NYX Parallel Worlds Make Up Collection: Review, Swatches, and Look Book Fun!

August 21st is the date, ladies and gents! City of Bones, the first installment in Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments Series, is coming to theaters! Tomorrow! I am pretty impressed with the cast of the film and Clary Fray is quickly becoming one of my favorite heroines. I am usually pretty skeptical when books are adapted to create films, as there are always details that get lost in the translation, but oddly enough I am walking into this one with a wholly optimistic attitude. When I saw the NYX Parallel Worlds Make Up Collection during my latest visit to Ulta, my eyes were positively glittering! Make up collections inspired by movies (a la Urban Decay's Oz the Great and Powerful Theodora and Glinda palettes) are brilliant marketing moves and I can proudly say I'm a sucker for them, especially this one. It's a chance for me to nerd out and unabashedly let my fan girl flag fly.

The NYX Parallel Worlds Make Up Collection comes with a look book and 6 full size products, a smokey eyeshadow palette, powder blush, soft matte lip cream, mascara, jumbo eye pencil, and liquid liner, housed in a sturdy black box. All the products come in a black organza drawstring bag. This decorative element gets at the darker themes of the story while still being swanky.

The Look Book
The Parallel Worlds look book includes two make up looks: a softer daytime look inspired by Clary Fray and a nighttime look inspired by Isabelle Lightwood (although there's a typo on the product: they spell it "Isabel" in the look book, tsk tsk!). I love both of the eye shadow suggestions here, especially because the color accents are BLUE and PURPLE, which my brown eyes adore! Since the focus of these looks is the eye make up, it was intelligent of the creators of the collection to include a blush and lip color that serve as nice complements to both understated and sultry looks.

The Smokey Shadow Palette 

First thought: This is a very charming and versatile palette. There are six shadows: charcoal, black, deep plum, navy, beige, and white. The charcoal shade has a significant amount of glitter, which is beautiful, and the rest of the shades have small flecks of shimmer. I am not bothered that there are no matte shades and I think it includes enough shadows to get at multiple styles of smokey eyes depending on what your flavor is. Are the shadows the best quality I've ever tried? No. Are they pretty blendable? Yes. Do I think this is an overall fine product? Sure. Sadly, the black with shimmer, purple, and blue shades swatched a bit patchy (patchily? no, that's not a word). The softest and most pigmented colors are the charcoal with sparkles, beige, and white. At the end of the day, I think this is a really nice palette for someone that is beginning to experiment with smokey eye looks.

Jumbo Eye Pencil in Cashmere

These Jumbo Eye Pencils have gotten such a buzz from the beauty community for their longwear, great pigment, and variety of shades. Cashmere is a golden champagne color and delivered on all the good things promised. I was surprised at how softly it applied and it was a very nice base for the eye shadows from the Smokey palette.

Le Frou Frou Boudoir Mascara 

This mascara really surprised me! Le Frou Frou promises a smudge-free mascara experience complete with super volume and length. I found that it did a strong job overall, but mostly in the volume bit and I found it comparable to the Maybelline The Rocket mascara, although it did not hold a curl as well as The Rocket. The overall look was soft and fluttery, which I can definitely appreciate and I will be reaching for this mascara more and more.

Liquid Liner

This was a dud for me. The liner gave an imprecise line because the brush bristles were frayed (unintentional pun! haha). I am apparently not adept at using liquid liner, and when I first applied it it got all over my lashes and made them stiff and difficult to go back and apply mascara to. Thumbs down.

Blush in Pinched

You already know my take on Pinched (I included it in a recent post about hyped up products) and it's inclusion in this kit makes a boat load of sense. It's a buildable, peachy-pink with a hint of shimmer, appropriate for day and night. Pinched is a really nice blush since it is soft and goes with Clary's subtle look but is also a good pairing with Isabelle's dramatic eyes look. It is a pretty pigmented product so pale peeps beware!

Soft Matte Lip Cream in Istanbul
Istanbul is a baby pink matte cream, and like Pinched, is really nice for both understated and bold looks. I did find the formulation of the soft matte lip cream to be very drying if you applied multiple coats and it made the fine lines on my lips very noticeable. If used sparingly just to coat the lips once, it doesn't feel as drying.

Swatches

L-R: Le Frou Frou, Studio Liquid Liner, Cashmere, Pinched, & Istanbul.

The Smokey Shadow Palette.

Clary's Look
What products would a 16-year-old, incredibly brave, fiery, beautiful, misfit shadowhunter put on her face? Clary is an excellent heroine and I have had many a nerdy daydream about filling her Converse and running around NYC searching for the mortal instruments. Just call me "Queen Nerd." In the style of Clary, I decided to use a pretty understated make up look with just a touch of shadows and darkness around the eyes. I used pieces of the NYX collection and added in a few extra ones from my collection. 

I started by priming my face for smooth, even skin and then followed up with a lightweight water-based foundation for a fresh, natural complexion. Clary is not at all the type of girl to put on pounds of make up so I wanted to keep it simple here. I decided not to put on any undereye concealer as Clary spends basically all of her time sleep deprived and being chased by demons and assorted angry people. I then filled in my eye brows using a red-based dark brown eye pencil. Next, I applied NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Cashmere to my entire lid. I put the shimmery beige shade from the NYX Smokey Eye Palette all over the lid and blended it into the crease. As suggested in the look book, I mixed the navy blue and the white shades from the Smokey palette and applied them to the outer v, also blending into the crease. I then placed the white shade under the brow bone. I went in again with the Jumbo Eye Pencil and applied it to the tear duct area. I used the black shade from the Smokey palette to line the upper and lower lash lines to keep it subtle and followed with three coats of Le Frou Frou Boudoir Mascara. For the cheeks, I lightly applied NYX Powder Blush in Pinched to the apples of my cheeks and blended the color back. I decided to skip bronzer and contour because, let's get real, Clary would not do this. For the lips, I applied a brown-nude lipstick as a base and then applied a thin layer of the NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Istanbul. Voila! Recipe for instant shadowhunter face! I hope you like it!

This sullen photo is included for extra viewage of details.

My introduction to Cassandra Clare's writing was The Infernal Devices (Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, & Clockwork Princess,), which is the prequel series to The Mortal Instruments (I did not follow directions, here. Apparently it's best to read them in order of publication, not in order of chronology. Whoops!). I absolutely adored The Infernal Devices. No Romantic hero will ever be on the same level as Mr. Darcy, but I will be so bold as to say that Will Herondale is formidable competition, all brooding with his angular cheekbones, dark blue eyes, and fluttering lashes. I devoured The Infernal Devices in record time and there was scarce an emotion I didn't experience while reading those books. I cried and laughed and cried some more and got angry and felt my stomach in knots and was breathless and was overjoyed. What I most appreciate about these books is that, as cheesy as it sounds, today's Victoria is a different Victoria from the pre-Infernal Devices Victoria. And that's really my favorite thing about books, the pages change you, leave you different. These books are about love, honor, sacrifice, and all these (literally) magical things, but most of all I was captured by Tessa's gutsy moves in the midst of a difficult and confusing fabric. Is one ever too "old" for a coming of age story? Naturally, after reading The Infernal Devices, I had to get my hands on The Mortal Instruments and read as quickly as possible. I love these books just as much as The Infernal Devices. They are the kinds of stories that as I reached the end and closed the back cover, I couldn't help but feel that I had been dragged through the most trying yet satisfying adventure. I hope that the Mortal Instruments movie franchise only catapults Cassandra Clare's stories further into the limelight and who knows, maybe one day, I will see Tessa, Will, and Jem on the big screen! Until then, I have Clary, Jace, Simon, Izzy, and Alec....and Magnus to hold me over!

By the Angel, I am very excited for City of Bones! Are you thinking of seeing it?

V.

Bonus Bits

• I came across this blog post yesterday (that I LOVED) about fashion inspired by the characters in City of Bones so I will link it here!
• Yesterday was the first day of school for most of the city and I have to say that I miss that not having a first day of school anymore. I miss how much of a clean slate that first day is.
• NYX at Target?! Score!