Clown Contouring Attempt

 I tried out the clown contouring trend XD

Close up of the eyes!

Review & Swatches: Dark Matter Make Up Eyeshadows (20 colours)

Swatched over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue, under natural light

Now that I've gotten your attention....here's the rest of the review. Dom from Dark Matter Makeup (DMM) asked me to help her swatch her eyeshadows and I was more than happy to help her out. Turns out, DMM's collection is more extensive than I thought, and this is what arrived....

Yup. 52 eyeshadows and 1 liquid lipstick.

So I'm splitting the review into 3 parts to make it more manageable. This part is for the reds, browns, golds and pinks.Yes, there's one purple colour in here...it looked reddish brown in the packet so I accidentally put it in this group. Whoops!

I normally write the general review for the eyeshadows in the first post, but there's so many to try out, I haven't even come close to trying every colour out. That's why I'll write my general review in the 3rd and final post.

Swatches

Anyway, here are the rest of the swatches. Since Dom sent these to me for swatching, I also did primer macros for her:

Here are the arm swatches over bare skin, foiled with water over bare skin, over Urban Decay's Primer Potion, and over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue. I tried to put similar colours close together so you can see the subtle differences.

Under Natural Light

Virgo is one of the sheerest colours, and actually looks best when foiled. For the best performance, I suggest two layers of the colour, once over primer, and another layer over glitter glue.

Cancer is really pigmented, but the duochrome is pressure sensitive, which may give the appearance of patchiness. When you swipe hard, you can end up with a patchy pink base, so I suggest patting it on, or applying the colour gently with the the tips of a fluffy brush. With a fluffy brush, it blends out to a lovely sheer purplish-pink shade

Libra is just gorgeous and one of my favourite colours. The metallic duochrome is rather pressure sensitive though, and tends to go bald when blended. This happens to most metallic duochromes I encountered and with enough skill, you can create an interesting 1-colour look with them (example below).

Emmy may look "boring" colour-wise, but it's actually one of my favourite formula in the bunch. It applies smoothly and evenly even against bare skin.

Ursa Minor is just gorgeous and is tied with Emmy for my favourite formula in the bunch. The gold duochrome tends to take over over primer and when foiled though, and it ends up looking like a plain rose gold colour. To get the pink with the golden shift, you'll need a sticky base.

Galileo is really pretty but definitely glitter glue dependent. This has quite a bit of fall out during application and prone to patchiness. Definitely requires a careful hand and needs to be carefully patted on.

Valentina looks best when foiled. It tends to sheer out and go streaky when blended so it looks best when patted on.


Betelgeuse swatches beautifully, but unfortunately goes bald and muddy brown when blended. I recommend using this as the main part of your look to show off how beautiful the colour is, and avoid blending.

Andromeda is a matte, but has a subtle, slight sheen. It's really subtle and barely visible though. The glitter glue swatch is terrible, but it's because mattes aren't that great over glitter glue. I normally wouldn't swatch mattes over glitter glue, but I wanted to give Dom consistent swatches.

Scorpio is a bit tricky. It's best foiled or over glitter glue since a lot of the gorgeous shift is lost over primer. Over glitter glue it looks great in the swatch, but on my lids, I somehow get too much duochrome and it ends up looking like a plain green eyeshadow instead of the gorgeous brown with a green duochrome. It tends to go bald and patchy when blended, so I recommend patting it on and blending minimally.

Ursa Major is supposed to be Ursa Minor's darker sister with a similar metallic gold duochrome. The duochrome is very pressure sensitive though, and the colour turns into a muddy brown when blended.

Kalpana gets these surprise silvery sparks when it's foiled. I definitely like it best foiled.

Taurus is actually a colour I like best over primer. Over primer, it looks like a reddish-brown with a subtle blue shift. Over glitter glue, it just looks purple. When blended, the duochrome disappears and it becomes a plain reddish-brown. I find the reddish-brown base difficult to blend out, but I found that using a short, stiff brush and blending hard but carefully around the edges resolves this issue.

Big Bang is easy to work with and makes an awesome highlighter colour for my skin tone. It's slightly too sheer for my liking over primer alone, so I usually add another layer of colour over glitter glue to get the opacity I like.

Aries is one of my favourite highlighter colours since it performs well against bare skin. It's great for lining my lower lashline and my inner corners.

Haruka looks just like how Haruka's hair looks like. The Sailor Moon fan in me approves. The colour's best over glitter glue, but it's pretty and blends easily over primer too!

Cor Serpentis completely surprised me by changing into this gorgeous metallic green when foiled! I like it best when foiled! The colour unfortunately stains your skin the most this way.

Ellen is easy to use over primer alone! It blends easily, is pretty opaque, and adheres well!

Setsuna swatches beautifully, but I found it slightly difficult to blend since it's prone to streaking. If you want to blend it out, I suggest using it over primer only, and using a short, dense brush instead of a fluffy brush. Since you'll have to press down to blend out for the best results, I don't recommend glitter glue since you'll "erase" the glitter glue that way and end up with bald patches.

Rei is another colour that's great over primer alone. It ends up looking darker over primer, but I love how blendable it is over primer instead of glitter glue!

Under Yellow Toned Artificial Light (to show the shift)

On my eyes...

There's a lot of looks since I tried to use every colour at least once. Some colours I used combined with other shades, so they'll appear in other reviews.

One Colour Look With Libra

This is the one colour look with Libra that I'm talking about. The gold duochrome goes bald where my eyes crease, so I end up with this two-colour effect with just one colour:

Left: Over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer only
Right:  Two layers of colour, first over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer, then over Darling Girl's glitter glue

I also did a comparison of the colour over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer only, and over glitter glue. As you can see, it looks pretty nice over primer but still looks slightly sheer. To get the most vibrant colour, I recommend layering a second layer over a glitter adhesive like Darling Girl's glitter glue.



Cor Serpentis Foiled

I applied Ursa Minor over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer, then turned Cor Serpentis into this awesome metallic green liner by foiling it with water:

Over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer

Where I tried to squeeze in as many colours as possible...

How 2 layers of Big Bang Looks Like

The ombré liner is See You Space Cowboy and Mae

So to get this effect, I applied Big Bang over primer. Then I added a thin layer of glitter glue over the colour, and add a 2nd layer of colour.

Scorpio, Emmy& Andromeda

The green is Scorpio over Darling Girl's glitter glue. Unfortunately, it just looks green. Emmy is on top and over primer only; it blends out beautifully! Andromeda is at the lower lashline over a black liner.

Taurus, Cancer & Ursa Minor Over Primer

Taurus is the gorgeous maroon that's all over my lids. The pink part on top is Cancer blended out. The gold is Ursa Minor. The brown liner at the bottom is Betelgeuse foiled with TKB Trading's foiling medium.

Full face:

Rei, Haruka, Ellen Over Primer

My creases kind of rubs Rei out. Oh well, it looks great when I open my eyes! Full face:

Life's Entropy's Big Bang Theory on my lips!

Glitter Ombré Over NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Slate

The glitters are mixes I made using TKB Trading's cosmetic glitter 

I Found ILNP In Singapore!

Yup! I found ILNP in Singapore! You can buy them at Robinson's in Plaza Singapura!

Review: Chinovi Eyeshadows (4 colours) & Blushes (3 colours)

Chinovi just announced that they'll be closing down, and will be having their closing down sale soon. I figured I better finish up my Chinovi review in case anyone's wondering what to get from them. The first part of my review where I reviewed their brow powders is here.

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Chinovi Blushes Swatches & Review

Swatched under natural light.
Left: Over bare skin
Right: Over Dior Hydralife's BB Cream (Luminous Beige)
Yeah, the blushes kind of emphasize my bones and make my arm look scary

These blushes are pretty dependent on what base you use underneath it, so your results may vary greatly depending on what foundation you use.

When I first applied it while using Dior Hydralife's BB Cream on my face, it was as easy to use and blend as my other indie blushes. That's why I was surprised when my swatches over bare skin looked so unpigmented, patchy and streaky. After I swatched it again over the same BB cream, I finally got the pigmented, blendable results again. When I tried using it again over a Fred Farrugia foundation, I got really streaky, patchy results again. The blush also sank into my lines and emphasized them. The Fred Farrugia foundation is a creamy solid foundation, so the different formula may not agree with these blushes' formula.

Even with the Dior BB Cream where I got my best results, I did notice that the blushes has a slight tendency to catch in the spots where I'm starting to develop lines, so if you have more mature skin, this formula may not be for you.

If the blushes are clashing with your foundation, I found a way to work around it. You need to dab it in in rapid motion into your face, as if you're creating an impressionist painting. Avoid swiping or buffing, streaks happen this way. Just keep dabbing it on and blend out the edges carefully with a sponge in a dabbing motion. 

Here are the face swatches:

Purple blushes just don't suit me T.T

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Eyeshadow Swatches & Review

Macro shots:

Swatched over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue, under natural light.

Under natural light:

Primer: Urban Decay Primer Potion
Glitter Glue: Darling Girl's Glitter Glue

Under yellow-toned artificial light:

Primer: Urban Decay Primer Potion
Glitter Glue: Darling Girl's Glitter Glue

These colours surprisingly look best foiled. They don't do that well against bare skin, but one thing I like about them is that they're very easy to blend over primer only. They're definitely beginner friendly! Here are some looks I did with them, all done over primer only:

Vesta & Pool Party

Vulcan & Doww on my lids, Pool Party & Vesta over NYX Milk on my lower lashline

Pool Party & Vesta. The gold is from another brand.

Review: Life's Entropy's Highlighters (4 Colours)

/u/roseatesg got samples of 4 Life’s Entropy highlighters, and being the awesome person that she is, she let me hang on to them for a month to swatch and review!

These are the colours she got:

• Comet – Opal peach
• Solar Flare – Rose gold
• Nebula – pearl white that shifts gold-copper-red
• Celestial – pearl white that shifts pink-silver-green

Highlighter Formula Review

Formula wise, these have a light, slippery cream sort of texture. If you’ve tried Eccentric Cosmetics’ primer, it’s a similar sort of texture. Since it’s so light and doesn’t feel oily, it’s very comfortable on your face. I’m still experiencing a bit of a learning curve though, since the slipperiness means I tend to over-blend and lose the highlighting effect, or erase patches of highlighter and look like I have dents on my face.

I'm not sure if I can comment on the formula's longevity, just because I use my BB cream daily, and I think any highlighter's longevity will be dependent on my BB cream's longevity. I have combination skin where my T-zone, well, mostly my nose, is extremely oily, and everything else is dry. On my super oily nose, these last less than 4h, BUT that’s how long my BB cream usually lasts too. On my cheekbones, they last as long as my BB cream. When I use Skindinavia’s primer & setting spray, they can last 12+h on me until I remove my make up, but the same goes for my BB cream.

Swatches

Here’s the swatches under natural light. I shot both pictures at different angles to show off the colour-changing properties of Nebula and Celestial:

Yes, I swear there's a generous swatch of Celestial there. I think the colour somehow just blends into my skin tone so it’s not really showing up well. You can kinda see the flush of pink, but it gets mostly eaten up. On the face swatches though, it’s surprisingly awesome:

2 angles to show the highlight in indirect and direct light.

I was looking forward to the green in Nebula, but it just looks like silvery red-pink colour shift against my skin. I think my yellow undertones just makes the green less striking.

Comet is just...wow. I actually mistook it for either Nebula or Celestial at first, because I could see more of a shift in the swatch. On my face, the shift is less dramatic. It looks like a very subtle, natural flush on my face in indirect light, then gets the most gorgeous golden glow once the light hits it. I apologize for my haggard & pissed face in the face swatch. I spent the entire morning up, because Indonesia has 0 noise control laws and some a-holes on motorcycles decided to have a rally in the streets outside my house (it's a residential area too) from 12:30am to gods know when. They were still shouting into loud speakers, blaring their horns and playing drums by the time I fell asleep from exhaustion at around 3:30 am.

Solar Flare is definitely a close contender for favourite. On me, it's not as dramatic as Comet, but IRL, you definitely see a more reddish flush than what my camera could capture.

"No Make Up" Make Up

How high eyeliners must go for a "no make up" make up look on monolids...

Quick Swatches: Dark Red Indie Shades

Someone was asking me for indie dupes of OCC's Metal Black Dahlia, so I swatched my dark reds:

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Review & Recommendation: Skindinavia Primer & Finishing Spray

I recently placed an order from Skindinavia and I now found my new HG brand!

They shipped fast and here's the TAT I had:

• Ordered: 7 May, 2015
• Shipped: 8 May, 2015
• Received: 8 June, 2015

Price

• Make Up Primer: $35 (4oz), $ 49(8oz)
• Finishing Spray: $29 (4oz), $ 39(8oz)
• Set of Primer + Finishing Spray: $50 (4oz), $60 (8oz)

Primer Review

First of all, I love the feel of this primer. The reason I've been lazy about using primer is that they often feel heavy on my face. Plus, I already put so much stuff on my face thanks to my intense skin care routine, that I can't be bothered to wait for another layer to dry on my face. This is why I love this primer so much. When I spray it on my face, it just feels like I'm spritzing a cool mist of water on my face. For once, I can wear primer daily!

So it feels awesome. But the important question is, does it work? Well, here are the swatches of my face where I applied the primer on only half my face and applied my usual BB cream on (I didn't use the finishing spray), ~9h after application:

I have dry skin around my nose that even the primer can't save...

In that picture, you can see the side of my face without the primer looks a bit more patchy already. IRL, the difference is even more pronounced. My face looked like it was melting on one side.

Unfortunately, I have dry flaky skin around my face that even the primer can't save. I think I may have to change my coverage methods to conceal all the flaky skin, so I can't blame the primer for this.

Oil Control Finishing Spray Review

This is seriously my HG. I have really oily skin, and usually, my make up is swimming around in a pool of oil on my face within 4h and I'd have to start blotting. I usually blot about once every 3-4h, so by 8h, most of my make up's gone. With this finishing spray, I don't really need to blot the entire day. I'd notice a bit of oiliness maybe after 8-10h, but it's slight enough that I don't need to urgently blot my face. It's amazing. I decanted some for my friends and they all reported similar results. We all living in hot, tropical countries (Singapore, Indonesia) where your make up melts really fast, and thanks to Skindinavia, our make up can survive the entire day. We immediately group ordered more Skindinavia sprays.

Here's the swatch of my face with the finishing spray applied over my BB cream on only half my face (I skipped the primer), ~9h after application:

I actually concealed all those spots...and yes, even my eye make up was melting on the BB cream only side

I didn't fix my eye make up on the finishing spray side, by the way. Zooming in further so you can see how much oilier my face is on the side without finishing spray:

Oh and let's see the magic when I used both the primer & finishing spray on only half my face. Left is when it's freshly applied, left is after about 12h (because I nearly forgot to take an after picture):

Japan + Singapore in 12 Colours (Days 7-11)

Ok, I've really dropped the ball on this one. I had the pictures ready for ages, but just got too lazy to upload everything. So here's the rest of the pictures from my Japan trip.

Quick background: I needed to pack light for my trip, so I only brought 13 samples with me. Seems like a lot, but it's way less options than I'm used to...and being dumb, I didn't check my own swatches and ended up bringing 2 colours that are dupes of each other (Backstreet Makeup Co's Laissez-Faire & Eccentric Cosmetics' Earl). So this leaves me with only 12 colours to play with...

Here's the colours I had to work with (swatches are linked):

• Backstreet Make Up Co — Laissez-Faire 
• Beauty For The Win — The Fault in Our Swatches
• Blackbird Cosmetics — Dog Days
• Blanche Neige — Little Mermaid 
• Chinovi Cosmetics — Gidget (blush) 
• Daisy Bird Cosmetics — Dandy Dandelion
• Dawn Eyes Cosmetics — Momo
• Eccentric Cosmetics — Earl
• Life's Entropy — Enchant
• Mad Lab Cosmetics — Pearl
• My Pretty Zombie — Grandma Cleavage
• Notoriously Morbid — Melancholy One
• Ten Three Labs — Electric Love

June 23

• Dawn Eyes Cosmetics — Momo
• My Pretty Zombie — Grandma Cleavage
• Notoriously Morbid — Melancholy One

• Backstreet Make Up Co — Laissez-Faire 
• Dawn Eyes Cosmetics — Momo
• Eccentric Cosmetics — Earl

Lips is Fyrinnae's Saloon Girl

June 24

• Beauty For The Win — The Fault in Our Swatches
• Mad Lab Cosmetics — Pearl

Lips is Fyrinnae's Saloon Girl

June 25

• Backstreet Make Up Co — Laissez-Faire 
• Blackbird Cosmetics — Dog Days
• Blanche Neige — Little Mermaid 

Lips is Fyrinnae's Saloon Girl

Wow...didn't even realized I used the same lip colour 3 days in a row. Fyrinnae's Saloon Girl is so gorgeous! 

No make up for the 26th...I had to leave for the airport at 6 am T.T

June 27

• Dawn Eyes Cosmetics — Momo
• Life's Entropy — Enchant
• Mad Lab Cosmetics — Pearl
• Ten Three Labs — Electric Love

Lips is TKB Trading's Sparkle Rose turned into a lip gloss using Life's Entropy's Placebo