Tarte Rainforest of the Sea Collection | Review, Swatches & Makeup Look

Oooooh man, I don’t even know where to start with the Tarte Rainforest of the Sea collection. It is easily, in my opinion, the best collection released this spring! The packaging of everything is amazing, the quality is incredible, the colors are gorgeous… I just absolutely LOVE it all. According to Sephora, this collection is “powered by Tarte’s Rainforest of the Sea complex for hydration, environmental defense and a brightening, radiant finish.” Sounds pretty perfect to me!

There are a few different skincare items in the Tarte Rainforest of the Sea collection, and I have tried two of them. I first tried the Tarte Deep Dive Cleansing Gel last night after doing the look for this post, and let’s be real- I had a LOT of makeup on for that look. Since I always use a cleansing oil first for heavy makeup looks, I honestly wasn’t totally confident that this gel would remove it all. Well, I was completely wrong, haha. This cleansing gel took off every last bit of makeup with no extra effort required!

The Tarte Marine Boosting Mist is a 4-in-1 product that is can be used as a primer, a makeup setting spray, a hydrating mist and a skin refresher. I like to start with freshly hydrated skin anytime I am applying foundation, as I have quite dry skin and any foundation will cling more easily to dry areas if I don’t moisturize immediately before, but I also hate waiting for moisturizer to sink in before I can start doing my makeup. This mist is perfect for me as that necessary hydrating step before applying my makeup. It has a super faint but deliciously fresh scent to it, it’s hypoallergenic and it’s packed with antioxidants. I love applying this before and after my makeup, and I’ve also been using a couple spritzes of this mid-day for a little skin pick-me-up.

Also part of this collection is the Tarte Drink of H2O Hydrating Boost, which is a gel moisturizer that sounds really nice. I haven’t tried to, but I intend to when my current skincare horde starts to dwindle!

Color correcting is all the craze right now, and this is a craze I can definitely get down with! I’d say I’m a pretty great candidate to test out color correcting products, as I have redness, dullness and dark circles to deal with (lucky me, right?). The Tarte Wipeout Color-Correcting Palette really has it all, with an orange shade to cancel out dark circles, a green shade to neutralize redness, a yellow shade to brighten up any dull areas, and then three different shades to sculpt, add warmth and conceal with, depending on your skin tone.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t had the chance to try this yet. I got too excited about everything else when I was doing the look for this post last night and totally forgot this step before applying my foundation and concealer, so I’ll have to report back in a future color correcting post (of which there are a couple coming up in the next few months!). I have very high hopes, based on how much I loved the rest of this collection, though!

Alright, onto two of the most highly anticipated (by me, haha) products in the Rainforest of the Sea collection… the Tarte Water Foundation and Tarte Aquacealer Concealer! I like the Tarte Amazonian Clay Foundation and the Tarte Maracuja Creaseless Concealer quite a lot, so I had definitely set high standards for these two… and let me tell you, they went above and beyond.

First of all, the foundation is medium to full coverage (definitely buildable) with a beautiful, radiant finish that isn’t matte but isn’t dewy… just perfectly radiant. I was sent the shade Light Neutral, which is most definitely too dark for me right now, but will be perfect in summer when I have a bit more color to my skin. Right now, I am pretty sure I would be Fair-Light Neutral, and I’m definitely picking this up in that shade ASAP because I’m obsessed with the coverage and finish! I applied it with the Tarte Double-Ended Foundation Brush and it worked great- I didn’t even have to touch up with my Beauty Blender, which says a lot.

I totally expected that I’d have hideous dark circles still showing after using the foundation and concealer without my usual corrector underneath, so I was shocked to see that my dark circles really weren’t that bad. The combination of the full coverage of both the foundation and concealer really did a good job cancelling them out, which is basically a miracle! I had absolutely zero cakiness under my eyes, even after taking a risk and setting my under eye area using the non-sparkly shade from the highlighting palette (that I talk about below) when I had no idea if that’s what it was for or not, haha. I am SO impressed with the foundation and concealer!

There are six different brushes included in the Tarte Rainforest of the Sea collection:

• Rainforest of the Sea Lip Brush
• Rainforest of the Sea Double-Ended Eyeshadow Brush
• Rainforest of the Sea Double-Ended Foundation Brush
• Rainforest of the Sea Double-Ended Highlighter Brush (the fluffier side applied and blended in my blush beautifully, but I found the smaller side gave me a bit too “concentrated” of a highlight on my cheekbones- which I know some people love, but I prefer to keep my highlight a bit more subtle- so next time I’ll use the fluffier end)
• Rainforest of the Sea Double-Ended Color Correcting Brush (haven’t tried this with the color correcting palette yet, but I used the smooth, pointed end to apply my concealer and it worked so well! It worked great to set my under eyes with powder, as well)
• Rainforest of the Sea The Airbrusher Double-Ended Concealer Brush (apparently this is what I was supposed to use for concealer, haha, oops… will have to try this next!)

Also all the craze, highlighting palettes! Or any highlighter whatsoever, pretty much, haha. At first glance, I thought the Tarte Skin Twinkle Lighting Palette might be too shimmery for me, but when it’s actually on the skin, it’s not nearly as shimmery as it looks in the pan. The middle shade, Filtered Light, is a matte setting powder that helps to brighten and correct under eye darkness (I didn’t know this before using it to set my under eyes, so that would explain why it worked so well there!). It didn’t cake at ALL under my eyes, and that’s a huge feat considering basically anything I ever use leaves a tiny bit of cakiness, as my eye area is always dry.

The two outside shades, Sunlight and Moonlight, are luminous perfecting powders that leave a beautiful highlight. The remind me a lot of two of my favorite highlighters, BECCA Moonstone and Champagne Pop. Because of that, I know I’ll be using this palette a TON. It’s going to be especially great for travel, since I now don’t have to carry three separate products with me!

I have to admit, the Tarte Rainforest of the Sea Eyeshadow Palette was probably the thing I was least excited about when I first received everything to try out. I shrugged it off with a “mehhh, just another neutrals palette,” but oh, was I ever wrong! The shadows in this are GORGEOUS. It wasn’t until I actually started playing with them that I truly fell in love with this eyeshadow palette. They are SO pigmented, they blend out beautifully, and there’s really such a perfect variety of colors in this palette. Also, the matte to shimmer ratio is just right, in my opinion. There’s a light matte shade (Sand) and a warm transition shade (Cove), and I honestly think thats all you need as far as mattes go with this palette. I highly, highly recommend this eyeshadow palette!

WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE?! No joke, the Tarte So Fine Micro Liner is my new absolute favorite liner. It has, you guessed it, a super fine tip, which makes doing wings on my hooded eyes SO much easier (simply because I can be much more precise as the felt tip isn’t as long)! I seriously can’t get enough of this, and I can already tell you that this will forever replace my previous holy grail liners (Kat Von D Tattoo Liner and Stila Stay All Day Liner), because it works just as well as both of them, but is super dark black, and it’s so much easier to control when doing wings on my hooded eyes. This is AMAZING.

I do need to mention one thing, so that you don’t buy this and are like what the heck?! It is on the watery side, but I think that is why it works so well and is so pigmented. The color goes onto your skin so smoothly which allows you to be super precise, instead of having to push and drag the tip along your skin to get the color to come out. The first time I used this, I wasn’t used to the watery aspect and made a mess of my inner corner, but I promise, once you adapt to it being more watery than most felt tip liners, you will fall in love. On that note- it does dry down super quickly, so while it is a more watery liner during application, it doesn’t smear everywhere once applied.

Last but not least, there were a few different lip products released with this collection. There is the Tarte Lipsaver Treatment Primer, which is infused with coconut oil and can be used as both a lip primer or an overnight treatment. There is also the Tarte Quench Lip Rescue which is a tinted balm made with a blend of essential extracts and oils, that comes in four shades (and the prettiest packaging that differs with each shade!).

The Tarte Drench Lip Splash Lipstick is the only lip product I’ve tried from this collection, and I’m liking it quite a lot. I have the shade Happy, which is a dark rose (next on my wishlist: Cabana Boy, a mauve, and Top Down, a poppy coral). The Sephora site describes this lipstick as a matte, but I’d describe it more as if a satin and a matte lipstick had a kid, haha. It doesn’t really have the slight sheen that a satin lipstick has, but it has the “healthy” look of a satin. Does that make any sense? Haha. It’s not a drying matte by any means- in fact, it’s very smooth and hydrating feeling on the lips.

Of course, I had to put everything to the test with a full face of the Tarte Rainforest of the Sea Collection. Every single thing on my face in this look is Tarte, with the exception of my brows (though I did just order the Tarte Amazonian Clay Waterproof Brow Mousse and am SO excited to try it. How did it avoid my radar for so long?) and my blush (which is a discontinued Kat Von D blush).

On my eyes: I used Cove as my transition shade in the crease, Reef a bit tighter into the crease, Abyss packed into the outer v to deepen everything up, and Seashell all over the lid (applied with a brush sprayed with MAC Fix+ to intensify it a bit). I used Sand under my browbone and on the inner corner, and then both Cove and Abyss smoked out a little bit on my lower lashline. I finished the eye look with a few coats of Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes 4-in-1 Mascara (PS- I also just ordered the Tarte Opening Act Lash Primer because it has such good reviews! Has anyone tried this yet?).

As if I need to say this again, but I seriously LOOOOVE the Tarte Rainforest of the Sea collection, and highly recommend checking it out! I believe this collection is Sephora-exclusive, and everything has been available online since February 29th and will also be in stores on March 14th.

Do you have your eye on anything from this collection?