Treats at Icy Bar

A few days ago some friends and I stumbled along a cute little dessert spot in the Joyce area that turned out to have amazing shaved ice. Their portions are smaller than usual shaved ice desserts at Chinese restaurants and sell at the same price ($5.75 - $6.50 each dish) but they have a much larger selection and give a generous amount of fresh fruit. They give you condensed milk separately in squeeze bottles which allows you determine how sweet and creamy you want it to be. My complaint is that they don't chill their dishes before serving, although the restaurant was air conditioned, the ice melted pretty quickly. The ceramic dishes were room temperature when we received them and the ice would have lasted much longer if the dishes had sat in the freezer for a little while. Other than that, we tried the Mango Shaved Ice, Strawberry Shaved Ice and custom 4 toppings dish and enjoyed each one!


 

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Maybelline - The Nudes

I was really excited to see Maybelline come out with what looks like their version of the Urban Decay Naked Palette but sadly I've been really disappointed with this purchase. Although this palette is a new release and has classy packaging with great colour selection, the eyeshadow formulas seem to be exactly the same as the ones they used to have in their eyeshadow quads.

 I read that these were extremely pigmented and good dupes for the original Urban Decay Naked palette but only one colour in this palette has great pigmentation (the shimmery bronze on the first row). Otherwise the black shade has decent, medium-level pigmentation and everything else is powdery and sheer.
 

It was actually pretty difficult to get the colours to show up on the swatch above. For many of the lighter colours I had to layer them quite a few times for them to appear. I actually think this palette has some great colours but their consistency is just far too sheer. If you're looking for some light neutrals to blend with, this palette would be perfect. I found it really hard to create a smokey eye with these shades because of how much I need to layer it for that colour payoff. On the other hand, their dry texture also minimizes fallout so this palette might be a good fit for anyone who wants to create a really natural look. The matte colours might prove to be great for contouring, I actually use one of the older maybelline nude eyeshadow quads as a eyebrow powder because its sheerness makes it difficult for me to accidentally overdo my brows.




To sum it up, I find this to be just Maybelline's old eyeshadows put together in a new package. Low pigmentation and a powdery finish on most colours with one vibrant bronze shade. Great transition/blending colours but not the best eyeshadows for a smokey eye look.

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