A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

I found it, I found it!

I thought I’d add a swatch to my collection of Creaseless Cream swatches… you can find the rest here.

Flatter Me is described as a ‘Toasted Mauve’… which basically means it’s a strange mix of mauve, taupe and brown.  It’s quite, quite beautiful.

As with the other Creaseless Creams, this is budgeproof on my eyelids.  More, more.. I must have more!  I think I’m going after Stiletto or Pre Nup next!

Do you like this one or are they all a bit too neutral for you?

Ever since reading a recommendation by the lovely MakeupByKaty, I’ve been intrigued by these little pots of shimmering shadows.

Bourjois have always been my favourite high street brand and I knew that as soon as I’d read about them… I was going to be parting with some of my hard earned cash at the very next opportunity!

I picked up three shades for around £6 each:

#31 Molecule D’or – A true gold

#37 Blanc Chrome – Iridescent White with pink reflects

#35 Gris Platine – A dark steel grey

I’m not much of a fan of the applicator, it’s quite tricky to wield and apply with any precision… but it’ll do in a pinch, otherise I recommend swiping some of the product onto the back of your hand before using a brush to transfer onto your eyelids.

The product dries very quickly to a budge-proof finish, so you need to work quickly… I haven’t managed any great successes with using this anywhere other than on the lids for a metallic look.  If I try to blend the shades out into the crease, I find the overall effect to be a bit patchy.  Probably because of that fast drying time the product ends up setting more opaque in the areas I’m slower at reaching.  Does that make sense?

Overall, I do love these… and I have my eye on two more… I can’t remember the names, but one is more chocolate-y and the other is what looks like it would be a lovely beige lid wash (especially if I can sheer it out quickly!).

Have you tried these and do you have a favourite high street brand?

So, last week… or was it the week before?  I’m getting old… they’re all starting to blur.

Anyway… I hit up The Makeup Artist Boutique mid sale and treated myself to a couple of Yaby bits that I’d had my beady eye on.  I’ve heard lots of (mostly positive) things about the makeupartist-designed brand and wanted to check it out for myself.

Here’s what I bought.

for swatches and some quick first impressions… read on…

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll just come out with it shall I?

Sleek MakeUP got in touch, they liked my idea of naming the individual shades in their i-Divine palettes (admittedly probably not original) SO much, that they’re going to name ALL past, present and future i-Divine shadows!!  How cool is that?

Oh, but that’s not the only thing…

They wondered if I’d mind terribly if they used the names I’d already invented for the Bohemian Palette?!  Hmmmm…. do I mind? Um… NO!

So… kinda officially…

I’m not sure how it’s gonna work for future palettes, if the names will be printed on the back or if they’ll just be referenced on the website…. whatever, not really bothered – LOOK!  I named 12 eyeshadows!

I would call this my proudest moment yet, but it might cost me a marriage and motherhood… so I won’t, but well… *squee*

I also have SOME EVEN MORE exciting news to break a little later in the week, so stay tuned!

These little pots of loveliness are currently enjoying a bit of a resurgence in popularity, and so they should.

I own 4, yes I can count (just about)… but couldn’t find my ‘Flatter Me’ shade for the photos – boo!  Above, from left to right are: R.S.V.P (a peach shade), Skinny Jeans (an oh-so-popular pewter) and My Date’s My Brother (a girly pink).

The heavy glass jars seal well, ensuring that your product stays in the best condition for as long as possible before eventually (like most cream products) becoming a little drier and harder to work with.  So don’t forget to screw the lids on as tightly as possible!  The usual cutesy kitsch Benefit design is apparent on both the outer box packaging and the glass jars.  I think I’m in the majority when I admit to being a perpetual fan of this 50s style design.  A lot of brands try to mimic the Benefit styling, but none pull if off quite so well in my opinion.

L-R: R.S.V.P, Skinny Jeans and My Date’s My Brother.

The creams pick up well on a synthetic brush like a concealer brush or simillar.  I mainly use my creaseless creams as an allover base which is why I prefer the paler, more neutral shades.  I only use Skinny Jeans if I’m doing a smoky eye.  My favourite of all the Creaseless Creams I own is R.S.V.P, it’s a beautiful peach that works well as an allover wash with a taupe shadow (powder) blended into the socket line for some definition.

As their name would suggest, these things don’t crease.  Infact they don’t budge an inch once set, which means that any other shadows you apply ontop also hold fast.  Benefit Creaseless Creams hold a dear place in my collection and I’m always on the hunt to add some new shades!

Are you a fan of cream shadows?  What are your favourites?

Check out my first homemade palette!

Ignore the 3 on the right, I totally cheated and shoved 3 MAC pans in there for the photo whilst my last 3 pigments were drying.

The palette is mostly made up from The She Space pigments, I find that one full size pigment fills a pan fairly nicely.  I’ve also sneaked in a BarryM Dazzle Dust and a few Elemental Beauty shadows too!

What ya reckon?  Any of you ladies press your own loose eye shadows?  Any interest in a pictorial on my pigment pressing methods?

Summer is usually all about the brights… and so perhaps, for once… naturals are the brave choice.

Introducing Guerlain’s Summer 2010 Collection:

Ombre Éclat 4 Shades  – OMBRE PERLÉES (LE) – £36.00 / €50.78

A monochrome palette of natural hues – 4 subtle shades with a touch of iridescence: Beige, satin pink, taupe and smoky brown all housed in a frosted silver case, embossed with the Guerlain logo.  A limited edition palette makes for an elegant addition to the collection.

KissKiss Baby – Limited Edition Nourishing Lip Balms – £20.00 / €27.88

Cherry Summer & Coral Sunset

I adore the formula of these Guerlain KissKiss Baby Balms made with wild mango butter and Luffa oil and those tints are just too perfect for Summer.

Ombre Éclat – 1 Shade – £19.00 / €28.89

Top – Bottom:

~ L’INSTANT D’UN BAISER (PEARLY PINK)
~ L’INSTANT D’UNE CARESSE (SMOKY BEIGE)
~ L’INSTANT D’UN RÊVE (SMOKY BROWN)
~ L’INSTANT D’UNE EMOTION (PEARLY VERDIGRIS)

Four new pearl shades have been added to the Ombre Eclat – 1 Shade line.  I’m loving the look of the Pearly Pink and Smoky Beige.

Guerlain’s Summer 2010 Collection is more about luminosity than colour, it’s about reflecting the light that Summer brings and reflecting radiance and elegance.  Personally?  I’ve already made room in my collection for that Cherry Summer KissKiss Baby balm.

Available on counters nationwide from the 5th June 2010

What say you?  Too subtle for Summer or understated elegance?

A quick (quick? who am I kidding, took me ages!)  FOTD showing off a couple of the matte shades from the new Sleek MakeUP Bohemian Palette:

Marron on the lid and lower lashline
Wafer in the crease
Moto-X on the upper lashline and outer V

gah… hooded lids…

oh well, you can at least see Marron UNDER my eyes right?

Dude, I honestly CAN blend!  The camera has totally washed out wafer which I blended into the socket line to ease the transition between browbone and lid.

I was surprised by how much I’m enjoying playing with some mattes, they’re looking more sophisticated and I feel like they’re blending less ‘muddily’ than shimmer shades.  Am I imagining things oh matte addicts?  I’ve really not worn mattes much before, but I just seem to be creating more polished looks with these than normal (not that you could tell from my photos).

And here’s a brighter EOTD with the Bohemian Palette:

Emperor on the lid
Sanguine in the crease
Moto-X into the socket to darken

Ok, that’s enough badly executed FOTDs from me for at least a year, apologies for any nightmares you may suffer as a result of viewing this post.  Hopefully though, it will help you decide whether or not you’ll be spending your lunchbreak today in Superdrug or Boots 😉

…Or just ‘divine’ according to the packaging.  And yano what?  I think they might be right…

Sleek MakeUP have truly outdone themselves on the design front.  Reminiscent of MAC’s soon to be released (in the UK) Give me Liberty of London collection with it’s whimsical scrolls and monochromatic base design.  Someone in the Sleek MakeUP Art dept. has their fingers very much on the pulse.

When the palette arrived unnanounced from Sleek HQ, I was momentarily thrown by all this new styling!  Ordinarily enclosed in a clear plastic carton, the Sleek MakeUP Bohemian palette finds itself housed in cardboard.  I don’t know if this is a permanent shift in packaging, but it’s one I prefer.  It’s easier to open at the counter to make sure you haven’t managed to pick up the one palette that’s been smashed to smithereens by an over-zealous 9 year old.

The actual palette itself has undergone a bit of a transformation too, no longer a sleek black box I’m undecided on the new look.  It looks a bit cheap, the stark white seems to emphasise it’s overall plastic-ness.  I think if Sleek MakeUP had continued the graphics (or even just the black swirls) from the outer sleeve onto the palette itself, it would have been a knockout.

In fairness though, do we care?  Probably not…

With 12 generously sized eye shadows contained under the lid, the Sleek MakeUP palettes retain their excellent value for money credentials.  Let’s take a closer look at those eye shadows.

Sleek MakeUP Bohemian Palette is billed as being inspired by “antique trinkets, vintage finds” and um… “Sienna Miller”.  Despite this obvious drawback *removes tongue from cheek*, they’ve managed to pull off a fabulous array of strong shades that are sure to pack a punch.  Will I use all of them?  Probably not… but I don’t think I’ve ever used every shade in a Sleek MakeUP i-Divine palette and that hasn’t stopped me buying them thus far.

The Bohemian palette is comprised of 3 shimmers and 9 mattes.  Woah there!  As a shimmer girl, I have to admit to being a little disappointed to see so many mattes…. I mean, go buy the Chaos palette if you want mattes!  Still, I’m nothing if not adventurous (honest!) and do realise that I’m not the only makeup-loving chick in the world… let’s have a closer look…

Oh, but before we do… For the love of God, will someone at Sleek MakeUP please consider naming the i-Divine shadows?  No?  Fine… I hereby christen these shades with some twatty names on your behalf…

Top Row from Left to Right… (S) = Shimmer, (M) = Matte

1. Gilt – Golden Olive (S)
2. Russet – Rust (S)
3. Marron – Maroony Chestnut (M)
4. Calendula (shutup, they’re MY names) – Banana Custard (M)
5. Anaemia (come on MAC, employ me already) – Off-White (M)
6. Neutron – Black (M)

7. Wafer (It SO is, right?) – Pale Tan (M)
8. Sanguine – Raspberry meets Cranberry (S)
9. Clover – Bright Grassy Green (M)
10. Overdyed – Indigo Denim (M)
11. Emperor – Purple (M)
12. Moto-X (yeah, I’m bored of shade naming now) – Dirt Brown (M)

And the swatches…

Bar Clover and Calendula… I think I’m happy to wear the rest of the shades, which is more than I thought when I first looked at the palette.  My only other ‘not sure’ was Wafer which actually works fabulously in the crease to blend out a more vibrant shade.

The pigmentation of the mattes is (as expected) not as strong as the shimmers, but they’re easily buildable without looking chalky and the above swatches show no more than 3 swipes (2 in most cases).

I’ve given Sleek a hard time recently on Lipglossiping.com…. from Eye Dusts that spill to liquid liners that flake, I’ve been disappointed with the quality of some of the brand’s recent offerings.  So it’s just as well they’ve come along and hit this one out of the ballpark.

Sleek MakeUP i-Divine Bohemian Palette is Limited Edition and will be available from Wednesday 17th March at some Superdrug stores (not my local – boo!) and online at Sleek MakeUP priced at £4.99.

International ladies, please note that Sleek MakeUP now accept online orders and offer international postage.

Sugarpill’s Starling is a vibrant blue.  A slightly darker than turquoise base with matching sparkle.

It’s surprisingly wearable for me in small doses! Kudos if you’re brave enough to rock a full look with this, it’s too bright for me to wear most days, but I wear a lot of golds and bronze shades and I’m already loving using this foiled as a liner to create a striking balance.  It’s an awesome spring/summer combination.

For comparison purposes, here’s a swatch of Starling and Alice from the Urban Decay AiW Palette.

Again, applying these Sugarpill Chroma Lusts WET is when it really starts making sense.  Vivid doesn’t even really begin to describe it.  I think you can also appreciate what a beautiful shade Starling is, it’s got a beautiful Mediterranean hue to it that somehow (in my opinion) manages to retain a touch of ‘grown-upness’ about it that Alice/Painkiller doesn’t have.

I’m very pleased with my Sugarpill Cosmetics purchases (see review of Goldilux here) and I’m already eyeing up Hysteric and Magpie as my next acquisitions!

So come on, let me know… have you bought any Sugarpill products yett? If so which ones? And if not, what’s holding you back?

Sugarpill Chroma Lust in Goldilux ($12.00, 5g net weight).

When I first unscrewed the lid, my reaction wasn’t wholly positive.

There’s no sifter, no lttle plastic inner lid… you’re straight into the shadow, which makes for a slightly messier experience than my MAC pigments.

Goldilux is also incredibly sparkly, very glittery.  I was immediately concerned that I was about to be treated to an “all glitter, no pigment” fest…

Goldilux is a true yellow-gold with no visible hints of copper or bronze.  The sparkle is uniformly coloured to match the overall pigment.  Measured in weight, this pot was a little less filled than Starling, but it’s still gonna take me forever-and-a-day to even make a dent.

A couple of comparison swatches:

I chose to compare my Sugarpill Chroma Lusts to a ‘simillar’ shade from the Urban Decay Alice in Wonderland palette simply because it’s a current cosmetic item that I know many of you will now own.  I’m not dupe-hunting, I just thought it would be a good choice for comparison to get an idea of pigmentation.

Honestly?  I’m a touch underwhelmed by how Goldilux looks applied dry.

Before the swatch test, I was totally happy with the pigmentation but compared here to UD Oraculum/Baked, I think I was expecting a little more oomph from the Sugarpill Chroma Lust.  In all fairness though, I also wasn’t expecting just how completely amazing it would look foiled (applied wet).  I think it’s safe to say that in the case of Goldilux, the shadow’s real strength is in it’s foiling.

I’m not going to go into detail on the other aspects of review for an eyeshadow, everything is fine… blendability, longevity over UDPP great (average otherwise).  I will say that I still found it quite easy to blend after foiling which is a plus point, it doesn’ t dry with unblendable harsh edges, a positive point to note.

Very happy with my Sugarpill Goldilux, and I’m blown away by how it looks applied wet.  A liquid metal masterpiece.

Tomorrow… Starling…

I received my VERY exciting Sugarpill Cosmetics order last week, and I wanted to share the beautifully presented packaging with you…

Free with every order, check out the cute decal-type sticker!

The artwork on these boxes is simply beautiful.   It’s abundantly clear that a huge amount of personality has gone into this new cosmetic venture.  Thoroughly charming and there’s no way I’m ditching the packaging to save some space in my makeup drawers!

The base of my two Chroma Lust eyeshadows (Starling and Goldilux)…  I love the adorable little bird and bow on each sticker, cute touches such as these really make me appreciate the efforts involved.  It’s also nice to note the ‘made in California’ blurb and a full list of ingredients.

The lid design has been printed directly onto the plastic and not onto a sticker.

I posted a FOTD last week, and have swatched them alongside some Urban Decay Alice in Wonderland shades to give you a hopefully useful and ‘current’ comparison.

I’ve been struggling a bit with being poorly this week (both me and the baby) so in response to a couple of naggy (but thoroughly lovely) emails.  I’m trying to get the swatch post up for tomorrow!