[Review] theBalm Meet Matt(e)

 

Hi everyone!

I’m sorry for being MIA for so long. Let me fill you in with some updates. I have finally reached the end of my co-ass (or internship, you might say). Yay! There will still be another test on May, held by government. And if I passed the test, I will officially be a doctor. But at least, the hardest part is now over.

Anyhoo, have you Meet Matt(e)?

Give it up to theBalm for their weird (or funny?) product names with pun intended. The palette, as you can see, has picture of a guy in front of it. I assume he is Matt. It’s kinda funny that when I tried to take pictures of the product, the camera kept focusing on that guy in the cover. The packaging is a sleek, compact carton board with magnetic shut that reminds me a lot of some stila palettes. Inside there are nine eyeshadow and a dual ended tiny eyeshadow brush. The name of the individual eyeshadows is another pun. There are nine different Matts in various races, like Matt Chung, Matt Batali or Matt McDonald. Yeah, I think it’s kinda ridiculous if I posted an FOTD entry and listed Matt Smith, Matt Gallagher and Matt Ramirez as products used. Oh well.. Not that I’m against it, it just feels kinda weird, that’s all.

 However, I sing a totally different tune when it comes to the quality of these eyeshadows. I wasn’t so surprised with the intense pigmentation as theBalm eyeshadows are famous for that. The colors show up so easily but you can adjust it if you want less pigmentation, say when you apply colors on the crease. Awesome! It’s the smooth consistency that amazed me. I really didn’t expect it from a matte eyeshadow. I always a little bit permissive when it comes to matte eyeshadow. For all I know, matte eyeshadow tends to apply a little bit chalky and powdery but I found none of those problems with this palette. Make sure you tap the excess products before applying the eyeshadow, and you’re safe from eyeshadow fall out on application. Double awesomeness!

The color selection is great as well. I love how most of these eyeshadows have neutral undertone so it works for everyone. It even has two highlight colors, Matt Smith as warm beige-based highlight and Matt Chung as pink based highlight. Matt Gallagher and Matt Patel are my two most favorite crease colors. While the other colors are great to darkened the outer corner of the eye.

Of course, the dream when buying a makeup palette would be to have one palette that covers all the colors you need from base, crease, highlight to definition. But as you can see all colors in this palette are mostly dark colors. Now except for the browns, the colors in the palette don’t really coordinate with each other. Matt Ramirez, Matt McDonald and Matt Batali are great for definition color, especially when you go smoky. Matt Patel, Matt Gallagher, Matt Horowitz and Matt Schilling are great for crease. I rarely apply medium to dark eyeshadow on my lid, but if you like, Matt Schilling and Mat Horowitz could be your options. But in my opinion, with nine eyeshadows available, there is not enough color gradation to play with. Now this is not a problem with me because the reason I bought this palette at the first place is to get many matte colors in one palette at once. I already have enough eyeshadows in various colors and finishing, other than matte. And I hope this palette will complete my eyeshadow collection. Still, I don’t think this is the kind of palette that can be used alone. If you are still building your makeup collection, I’d suggest to postpone purchasing this palette and collect other palettes that have more colors combination and different finishing first. But if you have enough shimmery/glittery/satiny eyeshadows in your collection, then this palette would be a great addition.

  

theBalm Meet Matt(e) retails for $34.50 and is available at theBalm website. I purchased mine via my online seller while theBalm was having Friends and Family Sale.

FOTD: Balmbini Face

Hi guys!

This is an FOTD I came up with last week. I was playing with my theBalm Balmbini Palette that I purchased on my last holiday. There's a face chart on the back of the packaging, I thought I'll just give it a go. I found I really fancy makeup charts on some makeup packaging lately. I feel like it spoils me, in a way I don't have to think about what color I should use and where to put. Anyway, in this FOTD, I used all theBalm products in the palette.

This is how the makeup chart looks like.

A little bit about Balmbini palette, it literally is a definition of 'Babies of theBalm' as written on the packaging. All the products inside, for all I know, are the best of theBalm. At least there are so many products in this palette that I wanted to try initially, and I was thinking about purchasing each of the products individually. Thank God they made this palette. Imagine how much money I saved up by just buying this palette alone! theBalm is really in right now. Feels like everybody raved about this brand, so this palette is a great introduction to so many theBalm products. I haven't played with this palette that much that I don't think I can come up with a review post yet. But my initial thought about this palette is, I'm so glad I decided to purchase this!

Close up of the eye. My liquid liner is a bit messy here and I have my reason, which I'll tell you soon.

I followed the face chart exactly, so you can see what products I was wearing from the picture above. I used only one eyeshadow on my lid, which is something I rarely do. But it looked good enough, in my opinion. The color 'Insane Jane' is already beautiful on it's own. Who says makeup has to be complicated?

'Read My Lips' lipstick is a pinky red color, which is not really my cup of tea. I prefer a warm deep red. So in this look, I applied just a sheer amount of the lipstick and then layered it with 'Wanted' gloss. I believe all the products in this palette are available in permanent collectionm yet I looked at theBalm website and couldn't find both the lipstick and the gloss. But then again, these two don't really impressed me anyway, so I don't really care.

Other products that I used in this look are
On Face:
Graftobian HD Creme Foundation 'Desert Sand'
Urban Decay Razor Sharp Ultra Definition Finishing Powder
Bobbi Brown Corrector 'Peach'
MUFE Lift Concealer '3'

On eyes:
Urban Decay Primer Potion 'Eden'
My eyebrows set
MUFE Aqua Eyes'1L'
Bourjois Liner Clubbing 'Absolute Black'
L'oreal Volume Shocking Mascara

[Review] Make Up Forever La Boheme Palette

La Boheme Palette is Make Up Forever's first baked eyeshadow palette. According to the website,

Six new limited-edition shades in extremely pearly springtime pastel tones. The baked powder technology ensures fine, intense color particles for eyeshadows with 50% pearly particles and a paraben-free formula. Incredibly fresh and luminous makeup and intense, Bohemian chic eyes. The eyeshadows of this palette glide on with fingertips or a brush for two different results: applied dry for a sheer, luminous and natural effect or wet for an intense look, filled with pearly particles.

The palette comes in a cardboard packaging with patchwork design and stitches all over. With a purple ribbon on the side, it opens up like a book and displays six eyeshadows in convex form, placed side by side. I'm not really excited with the placing of these eyeshadows. It creates super messy sparkle between each other after application.

This is my very first time trying out baked eyeshadow. Baked eyeshadow is promoted as eyeshadow that needs to be applied wet for vibrant finish. While dry application gives you subtle and sheer finish. All these times the word 'sheer' holds me from purchasing baked eyeshadow. And yet, out of curiosity, I decided to give this palette a try.

Six eyeshadows in this palette are Green Lagoon, Vegetal Green, Beige, Parma Purple, Brown and Coral. Natural Green and Beige have pearly finish while the others have sparkly finish.

Dry application.
Apparently, when applied dry, these eyeshadows are not super sheer like I thought it was going to be. In general they deliver great pigmentation in subtle colors. The shimmer and sparkle don't really show up which makes it appropriate for day time look. However keep in mind that eyeshadow with sparkly to glittery finish are really prone to fall out, especially when applied dry. Green Lagoon is the only color that applies sheer even on top of primer. Brown is a bit chalky when applied on it's own as you can see in the picture below, but a layer of primer underneath it could totally fix the problem.

Wet application.
Considering baked eyeshadows are meant to be applied wet, obviously these eyeshadows give the best performance when applied wet. The colors are more vibrant and they have sort of a metallic touch to it. Wet application really emphasizes the undertone and the shimmer and sparkle in these eyeshadows. Which makes some of these even prettier and other are even scarier, depends on whether or not you like glittery eyeshadows (Eventhough it describes as sparkly, Parma Purple and Coral look more glittery rather than sparkly). Wet application also decrease the chance of having glitter fall out since it automatically turns into a creamy consistency. It sticks better to the base and applied effortlessly. Lagoon Green shows its true color when applied wet. It has a beautiful greenish gold shimmer which makes it unique. I didn't understand why they named a turquoise eyeshadow as green, but I can totally see it once it applied wet.

You can either wet your brush and then dip the brush to the eyeshadow or pick up the eyeshadow with dry brush and then wet it either by spraying it using setting spray like MUFE Mist & Fix or carefully dip to water (just a bit!!!!!). I recommend the latter because that way you get the eyeshadow soaked evenly and saves you from chalky application. I currently don't have any setting spray so I just touched the surface of the eyeshadow-covered of the brush on a wet tissue. (Not the best option, definitely thinking about purchasing Mist & Fix)

Click for larger image

I swatched these eyeshadows in three different form. On it's own, on primer (Urban Decay Primer Potion 'Eden') and wet. Most of the colors show up as pigmented on it's own except for Lagoon Green. But of course I always recommend applying eye primer as a base. And as you can see Lagoon Green looks much better when applied on top of a primer. While dry application is enough to make these eyeshadows stand out, wet application delivers more vibrant pigmentation and enhances the sparkle and shimmer of the eyeshadows.

As for the color combination. There are two colors that can work as highlight, which is Beige and Coral. And only one color that works as definition color, which is Brown. Beige and Coral look pretty as highlight. But constantly pairing all the shadows just with Brown could end up in boredom. But, back to the main inspiration of the collection. Bohemian is about living freely without following the conventional rules. So go ahead and be creative with this palette (which is more like an invitation for myself).

In the end, I'd recommend this palette. If you like or you wanna try baked eyeshadow. If you like or don't mind glittery eyeshadow. This palette doesn't disappoint.

I hope you find this review helpful for you. Especially if you are thinking about purchasing the palette, hope this review could be a reference. I tried to post this review as soon as I can considering this is a limited edition. If you're interested, Make Up Forever La Boheme Palette is available at IDR 525k.

[Review] Urban Decay Naked Palette

After playing with this palette a lot, I think it's time to share my thought in this blog. First of all, if you've been following this blog, you'll know that my makeup leans more towards natural, warm colors. I rarely wear bright colors for my eyes. Which is why, I think this palette really suits my taste. I wanted it the first time it launched and as I wrote earlier, my sister gave this palette for me.

The palette comes in a simple sleek brown velvety box. It has the same material with Deluxe Shadow Box. The velvety material easily attracts dust and I've been keeping my Deluxe Shadow Box in a separate pouch in my beauty container and I do the same for my Naked Palette.

As you all know, Urban Decay is great in providing colorful eye shadows, in fact they have a wide range of many colored eyeshadows you can pick. I bet you all also know, that Urban Decay also has a habit to pack their eyeshadows with loads of glitter. Naked Palette, however, is almost the opposite if the usual. It's not a colorful palette and it isn't packed with glitter, well not much. Inside the palette you have 12 full size eyeshadows, a mini size of their Primer Potion and a flat shader Good Karma brush. I'm not gonna talk a lot about the quality of the eyeshadows as Urban Decay's eyeshadow never disappoints. They're all very pigmented, smooth and easy to blend with minimum fallout.

At a glance, you'd think you'll get just warm brown colors with this palette. Yes, there are so many warm browns dominate the palette (they put Buck, Half Baked, Smog and Darkhorse next to each other so you immediately see warm-tone palette), but you actually get more variations than that. You can use Sin, Toasted, Hustle to create a neutral look. Or even go smokey by adding Creep or Gunmetal to your eye makeup. This palette is not that naked, you know.


There are two eyeshadows you can use as highlight, and they are Virgin and Sin. Virgin has more of a neutral beige undertone with satin finish while Sin is a frosty champagne. I wish this palette has a warm tone highlight color as the colors in the palette are mostly warm. I don't see Sin goes with warm colors like Half Baked or Smog. Also, Sin is in almost EVERY Urban Decay palettes. We've had enough, already.

This palette also has matte finish eyeshadows. And there are two of them, Naked and Buck. Two is already a lot for Urban Decay that doesn't usually gives matte color in their palette. Some people say that these two colors are lighter and darker version of each other. I personally think they're different. Naked is more neutral while Buck is warmer and it has a red undertone to it. Naked is a little bit too light for my skintone. But I can still wear it on my lid if I don't want too much color. Both are also great to blend colors on the crease.

You can all be happy to know that there is only one glittery eyeshadow in this palette. Yay!! And it's Sidecar. The glittery finish might scare you. But I personally love this color. I use it with Fyrinnae Pixy Epoxy underneath, of course, to prevent glitter fallout. But once you get to work with this eyeshadow, it's actually a beautiful color. From what I see, it's a pinkish taupe eyeshadow. Doesn't really give too much color but the glitter really gives a luxurious feel to it. So even if you're not a fan of glitter, give this shadow a chance to shine.

Here's the swatches of the eyeshadows

Left to right: Virgin - Sin - Naked - Sidecar - Buck - Half Baked - Smog - Darkhorse - Toasted - Hustle - Creep - Gunmetal

And here's some of the looks I created using this palette.

Naked Look 1

Lid - Sidecar
Crease - Naked (inner), Buck (outer)
Outer Corner - Darkhorse
Highlight - Virgin
Inner Corner - Sin
Lower Lashline - UD 24/7 Liner Whiskey

Naked Look 2 (from this look)

Lid - Smog
Inner Crease - Naked, Buck
Outer Lid - Darkhorse
Outer Corner - Creep
Lower Lashline - Smog
Inner Corner - Sin
Highlight - Virgin

Naked Look 3

Lid - Fyrinnae Pixy Epoxy, Sidecar
Outer Lid - Toasted
Crease - Toasted
Outer Corner - Hustle, Creep
Highlight - Sin
Lower Lashline - UD 24/7 Liner Rockstar

Naked Look 4 (from this look)

Lid - Naked
Crease - Smog
Inner Corner - NYX JEP 'Milk', Virgin
Highlight - Sin
Lower Lash - UD 24/7 Rockstar

Good Karma brush that comes in the palette is also a great addition. It's not just a 'bonus' brush with zero quality. Good Karma is Urban Decay's official brush line. And in this palette they give a full size shadow brush, which can also be purchased separately. It has synthetic bristles, densely packed and picks up enough products to be applied on lid. I was thinking about getting MAC 239 before I got this. But now that I have this brush, I don't think it's necessary anymore.


Overall, I think this palette suits more for people with warm undertone, despite the fact you have more variations of undertones in this palette. Still, in general, this palette leans towards warm. From what I see, cool undertone girls might not have enough options with this palette. This is also a great option if you prefer natural looks, rather than colorful look. Or if you want your natural colored eyeshadows to be in one palette so that you don't have to shop for others for a while. For me, I'm very much satisfied with this palette, as expected. And I probably won't be shopping any brown eyeshadows, as I have enough supply from this palette already. Well, unless I feel like shopping, of course ;)

[Review] Sleek Oh So Special Palette

After reading so many raved reviews about Sleek palettes, I decided to give this brand a try. I wasn't sure which palette I wanted to try first. I was browsing through Sleek website and decided to get their recently launched Oh So Special palette.

The palette comes with 12 eyeshadows consist of 7 mattes and 5 shimmers. The colors in this palette are mostly neutrals shade. Some leans towards warm but I can see this colors still suitable for cool skin tone as well, especially dark colors.

Packaging is a simple sleek black palette with a wearable mirror since it's pretty huge and also comes with a dual ended sponge applicator. I think the palette is quite convenient. Doesn't take up so much space so it will be great for traveling as well. Inside there's a plastic insert with the name of each eyeshadow written on it. My fisrt impression was, why do they have to put the names on the insert? I tend to loose all plastic inserts from all of my palettes. If I lost this one then I won't be able to tell the names of these eyeshadows anymore. Wouldn't be convenient, especially if I'm doing tutorial. But never mind, it's just a beauty blogger rant. Might not be something to sweat about unless you really care about the names of your make up stuff.

Top row: Bow - Organza - Ribbon - Gift Basket - Glitz - CelebrateBottom row: Pamper - Gateau - The Mail - Boxed - Wrapped Up - Noir

Here's the swatch of the eyeshadow. They are all swatched on my arm with no base.

L-R: Bow (matte) - Organza - Ribbon (matte) - Gift Basket - Glitz - Celebrate

L-R: Pamper (matte) - Gateau - The Mail (matte) - Boxed (matte) - Wrapped Up (matte) - Noir (matte)

Here's my thought on the individual eyeshadow. I'm not gonna go through each and every one of it, though.
Ribbon: This color is actually one color that lured me into buying this palette. I didn't own any peach eyeshadow like this before so I thought it will be a great addition to my collection. Unfortunately this color is the biggest disappointment in this palette. The texture is chalky and impossible to blend. I tried applying it wet, dry, with primer, without primer and end up with same uneven finish.

Pamper: This is another color that's pretty similar to Ribbon which is a lighter peach. It turns out a lot better in terms of quality. But the color is not special enough. It's also a bit pale to show up on me. So it's not working either.

Gateau: Another disappointment. It looks like a pretty lilac with gold flecks in the pan. But once applied, the lilac is nowhere to be seen. I end up with just gold shimmer. I can still wear it as highlight on my browbone or inner corner but still, it doesn't look that special anymore.

The Mail: I can't really say if this color disappoint me. It's just that I thought this color would be a great crease color but apparently this color doesn't show up in my skin, even with primer. I guess this would be great on lighter skintone. In the pan, this color kind of reminds me of MAC Cork, but I was wrong as Cork is noticeably darker than The Mail.

L-R: The Mail - MAC Cork - Boxed

Noir: This shade is amazing. I've never encountered such super rich matte black eyeshadow and this one really satisfied me. I also love wearing it to set my eyeliner.

Other colors, especially dark ones are great. They are very pigmented, buttery smooth and I notice very minimal amount of fall out. Exactly the kind of quality I expected from ALL the colors in this palette

All in all, I'm kinda disappointed that some of the interesting shades in this palette don't work. I usually wear light colors on the lid and darker color on the outer corner. But with most of the lid colors in this palette don't work for me, all I left with are just small selection of colors I can wear to create just another smokey look which makes this palette not oh-so-special anymore.

This might be another nice addition for my make up, just for the sake of trying a new brand. Thankfully I can still use more than half of the eyeshadows in this palette. But if you're pretty new to makeup and just started building your makeup collection, I'd say save your money and buy a better quality palette.

Behold, My Early Birthday Present

Guys, please welcome my very first Book of Shadow. Yes, I finally got my hands on this latest Urban Decay Alice in Wonderland Book of Shadows.

So, I have a lot to celebrate in these first months of 2010. Well, with my graduation and my birthday is coming, I think those are enough reasons to give myself a nice present. And it's not just another birthday. It's my 25th! It's an important number, you know. That means, I'm old enough to get married! Haha..

Anyway, this book just arrived yesterday. I almost ran out of it. But I found one ready stock at Pinkymiki. I was so excited! I haven't even tried the eyeshadows. And my birthday is not until the end of the month, I thought I'm not gonna post this entry until then. But I'm just too excited, I can't wait to share the story on my blog!

For you whose already familiar with Urban Decay Book of Shadows, I'm sure you guys already know that this palette usually comes with sixteen eyeshadows, two 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencils and Primer Potion in mini size.

As for Alice in Wonderland Book of Shadows, the palette has pretty much the same material. But since this palette is made especially to celebrate the launching of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie, the eyeshadows in this palette have been renamed to match to movie theme. They said, "Our shadows are topsy-turvy in Underland... Find their real-world names here":

• Underland (Flash)
• Alice (Painkiller)
• Oraculum (Baked)
• Queen (Last Call)
• Chessur (Chopper)
• White Rabbit (Polyester Bride)
• Wonderland (Maui Wowie)
• Curioser (Grifter)
• Muchness (X)
• Midnight Tea Party (Midnight Cowboy Rides Again)
• Vorpal (S&M)
• Absolem (Homegrown)
• Drink Me, Eat Me (Sin)
• Mad Hatter (Twice Baked)
• Jabberwocky (Oil Slick)

I know Urban Decay and Book of Shadows are famous for their glittery eyeshadows. Judging from what I saw, seems like Chessur, White Rabbit, Wonderland, Curioser, Midnight Tea Party and Jabberwocky have the most glitters, compare to the others. We'll see how those colors will appear on lids. Oh, and the two 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencils that included in this palette are 'Zero' and 'Flipside'.

If you watched Kandee Johnson's video about this palette and saw those cute 'Drink Me' chocolate sauce and 'Eat Me' mint pills, it kinda burst my bubbles a little bit knowing that these cute bonuses aren't included with the palette. But it doesn't matter. This palette is too cute, I forgot about those bonuses immediately. Haha..

I haven't got a chance to play with this palette, up until now. But I really can't wait.

Urban Decay Deluxe Shadow Box

When everybody was chasing after Urban Decay Book of Shadow Vol. II, I was hooked with Deluxe Shadow Box instead. And I must say that I'm so glad that I have this palette in my hands. It has nine Urban Decay deluxe eyeshadows plus a travel size Urban Decay primer potion in simple round tube, so it's easier to reach all the product inside.

Firstly, talking about the packaging. It's Urban Decay, they're like the expert of funky packaging. Deluxe Shadow Box comes in a purple velvety box with shiny silver beads in the middle (well, not actually beads, but what would you call that?). And when the light hit, I feel like I'm looking at a disco ball. So funky! The size of the box is not so big, it's pretty much the size of your palm. Very handy, you can carry it everywhere.

Talking about the eyeshadows, there are nine eyeshadows in this palette and they are:

• Fishnet (iridescent purple)
• Honey (glistening gold)
• Ransom (vibrant iridescent purple)
• Graffiti (bright green)
• Zero (smoking black)
• Peace (shimmering turquoise)
• Shag (tan shimmer)
• Scratch (shimmering silver pink)
• Underground (taupe brown shimmer)

I love how vibrant all the colors are and how the colors compliment each other. They look so good together. You can create colorful eye make up using colors such as Graffiti, Peace or Fishnet. Or go for neutral look using Shag, Underground or Scratch. This palette has it all. The eyeshadows glide smoothly on the lids, and they last, like, forever. Pretty much everything you want from an eyeshadow.

I found one downside from this palette, though. No color is light enough in this palette that I can use to highlight my brow bone. Shag and Scratch are pretty for the inner corner but not light enough for highlight. So I have to grab another eyeshadow for that. But other than that, I have no complaint. So, go grab this palette. You won't regret it.

Here are the swatches:

L-R: Fishnet - Honey - Ransom

L-R: Graffiti - Zero - Peace

L-R: Shag - Scratch - Underground

Here's my EOTD using colors from this palette. Well, most of them. It's Valentine soon so I picked purple colors and make it a little smokey. Not that I celebrate it, but it's fun to have a theme to matches with.


Products used for the eyes:

• UDPP
• Urban Decay Deluxe eyeshadow in 'Ransom' (for all over the lid)
• Urban Decay Deluxe eyeshadow in 'Fishnet' (for the crease)
• Urban Decay Deluxe eyeshadow in 'Zero' (for lower part of the lid)
• Stila Kajal Liner in 'Onyx' (as base for Zero)
• Urban Decay Deluxe eyeshadow in 'Shag' (for the inner corner)
• Revlon Marble-ous Duo Eyeshadow in 'Set The Nude' (for browbone)
• MAC eyeshadow in 'Brule' (for browbone)
• MUFE Aqua Eyes in '23L' (for inner rim)
• Kate Liquid Eyeliner in 'BK-3'
• Maybelline Volum' Express Cat Eyes Mascara

Products used on face:

• Sana Pore Putty Original Make Up Base
• MUFE HD Foundation in 'Almond'
• Revlon Colorstay concealer in Medium
• PAC Shimmering Powder in 'Golden'
• MAC Powder Blush in 'Margin'

On lips:

• NYX Lipgloss Megashine in 'French Kiss'