Monthly Favorites ::: March 2016

It is interesting to see how I ended up loving so many products this month. At the very beginning of the month, I sincerely thought I will not have much to talk about! :-) Also, it is quite interesting that this month it’s all about eye shadows and lipsticks!

Marc Jacobs Beauty The Siren (210) Style Eye-Con No.7 Eyeshadow Palette: I completely ADORE this palette. I adore the packaging, I adore the products for its quality and I simply cherish the color shades! This little round pans looks like water color palettes for painting and it sends me back to my childhood and the art classes that I used to enjoy so much. The eyeshadows here are very pigmented, rich and looks very sophisticated on the eyes. The shades in the left side are perfect for creating warm, every everyday looks but for the first half of March I used the blue-green shades on the right left side of the palette; almost every day. This palette inspired me to wear blue in subtle, gentle looks and I thoroughly enjoyed that. I actually wore blue eyeshadows in different techniques to work every single day for an entire week!

Anastasia Beverly Hills Shadow Couture World Traveler Palette: Another limited-edition palette. I originally bought this for my sister, with her permission to try and post a review (you can check the review here) and now that I am planning to go to India for a vacation, I finally have the chance to hand over the palette to her! And I think I am suffering from separation anxiety :-) Being the evil big sister, I asked her if I can use this few more times :-) I totally remembered why it got so much love from me in the review! If you ask me this is an impeccable travel palette for warm eyeshadow lovers. It has a beige, a medium brown, a chocolate brown and a black; all in matte finishes. It has a few subtle shimmery shades for everyday use and for your pop of color; you have the purple and the blue shade :-) I can easily travel only with this palette and create many different looks! Also, I don’t really tend to use the shimmers as I absolutely love the mattes! I automatically grab for them and don’t even want to use the other shimmery shades! Also the brush included here is quite useful for me.

Laura Mercier Caviar Stick Eye Colour in Gilded Gold: I have no idea how I managed to wear and love so many eye products this month :-) This is an expensive product for me, but I think it’s worth it. I got it in a Birchbox Limited Edition Set last holiday season (reviewed here). I probably would have bought a different shade if I was buying it individually. I still love the shade; gold is a very flattering on my warm skin tone. I however enjoyed this pencil mainly because of the formula. It’s super blendable and looks very glamorous without being over-the-top. It also stays put for 9-10 hrs. I love the packaging and enjoy how easy it is to apply. I am definitely going to check out other shades in this range!

ColourPop Super Shock Shadows in Boy Band, Mooning and Stereo: I have professed my love for these ColourPop shades a few days ago! I cannot simply understand how they are able to offer such a long-lasting, high quality eyeshadow at such an affordable rate while still being cruelty free. And I simply enjoy the ease of application with these shades. Boy Band is my most favorite shade out of these three, check my detailed review here. 

Let’s talk about the lipsticks J

Kat Von D Ever Lasting Liquid Lipstick in Mother: Along with the Anastasia Beverly Hills palette, this is another product that I bought for my sister. Hence I am wearing it here and there before I give it to her :-) (Keep in mind she lives in India which makes it impossible to exchange beauty products frequently) I love this everlasting liquid lipstick formula; it does not horribly dry up my lips and is very easy and comfortable to apply without even needing a lip liner. Mother is a soft pink which is very wearable on an everyday basis.

ColourPop Ultra Satin Lips in Frick ‘N Frack and The Rabbit: These are the some of the new products that I loved this month. They are super creamy but they stay on my lips with full vibrancy throughout the day. I wear Frick N Frack on an everyday basis and The Rabbit on those days when I am craving for some colors, It’s is such a unique shade.

Tarte Amazonian Butter Lipstick in Coral Blossom and Lakme Love Lipstick in Passion Fruit: Okay, I don’t like these two lipsticks on their own. The Tarte one appears patchy on my severe dry lips and Lakme now appears is little too shimmery and brown for my taste. But together I absolutely love it! I apply Lakme one first and then layer with Tarte. The creaminess of Tarte brings down the appearances of the shimmer and melts in with it to give me a beautiful my-lips-but-better shade on my lips for the whole day. It also makes my lip look healthy!

I hope you enjoyed the favorite post for this month :-) All my monthly favorites can be found here. I am looking forward to April as it is going to be a different month for me make up wise and I am very curious to know what makeup items from my stash accompanies me during this different month :-) 

Love,

~Arrru

Everyday glam with ColourPop Super Shock Shadows in Boy Band, Mooning and Stereo!

I deliberately restrained myself from trying out ColourPop Cosmetics for the longest time. I knew that their products are incredible and I would fall in love with them fast. But the fact that they are so very affordable possessed a deep danger to my wallet! I knew that once I try them, I will be hooked and that’s exactly what happened :-)

Few months back I got their Forever Freshman Collection (reviewed here); I have wanted to get my hands on some of their beloved “every day” type Super Shock shadows! Last month, they released their ultra satin lips (reviewed here) and just so I get free shopping, I got a few shades! And I am so in LOVE with them. These are some very popular and talked about shades; honestly speaking all three here are quite similar to look at but I don’t care! I love all of them with equal affection.

Have you ever tried Colourpop? If yes, you already know what I am going to say about them. If not, you most definitely should! Apart from the amazing quality at such an affordable price, ColourPop is cruelty free and they offer free shipping within US for just 30$. These are enough reasons for me to love the brand.

I picked up Super Shock shadows in Boy Band, Mooning and Stereo. These shadows has a wispy, fluffy texture, and come in a big round jar which is not something I prefer but I do understand why they chose this packaging. The white jar actually makes the product very photogenic :-) But I have to also share that all the lettering on the packaging may come off after a few usages. The shadows are ultra-pigmented, very soft and creamy, extremely metallic with gorgeous shimmers, exceptionally blendable and have incredibly long wear time. I mostly use my fingers to apply these as I have not found the right brush to use with them but I absolutely love using my fingers. Typically if I don’t use eye primer underneath, any other eyeshadow experiences at least some creasing. But these surprised me as they lasted the exact same time without any primer. Also can we talk about the shimmers these provide? They look so elegant, there is no fall out and the speckles of glitters remain on my lid till I remove them. I don’t understand how ColourPop was able to achieve all this at a cost of $5 a shadow for 0.05 oz. of product!! I am simply amazed at their quality! Here are the colors-

Boy Band: This is a very warm bronzy copper with gold and pink micro glitters. Very pigmented and very intense! It looks super flattering on my skin tone. I love this shade, especially for a quick and yet glam everyday eye look.

Stereo on Inner and Outer crease, Boy Band on the center lid along with some other matte shades!

Mooning: This is a much deeper brown with gold, bronze speckles that almost appears a very soft black :-) For some reason, this texture feels even more fine and ultra-soft to touch!

Stereo: This is such a beloved shade. I prefer this slightly over Mooning! It is quite dark and brown but it has a ton of cranberry undertone to it. Perfect for Fall, but I am going to wear it irrespective of the season. It’s quite warm and the sparkles in this are so very beautiful.

Mooning on very outer v, Boy Band on 2/3 rd of the inner lid.

I have been absolutely loving these shadows. These are such fuss free, super-easy shadows to work with and to achieve glamorous looks that appear complex but actually are so fast and easy! I tried hard to capture their magnificence but the pictures don’t do these any justice! I even added a blurry picture so that I can show the glitters :-) Overall, I absolutely think I got my money'’s worth and will highly recommend them! We all need some Color Pop in our lives :-)

Love,

~Arrru

Best Of Becca "Blushed Radiance" ::: Review & Swatches!!!

There is something about Becca that I cannot simply resist :-) I have enough from them already. Those will last me a long time as all of their products are super crazily pigmented and I shouldn’t need anymore. Yet, when Becca puts out these little sets I simply have to buy them.

Today I am talking about this limited edition set called “Best of Becca Blushed Radiance” available in Ulta Beauty. Their 21 Day’s of Beauty events are also going on! Anyway, I have been really wanting to try their comparatively new primer and “Flower Child” mineral blush has always interested me. So I thought that will provide me enough of a justification to indulge in this set. 

The retail price of this set is 34.50$ and as I said it’s only available in Ulta Beauty (shop here). It contains the following

• Mineral Blush in Flower Child (0.087 oz)
• Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed in Opal (0.085 oz)
• Shimmering Skin Perfector Spotlight Wand in Moonstone (0.17 oz)
• Backlight Priming Filter (0.2 oz)

Here is a break down of the prices

Product	Full Size/Price	Size in this kit	Price in this kit
Mineral Blush in Flower Child	0.04 oz./10 $	0.087 oz.	13.92 $
Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed in Opal	0.25 oz./38 $	0.085 oz.	12.92 $
Shimmering Skin Perfector Spotlight Wand in Moonstone	1.7 oz./41 $	0.17 oz.	4.1 $
Backlight Priming Filter	1 oz./38 $	0.20 oz.	7.6 $

                                                                                                                 Total Value= 38.54$

There is a bit of savings however I don’t think it is not an incredibly awesome deal. Previous sets from Becca have been of much better value than this. It is still saves you some money in comparison to buying full-size product, especially if you are new to the brand! 

Here are the products:

Mineral Blush in Flower Child: I have three of their mineral blushes (Songbird, Wild Honey and Hyacinth). Flower Child is a shade that has been available in their line for a long time now. I like that this is in deluxe size. It’s a muted neutral light peachy-pinky shade with some shimmer! It’s a lot lighter than I expected! I recently reviewed their Wild Honey and Songbird here. Flower Child is much cool-toned than both. Anyway, I love this formula; it does not emphasize my pores unlike some of my other blushes. The wear time is admirable too! If they ever launches deluxe sizes “Lantana” and “Nightingale” I am going to grab them immediately.

Wearing Flower Child on the cheeks, Backlight primer underneath, Opal on the lids and one of the cheekbone, Moonstone on the other cheekbone

Backlight Priming Filter: I was itching to try this ever since it launched. Now that I have tried, I am kind of on fence about it. I love it and yet not that much. It smells incredible; a bit herbal-y, very cooling and fresh! I love the smell! This is a potent product so you need just a bit. But the pump is somehow hard to control and it dispenses a bit more product than I need for one application. Being true to Becca’s ‘luminous’ approach, this primer also provides a lot of glow. :-) I love that but at times under different lights I feel it is bit much. May be I am still figuring out the right amount of product to be used. As a primer it acts great. It gave me a nice canvas for the foundation and it stayed nicely till I removed it. It appeared a tad bit shiny when I first put it on and that shininess increases over the hrs. just a little bit more. But I am worried that during summer it may end up looking greasy by the end of the day. By the way it is a super tiny bottle, if I use it every day I can see myself finishing this in no more than 2-3 weeks.

Opal, heavily applied

Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed in Opal: At this point, I think I have all the shimmering skin perfectors from them, in one form or other. This is one of their super popular products.  The previous set titled “Best of Becca” contained Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed in Moonstone and the wand in Opal! I like that these are not repeat products. It’s a very very pale gold. It’s quite strongly pigmented. I feel like it’s a bit stronger than their other shades! I have the wand version and that comes off as normal natural. I still adore it though :-)

Shimmering Skin Perfector Spotlight Wand in Moonstone: Moonstone has a little bit more pink in it than Opal, personally I love it a bit more. It’s a closer shade to my skin tone and hence it’s easier to pull off on a daily basis. In this liquid form, it is more versatile to use too. You can add this to your foundation to add some brightness as well. It is very easy to apply. I can wear it underneath or above my foundation for my somewhat dry skin!

I love Becca and I love deluxe products. They are just easier to store and finish up which is important to me. I don’t adore this set like the one I bought last year (check here). However, I still think this is a decent value set. I definitely recommend it :-)

Love,

~Arrru

New ColourPop Ultra Satin Lip "Frick 'N Frack" & "The Rabbit" ::: Review and Swatches!!!

I did not buy a single makeup product in last two months but then ColourPop launched their new Ultra Satin Lips. And I could not resist anymore!

2015 was the year of liquid lipsticks. Even though a few brands offered them long before that, they became insanely popular in last year or two! Every company has now come up with their own version of liquid lipsticks. I have tried a few of them from different companies and unfortunately, I have come to a realization that liquid lipsticks and my lips aren’t best of friends :-) So, when ColourPop came with something called “Ultra Satin Lip” I had to try!

The first thing that attracts me to ColourPop is the price range. They are extremely affordable and all their products are at par with their higher end counterparts. They are a cruelty-free company as well. For the price range, their overall packaging is very decent. And they offer free shipping at 30$ which I think is a very, very justifiable amount. All these little qualities has definitely helped me love the brand more :-)

These Ultra Satin Lips are 6$ each for 0.11 oz. of products. I think that’s a great price. ColourPop is only available in their website; Shop Ultra Lips here. When I am travelling home next time, I am definitely picking a few of ColourPop products for gifting purpose :-) The packaging is exactly like their matte ones. It comes in glass tubes with silver lid. The names of the shade and the product are embossed. The applicator is a standard doe-foot one and is quite easy to work with! For 6$, I would not expect more than this. I have heard complaints before that their ultra-matte lipsticks leak from their tube. I have these for about 10 days now and I have not faced such issue, not yet at least.

I bought 2 shades, one for every day and one for those ultra-glam days :-) These are extremely rich in pigment, very easy to apply and quite easy on the lips. They completely dry down like matte lipsticks and therefore they transfer a lot. It will transfer to your clothes or your hand in case it comes in contact with your lips throughout the day. ColourPop have been clear about this in their promotional messages! I have to keep in mind not end up with lipstick marks on my teeth! :-) It also fades around the outer edge just a tiny bit towards the end of the day. But considering all these little aspects that come with a lipstick marked as “Satin”, I am very impressed with its wear time and the comfort it provides. 

Frick N Frack: I don’t know how the name makes me feel! Apparently Frick ‘N Frack were 2 Swiss skaters that came to US in 1937 and performed as Comedy Ice Skaters. Urban dictionary defines “Frick ‘N Frack” as two incompetent, lazy employees that tends to continuously do other things than working, anyway, the name is beside the point :-) This Ultra Satin range has many different nude shades- cool, warm and ever-so-popular brownish nude shades! I am not a crazy fan of this brown lip shades but at the same time I am afraid to try out the lighter, peachier shades that they have. I am not having a lot of luck with my online lipstick purchases lately. Frick ‘N Frack is described as “rosy terracotta”. I see this as a warm mauvey brown which shows up a tad darker on me than in the tube. At first look, it seems same as Kat Von D Lolita but in reality it is a bit darker. I have included side by side swatch. This feels a much thicker on the lips than The Rabbit.

At first I put a little too much on my lips; it took a lot of time to somewhat dry down and felt a bit heavy. You can see how thick it looks on the lips in photo below! But I have learnt my lesson and now I wear just a tiny amount. I love it! As I said, it does dry up like a matte lipstick but it kind of sets after a while and it stays put the entire day. I typically wear my makeup around 6-6.30 am and this stays put for up to 5-6 pm without much dryness. It transfers but because these are so rich in pigment, the color hangs onto your lips with full vibrancy! I do wear lip balm if it gets too dry, but then I risk the pigment being all over my teeth. I have been mixing this with my other liquid lipsticks that are a bit more neon-y and less wearable on their own and I love the custom shades that I can make :-)

The Rabbit: ColourPop have some interesting names in this line :-) This is a vibrant fuchsia and has a gorgeous blue shift to it. It sounds intimidating but the sheen is so subtle and intricate that the lip shade comes off quite glamorous! It is such an interesting shade! I feared it will loop a bit tacky; but no, not at all! I admire people who can unapologetically pull off lip shades that are considered bold and non-conventional. I personally don’t have the courage or the interest on those bold shades. This will be as interesting as it gets for me. It’s super thin in consistency and feels very light. I actually like that it is thin in formula. It makes it quite comfortable to wear without compromising on the color payoff. Wear time with this is also around 8-10 hrs. Towards the end, it gets a bit drier than Frick N Frack. I love this shade, and I glad that it looks flattering on me :-) I added two photos for this one, because I think I look good :-)

If you are not a huge fan of matte lipsticks, these might be worth checking out. They are comfortable, long lasting and overall of great quality, especially for the price range. I am quite enjoying these :-) 

By the way, they sent me a Limited Edition Lippie Stix in Poppin’ as free gift. They brought out this in a matching Limited Edition packaging for recently crossing 2 million followers in Instagram; it’s a pretty bright berry-fuchsia shade in ultra-matte finish! Here is a swatch I also bought a bunch of their super popular shades of Super Shock shadows and I am in love :-) Review will follow soon!

Love,
~Arrru

Becca LOVE ::: Mineral Blushes in "Wild Honey" and "Songbird" review & swatches!!!

Typically I would buy a beauty product, try it for 3-4 weeks and would post a review within a month or two! But sometimes I totally forget to document my experience with a new product; even though I use it on a regular basis. This typically happens with the products that are not “limited-edition” and can be purchased any time. These two blushes from Becca definitely fell into that “forgotten” category.

However, I pulled these two from my drawer sometime late in January and I am constantly using them since. Obviously they made it to my February Favorites! I remember back in summer ’14, YouTube Vlogger Jaclyn Hill showed “Wild Honey” as one of her favorite blushes; and as expected every Sephora Store and Online inventory went ran out of stock for “Wild Honey”. I also fell for the hype! I opted for the “back in stock“ alert notification and after one or two such notifications I gave in, despite being very aware that it might be too light on my skin tone. But I loved the product so I wanted to try a deeper shade and when Ulta had one of their amazing promotional deals I bought “Songbird”. I want to shamelessly accept that products these purchases were made out of pure yearning for the product. But after using them for a year, I can happily state that I don’t repent my purchases; not at all!

I am an ardent fan of Becca Cosmetics! Every single thing I have tried from them has been simply superb. It is definitely an expensive and luxurious brand, but I personally feel like I am investing my money inn something good; so the price does not hurt me that much! These full-size blushes has 0.2 oz. of products for a price of $32. Becca is easily available in many different stores like Sephora, Ulta and Beautylish (which ships to different countries as well).

Let’s talk about the packaging! Hands down, this is one of my favorite packaging as far as makeup products are concerned. These come in a very cool UFO looking compact with a strong mirror. It’s quite sturdy and it looks professional! The engineer in me is deeply in love with this robust machine looking compact. I always keep a cotton pad in the inside of the compact when I am travelling. Otherwise due to the texture and the formula of the powder they can very easily crack in the event of the slightest shaking.

These are some of the best powder blush formula in the market. Very very heavily pigmented, but extremely blendable, has a luminous glow which is very unique and quite long wearing. Whenever I need my makeup to stay 12 hr. long I opt for these. They are heavily pigmented so it’s always safe to start with applying very light layers; I never had any issue layering and building up the shade up to my liking. I absolutely love the sheen and healthy glow they provide me. I tend to wear one of these when I have heavy and less shimmery eye look or when I am wearing just simple lashes with eye liner and bold lip shade! I also love to wear these when I am feeling extra “meh” and “bored”! These two shades give me that naturally glowy balanced look to my overall appearance, every time!

For some reason, they keep changing the shades in their permanent line from time to time. For example, I remember a beautiful “Barbie pink” permanent shade called “gypsy” but that appears to have been discontinued. Right now they have 6 shades available in Sephora and Ulta – Wild Honey, Songbird, Flowerchild, Lantana, Hyacinth and Nightinagle. The first three are lighter shades and then they come out with 3 vibrant shades for deep skinned beauties. I reviewed Hyacinth here. I absolutely adore that shade, but because it’s a bold color I have to plan my entire look around the blush. Today, however I am going to talk about Wild Honey and Songbird.

Wild Honey: I have already elaborated the unnecessary story on how I got this blush. Becca describes this as a “peachy nude”.  Beautiful shade! It’s very warm; so it’s quite useful in bringing up some color and liveliness in your face without applying tons of bronzer. As you can see it’s a shade that appears to suit pale to medium skin tone. On me, it does not show up in just one application and that kind of dampened my spirit in the very beginning. However after all this time, I have surely changed my mind. I tend to apply 2-3 very light layers and I love how perfect it looks on me applied that way! I have started to wear this as an everyday blush; it’s just that little hint of luxury in the morning :-) On days when I sleep in for an extra half an hr. and just don’t want to put any effort in my makeup, I slightly dust this on the high points of my face and my cheeks! A little lipstick and that’s all I do! I also love using it as a base layer and top it up with some other shade when I am feeling a bit fancy. I use it a lot as a blush topper as well. The powder is so blendable that it makes layering “fun”. I typically pair it with Josie Maran Cheek Gelee in Pink Escape which does not have a lot of pigment but together they create a flattering shade; I absolutely love it.

Songbird: This is peachier and even warmer than Wild Honey with just a little hint of pink. It can also easily described as a “terracotta nude” shade! This one shows up on my skin without any effort. I love to pair this with dark smokey eye looks. As you can see from the swatches these are not matte. They have a very soft shimmer which is buildable in the most flattering way. I have huge pores on my cheeks and these two don’t emphasize my pores at all.

These two blushes are bit similar in shade and you don’t necessarily need both. But again, having said that I also have to share the fact that I use them both interchangeably on a regular basis! So, I definitely don’t regret buying both. But if I must pick one over the other, I think I like Songbird just a little bit more.

Do you have any Becca blushes? Do you adore them like me? I recently ordered a new value set from Ulta. It has a deluxe-size Flower Child. I have been curious about that shade for a long time, so let’s see how it behaves on my skin tone. :-)

Love,

~Arrru  

Review and Swatches of deep, rich "04-Dark Matte" Eyeshadow Palette from Viseart!!!

Over these past few days I have been trying to come up with the perfect opening line to this post – something that can right away tell how much I have been loving the ”04-Dark Matte“ palette from Viseart. Before we start digging deeper, here is what you need to know about the brand-

• Viseart Cosmetics’ roots lie in the trend setting Marais District of Paris.
• It is an artisan brand with products created keeping professional makeup artists in mind.
• The founding partners’ revolutionary sustainable approach fuses quality with integrity and innovation to build a quality health-conscious makeup line.
• Their products are made without petroleum, parabens, silicons, butylene, glycol or propylene glycol, phthalates or artificial dyes.
• Viseart is cruelty-free; they don’t test on animals

There are a few 12-shade palettes that Viseart offers; each with a particular color scheme. They have Cool Mattes, Neutral Mattes, Bridal Satins and so forth! They retail at a regular price of $80 for a total 0.84 oz. of products. It definitely seems like a high cost but let’s compare the price with some similar products in the market.

Product	Price and Size	Price per oz. ($)
MAC single pan	10$ for 0.04 oz.	250
Makeup Geek single pan	$6 for 0.064 oz.	93.75
IT Cosmetics Naturally Pretty Matte Vol. 1 palette	$42 for 0.456 oz.	92.10
Urban Decay Naked Original palette	$54 for 12x0.05 oz.	90
Viseart 12-shade palette	$80 for 0.84 oz.	95.23

As you can see, it’s definitely of good value when you compare the size of the product you are getting. I consider it a good investment, personally for me! You can buy Viseart products from Sephora, Muse Beauty, Frends Beauty and Beautylish. Even though I think $80 is a justifiable price for the quality, I will still advise you to wait for some sale (e.g., Sephora’s 20% off VIB sale or Holiday Gift Card for beauty insiders, Frends Beauty also has sales frequently)!

The packaging is very neat and is made of sturdy plastic material. The lid is clear which makes it easier to see the shades inside. There is no mirror but that makes sense because these were built compact and easy-to-work-with in a professional environment for makeup artists. A mirror would have come in handy for an everyday user like me but other than that I love the no-nonsense type of packaging.

Ok, finally we are at the most exciting part of the review. The eyeshadows itself! I love colorful shadows and all these shades are very beautiful on their own. However, together in one single palette they are just stunning to look at! I have never seen such a peculiar assortment of gorgeous shades like these in a single palette before. That’s why this particular palette immediately caught my attention when I first became aware of the brand and I am happy to report that I have not been let down by this.

The blendability of these shadows is unbelievable. Being so rich in pigment I thought they will need a bit of blending! But no; you put them on your eyes, it takes 5 seconds to blend yet they don’t blend away or vanish unlike a few highly blendable shadows from different brands. For this reason it is easier to layer one color on top of the other and create custom shade. For the first look down here, I put at least 4 layers of 2-3 shadows and all of them still maintained their own strength and vibrancy. Also because of the ease in blendebility I can easily control the intensity of the color I want! That makes it so much easier to incorporate these shades into my everyday work-appropriate look. I have been testing this palette for 2-3 months now and I have to say that I can create many different looks with this palette itself. From time to time I have used lighter shade from other palette to blend out the crease area but I have to emphasize that I can easily use this palette alone to create wearable or vibrant looks. Staying power of these shadows depends on how you apply it. When I wear them to work, I often apply thin layers to get less-rich pigmentation and I have noticed that it starts to fade ever so gracefully after 6-7 hrs. of wear! That is pretty normal. However whenever I wear them in heavy layers it stays on for 10-12 hrs. e.g., for the first look shown here I applied my makeup at noon and after a busy day of cleaning the house, a dinner with a friend and 1-2 hrs. in the kitchen the eyeshadows maintained their rich pigmentation and vibrancy till I removed my makeup around 1 am at night :-)

The colors don't have individual names hence I am going to name them myself. It helps me to describe them a bit better plus it’s fun that way :-)

1-Warm Brown: Very beautiful slightly warm brown. Very smooth and easy to blend.

2-Cool Brown: This is another brown but it is slightly cooler and deeper than 1. Same consistency and same “ease” to work with!

3-Muted Red-Brown: Gorgeous warm but very deep muted red-brown. These reddish shades on the right top corner look really similar especially when applied on the eyes. I love it all.

4-Warm Orangey-Red-Brown: I love this type of warm reddish brown! Very lovely crease shade, I particularly love to pair them with dark shades like navy blue, grey and purples. It brings so much warmth and vibrancy to the eyes!

5-Muted Purple: The purples in this palette are very deep and muted. It’s not very vibrant and I like it because with a little bit of tweaking, I can easily make them wearable to work!

6-Muted Eggplant: This is a tad bit brighter & more purple and I like it a tad bit more than 3. All these five shades are very consistent in formula and texture.

7-Brilliant Orange: Beautiful shade. Orange works as gorgeous substitute for crease in place of everyday brown or taupes. This shade is a bit dry and rough to touch and a bit gritty! However on the crease it works just fine. I LOVE, love this shade on the crease!

8-Burnt Red Orange: This is a shade that’s meant for me! These type of shade looks quite flattering on my skin tone. Very smooth and so very easy to blend.

Although I love every single shade in here, I am a bit biased towards this row! It has the “blues” – what more could I want!

9-Midnight Blue: An atypical shade of blue. This easily satiates my crave to wear blue eyeshadow on a daily basis :-) I sound like a broken record but I am a die-hard fan of blue eyeshadows and I always want to wear them. These two here are very muted and hence it’s easier to wear around the outer V without looking too much glam for every day wear :-)

10-Deep Denim Blue: Another beautiful shade. It has more darkness and black in it than 9. They look very different on the swatch however upon application on the eyes; they don’t show drastic difference. In any case, I love both of these. This shade feels a bit gritty just like 7.

11-Everyday Emerald: This shade has so pleasantly shocked me. I love wearing colorful shades; apart from my generic interest in green as a colorful shade, I don’t feel particularly excited about it and automatically assumed that this will be just an ‘ok’ shade. But I have to accept that I am picking these more than the blues. It has such gorgeous pigment to it! Every single swipe and you get a beautiful shade of green, it’s like a stripped down version of a gorgeous shimmery emerald. It is a beautiful shade and muted enough to wear on the crease.

12- Pukey Green: :-) Another surprise favorite! I don’t believe I have a similar shade in my collection. Basically I never knew I would like it. I have been pairing it with all the other shades in here especially on the inner part of the lid.

Here are few looks I did with this palette; this one above being my absolute favorite. I put 9-Midnight Blue on the outer corners deepened with 10-Deep Denim Blue on the very outer corner, 11-Everyday Emerald on center of the lid and 1-Warm Brown, 3-Muted Red-Brown as transition shades on the crease. I also added a bit of 6-Muted Eggplant on the lower lash line.

If I have to mention any flaws in this palette, I would say that being a “dark matte” palette it needed a black shade. It also needed a lighter transitional skin-tone shade to blend out the crease a bit more! That would have made this my perfect matte-palette. However, Viseart has another palette called "Neutral Mattes" and it has all the crease shade along with black and brown in it. So I can understand why they did not include a black.

I bought this palette at a reduced price during Sephora’s VIB Sale few months back and I am really enjoying it. Over the past few years of my beauty addiction I have come to a realization that even though I absolutely enjoy wearing glittery-shimmery shades, my true joy lies with the mattes. I fell in love with the Naturally Pretty Matte Vol 1 from IT Cosmetics two years back and it is still a Holy Grail palette. I am pretty sure this Dark Matte palette is also going to be a must-have staple piece in my makeup collection.

If you love dark, rich shades like me go, grab this palette! You would not repent it :-)

Love,

~Arrru