Rachel Knows... NYX Caviar and Bubbles Palette!

This palette is great! It is like NYX took the few good shadows from the big Nude on Nude palette and the little Nude on Nude palette and came up with this palette. This palette may have even come out before those palettes, I don't know for sure, but if it did NYX should have stopped here. The swatches are a little heavy and awkward looking because after swatching the other two NYX palettes I was expecting these to act just like them, but they were so much more pigmented and behaved more like normal eyeshadows than the other two palettes that my heavy hand I'd gotten used to wasn't needed for this palette. I love all of the colors in this palette. I think when I go on my honeymoon this will be the only palette I'll take with me because it has all of my favorite colors in it. It has a great matte black and matte brown to use as eyeliners. It has that beautiful shimmery pink that has been my go to color for years. It has those awesome light, shimmery colors to base a great smoky eye around. It has the white as a highlight, but I'll have to go way easy on it because as you can see it was the only problem child because it is chalky in more ways than one. It has everything I could ever need right here! Everyone should pick this palette up. No joke! Hurry! Ha-ha!

Rachel Knows... NYX Nude on Nude The Natural Look Kit!

This performed a teeny tiny bit worse than the bigger Nude on Nude palette. You can look at the swatches and see just how powdery they are. I tried to swatch these just a tad differently than the bigger Nude on Nude palette and the way I did it didn't make a difference; in fact I think it made it worse. I put down a light swatch at first and kind of let it set. After I put down all of the first swatches, I went back over them all to try to make them more opaque and have a heavier swatch. That is when things went from ok to pretty bad. The more I'd put on the more it would just kind of dissipate and fly away. Instead of going on top of it like most other eyeshadows do, it made it dust up more and rubbed the first layer off. I don't know. Perhaps I don't know how to use these properly, but I thought eyeshadow was eyeshadow. The colors aren't too remarkably different from the big Nude on Nude palette. I even hesitated swatching these because I thought that all of these colors were in the big Nude on Nude palette. After lots of staring I could find extremely subtle differences that made me decide to go on and swatch them. I'd say that this palette and the other palette are six and one half dozen of the other. If you're low on space and cash, I'd say get this one. If you have more cash and a little more space, get the other one. If you're smart, you'll just skip both. :-X Ohhhhhhhh burn! Ha-ha! Don't worry, I have a great NYX palette coming up tomorrow!

 

Rachel Knows... NYX Nude on Nude Palette (The Big One)!

I'm still undecided on whether I can recommend this palette or not. I want to 100% because the colors are beautiful, the packaging is beautiful and it has 10 lip glosses in it, but I'm just not sure if enough of the colors work well enough to recommend it. If you're buying this as a dupe for Urban Decay's Naked palettes, like I did, you'll be SORELY disappointed. This just doesn't hold a candle to Urban Decay's formula. Since that is off of the table, I'm trying to think about how since this is $25 that the eyeshadows are basically $1 a piece and the lip glosses are $.50 apiece. What do those prices remind you of? My trusty ol' e.l.f. So now I'm trying to think about how these compare to e.l.f.'s eyeshadows. I'd say out of 20 colors that maybe 5-10 are comparable to e.l.f., the other's blow hard. I'm so sad too, because like I said I really, really wanted to love this palette. I haven't had an opportunity to do any eye looks with this yet, because I have just been swamped with tons of things, so maybe they act differently on the eye, but I doubt it. They were just really powdery with tons of fall out, they didn't spread evenly, it took tons and tons of product to show up and when you combine that with the fallout in the palette you're going to go through this puppy quick if you use it regularly. The lip glosses are alright. Nothing to slap your momma over. :-X I guess the reason I say I'm undecided, even though I sound pretty decided in this post, is because I have yet to use this on my eyes. Once I do that I will update this blog with the pictures and my final recommendation. As of right this moment, I don't recommend it.

Rachel Knows... D.I.Y. Olive Oil Hair Mask!

My hair has been acting crazy lately. It is damaged, broken off and it looks dry and brittle. It constantly looks like I just stuck my finger in a light socket. It is a combination of me just not taking care of it properly and a side effect of my thyroid disease. It breaks off when I just look at it cockeyed. It is 10 times worse when I blow dry it and since it is getting cooler I have been blow drying it because I have been getting cold lately. I also think that it being crazy is possibly due to the fact that I had gone sulfate free for several months and for a few weeks now I've been back to using Herbal Essences which isn't sulfate free. I think that being sulfate free was actually doing more good than I thought it was. I still have my sulfate free conditioner as you'll see below, but I don't have the sulfate free shampoo. I need to go pick some more up. Ok, so I guess my bad hair wasn't just obvious to me because my mom noticed it yesterday when we went out. Last night she came up to me with this printed out Olive Oil Hair Mask for me to try. I immediately tried it because I am game for anything right now because I don't want to look like Albert Einstein at my wedding. So here is the Olive Oil Hair Mask that I used. I'm going to do it a few more times and show you guys if I notice a big difference. :)

Rachel Knows... This +This = Huh?

Stay tuned to find out! Plus reviews and eye looks from NYX Nude on Nude "Big Palette", NYX Nude on Nude Palette, NYX The Runway Collection Caviar and Bubbles Collection and my newest makeup organization. :-D

Rachel Knows... Urban Decay Lipstick!

The only one of these colors that was somewhat good was Gash. The others were just, "Meh." I still wouldn't fork over $22 for Gash. They felt pretty moisturizing, but nothing out of this world. The website said that two of the colors were sheer and boy were they right. It took several passes to show up at all and when they did show up they were streaky. Even the opaque colors were a little streaky. It was odd. I personally just don't see the sense in paying that much money for something to barely show up. These didn't smell as bad as the lip glosses, but they still didn't smell good. They smelled very waxy with somewhat sickeningly sweet scent added to cover that up. The number 1 complaint I have is about the packaging. I have never in my life encountered such STUPID packaging. Nowhere have I seen any mention about the packaging and how you're supposed to open it or how much trouble it is. I've used and seen lots of lipsticks in my lifetime, but none that opened like this. It is a solid plastic tube with a sharp pointy dagger on the end. You're supposed to grab onto the sharp, pointy dagger, squeeze the middle of the hard plastic tube and pull down on the dagger. After LOTS of time fooling around with the stupid thing I finally figured that out. I suppose I'm the only moron that had trouble opening this stupid lipstick, but for goodness' sake, it was ridiculous. On Gash, the stupid thing WOULD NOT open. I literally spent a good 30 minutes off and on trying to open it. I asked my mother to try and open it, she couldn't. I asked my father to try to open it, he couldn't. I asked Jeremy to try and open it and he couldn't. Besides a few,"WTF's" from everybody the main consensus was OW! That stupid dagger really, really hurts your fingers. My fingers were red and raw after trying to open Gash. Now I know I've been ripping Urban Decay a new one over this and their lip glosses, but I just think that at the price point that these products are listed at, the products should be A+ quality. These were like C- or D+ products in my book. I think you're mainly paying for their gimmicky packaging and on the lipstick it is just stupid and painful. I think Urban Decay may be phasing the Lipstick and Pocket Rocket Gloss out. They're pretty much all sold out and they're taking down colors as they sell out instead of saying there will be more back in stock. This is just something I surmised and don't know for sure, so don't take that to the bank with you. Ok, enough ranting. On we go to the swatches!

Rachel Knows... Urban Decay Pocket Rocket Lip Glosses!

Y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all. SMH! Yep, these are making me bust out lame, semi-ghetto internet slang. First and foremost let me say that these lip glosses are INSANELY overpriced. I mean you've got to be full on Cookoo Bananas to pay full price for these. These are just regular old lip glosses. I was expecting my pants to be completely blown off into the next door neighbor's yard when I got these, because of their price and because Urban Decay's eyeshadows are just really, really amazing, but I honestly prefer my $1 e.l.f. lip glosses over these. The first thing that completely turns me off of these guys is their smell. My dogs eat Blue Buffalo Wilderness with Salmon. Yes, before you ask, they're far too spoiled. Why I'm mentioning that is because these lip glosses smell like if you took my dog Lily's face, (who is a poo-poo eater. Disgusting I know so she always has an odd smell to her face) right after she ate her salmon dog food and then sprinkled some fake sugar sweetener all over her face. That is honest to goodness what these lip glosses smell like to me. Secondly they were insanely sticky. I loved glue when I was little. I never ate it, that is gross, but I loved to put it on my arms or hands and let it dry and then peel it off and play with the dried glue. Ha-ha! I'm such a weirdo, but hey I was like 6 or 7. So when I was swatching these I really felt like I was rubbing glue all over my arm again, except these were stickier than Elmer's. Thirdly, they weren't even that pigmented. Kirk might as well have been a clear gloss. I have extremely pale skin, so if a lip gloss barely shows up on my practically white background of an arm then it isn't going to do anything for lips. There are a ton of reasons why I don't ever show the lip gloss on my own lips. A) I don't ever like the way my lips turn up in pictures. B) I have sensitive skin and I've had my lips swell up several times on me so I'm kind of weary about what I put on my lips especially if it is scented. I love lip gloss and lip stick I just rarely, rarely wear it. That doesn't mean I can't judge the pigmentation, smell, moisture level and all of those things. The only thing I can't judge on is wear time because I haven't tested the lips products out in that regard. Nobody's said anything about this, but I felt like I should finally clarify why there aren't any lip pictures. Even if I wasn't weird about what I put on my lips I really don't think I could wear these for the sheer fact of what the smell reminds me off. I think I'd puke. Ha-ha! Ok. Here are the swatches! (Thank the Lord I only paid $3 for these instead of $19 a piece.)

Rachel Knows... e.l.f. Matte Eyeshadow!

I liked these. A nice matte color on your eyelid looks so awesome with a sparkly, shimmery crease to make a great smoky eye. If you're feeling super casual you can just use all matte colors to enhance your eye, but not make it stand out like crazy. Even if you don't want to get all of the colors I'd really recommend every girl own a nude matte, a white matte and a black matte. The nude for smoky eyes or casual days, The white for a great highlight and the black as an eyeliner alone or to put it on top of your favorite eyeliner to set it and make it last all day long. The only downside to these is that I couldn't get any of the eyeshadow to come through the little holes in the sifter. Sifter? I don't know what the heck that thing would be called. So I had to take the sifter thingamajig out and it made a mess. It was hard to get the right amount on my brush as well. It was way too much every time. I tried and tried to make it work right with the thingamajig still intact, but it just wouldn't come out. Do you gals like to set your eyeliner with black eyeshadow? Have you heard of that before? Do y'all like all of the colors like me or would you just stick with the basic three?

Rachel Knows... e.l.f. Cream Blush!

Hmmmmm... These are... interesting. I can't decide if I like these or not. They feel a lot like Play-Doh. I really, really had to resist the urge to scoop them all out and build ponies and castles and stuff like that. It took a lot of rubbing to get product to get on my finger. So that's a negative. I mean I sat there for maybe 30 seconds trying to get some to stick to my finger. Once you get it on your finger though it has a really nice effect on the skin. If you look in the picture the swatches look almost airbrushed on. So that's a plus. Color me ignorant on this subject, because I totally am, but I can only see Temptress being used as sort of a contour color, do African American or darker toned ladies use that kind of color as a blush? It just seems a little counterintuitive. Don't hate me, I just don't know.  So if you don't mind working with it to get the product to show up right then I'd say this is a decent blush product. It is a tad bit expensive in e.l.f. standards, but you do get a lot of product for your money. I'm torn on whether to suggest this product or not. You can look at the swatches and think about some of the positives and negatives and decide for yourselves. :)

Rachel Knows... e.l.f. Super Glossy Lip Shine SPF 15! *Updated to include lip swatches!*

These glosses are really great. Most of them are very pigmented and they feel really good. There is quite a lot of product for just $1. They have a strong smell, but it smells nice. These remind me a lot of the Zoya Hot Lips as well. The applicator, to the scent, to the pigmentation is all reminiscent of Hot Lips. I like that there are many neutral colors, but also they throw in several "wild" colors for when you're feeling sassy. Ha-ha! There are also many choices for if you're wanting a pretty opaque lip to just a wash of color. I'd recommend picking up every color. I really don't think there is a color in the batch you can go wrong with. My mom had been on a wild goose chase for a long time to find a lip color that was "her lips but better" as she called it. I was showing her all of the glosses I'd gotten recently and she immediately went through all of the different kinds to pick out the ones she thought would be closest to her lip color. One of the last ones she tried was "Malt Shake." It was a long shot that she just picked out because it was pretty neutral. It was actually her perfect shade. Looking at it you wouldn't think that it would be a very natural lip color, but it really is. So step outside of your comfort zone and try lots of different colors until you find the perfect shade for you, whether it be your "lip color only better" or if it is a wild orange. You'll never know unless you try. :-D

*Update: These are nice and pigmented when they're swatched heavily on the arm, but once on your lips there isn't too much of a color change. They're like normal, run-of-the-mill lip glosses. They're quite thick on the lips and the smell and taste are too much for me. I like things to be unscented and taste-free. These aren't my favorite lip glosses I've ever come across, but if you love lip gloss and don't mind scent or taste, then you can't go wrong with these little beauties for just $1.00.

Rachel Knows...e.l.f. Pigment Eyeshadow!



These pigment eyeshadow are awesometastic! Just look at them! The colors are so pretty. Several of them have an iridescence to them that just can't be appreciated unless you see them in person. I swatched Innocent Ivory first and it does this almost magical thing where it seems like it "melts" when it first goes on to your skin. It turns into a pinkish, orangish, glittery swatch of happiness and then after a few seconds of performing its memorizing magic act it turns into a beautiful shimmery ivory. It is wacky in the most positive way ever. You can also see the wonderful iridescence of Passionate Purple. You can make the colors as intense or as light as you want to. They're really nice to work with. I have created several looks with them recently and if you haven't seen those posts I basically show you that these $3 eyeshadows are up to par with Urban Decay's $18 eyeshadows. Pretty impressive feat. If you'd like to see those posts you can here and here. Enjoy the swatches! :-D

Rachel Knows... Get the Look for Less! e.l.f. vs Urban Decay. Round 2!

Coming up with posts for "Rachel Knows..." has made me step outside of my comfort zone when it comes to my eye makeup. I used my same pink, brown and sort of shimmery ivory colors for close to, geez, probably 10 years. Before that I did just brownish eyeshadow, mascara, foundation, blush and lip gloss. So the 3 colors was kind of wild for me. :-X I know, BORING! Thinking of new color combinations and possibly new ways to apply it has been more than just fun, it has been brain stimulating. Ha-ha. Yeah, makeup can be brain stimulating I suppose. It has made my creative juices start flowing and I've been looking at things from a different perspective. I have been looking at them from the view point of a mature 26 year old and not a 16 year old. I've realized I'm a grown woman, getting married in 3 weeks (AHHHHH! HOLY SHIZ!) and I can pull off way more looks than I could as a 16 year old.
     I have always loved the combination of turquoise or teal and purple. I have been thinking about my favorite color combinations lately and this one kept coming back to me over and over. So I finally made a look that I would feel comfortable enough to wear out and about that doesn't scream, "I HAVE TEAL AND PURPLE ALL OVER MY EYELIDS!" Come. Let me teach you about it. Ha-ha. :-X All of the instructions to create the eye look are exactly the same with the Urban Decays colors. Just use the corresponding Urban Decay color instead of the e.l.f. color. :) Again the Urban Decay look cost $90. The e.l.f. look cost $17. You can find Round 1 here!

Rachel Knows... Get the Look for Less! Urban Decay vs. e.l.f.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Round 1 is underway. It is Urban Decay vs. e.l.f. The Urban Decay eye look cost $90 to make! Holy shiz. The e.l.f. eye look cost $17. Now I don't know about you, but I don't see $73 worth of difference between the two eyes. Can you see $73 worth of difference? This is my take on a smoky eye. I don't like insanely dark eye shadow, so it is a little more subtle than your typical smoky eye. It is much darker and more intense in person though. I suppose I'm going to have to apply the eyeshadow so that I look like an absolutely ridiculous hooker in person for the eyeshadow to show up in pictures. I was like, "Whoa Momma! This is dark!" in person and then when I got done with the pictures I felt like it just looked like an everyday, out and about eye. 

Rachel Knows... e.l.f. Luscious Liquid Lipstick!

These guys remind me of Zoya Hot Lips in terms of their consistency and their color choices. While I personally wouldn't go as far as referring to them as anything close to a lipstick, they do have more oomph than regular ol' lip gloss. They are slightly thicker, in a good way, and have a little more pigmentation than lip gloss. The word, balm, keeps coming to mind, but I don't know if that is because that is how Zoya describes their's or if I really feel that these Liquid Lipsticks have a balm-like consistency. I love the way the Zoya Hot Lips smells, but not as lip gloss. So does that mean I don't like the way they smell? The Liquid Lipsticks have a very faint mint smell. I mean very faint. It is like it takes your nose a few seconds to realize, "Hey. That smells like mint." I don't know how to describe exactly what I mean, but maybe you guys have some of these to know what I mean or maybe when you get some of your own you can kind of understand what I mean and put it into words better. You can get e.l.f.'s entire range of colors for $10, when Zoya's Hot Lips are $6 a piece. I think for products that are quite comparable that this is a total steal! Swatch Time! Look at the shimmer in those bad boys. I just love it!

Rachel Knows... e.l.f. Essential Lipstick!

These lipsticks are great! Just look at that pigmentation in the pictures. Once again, I'm pleasantly surprised by an e.l.f. product's performance. You can get every color they make for $12. I don't have Nostalgia because it was sold out, but I would have gotten it if it had been in stock. Most companies you can't even buy one lipstick for $12! The colors are beautiful, pigmented, moisturizing, and smell pretty good. You can just see the sheen from the moisture in the lipsticks in the swatches. The only color I don't like is Captivating. It isn't quite as bright of an orange in real life, but its pretty close. I think the orange eyeshadow, which I said looked like Cheetos dust, and Captivating worn together would make an awesome Halloween costume. I think someone should wear that lipstick and pat that eyeshadow onto it, then they should dust that orange eyeshadow to random parts of their body and face, go to a dumpster to get some clothes, (I'm not being mean. They really get their clothes from the dumpster. It was on one of their episodes.) carry around a Mountain Dew bottle and a Red Bull and they can say they're Honey Boo Boo from the future. I'm sure that girl can pack away some Cheetos. :-X If you don't know what or who I'm talking about then you need to check out TLC's, "Here comes Honey Boo Boo!" pronto. Redic! Ha-Ha! Honey Boo Boo's Introduction to the World. 
The only cons to this product are that A) The scent was only added to cover up that kind of plastic smell that little girls' makeup smells like. B) When I was swatching, two of the lipsticks broke right in half. I was being very gentle too. C) The colors are really pretty, but they're quite repetitive. There isn't much variation between many of the colors. Overlooking those three minor flaws, I'd say these are totally worth my eleven dollars. :-D

Rachel Knows... e.l.f. Eye Enhancing Eyeshadow for Brown Eyes!

My tutorials for eye looks are probably very repetitive and boring at this point, haha, but as I said before, once you get the basics down it really is just up to the color choices you make. You can make it much more intricate with 50 colors on your eyelid, but I think sometimes a simple look with pretty color combinations is just best. I could have easily put all six colors on my eye somehow, but I didn't want to. I don't think most women in their day to day life walk out of the door with 6+ colors on their eye. It just wouldn't be appropriate in most situations. 

These two palettes actually performed maybe a smidge better than the other four palettes. They were a little easier to even out and make opaque. I personally love the purple look. It is too much fun! I really loved these two palettes. I don't have brown eyes, but I can see myself reaching for these a lot. If you'd like to hear a little bit more about what I had to say in my first and second installments of the Eye Enhancing miniseries you can click here and here.

Rachel Knows... e.l.f. Eye Enhancing Eyeshadow for Blue Eyes!

When I first saw this palette I was like, "What in the world am I going to do with these orange colors?!" I actually made a pretty nice look out of them. At least I think so, you all may disagree. I didn't use the Cheetos orange in my look, but maybe a more talented lady could make something awesome with it. It would be good for a Tennessee Vols look. Speaking of the Cheetos orange, I had some trouble with that color. It just wouldn't go on evenly. It really looks like I rubbed a Cheetos on my arm and it left Cheetos dust all over.  All of the other colors worked well though. These palettes had the same consistency as the Hazel Eyes palettes. There really isn't much more to say about them. If you want to see what I said about the other palettes you can see my blog post about them here.

Rachel Knows... e.l.f. Eye Enhancing Eyeshadow for Hazel Eyes!

These palettes are really fun. The color combinations aren't something I would have ever put together on my own. Pink, Purple and Blue are my all time favorite colors. Why haven't I put them together on my eye before now?! I've honestly never had Blue, Green or Purple on my eye before today. I have to say, I kinda like it. I actually really like the green look on me. The pigmentation on these were good. I used a dab of water on my brushes to make the colors stand out a little more. I used to never like the color of my eye. I always was frustrated because I didn't have completely brown eyes or completely green eyes or completely blue eyes. I had weird colored eyes with flecks of orange and gold. All of my friends were blond haired and blue eyed. I looked nothing like any of them. As I've gotten older I've really come to love the color of my eyes. I mean look at the straight on picture with the green eye shadow. That's a pretty awesome eye! ha ha. Plus, Kelly Clarkson gave us hazel eyed girls some street cred. I think these colors really do a nice job of complementing and making my hazel eyes stand out. The shadows were nice and soft. They blended well and had a little fall out, which I think is normal. You can get 36 eye looks out of this palette. You can't beat that! I think that is right. I never was any good at those sort of math problems where you have to find out how many combinations you can make out of different things. Onto the swatching and eye looks!

Rachel Knows... I Got a Huge Haul!

I have TONS of swatches and reviews coming up soon. I am in the process of taking and editing pictures, putting together eye looks and writing the blog posts for all of the stuff I got. So I will hopefully be done with that soon. Bare with me! Here's all that is coming up:

All of the e.l.f. Studio Eye Enhancing Eyeshadow
All of the e.l.f. Essentials Lipstick
All of the e.l.f. Essentials Luscious Liquid Lipstick
All of the e.l.f. Essential Super Glossy Lip Shine
All of the e.l.f. Essential Brightening Eye Color
e.l.f. Studio Pigment Eyeshadow
e.l.f. Studio Matte Eyeshadow
e.l.f. Studio Cream Blush
e.l.f. Studio 3-in-1 Mascara
e.l.f. Essential Volumizing Mascara
e.l.f. Essential Lengthening & Defining Mascara
e.l.f. Studio Mascara Primer
NYX Nude on Nude Natural Look Kit
NYX Nude on Nude Palette
NYX Caviar and Bubbles

So yeah, I have a LOT o' swatching, picturing, editing and writing to do. I'll get it done as quick as I can and get things back on track! See ya then! :-D

Rachel Knows... e.l.f. Flawless Eyeshadow!

I first learned how to really wear eyeshadow when I bought Almay's trio for hazel eyes. I'm wanting to say it was back in high school when I first started buying it, but I don't remember for sure. I don't know if that product has been out for almost 10 years, but it seems like maybe it has. Anyway, back to my point, I learned how to apply eyeshadow because it was written on the back of the box with a diagram that showed you where to put each color. I'd never known why there were so many colors in a trio or quad before that. I thought it was just a really good deal on getting a bunch of colors. :-x I didn't realize they were meant to be worn together. Once you get the basic principals down of a base color, a crease color and a highlight color then you're set. You're only limited by your imagination after you get that down. I still have a little soft spot in my heart for palettes that tell you exactly how you should apply it to perfectly acheive a look. It is kind of like having a built in girlfriend telling you, "Hey, those colors look awesome together!" I love that about these e.l.f. Flawless Eyeshadows. They literally have it stamped into the eyeshadow to tell you where you need to put it. The less thinking the better. Ha-ha! These e.l.f. Flawless eyeshadows have four eye shadows for you to make a beautiful eye look out of. I'll show you swatches and then show you how each quad looks once you put it together on your eye. :-D

Rachel Knows... What's in My Everyday Makeup Bag!

I have a TON of makeup. I have a whole train case full and three separate makeup bags full, not including this little makeup bag. I keep it on the top shelf of my train case so I can pop it open, grab my bag and get to slappin' da' bass, I mean slappin' my makeup on. I don't carry this bag with me like a lot of people do. I suppose maybe I should, but I never really feel the need for touch ups when I'm out. Maybe I never stay out long enough or something? My everyday makeup bag contains only the essentials to make me look at the very bare minimum, presentable. I can also use what is in there to create a dramatic look if I wanted to. That is what I'd recommend to you ladies. Fill your everyday makeup bag with the bare essentials, but make them versatile enough that you can create several different looks with what is in there.