Avon Haul and First Impressions: Campaigns 5 & 6

Note: I submit my Avon order every other campaign.  This means that I receive products from two campaigns at once, but half as often as the regular timetable.

It's haul time!  Today I have some new brushes and a few other items that have already been out for a little while.  ...And also, it is apparently black-and-nude themed.

Avon Pro Makeup Brushes: Powder, All-Over Eye Shadow, Crease, and Eye Liner

These are a few of the new makeup brushes that Avon is coming out with in C-8.  While I am certainly no brush snob, I love to use them, especially when doing my eye makeup.  Even though the old ergonomic handles are nice to hold, they don't fit well in my brush cup, so I was happy to see that these new ones have the standard "paintbrush" style handle.  The bristles are either natural or synthetic and vary between brush types.  I'm a little disappointed that there isn't a new brush styled comparable to the Ergonomic Rounded Brush.  It's awesome for a variety of uses (including blending, inner corner highlight, etc.) for those of us with smaller eyes.  However, the flat eye shadow brush is perfect for me: not too wide, stiff, flimsy, short...any of those things.  Just perfect.

All four of these brushes have natural bristles (except for the angled liner brush) and are very soft, but not flimsy.  I like the look and feel of the matte handles, although I can foresee them showing makeup grime easily (just a good reason to keep clean brushes!).  My only real complaint so far is that I wish the dual-ended angled liner brush was a bit finer and not so..."fat."  It's hard to tell in the photo, but the brush ferrel is not as pinched in the middle.  If I were to do my liner with this brush, it would be too thick.  The other end of it is great for details work like smudging out lower liner or highlighting the inner corner of the eye.

So far, I've noticed a tiny bit of shedding, mostly with the powder brush -- a hair here and there -- but nothing major.  I think it's because they're still new, but time will tell.  If this keeps up, you'll hear about it!

MagiX Cashmere Advanced Liquid Foundation in Porcelain

Several of the other Avon Makeup Mavens recommended this foundation as being good for dry skin.  I hadn't tried it out before now simply because of the name MagiX (I'm not fond of the original MagiX Face Perfector).  Happily, the scent of this foundation is like a slightly soapy version of honeysuckle, and fades pretty quickly.

The texture is very lightweight and almost feels like it is turning into powder as I blend it into my skin (with fingertips).  There's a tiny amount of fine shimmer, barely detectable in a swatch, and invisible once blended out.  I like the tube-style packaging with a pointy opening since it is very easy to control how much product comes out.

Here, I blended a small amount over my face with my fingertips.  I did notice a little bit of a problem with the pigment clinging to areas of dry skin, but this was applied without moisturizer or primer (I like to test all foundations out that way -- how will this stuff perform WHEN I HAVE TO GET OUT THE DOOR RIGHT NOW).  I'm happy with the light coverage over my weird pregnancy marks and especially how it softly mattifies without looking cakey.

Ultra Color Absolute Lipstick in Caramel Comfort

These lipsticks feel just amazing on my lips.  I already have Ripe Rose and Tender Mauve.  I loved the swatch that Jo Stamey did on her blog, so I had to try it out for myself.

The color is very nude, basically a half shade darker than my natural skin.  Coverage is good, not very streaky or patchy but also not completely opaque so it looks more natural than, say, concealer.

Still can't get over how wonderful these feel!

Big Color Eye Pencils in Slate and Perfect Peach
Adding a few more of these to my collection -- they are so awesome as travel-friendly shadows, not to mention as stay-put shadow bases!  Maybe not as convenient as the Extralasting pencils (which I don't have to sharpen), but I like the selection of lighter colors for everyday use.

On the left is Perfect Peach, which is a metallic, well... peach shade with golden shimmer.  It is very soft to apply and blends oh, so easily, then sets to a smudge-resistant finish. Slate is a dark taupe that leans on the brown side, mostly matte but it seems kind of pearly, almost. I had a hard time building up the swatch without some patchiness, but it blended out fine. It wasn't as soft as the Peach, but it had much better staying power and it took a bit of scrubbing with makeup remover to get it off!

All thoughts stated in this post are my own, honest opinions.  I have not been compensated to review these products, and all were purchased by me with my own money.