Not too long ago I couldn't watch a YouTube video without Jordana's Best Lash Extreme mascara being used, so I inevitably bought one for myself. After seeing my favourite YouTube gurus achieve wispy long lashes I had high hopes for this mascara.
The wand is quite large, similar to Clinique High Impact, but slightly longer, it provides great coverage to each individual lash. That unfortunaltly is where the positives end, the formula of the mascara is very thin, and once applied clumps and weighs down the lashes. Even curling my lashes beforehand gives no benefit, the result is still the same, long, straight and clumpy lashes. The formula is quite brittle once applied, by this I mean it flakes easily and I can rub it off between my fingers.
My Own Lashes
One Layer of 'Best Lash Extreme'
Two Layers of 'Best Lash Extreme'
I only paid £2.37 for this mascara so it's not a massive hit to my bank account, and it does give me wispy bottom lashes.
It will come as no surprise to my fellow beauty lovers that I adore Essence, I discovered the brand earlier this year, and have expanded my collection tenfold and I am yet to come across a poor quality product. I was in the market for a new liquideye liner and dabbled into the realms of pen applicators, in walks Essence to solve my eyeliner woes.
The packaging is simple and looks remarkably like every other pen applicator I have ever seen. The tip is felt tip like and extremely soft, its tapered point makes a winged eye achievable. The pigmentation is amazing for a pen applicator, but not as opaque as a standard liquid or gel liner. Some pen applicators can stain your skin, but the Essence Superfine Liner washes away easily with makeup remover.
The price is on point, as can be expected with Essence, for £2.50 this pen will not break the bank, and is ideal for eyeliner novices.
If there's one thing I truly take pride in about myself it is most definitely my eyebrows, they're the pride and joy of my face. So you would think I have a wide assortment of brow products? Wrong I have a small handful of products which I know and love. After hearing everyone and there cat raving about Soap & Glory Brow Archery Pencil, I finally caved and bought one for myself.
The dual ended product has a thin felt tip pen one end, and a standard twist pencil the other. The felt tip end is a medium cool toned brown shade, and applies a thin, yet slightly translucent line of colour. You can add thin, precise imitation hairs to your own brows and give them a thicker appearance. The pencil end is a warm light brown shade, the pencil is extremely hard, and crumbles upon application. The two toned ends means I can only use one end - the felt tip. The warm toned pencil makes my cool toned brows frankly look ridiculous and stand out from a mile away.
Left - Swatch from felt tip | Right - Swatch from pencil
For me this product is yet another highly raved product which just fails to impress, and for £10 this is not a cheap product to gamble with.
Bold are daring lip colours are becoming increasingly more socially acceptable, and more out there colours are becoming available. For today's post I want to share my favourite deep and vampy lip colours for the change in season.
Top Shop 'Damned' // £8.00
This was my first ever deep lip colour and I still love it to this day. The deep aubergine shade looks perfect against cool, pale skin tones, and complements warm, orange shades.
MAC Sheen Supreme 'New Temptation' // £17.50
This is the ideal red lipstick for the change in season, its moisturising formula make dry lips a thing of the past whilst still keeping you on trend.
MAC Retro Matte 'Ruby Woo' // £15.50
This is my all time favourite red lipstick, never had I worn a shade so complementary to my porcelain complexion. The matte finish gives a chic twist on a classic red lip - just make sure you prep your lips before applying.
NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream 'Amsterdam' // £7.00
Amsterdam is such a unique red, and ideal for those who do not want the classic phone box shade, the mix of fuchsia tones gives its a hot pink/red appearance.
Rimmel London 'Kiss Fatal' Provocalips // £6.99
This is a great shade for day time, the mauve tones are vampy enough to keep you on trend with Autumn and subtle enough to wear day to day.
Rimmel London 'Play Wih Fire' Provocalips // £6.99
This is a deep, deep red shade, suited to those, like me, who love rocking a deep red lip. The matte, long lasting formula makes it perfect for evenings out.
Left - Right | Damned | New Temptation | Ruby Woo | Amsterdam | Kiss Fatal | Play With Fire
What are your favourite vampy lip colours for Autumn?
I have made my love for natural, organic hair care, and hair oiling no secret, so when I saw LUSH now sell hot oil hair masks, I knew I had to get my mitts on them. After much deliberation and advice from a fellow LUSH lover, I decided to purchase the 'Tangled' treatment.
The treatment comes in a solid form, you simply add a small amount of boiling water and stir until you have a heavenly creamy consistency. Once it's fully melted you need to act quick because the mixture will start to thicken up again. Once applied it soon thickens and becomes a sticky mess, so tie your hair in a fun bun and leave it to work it's magic. The mixture hardens when drying, which feels extremely weird, but it makes it safe for you to walk around without the fear of leaving oil stains throughout your house.
The treatment is extremely difficult to wash out, I used my 'Jason and the Argon Oil' solid shampoo and 'Big' conditioner, but still found the odd clump of treatment once my hair had dried. As a rule I never use heated styling tools on my hair unless it's a special occasion, so I left my hair to dry naturally. My hair felt smoother and my curls looked more sleek, but this is nothing different to when I use my own cocktail of hair oils.
For people who want to give their hair a revival once a month then this is perfect for you. If your more serious about hot oil treatments, like myself, you can save your self a lot of money and invest in some organic coconut oil and essential oils to complement your hair type.
Have you tried one of the three new LUSH hot oil treatments?
I have had these gorgeous lipsticks in my collection for well over six months, but never got round to reviewing them. I purchased them after hearing about them on YouTube, and I took advantage of a Boots offer so I snagged all four for around £20.
The packaging is so cue with the cartoon lipstick marks, and slim line so they fit in any bag I own without taking up too much space. On one end of the double ended wand holds the pigmented lipstick, and the other, the smoothing clear balm. The applicator is a simple doe foot, which is personally my favourite for applying liquid lipsticks.
The liquid lipstick is extremely pigmented, in fact one of the best I have come across on from the drug store. Once applied and dried, the colour is opaque and will not show a hit of your natural lip colour. The staying power of these products is perfection, they will not budge, for greasy food, drinks or the oiliest of makeup removers. Sometimes this can be annoying, especially when wearing the darker shades.
Left - Right | Dare to Pink | I'll Call You | Play With Fire | Kiss Fatal
Dare to Pink is my work lipstick, it is the perfect day time nude, and I'll Call you is my go to 'day off' lip colour, it matches every makeup look and is so easy to wear. These are up there as one of my favourite all time lip products and would recommend them to anyone who loves liquid lipsticks.
I don't know about you but I will not contour with a warm toned shade as my cheeks resemble a terracotta tile, and cream contouring isn't something I always want to do. So your left with purchasing an expensive contour kit just for that one shade or finding a single powder contour shade, which seems as likely as finding a needle in a haystack - but Beauty UK, have found the niche in the market and created the perfect cool toned shade.
The packaging is hollow, clumsy, and looks as though it is made bigger than needs to be. The patent black box houses an intricately patterned, cold brown matte bronzer. The pigmentation is second to none, a small amount of product really goes a long way, and it's extremely easy to 'over contour' yourself. The formula is slightly powdery, which is something that I can easily over look, and has never been an issue for me, but I understand this will irk some beauty lovers. I find even on my pale, cool toned complexion, a few sweeps with my NARS ITA brush and I have a 'mud free' contour.
Want to know the best thing about this bronzer? It only costs £3.99, when compared to the pricey contour palettes available, is an absolute steal. You can purchase Beauty UK products at Super Drug, which is where I bought mine.
Recently I asked a relative to pick me up a replacement for my beloved MAC Prep & Prime Transparent Finishing Powder from Duty Free but due to a misunderstanding the pressed powder was bought. From the first application I noticed a difference and the longer I've been using it the more those differences have become apparent, so I just wanted to write a super quick post about it.
When I swatched the two powders to compare they were seemingly identical, so I made the choice to hang onto the pressed version, and I even remember thinking it would be perfectly handy for on the go touch ups.
The first difference I noticed was the pressed powder left a white layer over my skin, similar to when you spray dry shampoo to close to your hair. This happened every application despite me applying less and less, and tapping off excess. This was easily remedied with a quick sweep of a clean brush, but still I found this annoying, and something which never happens with the loose formula.
Another annoying difference is linked to the first, because so much powder was inadvertently being applied, every slight dry patch I had was instantly crisped and made extremely, horrifyingly noticeable.
And the final difference I noted was my skin was becoming oiler earlier in the day, by the end of a 14 hour day my makeup had slipped and slid around my face making me some what resemble a sad clown. After this happened a handful of times I instantly stopped using it, knowing I couldn't trust it to keep my makeup put.
I know this might not be the case with every powder formula available, but I just wanted to highlight that products which are marketed as the same product can act differently when processed into a different form.
Has anyone else had this issue with a beauty product?
I always seem to have one product lurking in my makeup stash which I adore, but some how completely overlook when writing reviews. Recently my complexion has been near perfect, so I've opted for a lighter coverage foundation with a touch Rimmel London's 'Soho Glow' highlighter.
'Soho Glow' gives you a subtle sun kissed look, which doesn't leave you with a tell tale tide mark around your jawline. The formula contains zero shimmer or glitter particles, it is just an incredibly gorgeous metallic bronze shade. The colour is extremely buildable, but my pale complexion can only handle one layer before it starts to look artificial and fake tan like. On days where I want to achieve a glowing and luminous complexion I mix a small amount with my usual Smash Box Photo Finish primer, and also with my foundation, Again this does not change the colour of my foundation, but gives my skin a metallic and luminous finish.
The formula is gel like and provides no moisture which is perfect for those with oiler skin types. On hotter days, which is now a distant memory, I replaced my usual primer for 'Soho Glow', and really cut down on shine break through.
The Good to Glow range has a choice of three shades, 'Soho Glow' which I have, 'Piccadilly Glow' which appears a soft salmon and 'Notting Hill Glow' which is a soft silver pink and is on the top of my wishlist. Each highlighter cost £4.99 which is an absolute steal compared to other liquid highlighters on the market.
Have you tried any products from the 'Good to Glow' range?