Palette Profile: TooFaced Chocolate Bar Palette

The Stats

Brand: Too Faced

Palette: Chocolate Bar

Price: AU$68.95 (from Mecca Maxima)

Contents: 16 shadows; 6 matte shades, 8 shimmer shades and 2 more glittery shimmer shades.

For the love of sweet chocolate, this palette is pretty incredible. It smells so delicious I could eat it. I'm not going to lie, its enticing smell is a big part of why I bought this palette. On top of that, it's full of great neutral shades, with a few slightly different shades to add a little bit of interest to 'safe' eye shadow looks. As always, the Too Faced formula is really lovely, and I'd even go as far to say that this is their best palette yet, in that this time around, they've omitted the far-too-glittery-am-I-a-vampire shadows that leave you shimmering in the sunlight, and instead have 16 shades that don't fall or crease even after a day of wear. As per usual, Too Faced get a 10/10 for their gorgeous packaging, it looks just like a bar of chocolate and has a convenient magnetic closure.

Let's swatch on! In each swatch you can see the line of Nyx's Milk Jumbo Eye pencil that I have underneath as primer. This provides a comparison between with and without a base.

Top Row

L to R: Gilded Ganache, White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Black Forest Truffle, Triple Fudge

Middle Row

L to R: Salted Caramel, Marzipan, Semi-Sweet, Strawberry Bon Bon, Candied Violet, Amaretto

Bottom Row

 L to R: Hazelnut, Crème Brulee, Haute Chocolate, Cherry Cordial, Champagne Truffle

The names of these shadows are so sweet, I love how Too Faced keeps to the themes of their palettes so well. This palette makes doing your make up a pinch, it comes with shadow ideas, and the colours all work so well together, its completely impossible to get wrong. I will say that a lot of the looks end up looking similar, but I think that's typical of a neutral palette, you tend to end up with similar combinations.

Lastly, here's my face! I believe on this day I used the shade Haute Chocolate with Semi-Sweet in the crease. 

So, do you need this palette? Maybe not. But, I think it's Too Faced's best yet, and well worth a look, or at the very least, a sniff ;)

xx

talk soon 

What Makeup Means To Me

Hey guys, so this post is a little bit different to my usual ones, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.

Something that may seem a little surprising, is that I didn't start wearing makeup until I was 16 or 17. Of course, like most girls, I had played around with it a little, tried some things out, but I didn't start wearing makeup on a more full-time basis until around then. First I should explain that by "wearing makeup" I literally mean a bit of eyeliner and mascara. Even still, it's not all that often that I wear a full face, and I would consider eyeliner and mascara to be my everyday routine. The truth is, I'm blessed with relatively blemish-free skin, and I don't mind the way I look without foundation or concealer. So for me, makeup has never been a necessity, just something to play around with.

In the last year or so, my obsession (yes, I'd call it an obsession) has grown to almost unhealthy proportions, with much of my weekly pay checks going towards trying something new out, or buying the eyeshadow palette I've been eyeing off. But you know what? I don't mind so much, and here's why...

I love makeup. Now I know, I know, you'd argue that most girls do, but I mean I really love it. Some people are passionate about sports or music or politics, and I always thought that I was just a person without a passion, a girl who wasn't particularly interested in anything, but quite liked playing around with makeup, just like most girls do. It's only recently, now that I've started university, I've begun thinking about my end game and what I'd like to do with my life. The thing is, I'm passionate about makeup. It brings me a sort of joy and excitement, and I'm thinking about it constantly. I've realised that, I want to work with makeup, not as a makeup artist, I'm not even sure what I want to be, but I know it has to have something to do with the cosmetics industry or I'll never be happy with my job. 

For me, makeup is all about being who you want to be, and expressing that through how you do your makeup. In the morning, I sit down and I think "Who do you want to be today Georgia? Is today elegant, or grungy or retro?" and the beautiful thing about makeup, and probably my favourite thing about it, is that it doesn't matter who you are, or what you look like, you can still use and enjoy it. On the bad days, when I feel horribly huge and think that all of my clothes look terrible, you know what still fits perfectly? My makeup. You can never be too big or too small or too tall or short or just plain the wrong size, or too young or too old for makeup. You can't be too anything It's just one of those things that is universal.

You know what else? Makeup gives people strength. While my skin may have been incredibly kind to me, there are others that aren't as fortunate and rely on makeup to make themselves feel okay about the way they look. People may argue that they should be comfortable in their skin, and not feel the need to cover it up, but I'm just gonna say it, that's stupid. If someone wants to slap something on their face to make themselves feel beautiful, what's wrong with that? 

For me makeup is empowering. It helps me to be whoever I'd like, to enhance my natural features or create something different, and that's an incredibly powerful tool to have. Some people might dismiss this industry as vain, or demoralising, and yes, it can be, I believe there's a long way to come in terms of advertising and product design, however makeup isn't about telling women they need to be beautiful, it's about providing them the means to be whatever they want to be.

YOU CAN BE ANYONE YOU LIKE

OOTN: 18th Birthday Party feat. Liv!

Hi guys!

The other night I went to a friend's 18th Birthday party, a chilled gathering at his house with heaps of food and good company. Beforehand, my friend Olivia and I took some happy snaps to capture our outfits. So here they are!

I'm wearing:

* Dress - Princess Highway from Myer

* Kimono Style Jacket - Glassons

* Shoes - Rubi Shoes

Liv wears:

* Bodysuit - Markets

* Skirt - Lipsy London from Myer

* Shoes - Lipstik from Myer

* Hiking Thermo Socks - Unknown

* Necklaces - Opshops

* Hair Scrunchie - Coles

* Lip Colour - Rimmel London in Rose Sorbet

* Eyeshadows - Chi Chi

How freaking amazing is the back of this bodysuit! We got it at the markets that morning, such a good find and a bargain at like, $15! More posts like this coming soon, since I have to dress myself for uni every day I'm wearing way more outfits and I think it would be fun to show you guys. Also keep an eye out for a Priceline Haul in the next week, I went a bit crazy in their 40% off cosmetics sale!

Talk soon

xx

P.S. Excuse the not fab photos, the sky was grey and I enlisted my mum to take these, let's just say she's not the most technologically savvy person ever.

Face of the Day: 13/3/14 - A Day at University

This Thursday marked the end of my third week at university, which is a bit of a scary thought, it feels like I was just at school. Anywho, along with the challenge of the course, comes the dilemma of what to wear, and how to do my makeup every day. On Thursday I decided to be bold and rock a neon pink lip, something completely out of my comfort zone. You know what though? I loved it, and I got a few compliments as well, which was a definite boost. This winter I'll definitely be rocking monochromatic looks with a pop of colour - on my lips!

I created this look using:
* First Aid Beauty Daily Face Moisturiser
* ModelsPrefer Perfect Canvas Mattifying Primer
* Maybelline FitMe Concealer in the shade 15 Fair
* Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum Gel Foundation in the shade 51 Light Vanilla
* Australis Pressed Powder in the shade Natural
* MAC Extra Dimension Skin Finish in the shade Superb (used as bronzer)
* Face of Australia Blush in the shade Primrose
* NYX Illuminator in the shade Narcissistic
* Urban Decay Naked 1 Palette shade Naked (used to fill in brows)
* Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-on Eye Pencil in the shade Perversion
* Covergirl Clump Crusher Mascara
* Australis Velourlips Matte Lip Cream in the shade Ma-Li-Boo

Talk soon

xx

Palette Profile: The Balm's Balm Voyage!

The Stats

Name: Balm Voyage!

Brand: The Balm

Contents: 16 shadows + 3 lip and cheek creams

First off, let's say right off the bat that this palette gets 10/10 for its packaging. It's so retro and gorgeous, as with all products from The Balm, the way the product looks is flawless and is a massive draw for the palette. 

A neat feature of the packaging is that on the inside of the palette, it includes four "tickets" that have suggestions for colours to wear together and they're named after countries. This includes 'Smokey in Shanghai' featuring warm browns and black, 'Mauve in Montreal' with purples and pinks, 'Clubbing in Côte d'Azur' fresh greens and classy browns and 'Sun-kissed In Sydney' with blues and sandy yellows.

So, onto the actual contents of the palette. One thing that I'm not a huge fan of, is the names of the colours. They're named as though they're seats on a plane, and while I think it's cute and follows the theme of the palette nicely, I prefer when colours have names that better describe them. 

Left to right: A4, B4, C4, D4

Left to right: A3, B3, C3, D3

Left to right: A2, B2, C2, D2

Left to right: A1, B1, C1, D1

The shadows swatched more beautifully and pigmented than any palette I've ever tried before. In saying this, some of the colours show up on the eyelid far less true to pan. I feel this particularly about the colour A1 which I adore in the pan, and even as a swatch, but as soon as I put it on my eyelid it disappears, even with a primer. Perhaps I'll have more luck with a white eyeshadow base. Despite this, most of the other colours do come up very nicely on the eyelid, it's just the lighter shades to be weary of. 

What I love about this palette, is that it steers away from the plain, old neutrals, but is still very wearable, and does include some of our safe, brown favourites, like the shades B3, C3, and D3. There is a variety of shimmer shades and more matte shades, although I think even the matte-look ones include some shimmer, however slight. 

My picks for the best shades of this palette? I'd have to say my top three are A1, such a pretty pink champagne colour, A2, this purple is completely hypnotising and ever so slightly duo chrome, so pretty, and D3 a very wearable but still glamorous golden brown, it appeals to my neutral side. I'm a sucker for shimmer shades and as such these three are quite glittery.

The lip/cheek creams are interesting, because they remind me of the crappy toy palettes I had as a kid, that you would dig your finger into the part with the lipgloss. It's a sort of novel feature to me, as I didn't consider it something that would continue on once I started using "grown up" make up. The colours are very pretty, from left to right: Second Officer, First Officer, Captain. The three are reasonably different, and it's apparent that The Balm are trying to appeal to a variety of skin tones which I think is a really great thing.The colours can be built up from quite sheer to relatively opaque, and they're all pretty wearable depending on what opacity you go for. They're completely light weight on the lips, which is lovely (I hate heavy lip products). On the negative side, they aren't hugely long lasting, which is a pretty big problem considering that very few people would want to carry the whole palette around with them, just to re-apply their lip gloss. Second, is that you either have to use your finger, or a lip brush to apply, both of which I find inconvenient to be perfectly honest. 

All in all, I really like this palette. It's not one I'd use every day, but the shadows are buttery, in nice colours, and what more could you really want from a palette? It ticks all the right boxes and at $42.50 it's pretty good value for money. Do you need it? Maybe not, but I'm glad I own it and it's one I definitely reach for when I'm going for something a bit beyond my usual neutral eye.

Talk soon

xx