Kat Von D recently released a brand new line of lipsticks called the Studded Kiss Lipsticks. At $26CAD, they're a $3 price increase over her older line. Everyone went crazy when they dropped and the line had some gorgeous colours so I picked up 3. I debated about Poe (which I saw reviewed on Temptalia before purchasing the 3 I have now), but I decided to get colours I knew I would actually wear on a daily basis.

First impressions - the lipstick itself is beautiful. The casing is studded and it's oh so gorgeous. Only con, this makes it a bit difficult to grasp properly. There's also probably more wasted plastic than necessary with this line of lipstick. There's 0.1oz of product, so that's 0.01oz more than the Urban Decay Revolution Lipstick, which is the same price. Her older line however, holds 0.11oz of products. For $3 more, I don't quite understand why I'm getting 0.01oz less... For $1 less, you could go with the Too Faced Melted Liquified Long Wear Lipstick, which comes with an amazing 0.4oz of product! But anyways, I digress. There was a scent (vanilla I think?) that I detected as soon as I opened the lipsticks, but I'm going to attribute that to them being brand new. The scent became unnoticeable as I swatched them.

And now, onto the swatches!

With flash

No flash, yellow lighting

A-Go-Go swatched beautifully. It's a bright, obnoxious orange which I've been searching for. It felt like it would tug at my lips though. Wonderchilde did not swatch as nicely. It was patchy, and I had to build up the colour for  the swatch. The specks of microglitter felt gritty as well. I don't think this will do well on my lips :( May possibly have to return this (and I was very excited for this colour). Prayer also swatched unevenly. It's a beautiful matte colour, but it'll probably have to be swiped across my lips a few times to get that colour.

Additionally, I realized as I swatched Prayer that I had some similar colours in my collection. None of them were matte though, so I'll probably keep Prayer if I like it on my face.

With flash

No flash, yellow lighting

The thickish lines you see in the Revlon Black Cherry swatches are just my arm hairs caught in the swatch ^^" NYX's Chloe was probably the closest to Prayer but it's not a matte finish and looks quite dark on my lips. Interested to see how different Prayer will look on my lips as compared to NYX's Chloe.

Out of these three colours, I'm most excited for A-Go-Go, as it swatched the best and it was the orange I have been searching for. I've been really into matte finish lipsticks lately, so I've been picking those up more.

TL;DR: Kat Von D Studded Kiss Lipsticks are quite pretty and I'm excited to play with my new lipsticks! Some shades are better than others obviously, but I was quite disappointed by how Wonderchilde swatched (as the only non-matte shade I picked up). Temptalia did give raving reviews to some of the other shimmery shades though, so perhaps this is just the only one that sucks. I don't think they're worth the $26 price tag however.

As a note, I was unable to actually pick up the colours I wanted (except A-Go-Go) at my local Sephora and my Sephora is in the biggest and most tourist-populated mall in Ontario. The saleswoman told me that they were limited edition (which is false) and that they were a brand new product, which was why there were only 5 available. However, she hinted that they had other colours in stock in the back, and that she would be able to get them for me if I wanted. They wouldn't be able to open a tester for me so I couldn't even swatch the colours I wanted in the first place. Something about limited stock. I resorted to buying them online (sigh... the duties and taxes for Canadian shoppers though).

Yesterday, I wore a sample of Sephora's new foundation to go grocery shopping. I had this sitting around in my drawer for quite some time now and I believe I got in as a sample in an online Sephora order. I also wore a couple other samples on my face, but I will talk about the foundation in detail. So onto my first impressions!

First off, the sample they gave me was literally just a dollop of product. It was barely enough to cover my face, even though I didn't use a brush. Secondly, I got this in the shade medium and it was still too dark for my face.  I usually wear Urban Decay's Naked foundation in the shade 3.0 (which is a 5Y05 I believe, in the Sephora foundation system). Thirdly, the coverage for this foundation was very light. I would compare it to a bb cream coverage except bb creams provide reasonably well coverage these days. I suppose one could build up the coverage by using more product, but I only had the sample amount to work with.

I left a tiny bit untouched and you can really see the difference between my skin tone and the foundation shade

Because the coverage was so light, it didn't cover my red spots very well. I layered it on around my red spots, and used it sparingly around my forehead. This provided me with better coverage, but it still wasn't good enough for me.

I wore the foundation for around 9 hours and it held up reasonably well. It only faded/smudged in the area around my nose where my sunglasses were. However, this happens with pretty much everything I wear on my face because I lack the nose bridge to keep glasses on my face properly :(

store lighting

outdoor - shade

Other samples I also wore yesterday included a MUFE HD powder, a NARS eyeliner, Tarte blush in Dollface, YSL babydoll mascara, and a NARS satin lip pencil in Rikugien.

The MUFE HD powder is pretty much the exact same as the ELF HD powder, only it came in a powder format and not a loose powder. This makes it much easier to carry around for touch ups. Don't have anything negative to say about this one...

The Tarte blush in Dollface is nice, wore for about 4 hours before it began fading and by 9 hours it was pretty much gone. It's a universal pink that works for any skintone, I'd say. However, it's difficult to pick up product with this one and I have to swirl my brush in the pan for a bit to pick up enough product. (I have this sample as a travel size blush so I will be giving this one away at the end of the month).

The NARS eyeliner and satin lip pencil I got as part of the NARS 500pts perk from Sephora. I loved the staying power of the eyeliner and would probably repurchase it if I regularly used pencil eyeliners. The only downfall to this product was that it tugs at your eyelids. It did not glide on very well. Comparing it to the MUFE Aqua Liners, I would say that the MUFE ones are much creamier and go on easily but the staying power does not compare to the NARS eyeliner. I have oily lids and the MUFE eyeliner smudges quite fast for me but the NARS one only smudged slightly in the corner of my eyelid by the end of 9 hours.

The NARS satin lip pencil is a MLBB color. It glided on very nicely and felt hydrating. Would definitely purchase a satin lip pencil in other colors. The downside is that you would have to reapply after eating or small pecks on your SO's cheeks. It completely disappeared after I ate dinner and I never bothered to reapply it after that.

no mascara

with mascara

I bought YSL's babydoll mascara in that mascara favorites set from Sephora a while back. It is a holy grail for many beauty gurus. I've been using it for a while now and need to throw it out, but I thought I'd wear it for the last time for reviewing purposes. It does a good job of lengthening my lashes but can't hold a curl - mainly because it isn't waterproof. I wouldn't repurchase this; the price tag is just too high for me to justify for a mascara.



TL;DR:

If you're looking for a thin/light foundation, then the Sephora 10HR foundation is perfect but you could get a drugstore foundation that does the same thing for cheaper. There's nothing special about this foundation so if you're into high-end brand products, skip this and save your money. NARS eyeliners are the bomb, go purchase one if you use pencil eyeliners. If you're in the market for an HD powder, just buy the ELF one. Unless you have something against loose powder, there really isn't a difference between the MUFE one and the ELF one.

Sorry for the gross yellow photos. I don't have good lighting in my house :(