Makeup Monday: Ulta-Exclusive LORAC Multidimensional Beauty Kit

I was so excited to get this when I ordered it, and then things got crazy and I never got to finish my post.... I'm still excited about it, actually, and I've had it for a couple months already.

LORAC Multidimensional Beauty collection. This is an Ulta exclusive and I'm pretty sure it's limited edition. In case you can't tell from this picture, the box is HOLO:

See?! How cool is that?? I know it's just a cardboard box, but it's a hologram cardboard box and you know what a sucker I am for good packaging.

But the outer carton isn't the only thing that's holo-esque... This kit comes with a metal-plated makeup bag that is pretty much the most amazing thing ever. My only complaint is that it's not big enough to carry as a purse. I took a million pictures.

The left hand side of the bag has a rainbow pattern that's always visible, but the right hand side has no stripes.

It changes colors depending on the angle. It's mesmerizing to look at. See down toward the opposite edge of the bag, where it looks like it's lighting up aqua? It looks even better in real life. Holo makeup bag. Gaaaaah so awesome....


Okay, enough about the bag already. Here's what's inside:

Three full sized eyeshadows in 3D-Luxe, 3D-Mension and 3D-Licious plus an Ulta exclusive shade of LORAC 3D Multiplex lipgloss in Ulta Glam.

3D-Luxe is a light ivory with peachy tinted duochrome and subtle iridescent sparkle, 3D-Mension is a plain metallic bronze and 3D-Licious is a MAC Club dupe (red toned brown with green-blue duochrome shimmer).

3D-Luxe is my favorite one... it's so gorgeous, none of my pictures come close to capturing how beautiful it is. It has such delicate iridescent sparkle and just a faint sheen of duochrome across the color...

If you enlarge these, you might be able to pick up a little of the depth of the color. You sorta have to see it in person to fully appreciate it.

The Ulta Glam shade of Multiplex gloss is just as mesmerizing... I think the purchase of the kit was worth it just for this beauty:
Ulta Glam is a copper rose shimmer base, sheer, with strong brassy gold duochrome at one angle and darker pink-rose duochrome at another angle plus lots of iridescent microglitter that also adds to the color-shiftiness. The best part? There's BLUE MICROGLITTER. Blue!!! Glitter!!


Swatched dry over bare skin: 3D-Luxe, 3D-Mension and 3D-Licious shadows and Ulta Glam Multiplex 3D gloss. You can kinda see the blue sparkles in the gloss, right?

This also came with a gift with purchase that I thought was pretty neat:

A sample of LORAC's new Multiplex 3D Lashes mascara that comes on a holo card, in a tube with holo text. Yep, no denying it, I'm easily swayed by how much holo foil comes on the package... The mascara itself it's something I'd normally use. I like the curved plastic pointy bristle brush, but the formula doesn't add any volume. It makes your lashes super long and defined, but doesn't add any thickness. It kinda seems like it makes them curl like those old curling mascaras, but it could just be my imagination....

The formula on the shadows seems consistent with the other LORAC shadows I've tried. Like I've mentioned before, I'm really new to LORAC shadows and I'm still not sure if this is the normal quality and texture or not. The texture is disturbingly soft and loose- I say disturbing because it seems like it loosens so much product every time I touch it with my brush that I could use the entire shadow in a week. Very loosely pressed, soft and powdery. Medium pigmentation and payoff, not super pigmented or opaque. Suitable for wet use to intensify the payoff and color. I'd recommend wet use if you like your colors intense like I do. They don't seem to wear very well due to the super soft light texture; they tend to fade a bit and wear off by the end of the day (I always use primer and it behaves the same over all primers I tried). The colors themselves are pretty and go well together and they look light and luminous on.

The gloss is amazing. I love the Multiplex formula. It's smooth and silky, lasts a reasonable amount of time and tastes/smells amazing. Is it lychee? I have no idea what the scent is, but it's light and fruity and soft and I really really like it. The Ulta Glam shade in this kit does not disappoint. It's super duochrome but also full of microglitter so it's sparkly on top of being duochrome. The only downside is that the glitter is kinda gritty.

I love this kit. I really hope LORAC keeps doing the whole multiplex 3D theme. They enable me in my duochrome addiction... Just wish they'd lower the price on their Multiplex glosses!

This is gone from the Ulta website already, but I've seen plenty of kits still in stock in-store recently, so you should be able to find one if you have an Ulta nearby. The whole kit is only $35 so it's an excellent value- a Multiplex gloss alone is $22 (and no, I won't stop complaining about the price) and a LORAC shadow single is $19.

OPI Ulta Exclusives Holiday 2010

Every year around Christmas, OPI does a set of three holiday-themed polishes exclusively for Ulta. Last year's collection raised the bar so high, that I was super excited to see what they did this year.... But I was sadly disappointed, after hearing from a very reliable source, that no one knew anything about them and there probably wouldn't be any this year.

Then, imagine my surprise, when everyone on Twitter was, well, atwitter with excitement over this new OPI Ulta exclusive gold glitter polish. I immediately drove to Ulta and returned home with these safely in tow.




All The Berry Best. A medium berry toned red shimmer. It's rather washed out here because of the lighting; it's a couple shades darker in real life. Regardless, it's my least favorite of the collection. It has some really great gold duochrome in the bottle, but on the nail it's just an average looking red shimmer. It does have a really nice velvety looking finish, though.



Gift of Gold. Now THIS is a glitter. Amazing. It's so ridiculously sparkly. It's a lighter gold mixed with some darker gold and even a bit of what looks like copper or bronze glitter. It's very opaque, too, needing only one to two coats depending on how thick or even you do your coats. It's still rough and hard to remove like other glitters, but it's just soooooo pretty. The best one in the collection for sure. OPI really knows how to do glitter and I'm really glad they've been doing a lot of it lately.


Plum Full Of Cheer. The flash picture shows the base color of the polish and also shows the pretty multi-colored shimmer, but in real life it looks more like the top picture. This is not a bad color at all, it's extremely pretty, one of my favorite types of purples, but it's just so common lately that it doesn't feel special to me. Shimmery, glowy, red-based dark purples are great, I think I'm just a little burned out on them. I had hoped for something really special like last year's Visions of Sugarplum.

Wait a minute... Wasn't last year's Ulta Exclusive holiday collection a gold, a berry-red and a dark purple? What was the year before that? I only remember the gorgeous pink microglitter one.

The formula was good, so no complaints there. The Gift of Gold shade was really thick, but that's part of what makes it so opaque and dense. I only needed two coats of each color (and that's what I'm wearing in these pictures) and the drying time was very good. They were a little dull without topcoat, so I am also wearing topcoat for these pictures.

They're nice, and Gift of Gold is very nice, but they didn't knock me over with awesome like last year's set. Maybe they'll do something more unique this year!

MAC Bad Fairy Nail Polish

I never got a chance to review this while it was still relevant. It sold out before it was even released! I ordered online and by the time the collection was fully added to the website, it was long gone. I hate that about MAC. There's such a rush for the limited edition items that they're usually sold out before we can order them :(

Nevertheless, it's still gorgeous so it's worth posting:

MAC Bad Fairy nail lacquer (Venomous Villains collection)

It has a sparkly glass-fleck finish (think Orly Cosmic FX) and it reflects coral, gold, burgundy magenta and a little bit of green. It's not a match anything I have in my collection; it's a little similar in theme to OPI The Show Must Go On but definitely not a duplicate.

Hard Candy Bad Girl Next Door and Naturally Naughty Kits

I recently made my semi-annual trip to Wal-Mart in search of new Petites and Hard Candy nail polishes. Sadly, they didn't have either (figures.), but they did have these new Hard Candy gift sets all stacked together, lying down flat in the wrong spot on a random shelf near the Hard Candy display in the cosmetics section. Par for the course, I suppose. But- I have been wanting to try some of the new Hard Candy cosmetics. I have a bunch of their old stuff and I've been curious to see how they compare. I bought most of the sets- they were between $5 and $8, so no big loss if they sucked.

Here are the Bad Girl Next Door and Naturally Naughty sets- basically a brown and black version of each.


Bad Girl Next Door. This set comes with a sample of Ginormous Lash mascara in black, a mini Take Me Out Liner pencil in Abyss, mini Lash Tinsel Glitter Mascara in Spellbound, two mini Kal-Eye-Descope Baked Eyeshadows in Bad Reputation and.... Bad Reputation? (they're both named the same thing, I think they're halves of a duo) and a .25 fl. oz Eyeshadow Primer (that's a pretty big size actually.)

Everything is displayed on a clear plastic tray inside the box.


Bad Reputation Kal-Eye-Descope Baked Shadows, a white frost and a grey frost



Abyss Take Me Out Liner.


Lash Tinsel Glitter Mascara in Spellbound- black and silver glitter in a clear gel


Swatched over the shadow primer. Bad Reputation, Abyss, Spellbound.

That's what Spellbound looks like applied heavily over mascara. I had better results when I applied it over already dry mascara, otherwise it clumps funny. It does look a little like lash dandruff or something... It's prettier at night.



Naturally Naughty contains Ginormous Lash, Take Me Out Liner in Dim Sum, Lash Tinsel in Gold Digger, Kal-Eye-Descope Baked Shadow in High Maintenance and an eyeshadow primer.

Up close.

High Maintenance.


Dim Sum.


Gold Digger.


Swatched over the shadow primer. High Maintenance, Dim Sum, Gold Digger.

This is a look I attempted to do with the Naturally Naughty shadows. They barely showed up at all and I got frustrated so I covered the entire thing in a thick layer of MAC Reflects Transparent Teal glitter and some Fyrinnae Futuristic Glamrock as eyeliner.

In all honesty, I can't say I'm impressed by these. Everything looks great in the package and swatched on my arm, but applying them to my eyes was a different story.

The Ginormous mascara was dried out and didn't do a thing for me. The pencils are hard and they tug, making them difficult to apply. The pencils are also made of wood that has a tendency to splinter when sharpened. The glitter mascara was a little difficult to apply because of the super short bristles, but otherwise it did what it was supposed to. The shadow pigmentation is abysmal, it barely sticks or shows up on my eyelids at all. I had a hell of a time trying to apply it. The colors are also quite different in the pan than they are on the eye. I haven't used the primer yet. I'm afraid to try new primers- a bad primer can ruin your whole look!

Overall, these two kits were a nice way to try a lot of products at once. They're pretty inexpensive at $8 each, but I don't think I would buy it again at that price. I'm wondering if the full-sized versions of these are better quality? I was really looking forward to wearing the pretty shadow colors in these kits.

This would make a nice gift for a younger girl, but not someone who's really a makeup junkie. I think the sheer shadows would be nice for a tween girl and I'm sure they'd love the glitter mascara, but they just weren't smooth and pigmented like I expect my shadows to be.

I have the First Blush and Glamazon Glow kits to post as well- those were much nicer in quality and I rather enjoyed them. And I did also pick up one of the $5 Face Facts kits in bronze shades.... I'll post that soon, too.

Last-Minute Gift Ideas: Korres Long-Wear Age-Repair Lip Kit and Line-Smoothing Lip Butter Glaze Trio

I never intend to be but I always end up becoming a last-minute shopper. I'm sure I'm not the only one judging by the massive crowds at all the retail stores this week.

Thought I'd share some of my personal picks for last-minute beauty gifts!

I was originally going to do two separate posts for these kits so it wouldn't be confusing, but they do kinda overlap a little so I might as well post them together!


This is the Long-Wear Age-Repair Kit. It comes with four full-sized Korres Cherry Oil lipglosses in 23 Light Purple, 22 Rose, 54 Fuchsia and 25 Natural Purple plus three full sized Lip Butters in Jasmine, Pomegranate and Quince. The price tag says this set is $39, but I got it for $30 on sale at Sephora.com.

A simple yet attractive presentation. The products are nestled into a pink cardboard tray.

Jasmine, Pomegranate and Guave Lip Butters.

22 Rose

23 Light Purple

25 Natural Purple


54 Fuchsia

As you can see, the shade names don't seem to match the color of the gloss at all. Rose is the only one that really looks like its name. Also worth noting- the shades in this kit vary greatly from the ones in the photo on Sephora's website.

23 Light Purple, 22 Rose, 54 Fuchsia, 25 Natural Purple.

The glosses are somewhat sheer but buildable. Natural Purple is a creme while the other three all have subtle shimmer.

The finish is glossy but not over-the-top glossy, it's a nice middle ground. They provide a nice amount of color and subtle sparkle but none of the colors are particularly flashy or outrageous. They're all very natural and flattering, 'my lips but better' is the phrase that comes to mind.

Korres describes these are 'Long-Wear' and I'd have to agree. The color and shine last on the lips for several hours, even after drinking from a cup (which usually obliterates my lipgloss). It could be due to the smooth texture of the gloss- it's not at all sticky. It's slick and smooth and it doesn't want to stick to everything like a lot of glosses do. They feel very moisturizing and my lips actually feel better after these have worn off- they're like a treatment and a gloss fused together. I really like this formula.

The special ingredient in these is Cherry Oil, which they claim creates a water-resistant shield. It does that, but it also has another benefit: It smells awesome. These have a very light scent of natural cherry. No medicine or candy cherry scent in here. Just light, sweet, unobtrusive natural cherries. It even tastes a little like cherries. It's not sweet or flavored, but the scent of the oil in these does add a little bit of a cherry taste.

The colors are all extremely flattering on me. Like I mentioned before, they're subtle and natural, so they're likely to suit many different skintones. The Light Purple shade is my favorite- it's a perfect pink nude lip on me. I have pigmented lips so it's hard for me to find lighter colors that look right. This is light without being whitish/pale/pastel.

The packaging is also nice. The caps are a rich bronze plastic with golden shimmer running through it. It looks really classy and luxurious. The tubes are a little odd looking with all that random writing all over it- it sorta gives the impression of a medicine or a natural remedy type product that you might find in an apothecary. The wands are standard doe-foot wands that only hold a small amount of product- you will have to apply twice if you want full coverage.

I really love the Korres Cherry Oil gloss formula, and now that I know it rocks I want to try all the shades they make!

This kit also contains three Lip Butters. Last year when I was asking for good winter lip balm recommendations, these were suggested by quite a few people. I like them but they do have their flaws.

The lip butters are the top row. Jasmine, Pomegranate and Guava.

They're a sheer tinted thick balm with minimal shine. They actually remind me more of a lipstick than a lip balm. They have a very stiff, waxy texture that does last a long time on the lips, but it never feels very moisturizing to me. My lips don't really feel softer or less dry after wearing these.

They are lightly scented. The Jasmine seems to have a subtle vanilla-like scent, while Pomegranate and Guava have a subtle fruit scent.

I think the best use for these is to apply them after a lip scrub. That way you can lock in the moisture and smoothness, since these form a nice protective barrier to keep moisture in.

I would use these more often, but they have one fatal flaw for me: they come in a jar. I hate sticking my fingers in things and I also hate having to carry a lip brush. I don't carry these with me because of this; I keep them at my vanity near a clean lip brush and use them while I apply my makeup.

But, thankfully, Korres read my mind and created this:

The Line-Smoothing Lip Butter Glaze Trio!

This one has Jasmine, Pomegranate and Raspberry, but the Raspberry is almost the same as the Guava in the Lip Butter kit.

Here are the swatches again. Lip Butters on the top row- Jasmine, Pomegranate, Guava. Lip Butter Glazes on the bottom- Jasmine, Pomegranate, Raspberry.

The glazes have a much smoother, slicker texture but aren't quite a lip gloss texture. They're a spreadable balm with a high gloss finish. They melt when you apply them to your lips and that's a dead giveaway that there's a lot of nice natural butters or oils in the formula.

They don't last as long on the lips as the Cherry Oil glosses or the original Lip Butters in the jar, but they make up for less longevity with increased moisturizing ability. These do actually make my lips feel less dry and they have a less waxy texture.

All of the shades are shimmer-free and sheer. Jasmine is, of course, the lightest, providing a light pink tint, Pomegranate is a perfect bright coral tint and Raspberry is a subtle red-burgundy berry tint. The original Jasmine in the jar was unwearable for me because it left a white cast on my lips- too light for my coloration. Fortunately, the new Jasmine glaze is sheerer and pinker so it's not ghastly on me anymore!

They're scented the same as the Lip Butters- light, subtle scents.

They are packaged in a plastic squeeze tube with a slanted tip applicator. The tube for Jasmine is my favorite- soft pink tube with bronze writing and the same shimmering bronze cap as the cherry oil glosses. Very 'healthy' and spa-looking. Unfortunately, the outer packaging for the kit isn't as nice as the tubes- it's in a ziplock bag with paper label stickers. Not my idea of pretty!

I wish that they had these Glazes in squeeze tubes before! I greatly prefer them because they're lighter, glossier and much more sanitary- no more putting your fingers in a jar! These were a great idea and I hope they make them in every shade.

Both of these kits get my seal of approval. They're inexpensive, attractive, contain full-sized products at a reduced price and the items inside are great quality. I'd like to give these as much as I'd like to receive them!