Oh look! Another Lip Butter post...

 Aloha!

Right, i'm going to keep this as short and sweet as possible as im sure you've already seen enough of these posts. I just had to share my favourites!

So unless you've been living under a rock you'll have heard a ton about these beauties. They are quite possibly the most awaited high street release of the year after they gained RAVE reviews in the USA. So i really couldn't resist.

Revlon's Lip Butters are a collection of reasonly pigmented, moisturising lipsticks. Although i think half the colours i picked arnt the best on the pigmentation side, they are gorgeous none the less, and perfect for not so confident lipstick wearers like myself. On the moisturising front, i didn't find them overly hydrating on the lips, but they are not at all drying and feel quite pleasent. They don't have the best wear time, i generally get about an hour or two out of them, but then again i am an awful lip fidget with my piercings.

So onto the swatches!

These are 100% my favourite high street offering for lipstick. Oddly enough my favourite is Peach Parfait, one of the less pigmented of the bunch. It just gives my lips a healthy peachy sheen that i adore! Lollipop and Raspberry pie are the more daring out of the four, with Berry Smoothie and Peach Parfait being on the more natural side. I'm a big fan of the formula as the glossy finish helps makes my terribly thin lips look a little more plump.

These are priced at £7.99 in Boots and Superdrug, and you can often find 3 for 2 deals in both stores.

What are your favourite shades?

xox

Holy Grail Hair Care

Heya lovelies!

Just a quick post from me today on two of my favourite hair care products!

My hairs always been on the "greasy" side, so for many years i steered clear of hair oils and masques, naively thinking they'd be no good for me. How wrong was i?!?! A year or so ago after seriously damaging my hair with bleach and colour i decided enough was enough and my hair needed a good ol' treat!

After spotting this at my local Capital i decided to give this a bash, and I've never looked back! I use the mask twice a week and the oil before i blow dry when ever i feel my hair needs a little bit of extra love. And without trying to sound cliche, my hair has never looked or felt better! It moisturises without leaving your hair feeling weighed down or greasy, and i even feel my hair lasts an extra day without washing a LOT easier with these two. I love, love, love these products.

The only downside is the price, around £20 for the masque online isn't cheap. I pay around £13 for mine at the wholesalers, so if you have access to them or have access to someone with a card, i highly suggest taking a trip!

You can check these out online on the Feel Unique website.

What are your favourite hair care products?

xox

FOTD + New Hair!

 

Ello lovelies!
So today i had one of those impulsive moments and decided to change up my hair. Well originally, i planned to just do my roots and slap my usual red on top but noticed i had a slightly different Wella dye in the drawer and thought, why not?! If i don't like it i can always shove a semi on top!

Well... i kinda like it! 

Giving the porosity of my hair I'm not sure how long it'll last, but if i can find a good gingery semi i might be keeping this for a while. And inspired by my new hair i decided to give my Naked Palette another go. Its been sat unloved since i was first sucked in by the hype. Until now i couldn't never really get the colours to work on my pasty skin, but after today I'm sure it'll get a bit more use!

Eyes:

Benefit - Stay Don't Stray

Urban Decay - Sin, Virgin, Toasted, Hustle.

Urban Decay - Zero 23/7 Liner

Smashbox - Felt Liner

Inglot - AMC 67

MUFE - Smoky Lash Mascara

Lips:

Revlon Lip Butter - Peach Parfait

Face:

Skin Food - Red Bean BB Cream

Elf - HD Powder

Collection 2000 - Lasting Perfection Concealer

Elf - Shimmering Facial Whip - Persimmon

Nars - Laguna Bronzer

   So when this fades do i keep it up? Or go back to my usual red? Or even try blonde, i really know know!

xox   

Recent Rediscoveries: Elf Shimmering Facial Whip

 Ello lovelies!

On a bit of a mission to curve my spending I've decided to start a little series. Recent Rediscoveries is my way of sorta "shopping the stash" if you will. Over the past two years I've acquired a bit of a collection of makeup goodies and some don't get the love they deserve. So in an attempt to save my pennies I've decided to hook out some of my unloved products and give them another bash!

Last year i went on a little bit of an Elf binge when they had their 50% off sales. I've also been getting into cream products lately, with the weather warming up i thought it was the perfect time to give this another testing. As their name implies the Shimmering Facial Whip is just that, shimmery, so it won't be to every ones taste. But having quite dry skin and being a bit of a glitter addict its not exactly a problem for me!

The only shade i have is persimmon, but its available in 7 shades in total if pinky hues aren't your thing. In the tube and first swatched it does look a little scary, but it sheers out pretty nicely. I honestly wasn't expecting too much from this but I'm really happy i dug this beauty out, as it looks gorgeous on the skin!

Priced at £1.50 its extremely affordable too. The website implies this can be used on the eyes and lips too, i personally wouldn't put this near my eyes but funnily enough my Mum confused this for a lip gloss and said it looked lovely! Ha!

The only downside is i really want to buy a few more...

What are your favourite cream products? Have you tried these?

xox

Makeup Forever - Smoky Lash - Review

Aloha!
So I'm eventually reviewing some of my IMATS purchases.

I'd put off opening my Smoky Lash since i already had atleast three other mascaras open... But eventually i caved!

Makeup Forever isn't the easiest to get hold of in the UK. As far as i know there are only two stockists, PAM and Guru Makeup Emporium which are both based in London but both do have an online store. With the normal price of £18 here in the UK, it isn't the most purse friendly of products. But IMATS did have quite a steep discount on MUFE products so i only paid around £9. Bargain!

 

The brush itself is a little larger than I'm used to. I'd probably compare it to about the size of Benefits Bad Gal. I'd been using a combination of two mascaras over the past month, using L'Oreal's Volume Millions lashes for its volume and Smashbox's Hyper Lash for length. Not really a combo I'd be happy to repurchase with the combined price of the two!

So now for the before and after. Excuse the wonkily sized images... ooops!

I'm pretty damn happy with this mascara. It wasn't until i reached for my old combo i really realised how much of a difference it really makes. It adds both volume and length without becoming clumpy. I wouldn't go as far as to say a "false lash effect", since lets be honest, there's not many of us who have super duper amazing lashes to begin with. But this does a pretty good job. And the thing that pleases me the most... no annoying smudges a few hours in! Hurray!

The downfall is the price. Luckily (and in a little bit of a spending frenzy) i picked up two of these, and will not be opening the second one until every other mascara i own is dry or used up. So I'll make a pretty good effort to make them last! I don't think I'd personally pay that much for mascara, i used to get my Bad Gal for birthdays and could never muster up the courage to spend that much on it. I'll definitely be on the hunt for a cheaper alternative!

Whats your holy grail mascara?

xox

MUA All In One - BB Beauty Balm

Ello lovelies! 

I'm going to start off by saying one thing. I LOVE BB Creams. So if this review is a little critical, that would be why. Since jumping on the bandwagon last summer I've collected a few, mostly Asian branded creams. The Skin79 Hot Pink is one of my holy grail products, i love it so much I'm on my third one already! I've been noticing, well i think everyone has, the mass of BB Cream products crashing onto the UK market. The ones Ive tried, well ones in my price range, i haven't been all that impressed with. But being a lover of MUA i was delighted to have spotted this in my local Superdrug and was eager to give it a whirl!

One of my favourite things about BB Creams is that they generally have a high SPF and many are choc full of ingredients that beneficial to the skin. But here in the UK we're lucky to get a few weeks of sun, so the lack of SPF isn't really issue. It may even been seen as a plus since SPF can cause a white cast in photos.  

The Beauty Balm comes in three shades: Light, Medium and Dark. Having tried their Matte Foundation and had an epic oompa loompa crisis i was a tad cautious at first. But i was assured by their more than helpful Facebook team that the shades had been reformulated and were much lighter, which I'm pleased to say they actually are! Just a shame I'm abnormally pale eh?

Okay so its not an exact colour match, but its not awful and I was determined to give it a bash! I did find it on the dryer side of a liquid foundation, nothing a bit of moisturiser or primer beforehand wouldn't fix.

 

A brave before and after pic... My skin has quite a lot of pink in it and on top of that i have some broken capillaries, evidence of my spot squeezing/picking stupidity! I was actually quite pleased at the coverage, medium and build able, which gets a thumbs up from me. And even though the shade wasn't a perfect match it blended pretty well into the skin. I set mine with Elfs HD powder and did notice a little shine a few hours in. It doesn't have the longest wear, but survived a whole day of uni without looking too shabby.

Overall i think its a pretty decent product. It wont be replacing my Skin79 any time soon but they are so different you can't really compare them. I wouldn't really class this as a BB Cream as such, but its certainly the best UK offering I've tried so far. It's priced at £4 for 30ml which is pretty bargaintastic if you ask me.

If you're looking for an affordable medium coverage foundation and you fit in the shade range, i really recommend giving this a bash! But in terms of BB cream, nothings yet to top my Hot Pink!

You can check it out in your local Superdrug or online here.

Have you tried any BB Creams yet?

xox

Illamasqua's Alex Box - Demonstration

 Ello lovelies!

During the week i was contact by one of my besties and fellow blogger Jane who was excitedly telling me about a demonstration that was amazingly happening at our very own university. Back in November last year Alex Box, makeup artist and creative director of Illamasqua was award an Honorary Doctorate of Design from Southampton Solent. On top of this she was voted by Stylist.co.uk as the second most influential women of the last 100 years, what a title!

Here's what Stylist.co.uk said…

“Alex Box has been voted the second most inspirational woman over the past 100 years. Alex is a highly creative make-up artist with a flair for the exotic, the extreme, and the flamboyant. She's the Creative Director of cult make-up brand Illamasqua which takes its inspiration from the roaring '20s club scene. Box has worked with fashion heroes such as Nick Knight, Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney, but beyond her stellar credentials, she encourages women to look and be different. One of Alex’s top makeup tips is that there are “no rules” when it comes to makeup, and that “you are your own creation”. Inspiring stuff.

Alex strikes a special cord with many woman, and some of her voters described her as being a “daily inspiration”, “empowering” and that Alex helps women "dare to be different".”

I love Illamasqua. Unlike a lot of current brands they only release two collections a year, so an extreme amount of thought and passion goes into not just the products, but the story and meaning behind them. The imagery isn't your average “beauty” shots, they're ridiculously creative, out of the box, art. And it definitely works, not sure any other brand could have me lusting after a teal lippie! So needless to say I was pretty damn excited to get the opportunity to watch her work.

“Illamasqua is for the bolder person hiding inside all of us. It is an act and an attitude. A symbol of tolerance. A celebration of idiosyncrasies. A confident statement of self-ownership.”

So the lighting was terrible and my camera had a bit of a tantrum, but here's a few pictures.

Above is quite possibly one of the most unflattering pictures of me, ever. But i really couldn't leave this one out. Its not every day you get to meet someone as inspirational as Alex Box!

It was really magical to watch her work. Over a hundred girls fell silent at the raise of her brush and watched in awe for over an hour. I've never seen a lecture room so full! She works to music and said that if given another hour to work the look would of progressed to something much darker as the music did.

Illamasqua have released their newest collection, Human Fundamentalism, just a few days ago. And there's a few beauties catching my eye, not to mention the gorgeous teal lipstick again! So a massive thank you to Dr Box for putting on a truly inspirational demonstration.

You can visit the Illamasqua website here.

xox