Palette Profile: Lorac Pro Palette

The Stats

Brand: Lorac

Name: Pro Palette

Contents: 16 Eyeshadows, 8 Matte Shades and 8 Shimmer Shades

Available From: Amazon

Price: $42 AUD

The Breakdown

As with many of the palettes I've reviewed previously, this one is famous for being pretty incredible, every man and his dog has ranted and raved about how amazing this palette is. And seriously, it really is beautifully curated with each shade contributing to a huge variety of looks, despite the neutrality of the palette. I think that's one of the great things about it, you can create a very neutral, put-together look, or a dark, smokey night-appropriate eye all using the one palette, which means that this one is great for beginners looking to just buy one all-rounder product.

The shadows in this palette are insanely pigmented, to the point where they are almost too pigmented, it takes a careful hand and a bit of blending skill to get used to. Usually I find matte shades a little chalky and very sheer but in the Lorac Pro they are pretty close to flawless. However it is the shimmer shades that truly bring this palette to life. Perfectly metallic, pigmented and in shades that are just so unexpectedly gorgeous, I'm a sucker for the bottom half of this palette.

So here are the mattes, perfect for daytime and night-time when you throw in those darker shades like Sable and Espresso. As I said before, it's damn tough to find a good quality matte eye shadow, which is something that initially drew me to this palette. They live up to the hype too, they're literally perfect as far as matte shadows go, the pigmentation is great, although funnily enough, as you might be able to see, the black isn't actually that pigmented compared to the other shades. Oh, and as usual, all the shadows have been swatched over NYX White Eyeshadow Base.

Ahh look at these beauties! I still can't get over how gorgeous these shadows are. The colour range is incredible and obviously the pigmentation is insane, plus the shadows are so smooth and buttery. My only complaint about these is that the purple comes off far more black than it does in the pan. In the palette it's a gorgeous plummy purple but once swatched it loses a lot of that and becomes a more burgundy black which is a little disappointing but still a nice colour nonetheless. As well as this, I found the Champagne colour a little less smooth than the others and a bit chalky honestly. Very minor nit-picky complaints though. 

The Look

Here's a very warm bronze-y look I created using the Lorac Pro Palette, it's so unbelievably pretty and easy to work with. This is just one of the multitude of looks that can be created using this palette. These colours blended beautifully and applied flawlessly. It's just a great palette to work with.

The Verdict

I think it's pretty obvious that I am in love with this palette. It's extremely cheap for the quality and quantity of product and the quality is so consistent across the whole palette. I'd say it trumps many of the top palettes from top brands. 

The mattes are even better than I expected, I'd seriously given up hope on finding decent matte shadows until I found this palette, standouts are Mauve and Cream. Shimmers are my weakness, these ones are no exception, my favourites are Gold and Garnet. I love me some copper tones. 

All in all, if you have access to this palette, buy it, for the price it is seriously incredible. I know that since I got it, this palette has been almost the only one I've used, and I have an enormous slew of other great palettes, that's a testament to how fantastic it is. Go get you some!

xx

talk soon

Urban Outfitters Haul

Hello and welcome to the home of the worst blogger in the world. It has been eons since I last posted and I have no excuse other than life being generally hectic. I only have a small post today, but, there is some exciting stuff to come, including a birthday haul and some very exciting palette posts (think new Stila and M.A.C). This post is about some stuff I picked up from the Urban Outfitters website when they had free shipping to Australia, I always try to make the most of those deals when they pop up.

First I picked up this LMNT Portable Phone Charger because lets face it, the iPhone batteries suck, and mine isn't even one of the faulty ones. This one was $24 which I thought was pretty decent, plus it's cute and handy to keep in my bag if I know I'm going to be out all day and night.

I've been wanting one of these hair brushes for ages so I was stoked to grab one of the Tangle Teezer Salon Elite brushes. Every man and his dog has raved about this brush and the one I got is sky blue and hot pink which has got to be the best colour combo ever. This one was $16 so a little cheaper than the ones you can grab at Priceline.

The thing I was most excited about in this order were the two Z-Palettes I finally got my hands on. I've been trying to get a Z-Palette for ages but had been knocked back on a couple of websites that couldn't ship them to Australia for whatever reason. If you haven't heard of Z-Palette before, it's basically a magnetic, empty palette that you can put de-potted eye shadow pans in. I depotted all the shadows from the ModelsPrefer Sweet Kisses palette that I reviewed a while back, because the tin they came in took up way too much room. Depotting can be a tricky process but the result - saving heaps of storage - is definitely worth it. These were $17 each.

Now, onto the lipsticks! I've been dying to try the NYX Butter Lipsticks so I grabbed Hot Tamale ($6) as a very bright, orange introduction to the formula of these lipsticks, which is very smooth and sleek. I haven't worn this one for any length of time yet, but I get the feeling it would slip around a bit on my lips.

Secondly I got a Heartful Silky Lipstick in Baby Doll from Korean brand Holika Holika which may or may not be purely because it looks so terribly cute. This one was $12 and though I'm not sure the colour suits me, the formula is quite nice - pigmented but creamy. Finally for the lipsticks, I caved and picked up No She Didn't from Lime Crime for $18. Now, I don't completely agree with the ethics of the company (there's a lot of contention surrounding the legitimacy of their items and the integrity of the company etc.) but it's so difficult to find "alternative" coloured lipsticks in Australia! If anyone knows any brands available in Aus that make coloured lipsticks let me know! This lipstick is very opaque and matte, it does tug on the lips a little on application but the finish is even. It would be interesting to see what the other colours are like.

So that's my whole haul! Again, sorry for being so absent, I'm really going to try harder but I do have a lot of assessments  at the moment. My lovely boyfriend got me a tripod for my birthday so perhaps I'll have some fashion posts up soon! Hope you're all well.

talk soon
xx

Easter Eggstravaganza! Part Two: Palette Profile ModelsPrefer Sweet Kisses

 Hey Guys, sorry I didn't have this post up yesterday, our internet has capped and it's been an absolute nightmare trying to get the photos to upload onto blogger. Anyway, it's finally here, Easter Eggstravaganza Part Two! 

The Stats

Name: Sweet Treats Palette

Brand: ModelsPrefer

Price: Originally $25AUD

Contents: 16 Eye shadows, 2 blushes, 1 bronzer, 1 highlighter, brow gel, mascara, double ended eye shadow brush

I’ve done a few higher-end palette profiles, so I figured it was about time I did a bit of a “drugstore” version, which I found the perfect solution for when wandering through Priceline the other day. This baby was in the sale section for $10, a pretty big bargain for 22 products and a double-ended tool. I snatched it up and decided it would be a good fit for part two of my Easter Eggstravaganza. Let’s get into it!

Top to Bottom: Butter Cream, Toffee, Chocolate Whip, Truffle

Top to Bottom: Almond Nougat, Cocoa, Pistachio, Mint Slice

Top to Bottom: Cherry Ripe, Strawberry Cream, Black Forest, Maple Fudge

Top to Bottom: Honey Crunch, Caramel, Praline, Dark Cluster

So essentially this palette is a big tin that comes with two layers of products. On top are the shadows, which vary in quality but come in a really diverse and interesting colour range. It has a nice mix of neutrals and bold shades, making it an ideal all-rounder. As I said though, varied quality. For the most part it’s actually surprisingly good, with some really smooth and buttery shades, like Toffee and Honey Crunch. Two of the colours in the palette are completely unusable, Cherry Ripe and Caramel, as you’ll see in the swatches, they’re very sheer, and to get that amount of colour I literally had to scratch at the shadows. Most of the shades are somewhere in the middle; quite powdery but with good colour payoff.

L to R: Macaron, Cinnamon Spice, Marshmallow, Peach Parfait

All four off these face products are really smooth and have good pigmentation; I’d use them on a day-to-day basis because I think they’re really decent, especially considering the price.

Mascara Wand above, Brow Gel wand below.

I wore a full face of this makeup for a day, just to see how it fared, and in particular to try out the mascara and the brow gel. The mascara was really good, it reminds me of TooFaced’s LashGasm Mascara. It had really good staying power and did all the things you’d expect a good mascara to do, so much so that I think I'll try out some other ModelsPrefer mascaras. As for the brow gel, I liked it because it didn’t make my brows feel all stiff, but in saying that, I don’t think it really did anything in the way of keeping them in place either. As for the brush, the domed end is really nice and dense, but the flat end isn’t as useful, perhaps because I’m not really a fan of flat shader brushes. The eye primer was a bit of a strange consistency, but felt similar to Urban Decay's primer potion. I'm not sure whether it was due to the primer, but the shadows did last through a day of work which is a good sign.

Well, I think that's about all for now, and I'll have Part Three of the Easter Eggstravaganza up later today. Hope you're enjoying the long weekend, and Happy Easter!

xx

talk soon