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Showing posts with label Cheap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cheap. Show all posts

After the disappointment of the Sephora 24k Gold Mine Brush set I was looking for something to fill my gold makeup brush void, lol. Lo and behold, one of my favorite drugstore brands Sonia Kashuk came to the rescue! 
The "All That Jazz" Holiday 2014 set caught my eye while I was wandering the aisles of my local Target. There are actually a few other pieces in this Holiday Collection, including the smaller 4-piece "Golden Age" brush set and the visually stunning "Deco Starlet" eyeshadow palette (I may go back and get this).

 Sonia Kashuk put a lot of great detailing into the "All that Jazz" brush set, while making sure the brushes were still practical to use. The black and gold design on the handles is just awesome and the textured gold ferrules completely won me over. At $34 for 10 brushes, this set is also a steal. It's currently sold out on Target.com, but most of the stores in my area still have plenty of sets on the shelves. 

From left to right: Powder Brush, Flat-Top Blusher, Angled Duo-Fiber Face brush and Foundation brush.

Foundation brush, Eyeshadow brush, Blending brush, Crease brush, Angled Duo-Fiber Eye brush and Precision Eye brush.

Eyeshadow brush, Blending brush, Crease brush, Angled Duo-Fiber Eye brush, Precision Eye brush and Lash/Brow Groomer.
The quality of this set is on par with other Sonia Kashuk brushes. However, I do feel like the 15th Anniversary brush set released earlier this year is slightly better quality than this set overall. 
With this set, I feel like the eye shadow brushes are the weakest link. They work better for blending rather than packing on color. Also after I washed a few of them, the hairs looked a little frayed and I had to reshape the brush heads while they dried. The two smaller, pointed eye brushes didn't have this issue. 

The angled duo fibre eye brush also held up being washed just fine, but to be honest, I'm still figuring out this brush. I guess its for blending in the crease/under the brow bone, but for me it just feels awkward. It is however, very soft and picks up only a small amount of product so no worries about being heavy-handed while using this brush. 

The face brushes fared much better. My overall favorite is the angled duo-fiber face brush. Its super soft and does a great job both applying and blending powder products ( I haven't tried it with liquid foundation yet). The foundation brush is standard, nothing special. The flat top face brush and large powder brush are both very soft and perform great. 

The bottoms of each brush are imprinted with the "SK" logo. 


Overall, If you can find a set of these at your local Target then don't hesitate to buy them! Not only are they gorgeous to look at, they perform well. For the price they'll make a great gift for some one or even yourself!
For the last few months I've been looking for reasonably priced, clear acrylic storage for my makeup. I've checked brands like Muji (not big enough) InterDesign (overpriced and the acrylic is brittle/easily cracked) as well as random Ebay and Amazon brands. I'd planned to get a multi drawer "cube" unit from Ebay, but I wanted to keep looking for a better deal... 

Cosmetics Organizer #1 Side View.
Measurements: length/height/depth 13.25x9.5x8.5

Cosmetics Organizer #1 Front View. Drawer Closed.
Measurements: length/height/depth 13.25x9.5x8.5
Cosmetics Organizer #1 Empty in original cardboard packaging which almost completely hides the large bottom drawer.
 Measurements: length/height/depth 13.25x9.5x8.5
Cosmetics Organizer #1 Empty with drawer closed
Measurements: length/height/depth 13.25x9.5x8.5

Instead, a recent trip to my local HomeGoods resulted in these acrylic makeup organizers from the brand StoreHouse. I'd actually seen these before and walked past them on numerous occasions but wrote them off as being poorly designed and not worth the money. What changed this time? Seeing the little red "clearance" sticker, lol (I guess most people couldn't figure these out either and so they sat on the store's shelves for months). 

It turns out these are actually very well designed. But in my defense, since they're clear plastic and StoreHouse invested little to no money in decent packaging it was nearly impossible to tell just how useful these would be. There are no directions, measurements, pictures...nothing to give you a visual of how these actually work or look once they're filled up with makeup. 

For example, the drawers don't have any knobs/pulls/handles so when the entire unit was sealed up in clear plastic it was very hard to differentiate between a drawer, a lidded compartment or just plain open space. I must've stood in the isle for a good 30 minutes poking at the packaging trying to see what was what. Also, many of the drawers have multiple compartments, but open as one complete unit so even after I figured out how one drawer could be opened, I was still at a loss as to how the others worked. 

All that aside, once I had a general understanding of how these could actually suit my makeup needs, 2 units came home with me. Best decision ever.  Once these were out of the packaging and I began filling them with my makeup, I was completely in love!

Both the units I purchased hold a lot of makeup, the pictures don't even do them justice at all. Some of the drawers are deep enough to hold large eyeshadow palette and bottles of foundation standing upright (none of the units I saw on Ebay could do this). I purchased two different style of organizers and took my own measurements for the purpose of this review. The first is the larger of the two and measures 13.25 inches long, by 9.5 inches tall by 8.5 inches deep. It has a large 3-compartment drawer at the bottom and is tapered at the top with 3 shelves on the front and 2 large/deep compartments in the back.

The second unit measures 15.25 inches long, by 6.75 inches tall and 6.75 inches deep. It has  2 smaller 2-compartment drawers on the left and one large/deep 2-compartment drawer on the right. The top is separated by a 2-compartment space with a lid and a large, but shallow open space on the right.



Cosmetics Organizer #2 with all drawers open. Measurements: Length/Height/Depth 15.25x6.75x6.75

Cosmetics Organizer #2 Front view. Measurements: Length/Height/Depth 15.25x6.75x6.75

Overall, these were almost exactly what I needed to house most of my makeup. The acrylic feels thick and sturdy, so I'm not worried about them getting cracked or chipped easily. All of the drawers and lids open and close smoothly even when full of makeup. I plan on returning to HomeGoods soon to look for another unit! The original price tag on these was $49.99 but the large one was on clearance for $35 while the smaller organizer was $29.
I made a quick trip to Rite Aid and picked up 4 of the new Wet n Wild eyeshadow trios, 3 of Natural Blend Lip shimmers and a NYC Bronzer duo.

The trios are hit and miss as far as quality. But at $1.99 each I'm not really complaining, lol. My least favorite is I Dream of Greenie, the greens looked stunning in the packaging, but the formula is very chalky/powdery. My fav of the bunch is Silent Treatment, which I've used in a few looks already. The taupy/mauve color in it is great for brown skin since its got great pigmentation and doesn't look ashy at all.

Wet n Wild Trio: I Dream of Greenie

Wet n Wild Trio: I Got Good Jeans
 The NYC Bronze Mist is also a hit for me. For starters the colors actually show up on brown skin and the forumula doesn't have a bunch of chunky glitter like other bronzers do. The highlighter side looks so natural and just seems to brighten up the areas I apply it to without it being obvious I have a highlighter on.

I loved this bronzer so much I went to Target and got the other 2 in the series, Bronze Gold and Terracotta Tan. I haven't taken pics of them yet, but I'll be adding those swatches soon.
Wet n Wild Trio: I'm Getting Sunburned

Wet n Wild Trio: Silent Treatment

NYC Bronzer in #718A Bronze Mist

NYC Bronze Mist
 These Eye Encyclopedias are another ELF product I had been wanting to try out for a while now. I got all three encyclopedias during the 3 for $10 promotion a few weeks back.

Each Eye Encyclopedia contains 12 powder eyeshadows, 2 cream eyeshadows, an eyeliner pencil and a mini applicator brush.

Like most of ELF's product the shadows in these palettes are hit and miss. Some are highly pigmented and feel creamy to touch, while others are chalky, powdery and hard as a rock.

I guess for the price and the amount of shadows in each encyclopedia I really can't complain too much. And I do really like some of the colors.

The cream eyeshadows are very greasy feeling with little to no pigmentation and in some cases only a whole lot of glitter. I wouldn't even attempt to use these on my lids for fear of a  greasy, crease-y disaster on my eyes.

The eyeliner pencils are actually okay. They glide on fairly smoothly and are a rich black color. Even the mini brush applicator is pretty good. While I wouldn't use it to apply my makeup, I will be keeping it in my purse for emergency touchups when I'm out.

ELF Basic Eye Edition Encyclopedia. Click to enlarge.

ELF Sparkle Eye Edition Encyclopedia. Click to enlarge.

ELF Eye Edition Encyclopedia. Click to enlarge
 I've been wanting to try this concealer palette from ELF since it was first released. The only problem was I'd just placed a big order and I didn't want to pay full shipping for just one item. Anyway, you can always count on ELF to have new coupons and promotions every other week. So when they were offering the 3 Eye Encyclopedias for $10, I added this palette in Dark to my order. I wanted to try the Medium one as well, but it was sold out at the time.

Heres what I think of it:

The 4 colors offer a good selection and the undertones seem to be very flattering for women of color. The formulas are creamy and easy to blend. The cover is medium to heavy and good for acne scars and spots. The staying power of this leaves much to be desired though. I don't know if its being absorbed by my skin or what, but after about 6 hours, it seems to have faded away. Its also creases under my eyes. Now in all fairness, I've never met a concealer that didn't crease on me without a ton of setting powder to keep it from doing so. But even with lots of powder, the ELF concealer still creases.


Overall, for $3 this little palette is worth it. You can blend 2 or 3 shades together to get your ideal match, and its compact packaging with a mirror inside make it handy to keep in your purse. It also comes with a small concealer brush which I promptly lost soon after opening the compact, but I don't think it would have been of much use anyway since it was so tiny.  To see the swatches, click read more.

 I picked up these 2 Nars duos when they were on sale at Sephora for $10 each! I've heard that Nars quality can be hit a miss, so I wasn't expecting too much from these considering the discounted price. But to my delight, they're both really good. Cheyenne is definitely more pigmented than Wicked. The Cheyenne colors also feel creamier and seem to blend a little better. I also happen to like the colors in the Cheyenne duo better. For me they're more wearable and versatile than the greens in the Wicked duo.








I swatched each color on its own, and then on top of Too Faced Shadow Insurance.


 To see the swatches, click read more.



I love finding great quality makeup at a price that both me and Bank of America can agree on, lol. A few months ago, a trip to my local TJ Maxx yielded this gorgeous six color eyeshadow palette from Nars for a mere $15!

Sometimes cosmetics at discount stores are gross and obviously used and picked over. So I was super lucky to get to this palette while it was still in the box and before some random shopper with NO  appreciation for makeup could make a mess of it, lol.

The colors included are:
Himalayas - Looks almost white in the pan, but is actually a light pinky/gold color


Ondine - I don't really know how to describe this color, its like a purply-mauve with lots of gold shimmer in it. Very unique and gorgeous.


Night Flight - Black based rich navy color with some shimmer


Surbaya II - Another one thats hard to describe. Its reddish brown with some shimmer


Bohemian Gold II - A coral-y/gold-y/peach-y color


Kilimanjaro I - Like Himalayas this color also looks white-ish in the pan, but swatches as a beautiful white-gold color.
To see the swatches, click read more.
Why do these companies do this to me when I'm trying not to spend more money?!?

*shakes fist angrily* curse you ELF !!
Iman Beauty Success kit.

 While shopping on Target.com, I needed to add $10 to my cart to get free shipping. After searching the site for something interesting, I stumbled upon this kit from Iman. Since my local Target store doesn't even carry the brand, I was shocked to see it on the website. But in any case, even though one of my sisters loves the brand, this kit was my first experience with Iman's makeup.


Inside of packaging.

The Beauty Success Kit contains 1 lipgloss, 1 lipstick, 2 eyeshadows, 1 blush, 1 bronzer and 1 mini lip pencil. Which is great because I get to try several products from Iman without paying individual prices and risking $$$.

For some reason I thought this was going to be in a compact form, since many of the reviews said you can throw it in your purse and go. Instead the pots are glued into a molded plastic thing, meaning you have to leave the kit in its original packaging if you want to take it with you.

*I've been thinking of getting either a Z palette or Unii palette and I'll probably end up putting these Iman pots in one to make my own compact.*

I do like how the back flap opens up with info about the various colors and instructions on how to do a simple look. 

Back flap opened.
So far I like the pigmentation of everything in the kit. None of the colors go ashy on me and all of them are versatile enough to be worn daily.

* My Target order also came with a freebie/bonus/mistake in the form of a Maybelline Foundation that I never ordered and wasn't charged for. Too bad its about 10 shades too light for me to make any use of it.*



To see the swatches, click read more. 


 A trip to my local CVS yielded these lovely ColorBurst lipsticks from Revlon at 75% off. I'd read some really great reviews of these of MakeupAlley, but becuase of the price (nearly $10 each) I never brought any.

There are a lot of colors in this lipstick line, but unfortunately only 5 were on clearance, and out of those 5, I brought these four. There were some great nude shades I wanted to get, but they'll have to wait for another clearance sale!


From Left: Sienna, Lilac, Mauve and Hazelnut
The first thing that caught my eye was the packaging: the diamond pattern and matte black finish make these seem more expensive than something from Revlon. The name "Revlon is also printed into the lipstick itself, adding another nice touch. I also love that the top of the tube shows the color of the lipstick. No more opening tube after tube and getting frustrated when I can't find what I'm looking for.

As for the formulas, they're very creamy and not drying at all. The colors are nicely pigmented and opaque with a slightly glossy finish. I've only worn the Hazelnut one so far, and it lasted fairly well without needing a touch up. Overall, while I wouldn't pay $10 a piece for these, for $2.44 they're great!

To see swatches, click Read More.

During the $2 UD sale, I also managed to add these 3 brushes to my cart in the 10 seconds it took for them to sell out, lol.

When I was looking at these online, I was most excited about the blush brush since I needed something with a shorter handle that would fit in my purse. Now that I see it in person, I'm a little disappointed. The brush is kinda floppy and fibers seem like they should have be cut shorter. The long   hairs make it harder to control placing and blending blush.  This thing also takes for EVER to dry, which is a huge inconvience.

I was pleasantly surprised by both the Brow and Eyeshadow brushes. From other reviews I'd read, I thought the brow brush would be too soft and flimsy to really get in between brow hairs and deposit color. Those reviews were so wrong! This brush is soft, but its also stiff at the same time. It fills my brows in perfectly with very little effort on my part. The thin, tapered edge is also great for precisely getting in between those sparse little hairs at the end of my brows.
In the 3 days I've had it, this little thing has fast become my holy grail brow brush! I'm currently scouring the internet looking for a backup since I can't imagine being without this brush ever!

The eyeshadow brush, while not as life-changing as the brow brush is also really good. Its not like a typical shadow brush in that theres nothing fluffy or full about it. Its so flat it reminds me more of a concealer type of brush, which is great for packing loose pigments on with precision and minimal fallout. Its most definitely not for blending, but thats okay because I have a million of those $1 fluffly E.L.F brushes to do that.
Gingersnap Artisan Baked Bronzer

Toasted Almond Artisan Baked Blush
While I'm not too impressed with some of the Black Radiance makeup I got the other day,  some of it I'm absolutely in love with! The Toasted Almond blush is so gorgeous on brown skin, the color is like no other in my collection. Its not too pink, red or brown, but just a perfect combination of all three to leave a natural looking, warm flush of color to my cheeks. Its pigmented, but blends out beautifully and can also be built up for a more dramatic look. 

The Gingersnap bronzer swatches as more of a slightly pinkish-gold and works well as a highlighter. The glitter isn't too chunky and if this is applied with a light hand, its subtle enough to use as a brow bone highlight as well as on the tops of the cheeks.

The eyeshadow were prob the biggest disappointment. The swirling baked colors look so pretty in the pan, but apply as one basic gold and basic bronze. They're still pretty, but nothing spectacular.
Rum Spice Artisan Baked Eyeshadow

I've had this loose eyeshadow from NYX in Penny for years and loved the shimmery, rich color, but never knew how to use it. Well it appears I still don't know how to make it work for me.

Everything with this look turned into one big fail. I was going for a simple but still festive and shimmery look. This red however, was just too overpowering and made me look kinda sickly in person. My eyes were also irritated for some reason and wouldn't stop watering which led to my falsies not staying on because the glue couldn't dry. Ugh, it was such a mess every time I blinked the lashes came off!

The next time I use this color, I think I'll add some dark brown or even black to the outer corners to give it more depth and maybe some gold to the inner corner to make the red less overpowering. What do you guys think? I love the way this color looks in the jar and really want to put it to good use. Should I keep trying with this or is it time to just move on?
I don't about anyone else, but I hate washing my makeup brushes. I usually wait about a week until they're all dirty before I set out cleaning them. With that in mind, I was excited to try this daily brush cleaner from ELF in the hopes I could just spray my brushes down after I use them and they'd be clean.

To my disappointment it didn't work out that way. I tested the cleaner on 2 of my brushes, gave them a few spritz each and vigorously rubbed them against a cotton wash cloth. I have to admit that it didn't take them nearly as long to dry as they do with soap and water. I think thats because the ELF cleaner is something like 90% alcohol ( I also wonder if this will negatively affect the fibers of my brushes with extended use).

After the brushes were dry, they looked only slightly less caked with product than they did when I first started.

On the upside, the bottle of cleaner was much larger than I expected it to be, and so will probably last a long time. I read a bunch of reviews that complained about the smell of this product, but to me it wasn't that big of a deal and didn't offend my nose at all.

Since this is a "Daily" brush cleaner, I'm going to give it another try with brushes that only have one days worth of makeup on them as opposed to about 7 and see if that makes a diff in the way this stuff performs. Like most of ELF's products, this is super cheap. Its in the studio line and costs $3.00.


Just got these brushes in the mail today. These are fairly new on ELF's site and even though I don't really need new makeup brushes, I couldn't resist. I already own brushes from the ELF Studio line and the regular line that I love, so I was fairly confident the quality of these would be up to par.

According to ELF, these brushes are anti-bacterial with synthetic taklon fibers, bamboo handles and aluminum ferrules. They're recommended for mineral makeup and can be used with wet or dry products.

From first impressions I think these are going to be great; they have the same super soft, dense hairs like the studio line brushes except these are more densely packed. I haven't used them on my face yet since they are still wet from their first washing and will probably need a second washing to get rid of the chemical smell all ELF brushes are famous for (is that why they're so cheap?). Even without using them, I can already tell I'll be getting backups of the allover eyeshadow brush, the blending eyeshadow brush and the contoured blush brush since I can tell I'll be getting a lot of use out of them.

These are normally $5.00 each, but when I brought them there was a %50 off coupon available, so I only paid $2.50 a piece!

Will post a more detailed review and close up pics soon.