Sephora Members Birthday Gift

Good Day Everyone,

I recently celebrated my birthday (we won’t go into how old I am for fear of raising the January blues to a whole new level ;o)) and right on cue an email from Sephora popped into my inbox telling me that I could go and pick up my free Sephora members birthday gift.

 

When I became a Sephora member in February last year I received a welcome gift which was a Sephora own brand body lotion. I did use up the body lotion because it was free and I don’t like to waste but it certainly wasn’t something that I would go out and purchase myself – clearly I wasn’t impressed. So when it came to my first birthday gift, I’ll be honest, I didn’t have high expectations and wasn’t expecting much, in fact, I was expecting something similar to the welcome gift but boy was I wrong!

What I received was this cute mini Sephora own brand makeup palette and I do have to eat my words here because I am impressed with this little freebie, and not just because it’s a freebie! This palette, which fits into the palm of my hand, contains four eye shadows, two lip glosses and a blush. The palette is designed to resemble a Sephora shopping bag, complete with cute little red handles. Inside the lid there is a decent sized mirror and a clear plastic sheet that goes over the top of the products so that they don’t transfer on to the mirror. 

 

 I’m seriously impressed with the colours as they are all very wearable and colours that I would choose myself. The eye shadows are more pigmented than I was expecting and very easy to swatch, which makes me want to checkout Sephora’s own brand eye shadow palettes once my spending ban is up ;o) The shadows are very soft and buttery, not at all powdery and blend really well too. The only downside would be that it is easily possible to over blend them which makes the shadows lose some of their intensity and so I do sometimes have to go back and pack on more colour in places. The eye shadow colours are;

• Catherine NO3 - a satin mid tone silvery grey

• Must Have MO4 – a matte black – great as an eyeliner and for smoking things out

• Crème Caramel MO8 – a matte pale peachy beige – great for blending and brow bone highlighting

• Coffee Brown NO8 – a satin mid tone warm brown

The blush, called Exclusif (Exclusive), is a gorgeous peach shade with no shimmer or sparkle at all. The colour compliments my warm skin tone beautifully and I can imagine this colour suiting most skin tones as its very natural looking. The texture of the blush is very smooth and it blends really well. The only drawback to the blush is that the long shape of it makes it quite a challenge to pick up the blush colour without dipping my brush into the eye shadows and lip gloss next to it.

Blush Excusif / lip gloss Rouge Shine 05 / lip gloss Rouge Shine 30

 The two lip gloss shades are Rouge Shine 05 which is a very pale nudey pink colour and Rouge Shine 30 which is a bright raspberry pink, although on my lips, it is more of a soft pink and therefore a lot more wearable than what it appears in the pan. The lip glosses are not sticky and not particularly drying either. They feel very smooth and comfortable on my lips and the pink colour wears off pretty evenly leaving my lips with a natural looking pink stain like effect. You can see why I’m impressed.

Rouge Shine 30 is more of a soft, rather than bright, pink on my lips

Rouge Shine 30 gloss wears off leaving a stain

I can see myself getting lots of use out of this little palette and it’ll certainly make my weekends away makeup bag a lot lighter. It has all I need for my cheeks, lips and eyes. I often tend to wear black eye shadow as eyeliner and so all I need is some mascara, foundation and concealer along with a few makeup tools and I’m done.

What do you think of this little freebie? Do you find these colours wearable for you? 

Love Sheen xxx