New products & mini review

My birthday came and passed at the end of February and surprisingly I haven’t spent my Beauty Bay voucher till about two months later. I needed a few essentials though and it was time.

I desperately needed a new pore filling & smoothing primer and originally I wanted to pick up the Smashbox offering, but at almost the same price point I opted for the Cover FX Blurring primer. When did Smashbox get so pricey?! So far I really like this primer, it reminds me a lot of the Benefit Porefessional. It is slightly tinted, so it already gives a little coverage while smoothing out my pores. It sits nicely on my skin and the foundation applies on top of it evenly. So far so good.

While I was looking around I’ve also seen that they have the travel size of their Illuminating setting spray. Thank God I only purchased the small size! It is soooooo glittery. The mist at first seemed really fine, but once I looked in the mirror I’ve seen glittery patches all over my face. I had to go back with my beauty blender trying to blend it all in so I don’t look like a spotty disco ball. Luckily after loads of blending the glitters faded slightly. I was expecting a radiant glow from this rather than glitters, it is a bit of a disappointment. It might be nice for a party or a festival, but I can’t really imagine using it on a regular day. And this is coming from a girl who loves glitter… but not all over my face. I might have to use it just to wet my brush for pigments, we’ll see.

I’ve also ordered two brushes from the brand Blank Canvas Cosmetics. I’ve got the F28 Stipple & Highlight brush and the E42 Pointed crease blender brush. I love them both! I wanted to have a highlighter brush like the F28 for a while now. I always use a fan brush, which works just fine, but I wanted to see why so many people are using something that looks like a giant crease brush. I already ordered one from Morphe in the past, but it was too big and way too densely packed for my liking. This is perfect. Really soft and dispenses the highlighter nicely on my skin but I can still be really precise with it at the same time. It’s also perfect for powdering under the eyes or setting my eye primer. I feel like I get a more intense highlight with this than my fan brush, probably because the bristles are more concentrated.

I also love the E42. I have several blending brushes but none of them are quite like this. I have the cult Mac 214 and the Zoeva dupe, I also have blender brushes from Morphe, Sigma, and Cozzette but they are all completely different. A girl can never have enough blending brushes right? Anyway, the bristles are a lot longer on this brush than what I’m used to and at first glance, it looked a bit big, but it disperses color in my crease perfectly. It’s silky soft and not too dense, I might have to order a couple of backups of this brush. I think I might’ve just found my new favorite crease brush.

While we were in town I wanted to stock up on my favorite mascara by Urban Decay, Perversion. It volumizes and gives length while being jet black and it doesn’t smudge. What else can a girl want? While I was in their store I thought I might as well try the new addition to their mascara range, the Troublemaker. Although it doesn’t claim to be waterproof, it promises to be sex proof and I have to say once it dries it doesn’t budge and it is hard to remove at the end of the day. I’m impressed with that, but I don’t like how clumpy it can get. It doesn’t really separate or volumize, only lengthens slightly. As long as you apply it carefully it is ok, but once you go in with a bit of a heavier hand you arrive at clump city. For the price and the hype it had, I’ve expected better performance.

The last thing I’ve purchased at Urban decay is their new (to me) lip gloss called Hi-Fi Shine. I have the shade Candyflip. It was love at first sight! You can use it by itself or over a nude lipstick, but it is truly magnificent over any dark colors! Unfortunately, the pictures don’t show how truly stunning it is. The purple hue only really comes out over a blue toned pink like the Rimmel Kate lipstick or over a really dark shade like black. I have no black lipstick but I swatched it over a black eyeliner for you. If you are around an UD counter swatch it on their black lipstick. It transforms it completely.

We also popped into Kiko on the day as I really wanted to pick up a blue mascara. They have a gorgeous cobalt blue shade and the Electric blue shade from the Smart color mascara line came home with me. I’m not too impressed with the formula, as I feel like it doesn’t do much for my lashes and it’s a bit runny, but the color is beautiful. Maybe I will like the formula more once it dries out a bit. Also, I might have to try it over a mascara, I would like to see if it can cover a black mascara. That way I could get the volume, length and the color I want!

The last two things I got were two glitters from Kryolan. They go under the name Polyester glimmer and they sell each shade in coarse, medium or fine, depending on how chunky you want it to be. I got the shade pastel yellow and pastel blue both in the fine version. What I didn’t realize until I got home is, that they both have green reflect in them that really comes out at application. You can see it in the picture as well. The green shift really comes out once the light hits it. I don’t mind it, I still think it’ really pretty, but that’s something to keep in mind. I’m wearing the blue glitter below in the middle portion of my eye but as you can see it looks rather green and yellow than blue. Something else to remember with these as well, that they are loose glitter, so you will definitely need a sticky base or a glitter glue to avoid the glitter falling all over your face.

Did you try these or any other new products lately? Let me know what did you think.

Have a lovely day!

(PS. This post was resting in the draft pile for a while as I sort of forgot about it, whops)