We’re back everyone!! We’re all so glad to be able to post, swatch, review, and share on our blog again, and we have so many exciting new posts coming up over the next few weeks.

So, without further a due, let’s start with this blog post.

As I had previously mentioned, I absolutely love it when the gurus of the beauty community are acknowledged and recognized by a prestigious make up brand, and are asked to collaborate with them. The most recent of these collabs joins the forces of Too Faced and NikkieTutorials. Though no introduction is necessary for either, I will give a brief one for those of you who are new out here.

Too Faced is a very well established makeup brand, known for perhaps the most adorable packaging and high quality products. As for NikkiTutorials, or just Nikkie, she is a very talented beauty guru who’s videos have gone viral and helped millions of girls acquire new and amazing makeup skills. One of her more viral videos, titled The Power of Makeup (which I highly suggest you watch if you haven’t already) was actually the inspiration for this whole collaboration.

The collaboration is really a collection, rather than a single product. Nikki designed her own eyeshadow palette complete with blushes, a bronzer and a highlighter. Along with the palette came a few other products including a deluxe size Shadow Insurance eye primer, a deluxe size limited edition purple Better Than Sex mascara, a Sketch Marker eyeliner, and a deluxe size pigment. I will discuss each product in more detail individually.

Starting with the palette itself. The packaging  is very thin and sleek, and the color scheme chosen for the design of the palette is cute and colorful. Unfortunately, the palette does not come with a mirror which I found rather disappointing. The palette contains nine eyeshadows in both a matte and shimmer finish, two shades of the existing Love Flush Long-Lasting Blushes, a “new” highlighter shade in Champagne Truffle, and the infamous Chocolate Soleil bronzer.

With a couple of exceptions, the shadows did not perform well at all. They were very blotchy, the pigment was barely visible and the shadows had to be packed several times to achieve a good color pay off, and there was A LOT of fallout. The shades Ivy and Painkiller were easier to work with than the rest, but it would be quite difficult to mess neutral shades up anyway.

The blushes in the shades “I Will Always Love You” and “Justify My Love” are part of Too Faced’s permanent line. Though I enjoyed the blushes, they aren’t very wearable shades on a day to day basis. The Chocolate Soleil bronzer was up to Too Faced standards, it is one of their best sellers after all. The most disappointing part about this palette however is definitely the highlighter. Nikkie is known to be the “queen of highlight” but the highlighter in this collection was terrible. It is a reformulated version of an existing eyeshadow in the Chocolate Bar Palette. The highlighter completely lacked pigmentation, had massive chunks of glitter in it, and I noticed that it emphasized my skin’s texture. All in all, and as much as I hate to say this, the palette was one large disappointment from both Too Faced and Nikkie. The swatches will speak for themselves.

DISCLAIMER: I never use eyeshadow without a primer underneath, and the same goes for the swatches. I used the Shadow Insurance that came with this collection as a primer, and in case you were wondering, it is the same wonderful product we are used to.

As for the rest of products, they were very underwhelming as well. Since my favorite color is purple, I was very excited to learn that she had created an exclusive purple shade of my favorite mascara: “Better Than Sex”. Sadly, it is not the same formula, this mascara is very dry and flaky, and the purple tinge only shows up after multiple layers of application. The deluxe glittering Glamour Dust in Blue Angel was okay. The little bottle it came in was very cheap and tacky, and the glitter itself was a bit too chunky for my liking, but at least it worked. The Sketch Marker Art Liner was also nothing special. It came in the shade Deep Black, however it wasn’t very dark nor was it opaque. It’s also very runny, it does not dry fast enough (a disaster for hooded eyes), and a fine point is impossible to achieve with the tip of this liner. I also included swatches for these products.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have always loved Too Faced, and I love supporting active members of the beauty community like Nikkie. However, in my opinion, this collaboration was a total flop. It’s such a shame as this collection was very hyped, and I was very excited to get my hands on it only to be left frustrated and saddened by the end of it. There was also a very close resemblance between this palette and the Vegas Nay one, which I was also disappointed by as I expected Nikkie’s release to be original and never seen before. Quality cannot be compromised for the sake of promoting products with a person who has a large following. That being said, I continue to love Too Faced as a brand, and I admire Nikkie’s work, and I wish her the best of luck.

For those of you who are still interested in purchasing the palette, it is sold out on both Sephora and Ulta’s websites, however it can still be found at the Too Faced website:

https://www.toofaced.com/p/eye-shadow-palettes/the-power-of-makeup-by-nikkie-tutorials/

That’s it for this blog post! Hope you enjoyed it 🙂

xo

Michelle Clara