A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

My last foray into ELF’s eyeliners was not a successful one.  About a year ago, I picked up a couple of the liquid liners they do and HATED them.  Scratchy and lacking in pigmentation made them a huge fail for me so I was ready to be disappointed when I accepted the offer to try a liner from the new ELF Studio Cream Eyeliner range.

I chose Coffee, a medium brown shade.  There are currently 4 shades in the line up: Coffee (medium brown), Black, Midnight (dark blue) and Ivory (off white pearl)

The packaging fits in nicely with the rest of the Studio line, the jar is plastic with a solid, chunky feel.  The lid screws on with a satisfying click when it’s fully tightened.  Lightweight and portable, it’s not the sleekest eyeliner in the world, but it’s fully practical.

The texture of the liner is *incredibly* soft, perhaps a little too soft.  When I dip my brush, the fibres sink downward straight into the product which makes it a little hard to stroke across the surface without picking up too much product.  A couple of times, I’ve picked up a whole clump of eyeliner on the brush instead of an even coating.

You can see the tip of the brush sinking straight into the product in the shot above.  Whilst this might mean it takes a little more care to load your brush, it makes for the smoothest application of any liner I’ve ever used.  And I’ve used a lot.  Note, that this only applies to this particular shade as I know texture can vary between products in the same line.

Pigmentation is medium, I needed to go over the line twice to build it up to my desired strength, but when a liner glides as smoothly as this one does, it’s not a problem.

The above swatch shows 3 swipes of the liner.  It takes about a minute to set before becoming truly transfer proof.  Even on my hooded eyelid it stuck fast for hours, by bedtime the line had faded to about half it’s original intensity, but the fading was even.

I’ve also used it as a cream base which worked really well thanks to it’s super-soft texture.  Blending was a delight and I love wearing it under greens to create a more ‘old gold’ kinda shade.  I haven’t noticed it partcularly increasing longevity on eyeshadows though, so I still combine with a slick of eyeshadow primer underneath.

I’m amazed by the quality of my ELF Studio Cream Eyeliner, and at £3.50 you really can’t go wrong.

Here comes the older, more glam sister…

Urban Decay Primer Potion in Sin has been out in the US for over a year now, and I’ve been cooling my heels ever since I saw it pop up on Sephora many moons ago!

It promises all the benefits of the original UDPP with a little added pizazz.

They Say:

~ Use it alone; it’s a crease proof shadow!
~ Maximise it’s potential by using it as a highlighter, dab on brow bone, eye corners and cheeks for a radiant finish.
~ Sin works perfectly with any eye shadow and doesn’t show through, experience vibrant colour all day, with absolutely no creasing!

I received the sample of this last week and as a fan of the original, I was keen to see exactly why I’d want to purchase this one instead.

The new-fangled angled (I’m a poet) wand which promises to reach into each dark primer-potion filled corner of your tube.  I was initially sceptical about how putting an angle on the wand would *really* help, but having had a little play at ‘scooping’ from that very bottom jutting out bit, I think it might just work.  I don’t like how it makes the wand more difficult to remove from the tube though, I keep thinking it’s gonna ping primer at me as it pops free.

Swatched beside the original UDPP you can see that it’s a champagne cream with a metallic looking shimmer.  I instantly liked it… what with being a fan of metallic neutrals with a bit of shimmer n’all  😉

It’s quite heavily pigmented and the first thought that struck me was that it may do a better job at evening out skintone on pigmented eyelids better than the original.  I’m only speculating here as I don’t have a particular issue with red eyelids, but it makes a nice neutral base that sheers out well depending on how much you blend.

I really like this worn as a cream eyeshadow combined with a powder crease colour, as you would imagine, the staying power is rather marvellous.

The two primers blended out a little (not completely).

You can see that Sin retains it’s champagne shimmer whilst the original UDPP is well on it’s way to blending invisibly.

I’m an idiot and forgot to take a photo demonstrating how the same eye shadow looked applied over both primers.  I promise I’ll do it before the week is out and just pop up a quick comparison post.  Basically, if you’re applying a shadow over UDPP Sin… it ups the shimmer.  I <3 it, but it’s important to see as it may put you off completely.

I find that staying power for eyeshadows applied ontop is pretty equal for both primers, if there is a difference, it’s not discernible to me.  Blendability is still hard work over Sin and I’m a bit disappointed about that as it’s the only thing I really would have loved to see changed about the original UDPP.

D’yanowot… I’m on the fence about it with regards to my original question: “Why would I purchase this one over the original?”

Don’t get me wrong… I  really like it, there’s nothing for me not to like.  I like neutral, I like shimmer…

Might I sometimes want some of my shimmer eyeshadows even more shimmery… Possibly!

Do I want all my eyeshadows turned a bit shimmery by using it?  Probably not…

Do I want a lovely champagne cream eyeshadow practically guaranteed not to budge in the summer? Yes please!

Would I purchase?  I dunno!  Stop asking me hard questions!!  What say you?

Urban Decay Primer Potion in Sin is due out next month, priced at £11.50.

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?

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]

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.