Flower Beauty Petite Fleurs Pocket Triplets PF4 and PF7

The Petite Fleurs Pocket Triplets by Flower Beauty are something I have been curious about since the line launched.  My local Wal-Mart has been sold out of them for weeks, but the last time I checked, they had restocked so I picked up two of the lip triplets (there are triplets for eyes as well).

Did it seem gimmicky when I picked it up?  Yes.

Are they gimmicky?  Yes.

OMG, YES.

These things are truly awful.  Really, I cannot state enough how truly awful they are.

I think that all of the pocket triplet shades are shades from the full Flower Beauty line, but I could be wrong because I don't think that there is a dark brown lipstick in their regular line.  Yes, you read that right, dark brown.  Not nude, not a shade that caters to women of color, just an ugly dark brown lipstick.

The texture on these lipstick are horrible.  Drying, patchy.

The packaging just baffles me.  It's like they tried to design the worst packaging possible.  It's flimsy, cheap looking, holds a minuscule amount of product, the way the little bullets fit together it is almost impossible to not gouge the hell out of the product while trying to use it.

As with the rest of the Flower Beauty line, all of the descriptive information is on the plastic wrap around the product, so once you open it, you have no idea what it is, how much product it contains, what colors it contains ... nothing.

I got so fed up in trying to swatch these that I just stopped and tossed them in my daughter's dress up drawer.  Maybe she'll get some use out of them.

Overall:  0/10

Flower Beauty Color Play Creme Eyeshadow in Wild Geranium

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up another item from Flower Beauty.  It's the Color Play Creme Eyeshadow in CP3, Wild Geranium.  

The online swatches look like a pale pink, which this color most certainly is not.  The line comes in a dozen shades.  If you want to pick some up, I would recommend either doing it in person or if you have to order online, make sure to check out blogger swatches first, because the online swatches, in my experience, do not line up to what you get in the little pots.

Wild Geranium is a warm peachy copper.  The color applies very true to pan with excellent pigmentation.  The texture of the cream shadow is very light and whipped.  It applied evenly and smoothly for me.  I didn't find it to be patchy at all.  The color is buildable, but you need to let it dry down a bit between coats.

The color does "set".  It doesn't have a powder finish and remains slightly tacky, but not enough that I found it objectionable.

I know that some people had problems with the Flower cream eyeshadows creasing.  I did not personally have any problems with this shadow creasing.  I wore it for a good 8 hours with no primer underneath and it didn't crease.  That said, this is a pretty forgiving color.  If it had creased, I don't think it would be very apparent.  And my eyelids aren't particularly oily.  Your mileage may vary.

Surprisingly, while this cream shadow stayed put during the day, it removed without a problem at the end of the day.  Just using my normal cream cleanser, it removed completely without having to fight it.  I didn't experience any eyelid staining from this color.

The Flower creme eyshadows contain 3.5 grams of product and are available exclusively at Wal-Mart for $7.98 each.

Overall:  10/10

Flower Beauty Eye Quade in Smoke & Mirrors

The last of my haul from Flower Beauty is the Eye Quad 4 in Smoke and Mirrors.  There are currently 4 Eye Quads in the Flower Beauty range.  As far as I can tell, these are the only powder shadows in the range.  The individual eye shadows are all cream eyeshadows.

I thought all of the Eye Quads were striking, yet still wearable.  I picked the Smoke and Mirrors quad mostly because it's the one that struck my fancy that day.

Clockwise from the top left:

• Soft Gray-Brown - Satin.  Super soft and buttery texture.  It looks a lot more gray-brown in the pan.  Swatched, I think it almost leans purple.  Payoff was disappointing.
• Blue-Gray - Satin.  Super soft and buttery texture.  Color is true to pan.  Payoff was disappointing.
• Matte Light Peach - Matte.  Super soft and buttery texture.  Slightly powdery when applied.  Color is true to pan.
• Brown with Copper Glitter - Soft texture.  Good color payoff.  The glitter seemed to disappear when swatching.

(day bulbs)

(sunlight)

(flash)

Overall, I wasn't blown away by how this palette performed.  The color payoff was disappointing on two of the four colors had disappointing color payoff.

Again, the packaging drives me nuts.  The quads won't stack and aren't square.  It just seems unnecessary.  It's probably great when you only have one eyeshadow palette, but when you have an extensive collection that you have to organize, the outliers are just irritations.

The Eye Quad contains 6 grams of product and retils for $9.98 at Wal-Mart.

Overall: 5/10

Flower Beauty Creme Blush in Pure Petunia and Peach Blossom

I picked up 2 of the new Win Some, Rouge Some creme blushes from Flower Beauty.  There are 6 creme blush shades in the line.  I picked up BL1 Pure Petunia which is a bright blue-based pink and BL2 Peach Blossom which is, as the name suggests, peach.

These cream to powder blushes are the only individual blushes in the Flower line.  There is a blush/bronzer duo available that contains a powder blush, but as far as I can tell, you cannot buy the powder blush individually.

Despite looking really orange in the pan, Peach Blossom is indeed a soft peach that leans a little pink.

(sunlight)

(daybulbs)

Pure Petunia is a bright blue-based pink.  You can see the difference in the swatches below.  In certain lights it looks very blue based and in others, more neutral.  Mostly, I felt like it was neutral on me.

(sunlight)

(daybulbs)

I appreciate that Flower Beauty is really trying to use current cosmetics formulations, especially at this price point.  My experience with drugstore type cream blushes is that they can be really watery and almost waxy.  The Flower Beauty cream to powder blush definitely emphasizes the powder part of that claim.  While the blushes definitely aren't powder blushes, the formulation is very powdery.  That can make them a little difficult to blend out (which I really don't want in a cream blush since it messes up my base).

The colors are pretty.  While they look very vibrant in the pan, it's not difficult to get a subtle wash of color from them.  The formulation does have good staying power.  My cheeks don't exactly eat blush, but I do often have fading after a day of wear.  These wore for probably a good 6 or 7 hours before I had noticeable fading.  

The formulation is also easily buildable once you get the first layer down.  I had the best luck with application using a small stippling brush (either the E.L.F. or Sonia Kashuk ones).  These products do definitely set, unlike some cream blushes.  And once set, they do have a powdery feel on the cheeks (though I don't think they look powdery).  They do not, however, look dewy on the cheeks.  So, if you're gravitating toward cream blushes because you want a dewy finish, these probably aren't the blushes for you.  Once set, I found that they had a rather matte texture.

I am really hit or miss with the Flower Beauty packaging and the creme blush packaging is definitely a miss for me.  The lids on the blush are convex, solely to make it look like there is a lot more product in the package than there is.  It means they won't stack.  And the actual product well is not very wide at all, but deeper than a lot of other cream blush packaging.  I don't know, the packaging on this product just really bothers me.  Obviously, you may not have that issue.

Overall, I do really like these blushes.  As far as drugstore cream blushes go, I think this is my favorite formulation.

The blushes contain 4g of product and retail for $7.98 at Wal-Mart.

Overall: 8/10

Flower Beauty Kiss Stick Lipsticks

Flower Beauty is the new cosmetics line from Drew Barrymore and the Maesa manufacturing group.  It is sold exclusively through Wal-Mart stores and Walmart.com.  The line launched in January 2013 and currently has 181 offerings ranging in price from $4.98 to $13.98.  The category breakdowns are:

• Face - 70 items
• Lips - 51 items
• Eyes - 44 items
• Nails - 16 items

For this post, I'm concentrating on the lips.  The lip line includes:

• Kiss Stick - Velvet Lip Color (matte lipstick)
• Kiss Stick - High Shine Lip Color
• Lip Service - Lip Butter
• Shine On - Lip Gloss Wand
• Sheer Up - Lip Tint (gloss stick)
• Line & Shine - Lip Liner
• Petite Fleurs - Lip Pocket Trios (3 lipsticks)

(L-R; Petunia Petals, Tender Tuberose, Sweet Peony, So Gladiola)

I picked up 4 of the Kiss Sticks (5 actually, but one will be a later post) which retails for $6.98 each.  They each contain 3.5 grams of product.

• Velvet Lip Color in So Gladiola
• Velvet Lip Color in Tender Tuberose
• High Shine Lip Color in Petunia Petals
• High Shine Lip Color in Sweet Peony

(Petunia Petals, Tender Tuberose)

(Sweet Peony, So Gladiola)

(Sunlight, Daylight Bulbs)

• LS 16 - Petunia Petals is a High Shine lipstick.  It is a bright blue-based berry pink.  The color is very similar to MAC Moxie, but the finish is very different.  It applied evenly and smoothly, but it took a couple of passes for it to be opaque.  The formula is lightweight and moisturizing.  It didn't stay shiny for me for very long, maybe an hour.  I needed to re-apply after 3 hours.
• LS 12 - Sweet Peony is a High Shine lipstick.  It is a neutral peachy pink.  Like the other high shine lipstick, it applied evenly and smoothly, but took a couple of passes to be opaque.  It and was moisturizing and comfortable on the lips with a similar wear time to Petunia Petals.
• LS 7 - So Gladiola is a Velvet Lip Color.  It is a bright coral that leans very orange.  It is opaque in one swipe, though it did skip a bit during application.  It has a matte finish.  This was not my favorite matte finish by far.  I find both MAC and Rimmel's matte finishes to be easier to wear and less drying on my lips.  Being matte, it did have a good wear time, but it was not comfortable and I ended up putting something else on my lips far before this color had worn off.
• LS 3 - Tender Tuberose is a Velvet Lip Color.  It is a darkened pinky brown with a matte finish.  I found this formula to be even drier than So Gladiola.

(MAC Moxie vs. Flower Petunia Petals)

Overall, I really want to love this line.  I think the colors are fantastic.  I was thrilled to see they had matte lipsticks and so disappointed that they weren't easier for me to wear.  I think the price point is good.  I'm bummed that you can only get them through Wal-Mart.

Flower Beauty says they never test on animals, but I wouldn't vouch for them or their parent company being completely cruelty free.

Flower Beauty first impressions

I had heard that Drew Barrymore was launching a cosmetics line, but I hadn't realized it was already out.  From what I can tell covers all the bases:  lips (everything from lip butters to matte lipsticks), eyes (shadow quads and cream shadow pots), face (primer, tinted moisturizer, multiple foundations, blushes, bronzers) and nails.

The line is exclusive to Wal-Mart and seems to have a price tag comparable to other drug store brands like L'Oreal, Maybelline, etc.

I picked up a few items:

I am most curious about the "Triplet" products, though, ironically, I didn't pick any of them up.  There are lip triplets, eye triplets and face triplets.

First impressions:

Pros:

• reasonably priced
• contemporary formulations:  cream to powder blushes, matte lipsticks, etc.
• very wearable colors

Mixed:

• packaging.  I do love the sort of Art Deco aesthetic.  However, the blushes have convex lids, so they won't stack, the eyshadow quad isn't a square, so it doesn't play particularly well either.  The lipstick tubes seem really unnecessarily bulky.
• Exclusive to Wal-Mart.  I'd say that most people have access to a Wal-Mart or to walmart.com, but I, personally, try not to shop at Wal-Mart, so this is mostly a miss for me.

Cons:

• labeling on the lipsticks.  If you have more than one, it's really easy to mix up the labels and the color names aren't particularly helpful in sorting them out.
• Flower Beauty website.  Doesn't have much information.  Everything links back to Wal-Mart's website which also doesn't have a whole lot of information.

The labels on the cosmetics say "We never test on animals", but I really have no idea what that means.  I read in Women's Wear Daily that Barrymore co-owns Flower Beauty with "design and manufacturing firm, Maesa Group".  I don't know who they are or what their animal testing status might be.

I will have in depth reviews on these products next week, but I just wanted to give you guys a sneak peek.

Hope you have a great weekend!

indie