Blue and Purple Eye

For some reason I have been craving blue and purple makeup. So here is an eye look I did with yellow gold in the inner corner into blue into purple and into darker purple with a touch of black. There seems to be a greenish cast on the crease but I did not use any green at all.

I created this look using the Coastal Scents 88 palette. I primed with MAC's Painterly. The eyes were lined with IN2IT black liquid liner and Loreal Ultra Volume Mascara was used on my lashes. Seeing that it is so fierce, it would be wise to keep the rest of the face light!

Have a great weekend y'all!

Dupes for the Urban Decay Naked Palette

Here it is for all you dear readers out there who are wondering whether to purchase this magnifisome (magnificent and awsome rolled into one) palette. Personally, you should splurge on the Urban Decay palette and keep it in your stash for I guarantee that this is the one palette you will be going to over and over again for all sorts of looks. If you are into smoky, sultry looks or even something toned down for the office, this is a sure winner. I am thinking of buying another one of these as a backup - THAT'S how much I love the colors!!

In a rather primitive way, I have swatched the colors on a piece of paper and swatched both the original and the dupe alongside each other. The good news for you is that most of the colors can be found in the Coastal Scents 88 Warm palette. Two of the colors I have taken from the Coastal Scents 88 Eyeshadow Palette. So if you do have the 88 Warm palette, then you are indeed in luck and can get your fingers stuck in with creating the numerous looks possible with these colors. Humbly I submit that these dupes are colors that I found which look as close or close enough to the original UD Naked Palette and if you have the same palette and feel that there are other colors which are a closer match, then please do let me know.

What you see here is the Urban Decay Palette on the Right and the 88 Palette on the left. I believe that the colors are quite a close match and you will be able to get a similar effect layering the 88 palette to get a deeper color. I have only used my fingers for the swatches and as some of the UD colors are shimmers, the camera does not pick that up very well. I will let you know how I referenced the 88 colors below as these colors have no name.

What are your thoughts on the dupes? Quite amazingly similar right? The colors that were the most difficult to find a match for in the CS palettes was Half Baked and Gunmetal. Half Baked is in two words:- liquid gold! It is quite hard to replicate that and I am thinking of  MAC painpots in Bare Study or Cash Flow as good dupes. The Gunmetal dupe had a slight greenish tint which was not present to the naked eye prior to swatching. As for Darkhorse, the color is pretty spot on if you layer it a few times. My swatch was just two swipes in the picture clearly not enough to get the deep chocolatey goodness of the original.

If you are interested in trying out the Naked look and do not already have the palette because it is sold out or yours is on the way or even if you are just curious as to what the hype is all about, then do give these colors from your 88 palette a test drive and see if you like them. You might just be convinced to get the original to keep after you fall in love with the versatile looks you can recreate!

So if you see the swatches of the 88 colors above, you will notice that they are referenced this way:- 3/3 W or 10/2 ESP. 3/3 means the third row from the left and the third color down. The 'W' or 'ESP' after the number reference is 'W' for Warm and 'ESP' for Eye Shadow Palette. The palette you see directly below here is the Warm Palette which is where the majority of the dupes are found. The palette below that is the Eye Shadow palette with its mixture of brights and browns.



The 88 Warm Palette from Coastal Scents

The 88 Eye Shadow Palette from Coastal Scents

I do hope that these dupes have inspired you to find similar colors for the UD Naked palette in other brands. I know MAC has some dupe-worthy colors that you can use as a substitute for some of the colors in the Naked palette. What is important is that you are not restricted by just the colors of one brand - even if there is a huge cult following sometimes, it is just as fun to walk on the wild side and see that colors, as varied as they are, do still have similar undertones and can be replicated successfully. Have fun!

Coastal Scents Acquisitions

What a blast last week was - I received three packages; a bag for subscribing to a monthly magazine, a paper shredder that I got in exchange for some rewards points and finally, last Friday my month long wait for 2 items I purchased from Coastal Scents finally arrived! They are the 88 Color Eye Shadow Palette and he Comouflage Concealer Palette that you see below.

I was most interested in the Concealer Palette as my current concealers were doing a blah job of covering dark rings around my eyes from bouts of insomnia. This time, I went for the industrial strength concealer to tackle the job!

The 88 eye shadow palette was more to fulfil my curiosity of this beast of a palette- I mean, come on EIGHTY EIGHT?? This will last at least the next 3 generations and then some! Oh well.....you never know when the need for neon pink shadow will arise and if indeed it does, I shall be prepared for sure. Mum's already got her eyes (pun intended) on the earthy tones of the palette.  

My little girls were so happy with the new toy and volunteered to be my models and I did need the extra help swatching all 88 for you, dear readers. Feast your eyes on the following.....

Models Caitlyn-Jane and Anoushka-Joy show you swatches of Rows 1 to 4

Rows 5 to 8

And finally.....when both 'models' threw a diva fit claiming they were tired, I had to take over and swatch rows 9 to 11!

I take back what I said earlier....after taking a good look at the swatches, I can see myself wearing these colors. As they say in the industry, blend, blend, blend!

As for the concealers, if you see the picture below, I played around with it and found that it concealed really well. I used a mix of colors and it looks a whole lot better than the unconcealed eye.

What do you think, dear readers?