My Makeup Audit: December

For #RedLipsDecember I choose to wear a variation of a red lip on the days I wear makeup at all. Therefore this month’s arsenal would have to be easily paired with red, hence I needed basic neutral shades for the eyes. My recently depotted Urban Decay palettes fitted the bill perfectly.

The Naked, Naked 2, Naked 3 and Naked Ultimate Basics palettes were not exciting to me anymore in their fixed versions, but I knew there were some useful shades in them I might want to keep. So I shed their shell and depotted them. A year ago I would never have done that, but now it felt just right.

The depot was successful and all shades survived more or less intact. A few shades were tossed straight away but those were the ones I knew I would never use. The rest were put in a Z palette. Basic mattes and basic shimmers, nothing too exciting but very useful shadows. To add a bit more “fun” variety to the arsenal I picked a couple of loose pigments from Meow Cosmetics as well.

Again, nothing to colourful since I did not want to think too much when choosing my makeup for work in the morning. As a final addition to the shadow world I added a H&M duochrome highlighting palette with the aim to use it for both cheeks and eyeshadow effect. It contained a green, a peach and a purple duochrome shade.

Firstly we can go through how the pigments fared in the audit.

Sable from the Santa Baby collection is a shade I was a bit unsure of at first. It felt a tad boring and unlike what I usually enjoy using, but when wearing it I appreciated its beautiful shine and unique colour. I’ve decided to keep it for now and see how it fares in Round 2.

Undead is a really fun shade and I loved wearing it. It’s from a collection named Zombie Apocalypse. Just the name makes me smile. It’s a greyed out purple with a pink shift – and this is exactly how complex I wish most shadows were. A joy to wear. It’s staying!

Howl is from the (less excitingly named) collection Glacial Grove. But the shade is anything but boring. A murky clay shade with a silver sheen that brings depth and that extra something something to a rather classic look. Another keeper.

Yet another keeper is Debauchery from the Pandoras Box collection – a stunning swampy gold that I think works wonders with my colouring.

The last loose pigment is Trepidation from the Friday the 13th collection. The look I created above was not my favourite this month, but the shade itself is beautiful. Keeping this as well.

The H&M palette was not my fave to use on the cheeks. The product is chunky and adds too much of a colour shift for my liking. As a duochrome shadow however they performed much better and I used them primarily as an inner corner highlight. I even enjoyed using them more than I had anticipated. I am going to let them move on to Round 2 but I doubt they will stand up to the competition. But I have been wrong before….

Regarding the Urban Decay shadows I tried to give them a proper run this month and I think I did a good job. I’ve not been able to keep track of what shades I’ve used each day, due to time constraints, but I’ve made sure to use all of the shades at least once in some capacity. Some were worn a lot more. The result – I’ve decided to get rid of eleven of them.

Of those eleven shadows, many were full of large glitters and I’ve noticed I really dislike that finish. Others were either lacklustre or hard to work with. The pale gold was beautiful but I had two so I felt no need to keep them both.

Here are some looks I managed to create using mainly the UD shadows.

Moving on to the cheek products of this months arsenal were we have five blushes and two highlighters. A lot of MAC, a little Sleek Makeup and a pop of IsaDora.

Surprise, surprise, I enjoyed using all of them. The Sleek blushes, Flushed and Pomegranate, are obviously quite vibrant and I did not use them as much as the others but when I did they were lovely. I even managed to use them on the eyes, as shown in the picture below.

Breath of Plum by MAC is a real oldie favourite for me. This compact is my second one (!), the first one was used up back in the day when I had less makeup. I used to dye my hair black and loved how this looked together with the contrast between my hair and my skin. I do not use it nearly as often anymore but it’s still a lovely colour. It’s staying. At Dusk as well, the other MAC blush shade. At Dusk is an Extra Dimension blush and I have worn this a lot since I got it in 2013-2014. Lovely shade and lovely finish. Finally we have Nude Blossom by IsaDora, another great shade and a more recent addition than the others. Very wearable and great to work with.

Finally we have two MAC highlighters, Lightscapades and Here Comes Joy. I remembered not enjoying wearing Lightscapades too much but I was pleasantly surprised. It was not as frosty as I anticipated and it gave a lovely sheen to my cheeks. Here Comes Joy was also a surprise. More wearable on the cheeks than I remembered. Beautiful to use on the eyes as well.

So for cheeks this month we had only winners.

I must admit I was glad when this month was over and I could pick a new arsenal. I love wearing a red lip and more neutral eyes, but not every day. I love variety and this month felt quite repetitive, especially with regards to the eye looks. However, letting go of eleven shadows felt good and I hope for a similar result next month.

Until then, thanks for reading!

Sofia