Ye Olde Swatches, Volume 1
Trish McEvoy Instant Pick-Me-Up All Over Face Color Quad
Ye Olde Swatches, Volume 1
Sometimes I get a little overzealous and swatch more products than I’m actually able to test. There are just so many new beauty products (and shades) releasing continuously through the year that I am not always able to conduct a full test for all of the ones I’d like to. But since I did take photos and do swatches, I can at least share those with you… No ratings/grades, because I did not finish testing these.
Would you rather at least see swatches and get a general at-a-glance kind of summary than nothing at all? Or is it just confusing without a real review?
(Note, these do not and will never take the place of full reviews – but instead of relegating these images to the “unreviewed” folder, share them.)
- Trish McEvoy Instant Pick-Me-Up All Over Face Color Quad ($42.00) is designed to “bronze, luminize, highlight, and blush.” It has four different shades, but each square is on the smaller side, making individual use more difficult but still possible. When siwlred together, it creates a light bronze with a shimmer-sheen that would work best on light-medium to medium skin tones.
- Aveda Uruku Bronzing Kit in Amazonia ($55.00) includes a pan of a dual-toned bronzer and a buffing brush. The brush uses non-anhimal fibers, so it is cruelty-free. It’s a very, very soft brush, and I love that the handle is made from 25% PCR. The bronzer is literally just a pan of bronzer, so you’ll need to have a palette to put it in or grab one from Aveda. The color itself is a muted medium-bronze brown with soft gold micro-shimmer. It’s a little sheer, so the effect will be subtle.
- Lancome Luminous Rose Ageless Minerale Blush ($29.50) is a gorgeous shade of muted rose pink-brown with very soft shimmer-sheen. It’s really pretty, but I haven’t gotten around to wearing it on cheeks yet. I’m not sure if I will, so before it’s totally stale news, I thought I’d share the swatches with you.
See more photos & swatches!
Trish McEvoy Instant Pick-Me-Up All Over Face Color Quad
Trish McEvoy Instant Pick-Me-Up All Over Face Color Quad
Aveda Bronzing Ritual
Aveda Bronzing Ritual
Aveda Bronzing Ritual
Aveda Bronzing Ritual
Aveda Bronzing Ritual
Aveda Bronzing Ritual
Lancome Luminous Rose Mineral Blush
Lancome Luminous Rose Mineral Blush
Lancome Luminous Rose Mineral Blush
Lancome Luminous Rose Mineral Blush
Lancome Luminous Rose Mineral Blush
I like the just swatches pictures! I think they can help with deciding on colors and what not when looking at online shopping.
Plus, I am sure they are easier for you to do if you are busy with school and what not 🙂
Hope you do more of them
Definitely not a substitute for full reviews, but I’m finding that I often photograph/swatch products faster than I can review them in full! (I usually do block sessions where I’ll photograph/swatch for 2-3 hours at a time, rather than just a few products.)
Thanks!
If you have swatches photos and a quick description of what the product is and maybe where to find it, that would be so helpful if you post that! Sometimes all that is needed is a quick swatch photo to capture my interest in a product, then I’m happy to go check it out. 🙂 Love the Lancome Rose blush.
I definitely like seeing half tests rather than no tests…. but I can admit it does leave me with questions…. like the quality of that brush and how dense it is
Oh no! They actually don’t make that aveda bronzer anymore…. it was just limited edition I think. I think my store might have just a FEW more left over but i’m not sure. Just fyi!
Swatch please–the more the merrier!
I agree. Swatches help make or break a purchase for me.
I really enjoy your full reviews with swatches. But swatches with a short summary would also be sufficient. however, if it’s just swatches… I don’t think it’ll be that helpful…
Love the swatches, would love those rather than nothing at all of course. =D
I like it. If we have qs about it we can ask u in the comments
Thank you for all the swatches! I have a hard time imagining the colors/shades from simply reading the descriptions.
I THINK THIS IS STILL REALLY HELPFUL!
Thank you for posting these Christine! I was curious about the Lancome and Trish powders–the swatches are really helpful!
I definitely would rather have swatches than nothing at all!
Agreed! 🙂
I would love to see more posts like this. The pictures you take are always great quality. And it’s definitely helpful to get a close look at products that some people may not have the opportunity to try in person, because their local store doesn’t sell it.
This Lancome blush looks very nice by the way. 🙂
That Lancome blush is beautiful.
I really like the Trish quad! It looks versatile.
I prefer swatches than nothing at all :). It’s still very helpful, and you can often see the quality of a product from swatches alone (pigmentation level etc.).
I think swatches are still helpful even if the product isn’t reviewed. At least we can see what it looks like . . . If the color/hue/shade isn’t something I’m interested in, I don’t even need to read a review on it. By the way, thanks for all of your hard work!!!
Rather have swatches than nothing at all. A deatailed review is great but if there is no swatch it is hard to imagine. Sometimes having both is not necessary – if I don’t like the swatch, I likely won’t even bother to read the review.
im with just swatches. thanks!
I think that when you see a swatch, you can often tell alot about a product. The general colour, application, and well how well it is made!
I love your reviews, but I think its great to see something new as well!
I like this idea! This way we get to at least see what products look like (which is what I usually do anyway). I don’t always read reviews because different people have different skin type/color/texture and what looks great on you won’t necessarily look great on me.
you once posted little 5-minutes reviews (can’t remember the exact phrase).
i would really appreciate smaller reviews or just pictures too, because the promo pictures are nice but they never show the color accurate. so please, just keep on posting swatches.
I was about to say the same thing. Would it be possible to have a condensed version of your review , like here is the product , and I do/ dont recommend it? I too would rather have swatches versus nothing at all.
I wanted to say half tests instead of no tests but based on colour alone it’s hard to tell if it’s pigmented/chalky. A lot of the time I give products a higher rating than you do but I think you do need to include a couple general characteristics with the half-tests. So grateful for your efforts Christine.
I’m totally happy just with swatches! It’s also really helpful when you include what they look like on your face vs just the arm. : ) you’re the best christine!
just swatches are great!
I definitely prefer seeing the swatches over nothing at all!
I wouldn’t mind swatches without any review. TBH I don’t always read the entire review anyway and just look at the pictures. If I like it, then I’ll read for real and ask questions.
I say if you have the swatches anyway, then post ’em! No use for all that photographing and cropping to go to waste!
Hello Christine, I love the swatches pictures even with no reviews. At least we are able to see the product packaging, color and get an idea of it. Thank you for posting these pictures for us. To be honest with you, most of the time I am not able to read the reviews as I have a busy schedule myself so I just look at the gorgeous pictures you take and if I see something that pikes my curiosity then I investigate the product a bit further or put it in my list of products to check out next time I hit the mall 😉
Swatches are awesome! Reviews aren’t always necessary. Getting to see the product against your skin is great! Thanks so much for all your hard work. I have no clue how you balance everything in your busy schedule. I would take a multitasking class from you as well as a makeup class 🙂
Swatches are fine for products that don’t wow or somehow don’t rate a review. There are just so many hours in a day, and the amount of products which you already provide info on is astounding. If the item is a real hit or a dud, that’s the important thing to know.
Swatches with a general summary is better than nothing at all.
I definitely like/LOVE seeing pictures and swatches. They at least give me some idea of what the product is before I commit to buying it (online) and helps me create my shopping lists before I go into stores with what I definitely want and things to definitely try out. I say onward with these types of posts, along with the full reviews you’re so kind to do!
The swatches are fine. I would have been tempted to buy that Trish unseen, but your swatch shows me it is too pink for the way I use bronzer (often as an overall powder).
Photograph/swatches are still really helpful so we can at least “see” the product before purchasing. Thanks!
i’d rather get swatches and a quick review if it can happen sooner. i feel like if there’s something you feel really strongly about you’ll get more in depth anyway.
I’d still like to see photos of swatches on their own. Yes, it’s a million times more helpful with your reviews/grading because then we know about the pigmentation. But with swatches, not only are we made aware of the product, but we also gets to see what the colour looks like on skin and whether we personally like the shade or not 🙂
seeing the pic helps….and you are great at still saying things about the product anyhow even if you did not have time for the full review. thanks.
Would definitely want to see swatches as they really help us with decision making. Just a suggestion – why not put a poll for each of these half reviews and see how many people want it to be reviewed. Then you can prioritize which product to review first.
I’d definitely like to see the extra swatches that you didn’t have time to test and review … I think getting to see the product still tells us a lot, and if nothing else, swatches are always fun to look at … and if someone’s considering buying one of the products, a swatch is much much better than nothing!
I’ll always take swatches and mini-(or no)review over no photos at all. Out of all the bloggers I visit on a daily basis you’ve got the best photographic set up that shows images sharply, with plenty of light, and nary an off color balance. So…gimme gimme gimme! 😀
I agree, I definitely appreciate a swatch and mini review over nothing at all. So many products that I google have NO swatches at all out there…
I like swatches more than nothing. I honestly think if its a product you’ve already reviewed(and just a new shade), and it has the same quality as the one you’ve reviewed, a swatch is enough. 😀
Swatches help us(even without the review) because we can see the color as it would appear on skin, rather than just a ridiculously bad internet catalogue color swatch(MAC is infamous for being terrible, and I haven’t found a great retailer that has really good swatches..)
That’s my two cents Christine!
I will take a swatch w/o review as well- it builds your database and sometimes your website is the only place to get a true swatch of an item I am trying to buy even a year down the line!
Swatches are fine if you don’t have time to do a full review. They are still helpful!
Definitely keep the swatches coming! I don’t mind swatches without full reviews at all.
Yes would love to see the swatches of items not reviewed. I love oyur reviews but I get it, you can’t review everything!
all for it as long as I can tell which product is which 🙂