Tag: eyeshadow

Cosmic Brushes ‘Tis the Season’ Eyeshadow Palette – Swatches

GingerlyPolished2 Comments

In November of 2024, I finally published up a little post swatching a NYX makeup collection (that collection was limited edition, but if you still want to read it, I’m not stopping you). If you’ve been here long enough, you’ll know I had dabbled in adding makeup to this blog before that post, starting way back in 2017. From there I had some scattered moments throughout the years until all makeup posting finally petered out in 2021. I had been more ambitious and consistent with my reviews in January 2020, but then we all know what happened a couple months later. Either way, even as I was posting makeup reviews, I had never fully settled into a routine with them to keep them consistent, and no matter what they always took a very distant 2nd place behind nail polish.

Now don’t let that above phrasing scare you, Gingerly Polished will always be first and foremost about new nail polish. But makeup has always been right up there in my interests along with nail polish. I get just as excited for its new releases and collections, and I enjoy wearing it just as much. The beauty products in my life are never limited to just nail polish, and so I don’t want this blog to be either. With each of these first posts of this new year, I’ve been detailing my blog plans (I promise that won’t repeat much longer) and now it’s time to talk about the other essential part of those resolutions.

I’ve been adamant that eventually I want to settle into a 3+ posts per week routine for Gingerly Polished in 2025. I’ve mentioned that obviously at least 2 each week are going to be nail related, but now I’m fully noting it down that eventually I want at least 1 makeup related post going up each week. Am I now going to use this goal as an excuse to buy even more new makeup products, saying “it’s for the blog” Obviously. (It’s a joke I’m still being financially responsible here, I promise). I already have built quite a little stash of new products over these past months that I’m still so excited about, and I just want to share them with an audience. Just like nail polish, I’m here to show you the colors and formulas and just help you be more informed shoppers. We’re just finally following through with our goals and plans here!!

So here’s to the first Gingerly Polished makeup post of 2025! I don’t expect to be immediately amazing and have those posts up constantly – I know it’ll take some time. But if I just post once more makeup review after this one, we already beat 2024’s totals! That’s just called smart goal-making, okay.

So here’s to more makeup on Gingerly Polished in 2025! Let’s get into our first one already!

Read More »

NYX x Beetlejuice Collection 2024 – Swatches & Review

GingerlyPolished2 Comments

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.

Read More »

Wet N Wild NEW Color Icon 10-Pan Eyeshadow Palettes 2021 – Swatches

GingerlyPolished2 Comments

I’ve mentioned before that I want to bring consistent makeup reviews back to the blog, and I’m enjoying testing out new makeup to post about here. And to add to that, I want to start adding in swatch posts as well! These will come with multi-part reviews, like this one, or for larger palettes that will require longer amounts of testing. With this post being the first, this will feature purely just swatches and images of the palettes, and then as I finish each individual palette review, I’ll link it above. I’m sure it’ll shift as I continue figuring out my style and process, but for now that’s what I’m aiming for!

I wanted to get these swatches out, so you can at least see the color stories, and how they look on my skin tone, and get a little bit of an idea of how the shadows will perform. Of course, swatches never tell the whole story, and the true test is always how the shades perform on the eyes. But I know I always still like to see swatches to see if I’m interested in the first place.

***

Alright, so today we’re looking at a new release from Wet N Wild.

These are the new Color Icon 10 Pan Eyeshadow Palettes. If these sound familiar, it’s because it’s a new version of a fairly recent product. They had the original Color Icon 8 pan palettes way back in the day, and those were updated with the last version of the Color Icon palettes, only released in 2017, with some later versions coming in later in 2018, so they’re not that old at all. They still have these older Color Icon eyeshadow palettes available for purchase on their website, with no discount at all. There’s only one color overlap with ‘Nude Awakening’, so I can’t tell if these will eventually replace these, and they’ll release all of the same palettes later on or what. Intrigued on why they chose to change them up again, but all I knew is I saw new Wet N Wild eyeshadows so I had to try them out and see what was up.

Instead of the more flimsy black plastic of the previous ones, we have a more sturdy white plastic packaging. I will say it feels thicker and a little more higher quality than the previous, so that $1 price increase makes sense. I had issues with the hinges breaking on the other ones, and I don’t think you’ll have that issue with these.

We have 4 of these new 10 pans. I grabbed a few from a new display in Walgreens, and ordered the other shades I was missing right off of Wet N Wild’s website. They retail for $5.99 each and feature 10 shades.

Alright enough rambling, let’s look at these swatches already!

Read More »

BH Cosmetics ‘Garnet’ Eyeshadow Palette – Swatches & Review

GingerlyPolished2 Comments

Jump to Sections:
Swatches
Eye Looks
Review

I had to scroll for quite a while, but my last makeup review was way back in January of 2020 (I was so close to almost poetically posting a new one on the same day a year later, but I digress). I can’t say why I stopped posting reviews of makeup, maybe I felt like no one was reading them or I wasn’t “qualified” whatever that could mean. But for 2021 I want to keep posting more of what makes me happy and interests me, outside of nail polish! It’ll still be 90% nail polish here, but my 2nd love is makeup and I buy just as much of it, so I might as well just tell you all how I like it!

And of course, when the pandemic hit, and I started working from home, I wasn’t wearing makeup and wasn’t as interested in new releases. But then something hit these last couple of months and suddenly I’m back in and absolutely loving putting on makeup and trying out new products. I’ve been waking up earlier before work just to listen to a podcast and test out new makeup, and I’ve been enjoying it so much as little “me time”. And it’s allowing me to really test a lot of the new products I’ve been buying! I’m still working out a system and getting more proficient at writing these reviews, but hopefully soon they’ll be more regular!

***

So let’s talk about this first palette back! Back in 2019, BH Cosmetics released a Zodiac palette series, dropping a small mini eyeshadow palette each month corresponding to different astrological signs. I’ll be honest, the color stories didn’t interest me too much, and I hadn’t heard amazing things about them, so I passed on them. But this year, BH announced that they were doing a new monthly series, this time inspired by birthstones!

I’ve been hearing amazing things about BH’s newer eyeshadow formulas, so I was definitely intrigued by these mini palettes. And when I saw the color story of this first palette, I was already sold!

Since they just released the palette for February, it’s a great time to talk about January’s release. This is the ‘Garnet’ palette for January, of course, matching the birthstone of Garnet. It features a heavily red themed color story, and it was just so cute and I couldn’t resist. These retail for $9, so they’re super affordable and just too easy to add into your cart. I gave you swatches, eye looks, and then a review on the formula! I like to be super detailed, so let’s just get right into it!

Read More »

Colourpop Butter Me Up Swatches & Review

GingerlyPolished5 Comments

Jump to Sections:
Swatches
Eye Looks
Review
Comparison to Gimme Butterflies

As I’ve mentioned many times before, Colourpop fully has me by the wallet, and I’ve picked up a ton of their palettes lately, so there are a lot of Colourpop reviews that are going to happen. I’ll sprinkle in other brands in between as well, but it’s mainly going to be Colourpop. They just have such affordable prices, and are constantly putting out interesting color stories, and I’m just a sucker for all the eyeshadow palettes. Alright, let’s get onto another one already.

Today we’re reviewing the companion palette to ‘Gimme Butterflies’ that I reviewed a little bit ago (see that review here). These 2 palettes released as part of an Ulta exclusive trio, along with one other more orange toned palette.

As I said, these were released as Ulta Exclusive palettes, though I’m sure they will show up on Colourpop’s website eventually, in the same manner that the ‘Love Bird’ 9-pans did. I still wanted to put up this review for that notion, and because there’s a chance they’re still up in store at Ulta. (And I just had to finish the review for myself, okay.) It retails for $18.

It has very similar packaging to ‘Gimme Butterflies’ (makes sense as they’re in the same series, eh?), except with a more purple theme.

ButterMeUp-Outside

Read More »

Colourpop Gimme Butterflies Palette Swatches & Review

GingerlyPolished4 Comments

Jump to Sections:
Swatches
Eye Looks
Review

It’s the first makeup review of 2020! WOO! Excitement!

In my 2020 Blog Resolutions Post (see it here) I talked about how I want to be more regular and consistent with makeup reviews. I’ve picked up a ton of new products lately, eyeshadow palettes especially, and I definitely need to start reviewing! Makeup is my other love besides nail polish, so I want to incorporate it even more into the blog. As always, nail polish will be #1, but I’m just expanding the blog out to include even more topics that excite and interest me!

Now let’s look at this palette, shall we? Over Black Friday, I made a large Colourpop haul of mainly a ton of their eyeshadow palettes I’ve been wanting. They’re all so affordable and I just love all of the color schemes. Safe to say Colourpop fully has me, and they can just take my money.

And along with that large Black Friday, I still wasn’t satisfied. Colourpop had also recently released a trio of Ulta exclusive palettes, that all were themed as part of their larger butterfly collection. Two of these 3 caught my eye, and I couldn’t stop thinking about them so I grabbed them after my brother gave me an Ulta gift card for my birthday. (It was also 5x points that day, so I almost had to, right?) I ended up passing on the 3rd palette that was included in that release (see I DO pass on some of them, okay). It was more orange-toned and featured a lot of shades that I already owned, so I just wasn’t in love with it.

As mentioned, these are 2 new palettes that were released together, but I’ll still be reviewing them separately and giving full reviews. I’ll compare them together in the 2nd post as well, so if you’re just looking for 1 you can base it on your color preferences.

So let’s begin with the 1st of the two! It’s called ‘Gimme Butterflies’ and it’s the lighter and more coral-toned of the 2, in the light pink packaging. These palettes are currently Ulta exclusives, though I’m sure they’ll be brought onto the Colourpop website sometime soon – like they did with the Love Bird 9-pans. They’re no longer showing on the Ulta website, but I did pick mine up in stores, so I’m sure there are still displays. They retailed for $18 each.

Read More »

BH Cosmetics Fairy Lights Palette Review

GingerlyPolished3 Comments

Jump to Sections:
Swatches
Eye Looks
Review

Here we go, THE LAST REVIEW OF 2019!! The last palette review of the DECADE. (I’m already having too much fun making decade jokes).

It’s fitting that the last post is a palette review, because you know I say this in every palette review, but it’s now going to be a goal for 2020 that I get my sh*t together and finally figure out a way to review palettes in a more consistent and efficient manner. I want to get up so many more makeup reviews in the 2019, along with nail collections of course. It’s especially a goal now after I’ve been a MONSTER lately and have picked up just so many new palettes. I’m not allowed to get any more until I have made a dent in my stack. (Especially when this took even longer to review. I’ll be going over this goal and others for the blog in a New Years post, so stay tuned for that).

I’ve also said 16 million times that eyeshadow is my favorite area of makeup, so I just want ALL THE PALETTES. There have been so many new beautiful palettes that have come out lately (I won’t lie, I have a ton from Colourpop to eventually talk about). I’ve made a couple of hauls of newer releases, and I’m so excited to talk about them.

As always, I’ll put swatches, eye looks and then the review at the end of the post. Feel free to jump to any part of the post using the links above.

Now let’s talk about the first palette off the stack today! This was the first BH Cosmetics palette I had picked up in quite a while (I honestly think the last one I grabbed was the 2nd edition of their large Zodiac palette). Just nothing had caught my eye enough until I saw this palette (and it was 10x points on eyeshadow palettes at Ulta when I grabbed it, so that didn’t hurt). It was the neutrals paired with pops of pink and blue that just got me for some reason, so I threw it right in with my haul.

Read More »

Colourpop Uh-Huh Honey Palette Review

GingerlyPolished1 Comment

Jump to Sections:
Swatches
Eye Looks
Review

Listen, I love eyeshadow and palettes. A LOT. Some might say I have a problem, but there are worse problems to have really. I recently hauled a bunch of new palettes, and I’m promising myself that along with those, it’s time to get up some reviews that have been on the backburner for far too long! I’m telling myself that reviewing the palettes on my blog will help offset all of the new ones I buy (it makes sense to me, okay, let me have this).

I definitely let my eyeshadow palette reviews slip a little bit, and want to get back into them more regularly. They can definitely be more “intimidating” to write since they take more work, but I’m working on tackling them one chunk at a time in order to get them out in a more timely fashion in the future. This is first and foremost a nail blog, so I’m still nailing (sorry) down the makeup review routine!

Now let’s talk about this palette! This one has been on the backburner far too long, and it’s about time I get it up!

This is an “older” palette now by Colourpop standards, but I’m working on not letting that stop me from reviewing things! There’s such a focus on having the newest things constantly, I think it’s good to go back and talk about things that I still have and like even if they’re not “new”. This is a permanent palette, and you can still buy it on the Colourpop website. I know I do review a lot of limited edition things, but I do like talking about permanent buys as well – you don’t have to rush out to buy it and you can really think about your decision and whether it’ll fit into your collection. I’m always just trying to help make more informed decisions for purchases, and overall, it all depends on your preferences!

Alright onto the palette. This is the ‘Uh Huh Honey’ palette from Colourpop and it’s one of the 9 pan palettes from their monochromatic series. Like I said, it’s a lil “older” now, but still available, and who doesn’t love yellow all year round! I love wearing this palette with a deep burgundy red lip, so it’s still perfect for the upcoming winter. It retails for $12 and is their traditional square plastic packaging like the others.

Like all other eyeshadow palette reviews, I have swatches, eye looks and then the review! You can skip to any part of it with the links above. Let’s get into it!

Read More »

Colourpop Sweet Talk Palette

GingerlyPolished1 Comment

Jump to Eye Looks
Jump to Review

The Colourpop extravaganza continues! What if I just turned this blog into reviewing Colourpop products? Honestly, that would be a full time job all on its own. I hope you guys have been loving the addition of more consistent makeup reviews because I’ve been LOVING THEM. I feel like I’m really getting to know and use the palettes I’m bringing into my collection, and I’m passing on information I get from purchases to you guys! It’s been really fun, and I can’t wait to continue it! (But don’t worry, the nail polish will always be a priority. I still got a lot of that to talk about as well.)

This week’s palette is the Sweet Talk palette! This is a neutral palette with a strong peachy tones, and I surprised myself with how much I ended up wanting this. Is that a neutral phase I smell coming? I mean, I’m loving neutral eyes more and more as I’m challenging myself to wear more of my bright lip colors! But heck to it, I’ll wear colorful eyes AND lips, I can’t be stopped. I love all eyeshadow, and don’t discriminate between colorful shades and neutrals, there’s plenty to love with both.

Like I said, this is the ‘Sweet Talk’ palette and it retails for $18. It’s a couple dollars more than their regular 12 pan palettes, as it contains 2 pressed glitters and their new Super Shock shade. As always, we’ll look at swatches, eye looks and then a full review! (You can always skip right to the review with the link above as well).

Read More »

Colourpop Main Squeeze Palette Review

GingerlyPolishedLeave a comment

Jump to Eye Looks
Jump to Review

I’m going to say Sorry, NOT SORRY, for the amount of Colourpop that will be coming on these Makeup Sunday posts. I’ve just been loving all of their products and releases lately, and they’re all so affordable, it’s so easy to just make another order. I’ve picked up a lot of their new palettes lately, and it’s all just made me excited about new makeup again. This is an affordable makeup blog always, and Colourpop just fits right into that, while coming out with such unique and fun things.

And this is the first of a series of Colourpop palette reviews! I got a stack of them, and this palette was the first one I knew I had to play with.

This is the Main Squeeze palette, and it’s the red addition to Colourpop’s monochromatic palette series. It’s one of their 9 pan smaller square palettes.

Read More »