Cargo Voyages Collection Spring 2011: Safari

CARGO cosmetics has just announced the re-launch of their website, www.cargocosmetics.com! You can now order online direct from them, and as a thank you gift to their customers, they're offering 20% off your first order when you register for their newsletter. Along with the re-launch of their website comes their spring 2011 collection, Voyages. It's a set of travel-friendly, multi-tasking beauty essentials, and I had the opportunity to review a couple of the items.

The centerpiece of the spring collection is the Safari set. It's an adorable makeup bag filled with travel ready shades inspired by the colors of the African savanna.


It includes three full sized items and two minis, and it comes in a really nice safari-themed makeup bag.


One side has this adorable postcard theme, with appliques and stitching. It's a really nice quality; it's not a throwaway bag like a lot of travel sets have. The material feels like a soft, buttery leather and it seems sturdy and well constructed.

One of my favorite details is the zipper pull:

It's a swallow charm. I really like this little extra feature. Swallows have symbolic meaning for travellers, especially sailors. There are multiple meanings behind the swallow symbol. Swallows are known for their faithful return to San Juan Capistrano every year, flying over 6,000 miles to make it back. So, for some, swallows are a symbol of faithfulness and returning home after travel. For sailors, a swallow tattoo was somewhat of a merit badge- traditionally, each swallow tattoo they had represented 5,000 nautical miles that they had travelled. Swallows are also a symbol of returning home safely, as it's said that they appear when ships are nearing land. Whatever the swallow means to you, it's a nice touch that's especially symbolic in a collection called Voyages.

The other side of the bag has a safari theme. The safari image is printed and the flamingo is an applique.

Enough about the bag. You know how much I love packaging, so I could go on and on about it... But there's makeup inside!

A full sized eyeshadow duo in a new shade: the left half is a sparkling metallic gold and the right half is a dusty olive-khaki shimmer.



A full sized Beach Blush in Coral Beach. It's a blush-bronzer fusion; it has stripes that can be used separately or blended together. It has a light golden bronze, a medium coral, a light peachy-pink shimmer and a medium peach shimmer.



A full sized eyeliner pencil in Khaki. Khaki is a deep brown with a slight green undertone and lots of delicate gold sparkle.



A mini Triple Action Mascara. It's a curling mascara that also lengthens and thickens the lashes.


...And a mini lip gloss in Serengeti, which is a sheer pinkish peach coral with tiny, tiny gold and copper microglitter.


Here they are swatched:





Gold half of shadow duo, green half of shadow duo, Khaki liner, Coral Beach blush and Serengeti gloss. If you enlarge the picture, you can see the pretty sparkly microglitter in the gloss and the liner.


The eyeshadow duo has a very silky, velvety texture. The pigmentation is very good, but it's also buildable. You can do a more sheer wash if you apply lightly, but you can also build up both colors to make them sparkle more. I find that the gold half is easiest to apply with the fingers; it has a light, flaky texture that looks more glittery when applied with a brush, but more of a smooth metallic when applied with the fingers. It can look slightly flaky when applied with a brush, but that is easily remedied (if you don't want the sparkly look) by quickly smoothing your finger over it after applying.

The packaging on the shadow duo is also rather cute. It comes in a tiny silver tin, like a smaller version of the blush. The eyeshadow feels hefty, it really feels like you're getting a good amount of product and the pan seems really deep. The only downside to the shadow duo is that it doesn't seem to have a name.

The blush is excellent. The shade is extremely flattering on my skin tone, but I can see it working well on both fair and dark, warm and cool skin tones. At first I was afraid it would be frosty, but it really isn't. The shimmer is very minimal and can be buffed/blended away if you want to tone it down even more. When I used it, I blended all the shades together and it became a lovely warm coral. You can also pick out the individual shades with your brush; bronze for bronzer, peach or coral for blush and light pink for a highlight. The shades are all pigmented enough to double as eyeshadow, too.

They eyeliner was also excellent. It has a perfect texture. It's not too slippery/slick/mushy so it doesn't wear down really fast. It's also not dry, it doesn't tug or skip. It was smooth without being squishy. It had great pigmentation, great texture and the sparkles were actually visible (see below.)

The mascara was okay, but not my favorite. It looked really nice, but I just prefer more volume. It applies really smoothly and doesn't clump. It has one of those spiky plastic brushes so it gives tons of definition and acts as its own lash comb. It gives good length, great definition and decent volume. It's supposed to be a curling mascara, but I always curl my lashes anyway so I didn't notice the curling effect, if any. It didn't flake on me when I wore it and it was easy to remove.

The gloss is nice, too. It has a very silky, non-sticky texture. The shade is my favorite part of the gloss; it's a sheer coral that has an iridescent sheen and some super tiny gold and copper glitter to give it sparkle. The glitter doesn't feel gritty; it's too tiny to feel. The effect is subtle but still interesting. I might like to buy a full size of this color... The only flaws with the gloss are that it's really small (the tube doesn't seem filled completely to the top) and it's unscented. It doesn't have any detectable scent or flavor. I know a lot of people who prefer an unscented gloss, but that's boring to me!


Here's a look I did using these items:



This was:

Too Faced Shadow Insurance
Gold half of duo on lid, applied with fingers
Green half of duo in crease and on lower lashline
Khaki pencil as liner
Cargo Triple Action Mascara, three coats
Fyrinnae Cheeky and Smashbox Artificial Light Luminizing Powder as highlight

If you enlarge the pictures, you can see the gold sparkle in the eyeliner. This is a more subtle look, but I think it looks really fantastic against my eye color.

Here's a closer look at the mascara:
Three coats of the Triple Action Mascara. It did a really great job of separating and defining my lashes, so if you like a more defining, lengthening mascara, this might be a good mascara for you. I personally prefer a bigger, fatter, faker lash look from my mascara.

Overall, I think this is an excellent set. The quality of all the items is great and isn't lacking in any area. The packaging is attractive and well-made. But, what I think I like most about the Safari set is that it has everything you need. Eyeshadow, eyeliner, curling mascara, blush and gloss. The only thing I could think to add to it would be an eye primer and a tinted moisturizer or foundation, but otherwise this is perfect. After testing this out, if I had the chance, I would totally buy this again. Especially because it's a really good deal; only $34! Three full sized products for $34. The Beach Blush alone costs $28 and an eyeshadow single is $16, so yeah, super good deal. And, if you get it with the 20% off code it's around $27 so it's like you're getting a discount on the blush and the rest of the stuff is free.

This is only my second experience with Cargo eyeshadows and I have to say I'm impressed. My first experience was with the Lumieres du Monde palette and I liked that, but I love this. Now I feel like I've been missing out by not paying more attention to CARGO. I really want to play with more of their shadows and Beach blushes now.

This is available now on CargoCosmetics.com, Ulta, Sephora at JC Penney and Beauty 360.

(This was sent to me for review.)

New Wet n Wild FastDry Nail Color Shades for 2011

Along with those awesome eyeshadow trios, Wet n Wild released some new shades of FastDry nail polish for the new year. Apparently, they re-used some names that they used for last fall's colors, but the shades aren't quite the same. I was mistaken in thinking that they were re-releases; I didn't buy any of the fall colors because they didn't look that interesting to me, but these shades are fantastic. These are the ones I chose (though they all looked great):


Blue Wants To Be A Millionaire? This is a really sheer blue holo. It's very pretty. It reminds me of the light blue Nubar holo Absolute. It's not a strong hologram finish, it's really delicate and light.


Buffy The Violet Slayer. Pretty much the best purple shimmer ever. My picture is nowhere near accurate; this is the craziest, prettiest, most vibrant violet-purple color. You really need to see it in real life, it's amazing. Look at the shadow on the bottom half of the bottle, that's much closer to the actual color. It's not blue toned like it looks here. It glows.



Gray's Anatomy. Practically an exact replica of Lippmann's Wicked Game. It's a multichromatic shade that flashes grey, green, purple, blue and silver. It's a little frosty, but since it's a duochrome, I can ignore that.


Hannah Pinktana. Really? That's the name they chose for this one?! There was no other television series title they could have worked the word pink into? Silly name aside, this is another sheer, delicate holographic finish but in a shade of mauve-pink. This one is a little too sheer for me, but it sure looks pretty in the bottle. Maybe I could franken it with something to make it less sheer.



Party Of Five Glitters over Buffy The Violet Slayer. This one was a little too sheer to wear alone. It's a combination of large and small hexagonal glitter in shades of silver, pink, red, green... wait... is there one more shade in there? That's only four! Maybe there's some blue, I can't tell. This one was rather hard to apply, the clear base is thick and the glitter is sparse, kind of a difficult combination.


SaGreena The Teenage Witch. Oh man, these names are killing me! But this is a rather nice shade of green. It's a medium emerald green shimmer, bordering on frost. It's a little more sheer than I prefer, but it's not bad at all.


The formula on these is just okay. It's a little inconsistent, a little runny/goopy in some shades and some of the colors are a little sheer. It's not terrible but it's not the best. The bad part is the brush- it's slanted! Very odd brush. Not my favorite. I think they might need to re-think the brush design on these. The drying time is good on all of these, so no problems there.

One of these days I might pick up the rest of the colors, but these were the ones that interested me the most. There was this gorgeous gold glass fleck that looked really nice.

I'm continually impressed with Wet n Wild's new products. Really happy about the prices, too!

Valge kass

lucky, lucky

YBF Baked Goodies and Chopsticks Lipgloss and Lipliner

YBF is the new cosmetics brand from the lovely beauty maven Stacey Schieffelin. I used to love watching Stacey on TV with her previous line, Models Prefer. She was always so friendly and real and knew all the tricks. I learned how to contour from her! I was wondering what happened to her after the dissolution of Models Prefer, and I was really happy to hear about YBF. I recently got a chance to try out some of the new products, so let's take a look...

The Baked Goodies and Chopsticks collection

The baked goodies portion of this collection consists of three flavored lipglosses. The flavors are:

Coconut Cream, which is a warm medium peachy nude. It's semi sheer and lightly scented with a coconut cream pie scent.

Creme Brulee, which is a semi-opaque frosty beige shimmer. It has a pleasant burnt sugar and vanilla scent.

Strawberry Shortcake, which is a sheer candy pink tint and is scented with a strawberry shortcake scent.


The 'chopsticks' are referring to the eye and lip liners which come in adorable chopstick-style packaging. I only have the lip liner to show:



It's very long, mostly due to the pointed, glitter-covered chopstick like extension on the end. It has a sharpener built into the cap.



The shade is called Nearly Naked and it's a slightly rosy warm nude brown. It's actually rather dark, which you'll see on the swatches below.

Left to right: Creme Brulee lipgloss, Strawberry Shortcake lipgloss, Coconut Cream lipgloss, Nearly Naked lip liner.

The formula on the glosses is a really light, smooth, non-sticky formula. It doesn't feel heavy or thick on the lips. It is very lightweight, which feels nice but also creates a shorter wear time.

The scents are really nice, very sweet but also lightly scented, so they're never overpowering or sickening. They don't seem to have a flavor to them, just a neutral gloss taste.

The packaging is really unique. The caps are a heavy, matte red metal that looks like a red satin top hat and the tubes are almost bulb-shaped. You can see that the inner chamber that contains the gloss is straight, but the body of the tube is thick in the center and tapered toward the edges, creating a lens-like effect. The tubes are large and heavy. The closest thing that resembles this tube would be the Milani 3D Glitzy Gloss tube, but the YBF ones are even heavier.

The liner packaging is really cute and glamorous. It's a matte black pencil with that red glitter point on the end. The cap contains a sharpener and the pencil feels like one of those plastic-like materials instead of sharp wood.

For the most part, I really enjoyed the glosses and two of them will become part of my regular rotation. There were, however, a few downsides for me.

The Creme Brulee shade of gloss isn't wearable, in my opinion. At least not for my skintone. It's so frosty and opaque that it completely fills in your lips with a whitish-beige frostiness. I don't know many people who can pull off that look. I'd say that this shade is best for layering over lipsticks or adding a highlight to the center of the lip.

The gloss formula is also so light that it can be hard to get enough on the wand. I find that I need to dip the wand three or four times to cover my whole lips. Not a major flaw, just something I noticed in the course of testing the gloss.

Overall, the gloss was pretty great. I love that it's scented and light textured and two of the three colors were really flattering.

The liner has a couple issues that I encountered. While the sharpener cap is extremely convenient and a really awesome idea, there are two things you need to keep in mind. One, you must be careful not to cut yourself on the exposed blade. This probably won't be an issue if you keep it on your vanity, but if you carry it in your purse or makeup bag, it can become a concern.

Two, since the cap is a sharpener, there is a gap in the lid. This can allow debris to enter and possibly contaminate your pencil. Again, not a problem if you only use it at your vanity, but can become a problem if you keep it in your purse.

Another thing to note is that the glitter-coated point is fragile. It actually fell off when I was removing the plastic wrapper. It is glued in loosely, so be gentle with it. Also, the glitter does tend to come off easily. Maybe coating it in a layer of clear nail polish would help.

I can't speak for the wear of the liner because frankly, I couldn't wear it! It's much, much too dark for my skintone. As much as I love the 90s, I'm so not into that brown over-lined lip look. I also rarely wear lipstick colors dark enough to match the liner color, so I really haven't had a chance to test it. I think the packaging is absolutely adorable, but the Nearly Naked shade just isn't appropriate for me.

I wasn't able to locate this set or the individual items on YBF's new website, but I found it here on HSN's website. Note that it does also come with a blue-black eyeliner pencil if you were to order the whole thing. I think I'd like to try that pencil, actually... Ever since I tested that Pixi blue black eyeliner, I've been in love with the subtle brightening effect it has on my eyes.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, if you're a YBF or Stacey fan, you might be interested in this:

Pajama Party At Sea - Take a cruise with YBF!

Calling all fabulous females! Former model and makeup guru Stacey Schieffelin is taking her fun-filled, girl power movement to the tropics for the fifth time to bring you Pajama Party at Sea.

Join your best friend Stacey for four days of relaxation, renewal, learning, laughs and best of all new girlfriends. Stacey is offering a unique opportunity for women to escape the stress of daily life and bask in the beauty of the Caribbean surrounded by your best friends, new and old! For the first time ever, the cruise is available in the US and will invite our favorite girlfriends from the UK. Bring your entire family, come with a best friend or come by yourself!

Stacey’s Pajama Party at Sea takes place on a luxury Royal Caribbean Cruise ship fully equipped with all your entertainment must-haves. Indulge in fine dining at one of the five on-board restaurants, sweat and sculpt at the fitness center, save on style with luxury duty-free shopping, and try your luck at the Vegas-inspired casino. And that’s not all; join Stacey and the ybf team for more unforgettable experiences including:

• A private cocktail party
• Beauty makeover sessions
• Inspirational sessions with the ybf life coach
• Tons of gorgeous giveaways
• A ybf makeup kit for every Girlfriend loaded with your favorite ybf products worth over $500!
• Memories that will last a life time

Tickets will be on sale soon for the cruise that leaves Miami to go to the Bahamas and Key West, leaving on July 11 and returning on the 15th.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Nicole by OPI Liquid Metals for Spring 2011

Here's Nicole by OPI's latest: A set of four super-sparkly foils. Technically these came out late last year, but they're part of 2011's spring colors. These feature the new Nicole Perfect Stroke brush, which is similar to OPI's ProWide brush, just rounder and flatter.



It Starts With Me. This is a silver-based peach toned foil. It's not quite pure gold, not quite taupe.


Miss Independent. A pink toned foil. Again, it has a silver base with a pale pink-purple overtone. This one is pretty unique, I can't think of another foil quite like this.



Rich In Spirit. An aqua-blue foil. In certain lights it seems like it has a greenish tinge to it, in other lights it looks pure sky blue.



The Next CEO. A good neutral gold foil with a little bit of a beige tone.

The formula on these is good. Very smooth, not thick, not runny. Good coverage, I only needed two coats on all of these. Drying time is very fast. The new Perfect Stroke brush was much nicer in these than it was in the One Less Lonely Girl collection; none of the brushes in this set were crooked or defective in any way. Smooth, easy application and a nice glossy finish even without topcoat.

These foils are extremely shiny and sparkly. While the colors themselves aren't terribly bold or exciting, the finish is amazing. They're like a cross between a true foil like Zoya Trixie, a chrome like China Glaze Millennium and a glass fleck sparkle. They are both reflective and sparkly/shimmery/borderline glittery and that's what makes these stand out. They aren't as dense of a foil as, say, Orly's Foil FX collection, but they're twice as sparkly.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Inque Nails Designs and Sale

Inque Nails is having a sale until February 8th: Get 15% off your order with code thanksget15off OR get $5 off your toenail sizing fee with code get5offsizing.

Edit: Reader Vampkat also shared this code: 20% off if you use the code FBPPPQOW

I haven't posted about them yet because I haven't tried applying them. I'm currently working on swatching a lot of polish, so I didn't want to apply the Inque nails and immediately have to take them off and waste them! But, when I get a chance to wear the same thing for more than a day, I'll do an application post about these.

In the meantime, here's a little information about Inque.

Inque Nails are a vinyl nail wrap- a little like a decal, a little like Minx. You apply them with heat and they stick to your nails, similar to the Minx process. Except, with Inque nails, you can pick and create your own designs and they're custom sized to your nails.

The first thing you have to do is register your nails. You take a picture of each hand (and/or each foot if you want Inque for your toes!) and they custom size all your designs to the shape of your nails. I'll explain this more in detail when I post my Inque tutorial.

There are a ton of designs to choose from, or you can create your very own style!

To give you an idea of what's available, here are some of their designs:


This is what the Inque nails look like when they're sized to your nails.

However, it's easier to see the detail in the patterns on unsized sheets, so I'll post the unsized ones for these pictures. Keep in mind that you'll get the sized type above once you register your nails, and they'll be perfectly fitted to your own nail shape.

Amoeba


A Little Cheetah


Dog Gone Crazy



Flight


Go Green (these might just be my favorite!)



Peacock 2 (Peacock 1 is only one feather)


Proud To Be

Snake 4

Aren't those cool?! Such amazing, intricate designs that could never be duplicated with Konad or painting alone. They've added a ton of designs since I picked mine out and there are a lot new styles I want... I'm particularly fond of the new 'Cheese' design. Wish I saw that when I picked mine!

Right now they also have Superbowl designs, in case you're into that kinda thing and want to show some team spirit.

Those are the designs I chose, but there are over 200 designs to choose from. You can also submit your own images for a completely custom design. I'll do a more detailed post on application when I am able.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Dollar Tree Makeup? LA Colors Ocean Breeze Set

Ever since I re-discovered drugstore makeup, I've been trying out random things here and there. Some have been good, some have been bad and there have been a lot of pleasant surprises. So, when I was at Dollar Tree recently, these LA Colors palettes caught my eye. And hey, for $1, I had to try them.

I got four different sets: two of these dual 4-pans and two 10-pan palettes. Here's the set named Ocean Breeze (why is it named that?).


The set came in a little plastic bag with these two palettes in it. After I bought it, I realized that it was supposed to come with an eyeliner, and also that these probably weren't the palettes that were supposed to be in the bag. Gotta love Dollar Tree.


They're so cheap that they don't even have names or real lids. The plastic lids have to be removed, they don't swing open like a regular palette. Not a big deal, just somewhat annoying.

Here are the colors in natural light. Actually, they look more accurate in the artificial light, but this accentuates how similar the palettes look to each other.



Swatched dry, no primer. Pretty good payoff and pigmentation! The least pigmented is the grey, the most pigmented is the hot pink.

The colors in these are amazing. The hot pink is killer, the red is really nice and the darker of the purples is surprisingly vibrant. Totally worth the cost of admission. The palettes are small but the colors are bright and pigmented.

I did a super fast look with these; sorry about the weird flash and fluorescent light pictures, it was already dark out when I thought to take a picture.

I know, my liner is atrocious. It was almost empty, I should have just tossed it instead of trying to use the last drops left in the bottle...

This was:
Too Faced Shadow Insurance
The hot pink shade on the lid
The darker purple shade in the crease
A little Make Up For Ever #92 to deepen the crease
The teal shade on the lower lashline
Kat Von D liquid liner in Black Metal Love
Revlon Grow Luscious Mascara


See? Bright! Pigmented! Very powdery and soft with a slight sticky texture like some of those really inexpensive 'value set' drugstore shadows can be. Not hard or chalky like I'm used to from cheap drugstore shadow.

Now I'm excited to use the other LA Colors palettes I got. Great colors. The other palettes have different shades of red, yellow, blue, green, purple...Woohoo $1 makeup!