My Makeup Audit: February 2021
This months arsenal was actually picked out a few months in advance, when I was beginning to get a bit bored with only choosing Meow shadows. I chose January and February in one go and after that I decided on March and April the same way.
February’s arsenal consisted of four fixed palettes and two quads assembled with single shadows. A lot of colour and shimmer with a solid base of matte neutrals by Urban Decay, Chanel, Illamasqua and MAC.
The Afterdark palette by Urban Decay
The Afterdark palette by Urban Decay was limited edition in 2017 and I was pleasantly surprised when I found it available in Sweden despite hearing rumours that it would not be sold here. So I bought it. The overall colour scheme is very appealing but it was a very long time since I last reached for it.
The Moondust palette by Urban Decay
The Moondust palette, also by Urban Decay, was bought in autumn 2016. I used it for a while and then it was overshadowed by newer items. I have not worn this for many years now.
The Demise palette by Illamasqua
I purchased this quad, the Demise palette by Illamasqua, as part of a bundle in 2018. I was purchasing a number of other products and this bundle consisted of a dark burgundy lipstick (that I never wore and then it expired), this quad (that I’ve never used) and a full size Gel Sculpt in the shade Silhouette. The Gel Sculpt is now my favourite contour and I’m very pleased that this bundle offer made me try it. But….all in all I feel like I might have been a shitty purchase.
The Candeur et Expérience palette by Chanel
This Chanel palette was part of a stunning collection in 2016 fronted by the equally stunning Kristen Stewart. I fell in love with the entire collection and received large parts of it as a gift from my husband. It consists of four warm satin mattes, three brown shades and a red.
Top Row L-R: Strike While Haute, Farasha
Bottom Row L-R: Indian Ink, Vibrant Grape
To add a bit of colourful mattes into the mix I opted for four MAC singles in coral red, pumpkin orange and two shades of violet. These shadows are of varying age and the newest is probably from around 2014. Most of my MAC shades are quite old at this point.
Top Row L-R: Brains & Brawn, Concrete
Bottom Row L-R: Outré, Coquette
Then finally we have another quad of mattes to fill in the colour gaps in the arsenal, some more neutrals including somewhat cooler crease shades. These are also all older MAC shades.
Let’s move on to swatches and my feelings on these products after a month of use.
All of these MAC mattes performed well for me even though I did not wear them as much as I initially thought I would (the warmer neutral shades in the Chanel quad was my primary source of matte crease shades during February). But I wore all of these shades one or twice and liked what I saw. A very pleasant experiment was on February 21st when I used Farasha and Strike While haute on top of a paler glossy lipstick (Luxurist by H&M) and made an amazing fruity lip colour (see look further down in this post). I will definitely use that technique again to customise a lip colour.
The Candeur et Expérience palette by Chanel
I have so many fond memories surrounding this palette and the collection it was part of. An entire collection seldom catch my heart but this one did. The shadows were warmer than I was used to and that warm red was intriguing. Many of my favourite lipsticks were purchased in relation to this collection as well. The shadows in the quad perform well and even though they are not as unique shades in my arsenal anymore I still want to keep it and keep on wearing it just for the nostalgia.
The Demise palette by Illamasqua
I only used this palette once, if we do not count that the black shade did liner duty quite a few times. It became apparent that I have no use for this quad. The cream shade is pretty but it creases on my oily lids and the burgundy is not up up to par quality-wise. The white gold is beautiful, but so is Alter from the Afterdark palette and I have limited use for numerous shades like that. I will let this one go in its entirety.
The Afterdark palette by Urban Decay
I really like the shade selection in the Afterdark palette (Urban Decay) but several shades perform badly. I do not think they have aged well because I can not remember Backfire and Paralyzed being so bland. The shade that stood out in a positive was Lounge. I tried to find a dupe in my collection but could not so after much consideration I decided to depot that shade and keep it. In doing so I also opened the possibility to keep some more shades. I decided on Supersonic, Sinful and Alter. Vibrant and very useful shades with a good formula. All of the others were poor performers except Scene, but I have no use for another pale gold pink.
The Moondust palette by Urban Decay
I fell in love with the Moondust palette this month. The texture of the shadows is just amazing and my preferred method of application is tapped on with a finger on their own or on top of another shadow as a sparkly transforming shade. I can happily wear all of shades in the palette and I am so glad that I have rediscovered this gem.
So that was the rundown of the products in April’s audit. Let’s have a look at some of the looks I created with said products.
February 3
Eyes: All four shades from the Chanel quad, Scene, Sinful and the bronze pink from the Illamasqua quad
Cheeks: Bronze and Glow from the Filmstar Bronze & Glow palette (Charlotte Tilbury)
Lips: Sultry (Revlon)
February 6
Eyes: Element, Lightyear, Vega, Galaxy, Brains & Brawn, black by Illamasqua, black cream base by H&M
Cheeks: Stereo Rose (MAC)
Lips: Muse lip pencil and Velvet Blush (Lisa Eldridge)
February 14
Eyes: All four shades in the Illamasqua quad, Outre
Cheeks: Pomegranate (blush, Sleek), Silouhette (gel sculpt, Illamasqua), Phantoma (highlighter, Meow Cosmetics)
Lips: Velvet Decade (Lisa Eldridge)
February 19
Eyes: Lounge, top two shades from the Chanel Quad and the black by Illamasqua
Cheeks: Supernova (MAC)
Lips: Beet lip liner, Burning Love lipstick (MAC)
Februari 21
Eyes: Strike While Haute, Farasha, black by Illamasqua
Cheeks: Spring Flock (MAC)
Lips: Luxurist (H&M) topped with Strike While Haute and Farasha eyeshadows
In this audit I let go of two fixed palettes and a total of 10 individual shades. I’ve also rediscovered a great palette (Moondust), which makes me very pleased. Another focus this month, besides evaluating the eye arsenal, was my effort to wear as many of my cheek and lip products as possible. I actually managed to wear a whopping 19 blushes, 6 contour shades, 14 highlighters, 18 lipsticks, 1 gloss and 3 lip pencils. A damn good job!
I’ve been thinking a lot about my audit project lately. I still think it’s a valuable way to evaluate my large and ageing collection of makeup by wearing things for a month to solidify my opinions on them. The monthly arsenal also gives me a creative push by having only a fixed set of tools to work with. But as I was picking out shades for May the other day I realised just how many shadows I have to go through still and if I keep doing the monthly arsenal the way that I have I will be doing this for way longer than I want to. I am a super keen to move forward to round 2 of the audit, where I compare similar items, but I really want to wear stuff on my eyes before I discard or keep them. A bit of a dilemma.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that I’m running low on mattes. It says a lot that I’ve been able to do this for a year and a half and I’m only now running out of certain basic mattes to form a comprehensive monthly arsenal. I’m not completely settled on how I want to proceed, but I think I will have to switch up my approach in the near future.
Thanks for reading!