Review + EOTD: Forever 21's Love & Beauty, playing with colors!

A bunch of coworkers and I went shopping after work one day and we went to the newly opened Forever XXI at Metrotown. There, we saw the staff opening boxes and setting up two tables of FXXI's new makeup line Love & Beauty. As we just finished drooling at Sephora, we pounced on these right away.


Anyone recognize the catalog in the background??

I ended up purchasing 2 items- an eyeshadow duo in Burgundy/Teal ($3.80CAD) and a tube of mascara called Immense Mascara ($4.80CAD).



I really wanted to get a vivid purple color. When I saw this I really got it for that. We were a bit worried about the color payoff on these since it's cheap and made in China. But because of the price, we thought it was worth a try. Coworker J got a Blue/Silver duo.



As expected, color payoff wasn't good at all. J confirmed it with hers also. For this swatch, I had to swipe my finger back and forth quite a number of times before I was successful. Perhaps having a primer as a base will help.

The shadow seemed to be perhaps somewhat waxy(?) because when I washed my hands I saw the water slide off the colors.

I was disappointed that the purple turned out to be more of a raspberry color.

On to the mascara!!





It was such a hot pink tube! Love the flourishes around the top too.

* If this is your first time reading my mascara reviews, please go here to see the BEFORE picture *



It has a curved wand which is actually quite good to use to get all my lashes. It promises volume and length, so how does it perform?





Hmmm....it's nothing special. In fact, I will call it inferior since right out of the tube, it added big clumps to my lashes. The brush was good at taking those out though. But it's not a good thing to have the clumps ALREADY included in the tube. I wouldn't get this again. My Daiso mascara is much better.

So I was just playing with the shadow duo and messed around with the colors. This is what I came up with.



I did basically the same thing for both eyes. I didn't use a primer/base as I was only playing around.

For this eye, I lined the lower lashline with the teal using a damp brush. This helped the color payoff.

On the lid, I brushed the burgundy color above the lashline up to the crease. Then I took a golden orangey color and swept it just above the burgundy. I blended those colors very well.

Next, taking a dark brown shadow and one of those sponge brushes that are usually included in palettes, I thick-lined the top lash line. I find this method gives a softer, more natural liner look which effectively defines the eyes without being too stark or purposeful.



With my other eye, the top of the eye was done the same way. For the lower lash line, using the same sponge applicator, I lined the inside of the lower lash line (known as the waterline?) with the dark brown, then lined the outside of the lower lash line with the teal 1/2 to 3/4 of the way.







What do you think? Too much color? Do they clash? Which method looks better??