8-pan Challenge

Alright ladies it's spring makeup collection season! My favorite makeup season of all! I love how all the colors are starting to warm up and looking so bright, sunny and tropical. I am drooling just looking at all these gorgeous coral blushers and vibrant eyeshadow colors that are out right now. It's total sensory overload! What is everyone else lemming-ing? Planning any purchases?

So with that said, I need to go on a no buy. So starting today I am going to challenge myself to finish 8 makeup products before I get to buy anything new one. Originally I had started with doing a 5-pan challenge, but I ended up upping it to 8 because I am the proud new owner of Bobbi Brown Cabo coral and Calypso coral pot rouges!!!!! (well once they arrive as I ordered online.) I will get swatches of them up asap!

Anyhow, back to the challenge. The rules I'm setting for myself are as follows:

8-pan challenge rules:

1. Make up items only. Skin care/hair care items do not count

2. Two deluxe sample items count for 1 product.

3. Once I finish 8 items I can purchase only ONE makeup item.

4. If at any point I break my challenge, I tack on 2 more items that need to be finished before I can get another makeup item.

So far I have a few items "nearing the end". I can do this! I have been making a point to use these daily just so I could finish these suckers up and not have to look at them anymore.

Nearly gone items. Listed top to bottom left to right:

*THE SHE SPACE- RUDE AWAKENING
This is such a pretty wheat slightly gray/taupe color. It has just the right amount of shimmer. I just ordered a full size version of this!

* KORRES WILD ROSE POWDER WRF3

* MAC RICEPAPER
-other e/s top to bottom, left to right: ricepaper, era, satin taupe, grain-

I love using Ricepaper as a all over wash these days. Totally wakes up my eyes

*NARS BETTINA VELVET LIP MATTE
Gorgeosus peachy hint of orange warm toned matte

* TOO FACED SHADOW INSURANCE

* MAC SHE LOVES CANDY
I am so sad I'm almost done with this gloss. This is gorgeous alone or over any lipstick. It is this unique shimmery pale pink with a hint of a cool lavender tint to it.


And on to the swatches!

Left to right: Rude Awakening, Ricepaper, Era, Grain, Satin Taupe, Bettina, Bettina with She loves candy on top, She loves Candy

***NOTE: Eye shadows were swatched over TFSI***

Korres Blushers..the loves of my life

So I am a HUGE Korres-a-holic!! I discovered their line when I tried the wild rose foundation which is a my holy grail of holy grail foundations. For the longest time I could not find a foundation I liked as many were always too pink on me. The Korres line seems to be geared more twoards the golden and olive toned ladies which is perfect for me! Anyhow ever since I got the foundation I branched out and I now have all the blushers except one, peach. I hope to acquire it one of these days so I have the full "set".

The quality of these blushers are quite nice! Not as pigmented as NARS, but they are still up there in pigmentation. They all have minimal to low shimmer once applied. In the pan, some of them look rather *sparkley* but the sparkles go away once applied to give a nice "glow"..I promise!

<---The swatches of the blushers on plain white paper.

In my opinion these colors are fairly true to color on the paper swatches except for orange, which doesn't look as neon in real life.

If I had to choose, my top two favorites would have to be pink (a neutral leaning cool toned happy go lucky kinda pink) and purple brown (neutral mauve-y with a hint of brown tones..reminds me of NARS sin or lovejoy only better looking on me. No muddiness). They are my ultimate "go-to" colors. But don't get me wrong, the other colors are also quite fabulous!

Coral is a nice...well warm coral color along the lines of NARS torrid. This looks rather shimmery in the pan, but I promise it does not appear that way on my cheeks.

Orange reminds me of a more subdued less pigmented version of NARS Exhibit A. Korres Orange is also less orange-y red and more of a coral tone to it. This has minimal shimmer to it compared to the other Korres blushers, but it is NOT matte.

Orange brown is quite a unique color. It is almost a duo chrome looking shade which I could not capture in my pictures. It is a bronze-y color with a duo chrome of pink and orange flashes to it. It makes for a nice "summer's glow" kinda look on my cheeks. Very uniquely awesome!!!

Purple is a lovely bright pop of plum/berry color. Gives me a nice in from the cold flush. Another one of the less shimmery looking blushers in the pan.

The blush in Natural, is kind of a mis-nomer in my opinion as it is more of a bronzer than a blush. It gives a great neutral cheek or contour color, but I find it's too brown to be worn alone and I need to add a pop of color on my apples.

Swatched heavily on my arm with no base. Colors are from left to right: Coral, Orange, Orange Brown, Purple, Purple Brown, Natural, & Pink.


So these swatch colors came out a little wonky, but they are pretty close in color as I could get. For some reason my skin color looks really crazy at the top. I look like I have some crazy skin condition which I promise I don't...just a case of bad lighting.

Most loved Items in my stash

This is a short entry, but here are some of the items in my stash I find myself using the most often.

Items are from left to right/top to bottom.

- MAC brush in 165
- Korres wild rose pressed powder (yay! I've hit pan!)
- NARS portobello duo
- NARS blondie single
- Benefit creaseless cream in birthday suit


If anything I love my MAC 165 brush more than anything EVER!!! This brush is truely a multi-tasker! I especially love this to do an all over wash on my eyes.

Things to look forwards to:
- A recap on all my January purchases (swatches included)
- Swatches of my stash. I think I will break them down into groups by brand or category, not sure which yet.