I'm just really proud of this look

Alright, sue me, I just wanted to use Nicki's verse from Monster to talk about how much I love Monster Super Shock Cheek Highlighter from Colourpop.

IT'S SO PRETTY. It's the perfect highlighter. It's the most beautiful highlighter I've ever owned.

It's got a pearly opalescent GLOW, and when you view it from an angle it's not frosty or dirty-looking like some highlighters can be when the light isn't hitting it.

It's also not massively sparkly, so it's easy to wear. I seriously cannot stress enough how much I love this highlighter. It's just a pink sheen from certain angles, not sparkly or frosty at all, and it's sheer so from any other angles it doesn't look weird. It doesn't look bad from any angles. It's just amazing and that's it.

The texture is a little funky because it's a very thin cream, so it's kind of hard to apply with a brush like you would with powder highlighters. My favorite way to apply this is to gently tap my finger into it, then  sweep it onto my cheekbone and blend with a fluffy brush. I personally like to apply a whole lot and look like a fairy princess, but I assure you, you can get a subtle application this way.

It's also nearly impossible to photograph on my face, which is a bummer, because it's absolutely incredible in person.

Buuuuuut here's the best snapshot I got. All Colourpop color cosmetics: Daddy pressed pigment and I Heart This shadow on eyes, Monster to highlight and Aphrodisiac as light blush/contour, Tootsi lip pencil, Westie lippie and Donut ultra matte for a lil ombre lip.

TIP: Damn, Colourpop is really nailing it. Opalescent highlighters are my favorite thing lately, this is the first really strong one I've seen so I really hope more come out. Duochrome white and blue/purple shadows are also cool for this but I prefer Monster's pink sheen to the purply tones found in eyeshadows.

I picked up a few Sally Girl "Magic Eyeshadows" a while back, at a charming 99¢ each. They had some cute colors and they looked like duochromes but I didn't get my hopes up. Last night while experimenting with eye looks for a wedding I'm going to this weekend, I pulled one out and WOW did it surprise me.

I got a white with blue/purple shift, a lavender with gold shift, a brown with green shift and a coral/orange with cool toned pink shift. On bare skin they're lovely, over primer they glow.

Seriously, this is Urban Decay quality duochrome. It's super visible even on the eye-- I love using the white in the inner corner for a surprise of sheer purple shimmer, it looks ethereal and alien but gentle. The lavender, when swatched, is more gold than purple but you can still see both. The only shade that gave me trouble was the brown, but the green shift stood out much better over primer. The coral is insane, I don't know if I've ever seen a shadow quite like that. I haven't figured out how I'm going to use it but I'm in love.

All the shadows have lovely textures, not too dry and stiff or soft and crumbly, and the price tag really gives you no excuse not to try these. I bet when used wet the shift would be even stronger.

In line with my beliefs since the very first makeup purchase ever, I believe in the power of concealer and that it should be used for most corrections, not foundation. Why cover up your nice-looking skin and semi-cover your society-says-not-as-nice-looking skin* when you could let it breathe and let your nice looking skin shine through and only cover the spots that society says really need the covering?

*Makeup, of course, is not necessary. Acne, of course, is not objectively bad or bad looking, but I admit I'm not 100% impervious to criticism about skin, so I'm a fan of covering up my acne. I'm also using prescription topical treatments and sunscreen. I've been learning about how the modern diet affects our health and acne so I'm also going to try to cut down on foods that cause it.

The first makeup I ever owned was an Almay concealer with salicylic acid to treat acne while covering it. Technically my mom bought it for me, and a few months later I figured out the shade wasn't really working for me. Since then I've tried tons of different concealers. That one was in a tube with a doe-foot applicator, I've tried cream concealers in palettes, I've tried click-pen concealers, squeeze tube concealers, crayon concealers, you name it. Personally, I like cream concealers for the face and liquid for the under-eye area, but I don't bother as much with the under-eye concealing. It's bothersome and sometimes painful, plus I want people to know that I am tired and stressed so they know not to mess with me. Cream concealers are often blendable in small areas without losing opacity, which is essential for spot concealing. Liquid concealers are much easier to use in thin layers for larger areas, like under the eyes.

Current concealer crushes:

MAC Studio Fix Concealer in NW20. LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS. I see a lot of people identify as NC in MAC shades, but let me tell you, I am NOOOOOOT warm-toned. At all. This is a serious, high-coverage cream concealer, very creamy, very blendy, really excellent. $19.

Hourglass Hidden Corrective Concealer in Vanilla LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS. It's a stick concealer, so it actually looks like a fancy lipstick, but it's soooooo nice. Again, very high coverage, very blendable. It's not as creamy as the MAC, so I like to blend this one out with a fingertip to warm it up before I use a brush for a super-smooth finish. I think the shade I got is a little light, but I always wear concealer under my foundation so it's not an issue for me. Oddly, though, I wear Pearl in the foundation range and Vanilla in the concealer- the Pearl concealer is WAY too dark and the Vanilla foundation is WAY too light. Funky. $32. (Christmas present.)

Hard Candy Glamoflauge concealer in Light. oKAY SO IT'S WALMART EXCLUSIVE and I'm really not about Walmart. One time Walmart was like, hey, we're gonna build a HUGE Walmart in your neighborhood, and my neighborhood REVOLTED and put up signs and protested the heck out of it, so they ended up making it less than half the size they had originally planned, but it's still a Walmart. That Walmart by my house doesn't sell Hard Candy, but the Walmart by my college does, so I finally got to try this concealer this year- it's awesome! Full coverage. It comes in a squeeze tube, though, which I don't love, just because I find cream concealers easier and less messy to work with. It also comes with a tiny concealer pencil, which I've never used because it's a different shade than the actual concealer. Also, if you aren't careful in application, it can leave a slight greyish cast on dark spots-- hyperpigmentation, under-eye bags, you know what I'm talking about. If you love liquid concealers, though, don't even bother with the Make Up For Ever stuff. This is like... the same thing. $7.

L'Oreal True Match Super-Blendable crayon concealer. Lovely! The creamiest concealer on this list. Truly, stunningly easy to blend, without losing opacity. Quite nice on both blemishes and under-eye darkness, although it does crease under eyes because it's so creamy so you'll need a setting powder with this one. Also, like the Hard Candy, it can leave a slight greyish cast on dark spots if you aren't careful. To avoid this, I like to apply an initial amount, blend that out with a brush, and then put a tiny bit more over the darkest area and just barely touch it with a smaller brush to blend it out. $7ish. The shade range is also a bit limited.

Maybelline Dream Lumi Touch Highlighting Concealer. I've heard people say it's a dupe for YSL Touche Éclat and it's not, because I've swatched Touche Éclat in the store and it is NOT this pigmented. This stuff is absolutely my go-to for under-eye circles, it is super high coverage, super brightening, and it DOES NOT MOVE. It's in a click-pen so it's really easy to brush on and look so much more awake in about one minute. If you have under-eye circles I highly recommend this. Again, limited shade range, but it can also be used as a highlighter, so it's not totally useless if you can't make it work as a concealer!

Maybelline Master Conceal. I bought this in totally the wrong shade, because they run WAYYYYY light. I mean, unusably light. But I can tell you this is a very high coverage concealer. I mixed it with a little bit of MAC Face and Body which is a touch too dark for me, and it perfected the shade and bumped up the coverage so much more. It seems awesome, though, so maybe I'll get it in the proper shade one of these days and tell you how it is then.

I've here made a disgusting collage of me using these concealers. I have spared you the before images. The Hourglass, MAC and L'Oréal are all good for spot concealing, and the Hard Candy is good for that and for using over a larger area- I applied it all over my cheek there. I've used the Maybelline and Bobbi Brown under my eyes, as they work best there-- both in the sense that they perform better under my eyes than on my face, and that they perform better under my eyes than my other concealers.

I recently spent a night looking up MAC dupes for shades that I owned and looking for colors I had nothing like. I came up with the following

Humid, Expensive Pink, Parfait Amour and Red Brick

I went to a counter and swatched all these, then went to Ulta and found dupes or near-dupes for them.

Here's the palette I made! I had a few issues depotting the NYX Hot Singles but they're still obviously usable and beautiful! I challenged myself to make a look with all four, since they're kind of crazy together. I didn't buy them to go with each other! I bought them cause they're unique in my collection and I love 'em. So here's how that went.

I used 'Expensive Pink' on the inner lid, and 'Parfait Amour' in the crease and outer lid/outer V, both with a fluffy brush. I blended out that purple a lot to get it super sheer. I used 'Humid' along the lash line and blended it up with a detailer brush so it didn't look like liner but a hazy halo of green. I used a bit of 'Humid' again on the outer lower lash line, some 'Expensive Pink' on the inner corner and packed 'Red Brick' on the middle of the lower lash line with my pinky finger. It's definitely a lot more wearable without the orange pop, but I kinda like it since it makes my eyes look so blue! But the sheerness of the purple and green are really working for me, as well as how the gold shimmer in the green and the pink blended with each other. I'm probably gonna wear that to class tomorrow!

Okay. I'll probably do without the orange.

My mom tried to give me a poster for my dorm with a man holding up his kilt to the beautiful Scottish Highlands and a wee heiland coo in the background, with EXPOSE YOURSELF TO SCOTLAND at the bottom, but I didn't take the bait. Yet. I might put it up in our bathroom.

If you haven't gotten to the tarte Exposed color collection yet... maybe you can find it on ebay??? I found mine a few months ago at Ulta after it had sold out online.

I don't have the lip gloss because I gave it to my mom, who a) wears lip gloss a lot more than me and b) loves loves loves this type of color. I'm beginning to understand it- I liked it on lips and now I see the appeal on cheeks, too. It's incredibly flattering, making you look alive but without obvious color. For me, it just brings forth the natural color of my skintone, not the color I naturally blush, even, but just an enhanced color of my skin. 

The mini blush is kind of sheer, which I adore, especially for this kind of color. I can't tell if the cheek stain has a tiny bit of shimmer running through it, if it collected some shimmer from my face the first time I applied it, or if it just looks shimmery because it's a little shiny when first applied. Either way, gorgeous. These look especially good layered, and stay on foreeeeever. The cheek stain also smells lemony fresh, which I LOVE because when I put it on it makes my skin look so fresh and flushed! And lemony! I dunno, man, cheek stain sticks sound kind of gross in theory but somehow the lemony freshness helps to quiet the part of my brain yelling about that when I swipe this one.

The Power Pigment pencil is awesome. Really awesome. But I have an issue with it.
It's smaller than a mini LipSurgence. I checked. What the hell, tarte. It's really nice, though, but can you imagine spending $24 on something smaller than a mini?

It's pretty matte, because it's super pigmented (they don't call it a power pigment pencil for nothing) so there's texture galore. However, props to tarte because it doesn't feel matte at all, it feels incredibly smooth and creamy. And of course it has a pretty strong peppermint scent which I love. I guess to remedy this one should pair it with the lip gloss, which has a pretty strong cupcake scent to it. Mint cupcakes. Yum.

LipSurgence mini, 1.75 g. Full-size Power Pigment, 1 g. What???
I guess since the Power Pigment is more pigmented, the theory is you need less to achieve the same level of pigmentation. But seriously, what the hell is this. I can get 10.5 grams in six LipSurgences in the Kiss and Belle set (and two mini lip glosses) for $34, whereas $34 worth of Power Pigment would be 1.42 grams. WHAT???

TIP: tarte makes really awesome blink-and-you'll-miss-it sets, and this is definitely one of them. 3 full-size products for barely over the price of one of them? Hell yes. And these colors are so popular for a reason, which I've just discovered, but they may not work for everyone. Find your own pink-brown nude!

Something special, coming soon...

YES! Another mega-value set from tarte. I'm a little disappointed because it seems like they usually do sets with fewer products but make them full-sized, but I can't complain because these are actually awesome and their pocket-size makes them super easy to carry along everywhere. Plus, lots of finishes to try!

About the finishes: some of these are matte. Right. But Alluring is listed on the packaging, as you can see above, as matte, and it is not matte at all, so that's weird. Okay, tarte. More of your weirdness. I'll put up with it, though, because these two kits have given me a fantastic introduction to your product line.

Aw yeaaaah, lots of finishes. I love playing with different finishes. But let's get everything straight.

Eternal- listed as matte, is matte
Dreamy- not listed as matte, is matte
Kiss- lip gloss, glitterbomb
Alluring- listed as matte, is not matte
Innocent- not listed as matte, is not matte
Belle- lip gloss, super pigmented
Dainty- not listed as matte, is not matte
Fancy- is listed as matte, is matte

The matte colors are, for the most part, lovely. I found Eternal tugged at the lips a lot, but other than that they were all smooth and wonderful, very lightweight. The other lip tints look fairly similar but show up on the lips much brighter, somehow. And the lip glosses are lovely, of course, but oh my god does Kiss leave glitter everywhere. It's the first one I swatched and you can probably see the bits of glitter in all the other swatches because of it.

My favorite here is definitely Fancy, it's a great winter color, and Belle is lovely for a more casual winter option since it's kind of the same color. Below you can see the glitter carnage that Kiss leaves behind, and then Fancy topped with Chanel Savage Grace lip gloss. I don't know if I have ever seen two lip products so perfectly paired. Excuse the irritation around my lip lines, I haven't quite figured out how to swatch multiple lip colors, wipe each of them off, and re-swatch different ones without that happening.

TIP: Always wear lip balm under matte colors. These tarte ones don't feel matte but they look matte, and they are unforgiving.

Revlon Colorburst lip gloss in Sunbaked
Chanel Rouge Coco lipstick in Mademoiselle
Make Up For Ever sheer lipstick in N9 (in the Sephora birthday gift!)
Revlon Just Bitten Kissable balm stain in Honey

Comparing some colors similar to My Favorite Lipstick Ever!
The Revlon gloss I bought because of its similarity to NARS Dolce Vita, which I was interested in because of its similarity in color to Mademoiselle. It's a little darker and more brown, but looks great layered over Mademoiselle. The MUFE mini lipstick in this year's birthday gift from Sephora is awesome and super cute, and when I got it, I knew I had seen that color before! It's sheerer and balmier compared to Mademoiselle, but as a result easier to wear and apply without a mirror. 

The Revlon balm stain is actually not as similar as I thought it was going to be, but you can see it's still in the same ballpark. It's a mauve take on the shade, but looks lovely nonetheless. Your results may very because this is a balm stain, so it does have a tendency to show up as one color and then fade to another when the 'balm' part is gone.

TIP: Don't waste money on potential (failed) dupes for Mademoiselle like I did before I finally bought it. Look up swatches of real dupes. Make your own blog posts about dupes for it. Make sure they aren't discontinued. Or just save your money on each dupe you almost-buy, and when you've saved enough money from resisting impulse buys, buy the real thing. The real MVP here I'd say is the MUFE, and if you're a Beauty Insider it's free so that's even better.