[臉] Nuance Beauty by Salma Hayek --- Beautiful Blend Eye Quad and Ultra Shine Lip Gloss ---－Red Canary

Nuance is Salma Hayek's new exclusive beauty collection for CVS. The line has more than 100 products and cover literally everything: cosmetics, skin care, hair care, and even body care. Today I’m going to talk about some of the makeup product from Nuance: two eye shadow quads and two lip glosses.

I was on my business trip at Dallas and the CVS near my hotel got a Nuance buy one get one free promotion. I was like “hum, I haven't heard anything from this is line yet, why not to give it a try?” So I picked up the Beautiful Blend Eye Shadow Quad in both Natural 080 and Smoke 075; Ultra Shine Lip Gloss in Peony 110 and Nectar 115.

At the first sight, the package of this quad reminds me of the Lancome Lotus Splendor immediately:

As you can see the idea is pretty much the same, both of them are trying to imitate the flower bud and the petals. The difference are the Nuance has eye quad and lip quad separately but the Lancome one is a mixture of lip colors and eyeshadows in one bud. The Lotus Splendor was limited edition of Lancome Europe/Asia only, so many of you in the states might haven't seen this product before.

My mom got one Lancome Lotus Splendor two or three years ago, and I have to say the texture and the quality are way better then the Nuance one. But Lancome Lotus Splendor was $62 (NT. 1680) and the Nuance quad is $8.49 only.

Here are some pics for the Nuance quad:

The package of Nuance is quit okay, I won’t say the plastic is cheap but joints at the center part look relatively fragile to me. For a drug store makeup, this package is actually not bad at all, and the flower bud design might attract some packaging suckers.
p.s. you would like to look out for the tips of petals, they are kind of sharp.

The Natural quad:

The quad comes with a tiny sponge-tip applicator which is mounted in the center. I have to say this applicator does nothing for applying eye shadows; the sponge can’t pick up any color and shape of the tip is so weird that makes it really difficult to apply shadows all over your lid. (maybe it will do a better job on the same area like crease or inner/outter corner, maybe, but I doubt it.)

The color pigmentation is mediocre. Originally I was going to say the pigmentation is weak when I first tested them on my arm (even with e.l.f primer), but somehow it turns out okay when I apply them on my eyelid (also with primer). Then I fount out that it said "......fine-miled pigments leave a light, velvety finish that spread and blend easily." on the package box. So the color pay-off is suppose to be light, what could I say?

The four colors in the pod are: Frosted blush, Champagne gold, Toasted almond, Shimmering bronze.

Frosted blush: This is the high-light color with a little bit pink undertone, which I always more prefer then the pure white/silver one. The high-light color with some pink or golden/peachy touch in it always looks more flattering on my Asian yellow skin and those with cold undertone look unnatural and awkward instead.

Toasted almond: this is an elegant color and doesn’t over do the golden part. Some of the golden eyeshadows are too yellow which makes them look really cheap, but this one is eye catching yet still perfect for a daily-makeup.

Champagne gold: At the first sight I don’t really care about this one because I know this kind of color won’t show up a lot on my skin and it looks boring anyway, but then I found out that this color dose a pretty good job on bringing other colors in the qua together and softening the edges, so as a base color: job delivered.

Shimmering bronze: It is the darkest color in the quad, but it is more like those medium deep colors in my other palettes. Shimmering bronzer is a warm reddish chocolate color which will look fabulous in the fall/winter makeup. I like this color the most in the quad.

The arm swatch:(the bottom is with primer)

The actual look:

The smokey eye quad also has four colors: Silver mist, Pearl teal, Warm smoke, Cool Charcoal:

Silver mist: this is a really pretty pale pink with a pearly texture, it does has some silver undertone therefore the shine of this color is more on the cooler side, and with some very tiny silver sparkle in it.

Pearl teal: this color was the main (or only) reason for me to get the smokey eye quad. It looks like a forestgreen with beautiful shimmer in the pad, but when I swatched it on my arm, it showed up as a mixture of dark khaki and olive, and still with those pretty shimmer. But the pigmentation is weak that it looks rather sheer and i don't really think you can tell that its a gorgeous color from the swatch.

Warm smoke: I just don't care about this color. It is a gray with a hint of purple, From my experience, this kind of color may look fabulous on pale/Caucasian skin; however it usually makes yellow tone skin look dull and tired (at least on my skin.) The pigmentation is till an issue here, you have to build on lots of shadow to achieve a better color pay-off. I hope it will look better on my face then in the pod and on my arm.

Cool Charcoal: It should be a deep charcoal black from how it looks in the pod, but it is not. To me it is just a deep gray with some nice shimmer in it. It would be a little difficult to create a dark smokey eye look with this color. But for the subtle day look, it should be just fine.

I didn't have the chance to actually use the smokey eye quad on my eyelid, yet I still did some swatches on my arm.

Moving on the the lip gloss:

I picked up two colors: the Peony 110 is a pretty hot pink lip gloss with tiny sparkles; the Nectar 115 is a warm, peachy orange color which can go along with any kind of eye makeup.

The pigmentation is weak for both tubes; they all just give a sheer color on the lips. I won’t say they are really “ultra shine”, compare to my other lip glosses these are just okay. For $7.49 per tube, these two can only get a B- on the shine and color pay-off. The NYX Mega Shine Lipgloss does a much better job and for less money.

On the package it says: “silky, smooth formula hydrates and helps protect lips” and “Mimosa extract and mango seed oil help nourish and moisturize lips”. I have to say this lip gloss does deliver what it claimed. It is moisture (or u can say it is a little sticky, in a good way~) and doesn’t make my lips feel dry or uncomfortable after a long day.

Most important of all, this lip gloss smells great!!! And it tastes YUMMY!! It smells like cotton candy but not overwhelming, some of the NYX lip glosses also have the similar candy-ish smell, but waaaayyy too sweet and artificial that make me feel dizzy. But this one is very pleasant and fresh. Moreover, it does taste slightly sweet! I can’t help but kept licking my lips when the first time I wore it. If you are a young girl who is looking for a smell great, taste great lip gloss and don’t care much about the color, then this is what you are looking for.

Sum up:
For the prices I got these (eye quad: $4.25; lip gloss: $3.75), they are all pretty decent. But I’m not that sure about purchasing them at the original prices (eye quad: $8.49; lip gloss: $7.49). Overall these are good quality products, but let’s face it, they have to compete with other also well made and cheaper drugstore makeup, for example, wet n wild eyeshadows always have excellent color pigmentation and much much cheaper; NYX lips gloss can easily beat Nuance on both price and color. The package quality of Nuance is a little bit better than other drugstore brand; however, what is really important to me is the performance of the product itself.