Review - Lorac Mint Edition Collection (Ulta Version)

I feel like in my own personal shopping world, Ulta and Sephora are fighting tooth and nail for my money. Both have rewards programs that have redeeming qualities and carry a lot of the same brands; but then one will have a brand that the other lacks that I just really, really love (hello, NARS!) and the other will put out a 20% off coupon that, for once, is actually usable for prestige cosmetics. It bears mentioning, that the Ulta and Sephora Versions of this palette are different and that I purchased the Ulta version. *Sephora's version contains two more eyeshadows, a highlighter and a different lip gloss, but lacks the wristlet and retails for $6 more*

The Ulta version of the Lorac Mint Edition Collection retails for $36 (with my coupon and Ulta rewards I snagged this for $10 cheaper; which is why I went the Ulta route) and contains a palette with 6 eyeshadows and a blush, as well as a mint and silver wristlet and a Lips with Benefits lipgloss in the shade Christian (limited to this set)

The clutch has a base and wristlet of mint and has a silver chaining overlay. It is basically adorable; I can't wait to get use out of this. It is a touch smaller than my average wallet, but I've been meaning to update that for spring anyway. It is a good size for use as a makeup bag as well, but I just really don't want to get it dirty!

The palette itself is flat and compact in cardboard. It is also thin and sleek, just as the Lorac Pro palette was. The packaging is very cute; it looks like an envelope. 

The three matte shades are across the top row and the shimmer shades are across the bottom row. The blush is housed on the right side of the palette, vertically.

The three top row shades are 

- A matte cream. It is pale and cooler toned, but had great pigmentation and applied well on the eye. On my fair skin, it worked very well as a base as well as a subtle brow highlight.

- A matte medium beige. This shade reminded me a bit of UD Naked. It had good pigmentation, enough to use in the crease for a super subtle eye.

- A matte mint. This shade is basically meant to be the focus of the palette. It is quite beautiful and had good color payoff, but it was subtler on the eye. I used the cream shade as a base, the mint shade on the lid and the beige shade in the crease on Easter for a pastel look and it was one of my more subtle holiday looks. You can tell it is a mint green on the eye, but you're not going to be thinking "OMG MINT".

The bottom row shades are;

- A shimmery opal.  It is pale, but it does have just a tough of lavender or taupe, depending on the lighting. The color payoff was phenomenal and it was a dream to work with.

- A cool toned taupe-y brown with microglitter. I love these kind of shades, because they aren't brown, but they aren't silver. It was more of a taupe that leaned a touch purple at times. It had great pigmentation, but the microglitter made for a little bit of fallout. Definitely not the worst I've run into, and it only happened in application.

- A shimmery aubergine. This shade had more brown tones than colors of the like in my collection, which set it apart. It had very good color payoff.

 

The blush is a shimmery pink coral. It had great pigment and didn't need a whole lot of work to apply or blend. The glitter is quite fine so I didn't have a huge problem with this accentuating my pores and it lasted on my oily skin for 6 hours before fading. There are, however, a whole bunch of similar shades to this blush.

The Lips With Benefits  gloss in Christian is very pretty to look at in the tube. It is a bright coral toned pink with a bit of champagne toned swirling throughout. After a few applications the swirling completely mixes with the gloss and is not separately visible. 

Christian, as mentioned above, is limited to this palette (even the Sephora palette has a different lipgloss) It is a bright pink with coral tones, and I am super excited that it was actually flattering on my very cool toned skin. The pink tones make it more wearable, and I feel like this is a shade that will be very flattering for the summer. The gloss itself had a thicker consistency, but was not at all sticky. It wore for about an hour and a half before fading and had the tendency to migrate to my liplines in application. The sheen faded quicker than the color, the color stuck around for about another half an hour.

Overall;

The eyeshadows:

Pros: 

- Mix of neutrals and colors.

- Day to day wearable.

- Soft buttery texture.

- Overall great color payoff.

- Mix of mattes and shimmers.

- Sleek packaging.

Cons:

- Taupe shade had a touch of glitter fallout.

- Mint shade could be a bit more intense.

8.5/10

The blush:

Pros: 

- Shimmery without accentuating pores.

- Great color payoff and blendability.

- Average to slightly above average wear time.

Cons:

- Quite dupeable shade.

8/10

The lipgloss:

Pros:

- Pink tones in the coral make it more wearable.

- Packaging is very good looking.

- Thick gloss without being sticky.

Cons:

- Short wear time.

- Showed lip imperfections, migrated to lip lines.

7/10 

For the impulse buy that it was, I'm quite pleased. I did have SUPER high hopes (almost unrealistic hopes) for the Mint shade, and while it was good, I feel like it could have been more vibrant. Maybe with a white base I can get more of the mint tones to stand out. Overall, Lorac has a great shadow formula on their hands already, the blush was actually really great, and the gloss was a shade my collection was lacking. And the wristlet, oh my goodness, I'm just so excited about how cute it is in general.

8/10