Melted Kisses and Sweet Cheeks: Fig and Your Love is King by Too Faced

Disclaimer:  I purchased this, links are for convenience only.

The plums are what tempted me first with the Too Faced Melted Kisses and Sweet Cheeks set, and I've got to say both Fig and Your Love is King are lovely!

Fig was a surprise hit, as I wasn't sure how I would feel about it. Turns out the rosy plum is a great color for me and perfect for fall. Just love it.

The liquid lipstick formula is not particularly hydrating but I do find that exfoliating my lips and applying a matte lip balm goes a long way in giving me smooth lips and comfortable wear for a good 3-4 hours.

I also found the applicator to work quite well and did not feel the need to use a lip brush for precision.  That's a plus.

I'm not really into matchy lips/cheeks with a darker color, so below I'm wearing Fig with Makeup Geek's Secret Admirer blush.

Fig

Your Love is King is the first of the Too Faced Love Flush blushes I've tried, and so far I'm impressed. This is a talc-free formula and it applied smoothly and was easy to build color without looking patchy or powdery. There is a fair amount of powder kick-up but it doesn't seem to affect application.

These mini-pans are just big enough to fit the brush head in and will no doubt last a long time given the nice level of pigmentation I was able to pick up with just a few swipes. I'll never make it through a full sized blush in this lifetime, so I love the option of getting mini's like this.

As for the long-lasting claim, nothing is going to last on my oily skin for 16 hours. My benchmark for long lasting blushes are Hourglass's Ambient Lighting blushes (something about that formula works really well with my oily skin), which last a good 8-9 hours for me. Your Love is King was comparable, as I still had nice color on my cheeks that had not gone blotchy after the end of a work day, so thumbs up!

Your Love is King

A palette of all the mini's called Love Flush Blush is now available, and if I didn't have the Melted Kisses Sweet Cheeks set I could've seen picking it up. However, I'm going to content myself with what I have. I did an expired/gone bad makeup purge on Saturday, and I definitely need to focus on what I have :-)

Too Faced Melted Metal Liquid Lipstick in Tutu

First of all, I love the name 'Tutu".  I don't know why, other than it rhymes with 'Lulu', the namesake of my blog.  Secondly, Tutu is a metallic coral pink, and I have a weakness for coral pinks.  So of course I was interested to see a metallic take on my favorite lip color.

The original Too Faced Melted lipsticks ($21) didn't grab me enough to purchase, but the metallics for some reason did and I now have three of them.  I do find them slightly drying to wear, and my favorite way to wear Tutu has been underneath a more hydrating lip color.

Tutu is quite pretty when worn on it's own, so exfoliating and prepping the lips with a good lip balm is the way to go when I go solo with it.

However, this week I've been wearing it layered under my Revlon lip butters, and I particularly liked the combo of Tutu + Tutti Frutti.  Going this way tones down the metallic finish but still gives luminosity.  I like layering products and the potential for endless variety:-)

Melted Peony Liquified Long Lasting Lipstick by Too Faced

Disclaimer:  I purchased this.

I've been slow to warm up to the Too Faced Melted lipsticks, and only took the plunge when I saw swatches of the newer Melted Metals.  So why am I showing you Peony, one of the cream Melteds?  Well, it's part of the Melt Your Heart Out set at Sephora that includes a deluxe sampled of Melted Metallic Dreamhouse, and because I like it :-)  More than I was expecting to.

Peony is a soft camellia pink with strong pigmentation, making this definitely more of a liquid lipstick than a gloss.  Not to say that it doesn't have a glossy finish initially, because it does, but it does dry down a bit to a more matte finish the longer you wear it.

The plush tip worked well to apply Peony, but I imagine darker colors would benefit from the precision of a brush. 

I like smoothing with my finger to get a thinner and more realistic (to me) finish.  One of the reasons I did not originally like the Melted lipsticks is because the pictures I saw in blog reviews featured a heavier application, which didn't look natural to me.  Just a matter of personal preference, I guess. 

I also like patting Peony down and then wearing another lipgloss on top for a more luminous look, such as below with Le Metier de Beaute's Creme de la Creme.

Peony wears comfortably for 3-4 hours and I did not notice any bleeding or bunching of color.  Too Faced has been steadily adding new shades to the Melted range, which is now up to 18 colors.  I need to get busy and play with the Metal Melteds I've acquired and see if my attraction to them was warranted.  Have you tried the Melteds or Metal Melteds yet?  Any favorites?

Easy Eye Looks with Too Faced Candlelight and Champagne Shadow Insurance

Disclaimer:  I purchased these.  Links for convenience only.

Too Faced's regular Shadow Insurance ($20) has been a go to eye primer for me for quite a while, but for some reason their tinted versions flew under the radar for me.  I acquired Candlelight last year with a palette, and this year I picked up Champagne in one of Sephora's Black Friday $10 deals.  Having both prompted me to put them use, and I'm glad I did!

Candlelight, Champagne

Candlelight is a soft but bright light gold shimmer, and Champagne is a pinky beige shimmer.  Both blend out easily and give smooth coverage that can work as a primer under shadow or as a cream eyeshadow on their own.  I've got super oily lids and I find that these extend the wear of shadows for me, but I do get creasing starting around the 7-8 hour mark.  For reference, if I didn't use primer, I'd get creasing at about the 2-3 hour mark.

Combine either with a bit of eyeliner, mascara, and perhaps a matte shadow for contouring, and you've got a super easy but finished look I've been wearing a couple of times a week recently. 

Candlelight

Champagne

These are perfect for days I want to pare down my morning routine, but still want to look like I put some effort in.

L'Oreal Miss Candy Infallible Eyeshadow in Strawberry Blonde

I ventured out from my usual drugstore beauty shopping at Rite Aid recently and headed over to Walgreen's.  I was rewarded by finding a display for the L'Oreal Miss Candy Summer 2013 collection, which had 4 new to the US Infallible eyeshadows (they were previously released in the UK and Canada under different names ).  I was the most attracted to Strawberry Blonde, so home it came with me.

Strawberry Blonde is an ethereal pink gold with a duochroome finish that flashes light aqua.  The finish is sparkly but rather sheer, although it can be built up.  I actually like it as a topper for other shadows so the sheerness is okay with me.  Strawberry Blonde will look more intensely pink over a black base, so there is some versatility going on here.

It can be hard to capture the duochrome shift in photos, but I think you can kind of get the idea here.  I wanted to do an eye look with Strawberry Blonde as a wash over some neutral creams and beiges to give a subtle shimmer (click on photos to enlarge).  I did experience some fallout when applying Strawberry Blonde, as it's a bit crumbly. 

I found a lipgloss in my stash that is a perfect complement to Strawberry Blonde.  Unfortunately it's been discontinued, although I did see some available on ebay  - Too Faced's Girls Dig Pearls lipgloss in Mermaid.  Mermaid is a nude gloss with an opalescent shimmer and I really like the effect it gives!

Disclaimer:  I bought these.

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Too Faced Shadow Bon Bons Review and Swatches

Choosing from all the holiday gift sets and palettes can be a challenge.  It really is the best time of the year to pick up some really good deals, but narrowing down to my final choices took some time!  I've got Too Faced's Shadow Bon Bons to show you today, and it's the only eye shadow palette that I indulged in this year.  Bon Bon's retails for $42.

So why Shadow Bon Bons over all the other lovely palettes?  First, because I felt assured that the quality of the shadows would be good.  Sometimes the shadow formula in holiday palettes are not the same as a brand's regular offerings, which can lead to disappointment.  Too Faced's founder, Jerrod Blandino, has gone on record saying he does not dummy down the quality of sets and palettes, so that is reassuring!  I actually don't own many Too Faced eye shadows, so this was also a good way to get my feet wet.

Included in this set are 12 shadows, a full sized Lashgasm mascara in black, and a deluxe sized Shadow Insurance in Candlelight.  Shadow Insurance is one of my favorite eye primers, but I haven't tried Candlelight before.  I'm also a fan of Lashgasm, as I find the brush works well with my lashes.  Somehow, I can reach inner corners without leaving a smudgy mess, which happens with other mascaras.

The shadows themselves are predominantly neutrals with some muted purples and a pink.  There is a variety of finishes, including some mattes that I found really easy to work with.  There are also some fall out inducing glitters, but I've come to accept that you need to use some type of fixing medium or sticky base with glitter shadows anyhow, or you will experience some fall out.

Candlelight Shadow Insurance

All swatches are over bare arm, no primer.  Starting with the first column and working our way down, we have:

• Vanilla:  matte cream, good for highlighting the brow and inner eye
• Peach Fuzz:  peach shimmer with gold micro glitter
• Nude Beach:  champagne shimmer with dense gold glitter.  Here is where the fallout happens.  I used a fixing medium and had minimal strays, however.
• Cut the Cake:  lavender matte with silver micro shimmer

• Hot Cocoa:  medium brown shimmer
• Cinnamon Sugar:  topaz gold shimmer
• Framboise:  medium grayed purple shimmer.  This one is crumbly upon application but blends out nicely.
• Candy Rose:  matte pink with silver micro shimmer.

• Marzipan:  fawn matte, very versatile as lid color or for blending
• Coffee Bean:  dark brown matte
• Lovey Dovey:  reddish sable brown shimmer
• Licorice Latte:  blackened brown matte with copper micro glitter

Both Coffee Bean and Licorice Latte were the problematic ones for me and took multiple swipes to build up color, but I'm thinking Licorice Latte may be a good layering shade over other blacks/browns.  Coffee Bean worked well over an eye liner along the lash line. 

Personally, these neutrals are right up my alley so this will be a useful palette for me.  The mutedness of the shades make for work friendly eye looks, but the pink and purples included also introduce a bit of color to keep things from becoming monotone.  My favorite shadows from Bon Bons are Marzipan, Candy Rose, Peach Fuzz, Hot Cocoa, and Cinnamon Sugar.

This last look was with the Candlelight Shadow Insurance, which makes for a nice highlighter.  All of the looks featured the Lashgasm mascara.

Disclosure:  I purchased this.