What's a makeup hoarder to do when she's snowed in for the weekend? Reorganize her eyeshadow collection, of course. I got out my ZPalette and Make Up For Ever freestyle palette and decided to switch it up and condense most of my depotted shadows into the ZPalette in an effort to use them more often. Previously, my ZPalette mostly held my depotted drugstore shadows and my Make Up For Ever palette contained depotted Urban Decay and Too Faced shadows.
I have other shadows that are in my smaller ZPalette and Make Up For Ever palettes that I didn't include here but you get the idea. I'm much happier with the way these are organized now. I left the blues and greens in the large Make Up For Ever palette because I don't really reach for them much and they obviously could't fit into this ZPalette.
Last night I went through my stash and swatched a bunch of shadows to remind myself of the beautiful shades I already own (to quell my insatiable desire to purchase more eyelid dust). I plucked out a bunch of cool toned, taupe and purple shadows that I always think "I'll use this in the winter". Well, clearly it's winter now so if I don't reach for these now, I don't know when they'll get any love. Just thought I'd share some swatches with you even though I've swatched many of these already. I did re-swatch the Laura Mercier Artist's Palette but the photos didn't come out so great so you can refer to my original review and swatch here.
I honestly can't remember ever using the Physician's Formula Shimmer Strips in Smoky Hazel Eyes despite having swatched it half a dozen times. The variations of purples and taupes are stunning and the formula of these shadows is really nice. I used to have four of these palettes because I used to always get them during BOGO and 40% Physician's Formula sales. I've since given up two that I never use so I need to make it a point to use the two I've kept.
I swatched a couple of the shades that looked appealing in the pan above. That middle taupe shade is absolute all-over-the-lid perfection. I love that these shadows are pigmented and dense enough to adhere on the skin with no fallout. The shimmer is really refined and complex which is hard to get at the drugstore. My love for this is renewed and I really want to use this palette soon.
Here are a few more shades in the same color family. I had lemmed after the Rouge Bunny Rouge shadows for so long and have only used Bohemian Waxwing (left shade) a handful of times. Delicate Hummingbird (right shade) is equally as pretty and I want to incorporate it into a work appropriate look. I purchased the Yves Rocher Duo in Prune and Powdery Taupe (what unfortunate names) when I studied in Amsterdam and rarely reach for these even though they are the perfect winter shadows. Finally, I found the neglected Etude House Sweet Potato Latte eyeshadow which was part of a gifted Beauteque bag. It's the type of shade that's been really popular lately but not one I'm totally sure I can pull off. I need to experiment with this one.
Above are swatches of Delicate Hummingbird, the Yves Rocher duo and the Etude House single. Quite similar to the Physician's Formula palette, right?
This post is probably more for my benefit than anyone else's because I'm trying to find some inspiration in playing with makeup rather than relying on tried and true looks. Yes, it's great to have favorites and sticking to the same looks will inevitably allow me to finish up some makeup eventually. But with the size and scope of my collection, I really could be doing some more interesting looks and I feel like I'm missing out by not taking small makeup "risks". I hope my rambling is making some sense.
In addition to staring at colorful powders this weekend, I also went through my Bloglovin' feed and unsubscribed to dozens of inactive blogs and ones that I no longer am interested in. I regularly subscribe to new blogs so my feed builds up and gets so long that it's a pain to scroll through. While I was looking through the list of blogs, I realized just how many bloggers I loved reading daily have stopped blogging entirely. I miss those blogs and I wonder what the people behind them are up to now. Are they still into beauty as much as they used to be? Do they still read blogs? Hm, just some thoughts I had today.
Here's to hoping we won't get too much more snow this winter. Instead of hibernating indoors and combing through my collection, I want to be outside wearing the makeup!