eye shadow – Sophia Ravenna

Two Nyx Eye Products

April 22, 2016Sophia Ravenna

Today I’m talking about a couple of new-ish Nyx products that I saw on YouTube and wanted to test out. I’m always looking for bold, affordable makeup options for the budget-minded belly dancer, and the pigmentation on these looked pretty impressive for the price — especially when you consider how often Ulta has sales on Nyx, or just sends out a $3.50 coupon that you could use. In fact, at the time of this writing, these products are BOGO 50% on Ulta!

Let’s start with the Avant Pop palette. This comes in three different color ways. I chose the Art Throb one because it’s the brightest and has two gorgeous greens! This palette is a nice mix of really bold colors with a few more neutral shades. Of the 10 colors, 8 are varying degrees of shimmery, one is a true matte and one is a satiny almost matte. I wouldn’t say that you could make a lot of different looks with just this palette, but it is a great way to add some variety to your eye shadow wardrobe, and it’s compact enough that you could travel with it and another equally compact palette.

The pigmentation here is not on par with say, Viseart or anything, but for the price, it’s surprisingly intense. I tested it out with a pretty thorough dance practice and then a day at work, and after a few hours I had a small amount of creasing and color transfer, which is common for me due to my hooded lids.

I tested these colors over just my usual UD primer potion on one eye, and then over a Nyx jumbo pencil in Milk, to see if a white base would make them brighter. I don’t think it made a huge difference. I’m wearing both greens, the blue, a bit of the palest pink under my brows and a pop of the silver in the inner corner. It’s a bit crazy, and that’s before I added the eye liner. These colors are great if you’re looking to do a really bold look, maybe for a fantasy character or circus-themed performance. I think they’re probably not quite pigmented enough to show under big stage lights, but for most smaller-scale gigs, they’ll be plenty visible.

Of course, this left me to try to combine the other 5 colors into one look, to somewhat weird results. The matte peach is hidden under the black. I have to say, that one didn’t really seem to show up well. It may work best as a soft shade for buffing out the edges of a look, rather than as a color you actually wear on its own.

Over all, I feel like this is pretty good for a $17 palette. Those of us who already have a pretty good makeup collection probably don’t really need to pick it up, but for those who are just starting out, it’s a great entry-level palette at a student-friendly price point. The pans are large enough to last you a good long time until you’re ready to invest in more strongly pigmented colors when you hit the big stage.

And then there’s this guy… Vivid Brights in Vivid Escape. I don’t normally wear liquid liners, because I’m not patient enough to wait for them to dry. But this line comes in some fun bright colors, and there was a BOGO 50% sale going on the day that I bought the palette, so I figured I’d give it a try. I shouldn’t have bothered.

First of all, the color leans a little more towards yellowy-chartreuse and less towards the intense lime the package lead me to expect. Also, look at how dry and cracked it looked. I was hopeful that maybe it was just having a strange reaction to some reside left from the wipe I used to remove the eye shadow swatches, so I went ahead and gave it a go…

It was just as dry and cracked looking under my eye, if not worse! Plus as it dried, it gave my skin a weird tight feeling. I had hoped that I could use it as a nice, bright base for more of the shimmery lime green from the palette, but I couldn’t get the eye shadow to stick. Maybe if I applied it with a wet brush? But since the liner doesn’t say it’s waterproof, that might just make a mess. Who knows?

I can’t really recommend this one. I mean, the color is intense but it just looks terrible up-close. I definitely wouldn’t ever wear it for photography, or any performance where I might be talking to the audience after, less they think I have some gross skin condition going on with my under-eyes.

So there you go. A hit and a miss from Nyx Cosmetics this time around.

Viseart Eyeshadow Palettes

March 18, 2016Sophia Ravenna

Ok, I’m going to kick this one off with a disclaimer. These palettes are $80 each. It’s kind of ironic to be reviewing such a luxury item after my anti-haul inspired post last week… That said, I only bought these two Viseart palettes because I received $150 in Sephora gift cards for the holidays and I thought I should splurge on something special instead of buying a lot of smaller items. So I’m only recommending these if you are looking to get yourself something really special, or if someone wants to buy you a nice gift.

That said, these are really nice palettes and I am glad I decided to buy them!

Let’s discuss the palettes in general, then I’ll get down to specific reviews of the two I have. They come in acrylic cases with a clear lid with a tiny matte slate Viseart logo on the top. The lid hinges via metal pins, so it’s flush and doesn’t have those little plastic hinges that might break off. The packaging feels pretty sturdy. For $80 you might expect something a little fancier-looking, but since these are designed for professional makeup artists, it makes sense that they’d have a clear lid so an artist can quickly see at a glance which palette they’re looking at and what colors they have at their disposal.

And because they’re made for makeup artists, with the idea that you’d buy them all (with some sort of pro discount so you’re not actually paying $80 each…) they’re grouped along themes like mattes or satins, with the idea that you would mix and match to create the look you need. Most of these palettes would not stand alone to create a smoky eye or cut crease look. Instead, consumers like us should choose 1 or 2 palettes that have colors they think they would wear a lot, and then supplement with colors from the rest of our collection. I’ll get into why I chose the two that I did below.

Of the two palettes, I’ve definitely used Paris Nude more often. I chose this one because I thought all of the colors would look really good with my green eyes, and there were a good amount of shades that I didn’t already have. That said, these colors are probably easier to dupe than the other palette I picked out, which is why when I thought I was only going to buy one, I wasn’t going to get this.

I’ve been wearing this a lot because the colors are so versatile. I can add some colors from other palettes to craft a really elegant neutral look for performing, or I can brush 1-2 shades from this palette on for a nice daytime look or an elegant date night eye. All of these colors have a satiny shimmer, and a couple have really fine glitter. Although the colors are a little more subdued, they’re still highly pigmented. I’ve been happy with how they wear. If I wear them all day, they might look a little faded/less shimmery by the end of the night, but the fading is very even, so I just have a softer look than I started the day with, but it’s not patchy.

Arm swatch of four randomly-chosen colors.

This is a pretty good palette for traveling. I could pack this and my favorite almost-black color, and have an easy way to go from day to night or even do a performance look.

If you’re only going to buy one Viseart palette, I’d strongly suggest the Dark Matte palette. I haven’t used it as much, because I haven’t been performing as often, but the colors I have worn have really impressed me. These sort of dark, intense matte colors are often poorly formulated in other brands, going on patchily or not appears very dark on the skin. These colors are intensely pigmented and there are some very unusual shades, so this would be a difficult palette to duplicate.

I have to say, I figured I wouldn’t really use the red and orange shades in this palette, but looking at how beautifully that burnt orange swatched on my arm, I am definitely going to be making a look built around that color. It’s gorgeous! I think this palette would be especially good for holding up to stage lights, because the colors are really dense. They’re not going to wash out in bright light, and you can use them to build a really bold look.

Now for the ridiculous confession… even though I’ve worn these two palettes a lot lately, to test them for my blog… I don’t have any close-up pictures of my eyes wearing them. UGH! You’ll have to take my word at it that they look really good on.

Over all, I’d say these are a nice splurge if you’re serious about eye shadow and you want to have one really nice palette that you can build some looks around. I’m pretty sure Sephora will have another VIB sale within the next month and a half, since they usually have one in April it seems, so maybe wait until you can get a discount and then Treat Yo Self!

2015 Eye Shadow Faves!

December 18, 2015Sophia Ravenna

24 glorious colors! — Mi Vida Loca palette is probably my favorite purchase for the year.

Today I had planned to give you a little sneak-peak at some things I purchased from ColourPop, but despite the fact that my order was supposed to arrive today, the tracking info hasn’t been updated since Tuesday! Who knows when my makeup will arrive? My Makeup Geek order that shipped this morning might even arrive first. We’ll see. Anyway! On to Plan B! Well, Plan B and a Half, really. Because I was going to do “favorite purchases of 2015” but then I realized I liked a whooooole lot of things, so I narrowed it down to just eye shadows.

Let’s start back in January and work our way forwards. I’ll link to my original review of the product and then give an update on how I feel about these shadows after repeated use.

ColourPop Super Shock Shadows. I didn’t realize I’d had these for about a year now! So the good news is, I just used one the other day and it hasn’t dried out. Sealing the jar really does do the trick even in this super-dry AZ climate. That said, I probably should make sure to use them more often because who knows how long they’ll hold out? Chipper remains one of my favorite colors. I don’t use the others as often. I think I would use them more often if they weren’t in individual jars. That’s the big limitation of this formula, it can’t be made into a palette and I can’t de-pot it and put it in a Z-Palette. I wouldn’t want to travel with more than 2 or 3 colors in addition to a regular palette. But the colors are amazing and I still really appreciate that the company is cruelty free and made in the USA.

Kat Von D Metal Crush Eye Shadows. I haven’t carried through with my promise to buy ALL of these, but I am up to 4 colors now. I really like how rich and metallic these are. I don’t think I have room for the entire collection, though. I may have to de-pot them and give them their very own Z-Palette if I want to buy the whole set. Oh, and they finally released the 11th color, it’s a metallic rusty orange. My most recent purchase is the blue one. I want to combine it with the green one to make a cool jewel beetle themed eye look. Once I figure it out I’ll make a tutorial.

Kat Von D Mi Vida Loca Palette. Look, I really like Kat Von D’s eye shadows. I still regularly use the Monarch palette (I just took it on a long weekend trip). And Mi Vida Loca is just an amazing palette. I did bring it along on my 3.5 week PNW adventure and I used it for all my photo shoots and performances. It’s pretty big to travel with, so I wouldn’t take it along for most trips, but I am definitely going to keep using it at home.

Makeup Geek Duochromes. Pressed shadows and pigments alike, these are a GREAT product! I haven’t used them too much more since the original review, as I haven’t been doing my makeup much lately. I will probably pick up a few more colors over time, although maybe only pressed shadows as I think my pigment drawer is full right now (might be time to clean out some of the colors I never wear). I really think these are a great option for belly dancers as they are an easy way to get a lot of depth in your makeup look.

So those are my favorite eye shadow purchases of 2015. How about yours?

Makeup Geek Duochromes!

November 6, 2015Sophia Ravenna

I mentioned briefly in a recent blog post how much I love these Makeup Geek Duochromes, but now it’s time to really get down to details on how awesome they are! I picked up 6 duochromes when they came out, three each of the loose pigments and the pressed eyeshadow pans, and I have been getting good use out of both styles.

Before I say anymore, click over to Instagram to see a video hand swatch I took. I feel like a photo isn’t good enough to capture the color shift! That video shows all 6 of these colors, plus the Pegasus foiled shadow that I bought in the same order.

Now let’s talk about the pigments! I’ve worn all three. Prism is described as a white base with peachy-pink reflects. It looks really nice over lipstick, and I used it that way for my photo shoot before Waking Persephone. For that shoot I also wore some Chameleon, which has a deep teal base with gold reflects. I used it over a matte teal eye shadow to great effect. Kaleidoscope is the one I’ve used the most, as I used it as a highlighter for my Waking Persephone performance, and over my eyes at Open Stage last night. It’s described as a slate blue base with pink, purple, and teal reflects. It’s really beautiful and iridescent and I think I’m going to use it a lot.

All three pigments have been really easy to use, I just use a fluffy brush or my finger to apply them where I want. They come in screw-top jars with a rosey gunmetal lid, inside there’s a plastic cover with a hole in the center to access the pigment. I have a feeling you can pop the cover off if you want to be able to get at the whole thing, but I haven’t wanted to try because I knew I’d get pigment all over my hands and have a raging case of Glitter Finger.

Now let’s talk about the shadows. These are really cool because you can wear one color but make it look like you’re wearing three. Basically you just apply the color densely over your lid, and at the center where the light hits, it will reflect the brighter color, and the outer parts of the lid will reflect the darker color. Then you take a fluffy brush with a little bit of the color and you blend it out gently, so that you get a smoky, diffused third color. Add a highlight under your brow bone and suddenly you have a really complicated eye look that took five minutes. Behold:

That’s just Steampunk and an ivory shadow under the browbone. Steampunk is described as having a black base with rich copper reflects, but the cool thing is that when I blended it out, the black sort of diffused into a deep green, giving my eye a verdigris look. I LOVE it!

The other two colors I picked up were Typhoon and Secret Garden. Sadly I haven’t worn the latter yet, but I got good use out of Typhoon at Waking Persephone. It’s described as a deep teal base with green and gold reflects, so it’s very similar to Chameleon and I suspect the two would play well together. I find that it wears like teal and metallic olive, which are two colors I love together. I suspect I’ll be wearing it a lot.

The interesting thing I noticed about the duochrome shadows is that as the night wears on, instead of creasing or color loss, the duochrome effect fades and more of the brighter color comes to the forefront. This means your eyes still look decent at the end of the night, they just don’t have as much dimension. On Halloween I wore Steampunk from about 6pm to almost 2am and at the end of the night I still had complete coverage, it had just gone completely copper without any black undertones, though the smoked-out part was still greenish black.

I definitely recommend this line for my fellow belly dancers, as they’re really glamorous and pretty and exciting. The pigments are very versatile, Makeup Geek even has a tutorial on using them to create a 3d blush effect. At only $6 for an eye shadow, and $12 for a jar of pigment, they’re reasonably priced but perform like prestige cosmetics.

A note about packaging: By default, Makeup Geek eyeshadows come as loose pans which you can put in a Z-Palette. You can pay extra to get them in an individual compact too. Eye shadows come in a cute little envelope with a window that shows the color. All of the duochromes come in iridescent rose gold packaging to differentiate them from the standard eye shadows and pigments.

Anastasia World Traveler Palette

September 25, 2015Sophia Ravenna

My friend Liora recently turned me on to Anastasia Beverly Hills’ eye shadow palettes, so I picked up the World Traveler palette (the subject of this review) and the Artist Palette. Now here’s the thing: the stores got rid of the Artist Palette to make room for the World Traveler palette. However, I can’t find the World Traveler palette on the Sephora or Ulta websites. Oh, Sephora has it highlighted on the Anastasia brand page, but if you click on it they say they don’t have that item. So… I guess I should have reviewed the Artist Palette?

The World Traveler palette is aptly named, because its compact size and 12 versatile colors make it ideal to take with you on a trip. Mainly neutrals, with a few pops of color, it has a mix of finishes, some good crease and highlight colors, and a basic matte black should you want to do a more sultry look. It has a mirror in the lid and comes with a decent double-ended brush.

This palette trends pretty warm, but even though I have a cool skin tone I still found the colors were pretty good on me. In fact, I did a look on Wednesday with Bellini, Morocco, Spoiled and Soft Peach (shown below) and I got compliments on how much greener my eyes looked. I’m also surprised that Intense Gaze looks good on me, as I am not usually a pink person.

The shadows have a wonderful velvety texture and apply pretty well, although I find the colors are not as intense as I tend to go for. I’m not sure how much I would use this one for performance makeup. Definitely not on the big stage, but maybe for a restaurant or day time outdoor show. I do think that colors like Spoiled and Pink Champagne would be good to work in to a stage look, but I would probably reach to other palettes (like the Chocolate Bar or Monarch) to complete the look.

The great thing about this palette is that it is only $30, which is a really fair price for this quality of shadow. This would be a really good way to add some neutrals to your collection! However, if you can’t find the World Traveler palette, the Artist Palette is the same size and price and has a mix of colors and neutrals, so maybe pick that one up? The clear lesson here is I nice to review palettes faster!

Mi Vida Loca Palette!

September 18, 2015Sophia Ravenna

I’m so excited about this palette, I just had to do an unboxing video and talk about it right away instead of waiting to use it and give it the belly dance sweat test. Since the lighting and focus in the video are less than ideal (note to self, your bedroom is apparently not a good place to film), please enjoy these supplementary photos!

Click on any image to view full-size.

Additional notes: These colors are intense enough that I noticed a little staining on my eyelid when I removed my makeup! And yes, I checked and the palette is $59. Mi Vida Loca palette is currently available online, but is not yet in stock in Tucson Sephora locations.

OMG BUY THESE EYESHADOWS

August 21, 2015August 21, 2015Sophia Ravenna

So I’m basically in love with these new Kat Von D Metal Crush Eyeshadows. I’m giving serious thought to buying all ten, even though that would be expensive and take up a lot of room. They’re just that awesome!

So far I have these two colors. Iggy, the greenest green there ever was, and Synergy, a really rich bronze. Both are really smooth, beautiful, and hyper-pigmented. They provide an intense metallic effect on the skin that matches what they display in the pan. I’ve only worn Iggy so far, but it held up well to an evening of goofing off in the New Mexico desert. Look at how obscenely green it is.

Photo by Hannah, ridiculous behavior by me.

These are intense enough that even if you don’t normally use a primer, I’d suggest putting down some sort of base layer to prevent your eye lids from staining.

On a weird side note, the flavor text on Sephora says there are 11 shades, but there have only been 10 available on the website. So what is the mysterious 11th shade? Will it be released later, maybe for the holidays? Or is it a typo?

As a bonus, please enjoy this video swatch that I took after first finding these shadows at my local Sephora. They didn’t have Iggy in stock, so I swatched Synergy, Raw Power and Danzig.

IMG_2301

(Requires QuickTime)

Julep Orbital Eyeshadow

July 24, 2015Sophia Ravenna

What's inside this compact?!? — What’s inside this compact?!?

I was a little skeptical of these Orbital Eyeshadows, because the swatches on the site didn’t look amazing and well, let’s face it, Julep is primarily a nail polish company. I wasn’t sure how’d they do with eyeshadow. But one day I was buying some nail polish and they offered to throw one of these in for $6 and I thought the Zenith color looked like it might be good on me, so I decided to give it a try.

Zenith is described as “Cocoa with Gold Pearlescence.” I’d say it’s a warm medium brown with a gold shimmer effect and some glitter. It is VERY shiny! I wore it for Open Stage at the start of the month and I applied a few layers with a damp brush (it’s advertised as a wet/dry formula) and was really impressed with the high-impact effect it gave. I ended up just wearing this color and some black eyeliner, as I had a short amount of time to get my makeup done. And because I was rushed, I didn’t have time to take a photo before the show, so you’ll have to settle for this one taken after…

Not the best photo of my eye area... — Not the best photo of my eye area…

As you can see, even though my falsies are melting off and my mascara has flaked all over my face, my eye shadow color is still strong, sparkly, and doesn’t seem to have given me any fallout. It was a hot, sticky night, I danced hard, and then hung out on 4th Ave for a couple hours after the show. I’d say this was probably about 6+ hours of wear and it looks good. I applied it over Urban Decay primer and sealed it with a spritz of e.l.f. makeup setting spray.

The above swatch shows this color applied dry and wet, with a somewhat dense, flattish synthetic brush. For stage wear you’re definitely going to want to either apply it wet and really pack it on, or do it as a wash of sparkle over a more opaque color to create a duochrome look.

My one complaint is how bulky the packaging is. It comes in a square plastic compact with a mirror built into the lid. It’s nice and all, but it’s huge! Here it is compared to the small and large MAC shadows.

And if you scroll back up to the picture of it open, you can see there’s just a lot of excess space around the shadow pan. I have a lot of makeup and not a ton of space to store it, so bulky products like this annoy me. I’d really prefer a more low-profile compact, preferable with a clear window like the MAC shadows, so that if I had more than one of these, I could see what color it was at a glance, instead of turning it over, reading the color name on the back, saying “Which one was that again?” and opening it up to remind myself.

So in summation, this is a pretty color and has decent durability and sparkle, but I’m not sure if it’s worth paying full price and making room in your vanity for it. On the other hand, if you’re signed up for the Julep Maven Box, and this is one of your options sometime, you might not be too unhappy with it. And if you’re not signed up, you can follow that link to do so and I’ll get a bonus, FYI!

Sephora Colorful Duo Reflects

May 8, 2015Sophia Ravenna

I could not resist the mermaid scale pattern and glitteriness.

Looks like May is going to be eye shadow month at Beauty Blogging for Belly Dancers, because I have been hitting the new and new-ish eye makeup pretty hard lately. I actually bought this Sephora Colorful Duo Reflects in “Mermaid Tail” at the same time that I bought the Marsala palette, but I didn’t try it out until last night because I had tucked it away in a strange place and kept forgetting about it.

I’ve said before that I’m pretty iffy about Sephora eye shadows, having had bad experiences with them in the past, but this one seems like it’s got some promise. It’s a very interesting dark teal with a purple duochrome effect and teal and purple glitter in it. It’s a pretty unique color, which is why I picked it up. I have a few costuming pieces that it would look really good with, so I figured it was worth a try.

Before I continue with the review, I want to apologize for the poor quality of the photos, I was rushed getting ready for Open Stage last night and then I remembered that I needed to take photos for this blog, so I snapped them really quickly and they didn’t turn out well.

I applied this eye shadow dry with a relatively dense, flat brush. I think it would probably work better applied damp, as even though I patted it on pretty well, it was still a little sheer. However, the duochrome came through really well, and there was a decent amount of glitter. I applied it over my usual Urban Decay primer. I think a primer is going to be necessary with this to help ensure that the glitter stays put.

After spritzing myself with some makeup setting spray, I wore this color for about 4 hours at Open Stage, where I built up a bit of a sweat. At the end of the night I had maybe a little glitter fallout (hard to tell which was from the shadow and which was the actual glitter I had applied on the outer corner of my eye), and a small amount of color loss on one eyelid. Side note, there’s this one spot on my left eyelid that seems to be the first place that I lose color, I don’t know if there’s a weird oily spot there or if I consistently fail to apply enough color there due to an issue of angles, or what. My right eye looked fine!

I think this product bears more experimenting with. I really like the color, it looks especially nice with my Siren super bootie skirt that I wore for Open Stage last night. I definitely want to see how it looks when I apply it damp, or with my finger instead of a brush.

NARS Dual Intensity Palette Quick Review

May 1, 2015May 1, 2015Sophia Ravenna

This review is going to be a little quicker than usual because hey hey it’s my birthday and I’ve got dinner plans to jet off to! But if you were wondering what a fancy belly dancer buys herself for her birthday, the answer is that she buys herself a fancy eye shadow palette. Seriously, I resisted the NARSissist Dual Intensity palette for a while because it’s not cheap, but then Sephora had that sale, and I had a birthday coming up, and I had just picked up some new freelance work, so I splurged. Was it worth it?

Well, I haven’t had much chance to try it out yet, partially because I was so hesitant to mess up the pretty design pressed into the pans. But yesterday I took it out and gave it a whirl! These are really beautiful shimmery metallic colors, but they’re somehow understated and elegant. It’s a very mature palette, good for your classiest gigs. So of course I wore it to go out to dinner in a t-shirt to Pita Jungle, because it was a normal Thursday night.

I love that the palette is split evenly down the middle between dark shades and light/bright shades. You can combine a few colors to create a look, or use just one color as a special pop with some more standard eye shadows. It leans towards neutral without being boring. Honestly, I think this palette is really ideal for a belly dancer, especially if you do a lot of night club gigs or really upscale parties, because it’s so elegant. I wouldn’t necessarily break these colors out for a fun outdoor gig, except that I might use the lighter ones as an inner corner highlight, because when applied damp they create a really shiny effect that makes my eyes look all big and pretty.

I created a look using Subra (the plummy shade), Europa (the brighter pink) and Andromeda (the pale pink). These are not the colors I usually lean towards, but I need to start using them more because they look really good with my green eyes!

A few notes about the packaging and stuff: It comes in a nice sturdy-feeling matte black plastic case with a mirrored front and a mirror inside. There’s no color labels on the inside, they’re printed on the back instead. It comes with a brush that can be used to apply the shadows wet or dry. I’m not sure yet how much I like the brush in terms of the size and shape, but it seems to be decent quality and it has lots of bristles to pick up plenty of color. I think I’ll need to do some experimenting to see what type of brush I feel works best with this formula, and I have a feeling it might depend on whether I want a dry or wet application and wear I’m applying it. For instance, I found that my Makeup Geek tiny pencil brush was perfect for a damp application on the inner corners of my eye, because it picked up a good amount of product but gave me very fine control. I could probably use the same brush for applying these colors like a liner.

So should you invest in this palette? If you’re serious about makeup, or you’re a pro or semi-pro dancer who does a lot of elegant gigs (or has a Gothic sense of style), you might want to invest in it. If you just want to try out the formula, you may be better off picking up just a single pan of the dual-intensity formula in the color you think you’re most likely to wear a lot (keeping in mind that the lovely chocolate brown Ursa Major is currently exclusive to the palette). If you do decide to get it, I definitely suggest waiting for a sale, or a double-points weekend, since it is such a big-ticket item. That said, Sephora’s website does say it’s “Limited Edition”, so if you’re really in love with it, maybe you shouldn’t wait. Only you can decide!