EOTD using MAC

Just a quick post on a look I did using a few MAC shadows - Swimming, Naked Lunch and Sable. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a good photo of the complete look as it was difficult to get a clear shot at night. I have posted swatches of the shadows that I took the next day.

L-R

Sable

Swimming

Naked Lunch

L-R

Naked Lunch

Swimming

Sable

I used Naked Lunch in the inner corner and as a highlight. I also used it all over the lid as a base colour. To the inner 2/3 of the lid I applied Swimming and used Sable in the outer V and to define the crease. Swimming is a nice colour but it can be tricky to blend. Sable is a gorgeous chestnut brown that I find to be very versatile! As for Naked Lunch, it has a great texture that is easy to work with. 

These shadows ended up producing a soft spring time look.

What are your favourite MAC shadows?

Five minute summer face

Hey all! 

What products do you use when you're in a rush to get ready? For me, it depends on what season it is. In the warmer months, I use a minimal amount of makeup (its just going to sweat/melt off anyway!). Here are some products I use...

Rimmel BB Cream in Medium - $12.95

Sleek blush in Rose Gold - $5.99

Rimmel Extra Super Lash mascara - $12.95

Rimmel Lasting Finish Lipstick in Birthday Suit (250) - $9.95

Rimmel BB Cream in Medium - on the left it has been blended out and it seems to blend well with my skin, although my face is a different color. This product claims to prime, moisturise, minimise pores, conceal, cover, smooth, mattify, brighten and protect (phew!). I'm not sure about the priming ability as I've never used a face primer before (don't laugh!) but it gives pretty even coverage although my skin is fairly blemish free. Sometimes I do add powder over the top though. This product also contains SPF 25 so you've got the added bonus of protection against the sun! One thing to be mindful of is that it may take on an orange tint - I have noticed a few people saying this in reviews. I haven't experienced this though.

Sleek blush in Rose Gold - yes I know I've mentioned these blushes before but I absolutely adore this colour. Its a peachy/coral blush with a hint of pink that adds a healthy glow. 

Now next to the swatch of the blush (on the right), I've swatched Birthday Suit. This is my go-to 'nude', its a very wearable caramel frosty lipstick with a hint of orange. I've swatched it next to the blush to show you how nicely they go together (well, I think so anyway). The colour is true to the tube. I adore this lipstick and am ready to repurchase this!

Some days, if I'm looking super tired, I'll add some concealer to hide dark rings and add a bit of black eyeliner to give my eyes some definition.

Feel free to share your favourite 'safe' products that you use when you're in a rush! :)

NYX Ultra Pearl Mania

Good evening all!

This is going to be a post on NYX Ultra Pearl Mania in shades Mink, Oro and Walnut. I've never tried pigments before so I wasn't sure what to expect. I purchased them from ebay, for 3 in total it only came to about $10 with shipping, soo cheap!

L-R: Walnut, Mink and Oro. These bottles are tiny! About half the size of my index finger. The lid is a screw on cap with a tiny mouth so you won't be able to fit a brush inside or pour it into the lid. 

I've poured a little bit of each into this box above with small compartments, I've never used it for anything so its come in handy. A little bit goes a long way. You can re-pot them into a larger pot if you have any handy (a clean, empty lipgloss tub would work). The mouth of the actual tube is very small as you can see, this packaging is totally impractical but for the $2 RRP price it can be dismissed. 

Above are swatches, L - R: Mink, Oro and Walnut. They have been swatched using a slightly damp brush. Absolutely stunning colours and quite pigmented. 

Heres a quick look I have done using Mink (damp brush), sorry its a bit messy. I absolutely love how this colour looks with my eyes and can't wait to wear it to work! 

Do you own any of these? Are you in love with them too?

Product Review: Designer Brands Van Gogh palette

This is a review about a Designer Brands (DB) Van Gogh palette. That's what the back of the palette says, but I am a bit confused as it also says Colour by TBN on the front. I picked this up for $5 from a pharmacy (Guardian pharmacy) as I couldn't resist the earthy looking shades! 

Inside of the palette. The 6 shades on the left are quite earthy and I'm not sure how to describe the other 6. Interesting how it comes with two double-ended applicators. 

Swatches (dry, using applicator) above in different light settings. They are quite pigmented and surprisingly glide on easily. The white and pink shades (middle) were a little chalky. Also notice how there are two matte black shades? I think this is a good idea, black is a shade I use quite a lot. After doing the swatches, I feel like most of these shades are ones I already have in other palettes. I don't have ones like shade 7, 8 and 9 though so I guess its nice to have them!

Heres a quick look I've done with the VG palette. I've used a damp applicator for the pale pink on the lid and it came out quite chunky and uneven if you know what I mean, rather than being smooth and buttery. I used the matte black in the outer corner. I have not added any brown shadow on the outer edge in case you were wondering, thats just difference in my skin tone - my brow bone is much lighter than the skin below it! With a primer, the shadow lasted a long time and still looked quite nice. 

For a $5 palette, it is decent, but I think brands like MUA do much better 12 shade palettes for a similar price. 

Have you tried Designer Brands palettes? 

BYS Diamond Shadow 'Colour Conga'

Today I went to the Reject Shop to buy some Halloween stuff for a costume party I have coming up, and I couldn't help but take a look at the BYS stand. There is a huge range of nailpolishes around $4-5, but I prefer the Ulta3 range which are only $2 per bottle.

Anyway, I picked up the 'Colour Conga' palette for $5. The name is listed on the back.

This is the palette, 8 shades for $5, not bad right? It is still wrapped in the plastic shrink wrap here. It is roughly 10cm x 6.5cm - very compact, would be great for travel.

Top row is pink, a peachy/coral colour, yellow-orangey gold, a very metallic silver. Bottom row has purple, sky blue, light green and a mint colour. All the shades are shimmery, no matte shades. I normally don't really like doing bright colourful eyeshadow, but for the low price tag, I can afford to try this out.

Open palette - includes a double ended applicator.

Swatches in natural light. The swatches have been done dry using the included applicator. Pigmentation is okay for most shades. The metallic grey/silver is very! glittery. The blue probably has the best pigmentation. The last two shades were not very pigmented and quite chalky.

I have enhanced the photo here to give you a better idea of the colours - look at the blue!

Here is a look I have created (sorry the photos are not great) but I used the grey in the inner corner, the light green on the inner third, the pink in the middle, and purple for the outer corner and into the crease. The pink was quite annoying to work with and took a lot of packing on. No primer used here.

Reminds me a bit of those paddle pop ice creams. I've included this to show you the fall out - there was a lot of fall out. So I'd advise you do your eyeshadow first before any foundation, as I had a lot of pink dust under my eyes.

Overall, not a bad palette for the price, I would probably buy more as it gives me the chance to try out colours I normally wouldn't. 

Have you tried any BYS shadows?

MUA Dusk til Dawn palette

I finally received my MUA palette in the mail and I'm really excited about it! I have the MUA Undressed palette and absolutely love it, so I wanted to buy another MUA palette, but I wanted one that wasn't too colourful as I prefer to do neutral looks. I'm not bold enough to wear colourful make up!

This is what the palette looks like. Theres a mix of neutral colours like greys, black and lighter shades as well as a few bright shades such as the 7th shade (gold), the aqua colour and the purple (2nd last)

Swatched using the double ended applicator (dry) - the top photo with flash and the bottom with no flash. They are mostly pigmented and creamy. The only one I found chalky was the matte(ish?) grey next to the gold - the colour didn't come out too well either! The last 4 shades are amazingly pigmented. The black looks matte here but it is a glitter bomb!

Top - flash, bottom - no flash. This is a quick look I've done with the palette. I've used the aqua as the main lid colour, shade 5 in the crease (but I ended up blending it so much that its not noticeable), shade 2 for the outer V and then the black (last shade) on top to further define the outer V.

Do you have this palette? What are your thoughts?

MAC 'Feeling' and E.l.f 'Berry Merry'

Just a quick post on my two favourite pink blushes! MAC's Beauty Powder Blush in Feeling and E.l.f Berry Merry. You could probably argue that these are more plum/berry toned but to keep things simple I'll just say they're pink and let you decide what colour they are. 

No they're not that similar but I'm not saying they are. I'm just showing two blushes that I really like. Straight away you can see the E.l.f one is more berry toned and you can see the glitter. The MAC one does not have any shimmer or glitter. 

Above are swatches for Feeling (left) and Berry Merry (right) in direct sunlight (top) and not. I've had to build up Feeling a bit more as it is quite light against my skin. The shimmer from Berry Merry doesn't appear too evident here.

This is how Feeling looks against my skin. I've used a fair bit of powder here to make it show up better. It would be really great against fairer skin tones. The brush I use picks up the powder easily and the colour can be built up. I wear this during the day for a natural pink glow and it lasts most of the day.

And this is Berry Merry. There is shimmer in this blush and it is a deeper colour that I would say is more suited to medium-dark skin tones. I wear this at night, but it doesn't take long to wear away. 

Which pink blushes do you use?

Experiments with lipsticks of the wrong shade (for me)

If you're anything like me, a large percentage of your beauty buys are either online or inspired by something you've seen online. I have fallen victim to buying quite a few things online and they turn out to be awful for me. Lipsticks seem to be a particular issue for me, so I have a bunch of them sitting around doing nothing but collecting dust! 

Today I thought I would try to mix them with other lipsticks to see if I could make these shades more wearable.

First up is NYX Round Lipstick in Tea Rose. I bought this one online after having a look at a few swatches. It's a shame the colour doesn't work for me because I really like the creamy consistency. I expected it to be a bit more peachy pink but it is more pink than anything else.

Yikes. You can probably see why I can't/don't wear this! Bubblegum pink doesn't suit my skin tone. That, and I don't have the confidence to pull off crazy shades anyway.

So I have tried to mix this with a darker colour to make it a darker berry pink, something I am more comfortable with. I have added Rimmel Lasting Finish in Temptation. I don't use this Rimmel one much either, it's a nice red but probably too blue toned for me. Mixing them together produces a deeper pink.

Sorry about the blurry photo! But the main thing here is just that this pink is a bit more in my comfort zone. This colour is something I'm much more likely to wear.

Alright, moving on. This one is Maybelline Colour Sensational Lipstick in Coral Desire. The lipstick itself is a gorgeous pale coral but when swatched - what?! Where did the colour go?! 

Yes I smeared my lips in vanilla frosting here. No, not really, but that is how Coral Desire turns out. I don't fancy wearing white frost on my lips, to be honest.

Again, I have mixed it with another lipstick that I don't use too much. I have added Revlon Colorburst Lipstick in Sienna, a chocolate brown. This translates to a bronzey shimmer.

I actually really like this combination. It is something I can definitely wear and not be paranoid that I have alien lips.

What are your thoughts on mixing lipstick shades? Do you do it too?

Product Rave: Kleancolor Baked Eyeshadow

Kleancolor American Eyedol Baked Eyeshadow is described as 'pigment-rich' and has the 'intensity of colors that can satisfy any color junkies’ ultimate craving'.

Is this true? Yes! 

Kleancolor is a drugstore brand from the United States with a huge range of great products at affordable prices. The eyeshadows that I will show you in this post I bought for $1.75 (AUD) each from Beauty Joint.

Baked Eyeshadow

Above: These are the two I own, 'Taupe' and 'Glitter Sapphire'. I'll start off by saying that these are huge! 4.5g of shadow - it doesn't sound like much but when you consider that MAC eyeshadows are 1.5g each (I think?), it is a fair bit. Standard packaging, plastic case and the clasp can be a little stiff to open. But look, they're so pretty!

Above: open lid to reveal the product inside. Please note that I have been using these a bit so they look a bit messy. The shadow comes up to form a mini mountain and you can probably see that I've been using Taupe more (I'm not one for bright eyeshadow really!). 

Now on to the exciting part. Swatches...

Above: they are described as wet and dry shadow so I have done swatches for both. On the left, we have taupe swatched dry, next to it swatched wet. I don't even need to comment on how amazingly pigmented it is. I have done the same for Glitter Sapphire, dry (left) then wet (right). One swipe each. Aren't they gorgeous?

Above: Same swatches again, but this picture has been taken in sunlight to show you how vibrant they are. I haven't used any primer for these either.

Have you tried this eyeshadow? What are your thoughts?

Thanks for reading :)

Revlon Colorburst 'Rosy Nude' dupe

I know that Revlon isn't one of the typical high end brands that you would want a dupe for, but I noticed a striking similarity between one of their Colorburst lipsticks and a lower end one by Ulta3, an Australian brand (you may have come across their nail polish at various chemists).

Revlon Colorburst lipsticks RRP - $23.95 (or you can cheat like me and buy them online)
Ulta3 Moisturising Lipstick RRP - $2.95

...I think you can see why I thought this was worth posting about!

Comparison of packaging of Revlon Colorburst and Ulta3. I won't lie, the case for Ulta3 does it no favours. It is quite flimsy and very light weight, doesn't feel or look as nice as the Revlon one. But for less than the cost of a coffee, we can let that slide.

Swatches - which is which?! First have a guess. On the left is Ulta3 - Tawny Pink and on the right Revlon Colorburst in Rosy Nude. One swipe each, both pretty pigmented and they look quite similar! Rosy Nude is probably a bit more pink I would say.

From the picture above, you can see they are quite similar. I'll just add that the consistency of the lipsticks are different, Ulta3 is more like lipbalm/lipstick as it is quite creamy. It also has the wear of a lip balm. Revlon Colorburst is a bit thicker like the traditional lipstick and is longer wearing. You can probably see above that Ulta3 is more shiny too (as it is a 'moisturising' lipstick).