A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

Following my pledge to suffocate the makeup snob in me that threatens to overwhelm, I spent a little while swatching at the Maybelline stand in my local Tesco the other evening.  OK, I swatched at all of them, I’m a quick healer.  Infact, I was gone for so long (just popping out for a pint of milk dear!) that Mr. L looked slightly white-faced when I returned home after 10pm having forgotten to take my phone.  Oops.

I thought I’d share some photos of my favourite purchase of the evening, Maybelline’s Eye Studio Mono Eye Shadow in Silken Taupe (£4.09)…

Alright, so it’s not exactly the Show Orchid of the eyeshadow world.  It’s taupe.  But damnit, I like my taupes… and I like them a lot.  Wanna know how much?  Well… here’s some potential dupes I pulled out…

From left to right: Maybelline Silken Taupe ♦ Shu Uemura M810 ♦ Helena Rubenstein Dark Ebony Duo ♦ NARS Ashes to Ashes ♦ Estee Lauder Tempting Mocha

Swatched from left to right: Maybelline Silken Taupe ♦ Shu Uemura M810 ♦ Helena Rubenstein Dark Ebony Duo ♦ NARS Ashes to Ashes ♦ Estee Lauder Tempting Mocha

Wait… there’s more…

From left to right: Maybelline Silken Taupe ♦ Chanel Safari ♦ MAC Style Snob ♦ Paul & Joe #23 ♦ MAC Satin Taupe

Swatched from left to right: Maybelline Silken Taupe ♦ Chanel Safari ♦ MAC Style Snob ♦ Paul & Joe #23 ♦ MAC Satin Taupe

Last one, I promise…

From left to right: Maybelline Silken Taupe ♦ Stila Cloud

Swatched from left to right: Maybelline Silken Taupe ♦ Stila Cloud

The moral of this post of boring eyeshadows is…

a).  Go and buy Maybelline’s Silken Taupe right now.

b). Count your neutral shades and work out just how many millenia it will take to use them up.

c). If you want to borrow a taupe, you’ll have to ask elsewhere… I don’t seem to have very many, must rectify this.

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* estee lauder’s tempting mocha was a pr sample

The thoroughly lovely Annabella from SkinScrubs kindly picked this up for me from her local T.K. Maxx, I’ve been wanting it for quite a while and was really pleased when I finally got to lay my grubby hands on it!

The packaging is kinda cute… I guess… I dunno, I think I’d prefer a scantily-clad fella on it.  Actually, I don’t really give a shit if I’m honest.  The cardboard housing it comes in is thankfully solidly-constructed and has already survived a clumsy drop.

It looks scarily orange in the pan… a pink/bronzed orange.  My kinda nightmare.  Thank heavens for blogs and swatches that have shown me not to fear the Hot Mama!

Texture-wise, this blush is quite beautiful.  It’s silky, smooth and doesn’t create masses of dust when I pass my brush over the surface though it is quite soft and easy to nick with a fingernail.  It’s shimmery without being glittery unlike it’s famous dupe counterpart; NARS Orgasm which has a fine textured amount of glitter running through colour.  The shimmer in The Balm’s Hot Mama! may be a little too much for those of you with particularly large pores though, definitely something that needs considering.

The Balm’s Hot Mama! wears a little pinker than NARS Orgasm on my skintone but the simillarities are plain to see.  The swatch above shows one swipe from Hot Mama… the NARS Orgasm swatch took a few goes to build up to that intensity.

I love both… they’re sheer but incredibly buildable and probably some of the easiest to wear blushes I own.  I can pair these with any look and it just gives me a flush of colour that brightens up my NW15 skin.

I would say that I get an extra hour or two wear from the NARS and the cardboard sleeve surrounding Hot Mama! is a bit finickity to remove and replace everytime I want to use it… but it does have such a delightfully blendable texture.

You get just over 7g of product from The Balm, compared to 4.5g from NARS and unless you can spot one in your local T.K. Maxx, Hot Mama! will set you back around £15 in the UK.

Are you a shimmer, glitter or matte girl when it comes to blush?

I’ve always thought that The Body Shop Golden Pink blush (04) was considered as a reasonable dupe for NARS Orgasm?  But when I swatched the two… they were quite different.  TBS’ Golden Pink seemed a darker and far more intense.

Then I dug out my NARS Deep Throat blush and got a much better match!

What d’ya reckon ladies?  Dupe or Poop?

As soon as I saw the veining in one of the latest Accessorize Merged Blushers… I knew I’d seen it before.  I didn’t even really want the shade but my curiosity got the better of me, so I picked it up along with the rest of my little haul yesterday afternoon.

On the way home, the penny dropped and I dug out my discontinued MAC Moon River mineralize Blush.

MAC Moon River mineralize blush was released as part of the Grand Duo collection in Spring ’09 and has recently been spotted in a few CCO’s up and down the country.  It’s a particular favourite amongst pale skin types who just want a hint of colour.

Compared to Accessorize’s Merged Blushed in #3 Pretty Pink, first impressions as a dupe possibility are promising.  The veining is simillar: Pink, Lilac and Soft Yellow.  Accessorize’s offering looks slightly less glittery in the pan and also just a hint warmer/peachier.

Accessorize gives us 8g of product for £5.50 compared to MAC’s 3.2g of product for around £17.50.

MAC on the left, Accessorize on the right.  Are you seeing dupes?

Obviously… Accessorize Pretty Pink isn’t a duo… the veining is consistent throughout the pan.  Do you agree that Pretty Pink looks a little warmer than Moon River?

As for texture…

Moon River feels a little softer and my brush picks up the powder more readily when swept over Moon River.  Despite this, pigmentation is pretty simillar.  I’d say that Moon River appears to be more glittery than Pretty Pink, though strangely the sheen on the Accessorize dupe is a little more apparent…. a touch more ‘metallic’ once on the skin.

The most important swatches are the two on the left.  I added the third just to show the marbled half of Moon River alone.

What do you think?

MAC Moon River vs. Accessorize #3 Pretty Pink – Dupe or no dupe?

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With all this Chanel vs. BarryM nail polish dupe talk… how could I possibly have resisted CHARGING down my local Superdrug as fast as my fat little trotters could carry me (ok, I drove) before scooping up a bottle of BarryM’s new nail polish sensation Dusky Mauve to compare for myself?

Well I couldn’t.  Hence this post – duh.

So is it?  Isn’t it?

It most certainly is.

BarryM’s Dusky Mauve Nail Paint is a practically perfect dupe for Chanel’s Paradoxal – I’ll let the photos do the talking.

When Bazza met Coco… *cue music*

The only teeniest, tiniest difference between the two is that I feel the BarryM version may have a touch more sparkle in direct sunlight… but I’m not even 100% confident on that.

If you had wanted to indulge in Chanel’s Paradoxal but couldn’t quite stretch to the £16.50 required to do so… put those pennies towards the £2.95 dupe of the year and head down to Superdrug for BarryM’s Dusky Mauve instead.  No one will be able to tell the difference.

If your local Superdrug/Boots are out of stock, don’t forget that you can also buy BarryM’s Dusky Mauve Nail Paint online from the BarryM website which ships internationally.

The comparisons have to be made don’t they?  At just £3.50 for the pale gold E.L.F Gotta Glow compared to £19.50 for NARS iconic Albatross highlighting powder… who isn’t hoping for a remarkable dupe?

The NARS on the left.. E.L.F’s Gotta Glow, on the right.

I’m not gonna talk about the differences in packaging.  They’re there… NARS is annoying and icky sticky, E.L.F’s is sleeker but hella cheaper looking.  Do you *really* care?  I don’t.

But what about the product?

E.L.F’s Gotta Glow is slightly more yellow toned in appearance and the gold shimmer is less refined looking in the pan… chunkier.  This is pretty much what I expected.  On close inspection, you can see a visual difference in quality.

The texture?  Again… this lives up to expectations.

NARS Albatross is smooth and very finely milled… there’s no flaking when you brush the surface of the pan and no fall out upon application.  The E.L.F version can’t claim the same.  It’s powdery and there is fall out if you don’t give your brush a tap off before applying.

But how about this?  Please look past the hairy arms… I have enough hair elsewhere on my body to frankly give a crap about hairy forearms.

That’s pretty simillar no?

Take a guess before reading on… which one costs £3.50 and which one costs £19.50?  I’d love for you to tell me if you got it right in the comments…

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Ready to find out?

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Sure?

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Oh ok… Well… E.L.F’s Gotta Glow is on the left and NARS Albatross is on the right.  I think that I can tell the difference between the swatches… the E.L.F one looks slightly less pigmented and a bit ‘chunkier’.  But is that *really* a £16 difference?  Not when you take into consideration that once applied and blended… I truly struggle to tell the difference on my face at all.

Before I get really excited though… there is one point to note that although not an issue for my skintone, may make ALL the difference on someone else.  I see a slight ashiness with the E.L.F incarnation that I’m not seeing with the NARS original.  It’s only noticeable when I swatch on my fingertip… but I’m thinking that on a darker skintone, the E.L.F Gotta Glow may leave a slight white cast along with the golden sheen.

Has anyone tried it with a darker skintone than mine?  How are you finding E.L.F’s new Gotta Glow highlighting powder?

E.L.F Gotta Glow is available online and priced at £3.50 – a bargain if ever I saw one.

I suspected it from the moment I twirled the bottle between my fingers…

…Stargazer #155 (£2) is a very nice match for the cult O.P.I shade I’m Not Really A Waitress (£9.95)

INRAW was the first OPI I bought back in the day and is probably the only bottle of polish I’m even close to finishing.

If I look *really* closely, I’d say that Stargazer #155 is the teeniest bit more cherry toned than INRAW, but there’s barely anything in it.

#155 is opaque in two coats and applies smoothly with a decent brush… not too thin and no straggly long bits.  Quick drying but affording just enough time to work the polish to the edges of the nail bed.  It benefits from a glossy top coat to bring out the sparkle within the polish.

And a comparison with the OPI…

I prefer the Stargazer.  I’ve always had an issue with tip wear with this particular OPI (see my review from last May) and the Stargazer is outperforming INRAW in this instance by a huge amount.  No tip wear at all until the 3rd day.

Did I find a good dupe?  I’m usually pretty crappy at dupe hunting, so I’m kinda chuffed with myself!  Simple things and all that…

I haven’t got a side by side swatch comparison and I’m not claiming this dupe discovery as my own (a quick Google search threw this up) but it’s been said that Revlon Colorburst Lipstick in Soft Rose is a colour dupe for Chanel’s Rouge Coco in Mademoiselle.

Is it?

It’s pretty darn close!

I’ve got a full lip swatch post coming soon(ish) of all the new Revlon Colorburst shades… I’ll try and get it live by the end of the week.  I don’t believe the Colorbursts are out in the UK yet… so cool your heels lovely ladies, they’re a-coming!

What d’ya think?  Close enough?

One of the most talked about so-called ‘dupes’ is the infamous $5.99 Milani Luminous blush which many say is a dead ringer for the even more infamous $25 NARS Orgasm.

Here’s my take on that theory…

You can immediately see the similarities between them.  In the pan, Orgasm has a little more sparkle, but the shades are a very close match indeed.

On my skin…

I find Milani’s Luminous to be slightly pinker than NARS Orgasm on my skintone, it also swatches a little heavier which was a surprise to me, as I rank NARS blushes up there as among the most pigmented I’ve used.

The Milani only lasts for a couple of hours before fading compared to Orgasm (a.k.a – shit to a blanket).  Once applied to my cheeks, NARS Orgasm has that “Je Ne Sais Quoi”… a slightly ethereal quality that is lacking from the Milani.

Does that relegate the Milani to the dupe bin?  Not at all, I would happily take Luminous on a fortnight holiday with me.  I love it, it’s a fantastic dupe and I’m pleased to own it.  Would I be happy for it to completely replace Orgasm?

No.  On my skin, NARS Orgasm gives me that famed full on post coital flush that Milani Luminous only hints at.

I was eavesdropping on Twitter (as you do) and overheardread VexintheCity tell Cosmetic-Candy that Revlon Pink Pout was a reasonable dupe for MAC Angel.

“No it isn’t!” thinks I… “They’re completely different!”

So off I rush immediately to test out this theory! (as you do)

Left-Right: Pink Pout, Angel

I’m serving up my humble pie at this point….

They are simillar aren’t they?

So I swatch…

*sigh* I don’t like being wrong…

Dupe Alert!

but then… I apply…

L-R: Pink Pout, Angel

Woah there Nelly!  Pink Pout is… well… pink.  MAC Angel is distinctly beige-toned on my lips.

How on earth?

So there ya go.  Revlon’s Pink Pout is a definite dupe for MAC Angel (albeit a matte one) on everybody in the entire universe…

…except for me.

Now, what I want is a Revlon Pink Pout dupe that isn’t a moisture sucking matte… um… don’t say MAC Angel 😉