Review & Swatches: MAC Hey Sailor!

A while ago MAC launched their summer collection, called Hey Sailor! I was lucky enough to receive some pieces from the collection:

So the items I got were:

• Emerald Sea Power Point Eye Pencil
• Jaunty eyeshadow
• Feeling Fresh eyeshadow
• Fleet Fast Powder Blush
• Riviera Life Lipglass 

Let's start with the eyeshadows:

Feeling Fresh:

Feeling Fresh is a truly fresh color, bright green with a fair amount of shimmer. I think it's pigmented and it blends well, and it's great color for bright looks. Again, my red hair doesn't really work with greens right now, so haven't loved this baby as much as it deserves. :P

Jaunty:

I. Love. Jaunty. 

Really. This is the ultimate everyday color for me. If I don't feel like putting much makeup, just a hint of this with liner and mascara and I'm ready! 

It's pearly, beautifully shimmery light beige, not too shimmery or glittery, but glowing. And it's pigmented, and a dream to apply and blend.

Emerald Sea Powerpoint pencil:

Emerald Sea is almost matte green eyepencil, kinda dirty green. It's not the most pigmented pencil I've seen, but you can get nice smooth and soft green lines for a summer look with this.This did last nicely on my upper and lower lashline, but faded in few hours from waterline, and it was quite a pain to apply evenly to waterline.

Here's a super quick look with the shadows and pencil:

Fleet Fast:

Fleet Fast is a bit dirty pink with tiniest peachy golden shimmer, and it has actually become one of my "to-go" blushes. It's extremely pigmented (like most of the MAC blushes I have) and I have be careful not to get clown cheeks with it, but if used lightly it gives natural look.

Swatches:

Riviera Life:

 Riviera Life is bright orange semi-opaque lipgloss with some gold shimmer/sparkles. I love the scent of MAC lip products and this is no exception. Unfortunately I never learned how to use oranges (or warm reds) so I haven't really used it, but when swatched it felt quite lasting, not too runny or too sticky.

Review & Swatches: Illamasqua Naked Strangers

Illamasqua is releasing their new summer collection called Naked Strangers. I was lucky enough to get some pieces of the collection to review and swatch!

Nail Varnish (£13.50)

Dress up your nails and explore your fantasies with our award-winning Nail Varnishes. Are you Monogamous (creamy flesh pink, matt finish), Faithful (coppered metal) or Swinger (glistening platinum gold)? Apply a lustful layer then answer our question.

Lipglosses (£13.00)

Lick your lips then smooth on a rich layer of Intense Lipgloss in Stranger (platinum gold) for obscene levels of pigment. Alternatively, apply Sheer Lipgloss in Intimacy (nude pink brown) on naked lips, to tease and tempt your lover. Or lovers…

Blushers (£16.50)

Stark naked might mean no clothes, but who said anything about no make-up? Create a provocative flush that lasts all night with Powder Blusher in Naked Rose (neutral beige brown) and Cream Blusher in Zygomatic (naked pink brown).

The Naked Strangers collection is available from Wednesday 23rd May on Illamasqua.com exclusively for registered members
Available nationwide and globally (excluding Sephora) from 31st May
Available at Sephora.com from 7th June


Nail Varnish Faithful:

I love Illamasqua's nail polishes. They always apply smoothly and evenly, usually one coat covers well, second coat is just to smooth the nail even more.

They are really long lasting, and quickly drying. 

Faithful is really pretty warm copper, surprisingly suitable for my skin tone and a great color for summer.

Intense Lipgloss Stranger:

Another of my favourite products from Illamasqua are the intense lipglosses. They really are INTENSE. 

And this one is beyond words, I love it! It's liquid light gold, it's really opaque, lasting, and beautiful.

Powder Blusher Naked Rose:

Naked Rose is matte pinkish beige powder blush, perfect for everyday use. I think this is best for quite light skin tones, because it's pretty light, even though it's very pigmented.

 And because it's becoming a habit for me to always remake Illamasqua promolooks, here's my take with the Naked Strangers look:

Review & Swatches: Lime crime Palette D'Antoinette

This is going to be a review of Lime Crime's new palette, called Palette D'Antoinette.

This is NOT GONNA BE a review of the company, company's owner(s) or how they handle problems with customers or anything.

I'm aware of all the drama, and if you want to know more about it, use google or go to Ana's blog. 

Eye & cheek fantasy palette inspired by the iconic Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. Five pastel hues, each reminiscent of royal confectionery delights, offer luxurious payoff, velvety texture and superb blendability. Arrives encased in a deluxe purple tin.

I'm soooo behind with this review, but on the bright side I've had plenty of time to do looks with it!

So here we go, let's start with the shadows:

Royal Flush – pastel pink (matte)

I'm not much of a pink-user, but this is pretty. It's not too bright or too soft, it gets noticed, but it doesn't scream "BIMBO!" like many other pinks do. 

It's pigmented and soft and it blends well.

Absinthe-Minded – light green (matte)

This was the one I was originally most excited of, but then I dyed my hair red and greens started to look bad for everyday wear :S  So this one hasn't had as much love as I originally wanted. 

It's bright but soft light green with nice pigmentation. 

Macarooned – peach (matte)

I originally thought that this would be the hardest color for me, but I think I have used this and Ribbonesque the most :D
It's a funny color, it can appear both bold orange or soft peach, depending in what you pair it with. 

Pigmented and soft.

Ribbonesque – lavender (matte)

Like I said, this and Macarooned have been the most used colors in this palette for me. This is a bomb paired either with pink (Royal Flush) or with dark purple (like Poison Plum from Sugarpill).
This is the one you need to be a bit careful when you're blending it, it blends of quite easily, unless it has sticky base to stick to.

Mercurious – metallic silver (sparkle)

Weirdly, this was my least favourite color.  Maybe it's because it's basically silver, which is easily dupable, but I really haven't found any use for it. Sure it's pretty, but compared to delicious pastels this is just a but "meh".

Swatches:

Looooooooks:

I have actually used this palette quite a lot, it's perfect for those days when you don't want to wear much makeup, but still want to use something to make your eyes to pop. 

My favourite way to use these is to add primer, and then add either Absinthe-Minded, Macarooned or Ribbonesque to the lashline as liner! That's it, simple, easy and looks nice, not overdone, but not quite nude either. 

I personally think that there's should have been one darker color, so that you could do a whole look with just this palette, but since almost everyone probably owns darker colors, it's not a big minus. 

Personally I love mixing the pastels with brown:

Absinthe-Minded on lid, Lotus Noir in outer corner, brown shadow blended with Macarooned, Macarooneed in lower lashline. Airborne Unicorn on lips.

Macarooned on lid and lower lashline, Royal Flush in inner corner,  random brown in crease, blended with Macarooned.

 Or mix with more colorful shadows:

 Sure you can create cool look without using any colors from other palettes:

Ribbonesque on lid, Royal Flush in crease, Mercurious in highlight, Macarooned on lower lashline.

Royal flush & Ribbonesque, with Chinchilla on the lips.

Royal Flush - lid, Macarooned - crease, Absinthe-Minded - lower lashline

And of course you can go bit crazy with the colors:

Or Antoinette:

Or just celebrate spring or summer:

Overall:

I really like it.

Unlike Lime Crime's previous Fantasy palette, China Doll , this one isn't packed with bold colors, but it still manages to be bright.
The colors in this palette are softer maybe a bit chalkier than in the previous palette, but the pigmentation hasn't suffered from the chalkiness.


I still love the tin box, it's something you can keep after the makeup is gone.

The price is $34,99, and if you divide it with 5 (5 shadows), each pan costs around $7.

I think this is great palette for summer, when you don't want to use heavy, bold colors.