Morphe Brushes 35W review and swatches

When I first heard of Morphe Brushes palettes, it reminded me of the Coastal Scents 88 palette except that it is much bigger in sizes. They was being talked about a lot on Youtube. People were just raving about them non-stop. I looked at the eye shadow colors and started lusting after them for months until I finally got my hands on them 3 weeks ago at Hautelook. It took them 3 weeks to finally ship my order. The actual shipment only took 3 days by USPS but one of my eye shadow palettes came broken. I was so disappointed. Just bear in mind that if you were to purchase them from Hautelook, they ship really slow and the customer service is almost non-existent. I tried calling and live chat but could not get anyone to help me with my purchase. Anyway, back to the review.

Picture with no flash

Picture with flash

First two rows

3rd to 5th row

As you can see, they are quite pigmented. They were swatched with no primer. They blend pretty well on the eyes too. They could have a little fall-out but it is not a big deal for me. The eye shadows are just a little soft and feel a little silky when swatched. The matte shades have worse pigmentation, which is almost always the case for matte eye shadows.The shimmery shades feel quite creamy to touch with great pigmentation. For about 20 bucks, I think it is a really good palette. I just wish there are more shimmery light shades in this palette. Are they like the Coastal Scents palette? I would say they are quite similar to the 252 palette where every single shade has a full-sized version in terms of pigmentation and texture. 

One interesting finding: I actually also purchase Its bling palette (35E) and found that you could find them in Coastal Scents metal mania palette. It is as if they looked at the metal mania palette and purposely chose 35 eye shadows, made them bigger and put them in new palette. However, the 35E is so much more pigmented than the CS eye shadows in metal mania. Unfortunately, the 35E was received damaged (2 eye shadows broke) so I could not do a review on it.

Elf Acne fighting foundation in Buff and Sand swatches

I recently bought the foundation in Sand and realized it is not the right color. It is way darker than it appears online. Thankfully, Elf is nice enough to send me another one in Buff, which is almost my exact match.

Sand and Buff. Look almost the same from the outside

Sand and Buff. Sand does not look as dark but don't let the picture deceive you

Sand is way darker than Buff

Elf Lock On Liner and Brow Cream in Light brown swatch

Elf came out with some brow creams recently so I ordered it in light brown. Light brown is just slightly lighter than Elf gel liner in Coffee. It gives me a pretty natural brow look even though I am an Asian with black hair. In the past, I have always used the gel liner in Coffee for my brows and it works great. Both of them last more than 8 hours. I have nothing to complain as I have not tried the Anastasia one so I can't really tell whether it is supposed to be a dupe. For $4, it is worth trying.

Gel liner in Coffee vs brow cream in Light Brow

Swatches for gel liner and brown cream

Love and Beauty 21 Shade Eyeshadow Palette review and swatches

I usually don't care much about Forever 21 makeup until I found this palette that resembles the Urban Decay Naked palette. I really love metallic neutral so I just had to get it when I see one that looks good. I have to say that I am quite pleasantly surprised with this particular one.

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1st row

2nd row

3rd row

The last row is not as good as the other two but for $9.90, this is a good deal especially if you are not willing to spend a lot of money on the Naked palette Most eye shadows are creamy and highly pigmented. There are a few really good transition shade as well as dark shades to deepen your outer V. My only complain is there is no matte light shade for brow bone highlight. 

All in all, this is a very good palette for its price. Grab it when you get a chance.

Ebay metal palette VS Coastal Scents Metal Mania palette. Are they really the same thing?

Few years ago (not too long after the CS Metal Mania Palette came out), I purchased an 88 metal palette, which looks exactly like the CS Metal Mania palette from Ebay. This metal palette is not unique to CS alone. Many other companies sell the exact same palette under different names. So I thought these companies must have bought them from the same manufacturers and re-brand them and sell them for much higher price. At Ebay, you could get this palette for $10 including shipping. CS sells it for ~$18 but they do have sales sometimes. So you could get it for $7 or $8 during Black Friday. That was when I snatched mine. 

Left to right: Ebay 88 metal palette, CS 88 metal mania palette. They mostly appear to be the same, except for a green shade that has been swapped. The Ebay one also looks a little frostier

I have always been very curious about whether the Ebay is selling the same palette as CS. After trying out both, I realized that they are NOT the same in terms of texture even though the listed ingredients are the same. In fact, I have to say that the Ebay one seems to have a better quality even though it has been 5 years since I bought it. Ebay one is frostier (hence, some of they look even more metallic) and creamier to touch. CS one has a drier texture and harder to swatch. You will definitely need a primer for CS ones to show better.

Swatches of equivalent colors: the left ones are from CS, right from Ebay

More swatches

As you can see, they are not the exact same colors even though they are in the same position and appear to be the same. 

Does that mean that I support Ebay palette? Not necessarily. I always feel a little iffy about things that do not have a brand. When you buy an unbranded stuff, you can't hold anyone responsible when something bad happens. Who knows what the Chinese manufacturer put in the palette to make the shadows shinier/frostier? Obviously, the FDA in China is a lot looser compared to FDA in US. I just don't trust the ingredient list very much. It just seems like one manufacturer was trying to copy another manufacturer. This is just my opinion though. They might be just as safe (or just as unsafe compared to CS. Since they are both made in China) to use. Who knows?

ELF Baked Eye Shadows, Blush and Bronzer Review and Swatches

I got four of them to try out. They are awesome! Good pigmentation when swatched. Not much fall-out. For $3, you can't go wrong with this. The colors are just gorgeous! May get a few more when there's sales.

Enchanted baked shadow. Looks like you can actually use this as a highlighter too.

Bark

Peachy Cheeky baked blush. Good as highlighter for lighter skin tone

Maui baked bronzer. This is the right bronzer for my skin tone. Not too dark or light. Also, it does not look orange or muddy on skin! I use this on my crease to blend with eye shadows too. It works really well.

Physician Formula Magic Mosaic Bronzer Review

Looking cute huh? Don't be deceived! Look at the surface, you know something is wrong. There's a slight "shiny film" formed on the mosaic. Every time my product looks like this, it's a fail. This is the second PF bronzer that failed on me. I love always live PF but always have really bad experience with their bronzers. I am glad that I got it for only $3.49. It costs $13.49 originally. It was on the $7 off sales and there was a $3 off coupon attached. Still, it is not worth that $3.49!

See? No pigmentation! I rubbed really hard to get this little of color pay-off. Crap product. Back to store is where it goes!

Taupe Brown with a Pop of Purple

My fav way to use color

My new fav fake lashes. Cheap but not too bad of quality

Blush I used for this look. It looks pinkier than it actually is.

Physician Formula Shimmer Strips Eye Shadows. My Absolute favorite.

Eye shadows removed for second look. Bare eye lids look weird, don't they?

Then I decided to play with some colors. These are blue and green. 

My makeup station. LOL. I cleaned up afterwards. :)

My Obsession: ELF Beauty School Everyday Eye Manual Review and S...

My Obsession: ELF Beauty School Everyday Eye Manual Review and S...: "When I saw this palette for the first time in Walgreens, I knew I was gonna get it. I tried to look for swatches online but could not find a..."

ELF Beauty School Everyday Eye Manual Review and Swatches

When I saw this palette for the first time in Walgreens, I knew I was gonna get it. I tried to look for swatches online but could not find any. So I decided to be one of the first people who bought this just to experiment and test out the quality.

The photo below was taken without flash.

With flash

The swatches (no primer) are shown below. As you can tell, some colors are so faint that you can barely see them. The pigmentation of those shadows are BAD. The texture is very hard. It's like you have to scrape the surface of the shadows to get the colors. If you have the NAKED palette dupe (ELF beauty book in previous collection) you'll notice that they share almost some texture, which I hate. Some shimmery shadows are soft in texture though. Some darker ones like the dark burgundy and blue are quite pigmented but chalky. They may cause some fall-out. Overall, I will only give 2/5 for this palette. ELF encyclopedias are much better. Ever since then, they never really come out with better eye shadows for their beauty books anymore. It'll always be hits and misses when it comes to ELF. If it's 50% off, I would say go ahead and get it. It's not a bad idea to add something to your collection. If you wanna use this for daily basis and there's no discount, don't get it because you'll be really pissed off like I am. Grrr...

Silver and Black Smokey Eyes

This look is more dramatic in person. To be honest, I have never worn this look and step out from my house. I am always the "neutral" girl.

Nikki Minaj Inspired: Pink and Purple Eyeshadows look

UGH... All the colors go missing because of my pathetic Asian semi-double lid. How I wish I have the real double eyelids. It's so hard to apply makeup on semi-double lid because of the fold that eats away lotsa space when the eyes are open. BTW, this is a look inspired by Nikki Minaj in one of her music videos. She's all about crazy makeup (not as crazy as Lady Gaga but still definitely not kinda makeup you wanna wear and leave the house during the day time.)

As usual, my face is kinda washed out due to flash. The lipstick is supposed to be a barbie pink lipstick. Since the lips and eyes are so "strong" in colors, the blush on the cheeks are very light and natural.

Stuffs that I used on this look.

A Revlon bronzer that I got just recently and not particular fond of. It's the Revlon Colorstay mineral finishing powder in Suntan Matte. I was expecting it to be more pigmented. It seems like the product has dried out and hardened. I have to literally rub my brush to get the color out.

ELF Flirtatious Lipstick Review

 Got my new "Flirtatious" ELF $1 lipstick from mail today. I didn't have big expectation to this because ELF lipstick colors always fail me due to its inaccurate swatches online. Flirtatious is a crazy hot pink color. This photo is so washed out that it looks rather natural here. It's actually not this light and almost neon-like.

Very simple eye look. For some weird reason, the shadow on the left eye is not well-blended, no matter how hard I tried. Weird..I put on ELF primer, Maybelline dream mousse shadow then colors from ELF 100 palette. Colors actually show up pretty well even though the eye shadows in ELF 100 palette are pretty sheer on their own.

Sorry for showing the big nose. Focus on the lips! I applied the ELF Dazzling Diamonds lip gloss on top. Look how shiny my lips are. I am kinda disappointed that the photo does not capture the craziness of the lip color though. Will I ever wear this and go outside? maybe! hahaha

Below is how it looks like. You get a lot of product for a dollar! The texture is very creamy, unlike the previous batch of $1 lipsticks. It's also less opaque but it's buildable. I kinda doubt the staying power though. I'll would give this lipstick 4/5, one point off for the staying power. Overall, it is definitely a good lipstick.

Milani 3D Glitzy Glamour Gloss VS ELF Glitter Gloss Review

From left to right :Milani 3D Glitzy Glamour Gloss in Designer Label and Starshine (these two are actually exact dupes of MAC lip glasses which I don't remember the names). Elf Glitter Gloss in Dazzling Diamond.

They are so pretty with fine glitters in the bottle. When applied, they look very shiny and smooth on the lips. They don't accentuate fine lines or crack on the lips. They feel sticky to touch but non-sticky on the lips. ELF glitter gloss does have chunkier glitters in it but the chunkiness does not show on the lips. The glitters are multi-color, which makes it even more special than the Milani ones. All of them feel pretty similar in texture when swatched.

$8 for Milani or $3 for ELF? I would say go for the ELF one but I am not sure if other colors of ELF are as good as the Dazzling Diamond. I have seen them on Target and thought to myself that the glitters are too big. I bought one just to try it out and found myself falling in love with the ELF one. Give it a try! It's only $3, not to mention you may even get it for $1.50 only when there's 50% sales going on.

Crazy rainbow eyes!

Jut to show u the makeup. Definitely not a look to wear and go outside. The colors combo is pretty insane.

Makeup on fat face!

Urban Decay Naked Palette vs ELF Beauty Neutral Eye Edition & ELF 100 palette DUPES!!

The ultimate, long sought-after, forever-out-of-stock Urban Decay Naked Palette. See how gorgeous it is. I didn't let myself get my hands on it until... Let's see why!

Because I found a dupe palette for it! The swatch on the right with intense color is of course the Naked Palette. The one on left is the dupe. Pretty close huh?

This is the dupe for the Naked Palette! The ELF beauty book in Neutral Eye Edition.

I would say they are almost 90% dupe. They look like PERFECT dupe when you compare them together though.Well, if you look at the pic above, you know that they are not. Darkhorse and Hustle dupes are not exactly dupes. What about the quality? Not similar at all! That's why I finally spent 48 bucks on it! The ELF is only 5 bucks but it requires much more efforts to get the colors. I have to literally rub my brush on the palette just to get decent color pay-off. I bought this even before I knew this is a dupe because I saw the colors are just so nice. Some colors are pigmented though, most are not. Other ELF Beauty Books are highly pigmented, except this! What the hell? Such a huge disappointment.

The ELF beauty book does not have good dupe for Darkhorse. This is such a pretty color. But guess what? I found a much better dupe from my collection, which the the ELF 100 palette. The quality of shadow is slightly better too. This is a rare color, I was happy to find a dupe for this.

Another better dupe for Hustle is on the ELF 100 palette too. How cool is that!

Just to show you how the 100 palette looks like. hehehe. The quality of the 100 palette is not consistent though. Some have better color pay-off than the others. They work fine with a primer. I am not "wow-ed" by it. But the Naked Palette, I can't say enough good things about it. The pigmentation is just awesome.

Look using Naked Palette.

Whole face.

So what do you think? 48 bucks or 5 bucks?