Too Faced Christmas in the City Holiday 2021 Set

Hi, everyone! Hope you are doing well and the holiday season isn't too crazy!

I picked up the Too Faced Christmas in the City Holiday set during the Sephora VIB sale and wanted to post a quick review of the palette so the makeup community could decide if this was worth the money for gifting/hoarding/etc.

The gift set comes with two eyeshadow palettes, a blush palette, and a mini Better Than Sex Mascara. It's a great set that can be broken into smaller pieces for stocking stuffers or as a small gift for a few friends. For a more in-depth review, I've broken down the review by each palette below.

The Christmas in Los Angeles Palette:

This palette has great wear time and lasts from 9-12 hrs for all the looks that I tried (the shorter time scale is because I had to wash the makeup off at the end of the night and not because the makeup didn't last). However, the "punch" or brightness of the eyeshadows does tend to fade after about 8 hours. This palette is supposed to smell like pina colada (all the palettes are scented), but I couldn't detect anything. However, I did spend the day with my MIL and she is allergic to a lot of scented products; she did start sneezing when I walked in the door with only this palette on (I don't wear scented products around her), so it might not be ideal to gift for a friend or family member in the same situation. Below I have listed my breakdown of the shades and how they performed on my eyes (keep in mind that I use shadow brushes for the matte shades and my fingers for any of the shimmer or glitter shades):

Selfies with Santa-very pigmented and easy to blend

Touch Your Elf-pigmented and easy to blend

Christmas in Bels-pigmented and blends nicely

Santa Monica-not as dark and pigmented as I want it to be personally (more of a brown-black), but it blends nicely

Here for the Hos-This shade is very buttery and pigmented.

Overall, I would have to say that this palette is just as good quality-wise as any of Too Faced's tin packaged eyeshadow products that are holiday releases (aka the Gingerbread palette and the spicy Gingerbread palette).

The Christmas in Italy Blush Palette:

This entire palette has a strong scent that smells vaguely orange-ish. The shade reviews are as follows:

Jingle Bellini-This shade barely shows up on my Fenty 370 skintone, but it does last on the skin for up to 8 hours and is very pigmented.

I will update this page with my latest thoughts and the last palette over the new few weeks. In the meantime, what are your thoughts? Is this a palette set you are interested in purchasing?

 

Makeup Look of the Day: Pink and Orange

Today I created the makeup look shown below:

I was inspired by my pink and orange eyeshadows and wanted to create a more fun, summer-y look.

I used Fenty 370 as my foundation and then did my contour with Wet n Wild's Megaglo Contour Stick in Call me Maple. To conceal my undereye area, I used Benefit's Boing under eye concealer and Morphe's concealer. I set everything with Ben Nye Banana Powder. I used NYX Brow pencil in Burnette for my eyebrows and Hank and Henry mascara for my eyelashes.  I used Too Faced's Cool Girl on my lips

For my lids, I used the Profusion Cosmetics Sienna's palette as well as the Huda Beauty New Nudes palette.

What do you think of this look? Would you wear pinks and oranges on your lids?

Too Faced Natural Matte Palette

So I got this palette on the day it released because I'd been eyeing the Natural Eyes palette for a long time. Lately, I haven't been into shimmery shadows as much so this was perfect for me. Also this spring has seen a more natural, "no makeup" makeup look and matte shadows just look more natural. I have been wearing it everyday since I got it! The colors are so creamy and buttery and apply flawlessly onto the eyes. The palette comes with a mirror and a little booklet with three eye looks that correspond to each of the three rows in the palette. Here are my swatches below:

This is the top row of "Day" shadows. I'm not a fan of Heaven on brown skin, but the other two colors are beautiful.

This is the second row or "Classic" shades.  Again, not a fan of Lace Teddy on my skintone, but Strapless and Risque are amazing!

This is the last row or "Fashion" row, my favorite row in the entire palette. I get a great everyday eye from all three shades. I pretty much just copy the little insert that shows you how to put together an eye look from the last row.

What do you think? Will you be trying out this palette?

Makeup Mondays: Too Faced Semi Sweet Chocolate Bar Palette Look

I used Peanut Butter and Truffled in the crease, Caramel on the lid, and Hot Fudge on the outer corner of the lid. Foundation: MAC Fluid Fix in NC45 

Friday Finds: Victoria's Secret, Naturally Pretty Palette, a la mode Eyes, and More!

1. Victoria Secret's Island Rush Line. OMG, you have to smell this! It smells exactly like a tropical vacation. I am absolutely in love.  The notes are pomelo fruit and coconut which gives the scent a balance of warmth and citrus. It's the prefect combo of the two types of scents I gravitate towards so yay! Also, if you were like me and did some shopping last month here, make sure to redeem the Secret Reward card during the month of April!

2. It Cosmetics Naturally Pretty Vol 1 Matte Luxe Palette. Whew! That's a mouthful. This is It Cosmetics answer to the " rosy nude" palette looks that have become popular based on the Naked 3's popularity. The advantage of this palette over all the others is that this one is all matte plus a 'transforming white" shadow that can blend with any of the other shades if you have the itch for some shimmer in your shadow. It gets an A+ for versatility and creativity in my book.

3. Too Faced's a la mode Eyes Palette. I saw this at my local Ulta, and cannot stop drooling over it. It seems like the perfect palette for tanned skin girls and WOC since it has lots of nice brown/pinks. The dark pink and navy add a nice pop of color. I would already have purchased this by now except I have too many palettes right now (we'll see how long I believe that), and I bought several Too Faced palettes last summer so I feel I need to explore other brands a bit.

4. Jane Cosmetics. The 90's brand has come back. I was not familiar with it in the 90's since I preferred a natural, no makeup look. I recently bought one of their bronzers since they have a very large color range and meet the needs of WOC quite well in terms of bronzer.