Lorac Pro Palette Review

Okay, this review's going to be hard to break down into my normal attempts to be as informative as possible. The honesty and true feelings about this product is there, but ladies...gentlemen? maybe?

Holy cheezits! 

There are no words to describe how excited I was when I finally, I mean FINALLY broke down and purchased this palette. It was in my twitter feed, my facebook feeds, tumblr, pinterest, you name it, this palette was in my face saying "BUY ME NOW". 

I don't know how long I toyed with the idea of purchasing this palette, but I do know it's been a while. I went into Ulta Beauty and went directly to this palette, looked at it, swatched the tester, then literally left the Lorac section and browsed the entire store. I looked at similar palettes from other brands like, It Cosmetics, Stila, Urban Decays Naked Palettes, Too Faced and a bunch of other ones. Swatched a bunch, but ultimately went back to this one, because I knew if I walked out of that store without it, I was going to regret it and be online at Ulta.com looking at this palette again.

Packaging is simple black paper wrapped palette, with the text in a reflective silver stamped onto it. You can run your finger across it and feel the impressions, very shiny, very nice.  The top is magnetic so you don't have to worry about the top flopping around or coming open if you should happen to turn the palette upside down and of course you get a nice mirror on the backside of the top. 

Inside the palette you get eight matte eyeshadows and eight shimmer eyeshadows. The top row are all the mattes, the bottom are all the shimmer shades, which I like a lot. Also, the shadows for each finish start from the left side of the palette from lightest or highlight shades to the darkest colors. Just from a visual standpoint, this palette has got itself together, very organized, very easy to find the colors you want to use. The only exception to the light to dark shades, are the shimmer shades, where Slate and Deep purple should be switched around, but oh well, it's close enough.

Lorac Pro Palette Top Row Matte Eyeshadows

We'll start off with the top row of matte eyeshadows, starting in order they appear in the palette. First impressions of this first row of shadows were all I had heard and more. Silky, creamy without it being a cream and pigmentation. These swatches were done with minimal swiping, especially Espresso and Black. The lighter or highlight shades are just as pigmented, but with my fair skin it's always hard to get swatches to show in photos. I haven't tried these wet yet, I haven't felt the need to use them this way yet, I may use Black wet and see how it looks in replacement of a black eyeliner on the upper lash-line.

Time to break each matte shadow down...

Though I feel that I'm horrible at trying to describe colors.

White- Can you say, favorite eye highlight? Am I the only one who has a hard time finding matte whites to use to highlight the brow bone? Or am I just that dumb and haven't looked hard enough? This is a beautiful matte white, perfect to highlight the inner corner of the eye and brow bone. Can't say enough good things about this color.

Cream- This a nice off white, slightly peachy pink toned shadow. Another great option in this palette for a matte highlight. Or even a nice lid color.

Taupe- This shade just....ugh! I can't get enough of it. I'm not a huge fan of any taupe like colors, not a fan. But! Love this! Fantastic transition color. Cool toned bisque, peach undertone, light tan color.

Lt. Pink- The name says it all. It's a light pink. A subtle powder, baby pink color. It looks lovely with it's neighbor Mauve.

Mauve- You know what...it's Mauve, no need to describe it any further. Pigmented, just lovely.

Sable- This is a nice warm brown, doesn't appear orange on the skin. Warms up your face so nicely when used.

Espresso- Cool dark brown. You don't need much of this on a brush or finger. Extremely pigmented. Reminds me of a dark chocolate color.

Black- Pretty self explanatory. It's not the blackest shadow I'm sure, but it's black. Nuff said.

All of the Matte finishes just feel amazing on the eyes. They don't streak or crease on me. The pigmentation is great. Now, some like Espresso, Black and maybe one more, have a little bit of fallout in the pan itself when you're using a brush, but if you tap your brush like you should before applying the product to your face, there's little to no fallout.

Lorac Pro Palette. Bottom Row- Shimmer Eyeshadow Swatches.

Now onto the shimmer shades. We all know that I've been put off by the glitter pixie situation. I was scared of these shadows, thus why I toyed with the idea of spending the money to get this palette. But, we'll break these shades down first.

Nude- Without the shimmer, this is darn near a match for my skin tone. Beautiful shade with a pink undertone. I've used this one as an all over lid color and it's very stunning. 

Champagne- Gorgeous color. This is more of a taupe champagne color, rather that a nude or peach. 

Gold- It's a gold shimmer shadow. Beautiful, but its not a traditional gold color, more of a Rose Gold.

Lt. Bronze- This is a cool tone bronze, its light, just like the name says.

Pewter- This ones a little hard to describe. I have a few things that are pewter and it's not exactly the same color. This is more of a bronze, grey, purple color. 

Garnet- This is a very relfective rosey, brown, coppery color. It's different enough where I can't draw any comparisons to anything I've seen or currently have.

Deep Purple- This shade is indeed a DEEP purple. It actually looks more purple in the pan than on the skin. But you can tell it's purple. Perfect for smokey or bold eyes. 

Slate- This one is more of a gunmetal shade that leans slightly more blue, but just enough for there to be a difference between this shade and an actual gunmetal shade. 

The shimmer shadows are beautiful. I wish my color descriptions could be better, but the glitter is so fine that it's hard to tell what the color of the glitter actually is. These don't feel grainy, they're just as creamy as the matte shades. The glitter pixies aren't there. I have used the shimmer shades quite a bit and the fallout in comparison to some I own *cough* when used dry or without a primer isn't noticeable. 

The overall quality of this palette is amazing. There's not a single eyeshadow that I won't use. You have your cool tones, your warm tones, beautiful nudes, highlights, transitional colors and smokey shades. This palette cost 42.00USD  for sixteen eyeshadows and it is worth every penny. I haven't touched another eyeshadow palette since I brought this home. I immediately grab this one and I'm ready to do my eye makeup. If you don't own this palette yet, just bluntly go get yourself one if you can. I feel so buyers remorse even with the palette being 42.00USD. Go get yourself one. This is a go to staple in my makeup collection.


I'll be posting reviews here and on my tumblr, simplydarkpleasureblog.tumblr.com on the same days and time. So if you'd prefer to follow me exclusively there, then you're more than welcome to do so. As always come find me on Twitter via the widget here or @Blog_SDP where you can get immediate updates on blog posts and general updates from me.

Until next time,
Stay Creative.

Birthday/UnBirthday Haul.

Birthday Haul Time!

or...

If you wan t to get all technical, Unbirthday Haul Time. 

I say Unbirthday, since I was born on February 29th, evil Leap Year. And this year, there is no 29th of February. On the pesky non Leap Year, years, I celebrate both on the 28th and 1st of March. So, I went shopping at Ulta Beauty in store, as well as online and I went to Sephora for the first time. Then we have some of the things my husband and sister gifted to me.

First we have a Lipstick Palette from Stila from my online purchases, this palette has six really pretty shades. This palette is quite small, but we'll see how it works out.

Next is the they're Real! mascara by benefit sample/travel size. You're going to see a theme here I think, since I'm looking for better mascaras that won't irritate my eyes, but won't flake off or run. 

Now we have a travel size Lorac Tantolizer Baked Bronzer. I love there Tantolizer Matte Bronzer, but a lot of Matte products makes me look washed out, so I'm experimenting with some dewier looks to see if I like them or not. At the moment Ulta is running a free gift special with Lorac Products online and in store with some items, so with this I also got a sample of their Stay Matte face primer.

Aero Minerale Mineral Makeup Mist in the shade bare. This is suppose to be a dupe for Dior's spray on foundation, along with the one from Napoleon Cosmetics. I was looking for a quicker way to do my foundation, since I do have kids and my youngest is less than six months old. With the reviews and research I did, this looks promising. 

Now an eyeliner felt pen by Pixel. I've never heard of this brand before, but I didn't want to spend a ton of money on a liquid liner in pen form. This was the cheapest I found I do believe or somewhere around there. I'm eager to try this out, since the brand is new to me I don't have any expectations. I love trying new brands, especially if I've heard little or nothing about them. 

And lastly from my online shopping, I got the Dr. Lin skincare Acne Cleansing Pads. I'm not afraid to admit to myself and to anyone that I'm extremely lazy when it comes to nighttime face cleaning. Washing my face the traditional way, wakes me up. I don't want to be awake at night when I want to settle down. So, I have cleansing wipes that I use, now I have something that will replace my toner at nighttime. Also has 2% Salicylic Acid in them, so I can amp up my skincare, even though I love my Equate Beauty skincare line. 

Now on to my in store purchases from Ulta. I had my rewards certificate to use and I don't yet have a Kabuki brush. So, I grabbed this one by Ultas professional line of brushes. The brush is pretty soft, I haven't gotten around to using this yet, so we'll see how it holds up to my other brushes.

Forgive my poor editing, but I don't think you wanted to see my floor. 

Ultas Rewards Club birthday gift for February was a full size CK Cosmetics Mascara. So, of course I grabbed one while I was there. I'm REALLY excited about this mascara because of the wand. It's different. I've never seen another wand like it before and I'm dying to see how well it works. 

Lorac Pro Palette...

Let's just take a moment to enjoy those words.

This palette has been on my MUST HAVE list and because, it was my birthday I decided to splurge on it. This also came with a free sample, which was their eyeshadow primer. 

Now, on to what I got at Sephora. I only grabbed two things and one was my Beauty Insider Birthday Gift from Sephora, but still, it counts.

For my Beauty Insider gift, I chose the Makeup Forever Mascara and Rouge Lipstick mini's. It was this or something from benefit. Since I already got a mascara from that brand, I decided to go with a brand I haven't tried before. Thus, my reason for getting this. 

NARS Blush and Bronzer Duo in Orgasm and Laguna. This wasn't my original reason for going into the only Sephora in my area. I had gone intending to purchase one of the Hourglass Blushes, but my Sephora didn't carry them in store. I don't own a lot of blushes, I normally use my lipsticks or a few matte blushes that I do own. As I said before, I've been looking to try more dewy looks, but I didn't want a blush chocked full of evil glitter pixies. And sadly, most "dewy" blushes are. DrugStorePrincess aka Hilary was there and helped me go through blushes. When NARS Orgasm was brought up, I've heard a lot of hype about the product, both good and bad and I hadn't really considered getting it. Well, I was won over by the swatch, so I ended up purchasing the duo, since it made more financial sense, because I liked the bronzer too. 

Now, onto what my sister got me.

We have some Kiss Nail Dresses in neon colors with neon polka dots. I assume these are different from the Stick On Nail strips I've already reviewed, but I do really like this design. We shall see how different these are.  

A hand cream by bodycology in vanilla sugar. Sorry for the crap photo, but you get the point, it's lotion. Now this stuff smells heavenly. I love anything vanilla scented and these types of scents tend not to aggravate my migraine headaches, where a lot of perfume or candle scents do. So far, I love this and it's still winter and I need all the moisturizers I can get my hands on.

Finally my husband got me some clothes. Now, I'm ridiculously picky about dresses or skirts. From the material, to the length, cut, you name it, I nitpick. But, it seems, my husband tends to find the ones that I love. He's found two others that always hit the dirty laundry, as soon as its clean, this one is no different. The shoulder pieces are a soft mesh and the rest of the dress is this soft t-shirt like material. The length us just above the knee where I don't feel overly subconscious, but it doesn't make me look shorter than I already am like long skirts or dresses tend to do.  

Here's the closeup of the pattern on the dress. It's sugar skulls, crosses and some type of flower. I looks like a rose, I'm pretty sure that's what it is, but I could be wrong.

I'm a huge Nightmare Before Christmas fan. And he found me a pencil skirt with the ending scene of the movie on it. The skirt is another just above the knee length and the cut of a pencil skirt is very slimming and flatters my figure. It's also made of a material that doesn't restrict you when you walk, which is very nice. 

Last thing is another pencil skirt, same fabric and cut. This one is just has a different pattern, which is different colored stained glass windows and crosses.

That's the end of my birthday haul, I hope you enjoyed it and it's not bragging by any means, but if you like these types of posts let me know or let me know what you'd like to see next. I'll be posting reviews here and on my tumblr, simplydarkpleasureblog.tumblr.com on the same days and time. So if you'd prefer to follow me exclusively there, then you're more than welcome to do so. As always come find me on Twitter via the widget here or @Blog_SDP where you can get immediate updates on blog posts and general updates from me.

Until next time,
Stay Creative.