Welcome my darlings once again to the weekly makeup bag. Here, I list out all the products I used this week and let you know what I think of them.  I know, some of you may be asking, why do I fill a makeup bag every week instead of just choosing each product for the day? 

Well, some days I do add in items, for instance if I have an outfit I decided to wear that simply needs a different lipstick, I will dip back into my dressing table for an extra product. Occasionally something will run out or go horribly wrong and need to be replaced.  But for the most part what I choose initially for the bag is what I use throughout the week.

So why?

The main reason is one of choice.  I am not at my best first thing.  While I will never be a morning person, coffee does help me out.  However, faced with a dressing table filled with a variety of products, I sometimes stare dumbly at them, not knowing which to choose.  Even if I am just looking at five black eyeliners. And sometimes I get ready in a rush.  In both instances, I tend to grab the first items I see and go with them.  Then I put them back in the front of drawers.  So the next time I’m in a rush, I grab the same products.

As I like variety in my products, as well as using all of the items I have, I decided that once a week I would pack a bag full of products to use, that way I didn’t have to start of my day with pre coffee decision making.  Thus far it has worked out really well for me. I can rotate through products so that I am never bored, try new things, or if something is close to being used up completely, keep it out so that it can be finished without lingering in the bottom of a drawer with barely any product left.

I’ve found it a really useful method and I will be keeping it up for quite a while I think.

So, now that you know the reasoning behind the makeup bag, let’s talk about what I used this week.

I have to say, it was a bit of a mix. I tried many new products this week so there were a lot of surprises.  We will start off on a positive note and go with the Viseart Palette.  I received the Neutral Mattes Palette in my Boxycharm Premium box this month and I have to say, this palette justified keeping the subscription. 

I was planning on keeping it anyway, but I was thrilled to get this palette and try it out and I absolutely love the way it performed. It is highly pigmented so start lightly and try to build.  This Viseart Link will take you to my full review. But the end result is that I adored this palette and will be keeping it around for a long time.

It is however a matte palette and when I tried out the black shadow I found I wanted just a little bit of shimmer.  I also wanted a reason to try out my Bobbi Brown Long Wear Cream shadow stick in the shade Golden Pink.  It came in my Birchbox Advent Calendar and thus far the time had not been right to give it a try.  This week, the time was right, so I used it as s shimmer to work with the Black from the Viseart palette.  Wow.  Just wow.  It went on smoothly either over the plain eyelid or over a powder shadow, stayed in place all day long and didn’t crease or transfer on me.  I was super thrilled to use this and will need to remember it, and possibly look at other colors.  I want to at least get one more to see how it blends with other cream shadows, but it worked really well over powder.  I will be reaching for it a lot.

The Marcelle CC Cream Golden Glow I used this week was a sample and it is unfortunately not something I will be reaching for in the future.  Luckily the sample will be used up by the end of the week so no product will be wasted, but I will not be picking up a full sized version.   It is an excellent color corrector and it did give the skin a golden glow. 

However, it also settled into my fine lines and made me look much more tired than I actually was.  I would really prefer my makeup products not to emphasize my fine lines. So while a decent product in many respects, the CC golden glow is not for me.  I will stick with Marcelle’s mascara and moisturizer in the future.

For my primer this week I ended up reaching for my e.l.f. Poreless Putty Primer.  It is an excellent primer in general and really does a good job filling in the pores and turning my face into a smooth canvas.  I worked with it this week in an effort to try and correct the one flaw of the Marcelle CC Cream. 

While it really helped in most places, towards the end of the day the CC cream still emphasized the lines under my eyes.  For all else, the Putty Primer actually helped stop the CC Cream from showing a lot of the fine lines that it was showing without the primer.  So This was definitely a good week for the e.l.f  Poreless Putty Primer. It is a makeup bag repeat visitor and will remain so until the product is through.  Then it will be replaced.

Speaking of using products up, It is almost time to say goodbye to my No7 Pressed powder.  It has served me well, but alas, it is now only a slender ring of product around the outside of the completely exposed metal pan. Technically, I will be keeping it in the makeup bag for the rest of the week and possibly into the beginning of next, but I doubt it has enough product to last the full week, let alone next.

Even if this does last the week to be included in next week’s makeup bag I will be choosing a backup powder for when this finally runs out.  I love the formula on the No 7 pressed powder and will be picking another compact of it up again.  However at the moment I have several powders that I have ignored in favor of my No. 7 and I want to give them a chance to shine.  Or to prevent shine, really. So I am going to do my best to try not to immediately repurchase this once it is empty.  I suspect that on my next Target run a new one might somehow find its way into my cart, but I am going to try to resist.

I did have a loose powder in my makeup bag this week as well.  This week I used the Smashbox Photo Finish Fresh Setting powder. It is called fresh because essentially it is a solid lump of powder with a grater.  You turn the grater and the fresh loose powder appears. The product is good and there is a lot less spillage since you only grind up the powder you need when you need it, however the dial is really hard to turn if you have any product or water on your hands.  Then it becomes too slick to turn and you are just out of luck. I think if you had any sort of mobility issues related to your hands (like arthritis) you would want to steer clear of this product.  Which is a shame, the powder is really good.  It just requires dry hands and a certain level of physical dexterity to use. The concept is fun though.

This week most of my face products came from the True + Luscious Lucky Glow Face Palette. It too was a Boxycharm item this month, but unlike the Viseart, there are mixed results.

In fact it makes me feel a little like Goldilocks and the three bears.

 Let’s start with the bronzers.  There are two.  One warm toned (Good Fortune) and one cool toned (Serenity).  Both tend to disappear on the skin.  I had to work seriously hard to get them to show up on my skin.  Maybe if I had really fair skin, this would work for me, but even though I do not have the darkest skin tone in the world, I was too dark for it to apply well. At best, the bronzers are good for taming down the blush.

Unlike the bronzers, the blush (Royal Flush)comes on strong and highly pigmented.  After using the bronzers, this was quite the surprise. The first time I used this I ended up with a serious case of clown face.  It is a very pink tone, which isn’t my favorite to begin with, but it is also highly pigmented. So I was VERY Pink. And had to wash my face and start over again for the day.  I had a video call that day so leaving it wasn’t an option. 

Then there are the three Highlighters.

If you remember your three bears, you know we’ve had our too soft, and our too hard, so you know what comes next.

That’s right, the highlighters were the , um, highlight of the palette. All three were soft and buttery, applied well and stayed in place all day.  I could go light or bright with them and had no issues.  Pots of Gold is a bright gold shade, Heaven Sent is a silvery shade (even though it looks kind of bronze in the pan) and the speckled Triple Sevens is a warm rose gold shade that worked perfectly for me. In fact Triple Sevens is the jackpot of the palette.  I would by the shade in a single pan to use repeatedly. The other two highlighters, while good, weren’t unique enough for me to want to by them separately.  If there was a highlighter palette with the three of these in it, I would happily use all three, but the only one I would buy on its own is the Triple Sevens.

My mascara this week was from Beauty for Real.  I’ve used it before and as always I am surprised by how well I like it.  I am used to fluffy brushed mascaras but this one has a really small brush on the end of the wand.  I was certain I was going to hate it.  Then I used it. 

I do not hate it. 

Quite the opposite in fact.  The little brush lets me get to the base of my lashes and the formula really works at lengthening the lashes.  Because I can get to the very base of the lashes I was able to make my lashes look a lot more full than I expected.  Plus the small want is really good for lower lashes as well. I will happily continue to use this mascara.

I did not use an eyeliner this week.  I chose one but I was having so much fun with the eyeshadow that I forgot to reach for it.  So I will keep the eyeliner in the makeup bag and use it next week.  I did however use an eyebrow pencil this week. My bangs are still long enough that I doubt anyone noticed but  I used the RealHer brow pencil and I really enjoyed it.  It is a great formula and has an easy to use fine tip.  

RealHer also made an appearance with my lip products this week.  I used the RealHer lip liner in the shade I am confident.  It is a nice creamy lip liner that stays in place well.  The reason I reached for it was because of my BareMinerals lipstick. It is the new Mineralist formula that came in my Macy’s Beauty Box this month and I was so excited to get to try the formula.

The formula is rich and creamy and feels amazing on the lips.  It is a traditional style lipstick so it does need reapplying, but it is worth it.  The formula in no way dried out my lips and felt really comfortable to wear. My only issue was the color.  It is a little more pink than I like my lipsticks and wearing the RealHer lip liner underneath darkened it just enough to work for me.  I will be seeking out a different shade of this lipstick soon. I really like the formula of it.

The lip liner actually worked well with the NudeStix lip crayon I had in my makeup bag this week as well. The Nude Stix is in the shade posh and it was almost a perfect match for the lip liner.  I really appreciated that as lip liners really help me out with lip crayons.  I don’t know if it is the shape of the crayon or what, but with lip crayons I need a liner to keep the edges neat. It’s not a reflection of the product, it is definitely user error. The liner kept the user in check so there was no error.  I liked the color as it was a sort of pinky nude that worked well with my skin tones.  It isn’t the longest lasting formula and so it has to be reapplied in the same way you would reapply a traditional lipstick, but it felt very comfortable to wear and I think I will get a lot of use out of it. I also thing I like it better than their liquid lipsticks.

As you may recall I had a Grande Liquid Lip product in my Macy’s bag and I was very excited to try it out.  Unfortunately the wand either lost it’s head in manufacturing or snapped off somewhere in the tube.  Either way, I just had a stick of a wand that was useless.  The opening is too small for a cotton swab and none of my brushes would fit inside so I was unable to try it. I was really looking forward to trying out the formula.  I have heard both good and bad things about the liquid lip and wanted to try it for myself.  I’ve only used Grande Cosmetics’ Lash products (their Grande Lash mascara is really good) and I was looking forward to testing a lip product. I will set it aside and look for a brush that fits, but alas I did not find one this week.

And the final lip product I used this week was the tiniest most adorable liquid lip sample I have ever seen.   It is the Giorgio Armani Liquid Lip Maestro in the shade Cedar (206).  It came as a bonus in my final Allure Beauty Box (I cancelled my subscription).  I’ve never tried any lip products from Giorgio Armani so I was happy to have a chance, no matter how small the tube.  The formula applied well.  It dries down but not all the way.  When you press your lips together it still feels wet even hours later.  However after about ten minutes I took a sip of my coffee and there was no lip print left behind. It dries enough not to transfer but not enough to dry out your lips. 

It does fade throughout the day so a mid-day reapplication wouldn’t go amiss, but it still retain some color by the end of the day. The color was a sort of terra cotta, maybe a little darker, but with a definite slight orange tint.  While not my favorite color, it did work well enough, and because of the formula I was willing to use it anyway. It is a tiny sample though.  So I think I might put it to the side so I can use it in my upcoming lip series.  In the new year I will be doing more posts detailing the wear and feel of various lip products in more depth (and with more photos) than I can do here without this being even more of a massive post than it is.

Speaking of massive, this one has grown in length.  Luckily there is only one final product to talk about and that is the Lise Watier Magnifix setting spray.  As a setting spray it works well.  It does make your face very wet though so once applied, you need to take a minute or two to dry off before applying eyeliner mascara and lipstick. (I apply all three after I use a setting spray to avoid running). Other than the wait time, it sets well, smells nice and has the added benefit of antioxidants included in the spray.  I like a little skin care with my setting sprays. Over all I liked it and will happily keep it in rotation.  However I will not use this one when I am in a rush.  It is not a quick drying product.

And so with that we finish this week’s makeup bag.  It was quite the variety as far as reactions go. Next week should be interesting as I am packing two separate Makeup bags, one for the week and one specifically for new year’s eve. Both will post on December 31^st, so stay tuned.

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