Nothing makes me feel like more of a bad ass than a blood red lip and some beautiful, neutral eye shadows. Fortunately for me, I received an amazing package from Cara over at Ten Three Labs recently that totally allows me to fill this need, and I am I am PSYCHED to share on here. Ten Three Labs is a newer indie shop, having just opened last month, and it does basically everything! Shadows, perfumes, lip balms, and tinted balms. Its first shadow collection is Bad Bitches, shadows designed around powerful women throughout history, and it also has a perfume catalog of six General Collection scents and rotating monthly scents. Cara asked me if I would be willing to provide an unbiased review of her shadows and then surprised me by including a whole bunch of other goodies in the package, so naturally I will go over all of them. This is my first experience with Ten Three Labs, so buckle up and let’s see how it went! Swatches Cara sent eight shadows, including five from her Bad Bitch Collection– Joyce, Murasaki, Antoinette, Hatshepsut, Hiawatha, You Burn With Us, Shelley’s Big Eye, AND a custom color that absolutely took my breath away and was a complete surprise, Magpie! I was expecting sample baggies to give a spin and was blown away by full jars that, as you will see, were very generously filled. Ten Three Labs already has a reputation in the indie scene for running a generous shop that really takes care of its customers, which I’ve now experienced (thank you Cara!!) and see as a reflection of Cara herself, who is a really wonderful person. As always, the top half of the swatches are over Urban Decay Primer Potion, and the bottom half is over Darling Girl Glitter Glue. Oh my god, how could I NOT start with this amazing shadow?! Magpie was a surprise thank you present from Cara, and is a custom shadow that is recreation of the blue-green iridescence of a black-billed magpie’s secondary flight feathers and tail (which I think is utterly perfect!). Compare! Aahhh, it’s perfection! It has a darker blue base with blue and green shimmer, maybe a touch of purple in there to deepen the blue. This was so immensely kind, and the shadow also had terrific pigmentation and applied really smoothly. It was really dynamic, and I’m totally in love with it. Antoinette is from the Bad Bitch collection. It is a very pale ballet pink with silver and blue-ish sparkle throughout. This is an EXCELLENT highlight shade, and quite shimmery. For being such a pale shade, it really stood out when I applied it on the lid… SO gorgeous! Another shadow from the Bad Bitch collection, Hatshepsut is a green-leaning antiqued gold with plenty of metallic shimmer throughout it, including some reddish and orangey sparks. Once again, excellent pigmentation, and it definitely calls to mind the splendor of the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Hnng! This color is SO PRETTY! I wasn’t expecting Hiawatha to look as simply splendid as it does, but if you are like me and love deep purples with coppery tones, I think you will love this shadow. I love that its base isn’t too blackened, and that it is warm leaning without going full-on berry. On my skin, Joyce is a slightly pink-leaning copper with silvery shimmer… yeah, pretty much my favorite sort of color (except taupes, I can never quit you). I am totally addicted to a good copper color (especially having blue eyes, this typically is my go to shade for making my eye color pop) , and this is a great copper shade. It had particularly excellent pigmentation even applied to bare skin. You Burn With Us is a slightly beige-toned, muted orange color with red, yellow, and orange sparks throughout. It sits comfortably between burnt orange, copper, and skin-toned beige, and is so pretty. On my skin, it is a similar shade to Joyce, but tone-wise it’s slightly more greyed, and in terms of hue it’s more orange leaning than red. Really beautiful, and the sparks in it make it extra ember-y! It’s Ten Three Lab’s November Color of the Month, so if you like it go snatch it up quickly, and of course is celebrating Mockingjay from the Hunger Games trilogy. Murasaki, another member of the Bad Bitch collection, is beautiful violet with pink and silver sheen. I found that this shadow applied just slightly more sheer than the others over primer (though it was by no means entirely sheer, this is just in comparison to say Joyce, which with one finger swipe was full opacity), but I was able to build it to opacity easily, and the shimmer was absolutely lovely. A Hemlock Grove Shadow!! I love Ten Three Lab’s choices of themes. Shelley’s Big Eye is no longer available, but it’s a blackened teal with quite a bit of shimmer. I decided to see how these shadows pressed, and was pretty pleased with the results. Left swatch is the pressed shadow applied with a bare finger, and the right swatch is the loose shadow applied with a bare finger, both over bare skin. I’m impressed that Ten Three Lab’s shadows have great pigmentation over bare skin as well, as we can see here. I don’t do my swatches over bare skin because I never apply eyeshadow without primer, but I do think if they are pigmented on bare skin, that bodes super well for their pigmentation over primer… no exceptions here! In addition to killer eye shadows, Ten Three Labs also makes lip balms AND tinted lip balms. Their balms are salve sticks and their tinted balms are smudge sticks. I have lips that are dry like the Sahara and also pretty sensitive, meaning they peel at the drop of a hat, so I am pretty demanding of my lip balms. I didn’t know what to expect from Ten Three Lab’s salve sticks but gave them a try for a week. They absolutely compete with, and perhaps eek ahead of my favorite lip balms, Notoriously Morbid’s coffin kissers. They are made with mango butter, avocado oil, candellia wax, and castor oil, along with a little peppermint oil. Apparently my lips love mango butter and avocado oil! These lip balms keep my lips soft and moisturized for several hours (which is saying something, as during the winter time I frequently need to reapply every few hours). Also, the butterscotch coffee flavor is soooo yummy. The butterscotch is much more evident than the coffee, which is just fine by me. It might be worth noting that the peppermint oil slightly overpowers the flavoring, and without it the coffee would probably be more evident. Overall, lovely flavor/scent! I’ve obviously loved on this smudge stick this week! I find the smudge sticks to be as moisturizing as the salve sticks. All Vamp Everything is a slightly brown-toned red, and especially for a tinted lip balm has excellent pigmentation. I found I could go about three hours before needing to reapply if I was doing regular things, and it left behind a nice red-pink stain. This IS a tinted lip balm, meaning it’s not going to apply totally opaque like a lipstick, but this was still a beautiful rich red. And wait, just when you thought tinted lip balms and lip balms and shadows were enough, Ten Three Labs also has its own perfume line! Cara sent me two samples, Bread & Circuses and Fair Season.

Bread and Circuses (Fresh baked bread, smoke, firewood, cotton candy, grass, buttered popcorn)- Bread and Circuses was surprisingly accurate to its name; the bread and cotton candy were especially evident, and somewhere in there I caught a metallic smell, which reminded me a bit of the smell of machinery that you get on rides at fairs. Looking at the notes now, I think this was probably my nose’s weird interpretation of the smoke. I personally don’t tend to wear circus-y scents (Black Violet Ringmaster and Darling Clandestine Carny Wedding were both strike-outs for me). Maybe it’s the mix of grit and intense sweetness inherent in these kinds of scents that doesn’t smell great on my skin…but it DOES smell lovely in the bottle and is a good mix between the grounded bread and wood smells, and sweetness of the cotton candy and buttered popcorn. Anyone who likes more carnival-type scents would really enjoy this one.

Fair Season (Cola, beer, candy corn, cotton candy, caramel, buttered popcorn, firewood, pumpkin, brown sugar, amber)- Fair Season is a very autumnal scent and reminds me of our September/October state and city fairs that go on once the hot summer weather has abated a bit. Somehow in this scent I swear that I smell a lot of apple. I wonder if this is maybe a combo of the caramel and brown sugar… and maybe pumpkin? There’s also a deeper, more earthy note to this that reminds me a bit of dried leaves, which perhaps could be the firewood and beer. In fact, reflecting on it, I caught a lot of the hops smell from the beer note. Those notes help to prevent the mix from being too sweet and add a lovely balance.

It should be noted that Fair Season was an October scent and is no longer available. Neither of these scents are particularly girly, though I wouldn’t go so far as to call them unisex. I wore Fair Season for a day and found that it lasted about six hours on me. The sillage was exactly what I’m comfortable with– it was evident at talking distance, but strangers walking past me probably weren’t blown back by it. I enjoyed both of these scents, even if I wouldn’t use them daily, and am particularly intrigued by Dark Eyed Daughter (brown sugar, almond, gardenia, lotus, cranberry and plum) and Artificial Angels (apple, black cherry, sugar cane, olive)… I need to give them a try!

Turn Around Time I didn’t formally order these, so I can’t speak directly to turn around time, but can say that Ten Three Labs as  10-14 day turn around time. Once the package was shipped to me, it arrived to me quickly, within a couple of days.

The Look How could I not integrate Magpie into a look?! I used Antoinette in the center of the lid, Joyce on either side, and then a combo of You Burn With Us and Hiawatha on either side of that. The shadows were all applied over NARS smudge proof eye primer. I foiled Magpie with Darling Girl Superstar Serum for the liner, and was very pleased with how it maintained its sheen. The shadows blended wonderfully with each other and were super luminous on the lid. I used the All Vamp Everything smudge stick for the lips. I initially applied it straight out of the tube, and then used a lip brush to touch up the cupid’s bow and lower lip. I love oval shaped tubes like Ten Three Labs uses, especially for more pigmented lip products. I think they are easier to apply with than round tubes. I wore this lip color all day and over a 12 hour period found I needed to reapply about 3-4 times. The inner part of my lips was a bit dry by the end of the day, but this isn’t surprising, since I was outside for a good chunk of time. Side bar: Blackbird Cosmetic’s Magic Trick Super Powder in green has become a daily-use product for me, and I’ve been converted almost entirely over to applying my foundation Wayne Goss-style now because of it. I use my Palladio Herbal Foundation Primer, then dust the MTSP over it, and then apply my foundation over top with my fingers (instead of my usual beloved Beauty Blender). I’ve been pleased with the results so far! I also used Hello Waffle’s Terracotta blush with this look, because I wanted something more brick-toned to match the Ten Three Labs smudge stick. As always, it’s super pigmented, very soft and blendable, and gives a very natural flush. I used Pumpkin and Poppy Oak Bark powder for my contour. Products:

• Palladio Herbal Foundation primer
• Blackbird Cosmetics Magic Trick Super Powder in Green
• Laura Mercier secret concealer in 01 and secret brightening powder
• MUFE HD foundation in 110
• Darling Girl Superstar Serum
• Anastasia dipbrow in Auburn
• Covergirl Clumpcrushers in black
• NARS smudgeproof eye primer
• Ten Three Labs Antoinette, Joyce, Hiawatha, You Burn With Us, Magpie (liner)
• Hello Waffle Terracotta blush
• Pumpkin & Poppy oak bark contour powder
• Ten Three Labs All Vamp Everything smudge stick
• Urban Decay All Nighter setting spray

Final Thoughts

We have covered a lot of ground here, so let’s divide it out a little bit!

Shadows

All eight of the shadows I tried were absolutely beautiful! They were all highly representative of their namesakes, had lovely pigmentation, and blended well when applied to the lid. I really appreciated how much thought was put into the colors themselves, as well as the variety of colors in the Bad Bitches collection.  The only shadow for which I could see a difference in application between primer and glitter adhesive was Murasaki, but it was very subtle, and otherwise they had uniformly excellent adhesion to the primer (and were quite pigmented over bare skin). I also found that Shelley’s Big Eye pressed really well and there was no pigmentation loss in the pressing process, which is terrific because I’m getting pretty addicted to pressing! My personal favorites were Magpie (no surprise there!), Antoinette, Joyce, and Hiawatha, simply because their colors called to me from across the misty moors.

Salve and Smudge Sticks

Ten Three Lab’s salve sticks are my new favorite lip balms. They are really moisturizing without having too much slip (something that drives me a little crazy) and leave my lips feeling incredibly soft. They are great for prepping lips for applying lipsticks, or just for keeping your lips soft throughout the day. If you have insanely dry lips as well, I strongly recommend giving these a try! The All Vamp Everything smudge stick also exceeded my expectations– it has the wonderful formula of the salve sticks, but also excellent pigmentation. I will definitely be going back to pick up more!

Scents

Although neither scent was something that I would wear on a daily basis, I enjoyed the way both smelled. I was impressed by the way all of the notes interacted with each other in both perfumes and that they maintained their complexity over six or so hours of wear time, with the notes morphing with time and not simply turning into one-note-wonders. I also appreciated how balanced they were– they weren’t all must, or all sweet, but found a good place in the middle.

Overall

I have to sincerely thank Cara for such a thoughtful package of amazing things to try out, and I am so pleased to be able to very honestly say I was impressed by everything I tried. I also can’t emphasize enough how in love with Magpie I am! This was a gret first experience with Ten Three Labs products and I am excited to see how the shop grows in the future. I am particularly impressed that Ten Three Labs has such a broad range of products, and that all of them are so great. I can’t even imagine how much work this must have taken before Ten Three Labs opened! I absolutely recommend giving Ten Three Lab’s products a try.

Shadow samples are $1.50 each, and full sizes are $6. The shadows are discounted if you buy a full set, in sample or full size. 1ml scent samples are $3 each, and 5ml full sizes are $12. Salve sticks are $3, and smudge sticks are $4. Keep your eyes open for surprise monthly colors and scents as well!

Please note that these products were provided gratis in exchange for an unbiased review. My opinions of these products are entirely my own and have not been influenced by the providing shop, or any other parties.