pacifica enlighten eye brightening shadow palette

Makeup review the second! Today we're going to discuss the other, less terrible half of my Pacifica makeup purchases from Target. This was $11.99 in the store, but is listed at $14.99 on the Pacifica website. Spoilers: I really like it. Thank god.

Swatches of Skinnydip, Coral Sands, Golden, and Urchin

The colors in this palette are:

Skinnydip: "Matte nude base cover or lash liner. A universal highlighter."
Coral Sand: "Satin coral for lid base or highlighter." 
Golden: "Perfect gold with just the right amount of shimmer.  Use on the lids and/or for highlighting."
Urchin: "Iridescent jeweled purple with gold tones.  Perfect for lining and crease."

The descriptions on these aren't nearly as insipid or flowery as those on the cream shimmers. They're also pretty accurate, although they are listed from dark to light on the box which totally bugs me. Skinnydip is a almost matte pink-leaning cream shade, Coral Sands is a light shimmery peach, Golden is a yellow gold, and Urchin is a dark purple. It doesn't strike me as particularly iridescent, but it is pretty.

They're decently pigmented - not spectacular, but they get the job done. All of the swatches above are a single swipe on bare skin. With the exception of Golden, the shadows are creamy and a bit powdery, but I don't notice any fallout. Golden is kind of hard and difficult to pick up comparatively, but it still applies fine. None are glitterbombs; I'd call them all satin finish, even the "matte" highlight. Coral Sand is a great lid color that really brightens up the eye, Skinnydip is the perfect inner corner/brow highlight, and Urchin is a beautiful liner. I've used it wet and dry for this purpose and it works well either way. Golden is my least favorite color, but that's just personal preference. I don't love yellow golds. My skin has yellow/olive undertones to start with so yellow golds tend to make me look jaundiced if I'm not careful. I would've loved to see a medium brown in its place since the only thing I think this palette lacks is a good everyday crease color. They indicate that Urchin could/should be used in the crease, and maybe some people can work that, but it's a bit dramatic for my preference.

Comparison swatches!

Skinnydip and Coral Sand are similar - but not identical to - two colors from my favorite everyday eyeshadow palette ever, Wet n Wild's Walking on Eggshells (seriously though, Walking on Eggshells 4EVA). Skinnydip is slightly pinker than the browbone color in Walking on Eggshells, and Coral Sand is a peachier version of the lid color. Both Pacifica shadows are less pigmented and slightly warmer than the WnW ones.

Overall I really do like these shadows. They could stand to be a bit more pigmented, but the colors are all pretty and good for a glowy, natural look. They wear well over primer - I get minor creasing after 8 hours or so, but I have problem with most eyeshadows so I don't think it's a knock against these.

To sum up, the pros: Pretty, wearable colors, reasonable good quality, affordable, gorgeous packaging, cruelty-free and vegan.

And the cons: Could be more pigmented, Golden is a bit hard and scratchy, and in my opinion the palette lacks a good crease color.

Would I buy it again? Yes. It's not perfect, but I do like it a lot and I find myself reaching for it most days since I bought it. I'd like to see Pacifica put out more of these.

pacifica radiant shimmer coconut multiples

The color on the left (front) of the box is more accurate.

I was bopping around Target the other day, looking for something they didn't have - I always seem to be looking for the one thing they don't have - when I noticed a new Pacifica display. With makeup! I love Pacifica - their Indian Coconut Nectar scent is amazing - so I couldn't resist the temptation to pick a few things up. I bought an eyeshadow palette and this trio of cream things. Both were $11.99 at Target, which is a bit cheaper than the Pacifica website, where they're listed at $14.99. There is also a bb cream, apparently, but sadly it wasn't available at the store.

Today we're talking about the cream palette. Or the "radiant shimmer coconut multiples," as Pacifica is calling it. In short: I hate it. Like, a lot. A lot. Let's run down why.

Swatches of Bronzed, Island Rose, and Moonlit

The three shades in the palette are:

Bronzed: "Perfectly glowing sun-kissed color with golden shimmer."
Island Rose: "Shimmering, radiant dewy pink."
Moonlit: "Iridescent pale shades of moon-kissed shimmer."

Ugh, those descriptions. "Pale shades of moon-kissed shimmer." Whatever. Bronzed is orangey-bronze, Island Rose is a light mauvey-pink, and Moonlit is a pale pinky-peach.

The texture of these things is really thin, slippery, and greasy. Since the packaging says they can be used on eyes, lips, or cheeks, I expected something a bit thicker and more substantial. But no. The colors are nice, I guess, but ultimately useless for me since they suck in all applications. They're all incredibly sheer. The swatches above are two layers each, and you can see how light they are on my pale skin. In the interest of giving them a fair shot, I tried them out in all the ways suggested on the packaging. Here's how that went down.

Eyes: I knew these weren't going to work as eyeshadows. You have to layer them up to get any color payoff, and because of the texture they creased immediately with and without a primer. I actually noticed them basically taking off my eye primer as I patted the layers on, which was weird. You can use the lightest shade as a brow/inner corner highlighter if you must, but it's really subtle and fades quickly.

Lips: I hate how these look on the lips. And only the middle shade is a viable lip color on someone with my coloring anyway, unless you want to look like you have advanced leprosy. Or have been eating a fudgesicle. Unfortunately even the middle rosy shade doesn't work here. It's frosty and it sinks into lines and emphasizes dry patches. The whole effect was gross.

Cheeks: I figured they'd be okay here, at least. I was wrong. The blush shade is so sheer that it barely shows up on my skin, and I'm pretty fair. And because of the texture, by the time you're done blending them out you've completely rubbed them off and all that's left is glittery bits. The bronzer is the most pigmented of the three but still doesn't show up well, and most people don't want a shimmery orange bronzer anyway. The highlight shade is pretty, I'll give it that, and I've worn it a few times dabbed on my cheekbones. It works okay in that capacity, but it lasts about half a minute.

Basically these are terrible. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with them, other than stare at the palette and get angry that I spent $12 on something that is literally useless. I'm glad Pacifica is branching out into makeup and I hope they continue to expand their offerings, but this product is just a massive fail.

To sum up, the pros: gorgeous packaging, they smell nice (kind of like coconut, unsurprisingly), reasonable affordable, cruelty-free and vegan. It even says so right on the box, which is always helpful.

And the cons: Thin, greasy texture, super sheer, does not work well for eyes, lips, or cheeks, thereby rendering it completely useless. Yay!

Would I buy it again? No. I would, however, gain immense satisfaction from throwing it in the garbage. Seriously, save your money.

state of the blog 2.6.13

I'm a bit under the weather today, so instead of trying to sniff and review something with a drippy nose I thought I'd post some random bits about what will be coming up on the blog in the near future.

I've got small (very small! really!) orders coming my way from Solstice Scents and Haus of Gloi at the moment, so look forward to reviews of HoG's new Butterbombs and Solstice Scents' new premium fragrance, Rose Mallow Cream. I don't know when I started liking rose scents so much - or at all, really - but it's like ever since Come Hither wormed its way under my skin I can't resist them. Rose Mallow Cream sounds amazing: a mix of genuine rose absolutes, marshmallow, and white chocolate. So amazing, in fact, that I didn't even bother ordering a sample first. Hopefully that doesn't come back to bite me.

I'll also be getting quite a large amount of Arcana oils in in the near future - 7 bottles, plus samples. But I don't have to feel bad about this one! I did an illustration for Julia to use in the Valentine's collection, and part of my payment is coming in product. (Best currency.) It was a really fun job and I'm super happy with how it came out. She ended up using it on two labels (Venus Callipyge and Venus Libertina), so I'll be posting about that both here and on my art blog once I receive the bottles. In addition to those I'll have Amorini, CakeLust, Star Light, Quim, Murder Ballad Blues, and a sample of Bonfires at Dusk to review. Probably a few others as well. I already have a sample of Quim, and spoilers: I love it.

Moving on from perfume (WUT) to the "vegan beauty" part of the description up there under the title... I haven't really done much of that yet, but I want to! I'm both a beauty junkie and a long-time vegan, so yeah, I want to talk about it. I think I've avoided it because to be honest it's a very complicated topic and everyone draws their personal line in a different place, so what I consider vegan, someone else may not. I'll explain my stance when I post my first beauty bit, which should be sometime soon-ish because...

I think I found a vegan bb cream AT THE DRUGSTORE! Emphasis on I think. It's by a company that doesn't test, and wading through the ingredients doesn't set off any immediate red flags. I'll do a more thorough check before I post about it, but I'd give it a preliminary thumbs up. Whether or not it matches my skin at all remains entirely to be seen, however.

Actually come to think of it, the generic CVS store brand version of the Garnier bb cream might be vegan too. Unfortunately the lightest color is light/medium, which, if it's anything like the one it's knocking off, is both too dark and Oompa Loompa orange.

So yeah, I'm kind of bb cream crazy lately. Just foundation crazy in general, really. I was never much into bases and face makeup until recently, but now I'm all about them and I'm finding it very difficult to get one that is vegan and matches my weird pale yellowy/olive skin tone and works with my currently oily/dry combo skin type and provides light, non-masky coverage and isn't loose minerals and isn't $45 a tube. And and and. My list of things to try includes: OCC's tinted moisturizer (currently sold out, wah wah), Tarte's new bb cream, and Too Faced's version. A trip to Ulta is in my near future for sure. I've also been experimenting with making my own bb cream/souped up tinted moisturizer type thing, which, we'll see how that goes.

I think that's it? I've been testing out two cheap mascaras with predictably mixed results. And I'm eyeing up a couple of Too Faced blushes right now (as in they've been in my bag on the Sephora website for like two weeks) but I haven't pulled the trigger yet. Perhaps, perhaps.

And now I'm going to go back to sniffling under the covers and watching Pretty Little Liars.

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