A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

I was recently sent two products from Sleek Makeup‘s range, focusing on a couple of shades that are suited to this year’s Spring trend.

On the left we have the Dip It in Pastel Green and on the right, an Eye Dust in Livid Lilac.

I’m a beauty addict with eclectic tastes and try not to discriminate based on price or accessibility of products.  So, I approach this review with a fully open mind.  Even when I held the Dip It pot in my fingers, twirling it…. marvelling at how incredibly cheap Sleek had managed to make it look.

The eye dust packaging doesn’t fare much better.  I mean, they’re both obviously plastic, but they’re SO lightweight I’m surprised that they’re not defying the rules of gravity.

Having said that, I ultimately only really care about how it looks if I’m gonna be seen in public with it (shallow soul that I am), how about the actual contents?

How ABOUT those contents…

Well, there they are.  In all their ‘spilled across my new desk cos the sifter fell out when I tapped the bottom of the pot’ glory.  You can only imagine how much I was loving that purple Eye Dust at this point.

When I grumbled about my little dust-spilling incident on Twitter, it turned out that I wasn’t the only one who had nearly ended up with a lapful of Livid Lilac.  Something for Sleek Makeup to investigate perhaps?

Anyway, the colour is pretty… it’s more vivid in the pot than it is swatched, a good thing seeing as it’s called ‘Livid Lilac’ afterall and looks thoroughly ‘Royal Purple’ in the container.

The top swatch shows the Dip It liner in Pastel Green.  It’s an opaque mint, and really does look like a fabulous shade for Spring.  Livid Lilac is far softer once swatched (dry) and slightly metallic.  I was really impressed with the choices for this season’s shades.

Application of the Dip It was a bit tricky.  The wand and narrow tip allowed for a precise sweep across the eye lid, but as I was drawing the line, I found that the applicator dragged at the pigmentation leaving the line of colour less pigmented in the centre than at the edges.  To be fair, nothing that a second coat didn’t remedy.  The liner dried almost instantly without transferring to the hooded part of my eyelids.

I had no issues applying the Eye Dust, it blended smoothly and the colour depth was nicely buildable.

Here’s a FOTD, don’t laugh… the shades are a bit bright for me, but I enjoyed playing!

Unfortunately, that’s where the fun ended, 20 minutes later, I looked in the mirror and saw that the eyeliner had begun to flake…

Bits of Dip It kept getting caught in my eyelashes, so I ended up using an eyeshadow brush to work back and forward until I’d dislodged all the flakes.  I wasn’t left with much.

Fast forward to bed-time and my cleansing routine.  I cleansed with my ever faithful cleansing oil and a blob of Cetaphil to finish, towelled my face dry and then shrieked at the mirror when I saw a matching pair of pink-dyed eyelids looking back at me.  I would have photographed them for the comedy value, but it was kinda late and I’m kinda lazy so you’ll just have to use your imagination instead.

On the plus side, it showed that my sense of symmetry has improved.  Those dyed patches were perfect.

Overall, I was disappointed at the quality of the 2 products I was sent by Sleek Makeup which is a shame, because in the past I’ve been mostly impressed (how ’bout them 12 pan palettes eh?).

Sleek Makeup products are available from selected Superdrug stores, the Eye Dusts and Dip Its both retail for £2.99 each.

Deep Skincare are a fairly new Dutch brand that I hadn’t heard of until they contacted me in December to ask if I’d like some products for review consideration.  Taking a look at their ‘about’ page… they seem quite hippy in a love each other, love yourself kinda way.  Which is nice!  Not enough people love me and I could do with some more harmony in my life.

Anyway, enough of all that!  Looky looky leg balm!

Splendid Smooth Legs.  What a rubbish name.  It’s like one of those bad Japanese translations isn’t it?  I think they should have added a “silky” in their somewhere to really tip it over the edge.

Housed in a heavy dark glass jar with a fairly plain label, the product has a nice simple look.  Understated.  I like it.

The first thing you notice when you unscrew the lid is the smell.  Immediately recognisable…  Taking a look at the ingredients confirms the source of the scent: Camphor and Menthol.  Vaporub anyone?  I love the smell of Vicks, but I know some people hate it, so beware!  Once on the skin, it takes about 15 minutes for the scent to fade completely.

The cream is thick but lightweight, a beautiful texture, it feels instantly cooling as it makes contact with the skin, fantastic for weary legs.

Looking more closely at the ingredients, the cream contains Arnica which is widely believed to help reduce inflammation, bruising and encourage the dilation of blood vessels and capillaries under the skin.  Witch Hazel also puts in an appearance on the ingredient list, a natural astringent often put to use as a treatment for varicose veins.

Exactly the ingredients I want to revive and massage into my legs after a full day on my feet.

They say:

Deep: Splendid Smooth Legs sports an invigorating and active formula. A delicious treat to pamper weary or swollen legs. Due to the purely natural ingredients, this balm has a very wholesome effect.

Rather than every-day use as suggested on the jar, I’ve been using this a few times a week.  A small amount goes a long way and leaves my legs feeling refreshed, cooled and less ‘heavy’ than before.  In the Summer, I do a lot of walking and I can’t wait to put it to good daily use as part of a post-bath routine!

While I remember, I also applied this in the middle of the night a few days ago after waking up with cramp in my calf, it really relaxed the tightness in the muscle and for once I didn’t get that limping you get the next morning when you don’t catch cramp in time.  I’d really recommend this as a hugely useful gift for mamas-to-be.  I suffered horrendous leg cramps in my 3rd trimester and would have loved a pot of this.

Do you neglect your legs? I’m ashamed to admit that mine don’t generally get much attention other than a nice shaving gel.  I don’t know why I’m so lax, varicose veins ain’t pretty!

You can purchase Deep Skincare online from their website. Splendid Smooth Legs is priced at £14.21 for 250ml.

If you want to learn more about taking good care of your pins, check out The Leg Room.  What Kate doesn’t know about legs, isn’t worth knowing.

So, I downloaded the Cosmetifique app for the iPhone about a month ago and am back to share my thoughts on it.

Firstly, it looks and feels kinda clunky.  It takes a large amount of effort to manually enter all the ingredients from a product ingredient list into the app and out of the 7 different products I tried, Cosmetifique’s database was missing at least 2 ingredients from each product, so after all that effort, I didn’t feel like I was getting the full picture anyway.

I was actually expecting to be able to simply enter the name and brand of the cosmetic item and watch as the app downloaded all the relevant INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) info from it’s own database.  I didn’t realise I had to manually enter each ingredient into the app myself.  What a palaver!

The app is designed to be used whilst shopping, so that you can input ingredients into the program and in a matter of seconds discover the quality of the INCI rating.  This sounds promising, but the app uses a hugely simplified traffic light system to rate the quality of the ingredients where RED = BAD, GREEN = GOOD and YELLOW & AMBER = somewhere inbetween the two.

This over simplification doesn’t appeal to me, I want to know *why* Limonene is a YELLOW, even just a small paragraph would do.  I also compared the results from Cosmetifique to Cosmetics Database and got conflicting results on some ingredients, which confused me further.

Let me give you a working example using my Revlon Colorstay Foundation:

There you go. Any wiser? No, me neither. Apparently my foundation is a bit bad and it’s a bit good… even Cosmetifique describe it as:

Quality of Ingredients: So so… be careful.

So So? That’s useful, thanks.  What am I being careful of? Skin Irritation? Tentative links to cancer? Not blending my jawline adequately?

I just don’t really ‘get’ anything from this app and the sketchy knowledge it provides me, it doesn’t give me enough information to make any informed choices and the lmited information that it does display on my screen is often incomplete anyway. What’s the point.

I give Cosmetifique a big fat

Baahhhh!

Like the sheep I am, I knew I had to have this after reading about it on the fabulous LionLovingTiger‘s blog.

LUSH Mint Julips is a sugar-rich scrub for your lips, housed in a fully unsanitary little black glass pot.  It’s possibly the most travel unfriendly item I own, and yet I tote it around with me everywhere, sneaking it out of my handbag whenever I’m in a semi-private place to give my lips a quick rub.  I did tell you they were mega dry!  Mint Julips works well, it scours them giving my lips a smoother surface for applying lipstick whilst leaving a little oil behind to moisturise.  I do find myself applying some balm ontop for extra hydration though.

It’s not a clever product, as many bloggers before me have poined out, you could easily make it yourself at home.  But I’m as lazy as I am flakey-lipped.

The new LUSH Lip Scrubs come in three flavours: Mint Julips (After Eights!), Bubblegum (Bubblegum durr) and Sweet Lips (Chocolate).  They taste far too nice for cosmetic products and it’s a struggle to keep them on your lips and off your tongue.  Or is that just me?

I love the product and hate the packaging, alhough I’m not sure how they could have improved it.  Have you tried these?

LUSH Mint Julips Lip Scrub – £4.50 available online and instore.

Whilst up in London for IMATS, I had lots of trouble dragging myself away from Inglot in Westfield.  I was in there searching through the lipsticks for AGES!  Such a variety, but despite this… nothing was really catching my eye.  And then I spotted a small group of maybe 12 lipsticks off to one side, and immediately, 2 shades popped out at me.

I asked the SA to tell me about these taller, thinner lipsticks that bear more than a passing resemblance to the MAC Slimshines.  The SA explained that these were their new Slim Gel Lipsticks which have a lighter, more moisturising feel to them whilst still retaining a good colour payoff.

Sold to the lady with the mega dry lips!

I purchased #61 (left) which I would describe as a mauve pink… it’s a medium toned pinky nude on my skin, proper nude… not concealer nude.  I also purchased #41 which is a brighter, more vivid shade bordering on the coral *eek!*

I love both of them, they are moisturising… they’re also a teeny bit sticky, which does wonders for their longevity.  One application of these happily lasts me through to lunch time.  They have a glossy, shiny finish and I love the hardwearing metal packaging that houses all of Inglot’s lipsticks.

I do have one concern though… they don’t seem that steady in the tube.  If you do buy one of these, make sure you don’t wind the product up too high when applying.  I really think that unless you take considerable care, these would be prone to snapping.

Left: #61, Right: #41

I’ve also noticed that I seem to be going through the tubes at a rate of knots!  You only get 1.8g of product per tube, compared to 2.3g in a MAC Slimshine or 3g in a standard MAC Lipstick.  I threw away the receipt but I think I paid around £9 each for these.  So quite expensive gram for gram I think.

I shall forgive Inglot this time , these are beautifully easy to wear lipsticks and I’m very pleased I made the purchase.

For someone who can’t be bothered to find the time to moisturise… I’m doing an awful lot of moisturising recently.

My skin is DRY DRY DRY… and nothing is making it better.  Not even tried and tested solutions that have kept my skin in good condition over the years.  Infact, not even my trusty body oils are providing long-term relief.

I re-discovered this Lula Bloom Body Butter in the parcel that housed the GOSH smoky eyes palette I was sent by Superdrug PR.  I was in two minds about it, remember?  I hope this fares better.  I have a bit of a backlog I need to work through…

I wasn’t gonna crack it open, ‘cos it looks like one of those all style-no substance products doesn’t it?  Plus I wasn’t sure if it was aimed at teenage skin… it just has that look…  I was gonna give it to a younger family member, except I forgot.

After having a quick look at the ingredients and noticing that one of my favourite moisturising bases (Cocoa Butter) is right up there near the top of the list, I decided that I’d give it a go.

Lula Bloom Body Butter (stupid name) is housed in a satisfyingly heavy glass jar.  This won’t appeal to half of you, but I’m not wanting to carry it about anywhere other than to and from my bathroom shelf so I’m not bothered.  I like it.  I’ve already mentioned that the artwork on the packaging gives me the impression that this is aimed at a younger audience, but the price tag doesn’t really match those impressions.

£6.99 for 250ml.  That’s quite pricey.  I know as a teenager I wouldn’t have been able to afford something like this.  I had more important things like 20 Lambert & Butler and 3 litres of White Lightning to spend my pocket money on.

Ignoring my misspent youth for a moment, I was truly surprised by how creamy and smooth the texture proved to be.  The consistency is very thick and a small amount spreads a long way.  I can see a pot of this easily lasting me at least a month of daily use.  Yet, despite being thick, it feels quite light once it’s on the skin.  A winning combination.

The scent is overpowering… it’s nice, but it’s too “in your face” for me.  Again, it makes me think that the product is aimed at a younger audience.  It’s fruity, tropical… everything that a 14yr old girl would want to saturate herself with.  It reminds me of my younger self stood at The BodyShop’s perfume oil carousel display.  God, I’d come out of that store with a dewberry/fuzzy peach induced headache.

Overall, I really like the product… but it suffers from some kind of Body Butter schizophrenia.  It’s a top quality moisturisier, leaving my skin soft and conditioned for many hours… but it’s as if some prat in the development team (probably a bloke) has come along and ruined the delicate balance by chucking half a ton of tropical pot pourri in the mixing vat.  What gives Lula Bloom?

It needs to either ditch the overpowering smell and horrible artwork…. or shave about £3 off the price.  Have you tried this?  Am I too harsh?

I’ll tell you what though… if you happen to know a 12-17yr old you fancy treating… *points at the body butter* you wouldn’t go wrong with this.

Superdrug has a whole Lula Bloom range going (the body scrub is decent too! Lurid pink packaging though…).  Check out the range on the website here

A.K.A… the one I’ve been waiting for!

This much anticipated release from NARS is another reason I was in London last Thursday.  I attended the presentation with VexintheCity and by the time 5.30 rolled around we were giddy with glee.

Elbowing each other outta the way to get up the stairs, we practically fell through the door looking every bit true Orgasm addicts.  Stop sniggering.

In it’s simple packaging… it looks kinda plain and… well, um… orange.  There I’ve said it.  It looks orange.  If you’re as pale as me, I know you’re gonna understand when I say that I may have physically recoiled from the tube.  Truth be known, my soul felt slightly crushed.  It looked *nothing* like I was expecting.  I mean, I don’t know just WHAT I was expecting… but it sure wasn’t a tube of ORANGE.

Anyway, here’s what Sephora (Oh! Sweet Sephora) has to say about it:

What it is:
A complexion enhancer that makes skin look instantly refreshed, radiant, and glowing.

What it does:
NARS Orgasm Illuminator lights your skin from within! Deceptively sheer and decidedly luminous, it magically transforms lackluster skin into a remember-me, luscious complexion. Flirt with foundation, go it alone, or go neck-and-neck with your décolleté. The effect is, well, orgasmic.

Whatever.  It’s still ORANGE.

And so I applied…

Woahhh Orange…

To be fair, I applied WAY TOO MUCH!  Seriously, this stuff spreads… you need the teeniest amount.

and then I blended…

and I blended some more…

You can see how far a little goes, right?

I haven’t sheered it out too much in the picture above so that you can still see the colour impression… I wouldn’t wear it this pigmented, although you could if you blended out the edges.

That’s more like it!!  Can you see the dewy faintly peach glow?

I want to suggest that the ladies (in my humble opinion) most likely to put Monsieur NARS on their Xmas card list for introducing this, will be darker-skinned.  Check out some swatches over at VexintheCity for an idea of how it looks on dark-skinned sisters.  On fair skin it’s beautiful… but it’s lacking the wow-factor that seems to magically appear on deeper tones.

Having said that, would I repurchase? Yes.

I think some people are expecting this to be the same as the blush, but in liquid form.  It isn’t.  It illuminates the skin with the teeniest hint of colour… and I think it will polarise opinion.  It’s subtlety will either be it’s strength or it’s weakness depending on what you want from it.

I slick a little of this ontop of my blush (not necessarily Orgasm!) for that extra bit of oomph… and it looks great down the centre of my nose.  Don’t laugh, it makes my nose look less um “fat”.  (Do you think it’ll work on my bum?)

It’s also fab for highlighting the cupids bow and although I know there are a 1001 illuminators out there that would do the job adequately, I’m back to stressing just how easy to use this is.

I suppose the nearest ‘dupe’ I have to this would be Illamasqua’s ‘Fondle’ Illuminator which I love, but find to be a little too glowy for daytime and if I don’t blend thoroughly, it leaves a hard edge.

I also own and adore NARS Albatross.  For me, Albatross is the best highlighter on the market.  Bar none.  Truthfully, it’s better than this for my skintone, but I wouldn’t dare try and apply it on the go.  Ladies who own it would agree with me that it needs a *very* light touch and more than a little patience to stop you looking like a disco ball.

NARS Orgasm Illuminator is foolproof.  It dries to a powder finish, leaving no horrible sticky residue and yet it doesn’t dry too quickly.  You can blend until you’ve got it *just* how you want it.  Im a dunce and I could apply this in the dark without screwing it up.  I’m honestly not sure how the formula manages to combine powder-finish with such blendability.

If you want the beautiful Orgasm flush, go for the blush.  If you want a subtle grown-up glow that you can add to your foundation without looking ridiculous, go for the illuminator.  Personally, I want both… he’s not daft that Monsieur. NARS.

NARS Orgasm Illuminator will be available from 18th February as a Space NK exclusive (boo!), before being rolled out across all NARS Counters on the 1st March – priced at £21.

Whilst in London last week, I had the opportunity to check out the NARS Spring 2010 Collection and hear a little more about it’s inception and application on the runways at New York Fashion Week last year.

It’s the first time I’ve ever analysed a collection like this… and honestly, I feel a little “hell, what do I know about ‘collections’ and ‘runways’ and excuse me while I kick off my Mum’s stilletos and get back in my sandbox”.

If I shrug off those insecurities, I’m left realising that I was handing over my debit card at the NARS counter in Liberty less than 20 minutes after being given this bag of samples… and really, what other qualifications does one need?

Let’s start with the actual collection.  Swatches, thoughts and all.

I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of the Catherine Deneuve-inspired promo shot for the collection…

…it just doesn’t ‘speak’ to me.  Infact, before being invited to sample the collection, I’d dismissed it based on this promo.  With that in mind, things didn’t get off to a good start.

First up are two new lipglosses. Ophelia (£17) (Strawberry Nectar) and Easy Lover (£17) (Sheer Hot Pink).

In the tube, Easy Lover is WOW!  It’s a true hot pink that makes you want to grab at it and play (and I did!).  On the lips, I’m disappointed.  It is so sheer, and whilst sheer lipglosses have many uses, I just feel cheated after seeing how it looks in the tube.  Worn alone, it adds no pigment at all to my lips.

Ophelia is more pleasing, I’m loving this over the top of a nude lipstick.  Again, it’s fairly sheer… but as it promises less in the tube, it doesn’t disappoint me in the same way Easy Lover does.

Swatches of both…

Next up is the single lipstick in the collection: Cruising (£17)

When I first saw Cruising in the tube, I can’t say I was too excited by it.  Infact, I don’t think it particularly registered until I got home and attempted a FOTD with the collection.  You know, I own over 48 lipsticks… and this has jumped straight into my top five.

Nude lipsticks are difficult to get right.  Choosing the correct one for your skintone is an unenviable task, so I’m not gonna start shouting that everyone needs to own this lipstick.  I really want to tell you to go and TRY it though.  It is *so* completely unassuming in the tube, I would have passed this by time and time again.

On my dry lips, It’s truly moisturising, glideing on with ease but crucially it stays on.  It gives my lips enough colour so as not to look dead but keeps the focus on the rest of my face whilst giving an overall polished finish to my makeup.  And that to me is what a true nude lipstick should do.  I love this, perhaps too much.

Bains Douches Glitter Pencil (£18.50), the eyeliner in the collection named after the legendary Parisien nightclub is a vivid matte blue infused with silver glitter.  Thankfully, the glitter particles are not particularly chunky and don’t irritate my eyes.  I’m not sensitive to eye irritation though, so you may want to give this a miss if you think it could cause problems for you.  Not only that, but I do have to point out… My God it’s expensive!

I adore the colour, but my first thoughts were that it sits oddly with the rest of the collection.  Until I tried it on the lower lashline with the Kuala Lumpur Eyeshadow Duo on my lids.  POP!  I’m very pleased to add this to my collection… it will see me right through ’till Winter and the sparkle is subtle enough to wear during the day.  I’ve surprised myself liking this so much and I’ll attempt an EOTD with this soon.  It applies beautifully, without need for ‘warming up’ and the glitter gives a lovely wide-awake look when applied along my lower lashline.

Camargue (£23) is a cream eyeshadow duo described as a Golden Moss/Sienna pairing.  It’s a slightly muddy looking combination, but I think it would be amazing on warm medium skintones.

As with all NARS Cream Shadows that I’ve tried, this really needs setting with powder if your lids are at all oily or you’ll be picking it out of your crease in a matter of minutes.  The NARS MUA I was talking to in Liberty recommended the golden half of the Alhambra Duo (which I bought) over the top of the Sienna half of Camargue.  He was right – it’s a beautiful pairing.

Camargue swatches, they look particularly warm against my cool skin tone:

Kuala Lumpur Eyeshadow Duo (£23) is one of the more talked about pieces in the collection:

It’s a beautifully pigmented combination of Rose Gold / Boysenberry.  Yeah, I’m not really sure what a Boysenberry is either… Google Images was my friend.

In the pan, I thought it would be a touch too warm for me, but it works.

The only thing I’d be wary of is that the right hand side of the duo contains enough red to give you that “I’ve been crying for 7hrs” look.  If you usually struggle with these shades, I’d steer clear.  Thankfully, I look neither suicidal nor ill wearing this duo and the right hand side is amazing applied wet as a liner.

Finally…

Purple Rain (£13).  I’ve been hugely excited about this polish ever since I saw nail swatches on Scrangie’s blog.  I tried, but failed miserably at capturing how it truly looks in the bottle… the polish is practically dancing in there.  I can’t wait to do a NOTD with it.

The final item in the collection is D. Gorgeous (£16), a dusty lilac single eyeshadow.  Here’s a stock image:

D. Gorgeous (love the name!) is a matte shadow which got a lot of love at New York Fashion Week, especially applied under the lower lashline.  Uneducated pleb that I am, I keep looking at the images thinking… “Tsk, that makes her look like SO tired”.  I didn’t have this in my goody bag so can’t offer an alternative (more educated) view!

So, that’s my run-down of what NARS has to offer us this Spring.

The single thing that strikes me is that I’m favouring the pieces that on first look, didn’t draw me in.  The slightly brown-looking lipstick, a bright blue eyeliner and an “I’ve been sobbing” eyeshadow duo… whoulda thunk it.  Not me.

If you’re not sure the NARS Spring 2010 collection is for you, go have a play.  It’s left me pleasantly surprised.

I’ll leave you with a FOTD:

Eyes:

~ NARS Kuala Lumpur Eyeshadow Duo on the lidand blended underneath the lashline.
~ NARS Camargue Cream Duo blended up above the crease (washed out in this image sadly)

Cheeks:

~ NARS Crazed Blush
~ NARS Orgasm Illuminator (applied over blush, bridge of nose, cupids bow) – review coming later today!

Lips:

~ NARS Cruising Lipstick
~ NARS Ophelia Lip Gloss

All items from this collection are available at NARS counters nationwide and online.

What say you? Is anything from the NARS Spring 2010 Collection capturing your attention?

Back in the days of stumpgate, the wonderful Sirvinya kindly offered to send me a spare pack of her Nailene false nails that she’d received for review purposes.

I was tragically distraught at the state of my tips and would have ripped the packet out of her hands given half the chance.  Living a good many miles away from her she was saved that fate and I had to sit on my nails instead, waiting (impatiently) until the postman dropped them through my letterbox.

I’m not used to false nails, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve donned a set of these.  I remember one occasion, I’d not long met my soon-to-be husband… we were young and cavalier back then.  He lived over 300 miles away from me and we’d sneak weekends together whenever we got the chance.  My 19yr old self obviously wanted to look my best, and I invested in a set of falsies (nails not tits) from Superdrug.  I remember they were red. *roarrrr*

They kept falling off.  Before my coach had even arrived in County Durham, I’d re-stuck them on about 50 times.  The weekend was wonderful… we laughed, played Super Mario, drunk Lambrini and ate many slices of Salami pizza (you’ll be pleased to hear I’ve retained my classiness).  I was demure, elegant and altogether rather swishy.  That is until his mother told me a few years later that she’d found at least 6 of my stick-on red nails tangled in his bed sheets and thought her son had developed a “thing” for ladies of the night.

So, that was my very short lived affair with false nails… it was over as quickly as it had begun and I haven’t even considered them since.  Until now.

These sounded as if they’d be easy to apply… but judging from the instructions, I could tell that removal was gonna be a pain in the backside.

I was right on both counts!  I had no problems with application, no air bubbles, no visible glue, and boy do these buggers stick!  I couldn’t resist doing that thing before removing them… yano, the ‘lifting’ thing.. seeing how much strain I could put on them, waiting for that satisying popping sound as they broke free from my nail bed.  In hindsight, I’m freaking grateful it never came.  I mean, what the hell was I thinking?  It’s like spot-picking… you know you shouldn’t, but that doesn’t stop you.

Here they are in action:

They look… false, don’t they? Mannequin hands…  I didn’t like how they looked on me.  I have quite narrow nails, and these made my hands look pretty chunky and squat.  Sizing was the issue, I couldn’t find one narrow enough to fit my index fingers properly.  Can you tell?  In the first picture I think it’s obvious that the index fingernail is too big.  Not only that, but although it seemed to just about fit on the nail bed, I noticed that it started to hurt the cuticles about 12hrs later, so it was definitely too large.

Removal was… tedious.  Worse than tedious.  I soaked as instructed.  What I failed to realise was that my Sally Hansen Nail Polish Remover was coloured blue.  10 minutes of soaking later, I emerged from my dip bowl with blue fingers up the knuckles.  And they stayed that way for a couple of days.  I think I preferred stumpgate.

What can you take away from this review other than the fact that I’m an idiot who was once mistaken for a prostitute?

Well, the nails are fine… if you like the look of them.  They’re easy to apply, a bitch to remove and might not suit you if you have narrow nails.  Look… I could have just saved myself about 3204 words right there.

Nailene So Real False Nails are available… actually, I’m not sure where they’re available in the UK… Boots? Superdrug? If you’ve seen ’em let me know so I can update!

I bought some Bobbi Brown Metallic Long-Wear Cream Shadows a couple of months ago and thought I’d share my thoughts on them…

The packaging is lovely, nice heavyweight glass jars…. they feel substantial and chunky!

Brown Metal

Starry Purple

Starry Night

Goldstone

Antique Gold

The swatches…

Disappointed is my feeling on these.  They look beautiful in the jar, truly.  But they’re *so* sheer… the swatches show a good number of swipes to get them pigmented enough to photograph.

I love the idea behind them, and I do wear them… I wear them underneath simillar toned powder shades and the only purpose they really serve is to add a bit of sparkle.  You also have to be really careful not to end up with glitter all over your face when applying these.  My  favourite is Goldstone, which unfortunately, is the biggest glitter dropper of all of them.

I’m simply left with the feeling that they could have been so much more.

Do you own any of these?  How do you wear them? Any tips to make me love them?

With my love for cleansing oils fairly well documented, I was keen to try another in my (quite possibly) never-ending quest for the ‘perfect’ cleansing oil.

I want my oil to do 3 things…

1). Cleanse my skin (like, duh!)

2). Rinse clean leaving no oily residue.

3). Not dry my skin out.

There’s other stuff too like “smell nice”, “not break the bank”, “easy to dispense”, “look pretty in my bathroom”… but they’re secondary to my 3 Commandments of Cleansing Oils.

I was sent a bottle of Nude Cleansing Facial Oil for potential review and immediately liked it’s sleek, minimalistic exterior.  I am a sucker for packaging, and this ticks all the boxes for me.

Detergent free? So that’s SLS and the like which are well known culprits for stripping skin of moisture… good stuff!

The ingredients are listed as:

INGREDIENTS: glycine soja (soybean) oil, polyglyceryl-4-oleate (vegetable oil), squalene (olive oil), tocopherol acetate (plant sources), natural fragrance (parfum), benzyl benzoate (essential oil), linalool (essential oil), eugenol (essential oil)

The first thing I noticed was the quality of the ingredients… At £28 a bottle, this stuff isn’t cheap.  But if I think back to my SK-II, (which came in at a hefty £32) it’s central ingredient was mineral oil.  I commented then on how mineral oil is one of the cheapest substances on Earth and I’m delighted to see that Nude Skincare have stayed true to their Organic ethos by keeping their ingredients as natural and pure as possible.

On their website, Nude assert that…

Up to 70% of what we put onto our skin is absorbed into the blood stream. Our remarkable products work with the skin, using active ingredients that face and body can understand and use without harm.

I can get on board with that..

Packaging is 40% recycled plastic apparently and I have no quality issues to report.  The bottle is great for travel… I carted this up to the North East with me and didn’t experience any spillages.

The blurb says to dispense 1 or 2 pumps.. I don’t wear huge amount of makeup, but I don’t find 1 pump to be enough.  It’s quite a thick oil and doesn’t spread *that* easily.  2 pumps makes it easier to guide over my face, and if I’m wearing a smoky eye… then it needs to be 3, which is quite a lot compared to other oils.

When using this, I actually feel like I’m experiencing a ‘treatment’ rather than simply cleansing my face.  One of the reasons is the scent.  Quite strong and pungent, it’s inescapable.  If you’re not a fan of strong scents in your skincare products, then I’d think really carefully before purchasing this cleansing oil.  I’m a huge fan of the smell… it reminds me of something quite specific which you’d probably all laugh at, but which turns the whole experience into something a little more special than simply washing my makeup off.

I can’t really say that without telling you what it makes me think of can I?

OK… it reminds me of being a teenager at my parent’s home in France.  It reminds me of Autumn and of damp horse chestnuts scattered over the lanes… It reminds me of woodburners and the wood from those horse chestnut trees spitting as the resin gets caught by the flames.

Silly and very personal to me but I can only review on my experiences.  What’s useful for you to take away from that is the fact that scent-wise, I think you’d either love it or hate it.  Have a sniff of it next time you’re in Space NK and let me know what you think!

Because the oil is of a thicker, more viscous consistency, I find myself massaging it into my skin in little circles.  I do this without any real thought – it’s almost a subconscious action, and one that probably benefits my skin more than I appreciate.

What about cleansing though? Does it budge mascara, foundation, eye liners?  Yes… apart from when I use a particularly hard to budge eyeliner, I have no problems removing my makeup with this cleansing oil and my eyes suffer no sensitivity from wiping this over my eyelids.

It doesn’t emulsify as completely as I would like.  I’m finding this to be my main annoyance with most of the cleansing oils I’ve tried.  It (like many others) leaves a slightly oily feeling on my hands and face.  I don’t think it leaves a proper ‘residue’ per se, but my skin doesn’t have that squeaky clean feeling after rinsing off.  I need to second cleanse with another product when using this cleansing oil.

A huge plus point in it’s favour is that I’m not noticing this oil drying my skin out at all.  Compared to all the others I’ve tried and reviewed (DHC, Shiseido, SK-II, Smashbox) – this one leaves my skin feeling as soft and supple as promised.  I’m putting that down to those carefully selected ingredients.

So, Nude Cleansing Oil… are you my Holy Grail?  You *are* lovely and I have thoroughly enjoyed using you…. I love the feelings your scent invokes and the way you’ve quite unexpectedly turned my cleansing routine into a mini spa.  I just wish that you emulsified completely and were a little more affordable.

Pros: Beautifully Scented, Removes makeup well, Quality Ingredients, Great Packaging, Non-Drying & Luxurious to use

Cons: Doesn’t emulsify completely, Expensive

In addition to my lovely Inglot Eyeshadow palette, I picked up a couple of lipsticks when I checked out the Inglot Store in Westfield a month ago…

The packaging is sleek… I love it, the outer cardboard box is more than a little reminiscent of MAC but the tubes themselves feel much sturdier.  They’re heavyweight metallic cases that would easily stand up to the rigours of being in my handbag.

I grabbed a pair of fairly nude shades…

#192 is a pink-toned nude with a touch of frost

#264 is a more flesh-toned nude with no frost.

You can see from the swatches, both lipsticks have a creamy, smooth texture with a slight shine.  Good for my poor dry lips as these don’t accentuate all the grooves and furrows that our recent plunging temperatures have created.

Here’s what they look like on:

#192 – Pink toned nude

#264 – Flesh toned nude

Apologies for the face photos, my only excuse is that it’s 2am…

Inglot Lipsticks retail at £7 each… tell me I don’t need any more please, ‘cos my arse is making buttons to get back there for some brights.