BeautyCrunch Haul: Stila Smoky Eye, Red Carpet Look No. 3 and Shadow Trio

Before I go to the topic, please check out my giveaway for US residents: get a chance to win Sothys Paris luxury beauty products! Please CLICK HERE to join! Hurry, time is limited! I will be coming up with a new giveaway which includes my international readers, so keep your eyes peeled! :)



I got my haul from Beautycrunch.com in no more than 3 business days. I was impressed! However, this site has been featured by more and more people in blogs and other media that I am fearing it will become another 8ty8beauty- it would have more orders than it could handle. Knock on wood!!! I hope they'd still give the fantastic service even when they become immensely popular.

Beautycrunch is a site that sells discounted, discontinued makeup items from such brands like Stila, Pop Beauty, Lola Cosmetics, DuWop and Too Faced. The prices are 60 to 85% off the retail price, and in this flailing economy, I am not surprised that this site is very popular. The downside is that most of the coveted items are already out of stock, and they do replenish the stocks, but some items are being replaced pretty slowly (and it may be because of the huge demand).

This notwithstanding, I was able to put in an order for three shadow palettes. This entry doesn't have swatches, but I will be updating soon with FOTDs using these products. I have one existing Stila palette I bought from Costco (yes, of all places!) with two Stila brushes in numbers 9 and 5, and I really fell in love with the brushes. I wanted to try more Stila but it has always been ridiculously expensive if you base it on the retail price, so Beautycrunch is a godsend to those who don't want to fork out extra money to try these brands. Here are my first impressions of my loot.



I got this Smoky Eye palette that talks. You push a button on the inside panel of the lid and this Korean girl gives a step-by-step tutorial on how to apply the colors. Of course, I wouldn't know if that is what she's saying because I don't know Korean, but the plastic flap over the shadows teaches the placement of the shadows anyway:



I bought it for $15 and the original retail price was $40. Pretty cool, huh? I was about to skip this because I have a several smokey eyes palettes and individual MAC shadows that can create fabulous smokey eyes, but I was really interested in getting the Kitten eyeshadow. Since Kitten is part of this quad, I quickly snagged it because I've read a lot of raves about this shadow. The first time I tried it though, it wasn't as pigmented as I'd hope it would be, so I'm still on the fence about it. It's pretty and shimmery, though. Ebony was pigmented; it's a matte soft black that would be great as a crease or liner color. I used it to line dry, and I was satisfied with the result. The icy champagne base color (a new shade) would be perfect as a brow highlighter or to brighten up the inner corners. Kitten would be the lid color, while Kettle would be great to smokify the crease and blend into Ebony to soften the harsh dark areas.



This is another pretty palette from Stila, the Red Carpet Look No. 3. It has nice neutral shadow colors and a dark one for the crease and to line, and it comes with Fade, a softly shimmering taupe-ish browny rose shade. It also comes with the It Gloss in Sweet which is very glossy and pigmented; you don't need to apply lipstick underneath for it to show up. All in all, this is a wonderful package to bring on a weekend or an overnight stay out-of-town because it pretty much has everything you need - shadows, cheek color, liner and gloss.





This baked eyeshadow trio is the prettiest one to look at. Can you see how gorgeous it is? The outermost circle is the lid or highlighter color, the middle green shade can be a crease or outer lid color, and the brown one would be a great contour/crease shade. I tried this the other day and it worked amazingly well with my spring outfit. I will feature looks on this soon.

There you go, my Stila haul from Beautycrunch! Again, don't forget to join my contest and stay tuned for more giveaways!

3 comments

Crystal said...

i'm drooling over your stila loot right now!

Cris said...

Looks great :D! Especially the baked trio and Red Carpet palette :). But Stila at retail price really is expensive :(.

The Shades Of U said...

Crystal- I loved your loot too!

Cris- I know, Stila is expensive, but I got this at a huge discount so it's all good. :)