Mally Make-up Review

I used my new Mally make-up kit yesterday morning and figured I'd write out a quick review.

The sampler kit I got is no longer available on the website. I'm not surprised it sold out. They were pushing it really heavily all weekend and seriously for $25, how could I not order it? "Very easily," my husband would say. Be quiet, you!

The kit contains: a mini-mascara, a mini-lipgloss, a mini-eyepencil, and a full sized dual eye compact.

First impressions? The eye compact is nice. It has a nice wide mirror that I can actually see a good portion of my face in. The mini sizes are relatively big. It all came packaged in a pretty pink box (which I'm a sucker for). I'm definitely pleased with the amount of make-up I got for under $30 (remember I did pay like $5 shipping - bah!)

So here I am without any make-up on:

Here I am with my Mally make-up on - please ignore the hair towel. My hair insists that I follow a really specific series of steps when I'm styling it each morning and even photos being posted online cannot deviate from that process:

The eyeliner was really nice. It literally melted onto my eyelid. No tugging or pulling at all. The shade is midnight which is a really dark blue. Normally I stick to traditional browns and blacks with eyeliners, but this isn't totally outrageous so I can deal with it. There was a minor moment of panic initially when I couldn't get the top off, but I finally gave it a little bit of a twist and it slide right off. Crisis averted.

The eye primer and eye shadow seem nice. They are nice big sizes and I really like the compact they come in. I didn't have to use much of either product so I can see this lasting a long time. I can't remember the last time I only used one eye shadow though so I couldn't stop myself from doing a little bit of highlighter (this in Sugar Sugar) along my brow bone and in my tear ducts. Mally sells a product that does similiar highlighting so I'm sure she would approve.

The mascara is really nice. Mally claims that she used to spend hours recreating this look before she invented this mascara. Now, I don't know if I buy that, but I will say that the mascara made my lashes (which are already relatively dark and thick) look pretty darn good. I also didn't have any issues with the mascara clumping off during the day and rendering me blind (which frequently happens when I wear mascara and is one of the reasons why I rarely wear it).

The lipstick is a nice muted pink shade and smells really tasty (I can't put my finger on exactly what it is though). The applicator is a pointed brush so you can use it to line your lips and then fill in the color. I liked the color on but it does tend to come off relatively quickly. By lunch I had already reapplied three times. I guess with a larger size, I wouldn't mind so much but with this mini, I was afraid that the lipstick would be gone at the end of one day! It's still a cute size and a nice color so I'll keep it in my make-up bag for mid-afternoon touch-ups.

So writing the last section about the lipstick coming off made me wonder - what about the rest of the make-up? Mally famously puts eyeliner on her hand and then rubs it furiously, claiming that it won't come off until you take it off. We'll see about that.

This picture was taken at the end of the day. The mascara held up really well (and didn't get in my eye once all day!). The shadow is still there but is covered up by the enormous smear across my eyelid that was my eyeliner. Now, I will admit that I am traditionally very heavy handed with eyeliner and this happens to me pretty much every day. I note, however, that more actual liner appears to have stayed where I put it than usual so that's a good thing. On my next attempt, I'm going to have to use a lighter touch to apply this stuff lest it end up all over my face by the end of the day.

Overall impression? It's a cute kit which I'll definitely keep. If I was a regular mascara user, I'd definitely pick up a full size (and I might become a regular mascara user after today's experience!) I'll probably pass on Mally lipsticks unless she comes up with a longer lasting formula. Eyeliner and shadow are something I could really see myself interested in. I'll give it a few more days of use will determine if I'm ready to make a bigger investment when my current Clinique shades run out.

I intend to spend the morning playing with my new Anthro purchases. If I can't make them into three outfits, they are going back. Last night I had a dream that I returned the cardigan and I wasn't too torn up about that so we'll see how this all plays out.