Urban Decay Backtalk Vice Lipstick Comparisons (plus a quick review of NYX Slip Tease Full Color Lip Oil in Lowkey)

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Urban Decay's Vice Lipstick in Backtalk, in their Comfort Matte finish, is one of the most popular shades in that huge line. They even made a whole eye and face palette based on it. It's in that dusty pink/mauve/MLBB (my-lips-but-better) family, which is the largest category of lip products in my hoard. Despite its popularity and my personal preference for this type of shade, there's something about Backtalk that's just a little off when I wear it. It's not that it looks bad, exactly, but it also doesn't make my face look better than it did without any lipstick.

I decided to swatch all my lipsticks that are even remotely similar to see if I can pick out any patterns and discern why Backtalk doesn't work for me. And since I was doing that, I figured I might as well post them here for you, in case you want to find/avoid dupes--or in case you can help me answer my question.

Here are the swatches, in no particular order. The first swatch in every photo is always Urban Decay Backtalk.

1. Urban Decay Backtalk

2. Bite Beauty Pepper (Luminous Creme formula)

3. Bite Beauty Matte Crème Lip Crayon in Glacé

4. BareMinerals GEN NUDE Liquid Lipstick in Swag

5. Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipstick in Lovesick

6. Make Up For Ever Artist Rouge Lipstick in Rosewood

7. Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick in Fig

So of the lipsticks in this selection, besides Backtalk, the only two I don't really like on myself are the KVD Lovesick and Bite Fig. Lovesick is a little cooler, with more pink/purple, than Backtalk, and Fig is much warmer and peachier. (Fortunately Lovesick is also a sample, because since it does that dried-up butthole thing to my lips, I wouldn't want to be stuck with a whole tube. Also, I don't buy Kat Von D products.) I'm not sure I'm seeing a pattern here yet.

1. Urban Decay Backtalk (It's interesting how Backtalk will look different depending on what other swatches you put it next to. The lighting is the same!)

2. Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick in Rhubarb

3. Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Touch of Spice (reviewed here)

4. NYX Slip Tease Full Color Lip Oil in Lowkey (which is very, very similar to Touch of Spice--more on this lipstick below!)

5. Colourpop Lux Lipstick in Angel City

6. Nars Satin Lip Pencil in Rikugien

7. Wet N Wild Megalast Lipstick in Rose-bud

Everything here is much warmer than Backtalk, and it all works well for me, so maybe that's something. Rhubarb is slightly blah on me, but I'm guessing it would look great on people who like Revlon Sultry, which is similar to Maybelline Touch of Spice but slightly less flattering on me (review/comparison here).

Side note: has anyone ever come across a dupe for Wet N Wild Rose-bud? I love the color, but the Megalast formula always dries out my lips.

1. Urban Decay Backtalk 

2. L'Oréal Colour Riche La Lacque Lip Pen in Choco-lacque (reviewed here)

3. Urban Decay Revolution Lipstick in Rapture (discontinued, but available in Vice format)

4. Urban Decay Sheer Revolution Lipstick in Sheer Rapture (discontinued)

5. Revlon Balm Stain in Honey (reviewed here)

6. Tom Ford Lip Color Matte in Pussycat

Pussycat looks closest to Backtalk here, and it's also the one I like least on my face, though slightly better than Backtalk. These two lipsticks are both pretty muted (i.e. they have grey added), so that could be a clue. Rapture looks muted when you consider it alone, but next to Backtalk, it's a bit more saturated.

1. Urban Decay Backtalk 

2. Tarte Tarteist Creamy Matte Lip Paint in Birthday Suit (i.e. last year's Sephora birthday gift)

3. LA Girl Matte Lipstick in Snuggle (reviewed here)

4. Burt's Bees Lip Crayon in Sedona Sands

5. Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick in Thistle

None of the above is particularly similar to Backtalk, so the fact that most of them work for me isn't especially informative. The exception is Birthday Suit, which is an unflattering beige--I think it's the yellow undertones that set it apart from the superficially similar Snuggle. Come to think of it, though, Thistle is both very muted and pretty cool, and I like it a lot on me. Maybe that's because it's more of a statement corpse-lip, rather than just looking accidentally blah. (I'm wearing it in this Instagram pic, though the lighting isn't great.)

You probably want to see what Backtalk actually looks like on me at this point. (Apologies for the grainy photo.)

Like I said, it's not awful, but a great lipstick will light up your face, and a good lipstick will at least be better than nothing.

I'm not sure what I've learned through this process. I need my MLBB lipsticks to be muted, but not too muted, and more brown than grey, maybe. Or more brown than pink? Thoughts? I have definitely learned that I have way too many similar lipsticks (ok, I already knew that), and that weirdly enough I have never reviewed most of these. Any you'd like to know more about?

I'll tell you more right now about one of them. I recently used Ulta points to pick up a lipstick from one of NYX's 700 or so liquid lipstick lines, a newer one called Slip Tease Full Color Lip Oil. It's full color, sure, but having oil in the name is a bit of a red herring. It's not like YSL Tint-In-Oil or most other products called lip oils. It's less drying than most matte liquid lipsticks, sure, but there's nothing that looks or feels oily about it. (There are a few oils halfway down the ingredients list, but a lot of other things come before them.)

Here is Lowkey on my face:

More flattering, wouldn't you agree, than Backtalk? The rest of my makeup is the same, as is the lighting. Here's a lip swatch:

When you see it all alone, it looks like a rosy pink, but in the swatches above (second set), you can see that it definitely has some brown in it when compared to other lipsticks in the same family. The formula is really lovely. It's slightly moussey and thick enough that you can easily and neatly apply it using just the doe foot (not as thick as the Tarte liquid lipstick, though). It's opaque in one coat, but not so pigmented that it risks getting really messy. The finish is demi-matte. It dries down a bit but not completely, so it retains slip and moisture and feels pretty much like a bullet lipstick--yet it doesn't transfer easily. Wear time is about the same as a decent bullet, so you'll probably have to reapply after a meal. Best of all, it doesn't dry my lips out.

This is one of the nicest lipsticks I've tried recently, and probably the nicest liquid lipstick I've ever used. I'd recommend giving it a try if you see a color you like. That's my one complaint: while I love Lowkey (way to be hip to the new slang, kids), none of the other colors really interests me. There's variety, but something about the selection bores me. Bang Bang and Entice might be ok? I think a terracotta orange would be really great in this formula.

I kind of ordered Lowkey blind (you can never trust Ulta's photos for color accuracy), but it ended up working great. It would be nice if I could work out some kind of rules to predict which lipsticks will work best on me. Do you know what works for you when you see it, or do you have to try everything on like I do?

Concealing Redness with Yellow Corrector: Comparison of Urban Decay Color Correcting Fluid and L.A. Girl HD Pro Conceal

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On a daily basis, I don't tend to wear a full face of foundation or other base product. Some days I'll feel ambitious enough to slap on some tinted moisturizer, but it's rare that I use a fuller coverage foundation. Still, I have a significant amount of redness in my skin, especially in the center of my face, concentrated on either side of my nose. I've also been breaking out a lot lately, and that adds to the redness on my chin and forehead between my eyes. I want that shit to be less obvious.

Rather than covering my face with a uniform layer of product, my preferred camouflage is color corrector in the red areas, a liquid concealer under my eyes, and spot concealing for blemishes. Then I set everything with a loose powder, and I'm good to go. It probably takes nearly as much time for this routine as it would to use an opaque foundation, but for me, this is an easier, lower maintenance process. I also tend to like how my makeup looks by the end of the day. I've tried many foundations and I never really like how they wear, though some are better than others. Finally, I just don't love the feeling of foundation on my skin, and I get self-conscious about whether or not I'm rubbing it off somehow. So foundation is something that I tend to only use occasionally.

I've written about using the Urban Decay Naked Skin Color Correcting Fluid to conceal redness before (here). For whatever reason, yellow color correctors, as far as I've seen, are never advertised as targeting redness. In fact, I've never even seen anyone write a blog or Instagram post (etc.) saying that they use yellow corrector for this purpose. But I am here to tell you that if you haven't had good luck trying to cancel out redness with a green color corrector, it's worth giving yellow a shot instead. For me, green correctors tend to add a greyish cast to my skin, while yellow simply disguises the redness. You can see a comparison in my previous post of the subject, where I go into more detail about why I think this works.

(Yellow correctors are usually aimed at improving "brightness," but it's not clear to me exactly what problem this is correcting. If you use yellow for brightness, I'd love to hear about what it does for you.)

What I really want to do here is compare the Urban Decay yellow corrector, which contains 0.21 oz. of product for $28, with L.A. Girl HD Pro Conceal in Yellow, which contains 0.28 oz. for about $3-4 (depending where you buy it). I don't think I need to do any math for you to see the massive value difference there, so I had high hopes that the L.A. Girl option would be a functional substitute, since I use this corrector so much that I go through it very quickly. I'm not eager to drop another $28 on such a small product if I can avoid it.

Swatching the two yellow correctors, you can see some subtle differences. The Urban Decay corrector has a more opaque, whitish base, and the L.A. Girl corrector is slightly more translucent and lacks that white base. I'm not sure these differences are strong enough even to be visible in my photo, but they are detectable in person. Urban Decay on the left; L.A. Girl on the right.

Here's my bare face right now--as I said, I've been breaking out worse than usual for the past couple of months. I'm working on controlling that, but in the meantime, I'd like to disguise it.

You can see that the redness is concentrated on either side of my nose, but also between my eyebrows, and on my upper lip and chin. I also have mega dark circles that are reddish-purple.

Below I've applied the Urban Decay corrector on the left side of the photo, and the L.A. Girl on the right side of the photo. I've only used it over those red areas mentioned above. (I also put on mascara and brow pencil, as you can tell, because my face hairs are no longer completely invisible.)

I think you can see, despite the mediocre indoor lighting, that it works really well to conceal redness in a natural way on my skin. Can you see any differences between the right and left sides of my face? Personally, I can't see any in the photo, and I couldn't see any in person either. Any visible differences are just because the blemishes in my skin aren't perfectly symmetrical.

Here are closeups of each side so that you can see what the texture looks like on my skin. Again, I don't see any real difference. Both products have a slight tendency to highlight flakiness, but not dramatically, and not to the extent that I'm bothered by it.

Urban Decay:

L.A. Girl:

In these photos, I've used the corrector under my eyes, as well as on other red areas. For everyday use, I skip adding it to my eye area and just use my usual Sephora concealer (reviewed here), which has a slight yellow tint to it. I don't find that layering a yellow corrector under concealer in that area makes a big enough difference to be worth the extra work. I do, however, pat the extra Sephora concealer that's on my fingers after I blend it under my eyes on to the skin next to my nose. Then I spot conceal pimples with Urban Decay 24/7 Concealer Pencil, which seems, unfortunately, to have been discontinued. Finally, I set everything with loose powder.

Here's the final result with all my makeup (hey hey hooded eyelids!):

I like the results. As for other points of comparison between the Urban Decay and L.A. Girl correctors, the biggest difference is the packaging. The Urban Decay packaging is prettier, yes, but I also prefer it in terms of function.

I apply my concealer/corrector with a flat concealer brush (I have this stupidly expensive Clé de Peau brush that I got for free, but anything similar should work). I'd much rather just pick up the product from the UD doefoot than squeeze it out of the L.A. tube into its stupid brush tip. It's harder to control how much comes out of the squeeze tube. I suppose it might be easier to use up the last dregs of the product left in the squeeze tube at the end of its life, however.

In terms of wear time, they're about the same for me. It's not all left at the end of the day, but my face is still less red than it would otherwise be, and the makeup doesn't look cakey or weird.

Overall, since most things are about equal, I'd certainly recommend the L.A. Girl yellow concealer. It's cheap enough that even if you want to just experiment and figure out if yellow corrector will do anything for you at all, you won't be taking much of a risk. But I don't think there's a real advantage to the Urban Decay option, anyway. The slightly more translucent base of the L.A. Girl product also makes me think that it would work better on darker skin than the whitish Urban Decay corrector--though there is probably a limit, because it is still a light yellow.

I was seriously surprised by how well this L.A. Girl HD Pro Conceal corrector worked for me, considering that I had tried one of their regular concealers in the past, and wasn't impressed (reviewed here). But for a product like this that isn't supposed to match skin tone and isn't supposed to create a totally opaque concealing layer, it's fantastic.

Is there seriously no one else out there who uses yellow to cover redness? Hello? Anyone?

Is No7 Perfect Light Loose Powder a dupe for Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder?

Left: No7 Perfect Light Loose Powder; Right: Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder in Translucent

Translucent powders are hard to review. If they work well, they look like nothing at all. I got a mini jar of Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder as a Christmas gift last year, and I liked it enough that I considered spending the $38 to get the full size. But that's a lot of money, so I needed to think carefully about why I liked it.

Top/Left: No7 Perfect Light Loose Powder; Bottom/Right: Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder in Translucent

It's truly invisible on my skin, no matter how much I apply. I use it to set my concealer and I've used it on bare skin and over foundation. It never looks powdery and it doesn't cause what's under it to get dry and weird. Now YMMV on this aspect, because I've read reviews in which people have said that this powder looks cakey and obvious on their skin no matter what they do with it. I don't know for sure what the cause is, but I'm guessing it has to do with the color. It's very pale and on the yellow side of neutral. Translucent, sure, but if you have darker or cooler skin, it might not be translucent enough. In fact, I'm pretty certain that's the case, because Laura Mercier recently added a second shade called Translucent Medium Deep--the original is just called "Translucent." (Of course, the mini jar only comes in the lighter shade. Sigh.) Since I'm pale and neutral-toned, the lighter shade works well for me.

It also creates a natural, flattering finish on my skin. It mattifies but not so much that it looks dry and powdery. It has a very subtle blurring or softening effect without any shimmer at all. And while it doesn't exactly make my makeup wear all day under sweaty conditions, it works well enough to set everything.

It's great and I like it a lot, but it's not exactly magic or anything. So when I read somewhere that No7 Perfect Light Loose Powder was a $13 "dupe" for the LM powder, I decided to give it a shot. I'm admittedly not terribly picky about powder, so I figured that even if it wasn't perfect, it would be adequate for the time being.

(You might note that the LM powder contains 1 full oz., while the No7 has only 0.7 oz., but that still makes the No7 significantly cheaper either way you look at it.)

The main difference between the two powders is the color. While they are both light and translucent, the No7 powder is quite a bit pinker.

Left: No7 Perfect Light Loose Powder; Right: Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder in Translucent

As I said, my skin tone is just on the warm side of neutral, but while I guess the LM powder is technically a slightly better match, they both work equally well for me in practice. Here are heavy finger swatches for another comparison:

Top: No7 Perfect Light Loose Powder; Bottom: Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder in Translucent

No shimmer, as you can see.

I also blended out the swatches, but the photo isn't very helpful. I guess you can see why I didn't bother to show you a photo of the powder on my face. They both turn invisible on my skin.

Top: No7 Perfect Light Loose Powder; Bottom: Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder in Translucent

But maybe you can see a little of the softening effect I described? Maybe not.

Other than the color, I haven't noticed any real difference in performance between these two products, so I'm quite satisfied with my budget option.

I will say that the packaging for the No7 is a little overly bulky and also slightly messier than the LM powder. Powder tends to settle on that sort of ledge around the edge of the jar and then scatter from there (you can see what I mean in the second photo above). Neither of these powders is so light that it flies all over the room and up my nose, fortunately (looking at you, MUFE HD powder). Both jars have annoyingly domed lids so that you can't stack anything on top of them--the No7 is almost but not quite flat, just to rub it in. And they both came with very nice powder puffs inside, which, in both cases, I promptly lost, because I use a brush--so no photos, sorry.

My suggestion is that if you are similar to me in coloring, just go with the cheaper No7 option. It's available for the same price at Ulta and Target. If you are pale but very warm, and you're concerned that the No7 might not be a good match, the Laura Mercier powder might be a better bet--but honestly I would still probably gamble that the No7 would be translucent enough to work for you. If you have darker skin, it's probably going to be worth your while to purchase the darker Laura Mercier shade. And let's hope that No7 and other brands get their shit together and realize that even if something is translucent, a light shade is not going to work for everyone. Is it really so hard to produce two fucking shades?

ULTA Holographic Eye & Cheek Palette: My alternative to the Kat Von D Alchemist and Anastasia Beverly Hills Moonchild Palettes (and all the others)

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This is really just a post about something fun and shiny I've been playing with lately. Tons of photos, so be prepared! I got this Holographic Eye & Cheek Palette recently using some ULTA points (it's normally $16, but on sale for $8 right now). I'd been moving the Kat Von D Alchemist palette in and out of my Sephora cart for a few months. I love anything duochrome or shifty, but I had a hard time justifying $32 when I don't wear noticeable highlighter very often, and I doubted how much I'd actually use it as an eyeshadow transformer. I'm more of a 1-2 shades of eyeshadow person. For while I considered the BH Cosmetics Blacklight Highlight Palette, which contains 6 huge pans of iridescent highlighter for $17--but then I remembered that I was trying to minimize the amount of makeup I traveled with, and carting around an enormous highlighter supply probably wouldn't help me achieve that goal. (I'm not going to do a whole price-per-ounce analysis right now, but I can tell you that in the BH palette, you'll get a lot more product than in the ULTA palette for close to the same price, and in the KVD palette you'll get significantly less for twice the cost.)

So I settled on this ULTA option, in part because of my points, and in part because I've had good luck with ULTA brand products in the past. I think they're pretty underrated--the eyeliners are particularly great--and they always have some sort of sale on the store brand, so that you should never have to pay full price for anything.

As it turns out, I'm very happy that I bought this palette and equally happy that I didn't buy Alchemist, because while it's a lot of fun to play with, my predictions about how I would or wouldn't use it were accurate.

ULTA's Holographic Eye & Cheek Palette includes, as you can see, four iridescent, shifty, sheer highlighters. Have another look at the pans, and then I'll show about a million swatches after the cut.

It looks really pretty in the bathroom lighting, ok?

Beauty Blender Dupe? Review of L'Oréal Infallible Blend Artist Foundation Blender Sponge

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A few years ago, I wrote a post that discussed whether there was really a major difference between the original Beauty Blender sponge, which had just recently become the new big thing, and other pink makeup sponges that were beginning to appear on the market in imitation of the Beauty Blender for much less. At the time, I found that knock-offs didn't perform quite as well as the real deal. They worked okay, but there was a meaningful difference between Beauty Blender and the cheaper options available at the time--though I still balked at spending $20 on a single sponge. (By the way, it's 10% off from Nordstrom right now, if you are a die-hard fan. Don't pay full price!)

I happened to get two Beauty Blenders for free or very cheap over the years. The first one came in a Birchbox long ago, and the second, if I remember correctly, I got using points from my Ipsy account. Because I rarely wear foundation and I use the sponge dry to blend my concealer most of the time, those two sponges lasted a long time. You can see in the photo above that my second one (top above) is now a little worse for wear--not least because it became a cat toy one night--so I recently began to think about replacing it. I had that old, cheap pink sponge (bottom of photo above) in a drawer, and it worked fine, but I admit I'd got used to the soft bounciness of the real BB. I heard that the new makeup sponges from L'Oréal were some of the best affordable BB alternatives available, so I added their Foundation Blender sponge (middle above) to an Amazon order last month, where it's only $7. L'Oréal also has two other sponges in this line: a pointed, egg-shaped concealer blender, and a flat contour blender. I haven't tried those two, so I don't know if they perform similarly to the foundation sponge. Anyone?

The major advantage of the Beauty Blender over its cheapest knockoffs is that it's designed to be used wet in order to really blend and soften your foundation. When it's been soaked thoroughly in water and squeezed out, it increases in size significantly and becomes squishier. The water is also supposed to prevent too much foundation from being absorbed by the sponge, though you'll still end up using more product than you would applying it with your fingers or even with a brush. The cheap sponges tend to be harder and denser, and getting them wet doesn't alter their consistency much. The L'Oréal sponge, however, expands and softens just as much as the Beauty Blender when it's wet. For the photo below, I ran lukewarm water over each sponge while squeezing it out and letting it saturate again 10 times. You can see in the photo below, I think, that the BB and L'Oréal sponge have expanded more than the cheapie (though the difference is somehow less obvious in a photo than in person). It's too bad I don't have two of each sponge to show you a before and after, but the first two have grown by at least a third of their original size, and the third sponge has only expanded slightly.

My L'Oréal sponge feels a bit firmer and denser than the BB, though nothing at all like the other pink sponge. Mind you, I have been using the BB for over a year, and I can't remember if it felt denser when it was brand new.

In terms of actual use, the Beauty Blender and L'Oréal Foundation Blender perform similarly. When I use them dry, the BB seems slightly more absorbent, which helps to pick up any excess oiliness left behind by my concealer, but the L'Oréal sponge is not far behind. The main difference is the shape. The narrow tip of the BB is easier to use in the corners of my eyes and next to my nose, but if I pinch the tip of the L'Oréal sponge when I use it in those areas, the difference isn't an important one for me.

Used wet for foundation, the L'Oréal sponge (left below) blends out and sheers the product a bit more, which I like. But if you want a more opaque base without building it up, you might prefer the Beauty Blender (right below). (It's possible that this distinction is due to my BB being older and more worn. I can't be completely sure.)

Above: the same foundation applied with the wet L'Oréal Foundation Blender (left) and the wet Beauty Blender (right).

Oddly enough, the packaging for the L'Oréal blender doesn't mention using it wet, but it's clearly designed to be used that way, since it's made to expand and soften up just like a Beauty Blender. I wonder if that's some kind of trademark/patent thing.

One of the biggest benefits of the L'Oréal blender, in my opinion, it that it doesn't bleed pink dye the first half dozen times you wet it. (Yes, you can get other colors of Beauty Blenders, I know.)

I'm satisfied to fully recommend the L'Oréal Blend Artist Foundation Blender as a more affordable alternative to the Beauty Blender. To answer the question posed by my title, however, it's not a dupe due to the difference in shape and the sheerer application I got from it. But I am not a stickler for things being exact dupes. I'm curious about the other L'Oréal shapes, though I probably don't need additional sponges taking up space just for the sake of novelty.

By the way, Beauty Blender sells a special liquid cleanser for their sponges that works well. It's just castile soap, though, so instead of paying $18 for 5 oz., you can get 32 oz. of Dr. Bronner's for $16. (I haven't tried the BB bar soap, but I can't imagine it's anything miraculous either. Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Any Beauty Blender devotees out there, or do you use a cheaper option? I've heard mixed things about the Real Techniques sponges, though I think they can sometimes be found for slightly less.

New Wet N Wild Color Icon Blush in Pearlescent Pink vs. the old Pearlescent Pink

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Top: New Wet N Wild Color Icon Blush in Pearlescent Pink; bottom: the old Pearlescent Pink

So this is kind of fun: Racked recently linked to an old post of mine, where I complained that people kept calling Milani Luminoso an Orgasm dupe, when it obviously isn't, in their article about the rise of makeup dupe culture. So it seems like a good time to publish this post on another supposed-but-not-actual dupe for Orgasm: Wet N Wild Pearlescent Pink.

Wet N Wild recently reformulated their Color Icon blushes and redesigned the packaging. Some of the new blushes, including Pearlescent Pink, have the same names as the old ones, and there are also some new shades. The old Pearlescent Pink is one of my favorite blushes, but I could tell as soon as I looked at the new one on the store shelf that it wasn't the same, as I'm sure you can see in the photo above. It's weird talking about "dupes" when the two things are being presented as the same product, but this blush is not a dupe of itself. So I bought it (because why wouldn't I buy a blush that looks nothing like another blush I that really like?). Here's a comparison for you. Swatches first: (left to right) new Pearlescent Pink, old Pearlescent Pink, and Nars Orgasm.

Clearly neither of these is an Orgasm dupe, and to the overly picky eye of a makeup hoarder, the new and old Pearlescent Pinks are completely different. While the old one isn't exactly pearlescent (rather it has some gold sparkle in it), the new one is neither pearlescent nor pink. It's firmly in peach category. You can see the difference on my face, too.

Old Pearlescent Pink, which on me is a flattering shade of pink that looks like a natural flush:

New Pearlescent Pink, which isn't a bad blush color, but is so peachy it actually leans toward nude/beige on my face:

The formulas of the old and new versions are similar in some ways. They're both soft and kick up quite a bit of powder when you stick your brush in them. They both have some sparkle. The old version is more pigmented, so that I have to use a light touch, whereas I've found that I actually need to build up the new one a bit to get the look I want. How pigmented you want your blush to be is a matter of preference. It's easier to add more layers than to remove it if you go overboard, but it can also be more work to get a visible flush if a blush is too sheer. On the plus side, the new blush is a bit bigger at 0.2 oz. to the old 0.14 oz for the same price ($2.99). It's pretty rare that a makeup company redesigns packaging and actually gives you more product.

The new blush is fine, but I'm annoyed that my old favorite is gone and that they're pretending this new one is somehow the same thing. It's not fucking pink. It's a different product, so it should have a different name. I probably have a few good years left with my original Pearlescent Pink, since it's a huge pan (even in the old size) and I only need to use a very small amount at a time. If, however, you like it as much as I do and want to stock up while you still can, Amazon still has the old Pearlescent Pink available for under $5 with free shipping.

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A possible dupe for the discontinued Wet N Wild Fergie Eyeshadow Primer? Black Radiance Eyeshadow Primer

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When I found out that Wet N Wild was discontinuing their Fergie line, my first thought was BUT WHAT ABOUT THE EYESHADOW PRIMER? It's been my favorite for a few years now, and in all my tests it performs as well as or better than all the more expensive options I've tried: Urban Decay, Too Faced, and LORAC here, and Nars here. So despite still having half a very worn-out tube--i.e. at least 6 months' worth--of the Fergie stuff left, I panicked and bought a tube of Black Radiance Eyeshadow Primer. (This was in the short period after the Fergie stuff has disappeared but before the new Wet N Wild Photo Focus Eyeshadow Primer had appeared.) Black Radiance is owned by the same company as Wet N Wild, and so the packaging of their products is very similar, along with the price point. The ingredients of the Black Radiance primer and the Wet N Wild Fergie primer are also similar, though not identical.

Black Radiance Eyeshadow Primer:

Isododecane, Talc, Trimethylsiloxysilicate, CyclopentaSiloxane, Polyethylene, Disteardimonium Hectorite, VP, Eicosene Copolymer, Synthetic Beeswax, Propylene Carbonate, Pentaerythrityl Tetraisostearate, Sorbitan Sesquioleate, Boron Nitride, Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate, Phenoxyethanol, Sorbic Acid, Bisabolol, Octyldodecyl Stearoyl Stearate, Capric Triglyceride, Caprylic, Acrylates Copolymer, Magnesium Carbonate, Crithmum Maritimum Extract, Nelumbo Nucifera Stamen Extract, Bismuth Oxychloride (CI 77163), Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891)

Wet N Wild Fergie Eyeshadow Primer:

Isododecane, Talc, Cyclopentasiloxane, Trimethylsiloxysilicate, Disteardimonium Hectorite, Polyethylene, Vp/Eicosene Copolymer, Boron Nitride, Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate, Propylene Carbonate, Sorbitan Sesquioleate, Synthetic Beeswax, Pentaerythrityl Tetraisostearate, Methicone, Phenoxyethanol, Acrylates Copolymer, Magnesium Carbonate, Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Bisabolol, Sorbic Acid, Octyldodecyl Stearoyl Stearate, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Crithmum Maritimum Extract, Dimethiconol, Nelumbo Nucifera Stamen Extract, Bismuth Oxychloride/Ci 77163, Iron Oxides/Ci 77491, Ci 77492, Ci 77499, Titanium Dioxide/Ci 77891 0812.

Note that there was also, I think, a pink, shimmery Fergie primer, but this is for the translucent beige version, called "For My Primas." (Yep.)

The things I'm looking for in an eyeshadow primer are as follows, in order of importance: prevents creasing on my extremely oily eyelids, intensifies pigment, and prevents fading. Ideally it will also provide a smoother surface for applying eyeshadow, but I can work around that.

So first, here is a comparison of how these two primers work to intensify eyeshadow, using a terrible CoverGirl eyeshadow single that I keep around at this point just to test primers. On the left there is a swatch with no primer, in the middle over the Black Radiance primer, and on the right over the Wet N Wild Fergie Primer.

I think the Black Radiance swatch looks slightly more intense here, but it may just be the angle. They looked about the same in person. You can see a slight whitish halo around the edges of the Fergie swatch. I'd read people who complained that the Fergie primer was too light and showed up as chalky on their eyelids. Because light beige things tend to blend in with my skin, it can be hard to tell if they are translucent or just pale, so I swatched the two primers over a black eyeliner (Urban Decay Zero): Black Radiance at the top, and Fergie on the bottom.

I used the same amount of each product, so you can clearly see that the Fergie stuff has more light pigment in it. The Black Radiance primer is also a little thicker, though, so it picked up a bit of the eyeliner when I swiped it. I haven't noticed that this difference in thickness makes it any more difficult to apply to the eyelid, by the way.

So I'd call them even in terms of intensifying eyeshadow, but the pigmentation of the two might make a difference for you: if you have light skin and prefer a translucent beige primer to even out the color of your lids, you won't get that from the Black Radiance primer--which makes sense, since this is a brand designed for black women. Personally, I am happy with the more translucent primer, because I will just use a beige eyeshadow if I want to. It's more versatile.

As for the other factors in performance, creasing and fading, the Black Radiance primer is amazing at preventing creasing. Even on my sweatiest and oiliest days, if I use this, my eyeshadow does not fucking crease at all. Most of the time the Fergie stuff doesn't crease either, but sometimes with cream eyeshadows, at the end of a long day I'll notice some mild creasing. Probably only I can see it when I wink at the mirror from 6 inches away, but still. The Black Radiance is that tiny bit more effective.

On the other hand, my eyeshadow does seem to fade more using the Black Radiance primer than the Fergie primer. The Fergie stuff keeps it at the same intensity pretty much all day, while it looks a little lackluster after a day of wear over the Black Radiance stuff.

For that last reason, the Black Radiance primer isn't a perfect replacement for the Fergie primer, but it's an excellent alternative, if you can find it. This brand is, unfortunately, not available everywhere. My local Walmart sells Black Radiance products, but not all of them do. I bought this tube from drugstore.com--and it's only $4, slightly less than the $5 Wet N Wild option.

I've heard conflicting reports of the new Wet N Wild Photo Focus primer. Supposedly it has the same ingredients as the Fergie one, and the packaging looks a lot alike, but some people report that it doesn't work as well. Others say that it is, in fact, identical. I'll probably pick up a tube when I am running low on the Fergie stuff to compare them. In the meantime, if you are desperate for another tube of the Fergie primer, you can get it for $13 on Amazon--still cheaper than Urban Decay etc.!

Have you tried the new Wet N Wild primer? I'm curious what the consensus is--if it has the same ingredients list as the old one, it should work the same, right?

What's in a dupe? Revlon Matte Balm in Sultry vs. Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Touch of Spice

Disclosure: Affiliate links.

During last fall and early this winter, I kept reading recommendations for Revlon Matte Balm in Sultry from reliable sources and seeing Instagram posts of people wearing it and looking stunning. I became convinced that I needed it, despite my previously less-than-stellar experiences with two of the lipsticks in that line: Elusive (reviewed here) and Striking (reviewed here). Surely if so many sensible people liked Sultry, there must be something to it. And indeed, the performance of Sultry is vastly better than the other two matte balms, both in terms of application (not streaky) and wear (not patchy).

But when I got it home and put it on, something seemed eerily familiar. Oh shit, I bought a dupe! Why did I want this when I already had the very similar Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Touch of Spice? You can see from the swatches below that they are quite close.

They're not identical, but they fit into the same basic category. Touch of Spice (left) is a more brown/neutral with a little grey, while Sultry has some more plummy-red in it.

On my face, the difference is subtle, but one lipstick is noticeably more flattering on me than the other. The second time I wore Sultry, I had also been playing around with some subtle contouring. When I looked at my face in the bathroom mirror, it looked kind of dirty, and I thought I had messed up the contouring. But then I got to thinking about how similar my new lipstick was to Touch of Spice and decided to remove Sultry and replace it with the Maybelline lipstick to compare. All of the sudden, my contouring looked fine. I looked healthier. As it turns out, the subtle difference in the two lipsticks makes a real difference when I wear them.

Why did no one tell me that Maybelline Color Tattoo in Vintage Plum sucks so much?

Disclosure: Affiliate links.

I picked this up semi-impulsively at CVS a few weeks ago. By which I mean that I'd thought about buying it before and then once CVS had some kind of sale, I grabbed it without doing any further research. I remembered reading mostly positive reviews of the Leather collection of Color Tattoos, though some reviews mentioned that a couple of the shades were a little streaky. Really, I should have looked up reviews before I bought this, but in this case, I don't think it would have saved me much grief. Most of the reviews I have subsequently found are rather glowing ("must have!"), though if I had encountered this particular review of Vintage Plum, I might have given it a second or third thought. Because this eyeshadow is straight up garbage.

Either there are variations in the quality of Vintage Plum, other people have magic powers, or . . . I won't say, but you can probably guess what I think the real reason for the positive reviews of this crap is. It's so streaky that it's utterly impossible to use. I don't think it would make a lot of difference whether you have a different skin type, because it's almost as streaky swatching on my arm, which is not oily like my eyelids--but I'd be interested to hear if anyone has made this work.

I read some suggestions that Vintage Plum is similar to Tough as Taupe, but it's really not, either in color or in performance. Vintage Plum looks almost pinkish-taupe in the jar, but when you apply it, it's a greyed-out purple that's patchy as fuck. Tough as Taupe, even from my pot that is a couple of years old, is a smoothly-opaque taupe. It may look a little uneven in the swatch, but it's easy to blend out evenly on my eyelid. Vintage Plum, however, is a nightmare. Below is as good as I could get it to look. The photo was taken within minutes of application; it's not that the eyeshadow has worn off like this. This is how it went on.

This eyeshadow has a creamy texture in the pot, but becomes terribly patchy and streaky when I try to apply it. There's no way to make it work. The photo above is applied over primer, but it was the same without. It dries very quickly and then flakes, so it's hard to blend--when I try, it rubs right off. Yet despite setting quickly, it nevertheless disappears in patches after it dries like some overly creamy products do. If I try to just apply a light wash, it's still streaky and it balls up when I blend it out. If I try to add a second layer, it removes the first layer and gets even more patchy. I suppose some people might use this as a base for other colors, but really what's the point? I don't want to cover it up. And I already use primer to intensify my eyeshadow, so an additional layer is unnecessary.

SO FUCKING FRUSTRATING.

It's especially frustrating, because I love love love the color. Many purples are too red for me, but this is very greyed out, while remaining definitely purple, not taupe or pink. If I ignore the mess, the color is really flattering on me. Of course that means I'm searching for dupes and having a hard time finding anything comparable. Urban Decay Cult looks like a real possibility, but it's discontinued. As is MAC Dove Feather. The taupe in my Wet N Wild Silent Treatment trio is not purplish enough. Laura Mercier Plum Smoke is too warm/brown. I guess Kryolan Dusk might work, but I don't know if I am ready to gamble $22 (with shipping) on an eyeshadow single. Help??

Drugstore Dupe for Anastasia Brow Wiz (from Budget Beauty Blog)

The Budget Beauty Blog is a great source for dupe info. Here she compares Anastasia Brow Wiz (the pencil) to the new L'Oreal Brow Stylist Definer, and finds that they are nearly identical. Nice!

CoverGirl TruNaked Roses Eyeshadow Palette Review (with swatches)

Disclosure: Affiliate links.

Day after day after day of overcast gloom is crushing my creativity, and I can't think of a jazzy title for this post. Don't mistake that for my being unenthusiastic about this eyeshadow palette. I've been having a lot of fun with it, and the quality is remarkable. I do recommend it.

There have been lots of drugstore nude palettes released in the last year or so in apparent competition with the mega-popularity of Urban Decay's Naked line and other higher end palettes. Most of them, from L'Oreal, Revlon, Maybelline, etc., have received pretty lackluster reviews, doing nothing to improve the reputation of drugstore eyeshadows, so I hadn't been at all interested in getting them. But then last month swatches of CoverGirl's new TruNaked palettes appeared on a few blogs, and they looked much more promising. They each have 8 pans and there are three varieties: Goldens, Nudes, and Roses, corresponding to Naked 1, 2, and 3, it seems. The comparison with Urban Decay is made pretty explicit by the marketing for these CG palettes, including the sticked on the front that reads: "shades like a leading $50 eye shadow palette." UD Naked palettes are usually $54, but close enough. It turns out that these eyeshadows really are quite comparable to the UD eyeshadows I've used--for better or for worse.

I was most tempted by the Roses palette, in part because I have been curious about Naked 3 since it came out, but not enough to spend that much money on it. Pinks and reds, and even reddish-purples, in eyeshadows tend to look dreadful on me, despite all the usual tricks like separating them from my eyes with thick black liner and so forth. $12 feels like a much more reasonable gamble than $54. The Goldens palette was also stunning under the drugstore lights, but I'm pretty sure I have dupes for all of its shades. Roses was the most appealing. Look:

Here it is in direct sunlight to show off the sparkle:

The back of the palette has names for all of the shades, which are, left to right: Almond, Champagne, Baby, Rose Gold, Copper Rose, Dusk, Mauvergine, and Mousse. The matte shades are Almond, Baby, and Copper Rose, though they are more of a satin matte than completely flat. In the pan, Champagne, Rose Gold, and Mousse have the most sparkle--in use, however, all four of the darkest shades look mostly matte. You can see what I mean in my swatches on bare skin (no primer):

I think that most of the swatches I've seen elsewhere must have been done with a finger rather than with a brush, like I used here. With a finger they would be smoother and more opaque, but they are still nicely pigmented no matter what. There is none of the patchiness that appears in these swatches when I use them on my eyelids. (Almond is invisible only because it's the same color as my skin.)

You can see that the darker shades in particular are a bit crumbly and messy. That's what I meant about these being similar to UD for better for for worse. I've had a number of UD shadows, both a number of singles and the Dangerous Palette (reviewed here), and my main complaint is that they are excessively pigmented and messy. They have a lot of fallout. More pigmentation is usually considered a good thing in eyeshadow, but it does mean you have to be careful, especially if you have limited eyelid space for blending like I do. You have to use an extremely light touch and blow excess off your brush, etc. I actually didn't have nearly as much of a problem with fallout with these CG shadows as I've had with UD, but they are very soft and crumbly in the pan. For that reason, and because this type of clear plastic packaging is prone to cracking in my experience, this palette probably wouldn't be the best choice for travel.

I originally planned to include photos of all the looks I've created using this CG palette--and I've done a lot, because it's really fun to play with--but it soon became obvious that this long stretch of overcast days combined with my shitty camera doesn't make for attractive or useful photos of that sort. But I will show you an outtake to illustrate what I described above.

This photo was taken the first time I experimented with the palette, before I'd really got the hang of it. It shows the downside of impressive pigmentation, I think. See that stupid-looking line of dark brown shadow across my crease? My usual technique is to use a slightly pointed brush to draw a sort of line along the crease and then to use a bigger, rounded brush to blend. That doesn't work very well with this stuff, especially if you use primer. This photo shows the result after a ton of fucking blending. It was not going anywhere. I recommend using a very small amount, adding more only if you need it, and using a fluffy, not dense, brush to apply it. The Real Techniques Base Shadow brush (part of the Starter Kit), which has a sort of duo fiber thing going on, works well. If you don't need to use primer to prevent creasing and fading like I do, then you might just as well go without. These shadows don't need any assistance in the pigmentation department.

Here are the swatches in direct sunlight, again to show that when you actually apply these shadows, it's really only Champagne and Rose Gold that are particularly shimmery.

Most of these shadows, even those that look very pink in the pan or in swatches, come off as more mauve or brownish with a purple tinge on me, which makes them very wearable. I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I love the colors. You can use them to create some stunning, not-too-sickly, gothic romance heroine looks.

I had a $5 CVS coupon that I used on this palette, so I got it for $8 and some change, which I think is very reasonable. The only place I've seen it online so far is at ULTA, where it's priced at $12, which is cheaper than CVS at full price. They also have a BOGO 50% off sale of all CoverGirl right now, so if you need something else (a second palette??), you can get an even better deal.

ETA: You can now get this palette for just $10 at Target. Much better!

Because sometimes I can be fooled by an overall lower price, I was curious how this palette compared per ounce to the value of Urban Decay Naked 3. Naked 3 is $54 for 0.6 oz. of product, which makes it $90 per ounce. CoverGirl Roses is 0.23 oz. for (about) $12, which makes it $52 per oz. Significantly cheaper! Phew. (With UD you're paying more for sturdier packaging, blah blah.)

All in all, this is an unusually impressive eyeshadow palette from the drugstore and well worth the price. It is on par with Urban Decay and as good as just about any other more expensive eyeshadow I've tried. Highly recommended--just use a soft touch!