NYX Eye Pencils: Swatches

Jumbo Eye Pencils from L-R: Milk, Pots & Pans, Yogurt, French Fries, Slate

Everyone raves about the Jumbo Eye Pencils, but I've never really come around to them. They do crease quite a bit, and to use them as an effective base you have to apply them really thinly, which sort of defeats the purpose. I use mine occasionally, but I don't really love them. 

Slim Eye Pencils from L-R: Moss, Emerald City, Sapphire

I love the colours of these, but they're a bit too hard to be really effective. If they were just a bit softer, I'd love them.

Review & Swatches: Prestige Total Intensity Eyeliner

Prestige Total Intensity Eyeliners are one of the cheaper alternatives to the Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On pencils - everyone seems to be coming out with their own version of these; Milani Liquifeye is another that comes to mind. I paid about $5.50 each for mine at Nonpareil. They're about $15AUD in Australia, and if you're crazy enough to pay that with the dollar being as great as it is at the moment, you can pick them up at Priceline or online at the Prestige website.

What I like about them is that they dry quickly and don't smudge. They don't have that ironclad grip that the UD 24/7s do, but they do have pretty good staying power. They're not waterproof though, so don't wear them if you're going to see a sad movie, or your boyfriend is taking you out to dinner to dump you.

The colours that I have are Fearless Teal - which is actually more of a forest green, and Powerful Purple - a blackened purple. I find that both of these colours really enhance my eye colour (green).

These are very soft and require frequent sharpening - another good reason to buy them cheap at Nonpareil rather than pay three times the price here. Overall, I like them, and were I not practicing No Buy Month in October, I'd be tempted to pick up a few more.

EDITED TO ADD: I should have mentioned that I don't generally use eyeliners on my water line; for some reason in the last couple of years it's been annoyingly ticklish. The tickling makes my eyes water, which makes it too hard to smoothly apply the liner. However, in the interests of research (and because Su asked about it), I've given it a go. It does apply quite well (annoying tickling notwithstanding), and seems to be holding up. However, as I said earlier it's not waterproof, so if you've got watery eyes for any reason, this is going to smudge like the dickins.

Swatches: NYX Eye Pencils

Look what I've got!

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.

Of course, the only way I could get one was from eBay and I paid a small fortune for it, but I don't care. It was worth it.

(The weird angle of the first picture is because The Photographer was trying to avoid getting himself photographed in the mirror.)

Swatches: NYX, NARS, Milani

Here are the swatches from the previous post's haul stuff.

First, blushes. From left: Milani Mai Tai, Milani Luminous, NYX Natural, NYX Peach.

And because I forgot to include it in the photo above, NARS Crazed. I can't get over how pigmented this is. I've been practicing with the biggest, fluffiest brush I have putting it on with a really light hand. Still haven't quite got it right, yet. Gorgeous colour, though.

 Lip glosses and lipliners. From left: NYX Mega Shine Gloss in La La, Crystal Soda, Tea Rose, Gold Pink. NARS lip glosses in Harlow, Gothika. NYX Lipliners in Citrine, Dolly Pink and Tangerine.

NYX Tinted Lip Spa in Copacobana and Spirit, and NYX Round Lipstick in Chloe.

NYX Single Eyeshadows, swatched over NYX white eye base. From left: Ocean Frost, Morocco, Deep Purple, Red Bean Pie, Beauty Queen, Sparkle Cedar, Golden.

And NYX Slim Eye Pencils in Sapphire and Emerald City.

NARS Eyeshadows in Edie, Fathom and Baby Girl.

Now, these next ones I bought because I saw swatches of them where they looked like a beautiful sparkly dark black-ish purple and green. When I got them and swatched them on my arm, I just had two different shades of black with a bit of glitter in them, which was kind of annoying. I have been playing around with bases and I think I've figured out how to use them, though the green one (Night Clubbing) still doesn't show in the photo - the third swatch of that one is much more green in real life.

First of all, here is Night Clubbing, from left with no base, NYX white eye base, and NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Horse Radish.

Secondly (and in this picture you can really see the difference), here is Night Fever, from left with no base, NYX white eye base, and NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Oyster (a very light frosty pink).

Pretty!

Final haul for 2009.

I received some of the last of my orders this week (still waiting for a couple - Shop Craze is taking FOREVER, starting to wonder if it's been lost), and these are my last for at least the next three months, as per my resolution post. Such pretty things - I'll do some swatching later when I've had a shower.

First up, taking advantage of the Cherry Culture 20% off Christmas sale:

Then the Nonpareil 20% off Christmas sale:

Recently I made an exciting discovery - Strawberrynet now has some NARS products! This is a brand I've always wanted to try, but it's hard to get hold of in Australia, and the one site I know of that does sell it charges ridiculous prices ($62 for a blush - I don't think so). The Strawberrynet prices are about half of this site's, so I had to take advantage of that. I know the eye colours look quite similar in the photograph, but they're not really.

These are the Everyday Minerals eyeshadows that I have already swatched. I wish they would stop coming out with all of these lovely colours - I thought I was done with this lot! I have some more coming too - Makeup BFF J got me this for Christmas.

And finally, some more BPAL imps, because one can never have too many perfumes:

So, still to come: BPAL Christmas present haul from The Photographer (come onnnnnn), a small order from Smart Poppy (just a couple of lip and eyebrow pencils), the hopefully-not-missing Shop Craze order of NYX eyeshadows and lipsticks, a couple of small decants from The Perfumed Court, and my share of a group order from ELF. And then I'm done-diddily-done. *sob*

Swatches: NYX

Makeup BFF J came over this morning and we went out for breakfast. She brought over all of her NYX to swatch, since I've noticed that many of the search parameters of people who find their way to my blog are looking for NYX swatches. And you know me - I give the people what they want!

First of all, this is J's new NYX Runway Palette. She wouldn't let me swatch it because it's all new and shiny, so we just took a picture of it with flash and without flash:

I like the look of this palette, very wearable neutral colours, but not boring. I'd probably buy this if I hadn't already sworn off new purchases for a while (more about that later in the week).

Anyway, on to the swatches. First up, NYX single eyeshadows - these were all swatched over Benefit Lemon-Aid primer:

From left: Opal, Highlight, Cotton Candy, Shimmer, Jungle Fever.

From left: Champagne, Iced Mocha, Utopia Gold, Deep Bronze.

NYX Jumbo Eye Pencils (a couple of these have been swatched before as I also have them):

From left: Milk, Cottage Cheese, Iced Mocha, Horse Radish.

NYX Round Lipsticks:

From left: Vitamin, Jupiter, Watermelon, Thalia, Frappucino, Sky Pink, Pumpkin Pie, Chambord.

From left: Cinnamon Sugar, Uranus, Perfect, Cream, Darling, Earth Angel.

From left: Iced Honey, Ceto, Clio, Iris, Summer Love.

 And finally, NYX Mega Shine Lipglosses. The sun caught the shine of these and there's a big streak across them, so the colours didn't show up as well as I'd have liked.

 From left: Lollipop, Oro, Iced Latte, Chestnut, Sponge Cake, Natural, Smokey Look, Copper Penny.