Borghese x Kirkland Signature 2011 Brush Set and Stila Ulimate Color Palette

I've been back in NY since Thursday, so I've been pretty busy helping my mom put up the Christmas tree and doing the family thing. One thing my sisters and I always do when we come home is hit up Costco.

I haven't been there in forever so I never saw the 2011 Borghese Kirkland Signature Brush Set. I still use some of the brushes from my 2009 set (the angled brow brush, eye shadow brush, angled foundation brush, and the crease brush) but the brushes in the 2011 set are totally different.

(Sorry for the crappy pic but I haven't unpacked my good camera yet.)

This brush set includes 10 brushes and a black faux-croc case:

1. Big powder brush
2. Flat cheek brush
3. Stipling/skunk brush
4. Angled kabuki brush
5. Flat tip eyeliner brush
6. Highlighting brush
7. All purpose eye shadow brush
8. Tapered blending/crease brush
9. Tapered foundation/concealer brush
10. Angled contour/eyeshadow brush

I'm so in love with this brush set! I love that the foundation/concealer brush is designed to mimic your fingers. It's perfect for blending my Hard Candy Glamoflauge under my eyes. I also love the highlighting brush for contouring the sides of my nose. The skunk brush is great for blending bronzer at my hair line and jaw line. All of the brushes are really soft and the handles are thick and easy to hold. IMO, this set is excellent for the price.

I also picked up a Stila Ultimate Color Palette for $19.99, which includes 39 eye shadows, 15 lip colors, 4 cheek colors or blushes, 4 double ended applicators, and 4 lip brushes. I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep it for myself or give it to a friend for Christmas, but if I do keep it I'll definitely do swatches of all the pretty colors. There are so many options for different looks with this palette because of the range of colors. Also, the eyeshadows and blushes come in both shimmery and matte colors so there's a lot to play with in this kit.

Stila Ultimate Color Palette, $20

Pigment-palooza!

Etsy.com is one of my favorite sites because I can find tons of homemade products, from handcrafted jewelry to blended mica mineral pigments. Sellers have their own online boutiques where you can browse all of their products and goodies. On a hunt for duochrome eye shadows recently, I discovered two great cosmetic lines on Etsy: Caustic Cadets Cosmetics and Spectrum Cosmetics.

I decided to purchase 5 duotone pigments from each line:

Spectrum Cosmetics charges $3.25 per 3 gram jar or choose any 5 for $15
EOS: Looks like burnt copper with tons of white glitter in the pot but shifts to a gorgeous, sparkly mix of light green and blue with a deep reddish-brown base
EOS-2: (A less glittery version of the original EOS but still shimmery) It looks like a dark reddish-brown in the pot but shifts to a turquoise blue with a reddish-brown base
Mystic: Looks like a medium reddish-brown with moss green iridescence but shifts to a metallic teal-green with a reddish-brown base
Briar: Looks like an almost completely matte light rose-violet in the pot but shifts to a light blue shimmer with violet flecks
Sassy: Looks like an almost completely matte light peach but shifts to a light violet shimmer with light blue flecks

Caustic Cadets charges $3.99 for each jar of 2 grams of powder
Volatile: Looks fuchsia in the pot but shifts to electric violet with flecks of blue
Dreamweaver: Looks peach with green glitter in the pot but shifts to reddish brown with flecks of olive green
Pillow Talk: Looks like rose in the pot but shifts to medium rose gold
Black Magic: (my FAVORITE duochrome!)  Looks deep periwinkle blue with gold and blue glitter in the pot but shifts to electric teal, blue, and gold with a matte black base
Siren: Looks pale pink with blue shimmer in the pot but shifts to a dusty lavender with flecks of light blue

I tried my best to describe the colors accurately and display the right shades in the pictures, but the pictures don’t really do these pigments justice. They are absolutely stunning and so affordable that you’ll definitely want to check out several colors at a time. Happy shopping!

*All of the swatches were brushed on top of Clean & Clear Finishes Pore Perfecting Moisturizer to help the loose pigment powders stick.

***UPDATE: Caustic Cadets Cosmetics are now sold on Facebook here.

If you try any of these pigments, let me know what you think!

This Weekend's Pink Mini Makeup Haul

Isn’t my mini haul from the drugstore this weekend so cute? Everything is so…PINK! xD To find out what I think about each product, read on!

[Image via Temptalia]

The Wet n’ Wild Spoiled Brat Eye Shadow Trio ($2) caught my eye because not many drugstore brands sell this vibrant fuchsia color (sorry that my first pic doesn’t do it justice, I did the best I could with rainy-day outdoor lighting). I applied all of them over Urban Decay Eye Primer Potion and all of the colors have great color payoff for a drugstore product! They are a bit powdery, though, and do fade, even with primer. Oh, well, I really just bought this for the pink color, anyway, so I’ll give this a 4/5. I can’t wait to do a pink smoky eye shadow look with this!

The Wet n’ Wild Mega Brilliance Lip Gloss in Crushed Grapes ($1) is a very sheer Barbie-pink with multicolored glitter. The good thing about this gloss is that it is NOT sticky at ALL and it also tastes amazing. It’s not gritty, like most glittery glosses, either. That said, the color payoff is non-existent and the glitter is barely there once you put it on… I feel like you’d only be able to tell that there’s glitter on my lips if I was in direct sunlight. Boo… This gets a 2/5.

Wet n’ Wild FuchsiaRama ($2) is such a pretty medium-toned purple-pink color…(a bit more pink than it looks in the pic above). It’s perfect for Fall! I love that I finally found a purple that doesn’t make the yellow undertones in my skin look weird… (Cool-toned nail polishes make my hands look like a corpse.) This is a warm purple-pink, though, and flatters warm undertones! The formula is very sheer, but it’s pretty much a given that drugstore nail polishes need at least 3 coats, so I’m okay with it. I give it a 4/5.

Finally, we have Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Nail Color in Strobe Light ($3), which is STUNNING! I love Disco Ball, which is snowflake-colored glitter, but this is a close second! It’s a rose pink multi-colored glitter top coat and makes any nail polish more glam Love this! It gets a 5/5.

If I had to recommend only one of these products, I would definitely say to buy Strobe Light. You'll get the best quality for your money there. Hope this helps!

Caustic Cadets Cosmetics Swatches

I received some sample packets from Caustic Cadets Cosmetics, which are now sold on Facebook instead of Etsy. (The owner of the company told me that she made the switch because Etsy charged her about $20/month to sell her products.) I hope her Facebook store is a success!

Here are some swatches from the samples:

Caustic Cadets Cosmetics: (L to R) Beer Before Liquor, Walk of Shame, Comera, Cheeky, Speed Ballin', Galactic, and Wendy

I absolutely love Beer Before Liquor, Walk of Shame, and Galactic. Cheeky would be a gorgeous highlighter for special occasions. It's so glowy and the perfect shade to make my NC40 skin look dewy (not disco).

Beer Before Liquor (eye shadow): Bronze brown with moderate amounts of multi-colored glitter, highly pigmented
Walk of Shame (eye shadow): Electric violet with flecks of periwinkle shimmer, great pigmentation
Comera (creme paint): Matte black cream shadow, buttery soft but not as pigmented as I would like. It would probably make a great e/s base, though.
Cheeky (blusher/highlighter): Gorgeous metallic golden peach
Speed Ballin' (eye base): Sheer pearl shimmer loose powder
Galactic (glitter dust): Very pretty caviar black glitter with flecks of silver
Wendy (mineral lipstick): Tomato red, with more of a sheer lip balm consistency than lipstick

Bottom line: I love the colors and pigmentation of Caustic Cadets' loose eye shadows and glitter powders but I'd pass on the cream-based stuff, since they don't seem to be as pigmented.

1 Duochrome Eyeshadow, 3 Different Looks

As you've probably figured out by now, I luuuhz me a good duo-tone eye shadow. Why? Because the color of the pigment changes depending on the angle that you're looking at them... which gives your lids some extra "oomph" and adds major drama!

Most of them are sheer, making them perfect for layering over other eye shadows (think of them as an eye shadow top coat!). They can be worn alone too, for sheer, color-shifting color that's great for the office or school. For a night out, apply a duochrome over a dark eye shadow for a black magic effect.

See the difference? I love this green-to-brown duochrome eyeshadow over light and dark cream shadow paints!

Duo-tone eyeshadows are a great way to re-vamp your boring old single-tone colors! Have fun with it and play around with different color combinations to get different effects :)

Get the London Look: MAC Fashion Week

MAC Makeup Look for Vivienne Westwood during Fashion Week

Eyes
1. Apply Cyan Paint Stick to eyelids as a creamy eye shadow base
2. Apply Electric Eel eye shadow to lids and lower lash line
3. Apply Bitter eye shadow to inner corners of eyes as a highlight and under lower lash line
4. Use Lime eye shadow to accentuate crease and outer corners of eye lids
5. Blend and soften all harsh lines with Juxt eye shadow
6. Use Chromagraphic Pencil in Hi Def Cyan at upper and lower lash lines
7. Apply a super thin line of soft black eyeliner from outer corners of eyes to about 3/4 of the way to the inner corners
8. Curl lashes and apply a natural-looking mascara

Cheeks
1. Apply Pro Powder Blush in Azalea right under and along cheekbones
2. Apply Pro Powder Blush in Salsarose onto outer half of cheekbones
3. Apply Powder Blush in Well Dressed to apples and use to blend all blush colors

Lips
Apply Kissable Lipcolour in Woo Me or a similar flesh-tone pearl-finish lip color

Isn't this look so pretty? It's perfect for Spring! :)

MAC on Sale at BeautyTicket.com!

One of my favorite online beauty sites, BeautyTicket.com, a beauty flash-sale website, is having a huge sale on MAC blushes, lip glosses, and more this week! Check them out here!

MAC "Date Night" Dazzleglass Lip Gloss at BeautyTicket.com

MAC Blush in "Ambering Rose" on BeautyTicket.com

MAC Eye Shadow in "Aquadisiac" on BeautyTicket.com

PLUS you can find hard-to-find or discontinued products from past MAC collections, too! Happy shopping!