TooFaced Gingerbread Spice Holiday Collection: Tutorial, Swatches, Opinion

Happy #BEAUTYMONDAY, everyone!! It’s real-life November now, which means I’m ready for all things HOLIDAY. Bring on Thanksgiving festivities, lists of what we are thankful for, turkey, Christmas music and homemade cookies, amiright? We always head down to Louisiana to spend Thanksgiving with my husband’s fam and between the 9+ grandchildren and 6+ dogs, it is ALWAYS a party. BECAUSE I am feeling holly jolly and in the holiday spirit, I decided to get a start of reviewing 2018’s holiday collections. To kick it off, I picked up TooFaced’s holiday collection: Gingerbread Spice. It consists of one palette and one liquid lipstick (on the smaller side or a holiday collection, but that doesn’t bother me). I hoped I would love this palette because I really liked their Chocolate Gold palette that just came out this summer. I hadn’t been SUPER impressed with their Chocolate Bar palettes before, but thought the Peach palette was decent. Basically – TooFaced shadows can be hit or miss BUT because of the Chocolate Gold palette blowing every other shimmer shadow I own out of the water, I was ready to try again. AND I was SO pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this Gingerbread Spice palette. I had NO doubts I would love the liquid lipstick because I am a big fan of that formula already and the color was akin to one of my favorite BH Cosmetics liquid linen in “pumpkin spice” so I was here for it. Let’s dive into the nitty gritty.

TooFaced Gingerbread Spice Holiday Collection: Tutorial, Swatches, Opinion

SHOP THIS COLLECTION:

TUTORIAL:

SWATCHES:

eyeshadow swatch

lip swatch

REVIEW:

Gingerbread Spice Palette – $49.00

INGREDIENTS: Ok. This is a little bit trickier to get a handle on when it comes to deciphering these ingredients because there are SO MANY. SO. MANY. The two that they all share are some kind of combination of mica and talc. That is very basic. They are base fillers and almost all eyeshadows are going to contain those ingredients. They aren’t particular harmful – but if you have a known allergy to either, I’d obviously stay away. In addition – if you have an issue with the way mica is mined in India (essentially – child labor) – you may want to stay away from this product as well. The majority of the shadows also included Dimethicone. I don’t love this ingredient as something to be using in daily skincare simply because like petroleum products, Dimethicone can occasionally make dry skin worse over time so if you struggle with dry eyelids, this may not be a great product for you. Next up is Ethylene/Acrylic Acid Copolymer. Basically, this is a synthetic polymer used as a binder and film-former in dyes and adhesives. This was mainly seen in the shimmer shades which makes sense because they are meant to adhere to your skin and shine. As long as it’s in small enough quantities, there isn’t a fear of toxic exposure (however, in large quantities there has been proven toxicity when absorbed through the skin). Luckily, the FDA requires any amount of Ethylene used in cosmetics and skincare to be such a small amount that toxic exposure isn’t a problem. The next ingredient I found in most of the shadows was Oryza Sativa Extract. This is a rice extract that is used as an emollient base product to create blend ability and creaminess in cosmetics. There are studies that have shown that again, in mass amounts, this product may contain some toxicity but there have no been any scientific studies done that confirm this 100%. The next popular ingredient used in this palette is Lauroyl Lysine – a viscosity controlling ingredient. This was most likely used during production as they were creating the shadows to ensure they set flat in the pan. There has never been any reports on the toxicity of this product. Next we have Capric Triglyceride. This ingredient is used as a fragrance and skin conditioning agent. While there aren’t any concerns to our organs/body tissue I can find – there are some concerns about how environmentally-friendly this product is because it doesn’t readily break down. Triethoxycaprylylsilane is the last ingredients that is common between all of the shadow formulas and it’s basically just a bulking agent and a reactive surface-treating agent that chemically bonds pigments to form a stable coating. The silicone components allow pigments to disperse well throughout the formula, which results in a more easily blended product on the skin.

HOW IT PERFORMS: I was SO impressed with this palette – which may surprise some of you because of the fact that TooFaced is NOTORIOUSLY hit or miss with their eyeshadow palettes. Earlier this summer – I fell in love with the shimmer formula of their Chocolate Gold palette so when I picked this up at Sephora this past weekend, I was so hoping this shimmer formula would be the same and I would love the shimmers JUST as much. As it turns out, it pretty much IS the same formula for most of the shimmers in this palette. There were two shimmers that were a little bit harder to dip into (not as soft and creamy) – Spiced Rum and Frostbite Me. They seemed to be pressed a little bit harder than the other shimmers which made them a little bit harder to have a pretty metallic payoff. Frostbite Me is actually more of a glitter, so it doesn’t have that metallic sheen I love, but it is very glittery. I probably should have used it with some kind of glitter glue. 

Overall, I really liked this palette and I can definitely see myself reaching for this again and again this fall. 10/10 would buy again.

Melted Liquid Lipstick in Gingerbread Girl – $21.00

INGREDIENTS: Dimethicone is one of the first ingredients in this liquid lipstick. I have talked about it before – but this is probably one of the reasons that this product is a little bit more on the drying side when it comes to how it feels on the lips. The number one ingredient was isododecane, which is basically just a fragrance and masking ingredients. I’m guessing the reason that they needed to use SO much of this ingredient was 1. to mask the smell of the chemicals used and 2. to make it smell like gingerbread instead of like nothing. There aren’t any reasons to be wary of this ingredient unless you are extremely sensitive to scents. One ingredient that actually bothers me in this formula is Cyclopentasiloxane for a few reasons. One – it doesn’t break down naturally in the environment and can be toxic to ecosystems if deposited in large amounts. Two – in animal studies conducted in Canada, when used in moderate amounts, it showed tumor formation. Three – in animal studies conducted in Canada, when used in moderate amounts, it showed endocrine disruption and neurotoxicity. The reason this ingredient was used is because it is an emollient and skin conditioner, but considering the fact that there are other ingredients that do the same thing without the toxicity concerns, I’d prefer to use those. This is further concerning simply because it is the SECOND ingredient on the list. That means behind isododecane (which is simply a fragrance agent) it is the highest ingredient in terms of quantity. So. Keep that in mind when considering purchasing this lipstick. Trimethylsiloxysilicate is next and it is typically used as a skin conditioning agent to help lipsticks/lipglosses condition the skin and keep it from drying out your lips. Because they also used Dimethicone, I’m assuming that they used this to help offset the drying that naturally occurs with Dimethicone – but it doesn’t fully translate in the finished formula. They did also use beeswax in the ingredient list, so that would also help with dryness. Many of the rest of the ingredients are pretty standard for liquid lipsticks and don’t cause concern in my opinion. They also have the dyes used listed in the ingredient list – but none of them have any record of toxicity, either.

HOW IT PERFORMS: I am not surprised at all at how this performed because it is the exact same as their other melted matte liquid lipsticks. FUN FACT: their melted lipsticks used to be my very favorite lip formula of all TIME. In fact, I wore Melted Peony on my wedding day. I love that it’s super opaque and the dryness doesn’t bother me if I coat my lips with chapstick prior to using it. I now prefer the matte over the original formula of the melted lipsticks simply because they last a lot longer and I can actually kiss my husband without transfer (he doesn’t appreciate that for some reason). 

PIN THIS FOR LATER:

This collection was a big win for me. I really loved the eyeshadow palette – and I’m really excited to dip into those plums and pinks as the season goes on, too. It would be the perfect neutral palette with pops of color for fall if you are looking for ONE palette to use throughout the season. It has plenty of mattes, plenty of shimmers, and a few matte-with-glitter situations. It is very easy to do a neutral warm brown eye, but it has plenty of deep shades if you wanted to do a dramatic smokey eye and plenty of pops of color to mix it up. 

Have you tried this palette out yet? Are you interested in trying after this review? Let me know in the comments below!