Smashbox Full Exposure Palette Review

 Smashbox Full Exposure Palette Review



From the Brand:   
What it is:
A set of universally awesome neutrals that’s essential, effortless, and enhanced for your eye shape.

What it does:
This totally versatile palette is organized with crease-resistant, long-wearing shimmers in the top row and velvety smooth mattes along the bottom. Fourteen essential neutral shades include a range of nudes, blacks, shimmers, and mattes. Use the brilliant eye shape chart, dual-ended brush, and Full Exposure Mascara to complete any look.

This set contains:
- 0.035 oz x 7 eye shadow in shimmer shades (top row): Chocolate Brown with Golden Pearl, Deep Golden Brown with Gold Pearl, Soft Gold with Gold and Silver Pearl, Light Tan with Gold and Silver Pearl, Golden Wheat with Gold Pearl, Midtone Slate with Silver Pearl, Rich Grey with Multicolor and Silver Pearl
- 0.035 oz x 7 eye shadow in matte shades (bottom row): Matte Warm Chocolate Brown, Matte Midtone Brown, Soft Matte Midtone Tan, Creamy Matte Beige, Soft Light Taupe, Ashy Dark Brown, Suede Black
- 0.14 oz Full Exposure Mascara deluxe sample
- Get-the-look eye shape chart

What else you need to know:
Smashbox has taken the guesswork out of application with a cool, new dual-ended brush. There’s a fluffy end perfect for blending matte shades and a flat end to easily lay down the shimmer shades without sparkle overload. Plus, it’s double-sided with black bristles on one side and white on the other, so you’ll never accidentally dip a light shade into a dark shade.


Retails for:  $49.00


Where to Buy:  Sephora stores and Sephora.com, Ulta stores and Ulta.com


My Thoughts:  If you’ve read my review of the Lorac PRO Palette, you’ll know I’m a huge fan of palettes that have coordinating matte and shimmer shadows.  For each shade from soft nude to deep smokey, you get a matte version and a shimmer version in their amazingly pigmented eyeshadow formula.  I love this palette so much it’s joining my Lorac one in my professional kit.  (I’ll be popping off the heavy mirror though to cut down on weight.)  Not only do you get both matte and shimmer of each shade, the left half of the palette is more warm yellow based browns, and the right half is more cool grey based browns and a black, so no matter how you like to do your nude makeup, there’s a perfect shade for your style.

The formula of these shadows is super soft with very little fallout.  However, on first application with it I did find that the mattes are a bit dry looking on the skin and can get a little muddy when blended together.  I’d recommend using at least one of the shimmery shades with the mattes so that you aren’t looking very dated in your look.  In my video review, I’ll show you the shades I used to create the look I’m wearing.

The staying power is fantastic.  Over a primer, you’ll easily get 15 hours or more.  It also comes with a travel size Full Exposure mascara to complete the look.  I love to use the deep matte black shadow pressed over a black pencil liner to give it ultimate staying power and to soften it up a bit for a sexy look.

The highlight of this set is that it comes with a great dual ended shadow brush to give you a variety of looks.  This little baby is staying with me though!  I’ll have to slip a brush guard over one end to store it in my brush cup on the bathroom counter, but it’ll be a huge travel friendly space-saver come Christmas time when we go home to Florida for the holidays.


Final Verdict:  Great palette at a great price.  Very versatile, and cuts down on products when you travel!

**Disclaimer: As with all my product reviews, I was not paid by the cosmetic company to provide feedback or review/promote their products. All the opinions expressed in this article are my own. These items were purchased with my own money. For more information on my policies, please view my Let's Chat page.

Huge Ulta Haul- March 2013

I haven't ordered from Ulta in a long time, and let's just say that this time I went a little buck wild.  I had a coupon for 20% off, they had BOGO 1/2 off on L'Oreal and NYX products, freebies from a lot of my favorite prestige brands, and on top of that for using my link through ShopAtHome.com, I got 8% cash back on me entire purchase. Overall I'd say I came close to saving at least $100, including the rebate, coupon, freebies, sales, and free shipping.

My Freebies

It was the perfect opportunity for me to purchase some things that I've been wanting to try, like the Urban Decay Naked Skin foundation.  A girlfriend of mine, and fellow makeup artist, has been using this for a few months and raves about it to everyone that she sees.  I tried it for the first time yesterday, and I can see why. It truly lives up to its name.  It looked like I wasn't wearing anything at all, and it evened out my skintone really nicely.  I won't go into a full review now.  I'll save that for a future post, but I'm really impressed with it after my first test run of it.

Other notable greats were the Benefit Hello Flawless pressed powder.  I've been using the foundation for a few weeks now, and it made my list of March Favorites, so I really wanted to try the powder.  I love it when I can get matching foundation and powder from the same line.  Plus, Ulta was giving away a free 10 day sample of the foundation, so I've got an awesome travel size to take with me.  Yay!  I also got the Fakeup Concealer stick, and I'm still undecided about this one.  It will require further experimentation before I'll make a ruling on it. (I feel like a lawyer here!  I need to lay off the crime dramas on tv I guess. lol.)

I was super excited to see that Ulta was doing BOGO 1/2 off on L'Oreal and NYX products, so I stocked up on things I've been wanting to try.  I read a review of the Infalliable eyeshadows, and from the blogger's swatches, I picked my six favorite colors.  In person, they didn't disappoint.  I did a quick swatch of each color on my arm for you to see how richly pigmented they are.  I love the way they feel so creamy, yet finish like a powder.  I put Bronzed Taupe on my eyelid with some Eternal Sunshine above the crease and on my browbone for a quick eye look while I did some videos, and it's held up really nicely.  The lids have a bit of a glossy look from the metallic shimmer of the brown color, but it's a super quick and easy smokey eye.  I can see this being an amazing shadow base for more intricate looks.  I don't know about the whole 24 hour claim, but after wearing it for nine hours before hitting the sheets, it didn't crease up at all.  I'll definitely be buying the remaining colors the next time I see a sale on them.  I can see them being a staple in my personal makeup bag this summer when I want something quick and easy with lots of impact.

In order from left to right: Liquid Diamond, Endless Sea, Golden Emerald, Eternal Sunshine, Bronzed Taupe, Amber Rush.  Kinda looks like a rainbow, eh?  Totally unintentional! lol.

For NYX, I tried out their HD foundation primer.  I'll need to experiment with it more under other foundations, because under the Naked Skin, it wasn't shown off so to speak.  The foundation was so awesome, it didn't feel like it needs a primer at all.  I was surprised though how thick it was, like a lotion.  And it smelled strongly, almost like cheap sunscreen.  It was also a bluish white color instead of clear.

I also grabbed two of their eyebrow pencils in Auburn and Medium Brown.  Auburn was really red, and the medium brown was too light for my brows.  I'll need to pick up a few other colors to see what works best with my dyed red brows and my dyed red hair.  I may just stick to using my eyeshadow colors for now and avoid pencils.  Red brows are super tricky, and I've yet to find a pencil that I liked as much as a powder product.  Also in the eye department, I got the Faux Lashes mascara.  I'm not a fan of the brush, as it didn't volumize at all, and the formula was very thin.  I barely looked like I was wearing anything, despite the fibers in the product meant to lengthen and thicken my lashes.  I'll have to try again with multiple coats.

I rounded out my NYX haul with two blushes- Dusty Rose and Mocha.  I was shocked at how pigmented they were!  For a drugstore brand, their blushes pack a lot of punch.  I can see me getting more of these down the road.

Now on to the Smashbox purchases.  (Can you see where I'm getting the whole buck wild thing here?)  They had a nice little set with bronze colored products in it, including a bronze blush that has a gorgeous shimmer and is a wearable brown color meant to be a blush not a bronzer.  There was a bronze lipgloss, full size Be Legendary Lipstick in Honey, and a full size Full Exposure mascara (LOVE this stuff!).

There was also a "create your own kit" deal where I got two eyeshadow trios and a dual ended lipgloss for $33.  There Photo Op eyeshadows are pretty amazing and really pigmented.  I got the Fixed Focus and Macro Lens trios.  Gorgeous neutral browns.  I know they'll look amazing with the Hint of Bronze collection.

Their Be Legendary lipsticks are the bomb, and I've wanted to try out other colors (I own Honey already and now have another full size of it from the kit).  But I didn't want to use the testers in the store (I'm a germ freak when it comes to testers after having worked at cosmetics counters) and didn't want to buy the full size colors only to hate the color.  Enter the Be Legendary lipstick palette!  It's got 8 colors in a nifty little travel worthy palette complete with lip brush.  I'm already planning on buying at least one more for my personal use and using this one for my makeup kit.  I can carry 8 shades with me that I can custom mix for my clients, and when I run out I can refill it with a slice off the full size shade.  It means I won't have to carry 8 lipsticks with me on vacation!  Yay!  (Can you tell I'm soooo ready for a vacation?)

Also included in this massive haul were two nail polishes from L'Oreal (I'll be swatching those with another polish later in the month), a bronzer/highlighter duo from Lorac, the Lorac PRO mascara, and a set of 4 mini nail polishes from OPI.  Plus of course my freebies and samples.

I tried to film a haul video for YouTube yesterday, but it was so long I'm either going to have to find a creative way to edit it into three shorter videos or just try to refilm it.

Have you bought anything new lately you're loving?  Share your recent purchases below in the comments section!

Product Review- Smashbox Fusion Soft Lights

I've been using the Smashbox Fusion Soft Lights for a few years now, and I really love them.  I have both options in my kit, although I find that I use the Baked Stardust much more often than the Baked Starburst (pictured below).  They are very versatile products, because you can get a different color blend by rotating the compact so that you are blending three of the triangles of color at a time.  You can customize the color to your skintone, whether it's more fair or more tan.  I use these to highlight the skin, as they have a soft satiny shimmer to them and aren't frosty or glittery.

I had to take a photo with my iPad of the lighter one since I couldn't get an image for you online anywhere.  Sorry it's a bit crappy.  But you get an idea of the lighter tones it includes.

Baked Stardust:  This is the one I use most often since I deal primarily with lighter skinned clients.  Not sure why that is, but it just seems to be the people sitting in my chair aren't big sun worshipers or darker ethnicities.  But the colors on this compact are white, champagne, and pink tones, then a lighter bronze and a darker bronze if I do have a darker client.

Baked Starburst:  This one is best for those with darker skintones.  It's a variety of bronzey shades that really highlight and glow up the skin.  It's also great for a bronzing powder for lighter tones, too.
  
Disclaimer: As with all my product reviews, I was not paid by the cosmetic company to provide feedback or review/promote their products.  All the opinions expressed in this article are my own.

How to Powder Under the Eyes and Around the Nose

Keeping your concealer from creasing under your eyes can be a major headache for some people.  Not only do you need to find a product that doesn't move and still gives you the right amount of coverage, you can't go and ruin that by applying your powder incorrectly.  Even if you don't have the perfect product, knowing how to powder it can at least give you better staying power until you do find that perfect product for you.

Personally, I love the Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Eraser Dark Circle Treatment Concealer.

Then, I set my concealer with loose powder. Smashbox's Halo Hydrating Perfecting Powder is great because it works to hydrate the skin throughout the day, so it won't dry out your under eye and make it look more creased.  You can purchase both of these products at Ulta.  If you don't have an Ulta near you, the Maybelline products are available at any drugstore, and Smashbox is available both online and at Sephora.

Step by Step:

1. After you apply your concealer to your undereye area- Take a two-ply tissue and peel it apart so that you are left with an even thinner piece of tissue, and then wrap it around your ring finger.  Use that finger to gently pat away any excess pigment and oils from the products.  Once the concealer has been warmed up by your body, the concealer can move, so this takes away an extra that can settle into the fine lines and look cakey.
2. Dip your small fluffy brush into your loose powder and shake the excess off.
3. Lightly run the brush under the eye area to add some of the powder to the concealer and set it into place.
4. Lightly run the brush around the sides of the nostrils, upper lip, and your bottom lip to set any concealer you may have placed there.  The small brush will also allow you to target these smaller creases a larger traditional powder brush would miss.

Check out the video I filmed for my YouTube channel here!

Products used in this video were:

*Smashbox Halo Hydrating Perfecting Powder in Fair
*Real Techniques Setting Brush

HD Foundation Product Review

With all the talk about HD television and the amazing details it shows, many cosmetic companies are developing lines of makeup designed to provide flawless results under such high scrutiny.  Unlike previous years, loading on tons of makeup and hoping the camera blurred or washed out the masklike texture is no longer an option.  Viewers at home see makeup as if they were there in person, and the technology of makeup needs to keep up.

HD foundations claim to even your skin tone and minimize the appearance of large pores and fine lines while remaining fresh and natural to the naked eye.  They come in a variety of textures and finishes to suit the wide range of personal taste in today's market, while many off more shades in multiple undertones to accomodate the skin tones of today's consumer.  Here I've taken three of the most highly recommended HD foundations on the market by professional makeup artists and given you the pros and cons of each so you can decide which one is right for you.

Graftobian HD Cream Foundation:
Formula- Cream
Number of Shades- 53
Application Method- Foundation brush or dampened cosmetic wedge; removed from package first to prevent bacterial contamination
Available At- http://www.paintandpowderstore.com/, http://www.camerareadycosmetics.com/
Double Duty- Doubles as a concealor
Price- $11.50-$11.99 1/2 oz
Pros- This creamy foundation has a lot of pigment, so a little goes a LONG way.  The formula has lots of slip, which means it glieds across the skin beautifully, and it blends seamlessly.  Huge range of shades.  Sold individually or as palettes for those who like to mix colors. 
Cons- It can feel al ittle heavy on the skin vs the lighter weight of liquids, and a foundation brush or dampened sponge may not be the preferred way to apply for some.  It's also not available in stores, so finding the perfect shade can be a hit or miss.  Paintandpowderstore.com sells samples sizes so you can get a few and try them out first.
Bonus Tip:  Prefer powder foundation?  This brand offers a powder version, too.  But it only comes in a very limited number of colors and can be hard to match to skin.

Smashbox High Definition Healthy FX Foundation:
Formula- Liquid
Number of Shades- 13
Application Method- Foundation brush, cosmetic sponge, fingertips
Double Duty- Has SPF 15 and time released anti-oxidants and moisturizers
Price- $38 /oz
Available At: http://www.smashbox.com/, Sephora, Ulta
Pros- With its pump, there's no risk of contaminating the rest of the makeup, and it gives you a premeasured amount so you don't use too much product.  It's very silky feeling and lightweight and goes on sheer for buildable coverage. Plus, it does have SPF and the skin benefits.
Cons- The coverage is very sheer, and for those with skin tone issues, the amount of product needed to get the results they want may not be comfortable for them.  The consistency is also an issue.  It's a love it or hate it kind of situation.  I highly recommend trying it out first before purchasing it.  Not a wide range of shades.
Bonus Tip:  Buying anything from Smashbox?  Try it out in person from Sephora or Ulta first (visit http://www.sephora.com/ or http://www.ulta.com/ for locations near you) and then purchase the products online from Smashbox's website.  They offer free shipping on all purchases, 3 jumbo samples with every order, a rewards program, and a fabulous program called "let's do lunch". (LDL- purchase between the hours of 9 am and 2 pm on Tues or Thurs and receive a free full sized product. Different products offered each Tues/Thurs valid only on that day.)  Seriously, what other company rewards you that much for buying from them?  Is it any wonder that half my kit is Smashbox? ha ha

Makeup Forever HD Invisible Cover Foundation:
Formula- Liquid
Number of Shades- 26
Application Method- Foundation brush, cosmetic sponge, fingertips
Double Duty- higly pigmented, so you usually only need the tiniest bit of concealor for heavy coverage areas
Price- $40/ oz
Available at: Sephora stores and online at http://www.sephora.com/
Pros- Liquid makes this the most versatile product in therms of application method and it's very comfortable on the skin.  Its silicone-based formula is also very long wearing and oil-absorbing, making it great for oily skin and brides.  (It's oil-free, too.)  It's extremely pigmented, so a little goes a long way, and like the Smashbox liquid, it comes in a pump so 1-2 pumps is enough for an entire face.  The colors are very true to life in multiple undertones (golden, pink, and neutral), and there are a lot to choose from.
Cons- Priceist brand and available only at Sephora or their boutique store in NYC.

Copyright Makeup Forever.  Image from the Sephora website.

While makeup companies want you to believe that their lines of HIGH DEFINITION products are better than traditional lines for everyday use, I personally don't agree.  They do have some great shades and formulas that make it easier than ever to get foundation that looks like actual skin while still giving you the coverage you want or need, but the chances of you appearing on HD tv are probably small.  If you have a foundation that works for you, dont' rush out to buy the newest invention just because marketing hype tells you it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.  On the opposite hand, if you are leary of foundations in general, or don't like the finish of your current brand, these formulas can give you a renewed sense of satisfaction in the way your skin looks, television appearances notwithstanding.