Heeey guys, this is what I've been building up to in the past 2 weeks, I'm going to show you my Shu Uemura collection of makeup and I feel that Shu Uemura is so under-reviewed! Maybe cause it's just not as popular in North America as in Asia but trust me, this brand is awesomeee! I got this entire collection as a 17th birthday present from my aunt Dorothy (<3) and when she hid the receipt from me, I just had to look at the prices online.... EXPENSIVE! Just a warning, this is going to be a very long post so lets go! Btw feel free to just skip to a certain item if its what you searched on Google and are thinking of buying but are questioning the price :)
[update]: I just wrote the entire post and it took about 3 hours. DON'T TRY TO READ EVERYTHING UNLESS YOU'RE A SPEEDREADER. God that took forever....
First off, this is the makeup case that I bought from Forever 21, I just thought that it's totally sophisticated and goes well with my Shu Uemura stuff, makes me feel classy and expensive hahaha
So this is what I have (forgot my eyelash curler and makeup brush cleanser) and yeah okay it looks like a wimpy "super collection" but come on, I'm a teenager and each item is really expensive so it's better than all drugstore, right?
This is the POREraser UV Under Base Mousse in beige and it costs about $50. This product can be used as a primer or be a sheer foundation. What I love about this product is that it's a mousse and you get cream, powder or liquid foundations so this is something new and because it's a mousse, it's light and doesn't feel heavy on the skin. The only thing I would caution about is that it is again quite sheer and I don't recommend this for dry skin because it might sink into those dry spots on your face and will start flaking. I personally use this in the summer when I tend to be a bit more oily and that way, it gives me a nice and dewy finish. Also because this is one of Shu Uemura's top products, they have quite a bit of tutorials on their website and it even shows you step by step in pictures if you're too lazy to watch the video. The way I was taught at my Shu Uemura class (my aunt's perks of being one of their insider club thing) is that you shake the bottle approximately 5 times then pump out a lychee sized bubble of product onto your palm. Make sure that the bottle stays upright when it dispenses and you are turning your hand, not the bottle. Overall, a nice product but I'm not sure if I would get a new one once this one runs out
To apply the base, my aunt bought me their pentagon sponge. There's 4 in a package and the package is about $7. Although this sponge is made with natural latex, I find that it doesn't soak up product like most natural products and its very bouncy but it's still only a sponge and four for $7? Not necessarily worth the price when I can get so many sponges for less if I drop the brand name.
Now after you've applied your base, you need a powder to set it. The one I have is the
Dual Fit Pressed Powder in beige I think and it is what it is: a powder to set foundation/base.
This is the brush that comes along in the compact. As you can see, it's slanted which makes me wonder if it's a better fit for contouring with bronzer rather than setting your face with powder.
This is what the product actually looks like. As you can see, there are two different shades within the compact and they actually have two different purposes. The powder on the left side is darker and made for your entire face so it's the normal powder. But the one on the right is actually made to soak up excess amounts of oil, therefore it goes in your T-zone. I feel like this powder isn't always very necessary because other powders will do the same job for less (although without the T-zone thing) and might make my face have that glow too.
Next up is the
Lasting Gel Pencil Eye Liner and I have the shade M Brown 02, and it costs about $24.
What I like about this eyeliner is that the pigmentation of the brown is great and the fact that it is a retractable pencil but sometimes, the pencil doesn't apply easily to my lid. I think it's better to draw a line on your arm first and warm up the pencil then go for your eye because if you go straight to the lid, you might have to go over the line and pull and tug a bit (which is bad) in order to get the beautiful brown to come out. Swatch is coming up later
This one is the
Eye Light Pencil and obviously, mines white. It costs about $19 and has one side which is matte and the other which is pearly with shimmer. The matte side is great on the lower lash line and water line if you want to create a comic book character's huge eyes or just make your eyes look bigger overall whereas the pearl side is great for the inner tear duct where it just brings a nice highlight without being too overpowering. I think the pearl would also work under the brow bone but needs to be blended out a bit.
So these are the swatches of my pencil eyeliner. As you can see, the retractable brown pencil is a very nice brown colour and for the eye light pencil, the pearl is very shimmery and the matte is truly matte. The pigmentation for all of these eye liners are great and what you see in the tube is what you will get on your eyes.
Next is the
Hard Formula in hard 9. Hard 9 is actually a pretty interesting colour because its a darker greyish-brown that looks really nice on my black brows. I couldn't do a swatch of this colour for you because the cool thing is, the pigmentation is only released when it detects the oil on your brow hairs. That is cool. That is technology. That is approximately $23.
I apologize for my brows and my hair and my face overall but mostly brows, I reaaaaally need to get them done soon so its like ahhhhhhh but thats how they taught me to use the brow pencil. If you buy it at Shu Uemura specifically and not Sephora, they will sharpen and cut the pencil like this for you, which makes it even better for your use.
So as you can see from the picture below, I have long eyelashes (yay!) so all I have to do is curl the top ones, right? RIGHT.
This is the
New Generation Eyelash S Curler for about $24. It was specially made for those people with eyes that don't necessarily fit into the general shape of regular eyelash curlers. This curler has both positives and negatives in my opinion:
PRO: its smaller and easier to carry around
CON: the plastics that cover it sometimes slide off
PRO: good for those with different eye shapes
CON: you have to curl your eyelashes in sections which may make them uneven/unequal in their curl
So I guess in some ways, it's easier for people who are scared of poking themselves with a regular eyelash curler (?) and give people new options because this kind of eyelash curler has never been done. BUT you need quite a bit of control in order to get the same uniform curl throughout your eyelashes
Next is the fun stuff, eyeshadow and blush. Now everything that I have below is from their Eyeconic Collection from summer 2013 so these might not be available anymore but I feel that they might represent eyeshadows somewhat well. So as you can see below, I have put one eyeshadow and one blush in each travel palette. Isn't the case pretty? The case itself cost about $14USD I think, each blush is about $42CAD/$35USD and each eyeshadow trio is about $?CAD/$30USD.
BUT you can change things around and on the palette where it says shu uemura, you have to lightly pull and it will just slide out for your convenience so based on what colours you want to wear, you can change it up and carry it with you.
So these are the swatches for the eyeshadows, there is a light purple shimmer, matte lavender and a matte deep plum in Allure Mauve (the purple eyeshadow trio) then there's a gold shimmer, matte pale yellow-gold and dark matte brown in Gypsy Brown (the brown eyeshadow trio). The two solid colours are always very pigmented (especially the darkest one) but the shimmer usually has quite a bit of fallout therefore I usually just pack it on as pigment over top of the look I created with the other two shades. Just a reminder, YOU NEED EYESHADOW PRIMER TO MAKE IT LAST LONGER AND MORE BEAUTIFULLY!
Okay so I actually forgot to swatch the blushes for you so I had to get up and do it... So first, I'm doing the orange blush named Fresh Apricot. On my skin tone, it looks great as I get it on my fingers but once I swatch it on my arm....
Oh my gosh my arm doesn't have a dark area after the pigment, that's just the camera shadow! And sorry for the finger in the top left hand corner... Anyways, you can't see the shimmer! It's actually right below the orange and that's also why I think it works best as a highlight when I apply this orangey blush. I actually haven't used it much yet (as seen from the pan) but that's what I'm hoping to research now as we head into spring trends and the sun-kissed glow look.
Here is the pink blush, and I'm told it's called Sweet Pink, isn't it gorgeous? Honestly, the colour pay off is much better when you use a brush but this is what I managed to swatch for you. I wear this blush whenever I do my full Shu Uemura face makeup and I swirl the two colours together in the pan, so its a highlighting blush. I think the rosey pink also would look great on many skin tones and bring out the natural flush in your cheeks!
Again, apologies for bad camera....
IF YOU ARE STILL HERE AND READING, GOOD JOB FOR PERSEVERANCE! WE'RE ALMOST DONE!
My aunt went crazy and also decided to buy me two brushes: the 5R and the 17.
First below is the side view of the 17 brush. It's a blush brush made of pony and squirrel hairs so its completely natural and tapered as you can see from the side view. From having this about 8 months now, it actually hasn't lost many hairs although a few have frayed and I think it's really nice for swirling blush because of the softness. I don't think this brush is available in North America but it is about $50 in Hong Kong (where I got it).
Next is the 5R brush which is made of full kolinsky. If you know anything about kolinsky or this post just inspired you to Google it, it's some kind of weasel-animal that comes out once a year or so and it's fur is hard to collect therefore that justifies how this brush is $75CAD/$60USD... Wow right? Good thing my aunt bought this for me in Hong Kong where it's little over $50... That is A LOT for one single brush, especially since I don't really know how to use it properly. The way the store taught me is that you tilt the brush and apply on the slant (the brush should not look like it could stab you in the eye). But its actually quite nice at application and has pretty firm bristles but is still soft enough to blend slightly if you wanted it to (even though that is
definitely not suggested).
I'm tired of sounding pretty... FREE LIPGLOSS SAMPLE.
Red in the bottle.....
Sheer and slightly coral-pink when applied... I'm sorry, I don't typically like these kinds of glosses (I'm more of a lipstick/lip balm person) but it seems pretty smooth and when I touched it afterwards, it wasn't sticky so that's definitely a plus! How sheer it is definitely wasn't what I was expecting though....
THE LAST ITEM! Brush cleaner. Okay so since my brushes are really expensive, I trust the brand it came from to give me nice brush cleaner. So Shu Uemura's brush cleaner is nice and cleans the brushes really well except two problems:
1. it smells REALLY strongly of alcohol
2. my brushes love to just soak it up
#1 is what turns off a lot of people from using this brush cleaner and push them towards MAC's instead but with my expensive Shu brushes, I think I'll stick to trusting Shu. This is good for a spot clean and it will dry in a few hours without the smell (thank God) but if you look at my bottle, i already went through about a quarter. Unfortunately, I've only used this brush cleaner about 3 or 4 times and my Shu brushes just suck up the formula. What I love about this cleaner is that it leaves my brushes extremely soft so I think I'll have to see what happens... Btw the cup next to it isn't included, it cost a little over a dollar and then I realized that it's not really worth it but it's not like I'll put strong alcohol in my hands #eczemaproblems
THATS IT. I'M DONE. PEACE!
xoxo, Michelle
