bareMinerals READY Eyeshadow 2.0 in The Top Shelf

The bareMinerals READY Eyeshadow 2.0 in The Top Shelf is definitely a lovely duo to have on hand for the holiday season.  Paired with a red lip, you have a classic holiday look.

The two shades in the duo are:

• Mixologist - satin champagne beige, very true to pan color.
• Cognac - warm metallic antiqued gold verging on bronze (but not overly orangey even on my pale pink skin)

The texture and payoff on both of these shadows is just phenomenal.  They are buttery soft, very pigmented and they blend like a dream.

I picked this duo up months ago when Ulta was having a big bareMinerals sale, so I got it for less than 50% of retail.  If you can't find a sale, these duos cost $20 wherever bareMinerals is sold.  The duo contains 3 grams of product.

Overall:  10/10

bareMinerals READY Eyeshadow 4.0 in The Happy Place

The bareMinerals READY Eyeshadow 4.0 palette in The Happy Place is nothing new.  It's been out for at least a year and is readily available wherever bareMinerals are sold.  

I tried the bareMinerals quad in Truth, which everyone seems to rave about, but I really didn't care for it.  I thought the payoff was less than stellar.  But ... I decided to give the line another try.

I picked this quad up months ago when Ulta was having some crazy sale on bareMinerals.  I think I ended up getting it for like $10.  It was too good a deal to pass up.

But after I picked it up, it just sat in my makeup storage for months.  Anyway, lately I've been really gravitating toward plummy shadows, so I decided to pull out this quad and use it and I've been just blown away by the quality.  

I did notice that a lot of the online reviews for this quad (both at blogs and retailers) make it seem a lot darker than it is.  This is not a smoky quad.  These are bright, vibrant colors (okay, maybe not the matte brown, but definitely the others).

The shadows are:

• Peace - matte light peach.
• Imagine - metallic peach that swatches a bit darker than it looks in the pan.
• Euphora - metallic smoky plum that swatches a bit more taupe-y than you would think
• Exhale - matte cool medium brown

The color payoff on these shadows are phenomenal.  And the mattes might be even easier to work with than the metallics (that NEVER happens).  The mattes are so soft and so pigmented that they almost behave like cream products.  I have matte shadows that I love, but none of them even come close to the texture on these two shadows.

The metallics are vibrant and easy to work with.  I've said it again, I think it must be fairly easy to make a good metallic shadow, but these are no exceptions.  They're beautiful.

All in all, this is a fantastic palette and I'm kicking myself for leaving it sitting in a drawer for so long.

As mentioned earlier, I picked this quad up on sale at Ulta.  It contains 5 grams of product and usually retails for $30 wherever bareMinerals are sold.

Overall: 10/10

Review: bareMinerals blush in Beauty

So this product is an oldie but a goodie, the bareMinerals blush in beauty.  Bare minerals describes the color as "blushed pink".  Helpful description, huh?  SIGH.  Also, the swatch on the company website looks absolutely nothing like this color to me.

When I first got back into makeup after a very long hiatus, bareMinerals was the first line I used.  At this point, I am pretty much over bareMinerals.  I have learned through trial and error that I am not a fan of loose shadows and I rarely use pigments.  Even after trying out their new pressed eyeshadow quads, I'm really not impressed.

The one exception to this is their blush line.  I feel like it is well established at this point that I have a blush problem.  I love them.  Loose blushes, pressed blushes, cream blushes, matte blushes, shimmery blushes, I love them all.  And the bareMinerals blush in beauty is no exception.  This is the one bareMinerals item that I still use and have recently repurchased.

  

I don't really know what "blushed pink" is supposed to look like, but to me Beauty is a yellow-based pink blush.  It has a slightly dusty tinge to it, similar to MAC's Pink Tea.  (For the record, Sephora describes the color as "sweetheart rose" which I find to be a much more apt description.)

The pigmentation is good.  It applies easily and wears for a good 6 hours before it starts to fade.  It's not completely matte.  There is a bit of a sheen to it, but it's definitely not glittery or frosty.

Because of its dusty tinge, I think this is probably only going to really work on lighter skintones.  I think on medium to dark skintones it's probably going to turn ashy.

The only downside for me is that it is loose, however that's not a huge problem for me because I do really love this color.

Also, this is the only loose blush I have so I guess I'm really not familiar with how much product is standard.  This packaging contains .85grams of product and retails for $19.  Compare that with a standard MAC pressed blush that contains 6 grams of product and has a very similar price point.

Overall:  7/10

Review: bareMinerals READY Eyeshadow Quad in Truth

I thought I'd review the eyeshadow palette that I've been using daily for the last week.  It's the bareMinerals READY eyeshadow quad in Truth.  I have no idea why they're yelling READY at us.  I would assume that READY is an acryonym for something, but the Bare Escentuals website isn't being much help in this regard.

Here's what I could find out about the READY line from the Bare Escentuals website:

Pure, intense, provocative color that's incredibly long-wearing and blendable with proven anti-aging benefits.  Available in 15 amazing duos and 4 phenomenal quads

I have no idea what the anti-aging benefits are and like I said, the website is not providing a lot of illumination.  The 4 shades in the Truth quad are:

• Serendipitous  - shimmery off white with micro-glitter.
• Magnetism - warm light brown with a metallic finish.  Reads very taupe in the pan, but on the eye and in swatches, is much warmer.
• Fate - warm dark/medium brown with both a metallic finish and micro-glitter.
• Apropos - dark brown with blue/silver micro-glitter.  The base shadow is matte.

I know that lots of beauty bloggers and YouTube gurus really seem to love the whole line of bareMinerals pressed eyeshadows and the Truth quad in particular has been talked up a lot.  To be blunt, I feel ripped off.  I am incredibly disappointed.

The color payoff is crap.  I will say that the other 2 neutral eyeshadow palettes are my Inglot matte palette and my Smashbox Photo Op Brown Eye palette and both of them have absolutely phenomenal payoff, so that may have skewed my reaction a bit.  But the pigmentation on this palette is incredibly disappointing.  The swatches below are fairly heavy swatches and even with the darkest color, the payoff is still crap.

Also, despite being a neutral palette, there isn't a single matte.  The darkest shadow apropos, does have a matte base, but it also has tons of glitter.

The palette contains a total of 5g of product and it retails for $30.  I used my 20% off at Ulta to purchase it, and I still feel really ripped off.

Overall: 4/10