Included in the box is an instructional booklet (actually just one piece of paper you unfold) with steps on how to do two looks (in this case, "Sunkissed Splendor" and "Eyes With Envy") with the products in the kit:
The set contains a Cream Liner trio, Limitless Eye Liner Pencil in Onyx, Lip Enhancing Gloss in Glow, Reflection High Shine lipgloss in Buff, The Nude Lip Pencil in Medium, Fusion Soft Lights for Medium Skin, and an eyeshadow trio with three shades (Bliss, Ambient, and Ivy).
The Cream Liner trio's shades are not only stunning, they're packed with pigment and brush on beautifully. This is maybe my favorite item in the entire kit, since I love the shades so much: shimmery vivid dark violet, shimmery olive green, and a shimmery neutral bronze. Limitless Eye Liner Pencil in Onyx is swatched as well, and for a waterproof eye pencil it has a nice amount of creaminess to it:
Reflection High Shine lipgloss in Buff looked gorgeous in the tube (shimmering nude bronze), but it has almost no pigment once it's on the lips. I barely even saw any sparkle, and my lips aren't pigmented at all. These are the products that make me ask myself, "why even bother putting it on?" It also has a scent that's a little spicy and warm, just like the Buxom lip glosses from Bare Escentuals, and it's pretty sticky. Lip Enhancing Gloss in Glow is another story, however. It's a sheer cream coral with zero stickiness, no fragrance, and a good amount of pigment. It gives lips a nice, summery pop of coral. "Glow" is a perfect name for it:
The Nude Lip Pencil in Medium is a winner. It's an extremely flattering warm rose nude shade that's creamy and goes on with zero tugging. I can see this looking good on just about anyone. I have a lot of lipliners like this, but almost all of them are a bit too rosy or plummy to go with warmer lipsticks. Finally! This one isn't!
Here, it's on the far left, swatched next to (in order from left to right) NYX Mauve lip pencil, MAC Whirl lip liner, and Revlon Colorstay Lip Liner in Nude. As you can see, it's more nude and less rose than the rest:
This was my first time trying Fusion Soft Lights, and I loved this as a blush. The pan is large, and include three colors of strips: shimmering bronze, matte warm rose, and matte soft tan. When you blend them together, the result is a gorgeous flush of rosy bronze:
The eyeshadow trio was my least favorite of all the products in the kit. And the quality of the shadows was not a reason- they are silky and highly pigmented. The black compact is quite large and mirrored- another plus. It's just that I really have no use for the shades. The matte ivory, Bliss is a bit too obvious on my skintone; the gold shimmer, Ambient, is beautiful, but I already have a go-to gold in MAC Woodwinked; and Ivy, the "sage green shimmer" (as described on Sephora.com) eyeshadow I looked so forward to is a very blue-toned shimmery teal. Is it a gorgeous color? Absolutely. But I have little to no use for such a bluish color on my warm green eyes. Check out the swatches (and the pigment!), below:
I'm not blind, right? That is a blue teal if I ever saw one. Where's the sage green?
Even though I have no use for the eyeshadow trio (no biggie- all of my eyeshadow palette love is going to Flirt! Cosmetics' Eye Enhancing Palette for green eyes anyway right now ;), I adore the rest of the products in the set. I think this was a great idea by Smashbox, and I'm dying to try out the Dark one next for something a little more colorful and dramatic.
No comments:
Post a Comment