Homemade Natural Lip Scrub/Treatment

Winter can be a b*tch on the lips! Mine are all cracked and sore at the moment, like many others I'm sure. So I whipped up this little lip treat to sort them right out. It's so cheap and simple and you will probably have both the ingredients in your kitchen cupboard.

I used a small clear ramekin and added a couple of teaspoons of sugar to it, I then very slowly added olive oil until the sugar was coated but not so that there was any excess hanging out in the bottom. And it's as simple as that. For an extra zing you can add a small drop - only a drop! of food flavouring, I added strawberry. Then it's as simple as giving your lips a good scrub with the mix and licking it all off after. You could rise with water as well if you didn't want to eat it. Below are a few before, during and after pictures to show the comparison.

Before

During

After

As you can see my lips look smoother and more moisturized in the last photograph. This is will the help of olive oil, which is known for it's softening effects. This mix should last a few days at least, but keep it in the fridge and covered to be on the safe side. Also if made in a larger batch it would make a good scrub to use on you legs after shaving. Also DON'T replace the sugar with salt, it will sting, and it will taste bad, just a heads up.

Sorry for the rather short post today, it's been a rather hectic weekend, but hopefully in the week coming I will crack out another bird inspired look, a review of the ELF eye transformer palette, some swatches of my favourite urban decay shades and more!
So stay tuned, hope you all have an awesome awesome week and don't take life to seriously!

Birds of Colour: Kingfisher Look

Today comes the turn of another bird inspired look. I chose this bird because of the interesting blue/green and orange colour combination. Barry M do a greeny dazzle dust called Kingfisher, I couldn't help but to use it here! I'm trying to do different styles with all the bird looks, so here I used a winged cut crease. It's not something I'd wear during the day, but I will probably keep it on to meet up with some friends tonight. Sorry for the really posey photo, I don't really have an excuse for that hehe. So below are a couple of photos of how the look turned out.

PRODUCTS USED
Eyes
ELF Eyelid Primer
Sleek Acid Palette - bright orange colour (lid)
Urban Decay 24/7 Eye Pencil in Flipside (to cut crease)
Barry M Dazzle Dust in 78 - Kingfisher (crease)
Make Up Academy Eye Shadow in shade 7 (crease)
Barry M Dazzle Dust in 20 - Baby Blue (highlight)
Rimmel Kohl Eye Pencil in 031 - Jungle (wings and liner)
Barry M 3-in-1 Intense Black Mascara
Face
Bourjois Correcting Concealer in 53 - dark radiance.
ELF Natural Radiance Blusher in Glow
Lips
Maybelline fruity gloss in 808 - peaches 'n' cream

I decided to keep the lips and blush quite subtle and more natural as the eyes a rather dramatic and I didn't want to distract attention away from them.

Hope you enjoyed the look if theres any birds you specifically wanted an inspired look on then leave a comment below, next up will be either penguin or bird of paradise, so keep your eyes peeled for them. Have a good night, ciao.

Accessorize Merged Blusher Review/Swatches

I've manged to have a good play with this product now so thought I would get onto a review. The shade I've got is 1 - Bombshell. I would describe it as a peachy brown. Depending on where you brush your brush through the blusher it can occasionally pick up a tiny tiny hint of pink in your blusher.

The product itself cost £5.50 for an 8g pot. Compared to other blushers I have there's quite a lot of product for your money. The packaging is pretty simple, a clip shut plastic case, but does it's job. It does have some cute butterflies on the outside which is nice.

As you can see it's domed shaped in the pot, and plenty big enough to get your brush in. There are different shades running throughout but this doesn't create a patchy effect. The photographs above are showing up accurate on my monitor, so shouldn't be far off on yours. It is slightly shimmery but not excessively, so if your more of a matte blusher person give it a look before you dismiss it as not for you, especially if you like the colours they do. Below are some swatches.

One the left is just one swipe on the blusher onto the arm, just to give an idea of the pigmentation and shade. On the right I've blended the colour out with a blusher brush (ELF Complexion Brush) to give a better idea of the colour it will give on the face. Below is quick photo of the blush applied to the cheeks, I think for me it's maybe a bit too dark in shade but applied very lightly it can be got away with. I think it would be more suited to people with a darker skin tone or with a nice tan. I have found that it doesn't last all day, but a quick top up on your lunch break is all thats needed.

Other products used-

Bourjois Correcting Concealer in 53 - dark radiance
17 Eyeliner in Onyx
Sleek Eye Drama Waterproof Mascara
Accessorize Merged Eyeshadow in shade 1 - Gunmental (crease)
Urban Decay Eyeshadow in Drifter (lid)
The Body Shop Brazil Nut Lip Butter

There are a few other shades available, but the ones I saw were mainly pink shades, this one seemed like the different one to me, so I was drawn towards it. Overall good product, not too pricey but make sure your careful when applying if you have a pale skintone like me.

Grab a Bargain! and an update on the No7 eyeliners.

Ok so The Body Shop have some great deals going on at the moment. But one in particular has grabbed my eye, the are doing 50% off masks and exfoliators online until 12 noon on February 1st. They are also doing free shipping as well at the moment, but I think this only lasts until the end of the month. Needless to say I caved and made a small purchase. I placed an order for the Honey & Oat 3-in-1 Scrub Mask, Seaweed Pore Cleansing Facial Exfoliator and Tea  Tree Blackhead Exfoliating Wash.

All 3 images from The Body Shop website

I haven't tried any of the products before however I have tried and liked this brands products before, so thought I'd take advantage of the offer to try a few new bits and maybe find myself a nice staple exfoliator.

And just a small update on the No7 Eyeliner set I reviewed a few days ago. If you can remember I said that they had very good staying power and were advertised as being waterproof. Well after doing the review I did the washing up and rinsed my hands a couple of times, along with drying with a towel and the product was still visible on my hand! Not perfect but still I was impressed enough to show you a quick before and after shot.

Before

After

As you can see there is fading especially with the silver but overall very impressive. 

Barbie Inspired Look

I'm not entirely sure what the inspiration for this is, it just sort of came to me that I was blonde so a barbie look would be good. Not completely off logic I guess.
Anyway I wanted a bright pink lip and a more subtle yet girly eye so opted for a pink/purple smoky look. Below is a photograph of the whole look and then a close up of the eye. It was actually fairly easy to do, so if anybody wanted a photo tutorial of this look then let me know and I will redo the look for you :)

PRODUCTS USED-
Face
The Body Shop Oil Free Balancing Foundation SPF15 in 01
The Body Shop Pressed Face Powder in 01
Benefit It Stick
Accessorize Merged Blusher in 1 - Bombshell (whole cheek)
Maybelline Pure Blush Mineral in 40 - Quartz Peach (apples of cheek only)

Eyes
Urban Decay Primer Potion
Collection 2000 Poptastic Eye Palette bright pink shade (lid - underneath)
The Body Shop Pink Champage Eye Colour (lid - ontop)
Make Up Academy Eyeshadow in shade 13 (crease, wing, top liner and blended into outer corner of bottom lashline)
No7 Metallic Eye Pencil inSmoky Purple (bottom lashline)
ELF Eye Transformer Palette pink shade (highlight)
Barry M Intense Black Mascara
Sleek Eye Drama Waterproof Mascara

Lips 
Barry M Lipliner in Fuschia (all over lip - underneath)
A sheer pink lipgloss (all over lips - on top)


As always I am happy to review any products used. If you don't have the products used just use what you have and blend different colours over each other as I did with the pink lid, just make sure the colours even and you haven't mixed a colour you don't want!

What about a greens and browns Action man look to match?

No7 Mini Metallic Eyes Pencil Set in Smoky Jewels Review

No7 Mini Metallic Eyes Pencil Set in Smoky Jewels what a mouthful!! They cost me £13.50 from boots.  They have incredible staying power and are so creamy and soft! I wore the Smoky Blue one to work yesterday and it lasted all day without even the smallest slipping or smudging. Lets just say from all the eyeliners I have tried, this is the first time I've had this. I'm trying to think something not so good to say about this product to balance out the review a bit, but I really can't think of any. They do take around 10 minutes to 'set' so be careful with your eyes after just applying as to not smudge the pencil, but after they've set their solid. The only slight drawback is that they're waterproof so won't work well on the waterline, but I'd rather have waterproof than be able to put it on my waterline, personal preference I think with that one. So after bigging them up so much I'll have to show you the pencils and  swatches. Sorry a few of the pencils have been used, I couldn't control myself not to use them before taking pictures.

Top-Bottom: Smoky Peacock, Smoky Blue, Smoky Gold, Smoky Purple, Smoky Platinum.

Above are the pencils, they are smaller sized than normal so I have shown a 1p coin as well for size comparison. I like that they have coloured lids and a black pencil, slightly more sophisticated whilst still easy to tell what shade is what. As you can see from the photos there's a good range of colours. Only problem is I want a black now, because I love the formula. Below are the swatches on bare skin, I went over each one a couple of times and got this amount of pigmentation out of them.

Smoky Platinum - A true metallic silver, maybe on the darker side. With a subtle cool toned undertone.

Smoky Purple - Again a metallic shade, quite plummy and dark. I have a lot of purple eyeliners but I wouldn't say this is particularly similar to any I already own, so to me a unique shade.

Smoky Gold - Quite a dark antique gold colour with undertones of green. Would look good with a green smoky eye, but probably going to be the least loved of the set, I don't suite gold very well.


Smoky Blue - This one is probably the least metallic of the set, maybe even steering more towards only having a slight shimmer. A cross between a sapphire and navy blue in colour.

Smoky Peacock - The only one to have a slightly original name, this is slightly brighter than shown up by the camera. A beautiful beautiful colour. With a hint of blue making it a rich green.

Overall I am very impressed with this set, definitely worth the £13.50 I payed for it, which if have done my maths right is £2.70 per liner! I will be using the Smoky Purple pencil in a look I have created and will be posting it later on this evening, so keep tuned!

Saturday Haul/ First Impressions! No7, Accessorize and MUA.

After work today I met up with one of my close friends for a bit of make-up shopping! I have got some lovely new products and so great discoveries and bargains. Which I will run through in a minute.Which I thought I'd share with you with the plan to review them all in the not too distant future. First up is my haul photo. I bought from three brands MakeUp Academy (MUA) No7 and Accessorize.

From Accessorize I bought (clockwise from top left) Merged Blusher in 1- Bombshell, Merged Eyeshadow in 1 - Gunmetal, Icon Eyeshadow in 2 - Ultra Violet, Merged Eyeshadow in 8 - Molten Copper. I payed between £4.00-£5.50 for these products at Superdrug. First impressions are the Merged products are very very pigmented. I got a bit of a shock with the blusher and looked a bit clown like at first, make sure your light handed with this one. The icon shadow isn't as pigmented but still pretty good. Overall as a brand I am very impressed and will certainly be going back for more. I need to try the lipglosses they smell so good!

Below is my biggest bargain of the day I payed £1.98 yes thats right, not a typo for the 6 MUA eyeshadows below!! My superdrug had an offer of 3 in a pack for 99p, I'm not sure if their doing this nation wide or just in my local store, but keep an eye out in case. From the top green clockwise we have shade 5, shade 13, shade 9, shade 4, shade 6, and shade 7. I don't like that they don't have names, but for the value you can't really complain. I would say the pigmentation is variable, as is the texture so well worth having a go with the testers if you plan on buying any MUA products. Overall I am pleased and will use the products, there are some really lovely shades included in my haul, the dark purple is probably my favourite, it will make a stunning purple smokey eye, I can picture it in my head right now!

And lastly but most certainly not least there is the No7 Mini Metallic Eyes Pencil Set in Smoky Jewels, Firstly I just need to say wow! The colours included are - Smoky Platinum, Smoky Gold, Smoky Blue, Smoky Peacock and Smoky Purple. I can't find any of these colours individually on boots website, so I think the colours themselves may be limited edition as well as the set, but don't quote me on that! They are all pretty dark colours, but you can definitely see the colour in them, really soft and pigmented too. I haven't properly tested the wear of them yet, but the swatches on my hand aren't budging! But I shall probably be wearing them tomorrow to try them on the eyes. These are limited edition, but I don't know how long for. I will try them out over the next couple of days and try and get a review up for you before they stop selling them. They cost £13.50 for the set, which again is great value. There are two other sets available called Smoky Golds and Blacks and Candy Cane, but neither of these really caught my eye.

I will be getting round to reviewing most of these products in full, but if there's anything in particular that you wanted reviewing, then leave a comment below and I'll do that one for you first :)

Birds of Colour: Peacock Look

Heya guys, sorry I've been a bit slow on the posts this week, I've gone back to uni and am drowning in assignments as well as trying to find myself a job for next year! So anyway I have taken a break to show you this peacock inspired look, I've mainly focused on the greens and incorporated a bit of blue in there too. I know it's a bit unwearable but I've posted a toned down and more wearable version at the end, which I actually wore to my boyfriends last night and he actually commented on my make-up! Very honorable for a guy! Anyway enough rambling and onto the pictures.

This is the full look above and then the toned down but still dramatic look below. For a list of products used, scroll on down. 

PRODUCTS USED
Face 
ELF All Over Cover Stick (Ivory)
The Body Shop Pressed Face Powder
Maybelline Pure Blush Mineral (40 - Quartz Peach)
Eyes
Urban Decay Primer Potion
Urban Decay Home Grown Eyeshadow (lid)
Sleek Original Palette top row second and third from the right (crease)
Sleek Original Palette top row third from left (outer corner)
ELF Eye Transformer Palette green shade (highlight)
Sleek Ink Pot Eyeliner Gel in Dominatrix (wings)
ELF Liquid Eyeliner (ends of wings)
Rimmel Kohl Eye Pencil in Jungle (inner corner of eye)
Collection 2000 Blue Mascara
Lips
ELF Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Strawberry (underneath)
ELF Super Glossy Lip Shine in Angel (ontop)

As always if you wanted to recreate this look you don't have to use the exact same products, use what you have and have fun with your make-up!

If anybody wants a review of any products used today or in my other posts then give me a shout in the comments box below and I will put one up for you. Ciao.

Lush Its Raining Men Shower Gel and Honey I Washed the Kids Soap Comparison

This year for valentines Lush has come out with some quality products as usual. So far I've only picked up Its Raining Men Shower Gel. In the photo below I have 100g of the soap and shower gel. It is available to buy now as limited edition, I haven't seen a date for when it stops, but lush usually stop limited edition items when they've sold out. The gel is described on Lush's website as


"A new honey and lotus flower shower gel for hair and body. It smells like toffee-fudge, with refreshing sweet orange and bergamot oils to give it a little extra sweetness for you or your Valentine."

It's supposedly got the same fragrance as the famous Honey I Washed the Kids Soap. To me I can smell a difference, but not a huge one. The shower gel is less sweet, so maybe slightly more suitable for men. I think both leave a similar softness on the skin, which is surprising as I tend to find soaps more drying, much it's got a lovely creamy formula. Also I think the soap leaves a stronger scent on the skin. If I had to choose between the two I'd go with the soap. I can smell it wafting around me whilst writing this!

So to go into more detailon the shower gel it has a creamy texture, but not a thick texture, I would say medium consistency. So not hard to get out the bottle, like some lush shower gels can be, especially when in the smaller, thicker bottles. Although it may be when getting down to the last uses. I'll get back to you on that. You can buy them online and instore from Lush in 100g (£4.25), 250g (£7.95) and 500g (£14.25) bottles. Lush can be pricey but they have lovely natural ingredients, don't test on animals and have great policies on packaging. I you haven't already, check out one of their shops and have a sniff around, it took a while for me to be brave enough to go in, but I've never looked back. I have been converted!


Whats your favourite lush product?

Stunning Shades - Fyrinnaes Biker Chick

I was looking through my make-up stash last night at all the beautiful colours and pigments I have. I thought they could do with some well deserved love, which is why I'm showing you this one today. It's called Biker Chick and comes from Fyrinnae, they're one of my favourite companies with stunning and unique shades. But this isn't a review as such so I won't be going into that too much. Below is a sample I bought from their online store, it's a matte black shade filled with small bright blue sparkles. They're website says it's closed till Febuary so I can't check the size and price but it was somewhere between $1-2 and comes in the plastic normal sample jars.

Heres the product swatched, the top one is just over primer (ELF Eyelid Primer) and the bottom one using Pixie Epoxy also. If you haven't heard of or used Pixie Epoxy (also from Fyrinnae)before you can see it's effects below, it holds onto the shimmer and glitters in shadows, making them appear more vibrant and creating less fall out. This is probably in my top 5 all time favourite products. You only need a tiny amount or it can create creasing. For the swatches I patted the product on as opposed to sweeping it on as this helps the colour to be more intense and hold the glitter in. You can get a similar effect as Pixie Epoxy by using a damp brush to apply the shadow.  I like using it on my lid for a dramatic look with paler blues blended into the rest of the eye or in the outer corner for a more subtle look. 

I quite liked doing this post, I think I may have to delve into some of my Barry M and Urban Decay and show some of the amazing colours I've bought recently, to give you an idea of the products around at the moment.

ELF All Over Cover Stick Review

 

Above is the photo of the All Over Cover Stick from ELF it costs £1.50 like all of the normal range. Not to be confused with the All Over Colour Sticks, very similar name, confusing much? Note that the brush and cover stick were bought separately, I just wanted to show the brush I use with it. Anyway you get 4g of the product, which is more than some concealers such as Benefits It Stick which has 2.4g. Whilst we're talking about the It Stick I must say that the two are comparable. The It Stick is smoother to apply, but not massively. the All Over Cover Stick is a better buy in my opinion as it is much much cheaper. It twists up from the packaging so you can apply it directly to the face, with your fingers, or with a brush. I would suggest not using it directly to the face, too much product comes out, I've found using a brush best as you can blend it into your skin and around your nose easily (I use the Bamboo Concealer Brush by ELF).

I much prefer it to the tone correcting concealer ELF does, but I think thats down to personal preference, I don't like liquid concealers. My colour is Ivory, I originally tried Light Beige but it was much too orange for me, there are a fair few shades included, including a darker colour for the dark skinned  ladies. One thing I don't like about this product is the horrible fake orange smell in it. ELF please take the horrible scents out of your products! Oh and a quick warning, their websites suggest it can be used as an eyeshadow base, DON'T! it creases horribly.

My dreads look so short in that photo?! I have taken a photo showing the cover stick on only one side of my face for comparison. The left of the photo has just the All Over Cover Stick on and the right is bare skin. As you can see the redness in the cheek area and around the nose and the darkness under my eye are greatly reduced on the left. It has actually slightly reduced the shininess as well, especially on the cheek near the nose. The differences are greater in real life, but my camera has a thing against showing redness, which is usually good, but doesn't help so much in this case! As for longevity, it lasts well under foundation, but I have yet to try it alone through the day yet.

So overall as with most ELF products good value for money, but horrible smell. I know I've been reviewing a lot of ELF recently I wanted to get through some of the products I liked from my recent haul, but I promise something else tomorrow and one or two more of the looks from the Bird series this week, which currently trying out. And few other ideas up my sleeve for the next few weeks. Anyway it's my bedtime, night night :)

ELF Shimmer Eyeliner Review and Swatches

 Good Evening guys.  In texture these a reasonably soft, but do drag very slightly on the eye. These slip a bit throughout the day, although I must say my eyes are very prone to making liners slip. I am very pleased to say that they have no scent in them like other ELF products do, thumbs up for that. As you can see they come with a sharpener in the lid. A lot of people have said they don't like these as they become messy, I've used them a couple of times and mine seem to be fine. If they did become a bit messy I'd suggest a damp cotton bud would do the trick. I actually quite like them, saves taking a sharpener away with you, every bit of room saved makes room for something else, right?! For the £1.50 price, you get a weight of 1.4g. 

They're both shimmery, but neither have any chunky glitter in, bonus! Iconic Ivory is a very pearl like colour and doesn't have a sheen of any other colours in it. Plum Passion has a slightly pinky undertone to it in some lights when swatched, but if your not a pink person don't let it put you off as it's definitely a purple.

Below is Iconic Ivory and Plum Passion on the eye, with no eye shadow. For me I don't use Iconic Ivory as a liner as seen in the picture I use it more as a highlighter (inner corner and browbone) blended out.

There are lots of other colours available, Gunmetal, Grassy Green and Twinkle Teal are really catching my eye. Theres also a small selection of pastel colours, a bronze and a black as well. But I haven't tried any of these yet. In conclusion, good value for money, but not the best product on the market there is some sliding throughout the day. 

L-R: Iconic Ivory, Plum Passion

Thanks for reading my post, I hope you found it interesting, but if you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask, Thanks again, H :)

FOTD - Greens

Just a quick one today, mainly using Fyrinnae and a few other bits, I love Fyrinnae, I really need to do another order! As usual all the products used are listed below, today the photos were actually taken in natural light, I really must do this more often. Also I've been having a peek around at the upcoming Mac Wonderwoman collection, I think I'm sold on the packaging alone, it's blue and red and bright and fun. Reminds me of my childhood.

 PRODUCTS USED:
Face
Bourjois Correcting Concealer (shade 53 I think, the tubes confusing!)
The Body Shop Oil Free Balancing Foundation SPF 15 (shade 01)
The Body Shop Pressed Face Powder (shade 01)
ELF Natural Radiance Blusher on cheeks (Glow)
ELF All Over Colour Stick on apples on the cheeks (Golden Peach)
Eyes
ELF Eyelid Primer
Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy
Fyrinnae all over lid (Warrior Mage - from the Arcane Magic Collection) 
Fyrinnae in the crease (Japan)
Urban Decay in outer corner (Jabberwocky from Alice in Wonderland Palette, Oil Slick in normal range)
ELF Eye Transformer Palette as a highlight (the green shade)
Urban Decay 24/7 Eye Pencil on top and bottom lash line (Flipside)
Boots 17 eye liner on outer corner of bottom lash line (Onyx)
Sleek Eye Drama Waterproof Mascara (Black Out)
Lips
ELF Super Glossy Lip Shine (Angel)

The Warrior Mage colour by Fyrinnae is much more multi-dimensional in colour than shown in the picture here, it has small pale blue glitter particles in it, such a beautiful and complex shade.
 
If anybody wants a review or swatch of any of the products used then please leave a comment in the box below, thank you :)

The Body Shop Twilight Eye Palette Review

Hey guys, I've had a few days break to catch up on some work and I'm glad to be back in make-up world. I'll try not to ramble on for too long today. I thought I'd do a review of the body shops twilight palette, which was limited edition for christmas/winter. I managed to get mine in the January sales for a bargain of £5 I'm unsure of the original price but I think it was somewere between £12-£15. This is no longer available online, but if your lucky you may be able to find one in store. So basically as the picture shows it's packaged in a sturdy gunmetal coloured cardboard case, which folds shut with a magnet. Much like the Collection 2000 palette I reviewed a few days ago.

Belows the sticker depicted on the back of the packaging naming the colours. Also here it states the sizes of the eyeshadows as 1.8g and the cream highlighter as being 1g.

And here are the colours themselves.  They are pretty true to real life. So first to the eyeshadows, I think they're really nice colours, not neutral, but not in your face bright either. Very everyday shades. The colour pay off isn't amazing, they do need a couple of coats to get the colour wanted, but they are very soft and smooth colours to work with. Not so soft I fear them breaking though, just good enough to do the job. Violet Sky is probably my favourite of the 4 it works really well as a crease colour with brighter purples such as Accessorizes Iconic Eyeshadow in Ultra Violet and Makeup Academys Eye Dust in shade 2. I think these colours need a primer underneath for them to last, I haven't actually worn them without, but the swatches on my hand became muted pretty quickly just sat at my computer. The cream highlighter in pearl really does look just like a pearl, like a very pale whitey silver. I stupidly forget to get a swatch of this one, so sorry for that. It comes out pretty sheer, but thats what I like in a highlighter. It has very very tiny particles of glitter in it that make it shimmer in the light, a really nice effect.

L-R from top: Violet Sky, Damson Velvet, Lilac Mist, Pink Champagne and a cream highlighter in Pearl on the right.

Onto the swatches, over ELF's Eyelid Primer. As you can see they're not intensely pigmented, but are nice shades, all of them having a shimmer to them. I'm a fan of any eyeshadow that has some shimmer in it as you are probably slowly finding out! They are very soft though and slightly chalky causing a small amount of fallout on application. As you can see here Pink Champagne makes a very good highlight shade and I have pulled this palette out a few times to use it as a highlight. This palette actually includes a group of colours that can all be pulled together to create a look, which is a bonus if you travel or spend the night away from home a lot.

L-R : Violet Sky, Damson Velvet, Lilac Mist, Pink Champagne

Overall this palette has some lovely colours, was good value for money (I got it in the sale!) and I will use it. There are a couple of negative points, but these can be overcome such as fallout and a couple of coats needed to get a full colour. But I'm not one to say no to a palette, especially an eyeshadow one, I'm a bit of an addict for the smaller palettes!

ELF Lipsticks Review and Swatches

I'm gradually working my way through reviewing some of my recent ELF Haul, todays turn is the lipsticks I have one of the main line ones and also a mineral one. As you can see the packaging is different, I prefer the black mineral case It's more classic and looks less cheap, saying that both tubes seem sturdy enough to hold the lipstick. Both have labels on the bottom saying the name, which is very important to me.

Top-Bottom: Barely Bitten, Seductive

 I'd say that Seductive is sheerer however I wouldn't say that Barely Bitten was extremely pigmented either, but enough to get a good colour pay of. The shades are similar with Seductive having stronger pinkness to it and Barely Bitten being more of a red. You can definitely tell a slight difference. Barely Bitten has a slight golden sheen to it, whereas Seductive has no shimmer. Both have a slightly glossed finish.

L-R: Barely Bitten, Seductive

Seductive - Standard Line Lipstick

As you can see this Seductive is fairly close to lip colour, I actually really like this shade. I wouldn't say it was an everyday all rounder - I looks awful with coppery colours, however it looks gorgeous with pastel pinks and purples. As for longevity it lasts a few hours provided you don't eat or drink to much. Value wise, I think it's really good, ELF's website lists it at being 3.5g and for £1.50, bargain! One small thing that I don't like about it is the scent, it sort of smells like strawberry sweets I think, to my nose anyway, ELF tend to put scents in a lot of their products, my concealer smells like orange! Anyway you can't actually taste it after applying but the smells a bit off putting when applying. I have only worn it a handful of times so far but have not found that it has dried my lips out particularly much. Overall I do like this product and will be wearing it again in future.

Seductive

Barely Bitten - Mineral Lipstick

Barely Bitten is probably my favourite of the two. It's a beautiful subtle red. Good for those that are a bit wary of wearing a strong lip colour. I find sometimes that my Barry M Lip Lacquer Crayons are a bit too intensely pigmented for everyday wear, so this is more suited to all occasions. I find the mineral formula slightly more smooth that the standard lipstick formula. It is also has slightly stronger pigmentation. As a bonus these have no scent whatsoever in them, woohoo! You actually get slightly more product in this tube with 3.8g. Although it is also more dearer. Looking at the other shades there appears to be a good range, I really like the look of Cool Coral and Rosy Raisin shades. I would say it lasts about as long as the other lipstick - a few hours, also with no drying out of the lips. 

Barely Bitten

Thanks for reading my review, I hope you found it helpful, but if you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask, Thanks again, H :)

Collection 2000 Poptastic Eye Palette Review

So a few weeks ago I popped into Superdrug for a few bits and came across the Collection 2000 Poptastic Eye Palette. I think it was around £4-5.  It's a hard cardboard palette, flipping open and is held shut by a magnet. It comes with a small double ended sponge applicator, I don't tend to use these, but I know that some people do, so it will be handy for them.

Aren't they beautiful! They don't have names but as a quick overview from the top row left there is a true bright, but not fluorescent yellow with a small amount of shimmer, then a purple shade which comes out matte, then a turquoise/teal shade with lots of shimmer, but not in the way that theres any glitter in it. I love this colour one of my two favourites from the palette.

The second row starts with a bright pink, which is pure matte, similar to the pink in Sleeks acid palette, but less fluorescent. Then  a bright blue colour with maybe the smallest hint of green followed by a muted acid green, I find this and the yellow the least pigmented of the palette.

And the third row starts with my other favourite of the palette a shimmery grass green which I find similar to Absolem from the Urban Decay Alice in Wonderland Palette but brighter. Second on the last row is a pale matte navy blue, does that even make sense? Thats how I see it anyway, the pigments buildable to a stronger shade. And lastly a black, I love the inclusion of a black in a palette great for the outer corners and to blend into the crease, this one is not fully matte when looking at it in the palette but comes out basically matte on the skin.

Below are the swatches in the same order as in the palette as you can see the colours come out well. I used my finger to create these swatches with ELF's Eyelid Primer as a base. As you can see the two greens in opposite corners have lovely shimmer to them. It is also worth noting that the navy blue on the bottom row comes out slightly chalky, but I didn't experience much fallout with this palette.

Below are a couple of photographs of a quick look I created using the shimmery green from the bottom row on the lid, shimmery green on the top row in the crease, the acid green and yellow blended in the inner corner and a small amount of black in the outer corner blended into the crease. I used ELF's Eyelid Primer as a base.

Overall I am fairly pleased with this palette, the colours are gorgeous and stay true when swatched and applied. They were also fairly easy to blend without loosing lots of colour which I find can be a problem with some cheaper brands. The pigmentation isn't the best though. Also I haven't noticed any creasing throughout the day, upto 15 hours I think I have worn these eyeshadows. I do use a primer which helps to stop the creasing also.

Thanks for reading my post :)