Recent Makeup Favourites!

In these past few months I've discovered a ton of new favourite makeup products! Some are old or rediscovered favourites, some are new purchases that fit in with my routine like a dirty shirt. I've got a good variety of base and eye products, so without further ado, let's see them! 

First is the NYX Swear By It palette. This was an impulse buy with my Shoppers Drugmart points, and I kind of had it in the back of my mind that it might just sit and rot in the back of my palette drawer. But I've actually had to force myself to use things other than this palette lately, because it's just that good.

As someone who wears a lot of saturated brights, this palette is failsafe. It's basically just a bunch of muted bright tones that work perfectly as either companion shades to my normal neons, or to create a more toned-down colourful look, perfect for the colder months. The mustard and mauve shades in particular have been favourites of mine.

Wearing the NYX Swear By It palette

The formula on the shades in this palette is stellar. I love how soft yet buildable the mattes are, and they blend like a dream. The mattes far outnumber the shimmers in the palette, and the shimmers themselves aren't as foiled as some other formulas that are popular on the market right now, but that makes them just right for deepening the crease, outer corner, or lower lashline without transferring or making the skin look crepey.

Wearing the NYX Swear By It palette

Here's a matte halo eye I did, using the warm tones in the palette.

Though my love for the NYX Swear By It palette is strong, there has been one other palette as of late that has been rivaling my devotion to it. Interestingly, it's a much smaller one, but I find I can get even more looks out of it. 

It's the Violet Voss Fruit Sorbet palette! In lieu of a dedicated review, I'm just going to wax poetic about this palette here. First, the packaging- cardboard and compact, the colours on the outside of the palette are super fun and whimsical, just like the palette itself. The mirror on the inside is actually of great quality, and I've used it before to do my eyeshadow in a pinch.

None of the shadows in the palettes have names, which would normally sadden me. But since it's Violet Voss I'm not too bummed, the shades would be named something like #TGIF or Wig anyway.

I love the colour story of the palette. It's pretty much a true rainbow palette, with 6 mattes and 4 shimmers. They made sure they could nail the colours they wanted in both matte and shimmer formulas, and there's no true dud in the palette. There are endless creative combinations for such a small palette, and the fact that they made the requisite black and white shades as shimmers instead of mattes is such a cool and useful twist that I truly appreciate.

The mattes all work amazingly together and are a spectacular formula- buildable, blendable, and containing the perfect amount of pigment. You can easily combine the matte colours to make new shades, as well. I've actually, somehow, managed to make a lovely neutral look by mixing the orange, red, pink, and cream shades. The cream-beige shade works well to set eyeshadow primer, but doesn't lend itself to being a transition shade on my skintone as it's a little too sheer. The fact that it's so sheer, though, makes it the perfect shade to use for lightening and softening any other colours, as well as correcting any blending that's gone out further than you'd like.

Wearing the Violet Voss Fruit Sorbet palette

The formula is perfect for me, because even though I've been wearing rainbow shadow for ages, I appreciate the user-friendliness. I can see it not being super popular among the cut-crease insta crowd, because these shades really lend themselves well to being softly blended and built up, rather than packed like fuck onto a wet concealer and then being mashed out with a brush. Different strokes for different folks.

I think that the shimmers they chose to put in this palette are pretty stellar- over a glitter glue. They get a li'l dusty without a sticky primer to adhere to, and I would imagine that they go a little muddy over concealer. But over a glitter glue (I use the NYX glitter primer), they are BREATHTAKING. Multidimensional, foiled, rich as all hell. Onto the shades- there's a rich lime green with a lemony shift, a frosty white with a definite mint shift, a royal ocean blue, and a foiled, wet-looking gunmetal. The black-gunmetal was a surprising hit for me, because it's foiled enough that it doesn't perform like every other glitterbomb black in every other rainbow palette.

Wearing the Violet Voss Fruit Sorbet palette

These only fade on me after 14 hours of wear, using the Smashbox 24 Hour Photo Finish eyeshadow primer and the NYX Glitter primer.

Overall, this palette knocked my socks off. So teeny, but with so many shades that pack a punch, endless colour combos, and a formula that leaves the fuss behind.

Okay, okay, enough about the palette. Let's move on to some more base-type products that I've been adoring. 

We'll leave the Maybelline Dream Cushion for now, because it goes along with some other products I'll be mentioning later. 

The IT Cosmetics Brow Power Pomade has revolutionized my brow routine. I've been using a technique I saw in one of Mariah Leonard's videos where I "back-comb" my brows with gel, wait for it to dry, and then go in with my ABH Dipbrow. It's led to me using less of my brow pomade overall, which is a lot better for my skin, and it's also cut down on the time it takes me to do my brows, being that I shape them out and have that down before the coloured gunk even needs to go in.

Wearing the IT Cosmetics Brow Power Pomade

The Jouer Blush Bouquet duo in Flirt is just lovely, a great blush that has a soft, satiny, blendable formula. I love dusting a little of this across the bridge and tip of my nose as well as my cheeks for a youthful, cutesy flush.

Wearing the Jouer Blush Bouquet in Flirt

Now to the Maybelline Dream Cushion foundation- I've been using this for a new technique that I first saw on Samantha Ravndahl's channel. It's "reverse foundation", where you apply concealer, and then cream bronzer, blush and highlight, and then apply a light-coverage foundation on top. I chose to start doing the technique with my cushion foundation because of how thin the formula is compared to my other light-coverage foundations, which are rather creamy and emollient. It's served me super well and takes, honestly, less than 30 seconds to put on and blend out. I absolutely adore it.

I've equally been loving the cream products I've been using underneath... 

The Maybelline Master Strobing liquid is a liquid highlighter that I've always loved on top of foundation and even on bare skin, but it's even more beautiful underneath a sheer-coverage foundation. The sheen it gives to the skin is absolutely gorgeous and lasts all day. 

The Smashbox L.A. Lights Blendable Cheek & Lip stick is a gorgeous rosy shade with a sheer, balmy formula that blends out effortlessly with fingers or a sponge.

I've been switching up the liquid and cream bronzers I use in the reverse-foundation technique, but these two products are my failsafe blush and highlight combo.

Here I am wearing the technique- it looks like the blush, highlight and contour are beaming from within, and as it wears throughout the day, the base only looks more natural and beautiful as the products beneath the foundation begin to shine through even more.

That's enough of me! I hope you enjoyed reading about some new products and techniques I've been loving and that you have a great day!