggest are color selection and finishes. Something I think a lot of brands do poorly is the selection of matte shadows. Inevitably there will always be a color that a light-skinned person can use as a brow bone highlight and transition shade. These colors will always be neutral shades of beige. Typically there won't be equivalent shades for people with darker skin, which is exactly the case in Born to Run. Additionally, I am a person who likes colorful matte shadows. So if I'm going to be doing a green look, I'm not going to want to always blend it out with beiges and browns. One of my favorite palettes is Viseart Dark Matte:

because it gives me these rich and colorful tones within a matte finish. It would have been nice and refreshing to see Urban Decay include some matte blues, greens, olives, mustards, and other complementary shades for the more "colorful" shadows in this palette. Instead, they've given us the Naked palette and the Naked Heat plus some "colorful" shimmers from all of their other palettes. It's the same color scheme again and again, and it's boring. It's boring as a consumer, it's boring as a makeup lover, and it's even boring as an anti-haul blogger because I feel like I keep writing the same posts about "different" releases that are essentially the same. 

In my opinion, the best thing this palette has going for it is that the packaging makes me feel nostalgic for special times in my life. But that has zero to do with the product inside. I don't feel excited or inspired looking at this color scheme, and it almost makes me a little irritated because Urban Decay can't seem to do anything new. And when you look at the new palettes Jaclyn Hill curated for Morphe, it really shows how uninspired Urban Decay has been with all of their repeat releases. 

I have all of these shades already, and I don't need to have them in special, nostalgic-filled packaging. This is the kind of palette I feel most people would get tired of using after a couple weeks and would be ready to move on to the next thing because, while it is technically a new palette, the looks you'll be able to create aren't new. And at upwards of $50 or $60, that is way too much to spend on something that will be dull in such a short amount of time. This release is quite literally nothing new, and there is nothing about it that I feel excited by. So I won't be buying. 

I'm not one to wear lip gloss a lot and for years I've been more of a matte liquid lipstick kind of girl, though Revlon's Ultra HD Matte Lipcolour, which have a creamy-glossy finish, are some of my favourite because they are so incredibly comfortable. As absolutely stunning as Honey Lacquers look, I admit I'd never buy it myself if Max Factor Slovenia hadn't sent me the first shade which made me fall in love with the formula and did the impossible - made me buy a lip gloss after several years. I have a review of Honey Rose already - it's a very pale cool pink that I find unwearable, so I picked the shade that is more to my liking, Honey Nude, which I think is one of those shades that would likely fit just about everyone.

Texture: I already talked about it in my original review, so I'll keep this short, focusing on the swatches, but it's a thick, creamy and quite pigmented lipgloss with a creamy version of a glossy shine. It's super comfortable and non-sticky, so I wear it instead of a lip balm during the day.

Shade: Honey Nude is a pinky-brown shade. Coverage is semi-opaque and this is the type of shade that compliments you natural lip colour, so I think it'll fit so many and it will very likely look a bit different on each individual, meaning more pink on some and more brownish-nude on others.

Scent: The scent is exactly the same as at their Silky glosses, so a vanilla type of scent.

Staying power: It last similar to Honey Rose and due to the thick formula it manages to stick on the lips for several hours. It won't look like freshly applied and glossy, but the colour is still there. 

Packaging: Another thing that drew me to this lip gloss formula is the packaging, which is the nicest one in the drugstore ranges. The gold details make it very glamorous. The doe foot applicator is a classic one and easy to use.

Price and availability: These cost 9.49 € in drugstores, which is way too much for a lip gloss in my opinion, but that's just me. I ordered mine on Salma.

I've worn this shade so much since I got it, so it was definitely worth the purchase. It's so comfortable, balmy, it smells nice (reminds me of my teenage years when I wore Silky Glosses) and I absolutely love the shade. It's such a great my-lips-but-better shade and I think it'll suit many different skin tones. These come in several other shades, I think we have four in Slovenia, but this is the only one I like.

Have a great day!