Final Swatch #11: Wet & Wild Walking on Eggshells Color Icon Trio

I bought into the whole Wet & Wild eyeshadows craze a couple of years ago and bought nearly every single palette out there. It was a little crazy – the eyeshadows were good, but honestly some of the colors were way off or had so much similarities to shades that I already owned. I’ve been going through my makeup recently and decided to part with some of these palettes.

The first to go is the Wet & Wild Walking on Eggshells Color Icon Trio. The formula is really lovely, very nice and buttery smooth; it is slightly powdery but a little tap on the brush to get rid of excess powder before applying it to the eye solves the problem of fallouts. The pigmentation is also great – all the colors shows up well on me with or without primer. Swatch photo above is without a primer.

I didn’t have a problem with this palette – except that I have way too many palettes with similar shades. This is great for a day or work makeup, paired with some liner. It’s also not something that I can safely bring out as the softness of the eyeshadow makes it feel really fragile and tend to break easily, so it is often left behind and kind of neglected in my makeup drawer.

This little one now belongs to a lovely buyer who hopefully will make more use of it, and give it a little more loving, than I did.

Final Swatch #12: NARS And God Created Woman

I went through quite a bit of trouble a year or two ago to find this palette – the NARS And God Created Woman palette, and loved it I did for a good while. In fact one of the shades have even hit serious pan! However with one gorgeous shade down (Kalahari) – and it was my favourite shade in the whole palette, I find myself reaching out for the palette much less.

The pigmentation of the palette in general is pretty good – swatches are taken without primer. The one issue I had with the palette was that there were only 2 mid-tone shades, Kalahari and Bellisima, and three very dark-toned shades. I didn’t find it as flexible as it could be – with 6 shades there could have been a lot more eye looks but it was limited by the number of very dark shades.

Coincidentally NARS created a second version of this recently, with the same shades but with a different configuration. A friend of mine really wanted to get it but a quick conversation ended in me gifting my older version to her – she just wanted to try it and didn’t mind it being used, and I didn’t want it anymore. It was a timely match and a loving farewell to this palette.

Final Swatch #10: Tarte Amazonian Clay Mineral Bronzer in Park Ave Princess

I recently got rid of the Tarte Amazonian Clay Mineral Bronzer in Park Ave Princess – I had picked up a small travel version of it about a year ago but had barely used it. I have heard a lot of great things about this bronzer, so I had picked it up without even swatching it.

Sadly, I don’t think this did me any favours – it has a pretty strong sheen to it so did not look good at all as a contour. The colour was also a little too coppery for me to use all over, especially since I have a yellow undertone. It just does not look natural on me, and not the most flattering.

So this was a fail for me; I have sold this off and hopefully the new owner will be able to give it a little more love than I did.

Final Swatch #9: the Balm Mary-Lou Manizer Highlighter

After trashing the theBalm Time Balm Foundation recently, it reminded me that I had a couple of theBalm products that I needed to get rid of, one of which is the Mary-Lou Manizer Highlighter. This is actually a love – the texture is really soft and finely milled, with really good lasting power. It looks so gorgeous on, reflects light beautifully and in all the right ways, without being shimmery or sparkly. This is my favourite highlighter of all time!

If it’s so fantastic, then why am I letting this go? Well, I actually received a small but deluxe sample of this in a subscription beauty box which I thought was more than enough for my personal use. I think my overflowing beauty cupboard needs the space for a different product, not replicas of the same thing so this full size one has got to go. I have found a buyer for this, so at least I know it will continue to be loved!

Final Swatch #8: The Balm Time Balm Foundation

I was looking for a full coverage foundation and saw this – a cream compact foundation that claims to have medium to full coverage, this appealed to me for its convenience, and as a big fan of The Balm’s powder eyeshadows and blushes, I figured that I can’t go too wrong with a foundation of theirs.

Boy, was I wrong!

The foundation is a very thick and creamy product but it does not blend well and feels really heavy on my skin. I tried many ways to use this – with a wet sponge, brush, hands, but it still looked like I had a thick layer of paint on my face. I also suspect a few zits that appeared on my face was the result of using this. I could not powder my face, because the powder just sticks to the really thick texture which does not really “dry” down. Not a pretty sight.

Into the trash bin, this is going.

Final Swatch #7: Too Faced Chocolate Soleil Matte Bronzer

Today I said goodbye to another bronzer – there was a time when I watched too many American beauty youtube videos and decided that I needed my face to be tanned and contoured, so I bought lots of bronzers and attempted to contour my non-existent cheeks everyday. But now I’ve defected over the the Korean beauty style, which appreciates my natural paleness – in fact the fairer the better, so I no longer reach out for bronzers.

I love the scent of this Too Faced Chocolate Soleil matte bronzer – it smells just like chocolate and I can’t help but smell it every time I open this. But it was a very orange on me, so despite it being matte, it was not a great contour shade. The pigmentation is great, which was actually a problem for me as it turned me into an Oompa Loompa if I was not careful with how much I put on. After having it for nearly 2 years and barely using it, I thought it was time to let it go. So farewell now, bronzer.

Final Swatch #6: Eyecandy Wind Spin Magic Hair Curl Diffuser

There really isn’t any swatching involved with this item – but it is a beauty product that I am letting go and it is the Eyecandy Wind Spin Magic Hair Curl Diffuser. At point of purchase it sounded like a very clever idea – the diffuser is attached to the hairdryer; all you have to do is grab a bunch of hair and place it into the diffuser so that the hair will “tumble” and curl itself as the hairdryer dries it. No direct heating iron in contact with my hair involved, while still getting beautiful curls; yes please, bought it.

In theory it was amazing but in terms of practical use, this failed massively. Perhaps my hair was just not long enough, or I had too much hair, or my hair was too thick – it did not curl my hair in any way. My hair dryer is pretty powerful, but all it did was make drying my hair take much longer than it had to because I could only put a few strands into the diffuser at a time to blow.

I have passed this on to a friend with much finer and less hair than I do to see if it will work for her and I don’t think I’ll be missing it much!

Final Swatch #5: MUA Immaculate Collection

An item that has been collecting dust is the MUA Immaculate Collection palette – an eyeshadow palette that is filled with 24 shades, as well as come in different textures. The pigmentation is pretty good and the texture nice and smooth for the shimmery shades, but lacklustre on the matte ones – they’re very sheer, hard and very hard to pick up any colour or blend.

I find myself barely reaching for this palette as the nice shimmer shades are also the louder colours – like bright blue and pinks – which I don’t really wear on a normal daily basis. Plus there are way too many blue shades in one palette – I don’t like blue eyeshadow on me. I did like the few shimmery brown shades, but I have too many of these anyway.

So it’s once again, a goodbye to another eyeshadow palette. I would recommend this for anyone looking for a nice shimmery eyeshadow palette though; it’s just not for me. This now belongs to a friend with a penchant for bright makeup looks – I’m glad it won’t be neglected anymore.

Final Swatch #4: Wet & Wild Fly Me to The Moon Color Icon Trio

Another goodbye today, and it’s to the Wet & Wild Fly Me to The Moon Eyeshadow Trio, one of the palettes released by the brand in its Dream Weavers Collection a few years back. The palette has 3 shades – a sheer frosty white, a matte black with silver sparkles, and a satin medium blue.

The packaging is just like its regular trios – made of light and cheap plastic, that flips open with a clear lid. It’s very compact, but are not travel friendly as it will crack easily, and the eyeshadow in it cannot withstand a drop.

I’ve had this palette for quite a while but never used it much – unlike its regular line up, this palette was a bit disappointing, with the colours barely showing up without a primer, and applies rather dry with a lot of fall out from the white shade. It did work very well with the help of a primer though.

I’ve since given this away… it’s not really the disappointing pigmentation that made me get rid of this, but rather that I don’t really like blue on my eyes – I just don’t find them flattering. Add to how much effort that I have to put in to make this palette work, it just isn’t worth it. Adios!

Final Swatch #3: Sephora Shimmering Bronzing Powder

Another farewell – this time it’s to a Sephora Shimmering Bronzing Powder in 3 Fonce Deep that I picked up a couple of years ago and never used.

I have no idea why I picked it up because there was no way that this had been usable for me. I am very fair – usually the lightest colour in foundation. This, looked like putting brown eyeshadow on my face! It looks pretty dark as it is on my hands, so imagine how it looked on my face which is 1-2 shades lighter! It also has a rather orange tone to it so was really unnatural.

I am honestly quite happy to have gotten rid of this – sold it for nearly nothing, but it was better than keeping it and taking up precious space!

Have you cleaned out any unused makeup items lately?