Winter Grape EOTD

Lately my EOTD’s seem to be few and far-between. I blame work – my office environment just isn’t fun-makeup-friendly, so it’s rare that I get to come up with fun new eye looks for you. I was feeling up for a little color this past weekend though so broke out some eyeshadows that have been feeling sorely neglected.

More photos and a mini tutorial after the jump!

• Apply an intensely pigmented purple shadow like Pure Luxe shadow in Grape all over the inner 2/3 of your eye, starting at your inner eye and working outwards. Grape is a serious stunner and has some amazing pigmentation to it – it’s a definite favorite of mine.

• Pick up a shimmery white shade (I used Smink’s Winterton) on a bbrush with a pointed narrow tip and sweep it along the inner third of your eye, over your purple. Blend well!

With Flash

Without Flash

• Apply MAC Smoke & Diamonds to your outer V and blend with the purple for a nice seamless finish.

• Top with mascara – I used my Jill Stuart here, which I’ve been meaning to review for you for ages. It holds a pretty amazing curl, doesn’t it?

This look was so vivid and fun in person ~ I really need to remember to check out more Pure Luxe products as they’ve really been impressing me so far. What fun looks have you been experimenting with over the past few weeks?

Some Purple Fun to Lift Me Out of the Doldrums

I know this isn’t the most work-appropriate EOTD I’ve done, but I’ve been feeling really blah these past few days. You know how it is – it’s a certain time of the month, people are being extra aggravating, nothing seems to be going right. I figured some semi-bright (this is the brightest look I figured I could get away with) eye makeup would perk me up and I think it’s already starting to work!

EYES:

• I was feeling uninspired this morning so originally planned to just wear my YSL Water Resistant Eyeshadow in Amethyst Grey (for the millionth time – see my review HERE) on its own. Good thing since it makes an amazing base! I used my finger to apply this all over my eyelids.

• I shook some Pure Luxe shadow in Amethyst onto the sample jar lid, swirled my Sephora smudger brush around in it to pick up the color, tapped off the excess and applied it to the inner half of my eye.
• Repeated the process with Pure Luxe shadow in Dusk and applied to the outer half of my eye.

Amethyst is in the top row, second from the left. Dusk is the right-most swatch in the top row.

• And then blended away!
• I topped the whole look off with two coats of Urban Decay’s Skyscraper Multi-Benefit Mascara which I’ll hopefully be reviewing for you soon.

LIPS:

• For a hassle-free long-lasting look I slicked on some Revlon ColorStay Soft & Smooth Lipcolor in Pink Indulgence.

I’ve been in a bit of a gray rut lately so it was nice to break away from that and to get some color back into my looks. The YSL Water Resistant Eyeshadow in Amethyst Grey really made an amazing base, and if you own this I highly suggest trying it out as a primer. The smokiness of it really brings out the vibrancy of whatever shadows you layer on top, and I definitely noticed that Pure Luxe Amethyst looked prettier than ever over this.

And for those of you interested in the Revlon lipstick (I’ll be reviewing it soon) it’s currently available at Walgreens for 40% off, bringing it to $4 and change = dirt cheap! It’s a really nice light pink that’s super long wearing without being drying for the lips — I’m really loving it!

Pure Luxe Cosmetics Eyeshadows Review & Swatches

Over the years I’ve seen so many bloggers create gorgeous, vibrant looks using Pure Luxe Cosmetics, so finally decided that it was time for me to give them a try myself. Their color selection is overwhelming, and it took me hours to narrow down my selection to just 8, but I have to say I’m pretty happy with the choices I made.

Below are two sets of the same swatches, just under different lighting conditions:

Top Row: Bubblegum, Amethyst, Grape, Dusk
Bottom Row: Golden Sands, Sage, Sour Apple, Galaxy

Bubblegum: Bubblegum is a baby pink that has a cool lavender/blue duochrome effect under certain lighting conditions, and while it looks like it might be chalky in the pot, it isn’t at all. I think this would make a pretty cool blush in addition to a great eyeshadow.

Amethyst: Amethyst is a silky smooth purpley lavender with flashes of pink that is just absolutely stunning. It’s got a little bit of everytihng–smokiness, depth, brightness.

Grape: Grape is one of the shadows that really made me want to try this line. It’s a bright, vibrant purple that really pops and is super super pigmented.

Dusk: Dusk is a soft matte gray that I figured I could wear to work, but sadly it’s on the chunky and chalky side, and also isn’t all that pigmented. Booo!

Golden Sands: A soft taupey brown with shimmer and seriously one of the most gorgeous neutrals I’ve seen. I’m not much of a neutrals girl but I love this one.

Sage: So sage wasn’t at all what I thought it’d be. You really need to check out both sets of swatches on this one, because under certain lighting conditions it’s this great fresh light green, whereas under other conditions it flashes a lot of light brown. I’m not saying I don’t like this one, it’s just not really what I was looking for, and I think we know by now that I’m not crazy about browns.

Sour Apple: Sour Apple pretty much looks exactly like what you’d expect a shade named Sour Apple to look like. It, along with Grape, are from Pure Luxe’s Bubblegum collection, and like its purple sibling, Sour Apple is almost super super pigmented, fun, bright and fabulous.

Galaxy: Galaxy is a bit of an enigma to me. It’s a smokey blue/green/gray with gold but the color changes with the lighting and I can never quite put my finger on exactly what color it is at any particular moment. Nonetheless it’s got plentiful shimmer and is really quite beautiful and unique.

Overall, I’m very impressed with the quality of the Pure Luxe shadows that I chose. I’d say stay away from the mattes as I wasn’t too fond of the chunky texture, chalkiness and lack of pigmentation, but the other shades are definitely winners in my book. They’re beautifully smooth, pigmented, and have lots of shimmer just the way I like it. Plus the samples are dirt cheap, seriously generous and will last you for ages!

On a somewhat related note I also ordered a sample of the Nymph-o-Mania High Voltage Lip Wand and absolutely despise it. It was essentialy invisible on, stung my lips horribly for some reason and tasted really bitter. Never again!