Urban Decay Naked Flushed in Going Native

Hello dears!

I really appreciate products that are multipurpose. They make the makeup application process faster and can make packing during travel lighter. That is why I like bringing this compact when I visit other place...

Urban Decay Naked Flushed

The Balm Bahama Mama Bronzer

Hey loves!

You might have noticed that I've been blogging a lot about highlighters lately. I might be doing a lot of "strobing" but I still do my contour. I have a big face that needs a little help slimming down. Haha! The one I'm using lately is...

The Balm Bahama Mama Bronzer

This is actually my sister's, but she gave it to me. I use contouring and bronzing more than she does. 

It's PhP 925.00 at Beauty Bar.

So let's get to know the product first.

Below is the back of the product. You can see the ingredients list and the manufacturing details.

Here's the product description from the website:

Finally, a Caribbean getaway in a compact! This matte bronzer creates the look of beautifully tanned skin without any orange undertones for a fresh-off-the-beach glow. Bahama Mama also doubles as the perfect contour powder, neutral brow-filler and matte brown eyeshadow. Yes, this tropical beauty keeps busy!

I love the package design. It's like an illustration from the early 1900s! It's fun and sexy at the same time. I like how slim it is and that it has a mirror too. What I do not like is how easy it is to look dirty. It can easily be cleaned with cotton and makeup remover.

Just as the description stated, it doesn't have that orange or brick red undertone and it has a matte finish, which makes it a great contour powder. Yeah it says it's for bronzing but I don't like to go all bronzed with my makeup usually. 

See that swatch? It's flat matte. And it's not powdery! 

Check out how it works on my face:

Left: no product

Right: with product

My face looked like there's added depth and it slimmed down a bit. It works pretty well with my color too. It's better as contour with this shade because I find the brown too grayish brown for my color. 

Lasting power is pretty decent. It can fade after 4 to 5 hours depending on how oily my skin gets. 

So what do you think of The Balm's Bahama Mama Bronzer? 

Cheers,
DAWN

Becca Afterglow Palette

Hey loves!

Last year, when I visited my sister to attend her graduation, she got me gifts (and of course I got her some gifts for her special day also)! One of the items I received from her is this...

Becca Afterglow Palette

She knew that the brand doesn't have a physical store yet in the Philippines and that I would love to try out a product from Becca. I've been reading a lot of positive reviews on their highlighters even back then so I was really happy to see that I got a whole palette.

It's not all highlighters though. It's a palette consisting of five different shades. I would describe it as a group of highlighters and blushes, although one of them I use as a contour and one as a bronzer.

See below the photos of the box for some info about the product:

More info from beautylish.com

About Afterglow Palette

Choose from five fan-favorite highlighters and blushes to customize your own natural-looking glow. Designed to add light, lift, and a touch of color, this limited-edition palette includes these BECCA bestsellers:

• Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed in Moonstone
• Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed in Rose Gold
• Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed in Topaz
• Mineral Blush in Wild Honey
• Mineral Blush in Flowerchild

Why It's Special

Accentuate your favorite features and add a luminous, natural-looking glow with the three highlighter shades Impart a soft flush of color and subtly reflect light onto the apples of the cheeks with the two mineral blushes

How to Use

Sweep the Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed shades over high points of the face, including cheekbones, brow bone, and the bridge of the nose. Blend the Mineral Blush shades from the apples of your cheeks out to your temples.

Other Details

• Paraben-free
• Size: 0.057 oz per shade

The highlighters are described from the Becca website as:

The blushes are described from the Becca website as:

The packaging is great! I love the metallic pink compact equipped with a mirror. Both the length and the with are slim, which makes it perfect for travel! The size of each pan is smaller than I'm used to, but I rarely finish a blush before it expires so I guess this is good. Do try not to use a big brush for your blush or highlight so the pigments won't get mixed.

These are the shades and below are the swatches.

They are all pigmented! None of them are chalky and they glide smoothly on skin. What I love about this palette is that I could use all of them! The first two shades, Moonstone and Rose Gold, looks great as highlighters. Topaz on the other hand, is darker than my complexion so I use it as a bronzer (a very warm one because it has a beautiful golden glow). Honey is also too dark for a blush, but it can double as a contour for me. Finally, Flowerchild looks awesome as a blush! It gives a sweet, romantic flush to my cheeks. 

This is my go-to palette when I'm in a rush because it carries all I need to put color on my face (except the lips, of course). It's also a palette that I bring when I travel. 

Honestly, I couldn't see any bad things from this palette... maybe I could hope that they could put more blush colors next? Haha! I just like this palette very much. :P

Any thoughts on the Becca Afterglow Palette?

Cheers,
DAWN

NYX Professional Makeup: Love Contours All

Hello beauties!

I'd like to share with you my new make-up palette which my aunt gave to me.

I have to say I LOVE the HUGE mirror. It's just perfect for when you're traveling abroad and you just want to bring one palette for everything.

Being an absolute fan of nude make-up and simple contouring, this palette for me is just perfect.

The nine small circles in the middle are all eye shadows. The big circles in the side are a combination of highlighters and bronzers. Lastly the two rectangle in the bottom are brow powders. Sadly though, this palette does not come with a brush, though I doubt that it'll be a big issue.

Eye Shadow swatches

The order is from the left most side being 1 and the right most being 9 on the swatch and on the palette, the upper most right (white) is 1 then the lower most left is 9. As you can see, the palette is very pigmented and I hardly need any primer to ensure that the colors are visible. I also find that it's not that hard to blend out and build.

Colors 1, 4, 6, 8, and 9 are shimmer-free and they go on matte. They're perfect for those contour jobs for making your crease look deeper and all that. I also LOVE that they added 9 which is a deep black color. Some of the nude/natural palettes that I have don't incorporate black in them. The few that do, are more of a gray/dark gray color and is not really black. 

The rest of the 9 eye shadows (2, 3, 5, 7) have fine glitter/shimmer but don't look/come off as metallic. Even with the shimmer, the finish still passes as nude/natural.

Bronzer and Highlighter Swatch

So for the bronzer and highlighter pairs, the pair on the left (swatch) correspond to the two on the right (palette) in the picture below. While those on the right (swatch) correspond to those on the left (palette). Sorry about the confusing referencing. Anyway, I'm not a big fan of highlighters but I do prefer the gold-looking finish one. The shimmer is also very fine. I love that they have two shades of bronzers which just makes this palette perfect for when you go for a beach trip this summer. You won't have to worry that the bronzer you brought won't match your tan since you already have a palette that covers your before and after skin tone. ;)

Last but not least, are the brow powders.

Again, I am loving the two shades. I do like that they're not too pigmented so that you don't accidentally overdo your brows.

Overall, I am loving this palette and have kind of used it more in the past few days as opposed to my ever trusty UD Naked. I looked this particular product in BeautyMNL and Wastons but sadly I did not find one. But I am sure they have other similar palettes to this and if you happen to know them, do share them with us.

That's it for the night hope you guys enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Cheers,

LIZ

Ellana Cosmetics Sheer Natural Mineral Bronzer in Harmony

Hey dearies!

I think it's no secret that I'm a fan of Ellana Mineral Cosmetics. Just look at my reviews of their products! :P

I've also convinced my officemates to try the brand out and they absolutely love Ellana's foundations and concealer-foundations. So what we do is we buy online at the same time to avail the free shipping (for purchases amounting to PhP 1k and up). There are also times when we take advantage of Ellana Cosmetics' promos like when your purchase reach PhP 1.5k, you get a freebie. During one of our purchases, I was able to get this freebie, with the consent of my officemates of course...

Ellana Cosmetics Sheer Natural Mineral Bronzer in Harmony

They let me have it since most of them are beginners in makeup and do not use bronzers... yet. Lucky me. ;)

Ellana is the mineral makeup brand that made me like mineral makeup. So I would gladly accept and use any freebie from them because I like every product that I've tried from them so far.

So for this post, I will share with you the swatch of this mineral makeup bronzer and how I look like when it's applied.

It's in a loose powder form. You gotta be careful at the amount of product you get on your makeup brush because mineral makeup can get very pigmented. Make sure to tap off the excess powder from your brush before applying.

Above photo is the swatch

Most bronzers I've tried have this brick red-brown color that looks better with cool-toned skin. Harmony has a warm, gold-bronze shade that will compliment my warm skin better.

I use it for contour actually. See the photos below...

Left photo: no bronzer
Right photo: with bronzer

My face with only foundation, brows, eyeliner, and bronzer on
(My brows are super strong here... I can never perfect my brows when I take blog photos for some reason LOL)

It gives my face dimension, especially since my foundation is matte that makes my face appear flat. It also gives the illusion of a slimmer face (wooohoooo!). I like that the shimmery finish of Harmony looks very natural on my face. It can stay the whole day, but it really depends on my base makeup... my face is very oily so when I use skincare and makeup that can keep my skin from being shiny, the bronzer will stay for the whole day with the rest of my face makeup.

But what I love most of all is that it stays true to its claim that it's "sheer natural" because I don't get any harsh lines when I apply it (I get that a lot with loose powder blushes and I had to blend and blend for so long).

So as you can see, it's another Dawn-approved product from Ellana Mineral Cosmetics! Yay! 

Do you also wear bronzers? What brand do you use?


Cheers,
DAWN

Laura Mercier Golden Honey Glow Illuminating Stick

Hello loves!

I'll be sharing more and more swatch posts from the products my sister sent me from Australia. Some of these are her preloved items which I happily accepted because, well, they're makeup! And most of them are things I can't afford for myself yet. Haha! And this product that I'll be sharing with you is one of them...

Laura Mercier Illuminating Stick

The shade is Golden Honey Glow.

My sister loves this brand. I do too if I only have the money to buy more from them. Haha! But I understand why she loves Laura Mercier so much. My favorite is the Secret Comouflage concealer and their tinted moisturizers.

I don't like cream products though so I am not overly excited with this product, but, summer is coming soon and the bronze look will surely be a hit again! Just look at the gorgeous color of this stick:

It does look like the color of honey with very fine shimmers. It's housed in this very classy, retractable tube. It really looks gorgeous, don't you think so?

Below is the swatch of the product:

It's creamy and it glided smoothly on my skin. It feels buttery smooth but still light to the touch! No greasy feeling at all! 

Here it is when blended. I love the bronzy glow and the shimmers as well. Blending the product was easy and you can use your fingers or a makeup brush. It really feels light on skin so you won't feel like you're wearing a cream product at all!

I do, however, have an NC30 skin and the product doesn't show much on my face. I don't apply too much though. I can't use it as a blush because I find it weird to have a too bronzed face right now (perhaps I can do that when summer is here). On the pic above, I applied mostly at the bottom of my cheekbones, where you usually put contours. I love the natural, dewy finish it gives. It looks so natural but I believe the color will pop-up more on lighter skin... or maybe I should just add more? But I don't really like adding so much cream products on my oily face. :P

So if you want a subtly, bronze glow, then you might want to check out this product. I think there are other shades available like the Golden Rose Glow which you can use as a blush. :D Anyway, that is all for tonight! :D

Cheers,

DAWN

MAC Double Definition Extra Dimension Skin Finish

Hey dears!

Doing a post that has been super delayed. I was supposed to blog this last year but I have forgotten about this for some reason. This is actually Liz's. It's a gift from her aunt who's residing in Canada. 

Anyway, I'll just make this post short and simple and give you an idea of what this beautiful thing can do. :D

MAC Double Definition Extra Dimension Skin Finish 

The product has two shades, one is a warm gold shade while the other is bronze. Both of them give a frosty, shimmery finish.

These can act as a highlighter (the gold one) and a bronzer or you can swirl them together and give your skin a glistening warm finish.

It's housed in the classy MAC compact and the design of the product itself is really beautiful. I don't even wanna use it because I don't want to ruin the embossed design! Haha!

Anyway, below is the swatches:

Besides using this as a bronzer/highlighter, I can also use this as an eyeshadow!

That's the product used as eyeshadow.

It looks very classy too and you can pair it with a natural shade lippie or a bold red!

And this is how my face looks like when I use it as a bronzer/highlighter! It really did add definition to my chubby face! You can go bronzier depending on how you like your look. I just want to go for a subtler look since it is unusually cold in the Philippines now. :P 

 A couple of months to go 'til our country's summer season though and I already know what product I'll use for a bronzy-golden glow!


Cheers,

DAWN