MAC eye shadow haul

There is nothing like a MAC eye shadow haul :) This haul is actually a few months old, but I though I would still share. 

I much prefer to buy MAC shadows as refills. First of all they are a lot cheaper and I find them much easier to store in the palettes. I really like the quad palettes as they are super for going away or putting in you make-up bag for the gym etc. I love being able to mix & match and having the flexibility to make my own palettes.

So this time around I got (clockwise): Coppering, Embark, Arena and Espresso:

Coppering lives up to its name, an amazing coppery shade. Like all MAC shades it has excellent pigmentation and staying power. Embark is a matt dark brown with red undertones which really seem to make my blue/green eyes pop.

Espresso is not as dark as I though it would be as it is more of a soft brown, but it is still a great colour and a very versatile matt brown that goes with almost anything. The last shade in this haul is Arena, which is a super pretty neutral warm peachy/golden colour with a satin finish.

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Benefit longwear powder shadow in Nude Swings

So I recently discovered Benefit eye shadows and so far I have been impressed with their finish and staying power, so another trip to Sephora resulted in a purchase of their longwear powder shadow in the colour Nude Swings :) This shade is not included in any of the World Famous Neutrals ( I have the Most Glamorous Nudes Ever which I love!) and can therefore only be bought individually.

 How absolutely adorable is the packaging!?

The shade is a pretty soft rose gold. I have seen some swatches online where it comes off much more warm and golden, but on me the pink seems to be what comes through the most, making the colour appear cooler.

It is a gorgeous neutral shade, perfect for soft subtle looks. It has pretty good pigmentation and I have nothing bad to say in regards to staying power either. A really lovely shadow that I've already used several times :)

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Benefit velvet eyeshadow in Leggy

I stopped by Sephora this last weekend and they had a jumble box with all sorts of goodies marked down 25% and I found this pretty Benefit velvet eye shadow in "leggy". It is a gorgeous pale pink with a tiny bit of metallic shine. The pigmentation is great and it truly has a velvety feel to it, it almost feels soft, plus it held up great through out the day (with a primer), so I'm super happy with my very first Benefit eye shadow. 

PS: How precious is the packaging :)

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Samoa Silk by MAC

Samoa Silk is my latest MAC purchase. This is one of their Velux shades, meaning that it has a matte silky finish, is very pigmented and has a very fine texture. This colour is kind of hard to describe...I cannot decide if it's peachy or orange :) In any case I really like it and think it will work perfectly as a more subtle warm crease colour. I have also worn it all over the lid with MAC's Texture in the "outer v" as I think those two shades compliment each other really well. Basically Samoa Silk is a great and versatile matte shade :) 

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Expensive Pink by MAC

I recently treated myself to the fabulous Expensive Pink eye shadow from MAC. The colour really reminds me of Rubenesque, which is one of my all-time favourite MAC colours. This is one of the velux pearl shades, so it has metallic shimmer and a high-shine pearl finish. Just such a pretty colour, perhaps a bit redundant to mention that it has great pigmentation and colour payoff ...like any other MAC eye shadow :) 

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Shadow Velvet by Tromborg

This eye shadow from Danish make-up brand Tromborg in the colour Shadow Velvet is an amazing grey shade with brow undertones. It's a really gorgeous natural and versatile colour, that can easily be worn on its own and still look great. This particular shade was sold out everywhere at the beginning of this year, so I gave up and completely forgot about till I saw it at Sephora this past weekend. It truly is one of those standout colours and Tromborg is normally a brand that offers good quality products and this eye shadow did not disappoint, with excellent pigmentation and staying power :)

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Stila Written in the stars

This über pretty eye shadow palette called "Written in the stars" is part of the Light Up The Night series, Stila's 2012 Holiday collection. The palette contains 12 shades, all such pretty warm and rich colours, perfect for those neutral looks I love so much. The star/snowflake design of the palette is super cute to look at, but to be honest it is a little bit annoying when actually using the palette. Each slot is really small and too narrow for a regular size shading brush. Thank god for my Real Techniques shading brush that I have come to love, it fits perfectly. But except for my "issue" with the actual design of the palette, I have nothing but good things to say about it, just an all-round great new Stila palette.



 

I had a hard time getting the swatches to show up properly on camera. On my lid I always use my trusted UD primer potion, so I can't say how they preform without, but with primer they have good pigmentation and good staying power :) But like with most other Stila eye shadows, be awear of the fallout.

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Too Faced Shadow Bon Bons

When I saw this set from Too Faced on BeautyBay I couldn't resist :) Shadow Bon Bons is part of the Holiday Collection 2012 "Love Sweet Love" and it is just too pretty to ignore! The set contains 12 shadows, an eye primer and a mascara, plus a mini booklet with how to get the look guide. It comes in a cute light lavender velvety box that has a mirror in the lid. Very "sweet love" indeed.

 

All the 12 shadows are on the subtle natural side of the colour palette, giving you coutless options for creating great natural looks. In each row the last colour is darker and more intense than the rest, which means that you can definitely do more dramatic looks even if the rest of colours do lend themselves to more subtle looks. All the colours have good pigmentation and staying power - when applied over primer. The formula is very similar to other Too Faced shadows that I have, which means that these do have quite a bit of fallout. I highly recommend tapping the brush before applying the colours and doing the rest of your face i.e. foundation and under eye concealer after doing the eye look. I absolutely love the colours in this palette, they are totally up my alley as I am a big fan of the warm subtle natural looks, which these prefect for.

Row 1 (left to right): Vanilla, Cute the Cake, Framboise and Coffee Bean

Row 2: Peach Fuzz, Candy Rose, Hot Cocoa and Lovey Dovey

Row 3: Nude Beach, Cinnamon Sugar, Marzipan and Licorice Latté

The Lashgasm mascara in black has the flexi-firm brush and promises to give a "climax of length and volume"...quite the tagline :) I have been a bit reluctant to try out mascaras with this type of brush/wand, but when I saw that this set came with one I thought it would be the prefect opportunity to try it out. I am still a little undecided as to what I think about it, but I am not hating it like I sort of suspected I would.

I do also have to factor in that it's black, as I am a 100% brown-mascara-kind-of-girl and only occasionally wear black I'm obviously not completely objective. But I like I said, I didn't hate it and had it been brown, I am pretty sure I would have really liked it. But it's good to try different things and I migth check out some of the drugstore brands that do mascaras with this type of wand in brown. In terms of legth and volume, I will say yes to the first, but I didn't find it to give that much extra volume.

 

The set also included the famous Shadow insurance in the shade Candlelight. This eye shadow primer claims to intensify colour and prevent creasing. Candlelight lives up to its name as the colour is a very golden shimmering luminous base. It can be used as primer or alone as a shimmering gold creme shadow. Again this is a product I have wanted to try for a while. I swear by the Urban Decay primer potions or my Rubenesque paint pot, but the shadow insurance is one of the most talked about primers, so I really wanted to try it out.
I am honestly not sure about the colour, I find it almost a little yellow and I am not sure I feel like it goes with the eye shadow colours in the palette. In terms of doing its job as a primer I thought it was fine, a little less sticky than the primer potions which is one of the things I like about the UD ones. Right now I think I'm still in favour of my primer potions, but I will still give this one a chance and use it a few more times to see if I change my mind.

 

Mini booklet with a step-by-step guide for a look from each row in the palette.

 

So overall I am super happy with this set. I absolutely LOVE the 12 eye shadow colours and know I will get so much use out of them. I was also glad to get the oppertunity to try out a few new products, so for me this was a great pruchase. If you are into the nautral looks this is a good place to start :)

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NYX Nude On Nude

I am a big fan of NYX eye shadows as I have previously mentioned and the Nude On Nude Natural Look Kit is an absolute favourite of mine. To be fair any shadow palette with nude/natural/naked in the name is a must have for me ;)



But this NYX Nude on Nude truly is one of my favourite palettes. Besides the amazing colours and the good staying power this is fantastic for travel. It fits in the palm of my hand and just gives you lots of great warm natural options in just one little palette. I have to say I haven't used the two lip colours much, but they preform fairly well and a good added bonus plus I think they could easily be used as a tint for the cheeks. I got mine of Amazon and will certainly but re-purchasing once this one runs out :)

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NYX The Runway Collection

I am a big fan of NYX eye shadows and I recently got two of the 10 colour palettes from their Runway Collection. I got "Caviar & Bubbles" and "Catwalk" and have more or less used them every day since getting them, as I absolutely love them and as I am a big lover of neutral colours these two were right up my alley. NYX is a fairly inexpensive brand, unfortunateley not available in store here in DK so I have bought all my stuff on Amazon. Like the other NYX shadows I have, these just have such good staying power, good pigmentation, are super blendable and the packaging is extremely travel-friendly which is always a plus. I will say that they work best with primer and that the matt colours do have a bit of fallout, but I always use primer anyway and if you remember to tap your brush before applying the colour these are issues not really worth mentioning :)

 

Caviar & Bubbles has a good variety of greys, beige and campagne shimmer and matt shades and provides endless options for neutral looks, which is perfect for me, plus I just love the name of this palette!



 

Catwalk also has a good variety of matt and shimmer colours, but the look is more bronz, burnt and warm, but still fairly neutral.

 

 

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Eye Contact by Victoria's Secret

Victoria's Secret is probably best known for their undergarments, but they also have a make-up line. I have never tried any of their products before, but I really liked the look of this quad called "Eye Contact". I did think colours would be a bit more neutral than they turned out to be, but I am actually loving the more burnt look, which is prefect for autumn and winter. The pigmentation is pretty good and there was close to no fall-out, which is super great. I did have a bit of trouble blending out the dark crease colour, but that is the only "bad" thing I have to say about this quad.

 



 

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Mini haul

Wet n Wild trio Knock On Wood which I've had my eye on for a while and Intense Eye Liner Pen in 04 dark green from Gosh somehow fell into my shopping bag today :) Can't wait to try them.

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Oh my GOSH

I recently got these two GOSH Mineral waterproof eye shadow sticks. They come in about 10 different colours, but I got 010 Green and 009 Rose. I find that they work perfect as a primer for "regular" eye shadow making the colour seem much more intense. I really like these and will definitely be getting some more colours at some point.

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Sweet As Candy

Today I got the Wet n Wild trio in Sweet As Candy. I have been looking at this trio for a long time and after seeing a tutorial on You Tube using it, I finally caved and got it :)

Swatches

 

It is just such pretty colours and like always I have only good things to say about Wet n Wild. Their eye shadows are especially amazing, with good pigmentation and staying power. I also love their eye liner pencils, but what is really great about them is the price. This is one of the cheapest "drugstore" brands out there, but here low price certainly doesn't equal bad/low quality. Their eye shadows more than measure up to many high-end ones, so a definite favourite of mine.

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ELF - Eyes Lips Face

Eyes Lips Face, or ELF to those in the know, is a cosmetics brand with very budget-friendly prices. I have a few things from them including this palette containing 100 eye shadows! 

This palette has just about every colour you could ever want. 

 Here are a few swatched with some random colours:

I think this is a really great palette. Whenever I'm "missing" a colour for an eye look, I can always find it here. This is also a great beginners palette as it gives you the oppertunity to try out and experiment with so many different colours and find out what works for you. There is a good mix of matte and shimmer colours, but most on the matte side.
Most also have a fairly good colour pay off and good pigmentation. I will say that the staying power is GREATLY improved with an eye primer. Otherwise I find that these colours will not last all day, will crease a bit and that the colour pay off isn't as good. This is obviously not handy for travel, but prefect to keep at home as a go-to for that "missing" colour or for trying out different colours/looks to see how they suit you.
In Europe ELF products are not sold in stores, only online here. I can recomend signing up for their newsletter or following them on Facebook, as they do special offers almost weekly. I couldn't find this exact palette online anymore, but this one comes fairly close. Pin It

Stila Natural Beauty Eye Shadow Palette

This is one of my favourite palettes from Stila, that I got earlier this year on a trip to London. Stila is unfortunately not available in stores here in DK, but luckily both Beauty Bay and Look Fantastic carry the brand and ship here - for free.

I recently saw that this exact palette became available on BeautyBay.com so I thought I would do a little post on it.



It has a total of 13 colours, 6 matte and 7 shimmering, all very natural looking colours for more subtle and natural looks. This is a great palette for simple everyday looks, prefect for when less is more, but still giving you good options without being "boring".  

Here are the swatches for a closer look:

Top row left to right: pink sugar, blush, rosey, toffee, linen and vanilla
Bottom row left to right: sand, hazelnut, caramel, almond, amber, apricot and merlot

I do really love this palette, especially for those days when I just want a quick, natural look. Sand and hazelnut are probably my favourite go-to look from this palette along with amber and apricot. But I have to remeber this palette, because the colours are so natural and soft looking I tend to forget what it can do, which is create simple everyday looks that are still amazing :)
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MUS eye shadows

I recently got 3 eye shadows from Swedish brand Make Up Store. I had never tried any of their products before, but after swatching some of their eye shadows in the store I just had to get them. They have SO many fabulous and stunning colours and I had such a hard time choosing as I wanted them all :)

But I managed to contain myself and boil it down to these three:

From left to right: Powdery Nut, Cashmere & Dramatic

 All the swatches are done without primer, just directly on the skin. I think Powdery Nut is a lot more visible than comes across in my pic, but the other two are fairly accurate to how they appear in "real life".

I think all three are nice and pigmented and have good staying power. I have used them a lot and have yet to experience any issues with them fading ect. during the day. So I have been very pleased with my purchase and it is definitely not the last MUS eye shadows I have bought :)
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