Urban Decay Basics Palette

My friend studying in the US came back a little over a week ago, bringing me lovely stuff that she helped me get, one of which was the Urban Decay Basics Palette. I do not have the orginal naked palette or the Naked 2 palette, I opted for the basics palette because the shades were mostly matte and there are fewer of them (since I do not wear eye shadow on a daily basis).





The Basics palette contains six neutral shades, 2 of them contain shimmer [Venus, Crave] (contrary to popular belief the brown-black shade does contain some sparse sparkle) and 4 of them matte[Foxy, W.O.S (Walk of Shame), Naked2, Faint].

Left to Right
Top Row: Venus, Foxy, Walk of Shame
Bottom Row: Naked2, Faint, Crave

Shade Description:

Venus: White gold shimmery highlight color

Foxy: Soft pastel yellow butter color

W.O.S.: Pink toned beige (like the pink equivalent of foxy)

Naked2 : Cool toned taupey beige

Faint : Slightly warm neutral brwon

Crave : Deep brown-black containing sparse shimmer (almost undetectable)

For the darker shades, the formula of the powder is really creamy and soft, but the two lighter matte colors (foxy and WOS) can be a bit powdery. I find Foxy and WOS very hard to show up on my skin and sometimes even Naked2 can disappear on my skin tone. This palette would definitely be better suited for those with a very pale coloring (I've seen a lot of people use naked2 as a crease color, which I am not able to do without mixing it with Faint, but that might be because I have very little crease on one eye and virtually none on the other, sometimes being Asian sucks) or those that are darker. I have a light to medium skin tone, so foxy and WOS blends too easily into my skin and I have to put down quite a lot for them to show up. 

However, I do find Faint and Crave very useful for filling in and extending my eyebrows. I have black hair (but in a brown undertone, am I making sense?) and quite thick uneven brows, normally I don't do my brows at all because all "eyebrow" products I own are always too light (too brown, stands out from my real brows when I try to lengthen them) but using black powder just make me look like I placed 2 big caterpillars above my eyes. The combination allows a softer brown black (than just using crave alone) that looks like the color of my eyebrows without making them too dark.

The palette retails for USD$27. 

E.L.F Review: Eye products

So I've brought a bunch of e.l.f stuff....yes I know that this is a bit too much. This blog post is going to be reviews on eye products. I love most of the eye products except for 2.. their's 1 product that i hate a lot.. like a lot.....

Long-Lasting Lustrous Eyeshadow

I always love cream eyeshadows, I love them. I make sure I have at least a nice brown and Champagne or gold in my kit. Because it can instantly add glossiness to the eyes and a good amount of sparkles and yet not over powering the look.

Confetti
This is a white cream shadow with sliver sparkles in them. Reminds me a lot of one of channel's cream eyeshadow "Fantasme" no.81. Kristian Stewart's make up artist always use this on the inner corner of her eyes, I read that in one of her interview or something. Even in the movie. speaking of that.. the make up in twilight breaking dawn part 2 is amazing..love it!  

Taupe
Though it looks more gold to me but i do love this colour. 

Party
This colour is a bit harder to blend, it creases easily because it's a dark colour and in order to build up to this amount of darkness I have to apply quite a lot of it on my eyelids. but I still love this colour, it could be very useful for a quick 10 mins evening look. 

Celebration

This is the consistency of the cream product. It is very sheer but it has a large amount of glitter in it. Which is not neccessarily a bad thing, it will work really well under or over an eyeshadow, to add as a highlight or base. I love this product a lot.

Swatches: Confetti, Taupe, Celebration, Party.
being sheer is not a bad thing, as long as it's creamy and it glids on the lids smoothly then it is a good product to work with. And this is indeed more then a good product, this is my favorite product from e.l.f!

 Pigment Eyeshadow

It's good that it comes with a brush, and the brush is not bad as well.

The container is huge, they don't have much product in it though, only 1.5gs of pigments, which is very little, but for $3USD.. it's worth it.. plus it's really hard to finish 1 jar or pigment, so that's fine for me. 

this is how the packaging looks inside. 

Golden bronze 

Breeze Blue
I have to say i love this colour, I love the glitter in it

a Closer shot of Breeze Blue. The Glitter is really pretty, reminds me of night sky.

Passionate Purple
A very standard royal purple. nothing special to me, but definitely a beautiful shade for all you purple lovers.
Apply a thicker amount of foundation on eyelids when using this colour, because this colour will stain your eyes! But it didn't irritate my eyes.

Innocent Ivory
Really amazing colour. A white with a pink shimmer in it, perfect for highlighting. All over the face, Cheekbones, tear ducts, forehead, nose bridge, brow bone. You can even mix this in your loose face powder, it will look amazing, trust me :)

Swatches Top with foundation as base, Bottom with Elf's Makeup lock and seal (which is like mac's mixing medium or make up for ever's Eye seal)

Left to right: Golden Goodness, Taupe, Breeze Blue, Passionate Purple, Innocent Ivory. 

beware, the Purple colour is so strong it will stain your skin, but don't panic, because it will fade away within a few hours

 Eye Enhancing Eyeshadow

So this palette have different colours made for different eye colour. I have brown eyes so I choose this "Brown eye 1" Palette. 

Mirror is included in this

don't think they have names for these shades so...
A taupe. a shimmery purple hue red, a dark chocolate brown, a skin tone matte colour, a golden brown shimmer shade and a matte navy blue ( not so dark though)

Swatches

 Eye Widener Pencil

This is $1USD cool concept for having a bult-in sharpener but the product itself is not so good.  

Swatch
it's really creamy when applied on the hand, but not so creamy on the eye.
for eyes, the products have to be extra gentle, if it looks good on the back of your hand, it might not even show up on your eyelids because eyelids are very gentle and sensitive. 

This is show it looks when I apply this on the waterline, not visible. and the pencil is shimmery, which is not really safe to put inside the waterline.

Waterproof Eyeliner Crayon

worst product I've ever encountered!

$3usd! Photographs beautifully

The swatches are beautiful, I love the colours.
but it is impossible to draw on eyes because the crayon is very dry and stiff, i've swatched this over and over again and i really rubbed the colour into the back of my hand to get this result.

I've applied many layer of that blue colour on my eyes, but it's not even showing up slightly bit! 

I've tried scraping out the crayon and pressed it on on my mixing plate, applying it with a brush, doesn't work.
I've also tried putting it in the mircowave for 30 seconds, doesn't work.

I've mixed the crayon with 1 pump of olive oil and that's the result.

still...this doesn't look flattering at all. It creases, it has dried pieces of crayons coming out every now and then.
Just do me a favor and don't buy this product please!

Apologize for my pimples.. ><  

I hope this review was helpful! :) Coming up next I will be reviewing some lips and face products :)

Sleek Palette Swatches and Review. Acid, Snapshot, Ultra matte V1, Ultra matte V2, Sunset, Bad Girl, Storm, Au Naturel, Oh So Special, Sparkles.

Sleek palette has always been one of my favorites, I always keep at least one sleek palette in my kit when I'm freelancing. I've had 3 sleek palettes before and now I bought 7 more. Surprisingly, the Matte colours are frankly not as amazing as the shimmery or iridescent colours. Which I don't blame them because it is not easy to make a very pigmented matte eyeshadow. But as I said, most of them are pretty amazing. Especially for it's price! It retails for $9.99 euro each, around $100HKD each.  

Good thing about them is that now they have names for each eyeshadow, which in the older version they didn't have that. They've changed the packaging a little as well. When you open up the palette, the mirror doesn't fall 180 degree downwards anymore, it can actually stand up on it's own when you put it on a table! This is really important because the mirror is basically pointless if it can't stand up on its own. 

This is how I store them, I've bought this container at Japanese home in case you wanna know :)

Snapshot

Wasn't expecting much from this palette at the beginning, but it didn't disappoint me at all. These colours are perfect for spring and it's really shimmery and pigmented, even the matte ones are pretty good.
con: the blue colour on top left "summer breeze". I love blue, hoping it will show up a bit more bright on the skin, but it's still a good colour on a paler skin colour :)

 Acid

This palette still has the old packaging. 

Look at those neon colours! SHOW STOPPERS!! They appear more powdery than the others which is normal, because that's how all the neon colours are.
cons: That White, second to the top left.. I was like whattt???.... It's not even showing up!!! bad bad bad!

Au Naturel 

The colours looks pretty similar with Naked 2 palette from urban decay, definitely a good dupe. pretty amazing quality let me tell you.  

The Top row really disappoints me, only maybe 2 of the colours are visible, I don't see myself using the colours on top except for the one on top right and maybe the white and the visible light brown.
The bottom row, however, AMAZED ME! There's no reason why I wouldn't love it. It has solid matte colours and some gorgeous Shimmery ones that I don't hate at all!
I can see many people would love to use this palette. It's perfect all year round, you can create smoky looks and very neutral looks with this palette. I love every single colour in the bottom row!    

 Ultra Mattes V2 Darks 

These matte colours are better than the ones on other palette. I was quite scared that they would not show up. But they are pretty pigmented, all of them, even the white one. Which makes me wonder why don't they make the same white on other palettes as well. Because this one is simply so much better that the other white or beige tone colours I've swatched  on other palettes!
These colours reminded me of princess Jasmine from the Disney movie Aladdin. The colours are bright but dimmed at the same time. I think these colours works really well on olive and brown skin tones.
But I can see myself using them in autumn/ winter for photoshoots.  

Sparkles 

Suprisingly, I think this is one of my favorite palette from sleek (that i own). They are sparkly so nothing will go wrong with it! The reason that I love it so much is that some colours are matte with a very light touch of sparkles on top. Some are iridescent and some are in-your-face shimmery! Amazing combination of colours. The colours in this palette goes well with the Ultra matte V1 Darks palette... it will add just a little spark to the look. Again, I think these colours will especially go well with olive and darker skin tones. look at that orangy red on the 3rd to the left on top row....delicious! 

 Ultra Matte V2 Brights 

Very unexpected colours for a matte palette. These colours are definitely not wearable for every day looks, not for me. But these are definately fun colours to wear for special occasions....i don't know a circus clown show maybe? Just kidding. These colours are wonderful to work with when doing creative and colourful make ups. 

Oh So Special

My Favorite palette! Everything is very pigmented except for the useless vanilla colour. I hated it so much I have to do a close up shot on it.
but everything else is beautiful, so wearable and the pinks are just amazing, perfect for pink lovers and valentines day. Even the browns are so pretty, it will work amazing as an eyebrow powder. and yes, I use eyeshadows on my eyebrows, even on my clients, all my friends does and even my teachers. so YES! you can use it on your brows! just not the shimmery ones. "Gift Basket" is an amazing lid colour. I would wear that everyday if i could! and "celebrate" is like beauty marked from MAC, but except this colour works better than MAC's "beauty marked"! :D for a much cheaper prince as well! with the money for a single eyeshadow from mac you can get an entire palette from sleek!!! OHH MAHH GAAAD GO GET THIS NOW!! 

Why can't they just make the vanilla colour they have in the "Ultra Matte V1" Palette? It's not the exact same shade but at least that colour showed up and this.... doesn't work at all. 

what? what's wrong? nothing's showing up! 

you can't even see it... it's right there, can you even tell? 

Storm 

Look at that! This is also one of my favorite palette from sleek. I've had this palette for quite sometime. I've been using it so much that i can say that it works like wonder. I adore this palette. These colours works on almost everyone. nothing much to say about it... see it for yourself. This is a must have in my opinion.

This palette is in the older packaging...and when i swatched them.. i found out that it is more creamier and pigmented than the newer palettes. I Don't know what have they done to the newer palettes, I just like the way it shows up and blends for the older palettes. Maybe I've used them for a long time that's why I feel comfortable using them. But my first impression to the newer ones is that it's not as pigmented as these older ones i've got. 

Bad Girl

look at that amount of pigment. All the colours are at least visible to the eyes i mean... some colours on the newer palettes doesn't even show up on skin. These colours are perfect to create smoky looks :) Love this. The pigmentation on this palette is definitely stronger than the newer ones.. even the matte colors are very creamy and blends wonderfully. 

Sunset

I love reds. I've instantly fallen in love with this palette when I got this like a year ago, because of the reds :) out of all 3 palettes I had, before buying all these new ones, I didn't really get to use this very often. Simply because these shades are not easy to use on everyday look. But I absolutely adore every single shade in this palette. 

Although the lighter matte colours doesn't really show up on skin and it's not as pigmented as i've imagined, I still think that sleek palettes are very versatile. love the design of the palette, the big mirror... I need to carry around at least 1 sleek eye shadow palette every time i go out. No matter for work or just going out. It's in my emergency kit. a single palette, most of them, could help me create multiple looks and change from a day look to an evening look. love it. A black eyeliner, mascara and sleek palette, I can't go anywhere without them! 

Do check them out, they are definitely worth the money! What else can you ask for! $100HKD for 12 amazing colours... I mean... they are just amazing.... go check them out!