A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

Further to my previous post, I’ve had a couple of requests for swatches… so here they are (in all their glory!)

Hope that’s useful!

I know this is no lady-like way to start a post but… I think I might have done a little wee when this unexpected treat landed on my doormat.

I’d been waiting for a new-style UDPP tube from the PR agency to hack to pieces and over analyse for you all, but none of you would believe me if I said that I was disappointed to find this inside the parcel instead.  Mainly ‘cos I’d be lying.

If you haven’t bought yours yet… why not?  Let’s have a little group unveiling…

B-E-A-UTIFUL.

I am going to get so many different looks out of this one palette, the shadows are smooth like buttah (bar the ‘orrible MCRA) and heavily pigmented.

The wand in the mini UDPP is one of the new-fangled angled (I’m a poet) ones.  So it’ll be interesting to see how it gets into the nooks and crannies of the (still) rather daftly shaped bottle (stick it in a squeezy tube already!)

I love that they’ve included a brown liner pencil as some of the shades in the palette are crying out to be paired up with a softer line than black would give.  I know a lot of you are huge fans of these Urban Decay 24/7 pencils… but I’ll be honest and say that for the difference in price, I still prefer my GOSH Velvet Touch ones which seem to last equally as long on my eyes before admitting defeat and morphing into eye bogies.

The substantial mirror in the lid is very useful and ensures that these will be the only shadows I take along with me when I visit the in-laws over Christmas.  The “book of looks” is a slightly superfluous but glamourous addition that gives a nice focus for the shadows.  It’s more of a “look what we can do” rather than “look what we can help you do” affair, but it does link to a URL which claims to help you learn how to create the looks featured in the book.

I’ll be doing some individual swatches but I wanted to get my initial thoughts on this palette “out there” before it became impossible to find.  My local Boots only had 3 left in stock on Saturday.

I have another one coming (which my friend has already decided will now be her Xmas present from me) as I already had one on order from Debenhams when this showed up (it’s like waiting for a bus eh?)… I paid £24.30 inc. p&p, if you want to know how I got it for that price let me know and I’ll post the codes I used in the comment area, otherwise I’m a bit too lazy to re-find them.

This is a really soft wearable palette – not massively pigmented but with just the right amount of shimmer.  I particularly like the cream blush which is ultra blendable and not too sticky.

The lip glosses were not pigmented enough for me to be honest, as you can see they added more of a shine to my lips rather than any actual colour.  The eyeshadows are soft and shimmery, again – not highly pigmented, but not so subtle that you have to pack the colour on.

I’m also wearing Blinc Mascara and Stargazer Cake Eyeliner in Brown (which I’m currently loving considering it’s price – full review coming soon!).

The eyeshadow shades are perfect for wearing to work, the highlighter shade (bottom right) is particularly nice, as is the brighter pink to it’s left.  The darkest shade in the middle of the palette is one that could have easily done with being a little more pigmented.  All colours were easily blendable ontop of UDPP.  I didn’t use the top 2 colours in the FOTD.  The pink is actually a little more saturated in real life than it is in the FOTD photos which aren’t quite doing that particular shade justice.

I didn’t use the concealer (bottom right) or the darker brown gloss (top right).  The cream blush (bottom left) looks brighter in the palette than it does on the skin, it’s a coral type colour.  I initially just applied the top left bright pink lip gloss – but added the middle one aswell when I wasn’t getting ANY colour payoff from it.  I still didn’t achieve any pigmentation to speak of after adding the second colour.  Disappointing really.

Overall, I’m pleased with this palette.  My first impressions from yesterday confirm that there’s nothing earth shattering contained within.  But it’s a completely wearable ensemble that would particularly flatter paler skin tones to create a subtle but fresh daytime look.  I’d definitely recommend everything bar the lip glosses, which seem to be a waste of space.  The packaging is cheap looking but very cute, and totally portable – complete with mirror, you could quite happily cart this around in your handbag for any touch ups.

[starreview tpl=14]

I could spend all day in TK Maxx rummaging, especially among the body lotions, beautifully wrapped soaps and lovely purses.  (purses are more my thing than handbags.)

I grabbed a few things today:

a beautiful organic muslin swaddling blanket

A weird rolling massager, which may or may not be completely useless during labour:

Some pretty italian hand crafted soaps, natural sea sponges and….

an Eyeko Manga Book palette for the princely sum of £2.00 – woohoo!

The eyeshadow colours are just up my street – I’m pretty boring and conservative when it comes to eyeshadow shades (I just can’t wear bright colours well).

On the left we have:

(From top to bottom):

3 lip glosses, a cream blush and a concealer.

…and on the right:

5 eyeshadows with varying degrees of sparkle/shimmer.  It’s a really wearable palette – not gonna blow your mind creatively, but for day to day wear it’s really nice.

I’ll do a FOTD with this palette soon.