As well as being grateful to her for being there through thick and thin, I'm also pretty pleased that this year she chose to spend her main holiday in Las Vegas - what does that mean? Well for her it meant a fabulous holiday but for me it meant the opportunity to get my hands on some US goodies. She doesn't share my obsession with beauty and make up so I gave her a little list just in case she had a little bit of time to do some shopping.
The result was a Sephora bag filled with pretties, as well as a drugstore item and some Birthday Cake M&M's :). Although none of the make up items are available in the UK, you can probably get your hands on them via the Sephora website or via ebay, so I thought it was worth showing you just in case you fancy placing an online order or if you're lucky enough to be jetting across the Atlantic this holiday season.
Although we can get Tarte in the UK from QVC, I'm lead to believe that this palette - the Tarte Light Of The Party Collectors Make Up Case is a limited edition, Sephora exclusive. From the moment I clasped eyes on it though, I knew I needed it, no matter what the inconvenience or cost.
If that isn't amazing enough, unzip it and you're subjected to neutral eyeshadow and make up heaven. The palette contains 24 of Tarte's famous Amazon Clay eye shadows, in every neutral shade from a creamy highlight colour, to a shimmering taupe, coppers, golds, nudes and rich chocolate browns.
The palette contains a nice combination of shimmers, satins and mattes and all of the shades are soft, and smooth and the pigmentation is excellent.
As well as the shadows, the palette also contains a 4ml deluxe sample size of Tarte's best selling Lights, Camera Lashes Mascara and a travel size, double ended shadow brush.
That isn't all though, the large square item on the right isn't just for show it's actually another Tarte palette so this really is a two for.
Simply remove the metallic, cardboard palette and your left with a large mirror in the main palette and a takeaway palette that ideal for your daily make up bag or for holidays or weekends away.
The takeaway palette contains another 6 neutral toned eye shadows, instead of just duplicating the colours though, you're getting 6 new shades that don't appear in the main palette.
It's not just about shadows though, you're also getting the Amazonian Clay Pink Champagne Highlighter, and a full size Amazonian Clay Bronzer in Social Butterfly and a blusher in Amazed. Again the shades are soft and pigmented and I can see the blusher and the highlighter especially becoming firm favourites in my make up collection.
I think that this is a lovely palette and I think it would make a great gift for anyone who loves make up, sparkle, or neutral eye shadows or someone who prefers their make up to be cruelty free. Everything is wearable, there are no dodgy colours and the quality is superb. The Tarte Light Of The Party Collector's Make Up Case retails at $59 from Sephora, and it has supposedly has a value of $394. I always take price comparisons like this with a pinch of salt but seeing as the same size blush and bronzer retail at $28 each, it's probably about right.
Like most of you I love nude eyeshadow palettes and personally, in my opinion, you can never have enough so I was super excited to take this out of my Sephora bag.
Although I'm currently ink less and tattoo less, I know who Kat Von D is, and as well as being a celebrity and a tattoo artist, she also has a highly rated beauty and make up line.
Like a lot of ranges it's unavailable in the UK, and since I've been eyeing up (haha) some of her eyeshadow palettes for a while now I added a couple to my Vegas list and my lovely bestie got me the Shade + Light Eye Contour Palette.
Packaged in a black cardboard this palette contains a full sized mirror and it comes with full instructions on how to create a variety of looks to define, balance and lift the eyes.
It contains 12 matte eye shadows, in 3 separate colour families - a Neutral Quad, a Cool Quad, and a Warm Quad. Each of the 3 quads, contain a base colour, a contour colour, a shade to define and a shade to highlight.
You know me and mattes, for years I avoided them, but companies now are starting to do them right, and this palette is no exception, the colours are, soft, velvety and the pigmentation is nuts. Although the title of this palette makes you think that it might be something for people who are more experienced with make up, the instructions are really easy to follow and it gives you all in the information that you could need to create around 6 looks. It's also a great palette to experiment with, and it would also work really well with all of the neutrals in your no doubt very large collections. The Kat Von D Light + Shade Eye Contour Palette retails at $46 and it's something that I would really recommend.
How do you tell a true friend? Well it's the one that gets a sample in a shop and passes it on to you rather than keeping it for herself :), hence this little pot of First Aid Beauty Red Clay Deep Cleanser, I haven't tried anything from this brand and this sounds like a really interesting product so I'll let you know what I think when I try it x
Although I think we have an amazing choice in the UK when it comes to drugstore and budget make up, but there are a few US brands that I wish would make that long journey across the pond, and one of them is Wet N Wild. This was one of the brands that appeared in selected stores for a little while and then disappeared almost overnight. I've picked up a few bits from ebay and from swaps and I've loved most of the pieces that I've managed to get, but I'm a particular fan of their eye shadows.
This gorgeous trio was the final item (bar the M&M's) in my bag and it's fabulous. Yes nudes again, but the Wet N Wild Color Icon Eye Shadow Trio in 380B Walking On Eggshells would be a valuable edition to anyones neutral eyeshadow collection, including mine.
It contains 3 colours and two sponge applicators, and each shade is embossed with whereabouts you should put it on your eyes - you get a shimmery, golden cream for the brow bone, a shimmery bronze, brown for the crease and a gorgeous warm, shimmery rose beige for the eyelid. Apologies for the lack of swatches but for the price this palette is amazing, the shadows are super creamy and the pigmentation is is beyond amazing for the price. These trios retail at around $2.99 from the likes of Walgreens, they are a little bit more expensive on Amazon and on ebay but there definitely worth snapping up.
It kind of irritates me that there are still so many brands that we can't access in the UK grrr! but I'm really, really grateful that my lovely bestie Dawn, managed to take a few moments out of her holiday to pick me up some fabulous goodies, that I'm going to really enjoy using and experimenting with. I hope that some of you have found this post useful, and if you've picked up any US goodies lately too, I love to hear what you got, so leave me a comment and let me know x
That Tarte set is absolutely amazing. Lucky girl. :) xx
ReplyDeleteIt's gorgeous isn't it x so, so happy with it I'm have one amazing friend xx
DeleteThat tarte palatte is amazing. Would you do a review on it please? There is a website called beautyjoint.com which sells nyx, wet and wild and elf etc and they ship to UK. I used them once and everything arrived in good time and nothing was broken. Last time I checked the wet an wild comfort zone palatte was £5.99. They are really cheap. It's just the shipping fee. I didn't have to pay custom tax either if I remember correctly.
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