bailey bee

beauty, home and lifestyle blog

Pixi Beauty Vitamin-C Collection + Skin Update

The Pixi Beauty Vitamin-C Collection

Yo, guys. Let me tell. you. My skin has been through the WRINGER over the past month. Now that I’m on the upswing I am getting the opportunity to really test these goodies that Pixi sent. We will ignore, for now, that they’ve been waiting for me for six months! For the most part I’m writing this post to be a PSA of these products being available, less for how they worked for me.

The Pixi Beauty Vitamin-C Collection
shown above:
Vitamin-C Serum, Vitamin-C Tonic, Vitamin-C Caviar Balm,
Vitamin-C Juice Cleanser and Vitamin-C Lotion

As for my skin, I had all of these posts planned that were along the lines of “HOW I FIXED MY SKIN! SKINCARE ROUTINE!” and “HOW I CURED MY ACNE” but…. as the months went on, I realized that my skincare wasn’t doing anything.

I decided to get off of birth control at the end of 2018 because I had been wanting to, generally, as I had been on BC since 2012 and also because I was able to be unemployed and thus, uninsured. It seems it took about seven months for my skin to react to the hormone change because the acne that began popping up in July turned out to be just that: hormonal acne.

I fought and fought and fought my face— walking the line between being overly harsh and aware enough to not harm my skin’s natural moisture barrier. I had prescription creams, prescription pills, endless moisturizers and chemical exfoliants and nothing seemed to work. It wasn’t until the end of November when I decided to get back on birth control. My skin cleared up within two weeks.

Lesson learned: outward beauty is only worth so much. Even when I attempted to combat my acne inwardly with eating less dairy and more probiotics, I still had no luck. The other lesson learned? Medicine and more particularly, birth control, is not a bad thing. I know there are so many positive, practical reasons for being on birth control. I fell into the myth that I needed my body to have a “natural” moment to “reset”. My body clearly needs assistance in the hormone department and I’m glad to be back on the regulated train.

Thank you to Pixi for sending me their Vitamin-C goodies. I would have been able to give a far more comprehensive write-up far sooner than it took me to provide this, had they arrived at a more opportune time.

I hope anyone reading this had a wonderful wind-down to 2019 and cheers to 2020!

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Natasha Denona Mini Gold Eyeshadow Palette Review

The Natasha Denona Mini Gold Palette

Ever since I saw the sneak peeks for the Natasha Denona Gold palette, I have been waiting for the mini palette release. I still, to this day, want the full-sized VERY badly. That price tag is the only thing standing in my way.

Anyway, I was so excited to pick up this mini version when it released a few weeks ago. From what I had heard, this was one of Natasha’s best mini palettes to date. I knew (from swatching in-store) that the brand has incredible shimmers but what I was most impressed with in this palette were the two matte shades. They are so well pigmented and the tones bring a lot of depth for two fairly “medium” shades.

The Natasha Denona Mini Gold Palette swatched on-arm

Oh, man. Bia. How pretty is Bia?! It and D’or were the two shades that made me want this palette. Although D’or swatches a bit chunkily it is a strangely wet formula that applies beautifully to the lid. Additionally, Antheia is a beautiful duo-chrome with an incredible pay-off from the get-go and is a more traditional shimmer formula.

Lastly, Lodge is the ideal transition shade for my skin tone. Having it plus three other “winners” (Bia , D’or and Antheia) make this mini palette worth stashing for me. I’m going to utilize this a lot over the coming months to create some classic looks, some smokey as well as some funky– I’m thinking Bia as a structured, winged eyeliner? OH yes.

Here’s a look I did with D’or on the lid, Bia on the outer third with Lodge as the transition. I’ll continue to post looks as I wear ’em!

Even if it has a slightly different color story, it’s hard to pass up this $25 baby palette in place of its $129 counterpart. One day I WILL get that full-sized gold palette, though! What are some of your faves from ND?

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Battle of the Purple Eyeshadows

Makeup Geek Curfew and ColourPop Sleeper eyeshadows

Purple is a fun color to wear on the eyes because it can provide depth without deepening a look too dramatically. Purple is also supposed to be the “best” eyeshadow color to pair with my green eyes. It was because of that reason that I, once upon a time, purchased Makeup Geek’s ‘Curfew’ eyeshadow single.

Since that “once upon a time” I have hardly used ‘Curfew’ as it didn’t lend itself enough to my looks that needed that “depth but not deepening” effect. Curfew is fairly light and doesn’t pack much of a punch.

on-arm swatches of Makeup Geek Curfew and ColourPop Sleeper eyeshadows

I didn’t realize what I was missing out on until I decided to purchase ColourPop’s pressed pigment in ‘Sleeper’. Just LOOK at the difference between the two products! Although Sleeper has a leg up on Curfew as it is a pigment and thus, far more pigmented, the two are pressed into the same component and are used the exact same way. It is because of this that I judge them equally as well!

So, in the hunt for the best purple eyeshadow, I found ‘Sleeper’. If you’re looking for a bomb pop of color that isn’t all that scary, I highly recommend this shade of purp. I have a handful of other hues of purple that you can check out in my eyeshadow collection, too.

NABLA Cosmetics Secret Palette Review + Swatches

It has been a VERY long time since I have been excited about an eyeshadow palette release AND actually purchased upon debut. The Italian makeup brand NABLA is fairly well-received and once I saw the swatches for this palette I had myself creating a calendar reminder to buy it ASAP. The Secret palette is full of color and allows you to utilize different color stories for endless amounts of looks. This assortment of shades paired with the solid formulas NABLA is known for has made this palette a surefire winner in my book.

Just look at those shades! Each horizontal row complements itself well but I really like the funky combos that the vertical columns make, too.

Let’s get into the most important aspect of this palette— the formula and wearability of each shade.

All shades swatched well on the arm except for Hypersensual and Nablack. To be honest, I’m not sure why Hypersensual performed so lackluster-ly. It’s a seemingly easy shade to make. As for Nablack, I bet we all have better black eyeshadows that we’re loyal to anyway so it’s not a huge deal to me. It still performed just fine on the lashline to create a smokey vibe.

The standout shades in terms of formula were Giulietta, Fantasize and Ghibli. You barely have to even touch these shades to get them to provide pigment and all blend out effortlessly.

As for my sleeper pick, I Promise ended up being REALLY pretty on the lid. It wasn’t a strong swatcher but is a very dimensional shade that works well paired with a crease color blended out as well as on its own across the lid.

Just serving a warning– Rosemary is a stainer. I’m not really that surprised as that has been my experience with pigmented teal shades in the past and it’s not necessarily even a negative thing. But still a thing to mention.

Again, I have not been this excited over a palette release in freaking years. I’m so excited to dive deeper with these shades and get so much more use out of them! If you’re wary of purchasing from an international seller (if you’re from the US, of course) then fret not. NABLA is the real deal and they shipped this palette to me within a week! If you’re as into this as I was then there is absolutely no reason not to pick it up. Enjoy!

If you wanna see some other palettes I have reviewed, check ’em out here.

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