Accessorize Leopard Moth

Above: In the bottle

Below: On the nails

 

This is a great glitter effect nail polish from Accessorize that you can pick up for just a few quid. I bought it when the entire range of polishes was 2-for-£5 in Superdrug; individually they normally retail for £3.45.

The consistency is good and smooth and I’m wearing three coats in the photo above although the coverage is almost opaque after two – I just wanted to load my nails with glitter. This type of polish can be problematic when it comes to chipping (glitter nail polishes always seem to start chipping off in chunks on me after a few days) so I do recommend wearing this with a top coat. So far I’m on day 2 with only minor chips on one nail.

Fun Daytime look for Autumn 2013

Hellooooo again! So the explanation for my three month blogging hiatus is that I actually moved across the country from London to Edinburgh a month ago and have been very busy organising the move and setting into my new home.

If you’d like any more info on my life in London and/or Edinburgh in general then there will be more updates coming soon to my “life” blog at http://ahteem.wordpress.com/

But back to make-up which is mainly the point of this blog. Today I’m easing myself back into blogging with a simple daytime look featuring metallic earth tones on the eyes and a lovely subtle matt peachy lip.

Above: I used the shades “Oz” (the olive shade) and “South” from my Urban Decay Glinda palette (pictured below – these are the two shadows in the bottom right)

The result on the eyes is quite subtle and perfect for a lazy (this took me about five min to apply) but fun daytime look. A word of warning though – there is bad glitter fallout from both of these shades, so have a glitter busting solution on hand (such as some gentle sticky tape to lift the glitter off the skin with, or some loose face powder to try to brush the glitter off with) when you apply these to clean up all the glitter that will land on your face from these shadows!

I did a “triple flick” eyeliner shape or as I prefer to think of it – drawn on lashes! It’s just a fun way to shake up your eyeliner routine if you’ve gotten into a winged-out rut like me and always wear your eyeliner in the same way but fancy trying something a bit different. The liner I used was 24/7 liquid liner in Smog by Urban Decay which is a lovely deep khaki green shade which complements these particular shadows perfectly.

Finally I patted on a matt peach lipstick – I used Accessoize matt lipstick in Smitten. As you can see from the pic it’s a gorgeous colour but it’s a bit difficult to work with as the dry texture tends to settle into the fine lines of the lips. My solution is to pat it on from the bullet then work it into the lips with a lipbrush, mixing with another creamier orange lipstick if necessary. I think the end result is worth the effort though and it’s the shade that I’ve been reaching for time and again the past few weeks.

First Christmas Make-up of 2012

I was invited to a tree-trimming evening last week at a friend’s and I figured that I might as well do some party make-up. I like to take advantage of any excuse to whack excessive glitter all over my face :)

As a disclaimer, the lousy winter light has been killing my photos lately. Here I had to take photos under artificial lighting with a flash so they’re quite orange and shiny. Just the kind of flattering finish I love lol.

I used eyeshadows from my Accessorize You are Everything palette (silver and purple on the upper lid) and the turquoise from my MUA Dusk till Dawn palette on my lower lash line. Incidentally I’m not wearing any mascara in these photos – my eyes tend to water when I go out in the cold and I didn’t want to end up with mascara running all down my face by the time I got to my friend’s, but I don’t think this look misses mascara too much because I’m wearing so much eyeliner that the lashline stands out anyway.

Both of these palettes are fantastic for creating simple but striking looks as they contain a really good range of well-pigmented colours. Oh and did I mention that you can pick up both of these from selected Superdrugs and go home with change from £15? Definitely worth checking out if you like your bargain eyeshadows.

From the Archives

I haven’t posted anything for almost a month, mostly because it’s been so dark here in London now that winter’s coming that all my photos look really crummy lol, so I thought that I’d post a picture taken a few months back when it was a bit more bright and summery.

Here I’m modelling yet another pair of cat’s ears (I have four now, I get a kick out of collecting them for some reason – these particular ones were Halloween specials from Accessorize) and some peach and green eyeshadow, probably Snatch and Grafitti by Urban Decay.

Stay tuned for some wintery posts coming up this week!

Accessorize Baked Eyeshadow Trio

This is a Christmas gift set that I decided to gift to myself! I’m a big fan of Accessorize make-up already and these colours were gorgeous and a total bargain at £3.99 when I bought them in Superdrug. They’ve since gone up to £5.99 but are part of a 3-for-2 on gifts promotion that’s going to be running for the next several weeks.

right to left: Molten Copper, Golden Caramel, Cosmic Rays

The eyeshadows contain a mixture of shades swirled together in beautiful patterns. I can’t decide if my favourite is Golden Caramel, which looks like the surface of a planet, or Cosmic Rays, which looks like a semi-precious mineral.

left to right: Molten Copper, Golden Caramel, Cosmic Rays

The quality of these shadows is fantastic. They can be applied wet or dry but to be honest I find them so pigmented that I find that they provide an intense finish even when applied dry. Just one word of warning – Cosmic Rays contains a lot of glitter and I did end up with quite a lot of fall out across my face when I applied it. I just tidied up by dusting some powder over my face lightly with a powder brush.

Cosmic Rays is just the kind of shade I like when I want a more intense look – it’s dark, but not black, and it’s quite a complex and interesting shade. To me the way the gold mixes in makes it looks like a blackened green or blue on the skin.

Silver + Purple Quickie

Just have a super quick eyes of the day post to share today. This weekend I wore a really simple silver and purple combination on my upper lids, finished off with some black mascara and pink blush. I didn’t bother with any make-up on my lower lash line.

I used a cream base – in this instance a Shimmering Eye and Lip Crayon by Barry M which, although it does crease slightly, still holds the colour in place on my lids all day long. It’s actually one of my favourite bases because it’s smooth and creamy to apply and it doesn’t dry my skin out. There’s just minor creasing – which personally I don’t mind, it just leaves the make-up looking a bit lived in.

Above: Accessorize eyeshadow in Ultraviolet, Bourjois little round pot eyeshadow in Argent, BarryM Shimmering Eye and Lip Crayon in shade 6 (violet).

What was the last…?

I thought it’d be fun to do a post like this once a month or so where I just do one overview post of the most recent additions to my make-up collection. The main reason is actually to help myself figure out if I’m getting good use out of the things that I’ve been buying, but hopefully it will also be interesting/useful to post a whole bunch of mini-reviews in one go!

Soooo here’s a photo of my newest make-up babies.

Eyeshadow: I’m such an eyeshadow fan that I couldn’t really remember the last one I bought so I’ve included three. One is the MUA Dusk Till Dawn palette and there is an Accessorize baked duo in Venus and Look Beauty triple hit eyeshadow trio in Party Fever. I haven’t used any of these as much as I should have so that’s definitely been interesting for me to realise and I will try to dig these out more. It’s also interesting to note that the duo and trio both contain very similar shades so they’re clearly favourites of mine at the moment for some sub-conscious reason. I think the deep purple in both will be a great staple colour for autumn.

Mascara: Scandaleyes Show Off Mascara by Rimmel

I’m always interested in trying out new high street mascaras when they launch and I thought this one looked pretty cool. I know the bright pink won’t be everybody’s cup of tea but I quite like the packaging. Unfortunately it doesn’t do much for my lashes as the formula just doesn’t want to build up on my stumpy, sparse lashes. However I’m not worried as I will put this aside while I finish off my current mascaras and when it’s dried out and thickened up a bit I’m sure it will actually perform much better for me.

Eyepencil: MUA Intense Eyeliner in Royal Blue

I bought this because 1) I thought the colour was really cool and 2) it was only £1 – wow! That’s even more impressive when you consider that it even comes with its own sharpener in the lid. It’s really soft and intense when applied and also easy to smudge and blend out but I can’t actually remember if I’ve worn it or not yet so I can’t comment on its longevity – eek!  Another one to make more effort to use…

Foundation: Rimmel Wake Me Up Foundation

I don’t actually buy foundation that often so I got this one months ago now but I haven’t needed to buy one since. I tend to have two or three foundations on the go at once and I only really wear it at weekends (I stick to tinted moisturiser during the week just to save time in the mornings). I really like this foundation which I use when I want a dewy finish. It’s quick thick so I only need one pump for my whole face and it’s light to medium coverage.

Blush: MAC mineralize blush in Solar Ray and Mineralize Skin Finish in Star Wonder

I bought these in July and I’ve used them loads so even though they were really expensive I’m happy that I’m getting my money’s worth out of them.  There are also loads of pictures of them on my blog now already as I keep harping on about them and featuring them in my looks posts! The only issue I have is that Solar Ray is a bit powdery and I have trouble getting it to last on my skin which is combination to oily. I have not made a dent in these yet so I think they will last for ages. In fact, I’m probably never going to see the bottom of them as I have so many blushes and love rotating them depending on the weather (yes, really!!)

Lipsticks: No. 7 Stay Perfect lipstick in Glace and Stay Perfect Lip Lacquer in Sugar Mauve

I haven’t really worn the lipstick yet but I wore the lip duo to a party on Saturday and it definitely did the business, staying on through a two-course Indian meal and two pints and a lemonade! It’s a great long lasting lip colour, but it does take ages to apply so I never wear it during the week, although I really want my lipstick to be long lasting when I’m at work. The gloss is quick and easy to apply though as it has a really good brush applicator so I would definitely be able to apply that during the week on my way to work. I have high hopes for the traditionally shaped lipstick therefore, but I have a couple of older ones that I’m trying to finish up first. I bought it as it was on half-price offer but I’m going to avoid buying any more lippies until I get through a few of the ones I have.

That’s it for this month. I feel like it was actually very useful to go through my make-up in this way and I actually learnt a lot so I will hopefully be repeating this exercise very soon!

Everyday Look for Work Summer 2012

I’ve been experimenting with neutral eyeshadows a lot more recently but I still like my flashes of colour so this is a great way to combine both.  It’s also super-quick to throw together, so perfect for work, when I only leave myself about 5 minutes for getting ready in the mornings!

Here’s what I used to create this look…

I don’t bother with foundation during the week and stick to tinted moisturiser instead to save time.  I take out shine down the centre of my face with some powder then whack a light bronzer along my cheekbones (I don’t bother using bronzer to contour and instead just use it to add some colour to my face in the areas the sun would naturally hit first) and a bright blush on my cheeks.

I used Bondai bronzer by Accessorize which I also featured in more detail in my previous post, and my newest MAC blush in Solar Ray (also featured here). There are loads of pictures of it on my blog already but I think it’s really pretty so I’m going to include another one here anyway.

I have oily eyelids so in hot weather I use a silicone based eye primer to make sure my make-up lasts through the working day. The MUA eye primer is a bargain at £2.50 as it works just as well as other much more expensive primers of this type that I’ve tried before.

I can’t cope with more than two shades of eyeshadow for work, it just becomes too complicated for me otherwise. Lately I’ve been using shades 4 & 5 from the top row of the MUA undressed palette – I featured many more pics and details in this post. I use the shimmery brown over my lid to the crease then tuck a bit of the matte brown into the crease with a rounded blending brush.

The hero of this look is in my opinion the amazing green eyeliner – which is now discontinued!!  It’s from the range Glam Metallics by Collection 2000 which were such amazing products that I can’t believe that they were unpopular enough to be discontinued. You get a massive 6ml of eyeliner in the packaging – for comparison most of my other eyeliners are under 2ml.

The brush is thin but the consistency is nice and thick, a combination that makes for a very forgiving application. It’s very waterproof and doesn’t budge on me until I remove it at the end of the day with an oil based eye make-up remover.

Finally, when I’m going to work I tend to finish off my look with mascara and a nude lipstick or gloss on the bus. Actually I have developed the really bad habit of carrying about 15 lip products around with me at all times in my handbag – I think I should start concentrating on finishing off a couple to make my load easier to carry! I know some people hate it when they see people doing their make-up on public transport but I say hey, if it gives you an extra 5 min in bed then I’m all for it.

Some More Accessorize Eyeshadow Swatches

Last week I swatched a bunch of their eyeshadow duos and this week I thought I’d swatch some of their more autumnal shades as we do seem to be getting to that time of the year again (already?  Nope, I don’t know where the time goes either).

These aren’t all the Accessorize eyeshadows I own but they are most of them. I chose these shades to photograph today as they are the more earthly shades which seemed most autumnal to me. Although Accessorize eyeshadows normally retail for £4 each for 2.5g of product I got all of these on special offer so they either came with a set at a reduced price or I bought them on half-price offer for £2.

Truffle

Vintage Rose

Purple Promise

Above left – right: Truffle, Vintage Rose, Purple Promise

Ultra Violet

Teal Tension

Sage

Graphite

Below left – right: Ultra Violet, Teal Tension, Sage, Graphite

All of these shadows have a very creamy consistency (mineral oil is one of the main ingredients). Personally I like the consistency as it’s easy to get intense colour payoff from these shadows but I know some people prefer more powdery eyeshadows as they tend to be easier to start off subtle with and build up. All of these shadows last a full working day on me (I don’t usually wear make-up for more than 12 hours as I tend to wash my face when I get home in the evenings) over a primer.

The formula of Accessorize eyeshadows is very similar to that of the MUA eyeshadows I’ve tried and I’m sure there are similar shades in both ranges, so you may want to compare swatches of both brands if they are both available in store at the same time as the MUA shadows are even cheaper at £1 a pop.

My favourite shades out of this selection are Purple Promise, which is perfect for creating smokey eyes with and in my opinion more interesting than black and Ultra Violet, which is I would call a purple/blue duochrome.  However I know for a fact that it’s practically identical to shades by other budget brands too such as MUA, Colourworks and Sleek, so I would definitely recommend checking your collection first to see if you have something similar before buying this one (I actually discovered it’s identical to the purple shade in my Colourworks palette that I picked up last year). It is definitely a brilliant shade to have though as it’s just so beautiful and perfect for wearing both during the day and in the evening as it’s not so dark that it looks too smokey for the day but also not so light that it’s lost once the lights get turned down low.