Beauty Vixen: matte

Quo Spring 2017 Collection

By Jill Oliver-Fox Saturday, March 04, 2017 blush, bronzer, eye brow, eyeshadow, face, face palette, highlighter, lip crayon, matte, Quo, shimmer, shoppers drug mart, spring, spring 2017

Quo is starting 2017 off on the right foot with their limited edition Spring collection. It features 2 eye shadow palettes, 2 face palettes, 3 matte lip crayon, brush set and a eye brow palette. All the palettes feature a beautiful coloured pattern on them.

Matte Lip Crayon ($12.00):

There are three shades in the Matte Lip Crayons, I was lucky enough to be sent Pretty in Pink. It is a gorgeous matte shade that is housed in a twist up tube that matches it in colour (which is great when wanting to pick a shade at a glance). There is even a sharpener hidden on the back end so that you can keep it nice an pointed at all times. I am really liking this little gem right now. I love this type of crayon and this shade.

Brow Palette ($12.00):

With two brow shades in a powder, a highlighter, a eyebrow cream and tool with a spooly with an angled brush, this palette has it all. As someone who cannot get enough of any brow products I am obsessed with this palette. My hair colour is always changing and so are my brow needs, this palette helps me out because it has two shades that I can custom mix to exactly what I need. The cream helps set it and keep my brows in place while the highlight is pretty shimmery but looks fantastic when applied lightly. It also has a big mirror which makes this great to take with you anywhere.

Eye Shadow Palette ($18.00):

There are two quads in this collection, No Pressure and Rock It! They both are more neutral palettes, No Pressure is filled with shimmery shades while Rock it! is matte only shades, making them both very different. Each pan is gigantic and contain 3.4g each and have a large mirror.

With No Pressure the shades look glittery in the pan but apply more just a beautiful glowy look when applied. Three of the four are pastel like and the last more bronze.

Rock It! with a cream, off nude peach, brown and slate-grey this palette has a good range for nude quad. I feel you could do a full look a few ways with it. The shadows are pretty soft but apply not so pigmented when I try to swatch them, but they do look fantastic on my eyes. I love to use this for an everyday look right now. It has just been right for me, all matte and with light colour. The darkest shade makes for a great liner too.

Face Palette ($20.00):

There are two limited edition face palettes realized in this collection, Heat It Up and Down To Earth. Each have two highlighters, two blushes and two bronzers housed with a gigantic mirror. Each pan is 3.6g in size (just .0.2g more then each shadow).

Heat It Up's top row has a matte champagne-pink highlighter or light blush that is matte, a matte pink blush and a super champagne with slightly less pink in it then the first highlighter, but with way more shimmer in it. The second row has a shimmery bronzer , a bright matte pink blush and a matte bronzer that is similar to the first bronzer. All the products go on extremely nice and are fairly pigmented. I love that both blushes are matte and that there is a matte option for highlighting and bronzing. I mean 4 out of the 6 colours are matte, which is great because you can always mix them with the shimmery ones for more options.

Down To Earth's top row has in it yellow toned brown shade (not light enough to be a highlighter but not really a bronzer), a shimmery pink with a bit of peach tones to it and a shimmery light brown bronzer. The second row has a matte darker brown bronzer, a matte pink with peach tones that is a bit more vibrant then the one in the row above and a matte brown bronzer with orange undertones. Once again all the shades blend well and are really soft. They are quite buttery actually, even the matte ones. This palette runs a bit orange for me and features more bronzers then anything so it really isn't my cup of tea. That being said it is still really nice and if I wasn't so darn pale it might be the right thing for me. Once again I do like that there are four mattes in a palette of only six.

There is also a Metamorphic Brush Set ($60.00) that is a gorgeous set with 8 brushes with rose gold ferrules and baby blue tapered handles with a case that is holographic. I love quo brushes and own quite a few, so this one is a pretty that I think is worth looking at.

All in all this is a great collection. It has large blush/bronzer/highlight palettes, large matte and shimmer eyeshadow palettes, beautiful lip crayons, a brow palette and some fantastic brushes, not much to say that is negative about this collection especially since it is pretty darn affordable. Another great thing is the display has testers for everything, which is great to try them all out. I would take a look at what colours work for you with the palettes.

Are you getting excited for the Spring? Do you think any of these products will help you get in a Spring state of mind?

*Products sent for review purposes. As always all views and opinions are my own.

Cover Girl Katy Kat Matte Lipsticks

By Jill Oliver-Fox Wednesday, September 21, 2016 cover girl, demi-matte katy perry, katy kat matte, lipstick, matte, review, swatches

Sephora Favourites: Give Me Some Nude Lip

By Jill Oliver-Fox Thursday, April 07, 2016 Give Me some nude lip, laura Mercier, lipgloss, lipliner, lips, lipstick, marc jacobs, matte, nars, neutral, nude, Nudestix, Sephora Favorites, sets, tarte

Sephora recently launched a Sephora Favourites set featuring some pretty awesome nude lip shades. While my nude might not be your nude or someone else's nude, I still think this is a pretty nice collection.

It turns out there has been a bit of misinformation out there about the sizes of the products and how many full and deluxe sized products are in the set. I took a look each lip products size (off the products labels) and compared it to the Sephora website for sizes and Canadian prices. The only products that threw me off was the Nudestix. It is usually 0.05 oz but the one in the set is 0.088 oz, making it bigger. Since Nudestix usually has a tin and a sharpener which are not in this set, I am just calling it even as a full sized.

The collection has in it:

Marc Jacobs Beauty Mini Outliner Longwear Lip Pencil in Prim(Rose) -Deluxe Size (0.01oz / 2g) $12 value
NARS Dolce Vita Lipstick in Dolce Vita - Full Sized (0.12 oz/34g) $35.00 value
Laura Mercier Crème Smooth Lipstick in Milky Way - Deluxe Sample Size (half the size of a full. it is 0.07 oz/2g) $17 value
NUDESTIX Lip + Cheek Crayon in Whisper - Full Sized (2.49g/0.088 oz) $28.00 value
Tarte Tarteist Lip Paint in Namaste Nude - Deluxe Sample Size (half the size of a full. It is 0.10 oz/3lm) $12.00 value

So that is 2 full sized products and 2 half sized products, and one 40% of the sized product, not too shabby for $33.00 Canadian.

Tarte Tarteist Lip Paint in Namaste Nude:

Described just as a Nude, this one is really pretty. It runs a bit lighter then some of the other products in this set, which is good for pale old me, but might not be the best for others. The texture of this is really matte and light, a really odd thing for a lip product. The best I can explain it is like those Maybelline mouse foundations from about 10 years ago, but in a lip format and with a doefoot applicator. I really do like the texture though, it is neat and totally different. It doesn't set 100%, like a liquid lipstick would (my morning coffee cup will attest to that), but it does set up really nicely on the lips and feels dry like you aren't wearing anything at all after about 20 minutes. It also lasts a very long time on the lips and doesn't dry them out nearly as much as a liquid lipstick would. It is so nice and really opaque on my lips. I really like this guy and am considering get more in the future.

Marc Jacobs Beauty Mini Outliner Longwear Lip Pencil in Prim(Rose)

Described as a Coco Spice, this liner is really pretty. This colour really works well with the Nars Dolce Vita and the Tarte Namaste Nude, although it is a bit darker. It is smooth for a liner and definitely not stiff. It just glide on the lips. I appreciate that is an automatic liner considering its small size and expensive price tag, no one likes to waist a good liner on sharpening.

NUDESTIX Lip + Cheek Crayon in Whisper

Simply described as a nude, this one runs really grey on me. I sort of feel like I look dead when I wear it. I really love the thick and matte texture of the stick, but the shade just doesn't flatter me at all. I feel someone with a more warm completion or a darker one would suit this shade just fine. I am just too pale to pull it off (NC/NW15 over here). I do like that it is so thick but doesn't accentuate the lines on my lips at all. I am going to definitely go try out some other lipsticks from the line some time soon.

NARS Dolce Vita Lipstick in Dolce Vita

Described as a sheer dusty rose this one is by far my favourite in the set. It goes on smooth and just slightly sheer that it really works with my own lips colour. For me it creates a "My lips but better" look which I always appreciate. With the Marc Jacobs liner it becomes opaque and a bit more bold. This is a full sized Nars lipstick which means it costs $35 in stores on its own, and this set only cost $33...so defiantly a good item in the set for me.

Laura Mercier Crème Smooth Lipstick in Milky Way

Described as a brown, this lipstick just goes on more opaque then the Nars, but much more brown. This probably would look amazing on people with a slightly darker skin tone then me, also on those with a warmer tone to their skin. I don't think it looks bad, I just think it could look better, less 1995...which I already lived through and I think I am too old to pull off now in 2016. I do like the formula though and am glad I've gotten to try it out. I might have to pick up some other Laura Mercier lipsticks in the future.

Swatching time:

Overall I think this is a great set and can get a bunch of high quality nude lip colours for the price of just one lipstick. The Nars and Tarte are by far my favourite for my pale NC/NW15 skin tone. That being said I am still glad I got the set because I got to try out a bunch of brands and see if I like their formulas for $2 less then the cost of the Nars lipstick...so a great buy.

The Nars lipstick alone is covers the value of the box, so if you like that shade already, definitely go for it.