Thursday 26 April 2012

MAC - Bombshell lipstick

I traded this is as back2mac, the woman seemed surprised I choose one so quickly but I love this colour.

MAC Bombshell 

I love pink lipsticks but they all seem to be too pastel barbie-ish, this one has the barbie feel but its nice and wearable. 
Its quite a buildable colour, over lipblam it adds a little colour, a light layer on it own looks subtle and a bit more layering of it will give you a really bold look. Its a colour I can see suiting most people.

MAC pigments - my little collection

I don't have many pigments, or loose powders in general, because their fiddly to apply.
I know swatches can be useful, google image search is a godsend when it comes to buying makeup online, so I figure I'll post the few I do own.

Left to right - Teal, Circa Plum, Bloodline.

Left to right (wet, dry heavy, dry light) - Bloodline, Circa Plum and Teal.

Bloodline - Matt black base with a very light hint of purple, red and bronze shimmer to it, I was hoping it was going to be more bronze-red as a base colour so I was slightly disappointed with it.
Circa Plum - A really nice shimmery plum with a hint of silver and bronze. It looks far more of a bright purple when its used wet.
Teal - More green than teal, metallic and some shimmer the same colour as the metallic base.

I've got loads more swatch posts lined up, four to be exact, I'm about to schedule them for the next four days so quite a few posts in a short space of time.

Saturday 14 April 2012

Latest MAC Skinfinish purchases

I think i've developed a new love, MAC Mineralize Skinfinishes. Their just so lovely.
Sadly because Skinfinishes are limited edition its quite an expensive love, plus their MAC so bound to be a bit pricey.
In the last week or so i've brought two more (Ebay of course) and I really like them.

Top - Light Flush
Bottom - Pink Porcelain 


Close up of Pink Porcelain
(Its so pretty.)

Light flush is a colour I can actually use as a bronzer, its shimmery but its not too muddy.

Pink Porcelain is light enough for me to actually use a highlight, I'm amazed by this because i've yet to find a blush light enough for a highlight they've had to be very very sheer to look okay and light enough on me.

I can't wait for Lightscapade next month. I plan to go get one first thing on the day its released.
I'd order it online from them but i've ordered twice from MAC and they've lost my order between packaging and Yodel both times. Since its limited edition i'm not willing to risk them not having spare to send me when its a week late and I ring to chase it (Luckily my other two orders were still in stock).

Monday 9 April 2012

March empties

I don't know about you guys.. girls.. but I struggle to finish products.
This month is quite the triumph for me, a total of 13 empties.

Five Lush empties = A free face mask

Six MAC empties = A free lipstick

I also finished two Rimmel lipsticks but I've lost the cases so can't photograph them.

I've been trying to use up the Lush ones for ages, theres two shower jellies in there and they take forever to use up. As well as the Shower jellies there is Dark Angels face scrub (makes such a mess), Lemony Flutter cuticle butter (amazing smell but takes a while to absorb), Brazened Honey face mask (AMAZING).

I waited until i'd finished off enough of each brand to trade them in before i wrote this post, so a few of the empties are from this month too.

Thursday 5 April 2012

MAC Petticoat vs NYC Chroma Moonstone

MAC Mineralize Skinfinishes are sought after and limited edition ones can sell for three times their RRP.

Petticoat is a lovely vained colour in the pan and on the skin its a lovely plum-copper colour with a golden shine but its such a difficult colour to wear I think any one with skin lighter than a MAC NC/NW40 would struggle to wear it, I never stood a chance with my NC15 skintone but I was hopeful so picked it up from a blogsale... I was right, it doesn't suit me, but I don't regret buying it.

So after seeing posts and swatches online comparing the discontinued NYC Chroma faceglow in Moonstone I knew I had to get my hands on it.


Left - MAC Petticoat
Right - NYC Moonstone

Top - NYC Moonstone
Bottom - MAC Petticoat

You can see their similar, the main difference is the lack of copper in it as well the less lower pigmentation which is this case I don't think is a bad thing. 

If I apply Petticoat in an incrediably sheer way I can make it look decent on me but this is tricky and i've only managed to be this light handed twice, most of the time i just end up looking like i've been smacked in the face and bruised slightly metallic.
With Moonstone I can get the look of Sheer Petticoat with out the difficulty.
Really their both lovey, Moonstones great for lighter skin and Petticoat for darker.
Petticoat was Limited edition and Moonstone is discontinued but you can find both online (I got mine Moonstone from Ebay), Petticoat for around £30 and Moonstone for £2.20- £4.50 - making moonstone much cheaper.

Matte black eyeshadows

As someone who loves dramatic smokey grey eyeshadow I rarely venture into other colours, sometimes taupe shades and occasionally black which brings me to this post.

So many eyeshadow palettes come with matte black shades, I own six palettes (two sleek and four Urban Decay) though i usually prefer single shadows because i can choose my colours - hello new pick your own shades Urban decay palettes.
Out of these six, four have matte blacks and one has a black with a little glitter and the only one that doesn't is the original Naked palette.


Left to right - MAC Carbon, Sleek Noir (Storm palette),
Urban Decay Black Dog (The black palette) and Urban Decay Blackout (Naked2)

I've only once brought a matte black on purpose and thats MAC Carbon, looking at the swatches you can see its a matte black but its not overly pigmented which means you can build up the colour and not worry about looking too much like a panda.

Sleek seems to have a black in so many of their palettes this ones got a more satin like finish than the others (with a hint of grey). I have two of theirs (Storm and Bad Girl) but the pigmentation is nice so I plan to pick up a few more. If your after a highly pigmented black then its cheaper to buy one of their palettes just for the black then one MAC shadow, infact the palettes are very reasonably priced.

I know including two Urban Decay ones doesn't make a great deal of sense but they've different names so theres clearly meant to be some difference. Black dog has a very very slight hint of grey where as Blackout is more of a true black and is much softer.


I like dark grey matte shadows, but i love greys in general but rarely use my blacks.

My main reason of this post was wondering if anyone actually uses matte black shadow, any one?