April Favorites! ☼

April Favorites! ☼

Hello my lovelies! Today is ... you guessed it! Monthly favorites time! As always, let me know what your guys' favourites are! ... I like having excuses to go try out new products off of your recomendations..hehehe 

So let's start out with this new blush I just got this month. It's nothing new, the Benefit Rockateur blush. It has a gorgeous rose gold shade in quite a decently pigmented smooth consistancy. The colour is incredibly flattering and I've seen it look amazing on literally every skin tone from super fair to deep ones. It really is an all around must have in my books! check it!

Next up! An oldie but a goodie...The Sephora brand eyeshadow primer. I bought this as my very first eyeshadow primer because I figured it was the cheapest one at sephora and I should start small ... Well needless to say, I have literally fallen in love with it. I have since tried the Urban Decay primer potions and the two faced shadow insurance and neither compare to this one in my eyes. This is a colourless product, but it's not too sticky and goopy like the other kinds and since my eyes are super veiny and purple, this works perfectly over concealer and does not smudge it at all! give it a look!

Next we move onto a nice highlighter I've discovered! Now, this in no way beats the Benefit Watts Up highlighter (I don't know if I'll ever find a better more natural looking highlight than that one) but it certainly is a close contender and a much different product. I have been using it a lot this month, it's the Sephora microsmooth baked illuminator in Star dust. It's a lovely baked white highlight with lots of shimmer so it is much less on the natural side, perfect for nights out! I apply it with my wide fan brush to the tops of my cheekbones, as it is too shimmery for a bridge of the nose and cupids bow highlight. So worth it!

Lastly, we have one of my newest additions to my ever-expanding lippies collection. This is my very first Mac lipstick and it is in the shade "Snob" in the satin finish line. It is a gorgeously creamy texture that glides on like a dream and lasts quite a decent amount of time. To boot, it smells like freshly baked sugar cookies. I don't really know what else to say but this is an awesome lipstick and I plan on expanding my Mac lipstick collection thanks to this gorgeous pinky nude colour! aah here it is!

Well guys, that's it for my April favourites, hope you enjoyed! Let me know in the comments what yours have been!

That's the way I see it!
LeighVioletBeauty

Check out my twitter (@LeighVBeauty) and Instagram (@LeighVioletBeauty) ! 

Revlon Lacquer Balms! ♦

Revlon Lacquer Balms ♦

Oh my days I don't know what's been wrong with me! Why haven't I blogged for so long? I am so sorry guys...but to make up for it, I thought I'd come back extra strong with this swatch/review post and as many posts as possible this week! Hope you guys still love me. 

So I thought... hey why not give them a detailed review on the Revlon Lacquer balms that were all the rage just a few months ago...? Where have they dissappeared to? Everywhere I look, they're all on sale and stores are trying to rid of them! When I saw this, I already owned the pinky-red one in the shade "vavacious" and was wondering whether the other ones were maybe different and so I picked up this lovely pink color in the shade "coquette".

Starting off as usual with packaging, I gotta say I am quite fond of it. Though it is rather large, it isn't cheap looking (it looks more high end than the Too Faced Lip Surgences which are in the same crayon shape) and I absolutely love how it is a shiny texture unlike the matte balms which are...well you guessed it-matte! Anyways, yes they are a little bulky, but I mean hey, we all carry huge handbags, I'm sure we can fit it in there just fine. Plus, the crayon tipped head is fun too! If you could color with a crayon as a little tot, you can definitely color your lips in with this!

 

So I'm going to review both shades separately because I found them to be quite different from one another. To begin with, I bought the red-ish shade "vivacious" right when they first came out and absolutely loved it. It glides onto the lips so smooth and stays glossy for a decent amount of time-nothing too impressive...though the pigment from this one does linger on the lips for quite some time (a couple of hours at least). This one is by far my favorite, it is very flattering with my fair complexion.

 

Next, we move onto the one I bought on sale which is in the shade "coquette", a lovely light pink color. Now this one was quite the surprise when I popped open that lid... Much to my shock and unhappiness, this product actually had sparkles in it...And I'm not talking just shimmer, I'm talking large chunks of glitter. Needless to say, I was not impressed. It was really too bad because I applied it anyways and the color was gorgeous and had just the right amount of gloss, but I just felt so self-conscious with the glitter on my lips, especially since I decided to wear this out to a baseball game on a sunny day so my mouth was just glittering like a disco ball. The color stain doesn't last as long in this shade for some reason.

I find it quite odd that two lipsticks from the same line would be so different....I don't see why they decided to put sparkles in some and not in the others if they are all part of the 'lacquer balm' line. As you can imagine, it was quite the unexpected and unpleasant surprise... I guess I'll try and play around with the sparkly one some more in half a year when winter rolls around again, but it is simply to sparkly to wear now that the sun is starting to come out! 

Check them out here!

All in all, I'm not sure really what sort of verdict to give you..I guess you would have to try each of them separately to get a real opinion on this line...Personally, I would recommend the vivacious shade, but certainly not the coquette color unless glitter is your thing! 

And that's the way I see it!
LeighVioletBeauty

As always, check out my twitter (@LeighVBeauty) and Instagram (@LeighVioletBeauty) !

Maybelline Master Hi-Light

Maybelline Master Hi-Light Hi-lighting Blush

 

Hey y'all! So I just realized that this is my second consecutive Maybelline post..... Sorry guys, their products just intrigue me so much! I had really been putting off buying one of these despite all of the attention they were getting just because I actually thought they seemed a little ugly.. But when I was in London Drugs, I saw this one in 'nude' and it just really caught my eye. So here is my official review and swatch on this baby!

 

Packaging.... yeah no this is one of the reasons I was not interested in giving this a whirl. It's ugly to me. It's got cheap see-through plastic lid that gets dusty very quickly and just screams cheap. Also, I think the brick pattern in all of the other colors doesn't look flattering to me personally, but this particular shade is an exception. (It does have a separate flip-up compartment underneath with a mirror and a decently soft brush).

 

So upon swatching this with my fingers for the first time, I was not impressed with the pigmentation. But then once I had swirled it around with my E.L.F. Powder Brush and swept it across my cheek (staying higher up on the cheek bone because of the hi-lighting shimmer), the color did come out a bit better. It applies to the skin as an almost orange-y peach hi-lighting hue. That being said, when I went to swatch it out on my wrist to get a picture for you guys, it did come out even more pigmented. So maybe it's just that first initial use breaking through the film at the top that is bad.

 

For this look, I paired it with my Dior Lip Addict Extreme Lipstick which completed the peachy glowing look, and it really did brighten up my face and make me appear more awake. I guess as far as hi-lighting blushes go, I simply prefer my Hard Candy Baked Blush in Honeymoon.

 

All in all, I do think it is a nice product, but the wear-time isn't amazing and the pigmentation really isn't anything special either. I bought this on sale, so if you come across it on sale too, then definitely give it a go, but otherwise I don't know if i would pay regular price for this.

And that's the way I see it!
LeighVioletBeauty

PS Let me know what you think on Twitter (@LeighVBeauty) and Instagram (@LeighVioletBeauty) !  

Maybelline Colour Elixir: Worth the Hype?

Maybelline Colour Elixir: Worth the hype?

Hello and happy Sunday everybody! I recently have been noticing lots of hype and excitement in YouTube videos and commercials about Maybelline's new Colour Elixir lipgloss. So because I love you guys so much, I went ahead and bought my own to formulate my own opinion on it and let you guys in on all the details!

The packaging of this is so cool, it looks like a lipstick in a clear lid but its actually the tub of gloss inside! One word: unique. Anyways, now this product has an interesting application. It is a doffa applicator, but the doffa is actually flat instead of round. It is wide and flat and I find that it actually makes the application process easier as it fits the shape of lips easier than the classic cylindrical doffa.

The formula itself is rather thick, a hybrid between sticky and creamy. It is definitely nowhere near as creamy as the Nyx Buttergloss. On all of the advertisements for the Elixir, it has been boldly stated that this is a highly pigmented gloss. I would like to go ahead and let you guys know that it us absolutely not highly pigmented whatsoever. I have a few ultra pigmented lipglosses and this is nowhere near them. The colour is very flattering but not pigmented at all; very sheer. But in the case of spring, I think it gives off a very beautiful sheen to the lips to make you look flushed and healthy (I got mine in the shade 'Rose Redefined').

As far as wear time goes... This does wear about the average lipgloss, the glossiness stays for maybe about half an hour to 45 minutes, but once the gloss is gone, so is the rest of the product; it does not leave behind any colour. As well, you can't wear any lip balm products underneath this as it starts to ball on your lips and goop together (gross!) So you have to really exfoliate your lips and make sure there is nothing on them before applying this. AKA do NOT apply this over a lipstick.

Long story short, if you're not obsessed with having tons of different lip products, save yourself the money (even though is it decently cheap as it is from the drugstore). It is decent but nowhere near deserving all of the hype it has been receiving. I would without a doubt pick the Nyx buttergloss over this stuff.

Check it out here!

And that's the way I see it!
LeighVioletBeauty

 PS. Check out my Twitter (@LeighVBeauty) and Instagram (@LeighVioletBeauty) I follow back! 

Spring Bronzed Goddess Makeup Look ✿

Spring Bronzed Goddess Makeup Look ✿

Hello my lovely fellow bloggers! So today I thought since the weather is starting to get nicer here in Canada (knock on wood) that I would do a bronzed goddess makeup look to kick off spring! I love this look because it gives off a very glowy and healthy ambiance and is very brightening.

So to start off, I just applied my foundation and concealer as per usual. I then primed my eyes with the Maybelline colour tattoo in the shade barely branded (which is a beautiful champagne sort of satin finish colour) all over my lid.

I then took the shade Trick from my Naked 3 palette and dusted that in the crease (even though it's shimmery in the crease, it works perfectly with this look!) concentrating more on the outer half of my eye.

Following this step, I took one of my Annabelle eyeshadow singles in the shade Gleam (it's really old so I don't know if it's sold anymore...) and concentrated that onto the outer V of my lid. I then took a fluffy eyeshadow brush and blended out the three shadows to create that flawless finish.

Now you can easily leave the look right at this stage, but if you want to intensify that Victoria Secret sort of bronzed glow, you can carry on to highlight and contour. I used my Benefit Wattsup highlighter (read about it here) to highlight my cheekbone because it has a champagne sort of shimmer. I then took my Too Faced Chocolate Soleil bronzer and contoured under my cheekbones and along my temples (let me know if y'all want to see a contouring routine post!). I finished the look off with a peachy coral lipstick to carry along that Spring theme.

That's the way I see it!
LeighVioletBeauty

Try out this look and let me see how it turned out by tweeting it to me (@LeighVBeauty) or linking me to it on instagram (@LeighVioletBeauty) !