Estee Lauder has been one of the beauty industry's most established brand for over 60 years now and though I've never really blogged about individual products, it's been cropping up in my makeup wardrobe a lot more these days as I've found the brand is more appealing to both younger and maturer customers.

My most reached for foundation every day is now the Estee Lauder Invisible Fluid foundation (which I will be doing a foundation post on very soon!)

Colour Cosmetics
Pure Color has been a range of colour makeup for the eyes, lips, nails and face for a while and this Holiday 2013 has included the new Pure Color Metallics which feature new:

• High Intensity Lip Lacquers - 12 shades
• Vivid Shine Nail Lacquers - 8 shades
• Vivid Shine Lipsticks - 6 shades
• Instant Intense Eyeshadow Trios - 9 shades 

Although I'm more of a lipstick girl these days, the High Intensity Lip Lacquers (HILLs) caught my eye as they promise the full impact of a lipstick, but with hydrating ingredients that last on the lips.
The Intense Eyeshadow Trios (IIETs) also had my attention as some of them sparkle so brightly, and being a magpie attracts me to things like that!

I've picked my favourite shades from the collection this year to review; of the Lip Lacquers I loved the bright orange "Melting Sun" which has flecks of glitter in it, and also the plummy "Wet Plum" which has no shimmer or glitter.
Of the Eyeshadow Trios the one that stuck out most to me was the Steel Lilacs trio as it's both purple and super sparkly.

High Intensity Lip Lacquers

As aforementioned, these glosses hold all the pigmentation of a lipstick but with super shine and hydration that lasts on the lips.

Colour & Pigmentation: The pigmentation of these glosses are pretty amazing, they do have a major colour payoff and with the brighter shades (like Melting Sun and Wet Plum), they can even stain a little (see non-lip swatches in Intense Eyeshadow Trios review below).
Texture: The texture is quite thick and while I wouldn't say it's really sticky, there is a slight "stick" to it for those who aren't keen on that kind of texture.
Packaging: The classic gold lids with the embossed "EL" logos give a feeling of luxury, whilst the paddle type plastic applicator is curved in the middle to hold a reservoir of gloss and also serves as a fairly precise applicator for the cupids bow area.
Longevity: This Lip Lacquer is said to last up to 6 hours, however I felt the glossiness/stickiness wore away after about an hour or so, but the stain (particularly in Wet Plum) meant the colour was still on the lips at least 3 hours later with eating and drinking.
Scent: I love the scent of these as it's a sweet sugary smell!
Price: At £21 each, they are a more premium price than your regular lipgloss, however because of the lipstick/gloss hybrid and longevity, it's definitely one that would be good to stick in your handbag for everyday if you wanted, or for going out equally.

FrootiFactor: Despite the fact I'm not usually a gloss kind of girl, I adore the scent and colour saturation/pigmentation in these Lip Lacquers, so I'd give them at least a 4:

Instant Intense Eyeshadow Trios

These eyeshadow trios are designed to highlight and define the eyes and contain a little clear plastic guide on where to apply the shadows on the eye to do so:

Colour & Pigmentation: This particular eyeshadow trio was very sparkly and had fairly high pigmentation despite the sparkle (see swatches above). It's hard to try and capture the true sparkliness of this trio but you can see a bit from the middle picture above that it's pretty damned glitzy.
Texture: Due to the glitteriness of the shadows, they are a bit crumblier than a normal eyeshadow, however I find these type of shadows apply best with the finger.
Packaging: Again, the shadows are encased in the classic gold EL packaging with a handy mirror in the lid. The applicator is a regular spongy one.
Longevity: These trios are supposed to last 10 hours but I haven't quite tested that out yet as I'm yet to wear the shadow for that long; the glitter did however stick to my arm fairly well after applying with no primer, so it may well be true!
Price: At £27 each, they are a again a slightly premium price to pay for a trio of eyeshadows, but would make a lovely gift for a true Estee Lauder fan and of course a fan of sparkle, particularly for Christmas!

FrootiFactor: I loved the sparkliness of the shadows, however I found the texture quite dry to work with, so I'd give the shadows a 3-3.5 out of 5:

Estee Lauder products are available to buy from the Estee Lauder website, as well as the regular department stores (Debenhams, House Of Fraser, John Lewis etc) and Boots.

Which is your favourite Estee Lauder product and why?

 

Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette - Rose Neutrals (Swatches and Review)

Following on from my previous post, I thought I'd share my experience from the exclusive Naked 3 event I attended on Tuesday and of course get down to actually showing the beauty of the palette with swatches!

Warning: this is a very long post and is picture heavy!
 

Naked 3 - Rose Neutrals

As I entered the event on Tuesday, I was greeted with a poster of the new Naked 3 visual "12 all new Rose Neutrals":

I'd seen images of the palette from Temptalia and of course fell in love with the rose-gold theme as it's very on trend and has a certain richness to the colour.

A stand ahead of me held "The Perfect Threesome" of Naked palettes; of course I had to lay them out next to eachother for comparison and Instagrammed a picture of them straight away, but in this blog post I've added the clearer picture taken with my camera:

I went straight ahead and dunked my fingers into the sumptuous Naked 3 which felt like butter underneath my fingertips.
I was particularly intrigued to try out the matte shadows in the palette as usually matte shadows don't tend to be as pigmented as shimmers but I was pleasantly surprised as I swatched the first shadow "Strange" on my hand; unlike Foxy from Naked 2, Strange is much more pigmented and softer to the touch which meant to me that it would be a much better highlighting shadow than Foxy which didn't quite show up as much as I'd have liked it to.

As I spoke to the head makeup artist for Urban Decay, I found out that Urban Decay had also added double ended "Naked" 24/7 pencils for each of the Naked Palettes, bringing back the Zero/Whiskey from the original Naked palette that I bought as well as a few others (Temptalia again has posted pictures of these).

I then had to head off to another event which I'll be posting about shortly, but when I got home, all I could think about was my gorgeous new Naked 3 palette sitting there and decided to snap some pictures:

Also included with the Naked 3 palette is a 4-pack sampler blister pack, containing a 1 week supply of 4 different eyeshadow primers in Original (clear/invisible), Eden (nude matte), Sin (champagne shimmer) and the new Anti Aging primer (invisible).

4-pack eyeshadow sampler included with Naked 3

Naked 3 Swatches

Although Temptalia is my main source of info for the clearest swatches, I decided to swatch the Naked 3 palette on my own skin as I know a lot of my followers on Instagram, Twitter etc are of a warmer skintone and were asking me how it would look on our tones.
I'm particularly yellow in skintone so I myself was intrigued as to how it would look on my skin.
I split the swatches into 4s for swatching purposes and have them all in a single picture at the end: 

All shadows swatched on arm

Review

Packaging: The packaging for Naked 3 is pretty much identical to Naked 2, except that it is in a gorgeous rose gold shade and has a ripple effect on the outside. I like that it is sturdier and clips shut unlike Naked 1. The brush included is double ended like with Naked 2, however instead of a fluffy crease brush you get a blending brush.

Colour & Pigmentation: The shadows in this palette are rose-hued to match the whole rosy theme. As you can see above, the shadows are very very pigmented as always with Urban Decay. 
All shadows in this palette are completely new.
I found Trick to be less pigmented out of all of them, however when applied wet/with the finger it becomes amazingly pigmented and sparkly, so it's actually my favourite!
Blackheart is my next favourite as it's an interesting colour; it's described as a smoky black matte with rosy red micro sparkle, but I see a deep purply/aubergine colour in it, and when you can't see the sparkle it looks black.. amazing!

Texture: The palette includes 3 mattes (Strange, Limit and Nooner), 4 glittery/sparkly shades (Dust, Buzz, Trick, Blackheart) and satin/shimmers. All are smooth to the touch of course.

Longevity: Without being biased, I've always found UD eyeshadows to last a crazy long time, particularly when paired with the Primer Potion.

Price: At £37, the Naked 3 is priced the same as the other Naked palettes which works out £3.08 per eyeshadow. Full size eyeshadows by UD are priced at £14 each so this works out pretty cheap even if they're not full size! Not to mention a standard shadow brush is usually £14.50 alone and you get a double ended one in this palette. Score!

FrootiFactor: I love the packaging and pigmentation of this palette; not to mention the new range of neutrals that a makeup artist can never have enough of! I'd give this palette a 4.5 out of 5, only because I don't think it will be very suitable for the deepest of skintones:

The Naked 3 Palette will be available to buy on the 16th December 2013 from Debenhams and House Of Fraser stores as well as online and at these online retailers: LookFantastic, HQhair and BeautyBay.

From the responses I've seen about this palette through my own social media sites as well as from looking at how it sold out in the US hours after going on sale, I highly anticipate this palette to send everyone into a buying frenzy just as with the release of Naked 2.

If you want to pre-order the palette without having to worry about it selling out, you can do so via LookFantastic HERE who offer free delivery, or Next Day Delivery with the code "NDD1". You're welcome.

I will be doing a "FrootiBeauty's Guide to Naked Palettes" post very soon if you're confused about which palette to get for you, so do keep an eye out for that!

What are your thoughts on this palette? Are you an UD Junkie like me and adding this palette to your collection?

 

Review: Urban Decay Shattered Palette

As you may or may not know, the "holiday season" is upon us, and with that comes a plethora of gifts and gift sets in the beauty world that always excite me!

As far as Urban Decay goes, I always get their holiday palette, Vice 2 being this years holiday palette release (which I've shamelessy already bought despite not needing, see Instagram for a video!), however the product that caught my eye from this years Christmas releases by Urban Decay was the limited edition Shattered Palette.

shattered palette open - first layer

shattered palette open - second layer

The palette consists of two layers of product for the eyes, lips and face in a cute and compact little case.

The first layer holds 5 eyeshadows in new shades Nameless (grey-brown), Remix (purple with micro glitter), Shakedown (mousey brown), Minor Sin (champagne-pink) and Bleach (matte beige). It also holds a travel size 24/7 eye pencil in the popular shade Zero (black).

first layer - eyeshadows Shakedown, Remix, Nameless, Minor Sin, Bleach

eyeshadows swatched

The first layer folds and clips upwards, revealing a second layer which holds more brand new shades; 2 blushes - Overexposed (dusty rose) and Temper (soft pink) and a highlighter in Glint (champagne pink/gold). 
(There remains a hole where the Super Saturated Lip Pencil in Lovechild lays, so it can be used from both layers).

second layer - blushes in Overexposed and Temper and highlighter in Glint

blushes and highlighter swatched

all products from the palette swatched

Colour & Pigmentation: As always with Urban Decay products, the eyeshadows have great colour payoff and pigmentation, and the same is true with the blush and highlighter too which is great as you use less product. I love that my favourite shade of SSLC is included in this little kit as well as the popular and suit-all shade eye pencil in Zero.
Longevity: UD eyeshadows tend to last fairly long generally but I always always wear with the UDPP for super strength hold. The eye pencils are known for their 24/7 longevity and the SSLC is also a longwear product.
Scent: No particularly strong scent.
Price: At £30, you're getting 5 eyeshadows, a lip product an eye pencil and 2 blushes and a highlighter too.. which I find bargainous seeing as one eyeshadow or lip pencil or eye pencil is usually £14 each!

FrootiFactor: I'm pretty impressed with this nifty little palette from Urban Decay, I like that it holds pretty much the essentials you need to make your face up (barring foundation & mascara) and I like that it holds a mix of wearable colours as well as a matte shade in it too.. all for £30! 
I hope they release more multitasking palettes like this (a Naked version would be A-MAZING), but for now this is pretty great to take on holiday/trips or to carry in hand luggage if I wanted.
I give this product a 4.5 out of 5:

The Urban Decay Shattered Palette is available to buy at Debenhams, House Of Fraser, HQhair and Look Fantastic.

What do you think of the shattered palette? Will you be buying anything from the Urban Decay holiday collection?  

 

Sunday Swatches: Motives Cosmetics Eyeshadows

Following my last two makeup look posts using Motives cosmetics, I thought I'd post my first instalment of swatches so you guys can see for yourself the quality of the brand.

I received a 46 eyeshadow palette which is not available to buy (yet), but each shadow is available individually. 

eyeshadows with flash

eyeshadows without flash

Below are the swatches line by line starting with the golds (all without primer):

Packaging: The palette is fairly heavy and durable with a clear glass front; nice and handy for a makeup artist or professional who wants to see all the single eyeshadow colours in one go. The glass door snaps shut magnetically and each shadow is in a metal pan which slots into the hole slots in the palette. These hole slots have little magnets inside to hold them in so you don't need to worry about them slipping out, unless you need to replace (or check the eyeshadow name) in which case there is a hole to fit a finger through and simply push out the shadow.

Colour & Pigmentation: As you can see from the above swatches, the pigmentation is generally high in quality. The least pigmented shades were the more matte shades and some glittery shades, where I had to swatch twice to get the best colour. The most pigmented and creamy eyeshadow was Sweet Plum which glided on beautifully and is a gorgeous colour.

Texture: The shimmery shadows are generally creamy in texture; though the matte shades aren't as creamy, they are by no means chalky.
 
Longevity: The shadows hold fairly well without primer, but they don't stain like cheaper shadows do so you know they're good quality. A good primer would hold them for ages!
 
Price: At £12 each they're around the same price as a good quality brand like MAC and Urban Decay and in honesty I'm rarely impressed by eyeshadows these days as nothing compares to my Urban Decay shadows. However! I like that these shadows have good colour payoff and the fact that this palette is so easily accessible, so I think I will be using them a lot more either for me or for clients!

FrootiFactor: Overall I'd give the palette a 5/5 because it's perfect for a makeup artist; the eyeshadows themselves would get a 4-5 (5 for the shimmery shades, 4 for the matte ones), so I'll say 4.5 overall:

And there you have it! Motives cosmetics are available to buy at their online website which is slightly limited compared to the US site due to UK mineral cosmetics restrictions, but most of the products are available here too.
Do let me know if you have any other swatch requests from the brand and if I have the product I'd be more than happy to provide the swatch.

Have you heard of Motives or tried any of their products?