Tarte Maracuja C-Brighter Eye Treatment Review

I have a review for you today, beauties- it's a product I've been using religiously for about 3 months now. To be honest, I was certain I'd done a review on it, but looking back I don't have one!
This post is all about the Tarte Maracuja C-Brighter Eye Treatment...AKA the best thing to ever grace my eye area.

They have since changed the packaging (now the little "wooden" top is a little larger than the bottom) but the picture shown above is the original packaging I got the treatment in.
This stuff, I'm not going to lie, is beautiful. I'm really skeptical about eye products because my eyes are incredibly sensitive. They turn red if I use anything except the Smashbox Eye Brightening Mascara, they get irritated if I use the wrong eyeliner too close to my waterline...it's a struggle.

So I tried this because I had been using LUSH's Full of Grace serum bar. I went into a LUSH store about 2 years ago and said "someone HELP, my eyes are burning and I'm scared to use eye cream because I'm worried they'll be irritated." Now, when I say my eyes were burning, I mean there was dry skin flaking off my eye area. Right around my eyebrows/bridge of my nose especially, and they would burn and using eye makeup remover made the dryness worse. They recommended Full of Grace and I liked it, it relieved the dryness, however it didn't do much else for me.
Fast forward to Christmastime, I'd heard about this product a little bit just from browsing the internet, and I'd been on a Tarte kick and saw that they had a hydrating eye "treatment" and said "hey, maybe that's the stuff for me. No idea what Maracuja oil is, but whatever!"
I started this stuff January 1st to really give it a good go. Clearly it went well, because I just bought myself a second pot of the stuff last week.
It has tons of antioxidants in it, fighting free radicals in the skin, such as the magical Maracuja oil which replenishes moisture and plumps up the skin (yay!), vitamin C which is awesome for the eye area because it brightens and antioxidizes, and then it has a bit of coconut which is rich in fatty acids and hydrating ingredients.
I gave it a shot and saw instant results. In a matter of minutes my (less) dry skin in my eye area was feeling cooled, soothed, and hydrated. It's definitely a thick cream, which I like because that means it'll stay in place rather than being runny and too oily. Obviously I didn't see too much crazy brightening right off the bat- I knew those results were going to come with extended use.
I haven't necessarily noticed any firming in the skin around my eyes, but I have noticed that they seem less puffy. My dark circles have also cleared up a bit, I don't have them too bad so this stuff just brightens up anything I have. But most importantly: I accidentally got it in my eye and there was no burning/itching/stinging/watering! It doesn't flare up my sensitive eyes!!! YAY!
You can also use this cream under makeup- I would obviously let it dry thoroughly or blot the excess, but it's nice and silky.
I totally give this a 5/5. Try it for yourselves, ladies and gents, it's fab stuff. 

IMATS New York Haul!

This year I had the privilege to go to IMATS New York. Since I'm in school as an esthetician and I'm now a certified makeup artist, I knew it would be imperative in continuing my education to go to a huge trade show like IMATS to get the experience...okay who am I kidding? I was just so excited to go and grab some new makeup!

Here's the overview of what I got- I haven't used all of it yet but I can give you the general overview.
The first thing I picked up was my new Dinar airbrush machine- I'm addicted to airbrush after learning how to do it in school. It's so fun, easy and natural looking that I knew I had to add one to my kit. Here's a closeup of my beauty...

I wanted it in black or the opalescent white that they had, but being that I went on Sunday rather than Friday or Saturday, they were sold out of most of the colors, so I went with the hot pink! My other options were lime green and highlighter yellow and those were so not me.
So I tried this baby out for the first time yesterday- I was trained on a machine that my teacher manufactures so it felt a little bit different. The only difference, to be honest, was the compressor. There wasn't a dial to control air flow, it was all one strength so I didn't have to turn a knob like I do on the Dinair, but I'm totally fine with it. I got used to it really fast. I airbrushed my mom before she left for work and she loved it, and when she came home it was still on looking even and fabulous. Needless to say, I love it!

The next thing I bought was the concealer palette from Make Up For Ever. I didn't have a concealer palette in my makeup artist kit yet, so I grabbed the one that I'd heard the most about, and that had the most universally flattering colors. It has a purple concealer that is especially great at concealing yellowness in the skin, but it also has 4 very neutral shades that could work on almost any skin tone. It might be a little light for darker skin tones, but my next investment is a bigger concealer palette with more colors. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find one...the only one I've found is by BH Cosmetics.
The palette I got is for "Asian skintones" according to the Make Up For Ever website, but I have very pale skin with a reddish undertone, while my neck is a little yellowish, so if I want to correct I would need a more yellow concealer. I think it could work on just about anyone, I really, really dislike that that's how they describe the colors.

 

My next purchase was of course an IMATS hoodie because I know I'm going to wear it everywhere. If there's one thing I can't live without, it's a good hoodie.

And then my favorite and final purchase of the day: the Naked Cosmetics pigments. Goodness gracious, I did not expect to absolutely fall in love with a brand or a product the way I did with Naked. They explained to me that they're some of the most pure pigments imaginable, the color has no additives to dull the color or shine or the payoff of the shade. I bought two sets (the pigments come in stacks, as you can see in the top picture) and you can only buy them that way- no single color purchases. At least not at IMATS.
What I found coolest about all of these pigments was they offered multiple mixing mediums and bases. They offered a clear nail polish so you could turn your pigment into a polish, a base to turn it into a shadow, and then they showed me using them wet with just some water to make a beautiful cream shadow or liner.
The pictures I'm posting of the colors I bought are off the Naked Cosmetics website, I'm not very good at giving the colors the justice they deserve like the website did.
I picked up the Desert Sunset collection:

And the Twilight collection:

Clearly I bought a warm and a cool. Both are so highly pigmented and stunning- I had the girl at the counter test all of the colors on my hand and I so wish  that I had kept swatches to show all of you. Maybe I'll do a separate review some time in the near future!
If I had to pick a favorite color it's in the Twilight collection- see that third color in the top row? Looks unsuspecting, right? It's PINK when you put it on. It's a muted grey with a PINK GLITTER. Stunning. Just so stunning.
I would love to buy some more of these, but they run $60 a collection. They were running an amazing deal at the show, though, 2 collections and the base were $60. We'll see, I'm probably going to end up ordering more because I love them so much.


I hope you enjoyed my haul, guys! If you went to IMATS, let me know what you picked up! Until next time, beauties.

Update: Where have I been?!

Hey there beauties!
So as always here I am to apologize for going MIA for a while again. I'm in school for esthetics and actually just got my certification as a makeup artist, so I'm really working towards the dream I've always had.
I go to school full time, so it's 5 days a week, and on top of that I'm still working at LUSH 4 days a week. I've been freelancing with makeup on occasion; I just worked on set for my friend's student film and then had a mother-daughter makeup gig for the daughter's bat mitzvah.
Needless to say it's been a very busy time for me.

So here's the deal:
I want to get back into blogging. Badly. I can't really make a schedule, however I can promise one post a week rather than two like I was doing before. Also, I'm going to be doing a lot more reviewing. I wasn't getting much feedback on my series posts that I was doing (such as ingredient spotlight), so I'm going to stick with what I really love to do, being trying new product! I just went to IMATS NY on Sunday so I'm going to be doing a little haul on that later in the week.

For those of you that have stuck with me this whole time, I appreciate your patience and I'm so, so glad to be back!