Revlon Carnation (025) ColorBurst Lipstick ($8.99 for 0.13 oz.) is a medium-dark, blue-based pink with a soft, frosted finish and subtle fuchsia-magenta shimmer. It’s nearly opaque in color, and it doesn’t feel heavy to wear, despite the creaminess and pigmented formula.
my thoughts on the formula: Revlon’s ColorBurst lipsticks glide on easily, have decent color pay off (inevitably, pigmentation does vary from shade to shade–some are semi-sheer, others more opaque), and are scent-free. They are comfortable to wear without clinging to lips, though I don’t find them moisturizing. The biggest downside is they only last two to three hours (lipsticks wear an average of four hours on me), so the wear time could be improved.
The lipstick is packaged in a matte black case with a quilted pattern on the front and the Revlon logo/print embellished on the lipstick itself. I like the matte finish, because it doesn’t hold fingerprints, and because it’s not rubberized (like NARS), it doesn’t hold onto dust and powder remnants either.
I wish these wore a little longer! The length of wear is the most glaring downside to the product, and it's a shame, because I love how these are unscented (no cloying, synthetically sweet scent that so often plagues more affordable lipstick brands). I will admit that I personally had trouble shelling out $8.99 for one, though.
Product
8.5/10
Pigmentation
9/10
Texture
8.5/10
Longevity
7/10
Application
4/5
Loading ...
Login or Register to be able to add this to your Vanity or Wishlist! Plus rate and review!
Where to Buy
This product can be purchased at the following retailers:
Sometimes products are discontinued or limited edition, which means that a product may no longer be available at one or more retailers so you may need to shop around for those hard-to-find shades! We try to update products as they become discontinued, and if you discover a product has been discontinued, please help us help others by letting us know.
Disclosure: Temptalia uses affiliate links, which give us a small commission when you make a purchase (given to us by the retailer, at no cost to you). Your purchases help to support the site!
Urban Decay 24/7 Shadow Pencil Blending Brush($16.00) debuted in the past couple of months, and it is a very small, domed pencil brush designed to blend and feather products like Urban Decay’s Shadow Pencils. It is made out of PET (recycled plastic bottles), so the bristles are synthetic and vegan-friendly. The brush itself is small–around 6mm or so in length–and it can be used in the crease, smudging of colors (on the lash line or elsewhere).
I found the brush wasn’t tapered enough to be a really great crease brush but too dense to blend out colors with ease. The fluffiness was lacking, and so while it could deposit color well enough, it didn’t provide the soft, airy feel that seems to make blending nearly effortless. I also wish the tip itself was a little more tapered and had a touch more give.
Funny enough, I didn’t find it useful in softening the edges of the 24/7 Shadow Pencils much; it worked better with powder eyeshadows. I felt like the creaminess of the 24/7 Shadow Pencils got eaten up by the brush and the result was more of a smeared look, rather than something feathered at the edges.
final thoughts: I’ve liked Urban Decay’s new brushes, but this one was a bit of a miss for me. It was designed to blend out the 24/7 Shadow Pencils, which I felt is where it performed the worst, and it didn’t excel in the other ways I tried it either.
MAC Frayed to Order Nail Lacquer ($14.00 for 0.40 fl. oz.) is described as a “white matte with soft pink duochrome pearl” and has a matte finish. As hard as I try to only provide accurate photos, Frayed to Order was a tough shade to capture. The photos are definitely accurate in terms of color and all that, but they really miss the way the duochrome sheen plays with light. It is a semi-sheer pale white with pink iridescent sheen strewn through it. If you have Vanilla pigment, Frayed to Order is just like that, but in a matte polish form.
It dries down as fast as any matte does, but it does show brush strokes quite easily, so you’ll want to do wider strokes and one pass, rather than multiple ones, if you can help it. I did three coats for swatches, to see if it would go opaque, but as you’ll see, it never quite gets there. The formula was a little thinner than medium but not watery at all.
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
Product: 26/30
Value: 7/10
Ease of Use: 4/5
Packaging: 4/5
final thoughts: If it applied a little smoother, I could give it a better quality score. As I mentioned in the Biker Blue review, MAC’s nail polish prices are coming far too close to high-end brands, while many of MAC’s other products have not. For me, the “cool” factor of this polish is enough for me to want it, even if it does have streaking problems.
MAC Jeanius Eyeshadows ($19.50 for 0.10 oz.) are larger, over-sized eyeshadows (think Tartan Tale or Peacocky-sized, or else the size of Cream Colour Bases) embossed with shading and overspray detailing to mimic the look of jeans. This is an overspray/sheen, which will disappear after the first use or so (all swatches are of the product underneath, after the overspray was wiped away). The four shades include: Diva In Distress (mid-tone gray with silver pearl), Motorhead (mid-tone blue with copper pearl), Stovepipe Black (black with copper pearl), and White Jeanius (white with silver pearl).
Diva in Distress is a sheer icy blue-tinged white with a frosted finish. This one was both sheer and a little gritty–not gritty as in huge chunks of glitter, but it didn’t stick. Lots and lots of fall out and the color itself did not bind well.
Motorhead is a brightened navy blue with a satin sheen. This shade was more pigmented but not richly pigmented. It’s comparable to Deep Truth, which is part of the permanent range.
Stovepipe Black is a taupe-tinged charcoal gray with a metallic-frost finish. This was the nicest of the four; pigmented and smooth, and the color itself a bit unlike the permanent range. I can’t think of a permanent dupe for this shade; Satin Taupe would be the closest but not as black.
White Jeanius is a bright, frosted white. It has good color pay off. It’s comparable to Gesso but with a frosted finish.
my thoughts on the formula: The formula is hit or miss, it seems. It’s very consistent across the four within this collection, and they do feel similar to the Tartan Tale eyeshadows from 2010. They have a slightly powdery feel, but for the most part, apply smoothly and don’t have a powdery consistency once applied. Diva in Distress suffers from both poor color pay off and fall out, while the other three didn’t have fall out issues.
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
Product: 24/30*
Value: 9/10
Ease of Use: 4/5
Packaging: 4/5
final thoughts: *There is a reason why I prefer and often do review products individually, even if they are from the same formula, because there can be enough variance in the quality that the grades would differ individually than they would as some kind of group grade. Diva in Distress’ quality is 15/20, which gives it an overall D rating. Stovepipe Black, on the other hand, is the best of the four, and the quality is 27/30, which moves it to a B+ rating.
Lancome Midnight Rush Eye & Shadow Palette ($48.00 for 0.141 oz.) is a blue-themed eyeshadow palette with five shades in total. It consists of an all-over base, lid, crease, highlighter, and liner color.
The all-over base shade is a creamy, muted white with a semi-matte finish; it’s very pigmented and so soft to use–not chalky at all. The lid shade is a navy blue with a low-frost finish; it is easy to overblend this shade into something very sheer. The crease shade is a grayish, black navy blue but really doesn’t yield much color when used; such a shame that it performs so poorly. The highlighter shade is a silvered pewter with a frost finish; nicely pigmented and smooth, with the metallicness of its finish accentuated when used wet. The liner shade is a dark black with a hint of blue and navy blue and silver shimmer; it worked well both wet and dry, though dry is a little more intense.
my thoughts on the formula: The texture of Lancome’s eyeshadows are very smooth–soft, silky–and all of these shades were excellent in terms of pigmentation. I only had minor fall out concerns with the highlighter shade, so I would recommend using it with a damp brush.
I’m disappointed in the quantity provided in the palette, though. Lancome’s Color Design Quads come in at 0.16 oz. and their Color Design Eyeshadow singles at 0.0458 oz., which works out to be $263/oz. and $371/oz. respectively. This palette is $340/oz., which makes it more expensive ($48 vs. $42) with less product (0.141 oz. vs. 0.16 oz) than the Color Design Quads.
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
Product: 25/30
Value: 7/10
Ease of Use: 4/5
Packaging: 4/5
final thoughts: The crease shade gave me trouble, much as it did in the Teal Fury palette. I’m not sure what it is about the formula of that finish that results in poorer color pay off. Midnight Rush is reminiscent of Guerlain’s 2 Place Vendome Palette, with three of the five being quite similar.
NARS Nana Lipgloss ($24.00 for 0.28 oz.) is a blackened plum that applies semi-opaque. It is still quite dark, but it is nowhere near as dark applied as it appears in the tube (which almost photographs black!). Though I really liked the color itself, and it gave a rather stained glass look to lips, it isn’t so easy to work with by itself. I would recommend layering it over a lipstick or lip liner in order to minimize the gloss settling into lip lines. I also found that if you touch your lips together at all, it really moved the gloss around and made it look blotchy.
my thoughts on the formula: The texture of this particular gloss felt so different from other NARS’ Lipglosses, it was rather sticky. It wasn’t thick like holiday’s Downtown, but I still found this gloss rather tacky, while other NARS glosses are non-sticky (and it is a trait that these lipglosses are known for). In the past, NARS glosses have had plastic-y smells, but I haven’t noticed this in the latest seasonal launches, including Nana.
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
Product: 25/30
Value: 8/10
Ease of Use: 4/5
Packaging: 4/5
final thoughts: If you don’t mind some prep work (like lip liner) or layering (over a lipstick), I think it’s a nice shade. It should suit both cooler and warmer skin tones, though it is naturally cool toned. It is a more high-maintenance kind of lip color, unfortunately!
Loading ...
