A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

So, it’s not the Holidays anymore… it’s mid January and I certainly don’t feel very ‘glowy’.  Wearing this now, makes me incredibly unfashionable and like “SO” last season… Regardless, check this beautiful shade out!

OPI Holiday Glow is a 3 coater to fill in any baldy patches and get the best from it.  It’s undoubtedly a glitter but you could get away without using a top coat if you were feeling particularly lazy thanks to the small, smooth glitter particles.

I couldn’t decide if the base colour was brown or burgundy, so I’m calling a” BRugurndy”.  See how I did that?  No, please don’t applaud, you’ll only make me blush.  The glitter is a nice mixture of gold and silver, the combo works so well as a whole.

I ended up buying 2 of these by accident.  I thought I’d bought this and Merry Midnight… turns out, I’d just bought 2 of these.  No matter, I’m giving one away on twitter this evening.  So, if you fancy being tragically last season too, find me on there to be in with a shot of winning it.

Do you like? This is probably one of the most sophisticated glitters I own… I love that OPI wide brush too…

Released as part of the Holiday Wishes 2009 collection (like SO last year sweetie!) I’m still rocking this one on my nails, clinging onto the last vestiges of Christmas before the total bleakness of pre-Spring sets in.  Wow, that was cheerful.

This is a beautiful bronzed shade flecked through with multi-coloured chunks of glitter of irregular sizes.

Application was Lipglossiping-friendly and it has so far lasted 6 days without a top coat.  Tip wear is moderate and it hasn’t chipped at all.  Removal? Don’t ask… I’m too scared to do it.  Perhaps I’ll just leave it on ’till next Christmas!

Did you buy any of the Holiday Wishes Collection shades? I really wanted Merry Midnight and Holiday Glow aswell but they were out of stock by the time I got round to buying 🙁

Obviously, this has been out aaaaaages… but ever since I saw the swatches on Jojoba’s blog last month, I’ve been lemming it like a woman possessed.

Since Sephora doesn’t ship to the UK, I have no US friends and I’m not keen on paying £40 on eBay, I’ll just have to suck it up and continue to cry myself to sleep thinking about it until like the beautiful LE item it is, it disappears from my sights forever…

A January essential? Most definitely *sigh*

If you have it, tell me how much you love it!

When I was in London earlier in the month I headed over to the huge Westfield to throw myself on the makeup.

I was itching to check out the Inglot store that I remembered hearing about on some forums when Westfield first opened.  And here it is! (please excuse the mobile phone pics)

Check out the range of eyeshadows:

and nail polishes:

Not forgetting the lipsticks…

It’s like an explosion in a Skittles factory no?

Beautiful!

Anyway… after that colour overload, I proceeded to choose myself a trio of eyeshadows to fill a small Pro Freedom Palette.  I went for the safe option (I know, boring!)

But aren’t they beautiful?

They’re ultra pigmented… incredibly smooth and I’ve embarked on a full-on love affair with them.

I can’t remember exactly how much I paid (argh! – can anyone help me out?)  I think it was around £14 for all 3 inc. the palette.

It’s called the Freedom System and you choose which shades you want the SA to put in.

The way I understood it is this…

You can choose from a Large Pro Palette (which hold the square shaped shadows, blushes and face powders – you can see the square shadows in my picture above).

or

You can choose from a Small Pro Palette which will hold the smaller eyeshadows (like mine), lipsticks and concealers etc…

Once you’ve chosen small or large… you can choose how many pans you want the palette to hold (I’m not sure of all the available choices).

You can also purchase items individually if you wish.

Hope that makes sense?!

The small shadows (to my eye) are the same size as MAC 26mm pans, but you get 1.8g of product in each pan compared to MAC’s 1.5g.

The range of colours is mind boggling, each with different finishes… I love me a bit of shimmer though!

I also bought a couple of lipsticks and will be back shortly with a post on those.

Have you tried Inglot? What say you?

I’m supposed to be chopping my nails off in my 6 weekly “prune” but I want to enjoy them being long for just a while longer.

Anyway, here’s another from the Barielle Shade’s range…

Make it a Latte is a very pretty warm-toned brown with shimmer.  Perfect for Autumn.  When I saw it in the bottle I was very hesitant as to how this would turn out on my cool-toned skin, but it works surprisingly well.

You’ll also be pleased to hear that the above is one coat.  Yes ladies and err ladies, we have a genuine one-coat wonder in our midst!  You can see on the side of my thumbnail where I didn’t apply *so* carefully and it’s a little patchy, but elsewhere (where I took a little more time) it’s perfect!

Application was fine with no issues and drying time was average.  Wear has been really good with barely any tip wear at all.

Barielle Shades are available to buy direct from Barielle

So, my Nails Inc. freebie arrived (I bet Nails Inc. HQ was positively buzzing with nail polish elves fulfilling orders last week).

I ordered Jermyn Street, a beautiful deep mushroom colour with a slight lavender hint.  It’s certainly unusual and sophisticated enough to wear any time you see fit.

It has a stunningly beautiful high gloss finish (no top coat used in the photo) and longevity seems pretty decent aswell with only minor tip wear after two days.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know my rocky history with Nails Inc.  I just don’t love the formula of the polishes I’ve tried thus far.  I’d love to say that this is the polish to change my mind… but it’s not.  I don’t know if you can see… but on the outside edge of the little finger is what I’m talking about.  It goes on a little too thick and starts to dry a little too quickly for me to get a lovely smooth application.  Honestly though, for this shade… I’m happy to overlook my problems with the polish.

Just another boring neutral FOTD…

Eyes:

Body Shop Shimmer Cube in Warm (Thanks Tali!)
Sleek Ink Pot in Black (Dominatrix)
Rimmel Sexy Curves Mascara
GOSH Velvet Touch eyeliner (Black)

Face:

Gale Hayman Youth Light Foundation (Porcelain) – A Direct Cosmetics cheapy I’ve surprised myself by liking!
Earthen Glow Minerals Matte Blush (Emotions)
MAC MSF in Perfect Topping

Lips:

GOSH Darling Lipstick

My hooded eyelids make things really tricky for a novice like me… I can hardly ever achieve a decent eyeliner flick, and getting my shadows to appear above the crease without looking plain odd I find really tricky.  Help!

So I mentioned this cake eyeliner a few days ago.  I bought mine on eBay for £1.95, I’m sure I’ve seen some Stargazer products in Superdrug, but I’m not sure if they stock the cake eyeliners.

Stargazer seems to be a bit of a Raver/Goth/Emo alternative cosmetics brand, with neons and bold colours featuring heavily in their range.

The eyeliner comes in an unassuming little pot, which although plastic, feels quite solid and sturdy.

‘Cos I’m so boring, I bought the brown shade.  You can choose from: Blue, Silver, Violet, Gold, Black, Red, Pink, Grey, Green and White.

Once you wet your eyeliner brush (either in water or a mixing medium of your choice) – swipe it across the pan to pick up some colour and get painting!

It’s really well pigmented – and once dry, simply doesn’t budge off my eyelids.  This wouldn’t be any good for waterlines though as it doesn’t take too much water to make it disappear into thin air.  But for the upper eyelid this is a fab bargain find!

It glides on super smoothly (it’s like painting with a watercolour).  Out of all my solid liners (gel types) this one allows me to get the most precise line thanks to it’s fluidity.  It dries very quickly and I usually go over a couple more times to build up the pigmentation a touch before the brush dries.  It can be a little tricky to ensure that the second coat doesn’t ‘dilute’ the first colour-wise.  However, I’ve found that as long as I work fairly quickly and don’t keep re-wetting my brush then I can get VERY strong pigmentation, but it’s a case of trial and error.

I’ve got my sights set on the other colours now.  Staying power is really great, I thought that seeing as it’s just a powder/water combination that it may crack and flake by the end of the day – which is a regular problem I have with cheaper liquid liners – not so here!  I’ve only ever mixed water with the liner and haven’t experienced any flaking so far.

For the price, I’m not sure these can really be beaten.  Grab them all!

P.S. I’ve got Blinc Mascara on in these shots.

[starreview tpl=14]