A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

Oh, I can’t take it any longer! It’s so dreary! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Summer’s biggest fan… but c’mon, give a girl a break! I’ve got some gorgeous, suede boots that I haven’t been able to wear for about two-months thanks to my lack of initiative in getting them scotchgarded**

Not only that but I had to wade through a field of mud picking Leila up from school yesterday after the wind had uprooted a monster tree onto the path and to add insult to injury, the workmen chopping it into teeny, tiny pieces weren’t even hot.  No 3pm Diet Coke break for any of us Mums, just a bloody quagmire to wade through.

So I’m taking it upon myself to Spring things up a bit with this cheerful little number from Butter London.  Molly Coddled is from last Spring’s “Sweetie Shop” collection and has the perfect amount of chalkiness to keep it looking fresh without pushing into starkness territory.

The more astute, or simply fashion-aware among us may also be getting seal-clappy about the fact that this lavender orchid would work nicely with the current Pantone Color of the Year.  If you give a shit about that sort of thing.

The formula is superb on this one with no patchiness or streaking like you’d often get with pastels.  I definitely recommend picking this one up if you’re feeling a little Spring-resistant like me today.

Butter London Molly Coddled is priced at £11.95 and available to buy online from www.powderrooms.com

if you liked this post, don’t forget to check out my subscriber options, here

* press sample

** 1st world problems

Is it purple? Is it blue? Neither, this is AUBERGINE bitch!  Well, kinda…

It also happens to be a one-coat wonder, unless you’re ridiculously meticulous and couldn’t possibly leave it at that.  Me?  I left it at that.  The finish is smooth and glossy and application harks back to some of Butter London’s best from a couple of years back.  When you’re dealing with bold colours, you really appreciate a faultless application and this can unquestionably be described as an easy-to-work-with polish.

Butter London Bramble was released as part of the Holiday 2013 Illusionists collection alongside a trio of top-coats and I’ll be blogging it again, combined with one of the top coats from the set: Stardust, which gives a wondrous, galaxy-esque finish.

I’m loving these chic darker shades at the moment, especially on shorter nails, what colours are you loving at the minute?

Butter London Bramble is available to buy online from powderrooms.com, priced at £11.95

When I first reviewed the L’Oreal Color Infallible range a couple of years back, I was impressed with the amount of pigment these little pots delivered.  They were obviously hot on the heels of Armani’s Eyes to Kill Intense/Chanel Illusion D’Ombre high-end releases and presented an inexpensive way to jump on the is-it-cream-or-is-it-powder bandwagon.

My only issue with them back then was with their staying power as I found them sliding around on my lids after a few hours, both with or without a primed base.

However, I’m a sucker for my purples and the limited edition Metallic Lilac release had been haunting me ever since I saw swatches a while back.  Still not quite enthused enough to hot-foot it down to Boots (how many purples does one woman actually need?) I held off until I was reminded of its existence during a late-night eBay browse.

The particular beauty of this shade for me lies in its irridescence.  It has a delicate sparkle that remains on your lids without too much migration and injects the area with reflected light… something that I’m particularly partial to when I drag my sorry bones out of bed in time for the school run.

The flashes of pink in the powder prevent the shade from being too icy, and there’s a subtle greyed-out quality that will appeal to those of us who don’t want our eyeshadows to scream too loudly at passers-by.

I use a flat brush to apply this to the center of my primed lid before buffing out the edges for a softer finish.  I’m wearing it today on the lower lashline, a little heavier than I would across the lid and it adds a look-twice amount of colour without being over the top.  Longevity still isn’t the greatest on the lids for me but I’m a little more lenient nowadays, less demanding of staying power in my old age… perhaps I just don’t need all-day-long wear anymore.

That being said, I still get around 5 hours with a primer, so it’s not too bad.  I also should point out that I do believe that I’m in the minority with grumbling about wear issues with this range of eyeshadow.  Most bloggers tend to find that this gives great all-day wear with a primed base.

You can pick the L’Oreal Color Infallible Eyeshadow in Metallic Lilac up on eBay from £2.25 with free postage.  Or you can go to Subway and buy a bacon sub with a drink for £2.00 – I won’t hold it against you if you choose the bacon, there’s no easy answer to this one.

I do love a cheap n’ cheerful polish pick-me-up. No guilty spend and the sense of satisfaction that you got something purdy for a few pennies… in this case, I think it was about 99 pennies.

Here’s a little something I dug out from the bottom of my stash, I think I bought it a couple of years ago on a trip to Beauty Base in Whiteleys at Queensway.  I still have a couple more LA Colors shades that I haven’t blog-swatched.  That’s the technical term for “worn” dontchano?

Morning Glory is a blue-toned purple with a strong electric-blue micro shimmer running through the base colour.  It has a fairly watery consistency, the kind you think will never reach full opacity… when all of a sudden, it does.  In this case, it took three coats to achieve the coverage you see above.  I didn’t think we were gonna make it after two but it came good in the end!

I’m not sure if this is still available to buy in-store but I’m pretty sure you’d be able to pick a bottle up from eBay for next to nothing…

What was your last inexpensive beauty find?

Have I told you before that Urban Decay were one of the first brands that made me sit up and take a proper interest in nail polish? Remember some of those early polishes… I still have a bottle of Cult and O somewhere, such a gorgeous pink!

Anyway, reminiscing aside… Urban Decay have been lightly dabbling with the (re)creation of nail polishes via some lovely mini-sets these past few years but this Autumn sees the return of full-size bottles.

Well, I say Autumn… they’re actually live on BeautyBay.com and the Debenhams website as I type.  The brand will be looking to release two limited edition shades each season, and I’ve got one of Autumn’s offerings on the blog today for your swatch-swooning pleasure!

Vice, one of the two limited edition shades available with their skull-topped bottles, is a rich purple with a not-so-hidden red/blue shimmer.  It’s not as duochrome as the stock images might have you believe but it is a deeply sexy royal purple with that inner glow of gorgeousness that darkens at the edges.  I’ve included a macro shot below to give you a better idea of how the polish reflects the light.

The 3-three formula is bloody faultless, practically a one coater though I always do two when my nails are under swatch-scrutiny!  The polish glides on smoothly and dries quickly to a high shine, I’m not wearing a top coat in the above pictures.

If you’re in the market for a stunning purple, you’d be hard pushed to find better on the market at the moment.

Urban Decay Nail Colour in Vice is priced at £10 and available to buy online from beautybay.com and instore/online at debenhams.com

* press sample

Pow pow purple! Coming from Boots No7, I didn’t expect *quite* so much pigment in these little pans. The No7 Stay Perfect Quad Eyeshadow Palette (£10.50) delivers a real punch of colour from all four of its shades which blend effortlessly across the eyelid thanks to a soft, almost creamy texture.

If anything, the vibrant purple in the palette* does overshadow the more subtle shades contained, and on my hooded lids turned the taupe (that I’d placed in the crease) a lot more violet than I’d intended once I’d worn it in for an hour… but as a huge purple fan, I can live with this.  In the inner-corners, I used the pinky-violet shade and on the upper lashline, the deep purple powder (as an eyeliner).

I suppose if I take away my love for that single purple shade… the palette as a whole probably doesn’t work too well.  I’m here describing my placement of all four shades in the palette but the subtleties of them are completely bowled over by the gorgeous bottom left pan.  You need to find a way to either quieten that one shade down (I think I’d perhaps use it only along the lower lash line next time) or give it up to an all-out purple fest.

I completed the look with a sweep of Dainty Doll powder blush in 002 My Girl, and Urban Decay Iconic Lipstick in Naked (one of my favourite ever nudes, now sadly discontinued).

What’s your favourite purple eyeshadow?

* press sample

I remember the first time I visited the Bare Escentuals store in Covent Garden. It hadn’t been open very long and at the time, I think I referred to it as “the candy shop”.  You see, for a makeup lover, there’s something about being surrounded by so many mini pots of jewel-toned pigments that makes it quite easy to lose your sense of decorum.  I emerged from the store, so completely covered in swatches, it looked like I’d had my own private Holi festival.

Obviously, pigments and powders is where it all started with Bare Escentuals and when the brand announced a range of pressed-powder products, I was excited for the convenience that this brings, but also wary that the same kind of vibrancy and pigment quality wouldn’t, nay perhaps couldn’t translate itself so well from the confines of a pressed pan.

Well, I worried needlessly.

My first experience of the new(ish) BareMinerals READY Eyeshadows comes in the form of one of their quads: A List*.  On paper, it’s got my name written all over it, I’m a sucker for a purple-toned palette.  I’d heard about the “incredible” texture of the new READY eyeshadows and I had the highest of expectations as a result.

First thing to note about this particular eyeshadow quad is indeed, the texture which is truly buttery.  You can tell that this product comes from a brand who know their way around a pigment or two because the powders are so softly textured, they feel almost creamy.  There’s a hint of roughness to the purple shade (Swanky) but you have to expect that from the glitter particles.

You’d expect a buttery-textured eyeshadow would blend with ease, and in my opinion, they do.  Infact, above all else, I’d put weight on this being their best selling-point.  It’s not always easy to blend smooth gradients from shadow to shadow, getting that perfectly refined edge to soften to the point of invisibility is a well-honed skill, and anything that makes lighter work of it is a marvel.  On this score, the BareMinerals READY Eyeshadow Quad in A List, is, a marvel.

Where I think some of these palettes could do with a little work is with their combination of colours.  I feel that A List doesn’t quite give me the eye palette that I want to work with.  The highlighting shade (Icebreaker) is very pale, very shimmery, and very…. highlighter-y.  Unfortunately, I feel that the next shade up in the quad, the pink (Fashionably Late), is also playing the same role… albeit in a more vibrant way.

For definition, I need a solid crease colour, and unless I go black, my only option is the glittery Swanky.  The jump between Fashionably Late (on the lid) and Swanky (in the crease) is quite large and on my skintone at least, the palette is not quite there in terms of shade combining.  I would have liked to have seen these pink/violet hues without both extreme ends of the spectrum (white/black) incorporated in the 4-pan palette.  Perhaps something like The Dream Sequence is closer to what I’m looking for.

I had one other, minor, issue with the palette.  In the photo below, I’ve highlighted where one of the pans is raised above the level of the palette.  It’s not quite enough to cause any problems with the closure mechanism but… and perhaps I’m being a touch fussy… it’s not something I expect from a £29 (on counter) eyeshadow palette.  It looks untidy but is hopefully a one-off.  Really not interesting in a sponge-tipped applicator when I’m paying nearly £30 either.

These grumbles aside, I really can’t fault the colour payoff and texture of the included shades.  Black Tie Optional makes a great liner close to the lashline, or smoked out at the edges to deepen and intensify the overall look.  Both Icebreaker and Fashionably Late offer something a little more frosty but both will work as highlighters, although FL is a little saturated to blend too high up the browbone.  Swanky is a really nice purple that’s blue-enough not to deliver the bruised/consumptive look, the added sparkle is a nice touch.

BareMinerals READY Eyeshadow Quad in A List is available to buy online from beautybay.com, priced at a very reasonable £23.49

* press sample

** come back later today for a FOTD with the above palette

Su requested a swatch of the Laqa & Co Nail Polish Pen that I talked about yesterday, and I jumped at the chance of a quick and easy post so I could get to bed early (and carry on decorating bright and early tomorrow), forgive me for repeating myself!

Incestuous is one of those muted lavender shades that suit my skintone really nicely.  I know that some tones, especially olive skintones can struggle with muted purples which can sometimes make fingers appear lifeless but Incestuous (hate that name) offers enough saturation, I think, to avoid this phenomenon.

Application was basically pretty fun.  Except for the part when I realised that I would, in essence, be painting my nails with the wrong hand – with a pen.  Any ambidextrous readers out there?  Lucky.  I got my fingers in a proper muddle, made only more difficult by the fact that my nails on that hand were wet!  All in all though, the results were really good – the above image shows two coats (three on two of the fingers that I messed up).  Judging by the little window in the pen, it doesn’t seem to have consumed too much polish, but considering the pen only holds 5ml (the same as a Mavala) and costs £10.95 – this certainly isn’t the most economical way to paint your nails.

Having said that, it’s great for holidays and showing off your beauty gadgetry to anyone who gives a shit.  Which, let’s face it… is probably no-one.  You should probably just get this to amuse yourself/give as a present (the box and artwork is way cool/or for your holiday manicures.

Laqa & Co Nail Polish Pen in Incestuous is priced at £10.95 and available online from PowderRooms.

* press sample

You can keep your Andrex puppies and their loo roll-pulling antics because Zoya Kendal has super-softness in the bag.  This beautiful polish from the American brand is simply perfect.  A gorgeous greyed-lavender creme that incites visions of mist-swirled candyfloss.

The formula is also divine, reaching full opacity in two fuss-free, streak-free coats. You may be able to tell that this is my favourite polish of the year so far…. making me want to retrospectively check out the rest of the Zoya Feel Collection from last winter (thank heavens for eBay).

If you’re finding Zoya Kendal a little too simplistic or cold for your tastes, these kind of muted pastels are my absolute favourite for enhancing with a little glitter.  In this case, Butter London’s Tart with a Heart did the honours…

Ethereal, delicate, beautiful and blinging to the max!

Zoya Kendal is available to buy online from beauty4nails-body.co.uk, priced at £7.99

Maybe I’ve been eyeing up too many chocolate eggs but this is just making me think of a Cadbury’s egg with a good dose of speckling!

Today’s NOTD is courtesy of Butter London’s HRH with a coat of the lovely L.A Colors in Jewel Tone ontop.  Although the glitter in Jewel Tone is fairly dense, the base is far too translucent to work as anything other than a layering polish.  Nevermind, it’s only 99p from BeautyBase afterall (£1.29 online) and works beautifully with a whole range of purples, blues and pinks!

Check out Rhamnousia’s great comparison with the much-loved Models Own Disco Mix.

Have you got your Easter Egg sorted for the weekend?  Whatchu got?

I pounced on the Zoya spring collection, probably my favourite of all the spring offerings this year – it’s subdued, with its muted softy pastels and delicate shimmer.  I could have bought so many more but stopped myself at two, here is the first that made it into my basket, Lotus.

Of the two purples in the spring collection, this is the one that had the dustier edge.  And I’m all about dusty edges… both when it comes to nail polish, and bookshelves.  Lotus has a soft pink shimmer that catches the light but sadly failed to pick up very well in my swatch photo – you can see it in the bottle though yes?  It’s not a glaringly obvious shimmer but gives the shade more depth and prevents it from sitting flat on the nailbed.

Formula was fine, the above photo shows three coats but you could get away with two… I applied my second coat with too much impatience and caused a bit of drag, hence the need for the third.  My fault, not the polish’s.

Zoya Lotus is priced at £7.99 and available online from beauty4nails-body.

My lovely friend Rowena from Cosmetic-Candy sent me a couple of Skin Food Nail Vita polishes last year and after falling in love with both of them (and not having swatched them yet, naughty!), I popped on eBay and picked up another that had caught my eye over on Witoxcity’s fabulous blog.

Puppy Purple is a beautiful, vampy shimmer – perhaps a little too vampy for March but I’m happy to break the rulez for this one.  It’s a little thick, though completely controllable and opaque in a single coat, although I did use two in the above photograph for the neatness value!  The shimmers in the creme base are striking and apparent on the nail, catching the light beautifully.  It’s not the most unique polish in the world but it’s one that I’m delighted to have in my collection and wouldn’t give up!

Perhaps the best thing about this polish?  I paid £3.49 for it, including shipping from South Korea.

You can buy Skin Food Nail Vita in Puppy Purple online from rubyruby76 on eBay.  Shipping was a little slow, but no major grumbles.