Makeup Monday: Ulta-Exclusive LORAC Multidimensional Beauty Kit

I was so excited to get this when I ordered it, and then things got crazy and I never got to finish my post.... I'm still excited about it, actually, and I've had it for a couple months already.

LORAC Multidimensional Beauty collection. This is an Ulta exclusive and I'm pretty sure it's limited edition. In case you can't tell from this picture, the box is HOLO:

See?! How cool is that?? I know it's just a cardboard box, but it's a hologram cardboard box and you know what a sucker I am for good packaging.

But the outer carton isn't the only thing that's holo-esque... This kit comes with a metal-plated makeup bag that is pretty much the most amazing thing ever. My only complaint is that it's not big enough to carry as a purse. I took a million pictures.

The left hand side of the bag has a rainbow pattern that's always visible, but the right hand side has no stripes.

It changes colors depending on the angle. It's mesmerizing to look at. See down toward the opposite edge of the bag, where it looks like it's lighting up aqua? It looks even better in real life. Holo makeup bag. Gaaaaah so awesome....


Okay, enough about the bag already. Here's what's inside:

Three full sized eyeshadows in 3D-Luxe, 3D-Mension and 3D-Licious plus an Ulta exclusive shade of LORAC 3D Multiplex lipgloss in Ulta Glam.

3D-Luxe is a light ivory with peachy tinted duochrome and subtle iridescent sparkle, 3D-Mension is a plain metallic bronze and 3D-Licious is a MAC Club dupe (red toned brown with green-blue duochrome shimmer).

3D-Luxe is my favorite one... it's so gorgeous, none of my pictures come close to capturing how beautiful it is. It has such delicate iridescent sparkle and just a faint sheen of duochrome across the color...

If you enlarge these, you might be able to pick up a little of the depth of the color. You sorta have to see it in person to fully appreciate it.

The Ulta Glam shade of Multiplex gloss is just as mesmerizing... I think the purchase of the kit was worth it just for this beauty:
Ulta Glam is a copper rose shimmer base, sheer, with strong brassy gold duochrome at one angle and darker pink-rose duochrome at another angle plus lots of iridescent microglitter that also adds to the color-shiftiness. The best part? There's BLUE MICROGLITTER. Blue!!! Glitter!!


Swatched dry over bare skin: 3D-Luxe, 3D-Mension and 3D-Licious shadows and Ulta Glam Multiplex 3D gloss. You can kinda see the blue sparkles in the gloss, right?

This also came with a gift with purchase that I thought was pretty neat:

A sample of LORAC's new Multiplex 3D Lashes mascara that comes on a holo card, in a tube with holo text. Yep, no denying it, I'm easily swayed by how much holo foil comes on the package... The mascara itself it's something I'd normally use. I like the curved plastic pointy bristle brush, but the formula doesn't add any volume. It makes your lashes super long and defined, but doesn't add any thickness. It kinda seems like it makes them curl like those old curling mascaras, but it could just be my imagination....

The formula on the shadows seems consistent with the other LORAC shadows I've tried. Like I've mentioned before, I'm really new to LORAC shadows and I'm still not sure if this is the normal quality and texture or not. The texture is disturbingly soft and loose- I say disturbing because it seems like it loosens so much product every time I touch it with my brush that I could use the entire shadow in a week. Very loosely pressed, soft and powdery. Medium pigmentation and payoff, not super pigmented or opaque. Suitable for wet use to intensify the payoff and color. I'd recommend wet use if you like your colors intense like I do. They don't seem to wear very well due to the super soft light texture; they tend to fade a bit and wear off by the end of the day (I always use primer and it behaves the same over all primers I tried). The colors themselves are pretty and go well together and they look light and luminous on.

The gloss is amazing. I love the Multiplex formula. It's smooth and silky, lasts a reasonable amount of time and tastes/smells amazing. Is it lychee? I have no idea what the scent is, but it's light and fruity and soft and I really really like it. The Ulta Glam shade in this kit does not disappoint. It's super duochrome but also full of microglitter so it's sparkly on top of being duochrome. The only downside is that the glitter is kinda gritty.

I love this kit. I really hope LORAC keeps doing the whole multiplex 3D theme. They enable me in my duochrome addiction... Just wish they'd lower the price on their Multiplex glosses!

This is gone from the Ulta website already, but I've seen plenty of kits still in stock in-store recently, so you should be able to find one if you have an Ulta nearby. The whole kit is only $35 so it's an excellent value- a Multiplex gloss alone is $22 (and no, I won't stop complaining about the price) and a LORAC shadow single is $19.

Makeup Monday: Anastasia Illumin8 Eyeshadow with Youthful Synergy Complex

That name's quite a mouthful, isn't it? Actually, I think the full name is Anastasia Beverly Hills Illumin8 with Youthful Synergy™ Complex Eyeshadow Palette. I get winded just typing that. Despite the epically long name, this eyeshadow is pretty awesome.

The thing that draws me in about this shadow is that it's both eyeshadow and anti-aging skincare at the same time. You can read about some of the claims right on the front flap of the packaging:

It does say that most results were seen after four weeks of use. That means, in order to properly test and review these, I'd have to wear the same eyeshadow for four weeks straight! You all know me well enough by now to know that's pretty much and impossible task for me. After all, my favorite thing is variety. But, I did pretty well. I had enough of a variety of colors that I was able to make it the whole four weeks wearing mostly the Anastasia shadows. More on that after I show you the gorgeous colors.

I tried two palettes, #4 and #5. The #4 and #5 palettes are brand new for 2011.

The front of the palette is this stunning mirrored silver with the Anastasia Beverly Hills logo printed on the top side and a regular label sticker on the underside. Reminds me a bit of the ModelCo holiday palette from a few years back... anyone remember that?

When you open the lid, you're greeted by this:

This is the #4 palette. It contains five shadows (white with gold glitter/shimmer, drab olive shimmer, duochrome purple/blue shimmer, lime green shimmer, deep green brown shimmer) and a double sided brush which is actually of decent and usable quality. I mention the quality of the brush because often the brushes that come with palettes are cheap and useless. This one's a little on the scratchy side, but I was able to use it to do my whole look.


You may like to enlarge this to see the shimmer in the shadows and the duochrome effect on that marvelous purple.


Here are the #4 palette's shadows in order, swatched dry over bare skin (no base). I believe the shadows are named, but the names are only numbers, 1-5, in the order that they appear in the palette. The colors in this palette are so utterly gorgeous on my brown eyes... I'm in love with it.


Now for the #5 palette:

A pale peach-pink with large glitter/shimmer, a metallic bronze, a deep teal shimmer, a metallic brown and a dark blackened navy shimmer.


You can see the sparkle in the pink best in this picture. Like always, click to enlarge and see it in full detail.


The #5 palette, shades 1-5, swatched dry on bare skin (no base). You can just barely see that pink on the far left; it's nearly the same color as my skin. Only the contrasting warm tone and slight sparkle gives it away!

I mention that I swatched these dry only because the company suggests that they can be worn wet or dry. I have not used them wet, the pigmentation and payoff was good enough that I just didn't need to add an extra step!

The texture of the eyeshadows is slightly varied, but overall nice. The pigmentation on most of the shades is excellent. The least pigmented shades are the teal and navy in the #5 palette; I needed a to layer them a few times to build a good, opaque layer of color. The rest of the shades are marvelous.

About half the shades in these palettes are smooth and the other half have what I can only describe as a creamy-scratchy texture. They feel smooth and silky but at the same time have a little bit of a roughness to them, which is odd. It may be due to the diamond core powder that's included in the formula for these shadows.

Like most shadows, there's a little fallout when applied with a brush, but nothing significant. It's mostly just with the darker shades as they seem to be more powdery textured than the others. The blending on these is a dream. They blend effortlessly and seamlessly. I'm very impressed with how well even the dark navy blends without streaking.

The only major downside for me is that the beautiful bright lime shade in the #4 palette seems to fade and dull after wearing it for only an hour or so. It doesn't disappear or fade away completely, but it does lose its edge. It doesn't look as bright and fresh as when it's newly applied.

Here are a few looks I did using the palettes:


This is using all the shades in the # palette, all over a base of Too Faced Shadow Insurance. The lime shade on the lid, the olive in the crease with the dark green-brown in the inner crease to deepen it and the blue/purple duochrome on the lower lashline. I tried the white and gold shade on my browbone as a highlight but it was too white and frosty so I wiped most of it off. Instead, I dabbed a tiny amount onto the very center of my lid, just above the pupil, to add a bit of a dimensional effect. I used Cargo Khaki eyeliner to do the subtle line along the lashes.


Here's a slightly different spin on the same look:


The difference here is that I added my beloved winged liner (Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Eye Liner in Dark Brown), used only the purple on the lower lashline and didn't use any of the white.


This look uses the #5 palette over a base of Too Faced Shadow Insurance. It's the bronze shade on the lid, the teal in the crease and on the lower lashline, the navy used very lightly in the outer V just to deepen it and the pale pink on the browbone. The liner is Stila Glitter Liner in Kitten.


I also did a look using the #5 palette to make a smoky eye with only the pale pink and the dark navy. I did the pale pink all over and the dark navy in the crease and upper and lower lashlines, smudged and smoked out to create the typical 'smoky' look. Unfortunately, I don't think I took a picture of that one. Either that, or it's lost within the bowels of my hard drive...

So, what about all those skin-enhancing, line-smoothing, anti-aging claims? Well... to be honest... I'm undecided!

Since I don't have any lines or wrinkles yet, I can't actually say whether or not using these shadows for four weeks improved them. I don't really have hooded lids so I can't speak on that either. However, the rest of the claims seem to be true (my comments in pink):

Clinically proven results:
Clinical result reported at 1 hour is:
• 29% increase in skin hydration. (I don't know how I would even measure this, so I'm not sure on this one.)

Clinical results reported at 4 weeks are:
• Appearance of fine lines and wrinkles on upper eyelid and brow area are reduced. (I have no wrinkles or fine lines just yet so no results observed.)
• Appearance of upper eyelid puffiness is reduced. (I did notice this result. My eyes have been a little puffy lately and this did actually help reduce that a little.)

Consumer test results after 4 weeks of use:
70% noticed reduction of the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles on the eyelid
77% noticed eye area appears illuminated (I don't know if I'd used the word 'illuminated', but my eye area did look brighter without makeup.)
83% noticed eyelid appears smoother (My eyelids were smoother looking after using these.)
70% noticed eyelid appears firmer (I noticed this result, too. Both with shadow on and without.)
68% noticed hooded lid appears less visible
83% noticed overall eye area appears lighter/brighter (I think this one can piggyback on the second one, but my eyelids/eye area looked less dark and shadowed/bruised without makeup after using these for 4 weeks.)

Clinical test results after 4 weeks this eye area appears:
• Firmer
• Smoother
• Lighter
• Less Puffy
(Yep, yep, yep, yep)

Results may vary, though significant results were seen after 1 hour of application.

I gotta say, I'm always extremely skeptical when it comes to products that make claims, but this actually did do what it said for the most part. My eyelids looked and felt better without makeup after consistently using these. Nothing crazy dramatic, and probably not noticeable by anyone other than me, but I did see a difference. I liked the lightening/brightening effect the best, as darkness in my eye area is one of my main problems. But, like I said, no wrinkles yet (*knock on wood*) so I can't say whether or not it helped in that area.

After using these, I would definitely buy them again. I'd probably pick only #4 because the colors are just so absolutely perfect on me. I actually wanted to wear it for a week straight. Seriously, it's gorgeous. It has purple duochrome and lime green, what more could a brown eyed girl want?

These shadow palettes are marginally pricier than other peer/midrange brands at $40 a piece for five shades. You do get a rather large amount of shadow for the price, though. According to the manufacturer's ingredient list, each single/duo is 10g/0.063oz. If I'm understanding the wording correctly, that's pretty much a full size shadow in each pan. For comparison, a full-sized NARS shadow is just slightly larger at 0.07oz and costs $23 for one. An Urban Decay Urban Ammo palette contains ten .03oz shadows (slightly more product than Anastasia's four .06oz shadows) and costs $38.

So, fairly reasonable price, good amount of shadow, nice packaging, decent brush, good color payoff, pretty, well-coordinated colors and the lovely added bonus of a skin-improving formula. I really, really love that they actually do something to improve your skin while you're wearing them instead of just sitting there doing nothing. More brands should follow Anastasia's lead and make anti-aging shadows. I just love products that work overtime.

These are available at Sephora and the Anastasia Beverly Hills website.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Shadow Pencils Spring 2011

Urban Decay has just announced the newest member of the 24/7 family: the 24/7 Glide On Shadow Pencil. The 12 shades of waterproof eyeshadow are new for Spring 2011 and I have them to review, so I'm going to do my best to show you how pretty they are!

Like their eyeliner counterparts, these come in pencil form with a shiny silver cap. They're chubby pencils, about twice the diameter of a 24/7 eyeliner. They are actual pencils (not twist-up/automatic) so will need to be sharpened, but if you have the Urban Decay Grindhouse sharpener, they fit perfectly in the large side.


The shades are:

Barracuda, black with silver glitter.



Clash, a bright aqua blue with a hint of green, iridescent sparkle and a subtle purple sheen.

Clinic, a medium blue-toned emerald green with shimmer and subtle silver sparkle.


Delinquent, an amazing jeweltone purple with iridescent sparkle.



Lit, a light bronzy gold shimmer.



Mercury, a grey-silver shimmer.


Midnight Cowboy, a light peachy-beige gold with silver microglitter, just like the powder eyeshadow.


Morphine, a light lilac purple with blue duochrome and shimmer.


Narc, a mossy, olivey yellow-toned green shimmer.




Rehab, a light brown/taupe shimmer.




Sin, a delicate champagne shimmer.



Wasteland, a chocolate brown shimmer.

And, on my arm, applied straight from the tube, no base:

Sin, Midnight Cowboy, Lit, Morphine. If you enlarge this, you'll be able to see the gorgeous glitter in Midnight Cowboy. Also note how awesome and glowy Morphine looks. It has really strong blue iridescence so it looks like it's glowing blue. It's amazing.


Delinquent, Clash, Clinic, Narc. I tried to capture the sparkle in these, you may need to view it full size to see it. Delinquent is incredible, look at that rich purple color and all that electric purple shimmer in it!



Mercury, Barracuda, Wasteland, Rehab. Barracuda really stands out here, doesn't it? I love that glitter. And I'm not sure if you can see it very well, but Rehab has a really pretty reddish-gold duochrome sheen to it. It's subtle, but when you catch it just right, it's so pretty.

The texture of these pencils is really similar to the 24/7 eyeliner. They're soft, silky and extremely smooth. They really do glide on, no tugging or skipping. They're very opaque and pigmented and you really don't need more than one or two swipes of color.

You can apply them as eyeliner or eyeshadow. You'd think with such a chubby pencil, you wouldn't be able to get a nice line, but that's not the case. The thickness of the tip actually makes a really even line that isn't too thick. If you prefer a super thin line, you can always sharpen the tip before using it to line.

I've been testing them out over the past week to see how they hold up, and these are a few of the ways I've used them:

(All of these looks use Too Faced Shadow Insurance as a base.)

This is Lit on the lid and on the lower lashline, a green Anastasia shadow in the crease, Delinquent as liner and a tiny bit of Clinic on the outer edge of the lower lashline. Isn't Delinquent amazing?





This is a silvery smoky eye using Lap Dance and Stilletto from the Too Faced Naked Eye palette and Urban Decay Delinquent 24/7 shadow as eyeliner. Seriously... just look at that purple! It's so awesome! I can't get enough of it.




This is Morphine on the lid with Kat Von D Prague (from the Truth palette) in the crease and on the lower lashline and MAC Blacktrack Fluidline as liner. Morphine has that amazing blue glow that I love all by itself, but it does something cool when you layer with it. When other shadows are layered over Morphine, they become duochrome! Prague is a matte formula, but you can see in this picture that it takes on a red pearl duochrome effect everywhere it touches Morphine.

Now that I've used these a few times, I have a few observations.

First and foremost, when they say 24/7, they mean it! This is by far the longest wearing eyeshadow I've ever used. At first I was afraid that they'd crease due to the creamy texture, but that is absolutely not the case. They are bulletproof. No amount of rubbing or sweating or crying or rain will make these run or crease. Once they're on, they're on. They're so hardcore that they're even a little hard to remove- they don't come off easily with soap and water. I'd recommend an oily makeup remover to take these off- I use pure jojoba oil.

Because of this long-wear formula, you have to work quickly. They set extremely fast. Faster than the 24/7 pencils. Because they set so fast and don't budge when they're dry, you can't really blend them. I've tried and failed. There's literally no time to try to smudge your lines or blend out the colors, and if you try to blend after they're starting to set, it causes some uncomfortable tugging on the lid. Lightning fast. That's why I'm sticking to using these as a lid color or a liner.

The slight tackiness/stickiness (disappears after a few seconds) of these when they're freshly applied makes them a great shadow base. You can lay down a base of 24/7 and then pat your powder shadow on top while the 24/7 is still sticky to intensify the colors and smudge/crease/fade proof them. Also makes a good base for glitter if you work quick enough!

These would definitely be ideal if you're a swimmer or for a trip to the beach since they're waterproof and they don't melt. One color as a lid color, another color as liner and some waterproof mascara. Pool-proof makeup.

Besides being totally waterproof and crazy long wearing, another advantage of the 24/7 Glide On Shadow is that there's no glitter fallout. This is especially pleasing to me, as I've had a love-hate relationship with Urban Decay's glitter shadows. I am extremely happy that they've made Midnight Cowboy into a pencil. In pencil form, you can enjoy all the glitter in the iconic Midnight Cowboy without it ending up all over your face. The glitter stays on your eyelids and doesn't budge. Very, very happy about this.

I'm someone who never uses cream or liquid shadows because they're a pain, but these have changed my mind. They're creamy but they don't crease! They're easy to apply- just scribble all over your eyelid and you're done. They make nice, bold, even lines as eyeliner and they stay on all day. They're not really blendable, so I personally can't use them as a crease color, but as a lid color and a liner, they're great.

My top picks? Delinquent and Morphine are my must-haves from this collection. Delinquent is the purple pencil I've been searching for all my life. It is pigmented, sparkly and very obviously purple. Morphine is just insanely cool and you know I can't resist a duochrome. Midnight Cowboy is another top pick because it's a perfect neutral lid color and unlike the powder version, the pencil has no glitter fallout. Mercury is also great for an extremely fast, easy smoky eye look.

All the colors are gorgeous, vibrant and sparkly but I have a soft spot for purples and glitter. I really hope they do more glitter shades! I'm hoping for the old version of Oil Slick with the rainbow glitter. I'd also love to see SWF, Goddess, Kiddie Pool, Uzi and the other Midnight shades in pencil form. One can dream...

Have you tried these? I want to know what your experience with them was.

They're available now on Urban Decay's website, Sephora and Ulta.

(These were sent to me for review.)