Soft purples using Love is a Story palette + review

Hi, everyone! I’m back again with another tutorial, and this time I’m using the Love is a Story palette by Zoeva People seemed to really like the last tutorial I did so I thought it was about time I did another one

Firstly, here is everything that I used (I didn’t do my entire face, just eye makeup today)

As always, I first added a base to my eyelid and for this I used the NARS Radiant Creamy Concealer in the shade Chantilly

I then dusted the colour Film Star from the Love is a Story palette all over my lid so set the concealer so that it wasn’t tacky. Next, I took the shade Affair and dusted it through my crease to give my eye some dimension

 

The shade Past Romance is next, and I did the same thing as I did with affair, dusting it through the crease and concentrating a little on the outer corner for some shape

 

I decided to go in a different direction to what I originally planned and proceeded to place Past Romance all over the entire lid

Next comes the shade Old Fashioned and I concentrated this to the outer corner of my eye as well as slightly going through the crease for some darkness and dimension

As you can probably see in the photos before, there was some choppiness of the eyeshadow towards the inner portion of the eye so I had to work to blend it out. I’m not sure why this happens to me, it seems to happen almost every time I use eyeshadows and it can be a bit of a pain! Any tips?
Anyway, I then highlighted my brow bone and inner corner using Film Star (the first shade) and took Old Fashioned under the lower lashline to darken it up a tad

Next, I tightlined with my Too Faced waterproof eyeliner and added some mascara to my top and bottom lashes using Maybelline’s Great Lash mascara

And here’s a close up of the eye look! Not the most exciting look in the world, but it’s something that I would wear on a date night, because it’s soft and romantic
If you have them, adding some half lashes to the outer corners would look amazing, as would using a flesh toned eyeliner on the lower waterline. Unfortunately, I have neither at the moment so I just left my natural lashes with mascara and didn’t touch my lower waterline

Now I thought we could take a closer look at this palette that I used
This palette is about half neutral tones and half brighter, poppy colours (is that a thing? I’m making it a thing)
Now every single one of these shadows are beautifully pigmented, as you can see in the swatches above (all shades swatched with no primer) however, when applying them to my eye, I found that they were a tiny bit too soft, by this I mean that there was a small amount of kick up when I dipped my brush into the colour with my brush. In saying that, though, it wasn’t too much, but I did notice it in the pan when I removed the brush
The shadows I used on my eye all blended out beautifully
Overall, I really like this palette and hopefully I’ll get a lot of use out of it
I’d give this palette about a 8.5/10

As usual, all products were purchased by me, with my own money
Pictures photographed using Canon EOS 1100D Camera in natural lightning

Thanks for reading!
Much love, Caitlin xo

Warm smokey eye – all MakeupGeek eyeshadows!

Hey, guys! First of all I want to say a massive I’M SORRY because I said a few weeks ago that I was going to be posting more often, and that didn’t happen
In reality, I’ve had the photos for this for about 2.5 weeks but I was nervous to put it up, and I’m not sure why
Just want to put it out there, though – my brows look terrible. They were in serious need of a wax but I just didn’t have the time
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy my first tutorial-type post!

Step one: Apply the primer of your choice, whatever works for you will be fine. I used Too Faced Shadow Insurance

Step Two: Next, you want to put a really neutral, matte colour through your crease. Something that’s slightly darker than your natural skintone
For this I used Makeup Geek’s Creme Brulee eyeshadow

Step Three: Using a fluffy blending brush (something similar to Sigma’s E30 or E40), put through a slightly darker brown into your crease and blend above
I used Latte by Makeup Geek for this

Step Four: Add an even darker brown, continuing to blend where you just put Latte by
For this, I used Mocha by Makeup Geek

Step Five: Now we’re adding the warmth! You want to use a really warm, deep burgundy shade. Adding little bits at a time, blend this through your crease, using something slightly more precise than the E40 (What we used earlier) – I used the Sigma E45 to place the colour where I wanted it and then used the Makeup Geek Soft Dome Brush to diffuse the colour
I used Bitten by Makeup Geek

Make sure you’re bringing your warm shadows into the inner corner a bit – not too much, but enough so that it looks blended and diffused

Step Six: Next, I went back into both Mocha and Bitten with my E45 brush and connected the end of my shadow to the corner of my eye, to give a nicer shaper to the shadows and my eyes. I did this mostly because I wasn’t going to be adding any eyeliner, so this is how I decided to add some more dimension

As you can see, there’s a blank space in the centre of my lid, so next we’ll be filling it in

Step Seven: Taking any sort of flat shader brush, or your finger, take Grandstand by Makeup Geek (This is a foiled eyeshadow) and softly pat it onto the centre of your lid. Next, take a brush and slowly and carefully blend out the edges of Grandstand so that it doesn’t look too harsh on the lid

Step Eight: Taking a Flat Definer Brush (Sigma E15 is what I used), mix the colours Bitten and Mocha together and bring both colours underneath your lower lash line and blend out softly with a clean pencil brush

Step Nine: Just to add some more dimension, I then took a tiny amount of Corrupt by Makeup Geek and blended it through the outer ‘V’ of my eye and slightly through my crease

Step 10: Add a couple of coats of your favourite mascara (Mine is Jordana’s Best Lash Extreme) and you’re done!

I hope you guys enjoyed this and it helped some of you out!
As usual, all products were purchased by me, with my own money
Pictures photographed using Canon EOS 1100D Camera in natural lightning

Thanks for reading!
Much love, Caitlin xo

November Favourites

Hey, guys! This week I thought that I’d do my first ever favourites post. These are my favourite things ever to read/watch on blogs and YouTube so I figured that I may as well do one of my own

Alrighty so here we go; (featuring my lounge floor) these are my favourites this month:

Saucebox Etude Palette
Words literally can’t express my love for this palette. I put off purchasing it for so long, before I finally gave in and bought it online. Holy crap I love it so much. The colours that you get are all matte and all amazing. There are cool tones and warm tones and they’re all just amazing. I use this palette to create an “everyday” kind of smokey-ish look (is that a thing? It is now) and I love it. I was worried initially that I would end up with a lot of fallout but the palette is just perfection, and the shadows you get are huge. No regrets whatsoever with this

L’Oreal Lumi Magique Light Infusing Foundation
This foundation is my go-to at the moment (I use the shade N1 if anyone is curious). I find it to be the most lightweight foundation ever and it’s just so nice on my skin. As you guys have probably noticed. I have very light skin that is also extremely sensitive and dry, so for me, it’s a constant battle to find face products that both match me, are comfortable and don’t give me a rash-type situation going on all over my face. The struggle is real. Anyway, this foundation doesn’t dry my face out, it gives me a nice medium-ish coverage which is what I like for a normal day and it lasts all day. My average work day is 8 hours and it does fine so I love, love, love this

Stila One Step Correct
For those of you who don’t know, this is a primer that has green, peach and lavender tones to it. This primer has saved my life. I have quite red cheeks that tend to shine through my foundation, but the green in this helps to diminish that and hide it a little bit so I don’t look eternally sunburnt. There isn’t much else to say about this. It’s just a fantastic primer that I love

MAC Pro Longwear Concealer
Funny story about this product (not really), I used to have it and it was my holy grail concealer and it gave me life. I bought this in Australia initially so it cost me quite a bit ($36AUD I believe) and then it went missing. Literally my worst nightmare. I refused to repurchase it, though, because I held out hope that I’d find it eventually, but nope. Forever gone, so I repurchased it and had it shipped to me from the US. I’m sure everyone has heard the entire world rave about this concealer. It’s got great coverage, minimal creasing on me (Although I set my undereye area) and it primes my eyes perfectly for eyeshadow. I use the shade NC15

NYX Mosaic Powder – 01 Highlighter
This highlighter replaced my MAC Mineralise Skin Finish (Lightscapade) as my all time favourite. The colour of it is phenomenal and it just gives my cheekbones and cupids bow the most beautiful glow. The only negative I have about this product is the smell. It literally smells like wax to me, which I hate, but because I love the finish of it so much, I can get past it

Jordana Blush Powder – 18 Touch Of Pink
This blush is a kind of coral colour with a slight pink undertone. I originally hated this blush because I thought that the colour would look dreadful on me and I couldn’t understand why anyone would wear a coral coloured blush. I was so wrong. It looks fantastic on the cheeks, just giving a really natural kind of flush. Absolutely gorgeous and I am in love

MAC Lipstick – Lickable (Cremesheen)
This lipstick is a kind of deep pink colour that has tiny reflects in it, so basically it’s fabulous. I wore this to work one day and got complimented on it several times, by both visiting families and the other Nurses I was working with. I now wear this quite often and have had several other people compliment me on it. It’s very moisturising and it lasts a decent amount of time (I touched up twice during my shift at work)

Jordana Best Lash Extreme Mascara
This mascara gives me life. I’ve never had a mascara that I absolutely loved before, it was more like “Eh, this one looks okay, I’ll buy this one this month” and then I just didn’t really care. But this mascara gives me length, volume and separation without clumping (Well, okay it clumps sometimes when I put too much on, oops) and it costs almost nothing from beautyjoint

Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner – Intense Black
This eyeliner is the reason I can have winged liner. It’s so easy to apply and it’s so dark and amazing. I literally cannot fault this eyeliner, it lasts all day and I’ve never had a problem with it smudging, transferring or cracking on me, regardless of whether I use a primer or not

Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit
I love this palette, but I only really use two of the shades which are Vanilla and Banana which I use to set underneath my eyes after concealer. I occasionally use Fawn to contour, but I’m not a big lover of contouring so I don’t use it all that much. What I can say for all six shades is that they’re all creamy and blendable and this kit would work on anyone due to how versatile the colours are

MAC Fluidline Brow Gelcreme – Dirty Blonde
This product is so easy to use and I absolutely love the way that I’m able to do my brows now. Never have I spent less time on them and had them look so nice

Lush Lip Scrub – Mint Julips
This thing right here has saved my lips, to be honest. There isn’t much to say about it except that everyone should get this exfoliating goodness as soon as possible

Garnier Micellar Cleansing Water
I use this to take my makeup off at the end of the day and I think it’s safe to say that my makeup removal wipes have officially been replaced. I heard a lot of people say that this was a dupe for Bioderma but since I’ve never used Bioderma, I can’t confirm that. All I know is it takes my makeup off very quickly without irritating my skin or causing irritation to my eyes and it’s my new favourite skincare product

Eleven Australia Miracle Hair Treatment
This product is so amazing and it helps my hair to grow. That’s literally all I can say about this! Since using it I’ve noticed my hair is a lot more healthy and it’s grown quite a bit over the last few months and it smells like coconuts!

Giorgio Armani Perfume – Si
This perfume has taken over all of my other perfumes that I own. It’s a kind of sweeti-ish, floral-ish, amazing scent that I can’t get enough of. It’s the only perfume I wear anymore and I get complimented all the time by people at work, family and friends

So that’s all of my favourites for this month, I hope you guys enjoyed reading about them!
Feel free to give me any constructive criticism if you feel like there’s something I’m doing wrong, and feel free to request different posts
Thanks for reading

As usual, all products were purchased by me with my own money and all opinions are my own
Until next time!
Much love, Caitlin xo

Online Haul Including MAC, Chi Chi, Saucebox, Melt + Swatches!

Hey guys!
So I recently watched a video on YouTube by an Australian YouTuber named “KatieBambrickBeauty” and she did this massive haul of American makeup that she used a shipping service to get to her (You can find her here). Anyway, I got into contact with her and asked which shipping service she used, how much it cost, etc. She responded and told me that she used the service comgateway.com so I decided that maybe I should do this because I’ve looked into it before but I’ve always been nervous about using a shipping service when nobody that I knew had ever used it. I made my order using their BuyForMe service and just had to wait. The wait time from he time I placed my orders and the time it arrived to me was only about two weeks, which is insanely fast! From the time I got the shipping notification, it was only 4 days. 4 days is so so so fast. I’m used to waiting at least 10 days for things from America, but this was just so fast it was insane
Anyway, enough babbling from me, I’m about to show you what I bought!

 

So here is everything that I bought. Some of it I purchased straight from their websites and didn’t use the shipping service because they had international shipping anyway, and Chi Chi is an Australian brand anyway, so that would have been pointless

These are the products that I haven’t swatched.. Because I don’t think that I can. So there’s the Stila One Step Correct Primer, MAC Gel Fluidline in Dirty Blonde, MAC Prep and Prime Fix+ and MAC Pro Longwear Concealer in NC15
I love all of these products, but the Fluidline is slightly too warm for me, but I still use it because I love the consistency and it makes my eyebrows such a nice shape

This is the swatches of my Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit. As you can (not) see, the highlight shades pretty much just blend win with my skin, but that’s okay because the lightest colour, slightly mixed with the yellow colour makes a great undereye setting powder. All the shades are really creamy and blendable, although I’ve used the highlight shades more than the contour shades

 
This is the Saucebox Etude palette and I bought it because of NikkieTutorials on YouTube, and holy wow, it is so amazing. The colours are so creamy and blendable hnnnnng. Can’t even deal. If you don’t have this palette, you should get it, like, now. I bought this off the Lipstick Republic website (I don’t remember how much I paid). I haven’t had much of a chance to play with this but I love it so much and it’s so pretty

Stila Stay All Day Eyeliner. This eyeliner gives me life. I couldn’t do a decent winged eyeliner to save my life before this. It’s a felt tip pen form and it’s so pigmented and so dark. I get so many compliments on my eyeliner when I have it on and I’ve convinced several people to buy this and every one of them has loved it as much as I do. I bought this off the BeautyBay website

 
These are the Chi Chi Viva La Diva Lipsticks. I am so in love. I already owned one that I purchased several months ago in store (Target I believe) so that I knew if they were worth buying, and holy crap are they ever! My love of Red lipstick shows, but as you guys will see in my next few lipstick swatches, I’m really loving my pinks lately. This is probably because it’s spring in Australia right now, and I don’t think I could rock a red lip at work, I might get some strange looks! Anyway, these lipsticks are so pigmented and creamy and they don’t feather on me, which I honestly have some trouble with a lot of lipsticks. Anyone who lives in Australia should definitely try these out!

Ohh the pretty MAC lipsticks. In love. I think everyone knows all about MAC lipsticks so I’ll keep this short. They’re amazing

 
Again from Lipstick Republic, I decided to buy some Bite Beaut. Because they’re a bit on the pricey side, I only got two but I’m already planning to get more. The shades are so wearable and I get complimented at work by the other girls and I’m forever being asked what I’m wearing. They’re so easy to apply and they last on me a really long time (And I do a lot of talking at work) I’ve used Velvet more than Amarone, but I love them both equally, how could you not love these colours?

Next I bought some OCC Lip Tars (Lipstick Republic). The colour of these is phenomenal, and you only have to use the tiniest drop and it’ll cover my entire lips. They’re very smooth and creamy/. The only issue I have is that they bleed a bit on me, but I expect that if I line my lips first then this will stop that. I apologise for the crappy lighting in the swatch picture, I have no idea what happened

Last but certainly not least, I picked up Melt Cosmetic’s 6six6 and (wait for it) DARK ROOM! I didn’t realise this was limited edition until after I’d purchased mine (And Vanessa’s to save on postage – winning!) but I did know that it would sell out super fast. The pictures truly don’t give either of these colours justice. They’re so dark and vampy and amazing, and I cannot wait to try them out

So that concludes my haul for today! Can you tell I love lipstick?
I’m thinking of doing a lip swatch post, but I’m not sure yet (I would’ve done it to include pictures for this, but my lips have been horrific lately and my skin looks terrible from an allergic reaction I had to a skin product I used last week -shudders-)

As usual, all opinions are my own and I purchased all of these with my own money
You can find us on Instagram at ‘itscaitessa’
All shadows swatched without Primer and photos taken with Canon EOS 1100D camera in natural lighting and some were taken with flash because the lighting was being annoying today so I apologise for that!

You can find Lipstick Republic here
You can find Melt Cosmetics here
You can find Chi Chi here
You can find Beauty Bay here

Thank you so much for reading!
Much love, Caitlin xo

Makeup Geek Shadow Swatches

So since I did my Coastal Scents Hot Pots swatches, I figured that I may as well do my Makeup Geek collection, too!
First up I’d like to say that I genuinely love these shadows, however, there are some that I’m not 100% happy with, but that’s only about 3 of my shadows out of my collection of 35. I don’t regret purchasing these shadows at all, and I’ll probably buy more (lets be real for a second, I won’t stop until I have the entire line).
So anyway, here’s my MUG collection!

Similar to my Coastal Scents collection, I have my shadows organised into two different palettes, one neutral, one colourful.
Most of my neutrals are absolutely beautiful (can you tell which ones are my favourite?) BUT there are a couple that are a tiny bit hit and miss for me, and those are Corrupt and Mocha.

Corrupt is so so SO pigmented, it’s as black as a Demon’s eyes from Supernatural, but to me it feels slightly, I don’t know, chunky? And there’s a fair amount of fallout (But you kind expect that from a black, right?) I generally use this to set my gel eyeliner in place, or use it as a smokey eyeliner when I don’t want a shard winged liner and it’s worked great for both those.Mocha… This just doesn’t work for me. As you can see in the swatch, it’s very sheer. Did I get a dodgy one? I feel like I’m the only one who has this shadow that’s so sheer. I feel like it could work really well on someone who has a darker skin tone as a transition shade, but it’s still far too dark for someone who’s pretty much the colour of paper

These colours I can’t fault. As you can see, Vanilla Bean is the closest to my colouring than any of the others I have, and so it makes a really nice all-over-the-eyelid colour when I just want something subtle (realistically I’ll usually go for Bling or Shimma Shimma because SHIMMER)
Some of these colours (Homecoming and Beaches and Cream) I haven’t used on my eyes as of yet, and I’m not sure why, but I think both colours are beautiful and they feel super creamy and the pigmentation is amazing

Shimma Shimma makes my little heart sing. Like look at it. How can you not be in love with it. Such sparkle!
All of these colours are so pigmented, creamy and blendable. I personally use a little bit of Ice Queen as an inner corner highlight and it works for me (again, if you’re darker than me it might look a bit too stark)

And here we have my colourful shadows (Thanks, Captain Obvious!) I feel like I have a LOT of Purples and Pinks, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for the pretty

 
Bitten and Burlesque are two colours that give me life. Bitten is a matte finish and Burlesque has shimmer in it and is a fair bit darker, but I love these colours so much! I usually wear one of these paired with Shimma Shimma (Shimma Shimma on the first two thirds of the lid and Bitten or Burlesque in the outer corner) and in my opinion, it’s a perfect look for Autumn, with a nice big winged liner

 
I’m not sure why Mango Tango did that in the swatch, maybe there was as mall wet patch on my arm from my makeup wipes? Not sure, but I love most of these colours, but I honestly can’t see myself really using Peacock unless I was using it to create a look for a costume party or something, and this one is slightly dry compared to the other shadows, but it’s still decent

Just some casual goosbumps, it’s fine. Similar to Peacock, I can’t really see myself using Shimmermint on my eyes, but Mermaid I would probably use as a pop of colour on the lower lash line. I feel like I could probably do a Mermaid type look using all three shadows but I’m probably not brave enough

Anyway, all of these colour just make me fangirl (Yes, over eyeshadows) and I just want to sit at home all day and experiment. Sadly, I have a job that forces me away from my collection that doesn’t really allow me to experiment all that much (I lean towards my neutrals for a normal day)

As usual, all opinions are my own and I purchased all of these with my own money (much to my partner’s dismay)
You can find us on Instagram at ‘itscaitessa’
All shadows swatched without Primer and photos taken with Canon EOS 1100D camera in natural lighting

You can find Makeup Geek here

Thanks for reading!
Much love, Caitlin xo

My Daily Makeup look!

I’ve recently decided (This morning) that I want to try and post at least once a week, and Vanessa has said that she’ll try and post at least once a week as well, so this blog should be pretty active and have two posts a week, but probably only one because one of us will forget!
Anyway, I thought that today I’d post my “Daily makeup” look. Keep in mind that I do NOT wear makeup every day, I wear it on days that I work, mainly because my job is quite stressful and I naturally have a red flush to my cheeks and my patients or coworkers tend to freak out on me thinking that I’m super duper stressed and about to cry, when in reality, I just have some intense rosy cheeks.; so I cover it up with some foundation and concealer.
When I’m on a day off and I’m only going out to run an errand by myself, I’ll stick with a fresh face. I want to make it clear that I do not ‘hide’ behind my makeup. I have fun with my makeup. I do ridiculous looks and then snapchat them to my friends and cry-laugh at myself, because, lets face it: I’m hilarious!
Whoops, that intro was really long, so let’s get straight into it!

These are all the products I used (Only three eyeshadows and I’ve labelled them to make it easy)
I used:
L’Oreal Lumi Magique Pure Light Primer
L’Oreal Lumi Magique Light Infusing Foundation in N1
LA Girl Pro Conceal HD Concealer in Classic Ivory
Elf HD Undereye Setting Powder (It’s now empty -cry-)
Rimmel Stay Matte Pressed Powder in 001 Transparent
Brow Bar To Go by WhiteningLIghtning (I believe it’s the Blonde to Brunette)
Jordana Blush in Rose Silk
MAC Mineralize Skin Finish in Lightscapade
A Browny-Grey eyeshadow from an eyeshadow in a pre-made palette (not pictured)
Lorac Behind The Scenes Eye Primer
Makeup Geek Eyeshadow in Creme Brulee
Makeup Geek Eyeshadow in Shimma Shimma
Makeup Geek Eyeshadow in Ice Queen (I have a full blog post coming up on all my MUG shadows    including swatches so stay tuned for that!)
NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk
Jordana Best Lash Extreme Mascara
Chi Chi Creamy Matte Liquid Lipstick in Crazy In Love
NYX Dewy Finish Setting Spray

And here’s the finished look! Don’t mind my expression, I literally took about 50 selfies before I found one that was okay (It’s really hard to take a selfie with a DSLR, okay?)
I know it looks like a lot of products in my description, but I like to use a lot of products. I have a pretty awesome makeup collection, even if I do say so myself, and I want to get as much use out of them as possible 🙂

As usual, all opinions are my own and I purchased all products used with my own money
Photos taken using Canon EOS 1100D (with the flash)
You can find us on Instagram at ‘itscaitessa’
Thanks for taking some time out of your day to read my post, and I’ll see you next time for my next one!
Much love, Caitlin xox

Coastal Scents Hot Pots + Swatches

Well… It’s been over a month since my last post on here, but y’know how it is.
I thought that today I’d make a post on my Coastal Scents Hot Pots, mainly because when I was on the hunt for some reviews and swatches, I couldn’t find any! Anyway, I recently went onto their site and saw that they had their Hot Pots for 99 cents each! I was so amazed, but I was a tad iffy about it. Eyshadow pans for that cheap? And I couldn’t really find any reviews on them except to say that the quality was a bit ‘hit-and-miss’, but I ended being like “Meh, why not?!” and went for it!
Basically, I bought 56 shadows, because why not? So I now have two full 28 colour palettes full of these Hot Pots. I may or may not be a tiny bit obsessed with eyshadows…

Anyway, I thought that I’d post my photos of the swatches here and talk a little bit about some of the colours

As you can see, this palette is pretty much my neutral palette. I love my neutrals, I always tend to use them so it just made sense to me to buy heaps of them

I’m literally obsessing over the last three colours here, they’re so so pigmented and creamy and asdfghjkl
The only colour that I was a bit ‘meh’ about was Deep Cider which, as you can see, was a bit less pigmented than the other shadows, but not annoyingly so. I think it could be used as a nice crease colour because it’s so sheer, even though there’s some slight shimmer in it

These colours were all great. I love the really shimmery shades, but that’s just me because sparkly things are my life. I’m a little bit of a magpie that way

Vanilla Sky and Reef Sand are the most amazing colours. Vanilla sky kind of reminds me of Shimma Shimma by Makeup Geek, but I don’t have a picture of them side-by-side and I;ve never swatched them together so I can’t be 100%. Maybe I should do that…

These are all fantastic colours as well, JUST LOOK AT THE PRETTY. Cloud White I’ve used to highlight my inner corner, because, as you can see, I’m fairly pale and normal highlight colours just don’t work very well, so I tend to use a white colour but with a light hand

As you can see here, I bought a lot of colours. I generally don’t use many colours, unless I’m doing a pop of colour on my lower lash line, so I don’t know if I’ll even use half of these… But honestly, look at the sparkle. I couldn’t resist

Deep Grape and Perfect Plum were the only colours that were a little dry in this palette, but they’re buildable and quite blendable so I’m not too worried
(So I came back to this post the day after posting because I realised that I’ve named the second shadow from the left wrong! It’s actually Regalia Purple)

This picture isn’t great, so I apologise, because these colours are looking slightly more red in tone than they are. I have to say, I’m obsessed with Lava, I’ve used it several times with Peach Fuzz (Pictured below) to create a Halo Eye and I loooove it

Love, love, love these colours! (Although I think Deep Eggplant isn’t an appropriate for a slightly shimmery navy blue eyeshadow) Peach fuzz is one of my new go-to shadows that I pop all over the lid for an everyday kind of look (particularly when working)

Now these colours… I’m probably the least likely to wear these. I don’t even know why I bought CM03, the colour scares me quite a bit so I don’t actually think I’m going to be brave enough to wear it anywhere, but who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be rocking that orange erryday

When I was swatching all of these, I realised that I really didn’t buy all that many Matte shades, but oh well. I’m sure I have enough in my other palettes by Morphe, Makeup Geek, etc.
I hope you guys enjoy this post! I had fun making it, even though I had to use SO many facial wipes and had to scrub at my arms sometimes, it was still great

As usual, all opinions are my own and I purchased all of these with my own money (much to my partner’s dismay)
You can find us on Instagram at ‘itscaitessa’
All shadows swatched without Primer (I feel like you get a better idea that way) and photos taken with Canon EOS 1100D camera in natural lighting

You can find Coastal Scents here

Thanks for reading!
Much love, Caitlin xo

Collective haul, plus swatches!

   With the original “introduction” post out of the way, I thought that I’d make a post showing everything that I’ve been buying online or in store over the last few weeks or so that’s related to beauty products. There’s an assortment of brands, including NYX, MAC, The Balm and others. I hope you guys enjoy it!

Before I laid them all out like this, I didn’t realise how much I’d actually bought, and this is not including two other packages that I’m waiting on from BeautyJoint and OzSale, but I really wanted to post again so I figured that this would be enough for now.
Above is all the things I’ve purchased, some has been online, as I said above, and there are a couple of things (honestly, only about 3 or 4) that I went and bought in store.

I purchased the Coastal Scents Revealed 2 palette off the Coastal Scents website after seeing a beauty blogger on YouTube use it as a dupe for the Naked 3 palette and I fell in love with the colours in this palette. Below, I’ve swatched each colour without a primer

 
This is the first row of the Revealed 2 Palette. The first two colours I had to swatch several times because they just didn’t want to show up, but this could because I have quite fair skin (MAC NC15 is what I’ve been matched to) and they were just too light for me! The rest of the colours show up really well, and they were reasonably creamy

This picture is (of course!) The second row of colours. All of these colours, as you can see, showed up quite well on my skin and felt creamy and have a reasonable amount of pigment. All in all, I quite like this palette and would definitely use it.

Next, I bough Too Faced “The Return Of Sexy” palette off beautybay.com When I purchased this, I didn’t realise that all the shades were very shimmery, but I do like the colour selection that you get with it. 

Again, it seems like the light colours don’t like my skin too much. Each colour has a decent amount of pigment, but I know that the gold colour (Second from the right, first picture) can be quite difficult to blend out and has some fallout. I can’t speak about the rest of the colours, but it could be very similar as they all have shimmer and some have medium sized glitters in them

    
Next is the Classics palette by Chi Chi. I got this in store at Myer when they were offering a travel case free when you spend $50 or more, so of course, I bought this palette plus two other things to get to the $50 mark.

There’s actually 12 colours swatched, not 11, but the colour on the far right just doesn’t seem to show up at all, it does look very similar to my colouring though! I love the colours in this palette, there’s a mixture of matte, shimmer and satin finish and the pigmentation is quite good, however, I don’t know how much I like the formula. Some colours seem to be creamier than others, and there’s a couple that seem to be quite dry. I will definitely use this palette at some point, though, and see how the blending is!

Next is the two things I purchased alongside the Chi Chi palette, and one is the Chi Chi creamy matte liquid lipstick in Crazy In Love and the other is the Chi Chi dramatic lip lacquer in Valley Doll
Both lip products are super pigmented and Crazy In Love is very creamy (as the name suggests). Valley Doll, being a lip lacquer, is slightly sticky, but not really enough to be a bother

    
Next I have 5 different NYX lipsticks that I bought off Ozsale. (in order) I have a Rosebud (round lipstick), Pandora (round lipstick), Sparkling Orchid (diamond sparkle lipstick), Ruby (black label lipstick) and Earthy (black label lipstick)


Swatched on the back of my hand, in the same order as above. All the lipsticks are very creamy, and all are fairly pigmented. I haven’t had the chance to wear them properly yet, but I have enough experience with the round lipsticks to know that they generally don’t last a very long time as they tend to slide and transfer easily. I do really love them, though, and I just know to reapply often

More NYX products! Again, I got these from Ozsale. I purchased Sunny Day chrome eyeshadow, Fuschia chromatic pigment, Blue Marine eyeshadow, Paradise mosaic powder and Highlighter mosaic powder

Left to right: Sunny day, Fuschia, Paradise, Highlighter, Blue Marine
I haven’t used any of the eye products as yet, but I really love the colours that I got, Still unsure when I would use them, but I liked the colours too much to NOT purchase them. I have used Paradise and I use this as a blush on the apples of my cheeks. This is really pigmented, especially on me, so I have to be careful when applying because more than once I’ve had to break out my foundation brush again and blend, blend, blend. The highlighter is my current favourite highlighting powder, and I use it on the tops of my cheekbones, down the bridge of my nose and on the cupids bow and I just really love the way it looks.

     
Next I have some MAC products. I bought these directly off maccosmetics.com.au but I don’t often buy MAC products, purely because they are very expensive in Australia compared to other countries and it’s hard to justify to myself why I need them. This time, I bought their satin lipstick in Snob and the mineralise skin finish in lightscapade

Snob is my new favourite pinky lipstick. On my lips, it looks much paler than on the back of my hand, and I really love the way it looks on me. Lightscapade I use as a highlighter, the name way I use NYX Highlighter. I like this as it needs to be built up, but because I have light skin, I can pretty much just dust it on and I’m good to go

     
Next is some products I purchased on asos, in store, etc. I got Makeup Academy Undress Your Skin Shimmer Highlighter, The Balm’s Cindy-Lou Manizer, The Balm’s DownBoy Blush and the Choose Chi Chi Natural Wall of Shimmer

Swatched on my hand, (Makeup Academy, Cindy-Lou Manizer, Wall of Shimmer, DownBoy) I feel like the shimmer highlighter has too much shimmer in it if that makes sense and the Cindy-Lou Manizer is a bit too warm for me. I do really like each product, particularly the blush as it’s kind of a dusty rose colour that goes well with my skin tone

I hope you guys all enjoyed this haul/mini review swatch post! If you did, please let me know in the comments or email us if you need to 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Much love, Caitlin xo

You can find us on instagram at itscaitessa

Chi Chi can be purchased at chichicosmetics.com
I buy higher end makeup at beautybay.com
MAC makeup can be found at maccosmetics.com.au

Disclaimer: All makeup was purchased by me with my own money and these are my honest opinions on them

Introducing us!

Basically, we’re two 20 year olds from Melbourne, Australia. Our names are Caitlin and Vanessa (hence the name; Caitessa)!
About Caitlin: I’m 20 years old, soon to be 21 and I work as a nurse in Aged Care at the moment and will be returning to University next year to study my Bachelor of Nursing. About 6 months ago, I started to really get into makeup and hair type things whereas prior to this, the most that I’d wear would be some black eyeliner, mascara and maybe some lipstick. I never knew how to use foundation, let alone blush or bronzer and don’t even ask me about my eyeshadow. I now proudly wear my makeup and practice different looks in my spare time, of course when I’m not playing Minecraft, reading a book or watching something!

About Vanessa: Similar to Caitlin, I’m 20 years old, and sooner to be 21. At the moment, I work part time as a Barista and as a cleaner, but I’ll be going to University next year to study interior design. Basically, green tea and tattoos are my life, along with TV shows, movies, Minecraft and makeup. I frequently quote things from my favourite things, and I’ll pretty much love you for eternity if you quote something I love or buy me chocolate milk.

This blog is going to include things like skincare, makeup, hauls, swatches, and maybe the occasional tutorial-type post. Neither of us are professional makeup artists and have pretty much taught ourselves what we know, with experimenting as well as watching tutorials online. This means that our knowledge is quite limited, and sometimes we’ll make mistakes. We wanted to start a blog together because we felt like people online could benefit from some of the things we have to offer, and we’ve had several people ask us if we have a blog.

Please feel free to comment any questions and/or concerns that you have, and you can also contact us on caitessa@gmail.com