Carried Away with Tarte (Holiday 2012)

I've been eyeing this kit for a while since it's appeared on the big-name beauty blogs in late September, but just couldn't justify sounding the mallet and parting with my cash.

And then, Sephora sent me a 10% VIB email...

The Carried Away with Tarte is exclusive to Sephora and comes with:

• 1 adventurer's bag (the carrying wrap bag with snap button closure)
• 24 full size amazonian clay eyeshadows
• 8 maracuja lip glosses
• 1 amazonian clay 12-hour blush in adventurous (shimmering rose)
• 1 blushing beauty domed blush brush
• 1 lights, camera, lashes! 4-in-1 mascara
• 1 amazonian clay finishing powder

Everything comes in this gold, fuchsia, and purple box:

I'm impressed by the quality of this "adventurer bag" -- It doesn't feel cheap and is very comparable to any travelling toiletry bag individually sold in stores.  I will be using this a lot.
In particular, I like that it fastens with a snap button and not velcro or ties.

This is what it looks like opened up:

And the eye shadow palette slides out of the pocket behind the mirror.  How smart is that?
I've already checked, and I can put the UD Naked palette in there with lots of room.

Here are the lip glosses:

Here are the eye shadows.  Just this alone already gets you full bang for your buck!
For full swatches, see Musings of a Muse.

The blush.  A full size is 0.2 oz, so you get a quarter of a full size.  This mini blush doesn't come with a mirror inside.
Again, for full swatches, see Musings of a Muse.

The brush is really soft!  It reminds me of a much smaller version of my EcoTools blush brush.

The finishing powder, of which I already have the full size version!

And finally, the mascara.  I wore it all day yesterday and enjoyed it.  It doesn't harden my lashes and is able to give me very good volume and some length.  The separation isn't too bad either.  The only thing is that it doesn't hold any curl.  Overall, I was still very impressed with this mascara as this is the first non water resistant mascara that has not given me panda eyes or smudging on my eye lids.  I like it, but will be staying with my Covergirl Water Resistant Lash Blast Fusion (the purple one).  The CG one gives me a bit of curl in addition to everything this Tarte one does -- plus, the CG is only $8 CAD, whereas this Tarte one is $25 CAD!

This set costs $70 CAD ($54 USD -- wtf with the difference), but I do not have any buyer's remorse.  This set is valued at $665 CAD -- that's incredible value!  Tarte has never disappointed me in their quality, so I'm very happy to own this set and truly believe they could've priced it much higher.

Another reason why I love this set is because I would use every single item in it.  Almost all sets tend to have something that is meh and makes you snub it, but I didn't get this feeling with this one.

What holiday collections or sets are you lusting after?

- M