That’s not nail polish, you’re correct! Today we’re looking at makeup! Gasp!

If you’ve been following this blog for a while now – shoutout to you – you’ll remember a couple that I dabbled in adding makeup reviews as well, that would pop up here and there in between all of the nail collections. But eventually they petered out and we were back to only nails.

Now I’ll be honest, I’m definitely not wearing makeup as often as I did before. Like a lot of others, my working from home status has continued past Covid, so without the push of going into an office every weekday, my wear of makeup has significantly decreased. But that definitely hasn’t stopped my purchasing of makeup. (It’s obviously from the money I’ve saved on train passes). Therefore I just need a little push to wear and test out all of these beautiful and interesting products I’ve been collecting up like a little squirrel. I must give them the light of day, and THUS, I want to bring makeup posts back to the blog.

Makeup has always been up there as a love for me, just as much as nail polish – in fact even before nail polish. I was caking it on (to cover teenage acne) and testing out wild eyeshadow combinations way back in high school. This blog already contains so much of me and my interests, it only makes sense to expand to a new set of drawers.

And I feel like there’s a little niche I can slot on into with this blog in the makeup world as well. I’ve always chosen to focus on more affordable products, both drugstore and more indie brands, mainly because of budget. Yes, it was definitely more rough to find something good, but with where the drugstore is now, it deserves far more coverage. Affordable brands are always coming out with interesting products and fun releases, and there’s room for more coverage of them! I always talk about how I want this blog to be a nail reference, so it’s time I expand out to a makeup reference I’ve been wanting myself.

Yes, I’m rambling, and there’s this whole novel before we even get into the swatches themselves. It’s just a “new” chapter for this blog, and we all know how much I love to ramble and explain. It won’t be happening every time, I promise. So let’s do it, on into the makeup.

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You’ve seen that title, you’ve heard of the inspiration, and you’re thinking to yourself, isn’t Halloween already past? Why yes, it is, and this post is very late, and this collection really isn’t available anymore. But listen, I still want to post it. I went through the effort of photographing, editing and writing for this post, and for me it feels like the first step to posting consistently. I’m making this big speech about getting makeup posts up, and I just have to post this. Better late than never, you must finish your tasks, it makes sense to me, and maybe to any other procrastinators out there. Maybe you’ll stumble upon it in an Ulta somewhere, or maybe you just want to appreciate some fun packaging. (I swear posts will become more timely as I get back into the swing).

SO this collection. If you somehow hadn’t heard, the iconic Halloween movie ‘Beetlejuice’, after being an only child for 36 years, officially expanded into a franchise with a brand new sequel. We had Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder returning, I was cautiously excited. And no matter how you felt about the movie release (I actually loved the goofiness) we can appreciate all of the crazy makeup inspiration it would give us.

There just HAD to be some brand that would pick up the torch to celebrate our favorite undead jokester, and NYX volunteered so happily (we’re grateful to them). And the NYX x Beetlejuice collection was born. This release is full of rich pigments and sparkles, and products to help you fit into the underworld. As soon as I saw this advertised, I knew I would be immediately getting my little goblin hands onto NYX.com and ordering some pieces. I picked up the eyeshadow palette, the blush palette, the 3 dual-ended eyeliners and one of the swirled butter glosses.

There were more products in this set that I knew I wouldn’t use, and I exercised self control and passed on them. That included their ‘Juicy lip gloss’, some undereye patches, 3 more swirled butter glosses in pinks and purples, and the most adorable sponge that looked like Bob, our favorite shrunken head worker. That sponge and it’s matching case WAS adorable, but SELF CONTROL, OKAY.

We have swatches and first impressions here. In the above mentioned effort to be timely, I’ll be mainly posting swatches at first – you’ll be able to get general ideas of products and formulas to help you be a more informed consumer, with reviews and eye looks coming along later.

Why yes, I do love a long introduction, you can just scroll to the photos.

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We’re starting right out with the product I was most excited for. Affordable eyeshadow palettes can sometimes be lacking, but I’m still always intrigued when we get a new one. With their Ultimate palettes (I’ll be swatching those up in the future as well) NYX’s eyeshadow future looked promising, so I had high hopes for this one.

We have a unique shaped coated cardboard package here, that features the iconic stripes and green and purple color palette. It’s about the size of the full length of my hand (maybe I can include more size references in future posts).

It features 8 shades, with 4 shimmers, 3 mattes and 1 matte with glitter.

For the individual shades themselves: ‘The Great Beyond’ is a white matte. ‘Pearly Gates’ is a gorgeous silver shimmer. ‘Shrinker’ is a soft brown matte that would be perfect for softening and “neutralizing” any look. ‘Afterlife Forever’ is a bright lime green shimmer, perfectly matching the packaging of the palette. ‘Ghoul Squad’ is a warm, more pink toned purple shimmer, with ‘Bio-Exorcism’ being the matching warm-toned purple matte. I do almost wish we also got a cooler toned purple that matched the packaging, but that’s me being picky. ‘Winter River’ is a stunning deep navy blue shimmer, and ‘Nightmare Material’ is a black matte with multicolored small glitters throughout it.

I do love that 4 of the shades have a little Beetlejuice related icon imprinted into it. The white shade, ‘The Great Beyond’, and actually ‘Nightmare Material’ as well have a hexagonal checkerboard patter; the purple, ‘Bio-Exorcism’ has a beetle and the brown, ‘Shrinker’ has a sandworm. And in these close-ups you can also see how gorgeous these shimmers are – they’re more foiled with almost thicker glitters and they just look so metallic, I couldn’t wait to get them onto my eyes.

And here are the swatches!

I was impressed with that matte white – it built up well and was smooth and evenly pigmented. And you can see how sparkly these metallics are! They’re a little “chunkier” but they smooth out when swiped on, giving a nice scattered shimmery look. They picked up easily with a finger, and I was able to get good coverage with just one swipe.

Outside of the pan, that gorgeous lime green shade does shift to look a lot more yellow when in direct light. It does still have some green tones to it, but once again me being picky, I would have loved to keep that essential Beetlejuice bright lime green.

‘Winter River’, the blue is absolutely incredible. You can see with one swipe it’s so pigmented and even. And you can see those sparkles in that black shade. Overall, if you tap your brush off after picking it up, and as you blend it’ll function mainly as a matte shade. You will still get some sparkles here and there, but they’ll be less noticeable.

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Next up, we’re looking at the blush palette. After the release of NYX’s incredible Buttermelt Blushes, I was so excited to get even more potentially in that same formula. This palette features 3 shades in a thin plastic packaging. Now, I was surprised at how small this product was – being about the same size as an individual Buttermelt blush. But I was still able to get a brush into each of the pans and apply them.

And I mean, LOOK at these beauties, they’re GORGEOUS. We have the imprints of ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ just like the new movie and then a beetle in that 3rd one. (Don’t say his name 3 times).

The shades are just labeled as 1, 2 and 3. #1 is a soft, pinky toned purple matte shade. #2 is a bright citrus orange shimmer and #3 is a bright berry matte. As you can see they all picked up easily and were very pigmented, feeling just like the Buttermelt blushes (thank god). There could be some unevenness with those two more matte finishes, but I think with a brush instead of a finger they’ll blend out much more nicely.

That orange shade is truly the star of the show and it was immediately so smooth and even on the skin. This was a collection where you could get wild with blush shades, and they did go more unique. Though I’m not sure where bright orange comes in with the color palette of the franchise, but I’m not questioning it.

Being their newest blush releases, I had to compare these 3 shades to their Buttermelt shades as well, mainly to see if these were truly new colors. The 3 palette blushes are on the top of each pair with their closest shades underneath. (Here you can really see the size of the palette itself as well).

First up we have our two purples. Though these might be the same tones, they vary just slightly in finish. ‘All the Butta’ is a touch lighter and more vibrant with a sheen to it, with #1 being a true matte. #1 is just the matte cousin of ‘All the Butta’.

That orange is truly the most unique and I didn’t find its counterpart in the individual Buttermelt blushes. The one other orange, ‘Sooner the Butta’, is much lighter and much less shimmery. #2 has a golden shimmer running throughout it just making it so vibrant and glowy. I would love to see it as a single permanent shade.

#3 is the one shade that I found having a true dupe in their Buttermelt line. So if you were only wanting that berry shade in the palette, ‘Butta Than Before’ will have you covered. Especially blended out, these two will be the same on the cheeks. 2 out of 3 new shades isn’t bad, so I can’t complain too much that that berry color overlaps with their individual shades.

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The next product is the ‘Pinstrip Duo Liners’. Each of these features a black felt tip matte black liner end and then one duochrome pencil end, and they come in 3 colors.

They’re a pen style liner, in a gorgeous more chrome plastic casing with a black line pattern all throughout it. The packaging colors correspond to the duochrome color of each, and they’re just named after said duochrome shade, being ‘Purple Chrome’, ‘Green Chrome’, and ‘Pink Chrome’.

All 3 do come with the same black felt tip end, so this can be a bit redundant if you’re purchasing all 3 and aren’t wearing a full wing with each and every look – but fine if you’re only grabbing one. It’s a flexible tip that goes to a very pointed end, so you can easily create both thin and thicker lines.

Now for the duochrome pencil ends, the part we’re all actually curious about. Drugstore brands have really come along with releasing duochrome products, and I just can’t help picking up each new one. From left to right, we have ‘Purple Chrome’ (though it does look blue in most angles), ‘Green Chrome’ and ‘Pink Chrome’.

For each swatch, I did a swipe of the black liner – you can see I got real goofy with it at points, showing how wide it can get. That liner was very pigmented and opaque with 1 swipe, and it painted on easily without skipping. I then did a swipe of each pencil on its own, as well as over the black liner, to see if that made any difference as well. A base underneath any sort of duochrome can help it pop more, but these liners were pigmented enough to also stand on their own.

‘Purple Chrome’ shifts from a deep navy blue (almost matching the blue shadow from the eyeshadow palette) over to a warmer toned purple. This shade was the least shifty of the bunch. I was mainly getting just the blue and I really had to angle my arm to see more of that purple.

‘Green Chrome’ shifts much more, from a more olive-toned gold to a bright almost lime-forest green. (See that’s the type of green I wanted the green eyeshadow to be).

And ‘Pink Chrome’ shifts from a warm red-toned pink, over to a coppery orange and continues on to a forest green. It had the most shifts of the 3 and it was mesmerizing to look at really.

Please enjoy the angles as I try to show off the shifts.

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The last product that I grabbed from this collection was one of their 3 new swirled Butter Glosses. The Butter Glosses themselves have been raved about for years, but these are different because they’re swirled. This is the ‘Sandworm Swirl’ and it features a black and white swirl. I’m not too much of a gloss person normally, but I saw a gray gloss and was like yes? a weird lip color from a mainstream drugstore brand? Okay yes I’ll buy you.

The colors are fully swirled in the tube, and they stay that way as you pull the applicator out, with the color then mixing together once you swipe it onto your lips and press them together.

I’m sure, if you’re a MONSTER, you can swirl the applicator inside the tube to “mix it up” more but just look at that satisfying swirl. The brush is also half black and white, and you can see those two separate colors being picked up. HOW DID THEY GET THEM SWIRLED INSIDE THE TUBE?

Then, as you see in my swatch, it mixes more to create that softer, cooler almost purple toned gloss shade. The Butter Glosses are a more sheer formula overall, but it still has enough pigment to mute down the color of your lips. It’s a soft little goth moment, and a little baby stepping stone to wearing more interesting lip colors.

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And those are all the products! I’m an absolute sucker anytime a brand commits to a theme and releases a new collection – so I’m sure you’ll see lots more of those reviewed on the blog in the future. Each product in this collection was fitting and they were all done so well. They created all new products and packaging – there’s no just slapping stickers onto existing products here. Overall I had no glaring issues with quality as I played with these – and if you’re lucky enough to find these for sale somewhere, I can highly recommend

I hope you enjoyed this first post, and I hope the swatches were helpful (for a collection that’s no longer around). Stick with me, and there will be so many more to come!

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Upcoming Posts
Romand x INAPSquare Black collection • Profusion x TMNT eyeshadow palette • Colourpop Haunted Mansion • Girlcult Peach collection • NYX Buttermelt Blushes

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