What's In My Go-To Eye Shadow Palette?

Hey friends! As you probably know by now, things have been very hectic for me lately between house hunting, packing, getting ready for a friend's wedding, and preparing to start at a new school and a new job. Early on in the craziness, I realized that one of the tasks that slows me down the most when I'm trying to get ready is trying to decide which eye shadows I want to wear. I love changing my look up day to day, but realistically, I just don't have that much time to put into it right now (well, that and I don't wanna scare our realtor away with one of my glam grunge smoky eye looks, she's pretty traditional). In order to keep myself from digging through my palettes, I put together an assortment of eye shadows in my Makeup Geek Travel Palette that would allow me to do a range of eye looks and give me everything I needed to accomplish a quick look with just one palette. Today I'll be sharing my palette with you, as well as the logic behind my choice of shadows. Swatches are at the end of the post!

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Most Disappointing Beauty Products of 2015

Disclaimer: we all have different taste in products and different needs. As such, the products that I don't like might be favorites of yours. This post isn't meant to offend anyone, by all means, if it works for you, great! These are all products that I just didn't get along with, they're not necessarily bad products.

Kicking it off with this Physician's Formula City Glow Daily Defense bronzer in New York, my problem with this is the color more than anything. I use and love the Physician's Formula Bronze Booster in light/medium, but this bronzer is just straight-up orange on me. In the pan it doesn't look like it should be so orange, and I've tried it several different ways—colors mixed, separate, different brushes—and no matter what I do it always comes up orange on me. Such a bummer because it's an otherwise great formula.

Next up is the Yves Saint Laurent Touche Éclat Blur Primer, which I reviewed here. Not only did this primer give me cystic acne spots, it's just an all-around blasé product. It doesn't make foundation last longer, it doesn't make it look better, and it doesn't give a glow to the skin. Even if this hadn't broken me out, it still would have made it on this list because it just doesn't do what it's supposed to. Laaaame.

I purchased two Hurraw lip balms after hearing Shaaanxo talk about them, but this one really came down to personal preference. If you like thin, light, slick balms, you'll probably love this, but I like a nice thick balm like the Tokyomilk Dark balm. I've heard several other people sing the praises of Hurraw lip balm, but it just wasn't what I was hoping for. It may work well for keeping lips hydrated, but I really wouldn't know because I could never keep it on for very long since it came off every time I took a sip of water.

Ahh, Julep Queen Anne, you fickle minx.

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My Favorite Make Up and Skincare Products of 2015 (Plus a few non-beauty favorites!)

Most of these year-end favorites posts begin with a look back on the year, but to be honest I really don't care, and you probably don't either, so let's just get to the good stuff.

Eyes:

Makeup Geek Poppy (coral) and Creme Bruleé (peachy tan) have become two of my all-time favorite eye shadows. Both blend beautifully, and on my pale skin, Creme Bruleé is an awesome transition. Poppy is easily one of my most-used shadows of the past year, and I've said before that I'll find any excuse to work it into a look because I just love the warmth that it adds, especially to neutral looks. Confession: I've actually used Poppy on my brows when they were coming off a bit too cool-toned for my liking. Sounds horrifying, but as long as you use a light hand, it works wonders and no one will be able to tell that you have a coral eye shadow in your brows.

I love these two palettes from Anastasia Beverly Hills (World Traveler, bottom, and Self-Made, top). I think they're an excellent value for the money and with the exception of one shadow in each palette, they perform beautifully. I'm especially fond of the titanium finish shadow included in both of these palettes, Pink Champagne. It has an incredible reflective quality, similar to a foiled eye shadow, and it can really alter the look of other shadows depending on how you layer it. I also really love Morocco and Intense Gaze from the World Traveler palette, and Blush and Sherbert (especially in the crease) from the Self-Made palette. In general, I love the formula of the ABH eye shadows and I can't wait to get more (come to mommy, Henna, you beautiful orange gem).

The Julep Gel Eye Gliders are such an underrated product. These are the softest, silkiest eye pencils I've ever used. Not even Urban Decay makes liners as soft as these, and I don't have the same problem with these smearing that I do with many of the Urban Decay 24/7 pencils. These truly do glide when you apply them, so much so that I'm sometimes not even sure if I'm touching the pencil to my skin. The formula of these is just absolutely beautiful, and I plan on purchasing the entire line eventually. I already have several more of these, but I wanted to include my two most-used shades, which are Champagne Shimmer and Bronze Shimmer. I love Champagne Shimmer as an inner corner highlight, and Bronze Shimmer is a great alternative to black for adding definition without the harshness of a black liner.

You can tell I really love a product when I've worn the writing off of it! On the right is ColourPop Super Shock Shadow in XO, which was part of the limited edition collaboration with Shannon from Shaaanxo. I love all of the shadows in her ColourPop collection, but this one is my absolute favorite. I love it as an inner corner highlight or all over the lid. It's a more neutral gold than many of the others in my collection, which is part of why I wear it so much, it's just so versatile! I'm going to be so sad when I run out of this shadow. On the left is ColourPop Mixed Tape which also gets a lot of use from me. Because of my uber-dark under-eye circles, I have trouble wearing purple eye shadows without emphasizing the darkness under my eyes, but between the satin finish and the slight grey and brown tones, Mixed Tape is a lot more flattering on me than most other purples.

Face:

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Glam Red, Green, and Gold Makeup, with a Twist of Orange featuring ColourPop Girl Power

When ColourPop released Girl Power as part of their fall 2015 collection, I had an instant case of heart eyes. C'mon, a vibrant red-orange eye shadow, did you seriously think that wasn't going to make its way into my collection? I swooped it up soon after it released, and I practically drooled when I swatched it for the first time, yet it's been sitting in my drawer for the past couple of months because I just couldn't find the right look to incorporate it into. Last week as I was trying to come up with a way to put a spin on the classic red/green/gold combo we see so often this time of year, I realized that Girl Power was just red enough that it would still complement the green, but just orange enough that it would be a bit out of the ordinary. I'm so pleased with the way this look came out, and I'm already planning another look using Girl Power, it's freaking gorgeous!

For the eyes, I used Urban Decay Primer Potion as a base, and Makeup Geek Creme Brulee as a transition. Then I layered and blended ColourPop's Girl Power several times until it came up as high as I wanted it to and there were no harsh lines. Next, I applied an equal mixture of Damaged and Stash from the Urban Decay Vice 2 palette all over the lid up to the crease. I blended these together and used ColourPop Rebel to create a softer transition between the two colors. I also added Makeup Geek Charmed to the center of the eyelid to make it more reflective. For the wing, I used the Anastasia Creme Colour in Jet, and applied a pair of Yue Er Gong Zhu HW-05 lashes (I get these on ebay) using the House of Lashes dark adhesive. I wanted the bottom lash line to be a bit smokey, so I used a combo of Makeup Geek Cocoa Bear, Cherry Cola, Americano, and Creme Brulee. To finish off the eyes, I used a bit of ColourPop XO on the inner corners, then drew a line from the inner corner to about the center of my eyes using Urban Decay liquid eyeliner in the shade Eldorado, tapering it off as it got closer to the center of my eyes. 

For the face I used

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Pink & Silver for the Holidays

Today's look uses Makeup Geek blushes to define the crease and one of the MUG foiled eye shadows, High Wire, on the lid. I wanted to do something that was both colorful and festive, without going the traditional route of reds, greens, and golds. This would be a fun look for New Year's Eve if heavy, smokey looks aren't your thing. Full details are down below. I hope you're enjoying your Sunday!

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