Review: Lime Crime Venus Palette

I wanted to blog about this for a while, but now I finally came around to actually use the palette that I am going to review here.
Lime Crime has a kind of mixed reputation but my post will not be about the drama and stuff but simply about the product. I own exactly 2 Lime Crime products as of now, not sure if I will buy more though, not because of the performance but because of all the drama....
Anyway I ordered 2 items, the Lime Crime Velvetine Liquid Lipstick in "Faded" for 15$ and the Venus Eyeshadow Palette for 19$. I ordered both of them over dollskill on black friday, hence the cheap price!
I will first only review the palette but here are both products pictured:

I have to admit that Lime Crime get an A+ when it comes to the overall design and packaging of their products. They look classy yet still playful! Also I have been wanting to at least get my hands on the velvetine lipsticks for all their hype but because the Venus Palette was on sale, too, I just ended up impulse buying it....

 The Venus pictured looks just like Doe Deere hehe... Well I love the idea and design behind this and the concept, too, which defines the colours as very warm and autumn like.

As you can see there is a total of 8 different eyeshadows, ranging from an illuminating eggshell white to a cool dark chocolate brown. I like the prevalence of red-ish toned colours, because they can look very cool as part of an eye-makeup. Still the palette seems to be very warm-toned.

The swatch shows a great pigmentation (I used Mac Studio Fix fluid as a base as I always do) and very vibrant colors overall, except maybe for aura, which seems to be not as pigmented. But after having used it for a simple eye-makeup I have to disagree with this swatch - cause aura is actually very well pigmented, too!

My super simple Eye-Makeup needed the colours shell and aura as base, venus and creation to darken the look. I used some of venus as a way to line my under-eye softly. I actually like this look very much, as always it's not very over the top but that is exactly how I'd wear it out in public! I used Mac's painterly paint pot as a base and the eyeshadow stayed on the whole day in it's vibrant way. Here is the look as a whole:

I know that the eye-makeup is not super visible in selfies like these, but the point is to show how the overall look works for me. And selfies are a great way to try that out... 

My general impression of the Venus Palette is very positive and I found it to be a great palette for that price! Of course that was a special offer so I don't know if I would have bought it for the original one... 

MAC Paint Pots

From a Douglas Haul some time ago I got this wonderful little thing: the MAC Paint Pot in Painterly! It cost me 20 € for 5 g and at first I was skeptical about paying such a high sum of money for a mere eyeshadow that is actually my skin color. But it is actually more!

It is also an eyeshadow base, and a damn good one at that! It has a creamy texture that melts perfectly on my skin, doesn’t feel too heavy but it lasts so so long! I sometimes just use it bare as an eyeshadow for very natural looks to make my eyes pop and look more awake! Here’s a comparison pic:

Needless to say that it makes eyeshadows of all kind more intense and long-lasting. But I really really like the bare eyeshadow, too, how smooth it looks on my lid and everything AND it is totally non-creasing. Too me the difference is big because I like a matt finish that makes my eyes look fresh! A very good investment!

Review: Too Faced Shadow Insurance Eye Shadow Primer

I already mentioned that I got this eyeshadow primer from Too Faced some days ago in the mail. It was $8 on ebay and I’ve been always looking to get a good primer because I thought there had to be a better one than my artdeco primer that was so difficult to apply because of it’s dryish-creamy texture. I was positively impressed by this new primer.

It comes in a tube of 11 grams and is quite easy to handle and to apply. The texture reminds me very much of liquid foundations and it blends in perfectly. The real convincing argument for getting this was the comparison between the eye-shadow applied without the primer and with the primer:

I just used some cheap astor eye-shadow in black as I didn’t have any of my palettes with me. On the left without and on the right with primer. Amazing, it’s such a huge difference. Now I know the quality of this particular eyeshadow is not very good to begin with but then again that’s why the primer is even more convincing, it changes the pigments from nonexistent to a strong black!!! And it doesn’t smudge or wear off quickly (or at all for that matter, at least not through the hours I wore it).

Will definitely buy again because I don’t see any downside to this primer, and the price is great, too, when I compare it to the crappy artdeco primer I used to spend $12 on…