Rimmel Waterproof Gel Eyeliner in 004 Deep Blue

I’m not the biggest fan of gel eyeliners but sometimes it’s the only form of eyeliner that comes in the colour that you want.

I was looking for a navy blue eyeliner a few months back but after browsing in Superdrug for a while I gave up on the idea of finding a navy liquid liner (I don’t like felt tip pen eyeliners; only liquid liners that are applied with a brush or felt-tipped applicator dipped into a pot) and decided to give this navy gel offering from Rimmel a try.

I have to say, it’s not cheap with at RRP of £6.49 for a tiny 2g pot, but thankfully I do find the quality to be very good and I’m quite happy with my purchase. The packaging is very familiar to me now as it’s the same as the kind used by MUA and Barry M for their gel eyeliners; a small plastic pot with a screw on lid that contains a built in brush. I find this packaging quite practical and almost always use the brushes. I find it so convenient that you don’t have to hunt around for a clean eyeliner brush to apply your liner with – it’s right there in the lid, safely packed away from dust and dirt.

The liner is quite pigmented and I generally only need one swipe for an opaque line. It lasts all day on me and I have quite oily lids so no complaints there either. The consistency is very thick so it’s very easy to apply.

I’ve found the navy to be a really versatile colour; perfect for when you want to add intensity but avoid the harshness of black or the warmth of brown. In the pics below you can see the liner paired with a cool silver shadow and a more tropical teal and green look.

Cold Remedy

I had a cold last week that really zapped my skin. Here’s the photographic evidence. Eek!

Happily I’ve come up with a winning team of dull-skin busting radiance enhancers that can perk up my look in no time.

Above left – right: Illamasqua Cream Blush in Betray; Rimmel Wake Me Up Concealer, Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation

This is my current favourite foundation - I’ve had it for a few months now, although I only wear foundation at weekends so I estimate it would last four to six weeks if used everyday. The consistency is quite thick and creamy and it offers medium coverage with a radiant finish.

The other two products are new but I think they’ll be very handy over the coming windswept days, rainy nights and whatever winter decides to throw at me this year!

It just takes a touch of this rosy toned cream blusher to add a healthy flush to cheeks. I use my fingers to apply this then blend out at the edges with a duo-fibre brush.

I don’t actually usually wear concealer but I did feel so zapped after my cold that I felt I needed a bit of extra help to restore some life to my skin so I decided to try this for under my eyes and any other areas where my skin was suffering. It promises full coverage, but it’s actually much thinner than the matching foundation! I’ve been applying two layers to my under eye area and dabbing a small amount on any rough patches or particularly gruesome spots – otherwise I’m generally happy with the coverage I get from my foundation. I don’t know that I would particularly recommend this – I’ll have to use it for a bit longer before I can decide whether there are any particular benefits to using this in addition to foundation or if it’s an unnecessary extra product.

My natural lip colour is very pale, so a bright lipcolour is a quick way to perk my whole face up. Today I opted for a Volume Sensation lipstick by Collection 2000 in shade 4 Plum Perfection. It’s not really volumising, but it does have a shiny finish which always tends to plump things up. I really like the colour though. This is quite a cheap lipstick at £2.99 but it’s pretty good quality for the price. You get a medium coverage, shiny finish that lasts about 3 hours on me.

So, putting all that together, here was the final result today. Ah, much more shiny and happy!

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!

Rimmel Stay Glossy Shades for Summer

I hope my title isn’t too misleading; this post isn’t about an upcoming new collection but just a few pics of some lipglosses that I picked up from TKMaxx that I think are nice shades for summer.  I just checked the Rimmel website and only one of the shades (Endless Summer) is listed as currently available but discontinued Rimmel products are quite widely available at a range of discount retailers.

I got a pack of four lipglosses for £7.99 which was a bit of a bargain as they usually retail at over £5 each.  The pack contains three different shades, Endless Summer (x2), Immortal Charm and Summer for Life.

Endless Summer is actually my favourite shade but even so, I don’t know that I’d ever use up two tubes of it so I’ll probably give one away to a friend.  It’s just a nice pinky neutral with a hint of shimmer.  Immortal Charm is a very similar shade while Summer for Life is more orange – although it’s by no means a bright orange and I would still class it as quite a neutral shade.  I would happily wear any of these shades for any kind of daytime look (work or play).

I’m quite a fan of this formula, and while I don’t know about its claims to last up to six hours it does have a nice thick, creamy (non-sticky) consistency that wears on me for two to three hours.  That’s typical wear for a lipgloss for me because I generally can only go for  a couple of hours before I have to drink a cup of tea or coffee or eat some food which of course I wouldn’t expect any gloss to last through!

I also like the applicator of this gloss.  It’s a flocked doe-foot material but the shape is flatter and longer than a typical doe foot and I find that it picks up just the right amount of product, and is also a good fit for my lips being neither too big nor too small.  I’ve put a picture in below just for reference to show the size of the applicator next to the tube itself.

And finally here are some skin swatches – I wasn’t having much luck taking photos of my lips today so I just took some photos of my arm instead.

From left – right: Endless Summer, Immortal Charm, Summer for Life

Halloween Mascara

Well…not really, but that’s what I thought when I saw the packaging on the display so I thought it would be a fun addition to my make-up collection for the autumn.

Scandaleyes mascara by Rimmel, around £7

I thought I’d do a very quick post just to show some pics of the mascara by doing a quick and very unscientific comparison with my hitherto favourite mascara by Rimmel, VolumeMax Bold Curves.  The packaging of both is really bright and garish…I think it does make them look a bit cheap, but it’s also good fun and makes them easy to spot in amongst a big pile of make-up or make-up bag so I have to admit that I quite like it.

Above: top wand – Volume Max Bold Curves, bottom wand – Scandaleyes

The thing I have to say about Scandaleyes mascara is that the wand is absolutely HUGE.  It’s bigger than my eye!  In the top photo you can see the Scandaleyes wand while the photo below is the Volume Max Bold Curves wand.  Sorry the pics are a bit blurry…I took these photos myself and it proved a bit difficult to hold the camera steady whilst attempting to photograph myself applying mascara.

The Scandaleyes mascara has a very “elastic” consistency and it does tend to pull out of the tube with a big blobby strand of mascara on the end of the wand which you have to wipe off before letting the wand anywhere near your eyes.  However the performance is very similar to other Rimmel mascaras and I think it’s really not a bad buy.  The picture below shows my lashes with 2 coats of Scandaleyes mascara – the angle of the shot is not great but really there is not that much to show, my lashes are really so puny there’s only so much that any mascara can do for them.

However I think you can still see that they’ve been bulked up quite nicely by the mascara.

My favourite of the two mascaras is the Volume Max Bold Curves though because the brush is such a great fit for my lashes and it really does bulk them up.  I have had it for several months already though so it could just be that it’s performing better with age as my mascaras generally do, as drier, thicker formulas coat and bulk up my lashes better than runnier ones, so I suspect that in a few months when my Volume Max is starting to dry out my Scandaleyes will just be starting to come into its own.

Glam Eyes HD Eyeshadow Quads by Rimmel

Rimmel used to be my favourite make-up brand when I was a teenager but now pretty much the only product of theirs that I buy regularly is mascara.  They are pretty good at bringing out new products very regularly and I do get suckered into mascara hype pretty easily.  Anyway I hadn’t bought any eyeshadow by Rimmel for years but their new Glam Eyes HD eyeshadow quads were just so cute and eye-catching that I had to pick up a couple.  They come in a Union Jack design with the Rimmel crown logo stamped in the centre.

Glam Eyes HD Quad eyeshadow, rrp £6.99

left: Green Park

right: Purple Reign

These cost £6.99 each which I don’t think is particularly cheap for 2.5g of shadow, but I got them on a 3-for-2 offer and got myself a new mascara as well (had to be done!) which I’ll feature in a different post.  The palettes come with a double ended sponge tip applicator and the back features a guide to how to wear the shadows.  It’s not how I’ll be wearing them but still, maybe useful for some inspiration?  I know many people aren’t fans of this kind of sponge tipped applicator, but I have no complaints about the quality of these as they are perfectly useable and you really will need either them or a small brush to pick up the shadows from this palette as the three non-main shades are contained within such small areas due to the Union Jack design.  I did try to swatch them with my fingertips but it was quite difficult to pick up the colours separately that way.

Above: Green Park swatched

I was pleasantly surprised by the texture of the shadows at first as they seemed much creamier and silkier than the Rimmel eyeshadows I remembered from my teenage years, but I do think they might be just a tiny bit too soft as my green palette crumbled quite badly as I attempted to do some swatches.

Poor eyeshadow :(

I did manage to swatch Puple Reign with a slightly lighter hand though so it didn’t suffer so much.

Above: Purple Reign after swatching

The colours are beautiful, but it can be a bit tricky to get to them.  All the shades are very shimmery and I think the colour schemes are perfect for autumn.  Green Park makes me think of Robin Hood films and the navy and lilac of Purple Reign are particularly stunning so the colours are a definite hit with me, but I doubt I’ll be buying any more due to the texture.  If you’re looking for a fun addition to your make-up for autumn though these could be worth a look - they will definitely add a quirky twist to any dressing table or make-up bag.

Something For the Weekend

This is just a quick post to show you the make-up that I wore today, and my latest must-have accessory…cat’s ears!

I know that is a super-indulgent number of photos of myself but I just think my cat’s ears are so cute ha ha.  I got them on Fri from H&M for £3.99.  They were with the other hair accessories so I don’t think they’re a Halloween line, but I’m not going to be waiting for Halloween to wear them out and about anyway.  I’ll be wearing them from Friday night till Monday morning every week!

I took these photos after getting ready in the afternoon to go out to a jazz concert followed by dinner (incidentally it was a fantastic concert at the South Bank Centre, definitely worth checking out their programme if you’re London-based as they show some really interesting stuff and tickets are very reasonably priced – I paid £12.50 and the concert lasted 2h).  I’m wearing a silvery-blue eyeshadow teamed with some purple in the outer corner and purple eyeliner and, as always, plenty of mascara.  I’m wearing Rimmel Vinyl Max lipgloss which I just posted about here.

Rimmel Vinyl Max Lipgloss

Lipgloss is one of my favourite make-up products as it’s so quick and easy to apply and I have such naturally pale lips that a strategic slick of gloss can really perk up my whole face.  Today I have a couple of snaps to show you of my new Rimmel Vinyl Max lipgloss in shade 131 Dazzle.  These glosses currently retail for just over £5 full price for 8ml making them a fairly average high street buy, and the tag line on the product is “One Stroke Maxi Shine Lipgloss”.

The packaging looks fairly standard, with Dazzle looking a lovely bright pink in the tube.  However the first surprise you get is when you see the size of the doe foot applicator – it’s absolutely massive!  In the picture above it makes the tube itself look tiny but it’s quite large and contains a generous 8ml of product.  The applicator is actually as big as the tip of my thumb:

Here’s how I got on when I applied the product on my lips.  You can see in the second photo that the tip of the applicator is indeed big enough to cover the surface of my lips in one stroke.

Top: nude lips, no product

Middle: applying a thick layer of gloss

Bottom: gloss on both lips

I have to say that in the picture above I am wearing a lot of gloss – the product is actually not very pigmented so in order to get some pink colour pay off I had to apply a really thick layer.  The shine is good though so you will get shine from a thin layer, just no colour, so this product is a safe bet if you like your glosses to glisten rather than be pigmented.

I found the product quite sticky but in spite of this it didn’t last that long on my lips – two hours max with no eating or drinking.  The consistency reminded me a lot of the Rimmel Sweet Jelly glosses which I think are now discontinued and were never a favourite of mine.  The applicator is different to any other I’ve ever tried but to be honest I’m not that big a fan of doe-foot applicators anyway with brushes probably being my favourite form of lip gloss applicator – they pick up plenty of product and allow you to be very precise in your application.  This applicator was also so huge I had to be careful not to get gloss all around my mouth outside my lip line!  All in all I didn’t really like this gloss and I wouldn’t buy it again, but I have had good experiences with other Rimmel lipglosses - their Volume Boosting lipglosses were a particular favourite of mine, although sadly I believe that they were discontinued a while ago (I was really disappointed when I found out as I really loved them!)  I also like their Stay Glossy which has a lovely creamy consistency, is moisturising, and is a dream to wear.  The colour of this Vinyl Max gloss is nice so I will be keeping it in my handbag for everyday wear but once it’s run out I’ll probably pick up a nice bright pink from the Stay Glossy range to replace it with instead.