BareMinerals Ready Eyeshadow 8.0 The Cocktail Hour Compact Swatches, Pics and Review

When Bare Escentuals released pressed eyeshadows, I was very excited. I love the colors of the some of the Bare Minerals loose shadows, but I don't always want to fool with the loose powders. With the amount of makeup I own, storage space is at a premium and I can store a flat palette with much more ease than a bunch of little pots. Playing with the Ready eyeshadows at the store, I was delighted to find that they were highly pigmented and smooth to apply.

One of the first pressed Ready shadow palettes I bought was the Ready Eyeshadow 8.0 - The Cocktail Hour.  8.0 means eight shades.  It is housed in a golden palette for the feel of sheer decadance.  It retails for $40, which is a great price for 8 shades, and comes with a dual ended brush.  The brush has a shadow side and a liner side, and I have found them both to be useable and created today's look solely utilizing that brush.



You can see that this palette contains just about everything...blue, black, orange, seafoam, purple...I picked this one because I liked the challenge of deciding how the colors would go together. There is another 8.0 - The Playlist which I thought would be super easy to use, so I took a little more of a risk with this one.

Here's a little closer on the inside. These photos are taken in natural lighting.





Inside the box, you'll find an insert that gives you a couple of suggestions on how to wear the palette.





The BareMinerals Ready Eyeshadows make some wonderful claims about antioxidants and such and I'd like you to read those from the BareMinerals people themselves.



The names of the shades are printed on the back of the palette.



The first set of swatch photos are taken in natural light. The next two pictures are taken with flash.







So let me tell you what I did with this today. I still wanted to challenge myself with the colors. It would be so easy for me to fall to the rose and purple, kind of a no brainer for me, so I chose a different path. I took the frosty sage, Invite Only, and brushed it on the lid. The frosty beige, Libation, was placed on the inner eye. I swept the shimmering coral, Spiked, into the crease and to the browbone. The bright under brow highlight is Icebreaker. I used the liner end of the brush to create an eyeline with the matte Black Tie Optional. It was different from what I've been wearing lately.



I finished the look with Chanel Sable Rose Bronzer, Nars Liberte' blush, and MUFE Artist Natural Lipstick No. 9. I could swear it almost looks like I coordinated this on purpose! (I purchased my palette at Nordstrom, but it looks like the only place available to find it online now is the BareMinerals site. Link provided above for your ease of ordering.)

Have you tried any of the BareMinerals Ready eyeshadows yet? I really like them. Love the smoothness, love the pigmentation, love the variety!! They wore perfectly all day with no smudging, no creasing and no fading. Win! Win!

Quick Look Wearing Nars Summer 2012 Liberte' Blush and Ramatuelle Eyeshadow Trio

For swatches of the Nars Summer 2012 items, I purchased, see this post.  Today is a quickie post utilizing the Ramatuelle Eyeshadow Trio and the Liberte' blush, just to give you an idea of how they look on.  I confess, I was scared of Liberte' at first because it's one of those really pigmented blushes from Nars, but I found it to be quite workable and really, I really like it. 

 The eyeshadows wore VERY well.  I've had hit and miss luck in the past with Nars eyeshadows but this trio wore all day long with no mishaps.  The blush, ahhhhhh, I love the blush!!  If you get it, you won't be sorry.  As for the lip I'm wearing here, well, it's a mismash of a few items...a Buxom lip pencil and then I just threw a Lancome gloss over it.   Anyway, the picture is unedited and hopefully you can see that I focused on the blue in the trio for the inner 2/3 of the eye, and went with the orange on the outer 1/3 and used the golden peach to highlight.  I threw on Chanel Taupe liner just for grins. I still haven't been able to find the Nars summer items locally, and I'm not sure I want to spend $8 shipping for one lipstick, so I'm waiting...waiting for a website code or for the collection to come on-line at Nordstrom. And there ya go!

Nars Summer 2012 Pics and Swatches: Liberte' Blush, Ramatuelle Eyeshadow Trio, Buenos Aires Velvet Gloss Lip Pencil

Today we have swatches, swatches, swatches of the Nars Summer 2012 Collection. I just love the advertising picture and was intrigued by the shadow, in particular, and how it glowed a light shimmering silvery blue and peach...I just had to see it in real life.  Isn't that gorgeous? I could picture being on a deserted tropical island somewhere when I look at that picture. Tropical islands are my happy place, so I relish any image that takes me there. Anyway, much staring at this photo and mentally going to my happy place prompted three purchases from the Nars website. I've looked at Nordstrom several times, hoping to see the items in person, but they still don't have them in at the counter where I live. But, when they get them, I'm checking out the matte lip product the model is wearing.  I just can't purchase a matte lip product without testing it first.   So, onto the show.... I suppose you would call the Ramatuelle eyeshadow trio the star of this collection. It features a light frosty blue, a frosted golden peach and a matte orange that has a hint of brick to it.    On my arm, the peach is quite golden. I suspect it will show up more peachy on my lids as my arms are warm toned and my lids are very cool.   While my skin swatches show warm colors, I suspect on my eyes, the colors will be true to the palette itself.  I'll be able to make = whichever color pop that I want to depending on what color of shadow base I use. I think this trio will be extremely versatile and fun to play with. I'll give you longevity stats as I wear it. (I just got it today so haven't worn it yet.)    Next, I did something a little unusual...I purchased the blush in the collection. It's unusual because with all the blushes I have, it seems like I should be able to make something work, and I probably can but I like how it looks in the ad. I am, after all, an  advertiser's dream. Liberte' blush is a brick orange. It'll be a good color applied lightly to my light skin and be great a little later in the summer when I have a little color. (Please, always use sunscreen!!!)     It'll be a no-brainer getting ready in the morning to use this with the Ramatuelle eyeshadow trio.      I ordered the Buenos Aires Velvet Gloss Lip Pencil thinking it would be a frosted beige that would work well with the eyeshadow trio. It was a little bit of a surprise to find out that it's a creamy peachy nude. Not at all what I thought,  .    Granted, I haven't tried it on the lips yet, but I'm afraid this won't quite be my color and I'm really wishing I ordered the Moscow Pure Matte Lipstick instead. Well, we'll give it a go and see how it is. I'll leave you with one more look at all the items that I purchased together.   I plan to wear Dior Bikini nail polish this week with these items, but doesn't the light pink Trouville polish in the ad look so pretty??  (Nars Ramatuelle Eyeshadow Trio retails for $45.  Nars Liberte' blush is $28, and Buenos Aires Velvet Gloss Lip Pencil retails for $24 wherever Nars is sold.) Have you tried the Nars Summer 2010 collection yet? If you have, what is your favorite item in it? And how do you feel the wear of these items is/are?  (Edited to add:  You can see the items in use in THIS blog post.   Buenos Aires pencil is reviewed in this post.).