Tarte: Baby It's Bold Outside The Stand Outs Limited-Edition Best-Sellers Kit

Of late, I have been into exploring the world of beauty and makeup!! Having a generous amount of spare time has been helping me in picking up new hobbies. Hobbies that were, quite friendly, very unappealing to me few years back!

Let me be extremely honest here, I have always been the geek girl. There was so much on the plate, I never had much chance to explore the “girly girl” in me. But now that I finally have a little bit of time and can spend a little bit of money on pampering myself, I am exploring the world of makeup. The high-speed internet here and few so called “You-tube Gurus” definitely helps ;)

Here is my first ever user-experience shared with you all out there. I do not prefer it to be called "review" as I am not at all an expert. It is just a few honest opinions from a simple girl who have used these products.  

Today I am going to talk about “the stand outs limited-edition best-sellers kit”, a holiday kit from Tarte. Tarte is a US based cosmetic company that is mostly known for using naturally-derived ingredients in their products. Apart from that, I just love their bright beautiful packaging; just a side-note.

Anyway, I ordered it directly from tartecosmetics.com at a $25 value, which cost me a final of $16.50 after the 40% sale going on that particular day. The kit includes

·         Full size LipSurgence lip luster in POUTY

·         Full Size Amazonian Clay waterproof liner in BRONZE

·         Full size double-ended liner brush

·         Deluxe lights, camera, lashes 4-in-1 mascara

You can already tell, it is an awesome value. Let us just consider the regular cost of the items, the lip luster sells for $24, the waterproof liner along with the brush runs for $24. The full-size mascara is $19, but the deluxe sample you get with this kit is also a very decent size.

Let me first vent out my disappointment at the beginning. I was in between move to a different state when I ordered this. I was supposed to move out of my old place after around 10 days of my placing this order. It took few days for them to ship, when they finally shipped it, the tracking page showed that the packet will reach me before I need to move out of there. But then there was some storm in the East coast and the entire delivery got postponed by few days. I contacted customer care to let them know about my problem and hoping that they will at least offer to pay for the extra payment charge that I needed to carry to deliver the items to my new place. When I wrote to them about asking them to cancel my order or pay for the extra shipping charge, I did not get any reply. But when I wrote to them writing that I fixed my problem, I got a reply just after few minutes stating that “They are glad that my problem got solved”. Being a prestige brand of cosmetics, I really hoped some more customer "care" from them. I have to say I was disappointed.

Now let’s bring in some positives. I have heard a lot of good things about the brand. After waiting for around a month, (remember I was in between moves, so my friend collected the package for me, and then he sent it to me), when I finally got these and played with them, they immediately won my heart. Great quality products!!

POUTY is a nice bright pink color with a little bit of shimmer. It is not the kind of color that I would wear. But when I wore it I felt that it really went very well with my medium/tan/olive skin tone. It also has a minty smell and feel to it which is quite refreshing to me. I really enjoy the very subtle tingling affect it has on my lips. I love that it is a retractable product, which saves me from the pain of sharpening. I also love the fact that I do not need to be careful while applying, no need of a lip liner as well. For me, it’s a great product for the days when I want to have a somewhat brighter lip, without being extra careful and time-consuming with the application.

The waterproof liner in Bronze is a nice addition to my eye products, it is a very deep brown bronzy color which seems to have a very satin finish. I am not able to achieve a very crisp liner with it yet, but I like to wear it all over my lid and just use a normal black liner. You can wear it alone on the lid or just use as a base (I have not done it though), it is also buildable. I love that I can control the depth of bronzy/brown color that I want with the layering of application. I store it upside down so as to prevent it from drying. But yeah, it seems to be a little bit dry in nature. The brush seems to work just fine, nothing extraordinary about it. I have not used the slim side yet. Hopefully it will enable me to achieve the crisp eyeliner look I am looking for.

I have heard great many things for the mascara. But because I have so many mascaras already and also because I really use a very minimal amount of make-up for my day to day activity, I really have not had a chance to use it.

Did I already tell you that I love Tarte packaging? I love how they pick unconventional patterns and colors for their packaging. This one comes in nice sea-green and golden cardboard packaging. Adorable J

By the way I got the neck-piece at $4 at Claire's; Isn't it a steal? J

So here are my quick takes

Pros:

• Awesome value
• 3 full size products
• Love everything about the LipSurgence (color, texture, application etc)

Cons:

• Somewhat disappointing experience with customer care with my very first purchase.
• The eyeliner is a tad drying.

Had that shipping issue would not have occurred, I would have loved the kit a lot more. But anyway from my personal experience I have realized that holiday kits are an amazing way to try out products at a much more affordable price. While enjoying my POUT, I will definitely look forward to these little kits from Tarte in the foreseeable future J

~Arrru