Melanin and Makeup | Makeup Geek and Colour Pop Haul
/“Whether I’m wearing lots of makeup or no makeup, I’m always the same person inside. ”
So, I’m going to blame Instagram for the bulk of this haul. If I hadn’t seen the post about Makeup Geek having a sale on ‘damaged’ products I would have never picked up so much stuff. I mean most of the sale items were at least 50% off, and you really can’t go bad with that. With Colour Pop I just caved, I was just like forget it I’m not waiting till there’s a sale I’m just going to get them now and be done with it, so I did. I didn’t go crazy with the number of shades that I picked up, I was using Temptalia’s review as a guide and focused on colours that I liked that had at least a B+ or better rating which helped to narrow down my options.
Makeup Geek
Makeup Geek and Colourpop goodies
I went overboard with the Makeup Geek products, I freely admit that, I mean I ordered 3 different times, and it wouldn’t have been more except I didn’t want to pay shipping for 3 items. As you can see I grabbed, blushes, highlighters, contour powders and some eyeshadows, so far I like the quality of everything that I’ve tried. It may seem like I was just randomly tossing things into my cart but not to worry I was doing my due diligence and checking out reviews to see how each item fared.
Contour
I want to start with the contour powders, they are so creamy, when I swirl my finger in the pan it clings to it and literally feels creamy both in the pan and when I swatch it on my arm. I can’t think of a time that I’ve ever experienced that in a powder product. I did purchase both warm and cool toned powders because I can use either one to tone down or warm up my skin. In general I would say that I have warm undertones but sometimes I feel that it leans a little neutral, so if I use something that leans a little too warm then I can use a cool toned powder to try and help balance it out. This is just my reasoning, this is by no means an actual makeup rule or principle.
I did find that the powders had a lot of kick up when used, and they would fly into other near by pans. As contour powders they do work great, I use the darkest one, Scandal to chisel out and further define my cheek bones, and then I usedand Half Hearted for my nose. It’s not as dark or intense as scandal so doesn’t look like I’ve got unblended stripes on my face when I use it. I’m still experimenting with using the lighter powders to set my face.
Blushes
Blushes after eyeshadow are my favourite makeup category or item. Because of my skin tone I lean towards blushes that are heavily pigmented so that they show up on my skin, I don’t limit myself though to just using deeper colours. Light to medium toned blushes can and do show up on my skin, it doesn’t look true to the pan colour but it can give a nice flush that isn’t too over powering.I find that Makeup Geek blushes are nice. They’re a bit stiffer in formula than the contour powders, and while they are pigmented they allow you to build up the colour on your skin so that you can get your desired intensity. They do wear well. I don’t tend to have an issue with blush fading if any thing because of my oily skin blushes tend to get more intense.
Eyeshadows
I have some Makeup Geek eyeshadows already, as I documented in this haul, so I know that they are good quality, offer great pigmentation and are long wearing. Some of the shadows that I picked up were on sale and some of them I purchased at there regular price just because I liked them and felt that since I was ordering might as well.
Highlighter
I picked up three that turned out to be great for darker skin tones. One of them is part of her duo chrome line. i haven’t had the chance yet to wear it, I’ve just swatched them with my finger. The packaging on these is great, the gunmetal looks really nice and they come with do a mirror.
Colour Pop
I was iffy on whether or not I would actually make a purchase from Colourpop, because although they are just $5 you do get less product than say Mac or Makeup Geek which are priced at just a dollar more. However the colours got me. Like I mentioned above I used Temptalia’s rating to help narrow down my choices, that way even if I liked a colour if it performed poorly then it was easy to cross it off my list .
The Eyeshadows
I really wanted Come and Get it, the duo chrome pink. Every time I saw swatches I thought it looked beautiful, and this time when I was looking to order it was actually in stock. I also picked up a few peach toned shades and a couple of greens, because you know I love my green. They swatched nicely on my arm but there was a good deal of fall out or kick up in the pan.
They do wear well on my eyes though. When I did my first test run I didn’t use any eye shadow primer, just concealed and dusted my lids with setting powder, the shadows lasted about 4 hours with minimal creasing and slight fading of the colours. I haven’t had much time to play with them, though I’ve had them for a couple of weeks. When I did swatch them they were nice, but I expected them to be as I was aiming just to pick up the ones that had the best rating.
Price per gram I don’t think they end up being as cheap as they initially look. I know that people might say well I rarely finish a shadow or I won’t ever finish this colour, that might be true, but you can pay a dollar more and get more product and better quality for the most part. The difference in price isn’t as drastic as one may think, even when compared to pricer palettes.
I don’t think I will be purchasing anymore shadows, unless they come out with a colour that just compels me to purchase it.
Were you able to pick up any products from Makeup Geeks damaged sale? Have you tried the Colour pop shadows, what did you think of them?
