Urban Decay Vice 4 Palette: Mini Review

Urban Decay are famous for their insane palettes and packaging and the Urban Decay Vice 4 palette is no exception. I have had this for almost a year now and it was gifted from a friend, and it's definitely the most unique palette in my collection. I tend to play it safe with my eyeshadow and it is generally in the neutral zone with browns and blacks, but I am trying to experiment with colour a lot more. The Urban Decay Vice 4 palette is definitely the palette of vibrant colour. 

NYX Haul Part 1 of 4: The Lips

NYX is a brand that I have known for a few years but wasn't widely available in the UK. I had the odd product from the range but since I couldn't get my hands on them as easily, it wasn't a brand I really invested in. I had the odd blusher and lip pencils but they are the old packaging. Now NYX lip range is insane. The colour selection is amazing, with plenty of nudes (my favourite) to choose from and from my NYX haul I have purchased nearly all the nude shades. I will probably go ahead and select a few darker shades for Autumn but for now, I am enjoying all these shades and formulas. 

Current Skincare Faves: Bobbi Brown, Chanel, Clarins

When it comes to skincare, I can be quite lazy and I switch my routines and products every so often. For the last couple of months, these are the 3 products I have really enjoyed and have noticed make a difference to my skin and the way my makeup looks. They are my higher end skincare products and I feel that each one works differently. Introducing Clarins Hydra-Matte Lotion, Chanel Hydra Beauty Micro Serum, and Bobbi Brown Vitamin Enriched Face Base. 

Laura Geller Gilded Honey Illuminator & KIKO 208 Water Eyeshadow: Dupes for MAC Whisper of Gilt?

Are they a dupe of the famous MAC Whisper of Gilt highlighter? I don't actually own the MAC Whisper of Gilt highlighter but I have a good idea in my mind what it looks like, but there are many swatches on Google. Although I am not crazy enough to spend over £100 on eBay for the product, I am partial to dupes - especially if they are at a good price. This is where Laura Geller Gilded Honey and KIKO 208 Water Eyeshadow comes in. 

Illamasqua Hydra and Matte Veil Serum Primer | Review

For someone who has never used Illamasqua products before, I was definitely excited to try out this brand not knowing what to expect. I had always known about the brand, but never really heard a huge hype about much of their products apart from the veil’s, so naturally these were the first products I wanted to try.

MAC Studio Water Weight Foundation and 196 Foundation Brush | Review

Another day, another new MAC product launch. This new MAC foundation launched a few weeks ago and of course, I wanted to get it straight away along with the unique foundation brush. I'm always intrigued by new foundations and I'm a fan of both Studio Fix Fluid/Powder and Matchmaster so I thought I'd try this because the description sounded intriguing.

Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow Palette & Sculpt Brush | Review

Oh my, Charlotte Tilbury. This product is beyond perfect. As some of you may know, my love for contouring and highlighting is like a drug. I love trying new contouring and highlighting products, and to date, this has become my favourite - beating my ultimate holy grail contouring product Kevyn Aucoin sculpting powder.

Laura Mercier Loose Translucent Powder | Review

After seeing the beautiful Australian YouTuber Heidi Hammond do a tutorial on the 'baking technique, it completely sold me to go to buy a tub of this magic powder. I've been looking at setting powders for a while and I do own the MAC PRO Set Powder (which is good) but it's very white and I wanted something that was more yellow based, and Laura Mercier fit the bill. This was on my 'wish list' for a little bit in my mind, I just wasn't sure if I really needed it for the price. 

Sleek Rose Gold Blusher - NARS 'Orgasm' Dupe? | Review

Sleek Rose Gold blusher is by far my FAVOURITE blusher. Like seriously, my ultimate favourite, my one and only. 98% of my blush collection I would categorise as high-end and I don't look at many drugstore blushers because I always stick to ye old faithful. But this Sleek blusher seriously kicks the bootay out of my MAC and Hourglass blushers. I own one other Sleek blusher (Antique) and 1 Kiko blusher in m collection and the rest are high-end so I really do love the fact that my favourite blusher is only from my local Boots.

Smashbox Step-by-Step Contour Stick Trio & Full Exposure Travel Palette | Mini Review

Smashbox Step-by-Step Contour Stick Trio (£35.00)

These 3 sticks come in the form of contour, bronzer and highlighter, and a handy paper guide to instruct you on how to contour based on your face shop. I particularly like the contour colour as it's quite a cool grey shade, the bronzer is a medium warm brown, and the highlighter is a pale yellow shade. The formula is very creamy and bendable using both a beauty blender sponge and the NARS Ita Kabuki brush. You can definitely get a light contour with these sticks, and build up the colour as you go. I like to set these with a powder contour on top to make sure I get a bold contoured look. The set also comes complete with a pencil sharpener so for £35, it may seem expensive but I'd imagine it'll last a long time.

Smashbox Full Exposure Travel Eyeshadow Palette (£17.50)

Now this palette is something else. I've been lusting after this palette for a very, very long time but from my knowledge, it was only exclusive to Sephora in the USA. I had friends hunting around the world in different cities seeking out Sephora to find it, but it wasn't available. I was randomly looking on the Boots website last week and seen that it was available and immediately went to Boots the next morning to find it and lo and behold, there was a stand with about 10 of these mini eyeshadow palettes. The stand looked like it was full at one point, and the sales lady told me they had been out for 1 week and they were almost gone. I was so happy to get hold of it! The texture of these are reasonably pigmented (not as pigmented as MAC in my opinion) but the colours are beautifully shimmery and mate. It is a handy little palette to travel with - literally, it is the size of a credit card, super thin and compact with a mirror that I know I'll get a lot out of.

Have you tried any of these two Smashbox products yet? Let me know!

YSL Babydoll Kiss & Blush | Lips & Cheeks Soft Matte Colour | Mini Review

I made a naughty impulse purchase thanks to watching one of my favourite beauty YouTubers, Holly Annaeree. She recently talked about one of these YSL Babydoll Kiss & Blush products (Shade 12) in one of her favourite videos. She paired the shade with MAC Soar lip liner which looked gorgeous so I had the urge to go out and get it. Of course they offer a huge range of gorgeous colours so I couldn't just get one, I naturally got two.

Mini MAC Haul

So, I did it again. I made another order to MAC and got few stuff I've been wanting for a while and some stuff for my upcoming holidays to Geneva. I didn't need some of this, but I got a bit click-happy and started sending items to my basket and before I knew it, the lovely black parcel showed up on my doorstop. 

Conceal and Correct Pro Palette 'Medium' | Lightful Tinted C Cream 'Medium' | Amber x 9 Eyeshadow Palette | False Eye lashes '43' & '33' | Tranquil Cleanse Off Oil (Travel-size) | Chromographic Pencil 'Hi-def Cyan' & 'Pure White' | Pro Longer Lip Pencil 'Morning Coffee' | Lip Pencil 'Soar'

Mini Drugstore Haul and Review | Maybelline |

Hello my loves! My plan of not buying any beauty products in May kind of went down the drain (typical...) and I ended up spending my last pennies on a Maybelline haul because Boots keep having those great 3 for 2 offers and naturally I ended up taking advantage of this offer....twice. I had no choice - I promise! Well, basically I spied the new BB bronzer creams, the nude lipsticks and their lip liners...I did a little swatching and before I knew it, I was wanting 4 products - the two BB bronzer creams, a lipstick and a lip liner. This messed up the offer so I decided to get two more items - another lipstick from the same nude range and a nail polish that I recently saw on the beautiful Imogen from Foxy Locks Extensions. 

Maybelline: BB Bronzer Cream in Light/Medium and Medum/Deep | Color Sensational "The Buffs" Lipstick in Honey Beige and Velvet Beige | Color Sensational Lip Liner in Velvet Beige | Crystalized Nail Polish in Rose Chic.

I've only tested the BB bronzer cream in the shade light/medium by mixing it with my new Mac Lightful C Tinted Cream and it gave me a glowy finish. It sheers out a little and doesn't add a lot of coverage so I will most likely test this on it's own, but on first impression, I don't think it will cover any blemishes. This product reminds me of a illuminator and that's why I bought it and the reason I bought it in the medium deep shade is because it remind me of the limited edition MAC Strobe Liquid Golden Elixir Lotion from the Temperature Rising 2013 collection (loved this collection!) that I sadly missed out on. I wish they would bring it back out but in my opinion, The Maybelline BB bronzer creams remind me of this where it can be used alone, mixed in your moisturiser or foundation. 

For the lipsticks, I purchased the shades Honey Beige and Velvet Beige (I originally wanted Tantalising Taupe but there was no stock in my local Boots....*sad face*!) but the textures are creamy and moisturising. Velvet Beige reminds me of what MAC Whirl Lip Liner would look like as a lipstick...a muted, medium dark dirty rose shade. I paired this shade with MAC Morning Coffee Pro Longwear Lip Liner and love this combo - perfect for work!

And the final product I tried was the Maybelline Crystallised Nail Polish in the shade "Rose Chic" because I saw it on the beautiful Imogen from Foxy Locks Extensions. I put a nude polish coat underneath but I really didn't have to - one coat of the Maybelline Rose Chic polish was all I needed, it is incredibly opaque. It has fine and large silver sequins, and a shimmery silver-pink colour and definitely my taste. I prefer darker colours during the Autumn/Winter time and nude colours only during Spring/Summer.  I just hope this won't be a b*tch to remove as most of you will know how hard glitter is to get off....

Have you stumbled across any great drugstore products lately? Or have you tried the new Maybelline BB bronzer creams? Let me know! 

My Favourite High-End Foundations

Hey there! I've been crazy busy with work lately so I've been trying to write as many blogs as I can in advance so I can schedule them for the next 2 weeks. If you haven't noticed, I'm slowly going through my make-up collection narrowing down which products/brands are my favourite. So basically, I'm a foundation FREAK and I love to try out new formulas from drugstore to high-end. I've rounded up my 5 favourite high-end foundations - I chop and change which brand/formula I use depending on what I'm doing during the day.

My Top 5 MAC Lipsticks and Lip Pencils

 If anyone knows me, I am MAC obsessed and I love most of their product lines and their collections. I have tried the majority of their make-up and skincare products, narrowing down which colours/formulas work best for my skin tone and skin type. MAC lipsticks are generally what I wear, and I am guilty/known for having up to 6 MAC lipsticks in my handbag/the make-up bag I carry with me. But, I am NOT sorry for carrying as many as I do and owning a large collection of MAC lipstick (over 30+ of these little bullets...) - I LOVE having a choice and I rotate my MAC lipsticks on a regular basis. It was hard to narrow down my MAC lipstick collection to my 5 favourite but, at the moment, these are my top 5 go-to MAC lipsticks - It may different in a few months time. 

Hourglass | Ambient Lighting and Ambient Lighting Blush Palette | Review

So these palette's aren't cheap, I'll get that out of the way first. Both palettes retail for £56 EACH, and I have recently just purchased the Hourglass Lighting palette. The Ambient Lighting Blush palette I received as a Christmas gift from my younger sister, but because they are both so expensive, I normally only use these two products if I'm going out for a special occasion or if I know I will be out all day. These may be cray cray expensive to some but, I had lusted over these two products for a very long time before I decided to get them (well the lighting palette)!

Anastasia Beverly Hills | Contour Kit | Review

Contouring and highlighting has become a huge craze lately - whether you like it done very naturally with a bit of bronzer or done very heavy with creams and powders. There has been some controversy with professional make-up artists stating that contour and highlighting is 'not a good look' or 'drawing lines' on the face is not necessary but, in my opinion, each to their own. I think contouring and highlighting can bring out the most beautiful features on your face. That's why I decided to review this extremely coveted beauty product - the Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit in the shade 'Light/Medium'.