Coastal Scents: Haul + Hot Pot Swatches

This is a post I've been unintentionally slacking on (quite majorly)! I've been wanting to share my Coastal Scents haul of goodies that I purchased during their Black Friday sale. Yep.. you read that right! During their Black Friday sale.. oops. ;)

I actually stumbled upon a LivingSocial* deal (back in October) for a Coastal Scents voucher. The deal was $12 for a $25 voucher to use on the Coastal Scents website. At the time, I wasn't sure what I wanted to use it for.. but I had a few items in mind that I had been wanting to purchase. It was a good deal so I figured.. why not!? And then I got wind of their Black Friday sale (every year, they have had a 50% off sale - entire site marked down!)..... I knew what I was saving my voucher for!
*LivingSocial is a daily deal site much like Groupon! But, my favorite part about LivingSocial.. If you purchase a deal and then share that deal with your friends - if at least three of them decide to purchase the same deal, using your share link, you get yours for free! They can also share after their purchase and get three more friends to buy to get their deal for free, too! ;)
If you are interested in checking out LivingSocial/signing up - you can use my referral link if you like and LivingSocial will set you up with 5 'Deal Bucks' to get you started!

I had been anticipating the sale and so I was a bit ahead of the game by making my 'wishlist' (or rather.. 'plan to purchase' list) ahead of time. While I was adding things to my little virtual shopping cart (Thursday night), I noticed that they had already marked everything down to 50% off before making the big announcement. I didn't waste any time - I got my order in quite a bit early. ;) I had absolutely no issues with using my voucher toward my purchase (it acted as a coupon code, no code was needed during the 50% off sale = score!). Shipping was a  bit high for me but it was totally worth it! I know many people dealt with delayed orders/shipping because of how big the sale was - so I consider myself extremely lucky to have placed my order when I did. I only had to wait a week for it to arrive!

So...I wonder what this could be? ;) ...

The box was insanely bright! &Everything arrived safely bubble wrapped together 

and secured by tons and tons of tissue paper. :)

Here it is!:

Pictured: CS Winterberry Palette, CS Creative Me #1 Palette, CS Empty Magnetic Palette,

12 Hot Pots eyeshadows, two African Black Soap samples.

I made my own 'custom' palette by ordering an empty magnetic palette (retails for $5.95) and picked out 12 Hot Pot eyeshadows (retails for $1.99 each) to fill it with. The other two palettes had quite a bit of the colors I already wanted and it was much cheaper to purchase them in the pre-made palettes. :)

The palettes are pretty small and compact - when open, the entire top of the palette is a mirror &the bottom holds the eyeshadow pans magnetically. There is a small indention which makes it easy to lift out the eyeshadow pan if you ever decide you want to switch them up/rearrange them! The only thing that bothers me about the palettes is that the pans move around easily (I noticed this quite a bit when I was in the middle of doing swatches). Now on to the swatches!

I added in the text for the names of each color (and the previous number they went by before they were named).  As always, swatches are done over NYX JEP in Milk and are photographed in natural lighting. :)

Winterberry palette &swatches:

Creative Me #1 palette &swatches:

(Holy brights, batman!) I have to warn you, these colors have some staining power!
(Neon Red, Neon Bright Pink, Deep Grape, Magenta &Indigo leave a tint of pink behind).

'Teal Green' is just barely lighter than 'Shamrock Green' - also

'Teal Green' has a hint more blue, 'Shamrock Green' has a hint more green! 

Both photographed more blue, but in the eyeshadow pan (in person) they appear more green. 

Once again, 'Teal Green' & 'Shamrock Green' photographed much too blue. :( 

In person, these are much more on the green side and not cyan/blue.

Also - 'Indigo' is a beautiful blurple and photographed a tiny bit more blue.

My 'custom' palette &swatches:

Hot Pots in: Bombay, Light Slate, Empress Teal, Virbrant Blue Green,

Periwinkle (M11), Thistle Lavender (M15), Vibrant Plum, Profound Plum,

Bronze Peach (B03), Fine Wine, Light Taupe (M16), Timeless Taupe

Coastal Scents eyeshadows are pretty fantastic (especially for the price point)! I've never had any problems with application - as long as I use a good eye shadow primer and base (for them to stick/adhere to), these work very well for me. Some of these shades are meant to be more 'sheer' but all of them are really easy to build up. :)

I hope this post will be helpful, thanks for looking/reading! <3 <3

FTC: These items were paid for by myself/by my boyfriend. I am not being compensated to write this post, these are my honest opinions on the products and company. All photos were taken by me in natural lighting, &are unaltered aside from cropping/collaging!