Gunk Fury

Whatever mastery of language I possess, I shall now momentarily abandon.

WIEAKREJOQERHEIAOJFEIOAJWPOJEI22WKAJOWJ-0A-1234!!!!!!!!!! LIP TARS, SQUEAL SQUEAL SQUEAL!!!!!!!!

Lip Tars and Panties

theBalm’s Liquid timeBalm Spot Concealer with Tea Tree Oil is like the friend who will make you soup and feed it to you when you’re at your darkest hour. It may not be the best soup in the world, but it sure tastes like relief.

My skin was the worst it had been in years, and I was convinced that nothing but tea tree products were helping. Gunkies who’ve had acne probably know how terrifying and frustrating it is to have to cover up breakouts with concealers that could potentially be making everything worse.

Just imagine my excitement when I realized that a concealer that had in it my favorite acne-fighting ingredient was actually available and being ignored in the nearest Beauty Bar.

My breakout broke into a happy dance.

This is a post of many firsts (TONGUE-TWISTAHHHH). First E.L.F. review, concealer review, highlighter review, and the debut of my new, totally legit watermark! I have Franny of No Bees, No Honey to thank for this protection against the image thieves I will forever insist exist. Holy crap, I’m all about the tongue-twisters tonight, aren’t I?

Anyway, today we are discussing an E.L.F. concealer/highlighter duo. I always tell people that concealer is something one absolutely must invest in. They are notorious for caking up and slipping off, and if you want the stuff to stay on, then you’re going to have to cough up the gold.

It’s not that I deliberately avoided drugstore concealers; it’s just that I hadn’t found one that performed as well as I would have liked. Noticed the tenses? Well, you should’ve paid attention, bitchez, because coverage elitism ends like, now.

See? I’m not a brand snob.

Lip stains are totally trending at the moment. Just when I thought they would be thrown into the drawers filled with the rejects every gunkie thinks are going to be rediscovered as “vintage” (aka moldy and disease-ridden), they pop up like cosmetic fungi and invade the summer scene. Of course, summer has long gone where I live, but then again the humidity never makes obsolete the need for low-maintenance gunk.

I think the return of True Blood might have played a part in the lip stain production spike. Come to think of it, the Vampire Media Movement seems to be going strong in general. Vampy red lipsticks just don’t cut it anymore. Now vampires can go out in the sun (sparkles or no) and have developed a more daytime appropriate lip. Thank goodness they never seem to pay attention to their cheeks though. Otherwise, I’d be reviewing a lip and cheek stain, which is a product I only wear if it’s absolutely necessary.

Since I have a perpetual need to be liked and accepted, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and give the new Revlon Just Bitten Lipstain and Balm a try.

I’ve been bitten!

When I got to the store a bit before noon, the collection was still nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, that isn’t because it had sold out, but because they hadn’t launched it yet.

Kang, who couldn’t be more different from the former MAC manager in Powerplant (an entity who shall remain nameless for the sole reason that her name brings bile up my throat), was very, very nice to me, and allowed me to pick out the eye shadow and lipstick I wanted from the collection. She went above and beyond when I asked if I could already swatch the testers that were still hidden away; to my surprise, they immediately began setting up the displays just so I could have better pictures for my blog!

I swatched what I could!

MAC’s amplified finish is one of my favorite lipstick finishes in the market. Combine it with a very bold shade and we have an inevitable  gunkie pick!

Orange Lipstick? YES, PLEASE!

As I haven’t been able to do tutorials lately (a consequence of the current state of my skin), I’ve been reviewing products. I have a feeling that product reviews might actually be a little bit more helpful. It also doesn’t hurt that reviews make me show up on Google a lot more often, hahah.

Today we’ll be reviewing one of the boldest pink lipsticks I’ve ever seen: Make Up For Ever’s Rouge Artist Intense #36.

Review and Swatches

These two lipsticks often appear together in search results as they are both sort of browny reds. Some might call them retro reds, perhaps depending on one’s coloring or which exact decade comes to mind when one hears the word “retro.” Personally, I wouldn’t call either of these more retro than several other universal reds, but that’s because I always associate “retro” with the bolder, brighter reds of ’50s pin-up models (Bettie Page) rather than the classic reds of Hollywood glamour (Marilyn Monroe).

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that Revlon’s In the Red is my absolute favorite red lipstick. I was curious to see how it would compare to MAC’s Viva Glam I since I’d been reading about their similarities for so long. I finally decided to take the plunge and purchase Viva Glam I! One reason for this is because I am befuddled that I haven’t found blog entries actually comparing the two side by side. I’m gonna do that for you right now.

Are they dupes?

Nars Habanera is unsurprisingly my most favorite eye shadow duo to date. Not only does it have my favorite color combination (green and purple), it’s also an incredibly wearable shade selection. I’ll reserve a full review on the compact for a later date- perhaps swatches and reviews of all the Nars eye shadow duos I have in my collection.

In the meantime, please enjoy this tutorial!

Get the look.

So my cousin Pia arrived from the States last week and true enough, she got me the MAC Wonder Woman Spitfire lipstick! And the MAC Wonder Woman Russian Red lipstick, too! I think the Russian Red was meant for my mom, who hardly wears makeup anyway, so it of course ended up with me.

Even before my not-so-wonderful launch experience that occurred what seems like a lifetime ago, I was so excited about the Wonder Woman collection that I bought matching underwear from Topshop! In addition to that, I WAS able to buy one of the Opulashes thanks to Mikey, one of the nicer MAC people. Click below for reviews and swatches!

Don’t you just adore the packaging?