Review of: Velour Lashes in Oops Naughty Me

Hi everyone! I'm here today with a review on Velour Lashes' Oops Naughty Me. To give a brief background, Velour Lashes was founded by two best friends, Mabel and Angela, from Toronto, Canada. The idea behind the company is that the lashes are high quality, and exemplify luxury, sophistication, and elegance. The lashes themselves stand apart from ones you might find for $4 at the drugstore in terms of quality and material- these lashes are made out of 100% authentic mink fur. The lashes are said to be cruelty-free, and the minks are not harmed in the process- they are simply brushed and the loose hairs get collected and made into lashes. Having the lashes made out of mink fur means they are super lightweight, comfortable, believable, and long-lasting. These lashes last through at least 25 wears, which is unparalleled by any lash I've ever encountered or heard of up to this point. However, with high quality comes a high price tag- the lashes were all originally priced at $59.99-64.99. Your Day to Shine is priced far higher at $149.99! This is because this style of lash is adorned with black Swarovski crystals. However, all the lash styles have been slashed to half-price (or nearly so). It has remained this way for at least a month now, so I'm unsure of whether or not this is a temporary promotion or permanent. The styles now range from $29.99 to $34.99 to $79.99 (only Your Day to Shine). There are 9 styles of upper lashes (including a half lash) and 2 styles of lower lashes.

I knew I wanted to try Velour Lashes when Gossmakeupartist on YouTube did a Kim Kardashian bridal-inspired tutorial, and the lashes he used looked absolutely incredible. I, and everyone else, left comments badgering him on what style they were and where to get them. He wrote that they were Velour Lashes, and did a video showing every style briefly, which can be seen here:

Oops Naughty Me- I chose Oops Naughty Me because my favorite style of lashes are wispy, and I love that look. It gives a fuller look in my opinion, and looks more sultry then typical lashes. Ordering them was quick and easy and they arrived within 3 or 4 days (the shipping was free). They looked so lovely and beautiful in the box, but I was extremely disappointing with the quality of the packaging. It was scratched and it looked like it had been kicked around and mistreated.

Pictures of the packaging and lashes:

 The outside cardboard sleeve

 The inside actual box was scratched and damaged 

However on my eye I was actually slightly horrified. Gossmakeupartist had commented on all of the lash styles' incredible lengths but the fact that they were still believable, but I found this did not match up at all to my own experience. Yes, the lashes are very long- but they're too long. I have googled Velour Lashes and found pictures of other girls wearing them, and they look beautiful. But I have hooded eyes, which are somewhat atypical, and on top of that I do not have that much lid space between my lashline and my eyebrow. It's not a tiny amount of lid, but it's probably less then your average, and when I open my eyes my mobile lid is no longer visible because my lids are, as I said, very hooded. So that might be why these lashes look so jarring on me. However, every other lash I have tried has still looked nice on. The fact is, is that these lashes are too tall (you'll see what I mean) and too long, at least for me and other girls with similar lid space. The lashes touch my eyebrows when I look straight. It just looks fake and kind of unattractive. I asked muliple people for their opinions, and most everyone were kind of turned off/scared/weirded out. My father told me it was the first thing he saw when he looked at me, and that it was too much. Then he corrected himself and said that it was the only thing someone would see looking at me. That was when I knew I had to send them back, because I agreed. They look absolutely beautiful if I'm looking down, but if my eyes are open it just looks bad.

So with all that said, I'll show you how they looked on. My makeup and hair was kind of a practice run for a formal event I'm going to in May, and I plan on wearing a satin strapless bustier-style top, so that's why I threw on one that I got from ShopNastygal for any of your who are wondering!

Pictures:

Lastly, I included this unfortunate up close picture of taken with a different camera setting to truly show you what the lash looks like, in as HD quality as possible

Final Thoughts: At this point in time, I am still unsure about this lash. I like qualities about them, but I don't think I truly like them. They are dramatic but I think they're just a little too harsh and tall. I feel like one thing I would do differently if I could go back in time was to leave a little extra on the end. I feel I might have trimmed too much, and wonder if I had left more if it would have had a more positive effect. Regardless I feel that the amount I left was perfect for my eye size, so it's not like that ended up being an issue. I just wonder, because sometimes people leave a little extra on the outer corners to make the eye look bigger. I am going to return them, because for $34.99 I should absolutely love them. Lucky for me Velour Lash's return policy is extremely generous:

The Velour Promise

If you don’t love it, return it! We want you to be just as happy with our lashes as we are! If in any way you are not satisfied with our lashes, we promise a full refund within the first 30 days of purchase. All that we ask is for you to return them in the original packaging along with the invoice. We would like to reassure you that for hygienic reasons all returned products are immediately disposed of and are NOT resold. The Velour Promise is offered as a limited-time promotion as we are confident you will fall in love with Velour!

I am thinking of getting Lash in the City in exchange for Oops Naughty me. It doesn't have the wispy effect I wanted, so that makes me a little bummed, but they just look gorgeous, so I think it's worth trying. I'm a little afraid though that all the lashes will be too long for me. I hope that won't be the case because I am sure there are many others out there with similar features to me, and that would mean a whole group of us beauty lovers would be left out of the Velour Lash loop. To conclude, I leave you with two more images:

How long are Velour Lashes?

Well, I had to cut off quite a lot to get the lashes right on point with my eye. What follows is a before/after.

Before trimming:

After trimming:

I found this off of a blog- these are all the lashes! This is what they set up at their table at IMATS

[Credit: krimzinart.blogspot.com]

Haul from Target and Beauty 35

Hi everyone! This is a nail polish and false lash haul! All the polishes I got from Target, all the lashes I got from Beauty 35, the best beauty store I know of in NYC (Ricky's does not compare). So without further ado, let's go to the pictures.

 My faves- Demi Wispies, 109s, and 101 Demis- they give an incredibly flattering look to the lashes, full and fluttery, and they make the eye just look gorgeous

 Not a bad price! This place has got the best lash selection in NYC. They have Red Cherry too. 

 Gorgeous. I bought the Revlon Red polish at Target because it's price was so much cheaper then at my drugstore- only $6 something. But on my receipt I'm not reading that they charged me $8.19. Let that be a lesson to me, and to everyone- check the receipt. Moving on, the other two colors were $3.99 and $4.79. I have no idea which glitter polish matches which price, I'm sorry! The receipt is not specific.

 I love super dark deep reds. It's looking bright here, but you can still see the depth.

 Dupes- That's why I had to get the Milani one. I saw it and I knew it was a PERFECT DUPE for Katy's Perry's Teenage Dream from the OPI Collection!! And what, like 6 bucks cheaper? Incredible.

Not identical but extremely similar.

I hope this haul was enjoyable!

theBalm Nude Tude Eyeshadow Palette

Finally, I'm reviewing theBalm's Nude Tude Eyeshadow Palette! I bought this palette a while back for myself around Christmas time. It was on my list, which you will see if you go to my Christmas Wishlist post I did back in November, and I got it for a STEAL. It can only be bought to my knowledge on theBalm's website, even though Sephora does carry some of theBalm's products (but not thise one). It was $36 on the website and I got a 40% off code from Temptalia.com for Black Friday for everything on theBalm's website! Can you believe it? I wish I had bought more, but when there's such a great sale that you literally buy everything, in the end you end up spending way more money then you have, even if you do get a lot for it. So I guess it was for the best. I ended up paying $21 and a tiny bit of change for it I believe. 

I quite like this palette, so without further ado, I bring you pictures and swatches (my thoughts will follow):

 Sassy, Stubborn, Selfish, Sophisticated, Sexy, Serious

Snobby, Stand-offish, Sultry, Schitzo, Silly, Sleek

As you can see, it's a very pretty palette. I must say when I first received it I was slightly disappointed. I guess I thought the pans would be bigger then they are, but you're still getting quite a lot of product. I thought that this palette might rival the Urban Decay Naked Palette, but I found that, for me, it doesn't. I still reach for the Naked Palette way more then this one. I like the colors in this palette, but there are some color I just never reach for, like Sexy, Stubborn, and Snobby. Sexy is a really reddy purple-ish brown color, Stubborn is the pink, and Snobby is too yellow of a gold for my taste. But in general this is a nice palette of neutrals. Some of the shadows feel like BUTTER like Sassy. Ugh, sooo soft. Others are less wow-worthy in texture, like Sophisticated, but in general they are all soft. I have to say that Stand-offish is my absolute favorite color of the palette- it looks just like Stila Kitten!! It is an incredibly gorgeous highlight color, and this and Kitten are my hands down favorites to use for highlighting the brow bone. I wish Sultry was a lighter color, because I feel it's just too dark to be a blending color, unless you want a really brown blend. One thing to be said for the palette is that it does get dirty quite easily. I wanted to clean the palette before photographing, but I thought better of it, because it irks me how dirty and crumbly it gets, and I wanted to show that. In general I'm not at all regretful of this purchase, and am happy to have it and play with it :)

I put together a look just using the Nude Tude palette the other day, and below are pictures so you can see the shadows in a real look:

From the palette I used Stand-offish, Selfish, Sophisticated, Sultry, and Serious.

Bodacious Bronze

Hi everyone! After a day's worth of watching YouTube videos I felt inspired. So I put together a super bronzey look. Don't mind the hair, it's au naturale. Also this look isn't anything super different then what I've done before, hopefully in future FOTDs I do something more exciting like a cut crease or a matte eye for a change! But for now this is what I did, and I think it's a nice nighttime look. It also features 1 of the 4 Katy Perry False lashes from her new collection with Eylure, sold at Ulta! This pair is called Cool Kitty.

Face:
Loreal Tru Match in W4
Laura Mercier Loose Transluscent Setting Powder
Tarte Park Ave. Princess Bronzer
NARS Madly Blush
Laura Mercier Highlighter in Portofino

Eyes:
Urban Decay Smog E/s
Urban Decay Blackout E/s
MAC Bronze E/s
Urban Decay Foxy E/s
Urban Decay Zero Eyeliner
Maybelline Colossal Lash Mascara
MAC Blacktrack Fluidline

Brows: Maybelline Define-A-Brow

Lashes:
Cool Kitty- Katy Perry Collection for Eylure

Lips:
MAC Whirl Lipliner
Benefit So Frisk Me Lipgloss

Urban Decay Naked Palette 2 Breakdown and Comparison

The saga continues- UD2! I had been waiting forever for Urban Decay to come out with a second Naked Palette because I loved my first one so much. I was anxious to see if they could come up with twelve more amazing shades that would prove to be just as easy to use, gorgeous, and well-loved as those in the original.

Here's part of the claim- The most anticipated sequel of the decade. Naked2 has 12 pigment-rich, taupe and greige neutral eyeshadows, including FIVE NEW shades. Our palette proves once again, neutral is anything but boring, (and is downright sexy when worn Naked). Feast your eyes on our shades ranging from pale to deep, matte to sparkly. This collection lets you achieve lots of neutral looks, smoky dramatic eyes, and everything in between. Let's just say there's a whole new way to get Naked!

When the palette first debuted, I was really disappointed. I didn't like many of the colors at all. A lot of them looked the same as in the first palette, and only a couple shades stood out to me. Some of the shades I downright disliked. But after seeing it in stores, as well as seeing more in-depth reviews of the palette and tutorials using it, it started to grow on me. In person, it doesn't look as similar to the original Urban Decay palette as you might have previously thought. The colors that do look similar I will list down below after the pictures, so you know which ones are pretty close.

I wouldn't say any of them are Dupes EXCEPT Half Baked which they put in both palettes!

I have no idea why they did that. That alone already automatically makes it go down from an A to a B for me, that's ridiculous. Instead of putting in a new gorgeous color they put it a color that is, admittedly one of my favorites, but at the same time, why repeat a color if you're doing a followup to the first one? That's just repeating, and that looks really cheap to me, as though the brand couldn't care/be bothered enough to think up another shadow.

Anyway, I really loved getting the UD Naked 2 Palette as a gift because it is just so beautiful. The packaging is absolutely gorgeous and sleek. It will also stay sleek because of the hard tin casing that does not attract fingerprints or anything of the like, unlike the original Naked Palette which comes packaged in a beautiful chocolate brown velvet casing, but unfortunately gets pretty worn looking after a while.

I have to admit that I do not use all of the colors in the palette. That is to say that there are some I just practically never reach for. The color Chopper for instance is just way too peachy/orangey for my taste.

It's pretty in the pan, but on the lid it just looks so bad to me, even though swatched, it is a beautiful color, and applies well. For my taste though, as I said, it's not something I myself would choose. I tried applying it on my friend because I thought maybe it could look like Expensive Pink from MAC but it doesn't... it just looked kind of warm and orange. That doesn't mean I won't use it, I definitely will, but just not as often as the others, and when I do apply it, it will serve as more of an accent or an inner lid color as opposed to something I would sweep all around my lid. I also have a bit of a problem with the color Tease.

My feeling is that it's supposed to work as a crease transition color, similarly to the light brown blending color Naked in the original Naked Palette, or even Buck which is darker, but good for blending out dark colors while adding a touch of brown. Tease is kind of this medium-toned odd lilacy/gray shade. I assume it is meant to be the main blending color in the palette, because 1) it's a neutral mid-tone shade 2) it's matte and blending colors are typically matte and 3) that's how I've seen it used in virtually every tutorial I watch. My problem is that I don't feel like it's neutral enough. To me it's obviously a weird dusty purple shade, and it just doesn't translate. I really would prefer something a bit closer to my skin tone, or at the very least, more flattering. I do use the shade but I prefer the options we had in the original more.

So how does it compare to the original Naked Palette? I pretty much love every single color in the Naked Palette. I really do. The only colors I don't use as much are Toasted and Hustle, but that's because I gravitate towards golds and bronzes. Those two are extremely pretty colors though, and I do still love them, and use them. I feel that the Naked Palette works for work, for nights out, for pinup looks, for basically anything you might want. You can create a gunmetal gray eye, a smokey bronzey eye, or a neutral cut crease with the two matte shades. The lighter shades, like Half Baked and Sidecar are really beautiful for just sweeping across the lid for an easy polished glowy look.

With the Naked 2 Palette, I think emilynoel83 said it best when she expressed her feeling that with the Naked 2 Palette, you don't get as many smokey, or dark colors, which I would have to agree with. There are many more light and medium-toned shades as opposed to dark shades in the Naked 2 Palette. At the same time, many of these shades are absolutely gorgeous, so you're not necessarily losing out. If I could change anything about the Naked 2 Palette, it would be to replace a few of the more useless colors (Half Baked, Chopper, and maybe Tease) and pop in some really pretty shades, like a gorgeous shimmery olive green which would look amazing paired with a brown, and maybe a dark shade of a really wearable, easy to throw on color. I just think they could have made this amazing instead of just good. I really like the palette, and I would never give it up but I do feel that the original Naked Palette had more to offer.

Some of the complaints about the original Naked Palette are that the colors are too warm. I don't think that's true, I don't particularly like warm warm colors, but I felt the colors in the original palette struck a perfect balance. Darkhorse for instance, was the perfect dark cool brown to complement Smog, which was a warm brown. Either way, people were saying that they wanted an option with more cooler-toned colors, and everyone is now raving about how the Naked 2 Palette delivers that for them. I disagree with this. I think the second half of the 12 shades is fairly cool-toned, but Chopper for instance is extremely warm-toned and reddy, and Suspect is warm as well, not to mention Half-Baked. Foxy is a really yellowy-cream shade, and overall I don't think the palette necessarily reads cool. So that's my take on the whole thing. I don't think their intention was to make a cooler palette, because their emphasis was on taupes and greiges, as they put it. So in terms of the warm vs. cool debate/preference, I don't think there's that much of a difference, if anything Chopper alone is warmer then any color in the original Naked Palette.

Finally, price. The Naked 2 Palette retails for $50, same as the original one, although when I got the original it came with a double ended eyeliner as opposed to a full brush and was $2 cheaper, at $48, although now it is priced at $50 and comes with a 1-sided brush. The Naked 2 Palette comes with a dual sided brush with one side being a flat brush to pack on color and the other being a longer dense tapered brush. It also comes with a mini lip junkie. I really like the brush the Palette comes with, it's a pretty sweet deal. I do wish the fluffy side was a bit shorter and a bit fluffier so it would work better as a blending brush, but I like it all the same, especially the design of it. Overall the packaging and design is very aesthetically pleasing, and the mini lip junkie it comes with (in Naked) is a cute add-on and pretty on the lips. I don't particularly like the minty coolness of it, because that's not a sensation I enjoy feeling on my lips. It feels a bit like a lip plumper. But in general, it is pretty.

So now I'll show you comparisons of the 2 palettes and swatches of each. You can judge for yourself how similar the 2 are. Additionally, I'll write my thoughts below on my favorite and least favorite colors from each palette, and any close colors I feel exist between the 2.

Naked 2 on top of Naked

Naked 2 vs. Naked. Naked 2 is the first pictured. They look similar, right?

Swatches:

 Naked, Naked 2

My faves:

Naked: Virgin, Naked, Sidecar, Half Baked, Smog, Darkhorse

Naked 2: Foxy, Suspect, Snakebite, Pistol, Verve, Busted

Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliners in Zero and Bourbon, which came in the Naked Palette. Urban Decay Lip Junkie in Naked, which came in the Naked 2 Palette.

To tell the truth, when I opened my Naked Palette to try and pick Favorites, I wanted to take a picture of all 12 colors, but I didn't want to be an ass so I didn't. But I really do love the whole palette that much. For the 2nd palette I pretty much knew right away. So those are my favorites. I'll list my least favorites instead of swatching them, because all the swatches are pretty beautiful and I would look crazy if I had a bunch of gorgeous swatches and called them undesirable.

Least faves: Tease, Chopper. Foxy kind of makes the list because it's extremely hard to get pigmentation from and is a bit hard to work with. Half Baked I love but it is worth considering that it is in both the palettes, which sucks.

Interesting Notes: Busted to me is REALLY interesting because it looks similar to Hustle, and looks like a plummy dark purple but it translates to more of a chocolate brown which I love. Hustle itself is also interesting, because to me it's obviously a plum purple, and some people on YouTube call it purple, but some people will call it brown, and that's just crazy in my opinion! I don't know how it reads so many ways, but that's something interesting to note. In terms of order, I really like the way the Naked Palette is laid out. All the colors kind of flow as your eye goes down the line. However with Naked 2, I feel like it would have made sense for them to group the shadows differently. If they put the gold next to the brown, and the two lights together and so on and so forth, with Tease somewhere in the middle I felt it would have made more sense. Lastly, I've tried figuring out which color from the palette is supposed to represent the case color (which is so pretty. I constantly find myself staring at the gray-y, taupey, warm browny-ness of it), and I've come to the only conclusion that it must be Suspect. That's what it looks most similar to. It resembles Pistol a tiny bit too, maybe the 2 mixed together, but I feel like Suspect is the closest color to the case :) Just letting you know!

Dupes: I feel that Toasted and YDK are somewhat similar (YDK looks a bit like a mix between Sidecar and Toasted), and Hustle and Busted LOOK similar but aren't. Half Baked obviously, and Snakebite looks like a mix between Darkhorse and Smog. Other then that there actually aren't too many dupes :) Obviously there's a black in each palette- 1 is shimmery and 1 is matte. I prefer the shimmery one, Creep, which interestingly enough also gets called a charcoal gray color sometimes instead of black, which is what I consider it to be.

Hope this helped!

Look I did using the palette:
Hustle all over lid, Blackout in Outer V, YDK in inner corner- got this combo from Julieg713 :) Could have used a bit more blending of the YDK and the Hustle together, but overall I like it.

Don't mind the clothing changes :) I always take pictures in my pjs first and then change haha