I’ve been going through a weird phase on theNotice where I haven’t been sent anything but red eyeshadow in like… six months. I can’t figure out why. I hate red eyeshadow, and look awful in orange; there is nothing about my face AT ALL that suggests that it would work well with warm tones at all in any capacity, and yet. And yet! And yet things like this Maybelline Master Chrome review get me by.
Products like the Master Chrome (the jelly, not the pressed version) speak to my soul. They’re so easy: shimmery and sheer, with a squishy texture that just makes my heart sigh a little every time I use them.
Maybelline Master Chrome in Metallic Rose
I have always been a huge sucker for texture, and Maybelline knows how to deliver. From their bouncy blushes (does anyone else remember those??) their super-buttery ColorSensational eyeshadow quads (oh man, the days when pigment was a rarity in the drugstore!), they’ve been pretty reliably great when it comes to cool textures.
Sure, their products tend to follow trends instead of set them — but I honestly don’t mind. I don’t need someone to invent the concept of a jelly highlighter; I just need someone to make one that isn’t four gazillion dollars.
Maybelline Master Chrome review: Metallic Rose
Maybelline Master Chrome review: Metallic Rose swatched heavily, then lightly. Next to the Maybelline Cheek Heat Sheer Gel blushers in 15 Nude Burn, 20 Rose Flush, and 30 Corail Ardent, which look super beautiful but unfortunately contain a high amount of silicones!
Maybelline Cheek Heat (15, 20, and 30) gel blush
Metallic Rose is a reflective liquid-gel that’s densely packed with micro-fine gold and rose gold shimmer. It’s pigmented and easy to blend, with a quick-setting formula that dries to a satin finish.
I’ve had liquid highlighters before that I’ve preferred, but this one is more wearable. Okay, so it’s not bouncy like jello, and it doesn’t have a duochrome finish, but it dries to a skin finish that catches the light, and that’s pretty nice. It’s not at all sticky, which is a common problem in Instagram-bait liquid highlighters — products that never set look great on camera, but smear like crazy in real life!
Honestly, the Maybelline Master Chrome formula is most similar to this Sleek Highlighting Elixir, from my stash, despite the different packaging. Both are shimmery liquids with high viscosity, but the Maybelline is a little chunkier, and neater to use.
Catrice Badass Bae Eyeshadow Palette
Okay, so: here’s the thing. I hate warm-toned eyeshadows, but this palette is otherwise pretty dope. It’s pigmented and creamy, with shades that pair and blend together like a dream. Each co-ordinated eyeshadow applies with extremely respectable intensity over a primer (no foiling needed!) There’s even a good amount of mattes in this palette: Badass and Clapback are great for cut creases and buffed edges, while Rebel, Lit AF, RBF, and Bye Felicia offer a matte finish in medium tones.
Catrice Badass Bae review
Of these 12 shades, there isn’t a single dud in sight. There also isn’t, however, anything that really stands out for me. Break Rules comes close, with a creamy texture and intensely shimmery finish, but that’s about it. Everything else is just… good. Not special, not unique, just good. I’ll talk more about that in a second, but first: “just good” is honestly a pretty great achievement. Do you know how rarely you can honestly say that every single shade in an eyeshadow palette is good?! I’ll give you a hint — the answer is almost never.
Sure, “good” isn’t “great.” But “good” means that there’s a brand out there that you can rely on in a pinch; that you can count on when you need a cool new colour or a cohesive new eyeshadow look. It means that you can nab a special release before it sells out everywhere, even if there aren’t any reviews up yet, because you can be pretty sure that you’ll enjoy whatever it is that you end up with.
At $14.99 USD/$16.99 CAD, “good” is pretty damn good.
Catrice Badass Bae Eyeshadow Palette review with Maybelline Master Chrome highlight
How to make your makeup stand out on Instagram
I was chatting with a longtime reader of theNotice who brought up something that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. (If you think you’ve been reading theNotice for a long time, trust me: you got nothin’ on this girl. We go wayyy back to the late 2000s!) In an age where Instagram is your biggest seller, a lot of products end up looking the same. Makeup brands design for the ‘gram now, and that means a lot of warm tones, melty textures, and instant-results products.
We don’t buy red eyeshadows because red looks great on a lot of people. Red, in fact, looks terrible on most of us, and amazing on a very small sliver of the population. But warm tones track on Instagram. Creators get more likes when they post warm-toned images, which means that brands see better engagement, and then even more warm tones on the shelves a year down the line. We’re being sold red eyeshadows not because we want red, but because red gets more likes.
How strange is that?
And it’s not just red eyeshadows. Interesting textures look incredibly satisfying on camera. You want to know how to make your highlighter look amazing in a five-second clip? Make it move. Turn it into a format that can drip, swish, and swirl. The same phenomenon that gives us moody red eyeshadow palettes also delivers to us jelly highlighters; layered boba drinks; pop-off acrylic nails. It delivers to us skincare with gold flakes, and fast-fashion shirts that drape just right, and, yes, $15 eyeshadow palettes that defy the odds to deliver rich, creamy colour in every shade.
The phenomenon isn’t bad, and I’d argue that it’s actually very natural. It’s just… odd!
