Review & Swatches: Physician's Formula Shimmer Strips Shadow & Liner in Warm Nude Eyes (NEW for Spring 2013)

I picked up the new Physician's Formula Shimmer Strips shadow palette in Warm Nude Eyes, from the new Nude Eyes Collection for Spring 2013.

They already have an extremely confusing number of products with unnecessarily long names under the Shimmer Strips line. For the Shimmer Strips Custom Eye Enhancing Shadow & Liner Nude Collection alone, they have this one (Warm Nude Eyes), Classic Nude Eyes, Natural Nude Eyes and Smokey Nude Eyes. There's also the original Nude Eyes palette, under the Universal Looks line. And that's not including the other Universal Looks palettes; nor the four eye colour-specific original palettes and their spin-offs: the Eye Candy, Pop, Smokey and Bronze Collections.

If you're as confused as any person with a life, this palette is from one of Physician's Formula's new lines for spring 2013. As you can probably imagine, 'Warm Nude Eyes' features toned-down bronzes and coppers. Which I'm a total sucker for.

These palettes retail for US$12.49 at CVS (who do mark up prices). When I was there, CVS was having a $7 ExtraBucks with purchase of $10 of Physician's Formula promotion through the end of the weekend. So if you have a CVS near you, these sales are a good time to buy Physician's Formula products, which usually retail for over $10. I also like their Shimmer Strips eyeliner trio in Nude Eyes, so that's a good pick if you've already got enough shadow.

The palettes are very cute, but also a bit smaller than I'd imagined. The palette fits in the palm of my hand, so this wouldn't be a bad palette for travelling, although it flips open with no latching mechanism.
A larger brush might be a little awkward to use on the three thinner strips. The sponge applicator fits better, but is not the best sponge I've used.

There are nine different strips inside, grouped in threes to match the suggestions on the packaging (leftmost three being for the 'dramatic' look; next three, 'playful'; rightmost three, 'natural').

Swatches

Left four strips:

That right-most one may look like the darkest in the pan, but it comes out as a faint plummy brown. I may need to use these wet, as was apparently the case with the original nude palette.

Next four, going right:

Last one--the white:

Part of this palette, when used dry, doesn't have a lot of pigmentation, which was somewhat disappointing. On the other hand, the muted colour payoff is truer to the 'Nude' part of the name--despite the fact that they're all shimmery I would feel comfortable wearing these to school or work.
They don't seem to be very long-lasting, but I'm sure they'd fare well with primer.

Overall, I'm not in love with this palette, but I do like it. I wouldn't buy it at full price, but I'd pick it up during a sale. I'll continue to be on the hunt for the Eye Candy and Bronzed palettes for brown eyes, since those look more pigmented.

New Urban Decay offerings, and more

Today, Urban Decay made a few new things available on their site: the Naked Basics palette, newly-packaged setting sprays and Triple Threat eyeliner set (as seen on Black Friday).

For the new setting sprays, Dew Me has been renamed to Chill (Cooling & Hydrating). The new packaging is more aesthetically pleasing; and at US$29 for 120mL/4oz, is somewhere between the original XL's (retail US$18 for 177mL/6oz; currently still available for $18) and the original travel size (retail US$12 for 15mL/.51oz).

Side-by-side comparison of the old vs. new packaging.
(Please excuse the pixellated rendition of the old Dew Me--the image was whisked away from their site as if by the KGB.)

The Triple Threat travel pencil set (US$19) contains three two-thirds-sized Glide-On Eye Pencils in Zero (black), Demolition (deep brown matte) and Rockstar (shimmery eggplant). I think this is better than the old Jet Set duos, which were the same size, but more expensive (US$15 for two). The colours in this one are even more wearable.

Naked Basics (US$27) is a wallet-sized palette of five mattes and one shimmer shadow, in creams, browns and a black. There are close-up swatches at Temptalia. Given the price, I don't think that the bold advertising claim that it's 'the palette you can't live without' is speaking to a consumer like me. The shades don't seem unique enough for me to want to zomgdr00LhumphUmphNgnGngngng!!1nnng it, and even within the palette itself it seems there is not a significant difference between the lighter shades. Sorry, UD; maybe you need to cut your shadows with a little more crack...

In addition, they also put up a Deluxe Mystery Travel Bag on their site.
Description:

This Mystery Travel Bag is packed with fan favorites in both full and compact, travel-friendly sizes. This little bag is filled with over $45 of UD products. TSA Coveted And Approved!

It pictures a small zip-up plastic sleeve that looks the same as that for their TSA bag promo (three deluxe samples of gloss, shadow pencil and mascara) that they were offering previously for orders of $75+. This one costs US$16; but since at least one full-sized product is promised, who knows what'll be in it? Perhaps they're clearing out in preparation of whatever changes are to come from their acquisition by L'Oreal. I'll post about it when I receive it with the rest of my haul. I also grabbed three lipsticks in Oil Slick, currently $3 each; the Black Palette, currently $16; and an XL All Nighter spray in the old packaging. My free sample is an 'Early Exclusive Sample'. I definitely don't mind getting to try new products when I'm helping with the supply of the (discounted) old.

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I'm looking forward to trying Maybelline's new Color Tattoo shadows. I do hope they recycle more of their limited-edition neutral fall ones--I never got a chance to grab Rich Mahogany, since drugstores are typically a huge mess with slow-to-restock employees (or maybe that's just because I usually end up going to CVS at 3 AM).

Speaking of Maybelline, I received a sample of Maybelline's Dream Fresh BB from Walmart. This specific one is no longer available, but others are. I'll be doing a tutorial on the look in the promo image in the future.
Also got samples of TRESemmé's Split Remedy shampoo and conditioner with my pre-Black-Friday order from GoJane... what are they, mind-reading wizards? I waste a crapload of time cutting off split ends when I'm trying to distract myself from work. So maybe, if the stuff works well, the time savings could justify the price increase over my typical 79-cent VO5 purchases... haha, nah. (However, if you're into reducing split ends, spending a lot of money and using natural products, my sample-packet experiences with Giovanni's Smooth as Silk conditioner have been pretty good in the past.)

Another aside: Got my Iron Fist Zombie Stomper heels in the mail today as well. A little disappointing that they didn't notify me until today that they were out of stock of, and thus didn't send, the dress I ordered; but the shoes are simply charming enough to distract someone like me, who usually just wears guy shoes. (I have to leap over cracks, crack addicts and puddles, and dodge cars when I run between bus stops here in LA, thank you very much....) Zombies might be over-done, but you'd have to be a pretty big hipster to not even feel the smallest bit of excitement over bows on a bright-green toxic-waste-soaked-skull caricature.

See you next time for some swatches and sarcasm!