Everyday Look for Work Spring 2012

This is a look that I’ve worn quite a lot this spring and summer so far.  I like it because although it’s super quick to put together (5-10 min for the full face) it looks really colourful and polished.

Here’s what I used to create the look.  As you can see there aren’t that many products to it.

I used a MAC quad from the Spring limited edition collection Shop MAC called Shop and Drop.  I find that these shadows work best over a non-creamy/sticky primer so I like to use my MUA Professional Eye Primer for this look.  It’s a really great budget primer that currently retails for £2.50 and is available from selected Superdrug stores or their website.

 

I have a few MAC eyeshadow quads from various limited edition collections now but I’m not sure that I’d buy any more. While they may seem at first glance to be good value – four eyeshadows plus a palette for less than the normal cost of four shadows without a palette, there have been issues with the quality of the products in recent MAC limited editions and also it’s only good value if you’re actually going to use all the shades. This is my current favourite MAC quad but I still only use two of the shadows – so not such good value after all really!

I tend to use a flat eyeshadow brush to place Hypnotizing over my eyelids then blend Power Boosted into my crease with a rounded blending brush before adding a couple of coats of black mascara, and that’s it.  I don’t bother with any eyeliner or eyepencil or shadow under my eyes for definition…I think the combination of these colours create a lovely effect just by themselves.

Below: Hypnotizing is a shimmery lilac tinted silvery taupe

Below: Power Boosted is a bright shimmery violet

Above: The finished eye look – colourful and polished, and only takes about five minutes to apply.

I used a light peachy blush with golden shimmer over my cheeks and temples.  One of my current favourites is the central colour from my Sleek Blush by Three trio in Lace.  I mixed it with a tiny amount on the bright coral on the right as well.

Finally I finished off with a slick of light pink lipstick. My everyday lippie at the moment is my H&M lipstick in pink seashell which I’ve posted some more details photos of here.

And that’s it!  Hope you like this look.  I’m always running late in the mornings so I love 5-minute make-up and I’ll be posting some more everyday eyeshadow looks soon!

Shop MAC, Cook MAC: Flaunting It

I am on a MAC cooling-off period at the moment but I did buy a few items earlier this spring that I haven’t gotten round to featuring on the blog yet.  Anyway today I finally got round to taking some pics of one of my favourite items, a Kissable Lip Colour in the shade Flaunting It.

The Shop MAC, Cook MAC products came in special edition colourful packaging…

which I really dislike!  It’s not the design but rather the fact that it’s actually just an additional cardboard sleeve which contains the normal black MAC cardboard packaging anyway and I really dislike excess packaging!  I know I’m not in a good position to start moaning about excess consumption given the amount I shop but still there’s just no need, there’s just no need.

For £16.50 you get 5g of product.  It’s not a lot.  The tube is very thin and comes with a largely unspectacular doe foot applicator.

The texture is very creamy and moisturising, but not at all sticky or thick.  It’s easy to apply using the doe foot applicator and I have to say that it lasts pretty well.  If I pop this on on the bus to work then it sees me through to lunchtime no bother.

I really like the colour, which is a purple/mauve shade that I could see myself wearing all round the year.

All in all I quite like this product but I am I alone in thinking that the pricing is crazy?  I wanted to try it out to see if there was something spectacular about it, but there really isn’t so personally I can’t see myself buying this again.  I know that MAC has a massive fan base and is often described as good value or affordable but personally I really can’t see what all the fuss is about.  Maybe it is more affordable in America where this lip product does not cost three times the minimum hourly wage?  I just don’t know!

Illamasqua Fundamental Palette

This is one of the quad palettes from the Illamasqua Spring/Summer 2012 Human Fundamentalism collection (RRP £30).  I really was umming and ahhing over whether to buy it or not when it was released as I didn’t know if I’d actually get any use out of it, but in the end I was in the London Beak Street shop with a friend (it’s a lovely, friendly place BTW – definitley worth checking out if you would like to try out their products as the staff are super helpful and nice) and I thought I might as well buy it just so I could stop thinking about it!

Above, clockwise from top left: powder shadow in Hype, Liquid Metal in Surge, powder shadow in Inception, Cream Pigment in Bedaub

Below: A collage which you can click on for a closer view of the individual shades

I think I like the idea of this palette more than I like the palette itself.  It contains a mixture of colours and finishes but to be honest I think I just lack the imagination to get the best out of this!  I don’t really know how to put these together into a look and I’ve only really used the cream pigment in Bedaub so far. 

Bedaub’s both a great colour and texture in itself but also makes a great sticky base for glitters or pigements, and can also be used as a pre-foundation colour corrector to neutralise red areas. 

The liquid metal looks absolutely amazing on skin – the name “liquid metal” really fits. However, I just don’t know how to wear it.  It’s very slippery and creases insanely if worn on the moveable part of the eyelid, and it’s a strange colour to wear as an everyday highlighter or lipcolour. 

Hype, the bright yellow eyeshadow, is just a bit of a tricky colour to pull off, while Inception lacks a bit of oomph and can look a bit washed out and create a bit of a “bruised” effect unless it’s packed on.

I think either more experimentation or parties (where as a rule I wear weird make-up!) are required on my part…any hints or tips on this one would also be appreciated!

NARS Eyeshadow Duo in Rated R

I keep thinking this is called Rated X!  What does Rated R stand for anyway?

Anyhow, here’s what you get for your £23.50:

Now THAT’S what I call colour!!  These eyeshadows are seriously bright in the pan.  I bought this because I really wanted a good quality chartreuse eyeshadow and in fact it is my favourite of the two.  I tend to use the blue as a crease colour but I find it difficult to blend, whereas the green I just pack onto my eyelid as a block colour which works just fine.

I used my favourite eyeshadow brush set from Ecotools to create a bright look using Rated R yesterday.  You can see I used a tiny shader brush for the green and a fluffier blending brush to work with the blue.

In all honesty I do find this eyeshadow duo really difficult to work with.  This simple look below took me ages fiddling around with to create a final effect that I was happy with and as you can see it was still patchy in the end.  Bit more green here, bit more blue there, bit of blending, bit more eyeshadow…phew.  While I do think the green is a great colour and just what I was looking for, let’s face it – for £23.50 you really want to end up with an eyeshadow that you love, and I just don’t quite think that I do.

New Sleek i-Divine Palette in BRIGHTS

Sorry if I appear to be shouting in this post title but these colours are so loud I thought they deserved some capital letters!

This is one of two newly launched matte eyeshadow palettes from Sleek, the other being a selection of darker colours.  They are permanent releases so there’s no need to rush out to grab them for fear of them becoming unavailable in the near future; you can take your time to have a think about whether you really want these or not!  I bought both when they were first released as I was in the mood for shopping, but to be honest I’ve only used the Brights palette so far so that’s what I have some photos of today.

As usual the palette comes with a flimsy plastic overlay which probably doesn’t really offer any protection to the eyeshadows anyway but is the only place where the “names” of the shadows are printed.  I say “names” in inverted commas as I’ve noticed that there tend to be dupes between the Sleek palettes but the shadows are always given different names, so it’s totally arbitrary.  I always just chuck the plastic overlay away but for reference here are the colours from left to right:

top row: Chill, Pout, Sugarlite, Dragon fly; Pucker; Bamm!

bottom row: Cricket, Bolt, Strike, Floss, Crete, Pow!

The colour selection in the palette doesn’t have an over-riding theme apart from the fact that all the colours are bright, so that can either be an advantage or a disadvantage for creating looks from this palette depending on your usual make-up style.  For me it’s not a problem as I often wear just one colour on my lids, or one colour with a contrasting or dark eyeliner.

I think the Sleek palettes are a great way to build up a library of eyeshadows as you get 12 shades for around £7, but as Sleek have released so many eyeshadow palettes now there’s also a good chance that you have a few very similar shades in your collection already. If you’re interested in this palette for a few particular shades then it’s worth double-checking that you don’t already have something similar already before spending more buying this palette.

On to some bigger pics and some swatches now:

The quality’s a bit of a mixed bag; some shades are brilliant with great, smooth consistencies and vibrant colour whereas a few shades end up looking just a bit washed out on the skin.  Also the two bright pinks swatch incredibly similarly on skin so it’s almost as if you only get 11 shades in this palette.  The shade I find hardest to work with is Crete, the light grey, which I was a bit disappointed by as I don’t have anything similar in my collection already.  The three massive hits in this palette for me were the three left colours in the bottom row, Cricket (bright green), Bolt (bright royal blue) and Strike (Orange).  I love wearing Strike all over my eyelid paired with Bolt as an eyeliner – I find they make a great fun yet wearable combination for the summer.  I have no problems with longevity when wearing these shadows over a primer.

More Bargains from MUA

I swung by Superdrug last week as I often do for some mid-week make-up treats (my favourite form of retail therapy :) ).  Since MUA Pro had arrived in my local Superdrug at last and since it’s pretty cheap I decided to try a couple more products from the range.

I picked up an eyeshadow primer and mosaic blush in the shade English Rose, both £2.50.

The primer is simply called Professional Eye Primer and comes in a small plastic tube which houses 7.5ml of product and a doe foot applicator.  In the photo above I’ve done a thick swatch and a blended out swatch.  I would always blend this out to a very very thin layer using my finger tips on my eyes and so while the thick swatch can give some idea of the consistency of the product the thin swatch is how it would actually appear when used on skin.  On my skin it becomes invisible though the colour may show up on different skin tones, but the product is not at all visible once eyeshadow has been placed on top.

I’m very, very impressed by this.  It’s similar to Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion – a silicone based primer that’s designed to increase the wear of your eyeshadow by both absorbing excess oil from the skin and gripping on to the eyeshadow itself.  I use the applicator to deposit a small amount of product on my skin, blend it out with a fingertip, wait a minute or so for it to dry then apply my eyeshadow on top.  The consistency is smooth and easy to blend out; I easily get 12 hours wear out of my eyeshadows when I use this which is generally how long I wear make-up for during the day, and it’s a great price so it gets a big thumbs up from me.

I think this blush looks soooo cute!!  The packaging is nothing special but for £2.50 I don’t care at all and I’m definitely happy to keep costs down on some of my make-up – sure I like cute packaging but I’m happy to forgo it for good quality from cheap and cheerful brands.  I just love the colours and shapes in this blush.  The swatch on my finger is pretty heavy and was created by just swirling my finger over all the colours.  When I wear this I actually apply it with a lighter hand using a normal blusher brush but onto the tops of my cheekbones as a highlighter instead of as a blush as it’s very shimmery.  It creates a wonderful silvery pink glow.  I haven’t managed to capture this special glow in a photo yet but I will try to update this post with one if I ever manage to.

These latest two purchases happily confirm MUA Pro as one of my current favourite five brands.  I’m working on a bit of a mammoth post at the moment about all my current favourite products so I will hopefully be posting a long list of products to tickle your fancy with in time for some bank holiday weekend shopping.

Some Eyeliners for Spring

Bored of black eyeliner? 

I am at the moment, so here are the alternative colours that I have been wearing lately.

Clockwise from top left: Fashion Secret Gel Eyeliner in Cute Route by Fashionista (around £6), Precision Ink in Scribe by Illamasqua (around £17.50), Sun Club Gel Eyeliner in BBC All Night Brown by Esssence (around 3 euros) , Metallic Liquid Eyeliner in No. 6 by Barry M (around £4.50)

Cute Route is a bright lilac, with a rather nifty brush built in to the lid.

I actually think the brush is quite good and it’s nice to get a brush with the product for two reasons: you don’t have to buy one if you don’t already have one, and it makes the product much more travel friendly (and after all, liquid eyeliners always come with an integrated brush).  This eyeliner is quite creamy and can be used all over the lid as an eyeshadow but worn that way it creases quite quickly on my eyes so I think it actually performs better as an eyeliner.  It lasts all day on me if worn as an eyeliner, although it is the worst performer in terms of longevity out of the selection of four. All in all I wouldn’t buy this product in a very common colour like brown or black, especially not at £6 which could buy a very good quality eyeliner from another brand, but the range does have some interesting colours so they might be worth checking out if you’re looking for a more unusual shade.

Scribe is Illamasqua’s newest shade of liquid eyeliner and came out with their recent Spring Summer 2012 collection called Human Fundamentalism.  It is a very expensive product but I purchased it for being such an unusual shade – glossy opaque white.  I don’t begrudge the £17.50 for the quality of the product but I do feel that you only get a tiny tiny amount for the price – only 1.8ml.  I think that either the price could easily have been reduced or the quantity increased as I think I will use this up quite quickly (I wear liquid eyeliner very often so it’s one of the make-up products that I do tend to use up).

The product is quite opaque although as you will see in the swatches at the bottom if you are drawing a thin line you may need two coats to reach full opacity.  That doesn’t really bother me though as I have a few eyeliners that require two coats and the product lasts all day on me without flaking or smudging even with two coats. The formula is water-resistant but not waterproof which is great as it doesn’t run when I get watery eyes but also it can be removed easily at the end of the day with some normal make-up remover (unlike so many waterproof products that have to be removed with oil).  The applicator is also my favourite kind for liquid eyeliner; a semi-flexible felt tip that makes drawing flicks and wings a breeze.

I bought the brown gel eyeliner when I was in Germany last year for the Eurovision Song Contest.  There are a few drug store cosmetics brands that are available in Germany that aren’t widely available or available at all in the UK, including this brand, Essence which is available in several European countries and America but not the UK to the best of my knowledge.  This eyeliner was part of their limited edition Summer 2011 collection but they are always putting out new limited edition collections so if you come across one of their stands it’s likely you’ll find some interesting products similar to this.  I do like this eyeliner; it hasn’t dried out at all since I bought it, it has a smooth consistency that’s easy to apply, and I like the golden shimmer the colour has to it.  My only complaint is that it smells very synthetic and chemically, but at least once it’s on my eyes I don’t have to smell it!  I’ve tried some eyeshadows from Essence as well and I have to say that they are very good quality given their low price point.

I like to apply gel eyeliners with a rounded brush like the one below.  It’s just a synthetic haired brush that I got in an unbranded large brush set from e-bay about four years ago.  I find this shape easiest to control for both thin and thicker lines.

This metallic pink eyeliner by BarryM is such an interesting colour.  In the close up below  you can see that it’s actually a micro-glitter suspended in a gel, but the glitter particles are so tiny they give a metallic shimmer effect on the skin.  The applicator is a bit hard but it’s still flexible enough to draw both thick and thin lines.  When this shade is worn as an eyeliner it just seems to light up the eyes somehow…I really love the effect.  Definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in a slightly different kind of eyeliner – and for such an unusual shade I think it’s a total bargain at less than a fiver.

Finally here are some swatches on my skin.  I think it’s a nice little colour selection for spring and it makes a nice change to my usual black, blue and green eyeliners.

BarryM Body Glitter Gels and Some Fun Jewellery from Brighton

Just in case you haven’t noticed yet I looooove glitter so when I saw these little sparkly pots for just £2.99 each in Topshop the other week I couldn’t resist.  I usually buy BarryM products in Superdrug but I don’t recall having seen these in any of my local stores which I why I bought them in Topshop instead (the huge Topshop flagship store on Oxford Street sells several different brands of cosmetics and accessories on the ground floor in addition to its own Topshop ranges).

The product is called Body Glitter and it comes in various shades and designs.  They’re available in a range of shades and I picked the two that contained tiny shapes – one with silver stars and one with red hearts, both suspended in an iridescent glitter gel.  I know that you can also buy these tiny glittery shapes loose but I like this glitter gel as it makes them super easy to apply.

I took a few photos from different angles to try to capture some of the effect of the glitter .  The gels are quite concentrated so you do get a lot of shapes even when you pick up just a small amount of gel, and it’s also quite buildable so it’s easy to keep adding more product until you get the effect you desire.

My eyes were a bit sore today so I decided not to wear any eye make-up and just glam my cheeks up with a bit of glitter instead.  I think this is such a fun product as you just need a tiny amount to create a high impact party look - I simply took a bit of product on a finger tip and dabbed it across one of my cheekbones and temple.

Above: dewy foundation, shimmery blush, and BarryM Glitter Gel – 5 minutes to a fun glitzy spring time look!

Admittedly the effect can look like a strange spotty skin condition and dandruff (if you get glitter in your hair) from a distance, but I promise that it’s very pretty when it catches the light!  I enjoyed wearing this today anyway and I’ll definitely be wearing it again.  It was easy to apply and didn’t really flake off, although it would if you touched your face a lot.  It washes off easily with warm water.  I would also just add to be careful not to get any in your eyes as the edges of the stars and hearts would definitely poke a bit – ouch!

In the photos above I’m wearing one of the new pairs of earrings I picked up yesterday.  I went with a couple of friends for a day trip to Brighton which is full of quirky clothes and jewellery shops and I picked up some earrings from a fair trade shop.  I really like fair trade jewellery as it’s often made from natural or recycled materials, it’s creative and it’s usually very well hand made.

I got a pair of bicycles made from wire and a pair of dragonflies made from  tin cans.  There was also some information on the packaging about the community of artists who had made the jewellery.  These were £4 each – which is really good value considering the quality and detail of the designs.  If you like costume jewellery then it’s definitely worth having a scout around a Fair Trade store as there are some lovely designs out there and the stock is constantly rotating too so there’s always something new to pick up.

I also bought this rather sparkly butterfly cuff from a small jewellery store as it was only £12 which I thought was a good price for all the detailing.  It’s inlaid with a ton of glitzy stones in an array of bright colours.

I am so easily suckered in to buying new costume jewellery, even though I know that I have so much already.  I really have to get better at remembering to wear it every day so that I can enjoy what I have more!

My MAC almost-quad for Spring 2012

I decided to start filling up a customisable MAC quad eyeshadow palette as I’d read time and time again that the quality of their limited edition palettes wasn’t as good as their permanent eyeshadow line so I felt it was time that I started investigating the best that MAC had to offer.  Debenhams were running one of their 10% off beauty products promotions a few weeks ago (they actually run them quite often; every other month or so – I use the Money Saving Expert website to help keep track) so I decided to use the opportunity to stock up on some more eyeshadows (my biggest beauty weakness – I always lose my head when I’m confronted with all the pretty colours!)  In the end I could only decide on three shades for my quad palette though so here’s what I ended up with:

Clockwise from top left: All that Glitters; Passionate; Beautiful Iris

The empty palette normally costs £6.50 and the eyeshadow refills £10 but I got 10% off so I paid £32.85 in total.  Filled MAC eyeshadow quads which are released as part of their limited edition collections currently retail for £35 full price (or £31.50 with 10% off), so I paid as much as I would have for four limited edition eyeshadows, but at least I had the guarantee that all of these shadows were tried and tested good performers (as according to my beauty blog research!)

I wanted to try All that Glitters as the neutral shade in my quad to offset the brights and although it’s actually quite a nice eyeshadow I don’t personally like it that much and it’s my least favourite of the three.  It does have a lovely texture (hard, so not crumbly, but also creamy and smooth to apply) but the colour just does nothing for me.  I also think the name is kind of stupid to be honest!!  All that glitters is not gold…so why not just call it something related to bronze or copper then?! With a name like that I just feel that it should be super sparkly!  Anyway I digress.  On to the swatches.

Top row shadows applied to bare skin; bottom row shadows swatched over a creamy base. L-R All that Glitters; Passionate; Beautiful Iris

All that Glitters gives the best coverage while Passionate and Beautiful Iris are a teeny bit chalky though they apply well enough over a primer.  Passionate is just the shade of pink I was after – it looks great as a block colour applied all over the lid but is also bold enough to create good definition when worn in the crease.  Beautiful Iris merely continues my obsession with all shadows of any sort of lilac/purple, and does impart quite a strong colour when applied over a base (though it appears very faint when worn alone).  However given that I paid £9 for this it does look similar enough to my £4 Accessorize eyeshadow in Iris that I really could have gone without it, oh well.

I was toying with the idea of a lime green/chartreuse shade for the fourth colour but to be honest there wasn’t a particular MAC shade that caught my eye so I ended up ordering the NARS eyeshadow duo in Rated R instead which there’s a photo of me wearing in this post.  So at the moment I don’t have any concrete ideas on which shadow to complete my quad with – so do let me know if you have any suggestions for me!

Chilled Pink Grapefruit trends for SS2012

I don’t obsessively follow beauty trends from the catwalk (after all, there’s not much point to trends other than to get consumers to spend more money on new products!) but I do like to swap the make-up colours and products that I wear every couple of months just to stave off boredom with my look.  So sometimes I’ll take inspiration from catwalk fashion and beauty trends but a lot of the time I just have an idea about a theme that I fancy developing in my make-up and I’ll swap my make-up bag around or pick up new products based on that.

So for spring/summer 2012 I think I will be mostly wearing:

• red blushes (usually I swap to pink blushes in the spring but I felt like something different this year)
• glitter – mainly on my eyes and cheeks
• fake tattoos – for commitment free fun
• colourful cut crease eyeshadow looks – I’ve been wearing this kind of look as my go to everyday look for the past couple of weeks and really like the impact you get from just a tiny bit of colour.  Will post some looks soon.
• zingy bright eyeshadows – my current favourite shades are violet, lime green and royal blue.  Bright colours make me think of warmer weather so I’m being optimistic and getting into colour already!
• baby blue eyeshadow – I probably like it because it’s the original beauty no-no!  I remember when I was a teenager magazines advised not to wear blue eyeshadow because it was what grannies wore, ha!  But even if that’s true, who says that grannies don’t have good taste anyway? Vintage fashions are always coming back with a vengence.

And I think that that’s definitely enough to keep me entertained until well into the summer months.

Tree Hugger nails

I bought a ton of new make-up this weekend…but don’t worry, I actually broke my New Year’s Resolution not to buy more make-up ages ago so all my guilty feelings are out of the way already ha ha.  I thought I’d start working my way through posting about my new goodies with a quick post on one of the new nail varnishes that I picked up.

Every spring I always go on the hunt for the perfect green nail varnish.  Ideally I’m looking for a pistachio, but this shade from China Glaze looked like good fun and only worked out at £5 thanks to a special offer (there’s a Sally’s Hair and Beauty on Shaftesbury Avenue in Soho that has a limited range of China Glaze polishes) so I decided to pick it up anyway even though my search for my ideal green goes on.

I only discovered China Glaze polishes in December but now I have five shades and a topcoat and I’m becoming a big fan.  They’re probably my second favourite brand of nail polish after BarryM even though the quality of China Glaze is slightly better but you have to love BarryM for their amazing range of colours at only £2.99 a pop (China Glaze costs around twice as much).