A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

…your Boots till spits I mean!

If you’re not a UK lady, let me quickly explain…

Boots have a rather fabulous promotional period every couple of months that goes something like this…

If you spend over £5 you get a voucher.  The voucher entitles the holder to £5 off Boots No7 or Ruby & Millie (a British cosmetic brand).

That’s it… no catches, nothing.  How lucky are we?

The current promotion runs out on the 28th March, which means that I have 4 days left to spend the 3 vouchers I’ve rescued from the bottom of my handbag.  Which brings me to my original question…

How do you spend yours?

As there’s nothing specific I want from either of the permitted ranges, I’m thinking of plumping for some of the following items – note, prices shown are after voucher redemption:

Boots No7 Eyeshadow Blend and Contour.

I have a few of these (ok, about 6) that I grab from my brush pot when I’m too lazy to go and wash my ‘good’ blending brushes but obviously don’t want to muddy my eye look.  They’re not the softest nor the most well constructed, but for £1.50, they’re pretty darn decent backups!

Boots No7 Quick Thinking 4 in 1 Wipes.

Love these wipes, they really do a stand up job at removing makeup.  I mostly use them to clean off swatched hands or if I’m playing with my makeup.  I prefer a proper face wash before bed!  These are great for travel too, but I wouldn’t pay the full price.

Boots No7 Ultimate File and Buffer.

You can’t get a better bargain than free!  I have one of these in the glove box incase of an emergency broken nail.  Don’t laugh at me, you’re not even a proper GIRL unless you have an emergency nail file set.  Go redeem yourself down at Boots immediately!

Boots No7 Eye Colour Brush.

I haven’t tried this one, but I used to pick up ones from the No7 range which looked simillar (except they had black bristles) and I swear by them for depositing a healthy amount of colour on my lids.  Unfortunately, they’ve been discontinued and I’m wondering if these are the replacement?  Anyone know the old ones I mean?  They used to come in little black cardboard boxes (usually found on the bottom shelf of the No7 stand), I think they were £5.75 each (before voucher redemption) so they worked out at 75p each after, total bargain!  Anyone tried these white bristled ones?

Ruby & Millie I-Liner Brush.

I haven’t been hugely impressed with much from the Ruby & Millie range and some of the brushes are (imho) pretty awful.  This one however, I like.  It’s great for pushing gel and cream liners right into the lashline slightly under the lashes.  Don’t try and line above the top lashes with it though… well, not unless you’re incredibly nifty with an eyeliner brush.

Boots No7 Radiance Boosting Hot Cloth Cleanser.

£3.75 for a Hot Cloth Cleanser and muslin cloth is a total bargain I reckon!  I’m currently trialling the original Liz Earle version (review coming soon) and I’ll be picking one of these up in the next few days for a bargainous comparison.  It’s worth noting too that this No7 version has clocked up no less than twenty 5 star reviews on the Boots website.  Having said that, if it’s anything like the Boots Time Delay Cleansing Balm (Eve Lom ‘replica’) then it’ll leave me in tears.  Literally.

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So, that’s my ‘picks’ for your £5 “till spit”.  What do you rush to stock up on everytime the offer rolls around?  Don’t keep your bargains to yourselves, did your Mama never tell you it’s good to share?

I first heard of Aurifere when I saw their stand at IMATS back in January…

…I was on the hunt for a Shu Uemura foundation brush dupe at a bargain price, when my eyes alighted on this domed goat-hair blush brush (Series 150) from Aurifere (£11.99).  It has a slight taper and I umm-ed and ahh-ed that it could be a possible match.

But before I could make the purchase, I got sidetracked by this:

Aurifere’s Series 480 blending brush in squirrel (£8.99).  Soft doesn’t even begin to describe this brush.

It has a beautifully sharp taper that gets right into the socket line for precise blending with complete control.  I find that unless I’m very careful, my MAC 217 can spread the shadow a little too far above and below the crease for me.  I’m not hugely aufait with MAC brushes, but I’m thinking that the MAC equivalent to the Aurifere 480 would be a 224 (tapered blending brush).

I paid around £9 for the Aurifere blending brush and I’m absolutely delighted with it, though I have been lamenting not picking up the 150 ever since!

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Fast forward a couple of months and you may have noticed from my top photo that I do now have the Aurifere 150 in my grubby little hands!  Shall I tell you how?

Aurifere have opened a web store!

Hot off the press, the store only opened last week and I was their first customer – yay me! Desperate much?

Whilst making my order, I also added another blending brush to my collection:

The Aurifere Series 490 (£9.59) is a goat-hair blending brush which is nicely packed but definitely scratchier than my 480 or MAC 217.  What I do love about it though is it’s ‘springiness’.  That’s a terrible way to describe it… but it blends out harsh lines effortlessly when I hold it near the end of the shaft and do windscreen wiper motions across my socket line… something I appreciate because I kinda suck at doing those little blending circles with my 217.  How crap was that testimonial?  Way to make myself sound like I have no clue about makeup application… but I hope at least some of you appreciate what I’m trying to say!

My package also contained the Aurifere Sablinsky Series 330, a synthetic brush that is amazing for cream shadows like my Benefit creaseless creams.  Total bargain at £6.69!

I am so happy to have given Aurifere a try, I simply haven’t been disappointed with anything I’ve bought so far.

I want to give the Series 150 (blush brush) a full try before passing judgement, but so far I’m liking it ok as a foundation brush, but I’m freaking loving it as a blush brush.

I emailed Aurifere and asked if they’d consider passing along a discount code for my readers and they obliged!

I have 30 codes available (single use only).  If you try one and it appears to have expired, come back and give another one a go!

Enter one of the following codes at checkout to get 5% off your order (I may have ‘accidently’ already used that first one, sorry ;)) and remember all items have free delivery:

I just treated myself to a Series 180 Racoon Powder Brush. Vex has one, and it’s softer than Leila’s bum. FACT.

Have you heard of Aurifere?  Used any of their brushes?  Let me know if you make an order and tell me what you get, I’m hopelessly nosey.

I’m about to lock away my foundation brushes, stippling brushes and buffing brushes.

I’m doing a full-on swap for these:

The infamous Beauty Blender!

I bought 2 of these a while back and have used them a couple of times when I’ve been away from home and not wanted to carry too much makeup with me.  They’ve performed well, but as soon as I’ve gotten home they’ve been washed and popped back in the drawer whilst my full attention returned to my brushes.

I was going to review them as is.  I’ve used them 5/6 times… washed them, gotten a feel of how they work best for me and I really, really like them.  But if I like them SO much, why are they not in constant use now?

Over the next week, I’ll be limiting myself solely to these and asking myself the simple question: Why would I recommend you buy these when a brush works so well?

I don’t know the answer yet, I just know I’m pleased I bought them.  Anyone have any specific questions about the Beauty Blender that I can help answer whilst trialling?

Can I also draw your attention back to the questions for a Benefit MUA post?  I’m compiling an email for her this weekend, so it’s your last chance!

Ruby & Millie make some decent brushes at reasonable prices, and this one is my favourite.  It’s great for gel eyeliners and brow powders… firm but supple.

The Ruby & Millie I-Define brush is priced at £6.00 in Boots, but is currently available for a recession-busting £1.00 with a No7/Ruby & Millie till spit*.

I’ve bought a couple since the offer’s been on and plan on getting some more of the Boots No7 Eyeshadow brushes which I enjoy using alongside my MAC 239.

The Boots No7 Eyeshadow brush is priced at £5.75 rendering it a 75p super-bargain with a till spit.  Only larger stores appear to carry these brushes though.  You can usually find them on the bottom shelf of the No7 stand (rather than amongst the general makeup brushes) housed in cardboard boxes.

*till spit = a voucher automatically printed by the till when you spend over £5 in a transaction.  I’m a geek and purposefully split my transactions into roughly £5 amounts to maximize my till spits *blush*

Till spits are valid until the 31st January, so get shopping!

Have you tried either of these brushes?  Do you recommend any other ’till spit’ bargains?

Cloud Nine got in touch to offer me a pair of their new straighteners for potential review and with a high maintenance chin length bob to tame every morning, I’m not ashamed to admit that I very nearly bit their hands off.

Now, I know that this is probably the 50th review you’ve read of these straighteners (no exaggeration), and I do apologise… so when I was putting them to the test, I tried to approach it from a slightly different angle.

I’m no expert hair straightener and I’m sure many of you would fall into this category too.  In all honesty, I’m far too busy worrying about how my makeup looks to care *too* much about my hair.  Obviously, I’d rather not look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards when I visit clients… but for me, it’s all about the eyeshadow.

Unfortunately, the dragged through a hedge backwards look is *exactly* the one I sport on my head when I wake up every morning.  Example? Oh ok, then…

So with this time-pressed, hair straightening novice method of review I wanted to present to you an 8 minute hair straightening challenge.

Why 8 minutes? Well, because that’s approximately how long I get before baby L. notices that I’m not right up there in her face singing songs and dancing like a loon for her entertainment.  I also figure that I can never be arsed to spend much longer on my hair in the mornings anyway.

Ready?  Let’s have a look at what I got sent first then…

Nicely presented packaging is always a good thing and the turquoise/black combination is very sophisticated.

GHDs hmmmm, I’m sure it’s a selling point… but Cloud Nine, you’re advertising those competitors of yours every step of the way!  I can’t read anything about you without someone, somewhere mentioning GHDs in the same breath.  Fair enough, but don’t you do it on your packaging too!

To me, that’s saying… “Look, we should be as good as 1st gen GHDs…”

Oh… well I’ll just go buy a set of GHDs then… these sound like they should be as good as, but I’ll play it safe and go for the tried and tested option.

Is that the best you can be?  Come on!  You’re Cloud Nine!  Be a tiger, grrrr….

*and breathe* sorry… but as you might be able to tell, I’m bored of the GHD comparisons already.

Right, what else does it say…

“Less heat, more style”, “…without the need for searing heat.”

Oh ok. well my straighteners are usually set at a hair-frazzling 230c, so I’ll keep that in mind for testing…

I’m all for secret ingredients…

Swivel Cord (boring), Heat Guard (whatever) – Next!

Universal Voltage (blah, blah – no actually.. that’s quite useful for international jet-setters such as myself *cough*), Hibernation Mode – so I don’t burn the house down (at least not with the straighteners), Box Contents – yep, the postman didn’t nick anything.  Good, good.. moving on…

Slide off the cardboard sleeve and you get…. another box!

Aha! Finally!

Still loving the turquoise.  Minimalism is ‘in’ it seems…

We want… we want… we want…

Is that all they could come up with?  What about peace among mankind?  I would at least have added a few Dior shadows to the list (no, I’m still not over them).

Variable heat settings – useful!

Sparkly shiny plates!!

I should at this point probably mention that build quality feels good.  It’s all sturdy stuff despite being surprisingly lightweight.

I also like how ’rounded’ the casing is… it makes for easier, smoother curling.  The plastic on the tips of the straighteners are grooved/ribbed which makes for an easy grip on the tips if curling with both hands on the barrel.

Everything you get…

Right, enough of that… let’s straighten!

I set the temperature to 150c (Less Heat More Style remember) and the Cloud Nine’s heated up in literally 5-10 seconds, which quite frankly is just showing off and actually didn’t give me enough time to find my straightening spray. Boo! 😉

Now listen up to this bit… It’s a negative and up ’till now my review has been a glowing one.

I thought that these dragged a bit.

Not a huge amount, not like my Remington Wet2Straight that I wanted to throw through the nearest window for literally pulling strands of hair from my poor screaming barnet.

However, I did feel a little bit of tugging especially when I reached the ends, they simply didn’t glide quite as easily as I would have hoped for £129 straighteners.  Ho hum.

Anyway, back to this whole 8 minute thing…

Ta-Da!  I like it… It’s not poker straight which I presume is ‘cos I’m using less heat… but that also means that it’s not completely flat and lacking in volume (which was the only end result I could get from my 230c ones).  It should also mean that my hair stays healthier despite frequent use.

I normally wash and blow dry my hair (whilst curling under with a round brush) and only after that do I use my straighteners, so to be fair on the Cloud Nines, they were really up against it to be used straight on my dry bed-head hair.

They performed admirably, I would totally let clients see me like this…. and all in 8 minutes (oh, ok it was closer to 9).  Not bad, not bad at all.

Mostly, I’m impressed with the flexibility of styles I can get from these straighteners depending on the temperature used.  I also found them pretty good for curling and I was pleased with the amount of shine they left on my hair.

Now, if only they could perfect ‘the glide’… hopefully this will be their main focus when designing and building the C9’s mkII.

As for me, I’ll be consigning my old ones to a backup drawer somewhere.  Hello super quick, unfrazzled natural looking straightening!

As a total false lash virgin, I was excited but cautious when approached to test out some lashes from the Revlon Fantasy Lengths range.  What’s in a name huh?  When the parcel arrived, husband thought I’d been making one of *those* orders… and was relieved to discover nothing but false lashes as far as the eye could see.

I considered turning down the offer, wondering if perhaps I wasn’t really false lash material… I mean, I could rock the ooh la la lashes whilst walking down to the post office but it’s not like I go anywhere that calls for such lash fluttery.

But then I realised, as a total novice… I was infact perfect to test out how these babies perform (and apply).

I got sent 2 types… the self-adhesive variety and scary glue-on ones.

Let me start with the scary glue ons… well, my first attempt was an unmitigated train wreck.  I may aswell have just saved myself half an hour of tedious positioning and glued one to my forehead and the other to my chin.  Shu model I ain’t.

I’d also managed to coat the lashes in so much of the glue that was included, my only option was to bin them.  Girls, don’t be all cavalier and think that you can apply the glue directly from the tube.  You can’t.  Get over it and find a q-tip to snap in half.

2nd attempt was a little better.. still wonky, but at least I didn’t glue my own lashes to my lid this time.

To be honest, I was pissed, grumpy and slightly fearful that 3rd time lucky would mean 3rd time glue your eyes shut… so I gave up with those ones.

The lashes themselves are lovely, I thankfully didn’t need to trim them and the thing I noticed most was just how lightweight they were.  I thought I’d really notice them on, but they felt like a natural extension to my own eyelashes.

See? *flutter flutter*

I moved on to the self-adhesives…

E.A.S.Y

How can there be so much difference?  Was it practice?… or are self-adhesives that much kinder to adjusting little mistakes?  Either way, this application looked halfway decent and I even left the house in them.

I asked my husband if he liked my eyelashes.  He looked totally confused.

After a couple of misunderstandings later he elaborated on his puzzlement by saying that he didn’t realise I had falsies on.  Yes, ladies and gentl ladies… my natural eyelashes are that amazing.

Oh ok, ok, I’ll grudgingly admit that it might be because Revlon Fantasy Lengths are pretty darn natural looking…  or of course, it could be option 3… my husband is a bloke who just doesn’t notice anything.

Anyway you wanna see?

Please do bear in mind, that this is genuinely my third ever attempt at applying false eyelashes.  Regardless, just try to stifle your guffaws ’till you’ve moved on to someone else’s blog and I can’t hear you anymore.

Now, my left eye (your right) – I think I got pretty darn perfect?  Other one, not so much… I placed them a little too high.

The band was very easy to cover over with a slick of liquid liner and the lashes themselves stuck steadily for around 6 hours before I noticed a teeny amount of lift on an outer corner (but that could easily be my fault).

I would say that these self-adhesives are marketed more towards novices like me.  I’m not scared of them anymore and would deinitely purchase them for special occasions.

The glue-on ones?  Not unless I had someone else to apply them for me.  Or hands that don’t pretend to be bananas.

Do you wear false lashes?  Any application tips for me?

I am very lazy with my makeup application.  I rarely apply more than one colour to my eyelids. I never bother with things like lip liners (despite owning many).  I rarely contour (it scares me) and most of the time I can’t be arsed with highlighting either.

And I call myself a makeup fanatic? *hangs head in shame*

This week, I will endeavour to make more of an effort.  What’s the point of having all these lovely products if I don’t use them?  So, amongst other makeup resolutions, this week I will be ditching my taupe-y eyeshadows and may even attempt blue again *eek*

I also have a confession… I don’t own a blending brush.  There, I said it.  Disown me if you like – just don’t tell me that you could ‘like, totally already tell from your FOTD shots’ or I might have to find a dark corner to sob in.

look, my skillz are awesum!

Anyway, I know that the pinnacle of blending brushes involves the MAC 32174893 *bleh, I can’t remember numbers* – I know what one I’m talking about.  However, funds aren’t gonna stretch this month… so please recommend me a relative cheapie that I could cut my teeth on.  I’ve heard some good things about a Boots No7 one and also a Revlon one I think?

How cute?

£18.00 and available from Lisa Stickley

Love it!

As far as high street brand cosmetic brushes go… I often fall back on my beloved Body Shop brushes so when I saw their foundation Kabuki brush in my local Body Shop, I knew I had to make it mine – especially after my recent positive experience with mineral makeup.  I’m not sure how long this brush has been available but I didn’t see it last time I was in store.

Firstly, I need a little rant to say that the case it comes with is utter crap… seriously, Body Shop – why even bother with a case at all if it’s as rubbish as this one?  You should be embarassed, I know I’m embarassed for you… It barely fits the brush and is like a slippery silicone-y rubbery type floppy thing that offers little to no protection at all in my makeup bag.

Look, I mean… what practical purpose is this supposed to serve in protecting your very beautiful Kabuki brush?

Anyway, onto the brush itself before I give myself a thrombosis…

So soft… I mean so, So, SO soft.  The synthetic bristles are densely packed and allow for a generous collection of product with a single swirl.  The bristles are fairly long and this makes for really easy application in harder to reach areas like along the side of the nose.  Since it’s first use, it’s shed about 4 bristles and that’s it.  Even after a gentle wash, there was no additional shedding or bleeding.  I’m so impressed!

Hello lover!

Currently priced at £14.65 on The Body Shop’s website – I’m really pleased with it (as I’m sure you have established by now!) But I shall definitely be on the hunt for a kabuki sized case to protect it – if anyone has any recommendations, please send them my way!

Here’s another before/after (before on the left) – showing the same application as the other day of Elemental Beauty’s Mineral Foundation in English Rose, however this time, applied after watching a couple of youtube instruction vids and The Body Shop Kabuki!

By George, I think she’s got it!  Although someone needs to pin that poor lass down and give those eyebrows some shape.  And who’s George anyway?

Oh, *psst* – by the way, that Baked Bronzer I got… the one by La Femme with all the pretty gold and white veining… load of pooh, really.  I can’t get the product to show up on me.  It doesn’t bronze, brighten or even highlight.  I was hoping for subtle, but existent would have been nice.  Perhaps a darker shade would be more evident, but my opinion of it is so… *meh*… that I can’t be arsed to order another.

Flitting back to The Body Shop Nature’s Minerals Foundation Brush… (what a mouthful)… I’m giving it a 4.5/5 – it would be higher but that case niggles.  So there.

‘Till next time…

[starreview]