Showing posts with label EOTD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EOTD. Show all posts

Wednesday, 27 March 2013

Barry M Waterproof Gel Eyeliner in Champagne



Drugstore eyeliners have come on such a long way in the last 5 years or so. It used to be that to get a real waterproof finish you needed to buy high-end, but nowadays you can buy a pencil, liquid or gel eyeliner that sets down watertight and unbudge-able for about a fiver.



Barry M's new(ish) gel eyeliners come in a tightly edited (read: small) range of colours including black, silver, and this rather unusual champagne shade, which I couldn't resist picking up. It's a pale, very cool gold-ish pewter shade.



The Transformers/Kinder Egg-esque brush-inside-the-lid packaging is pretty plasticky, and judging from the testers in Superdrug, not likely to keep this gel eyeliner from shrivelling up into a hard little hockey puck with gradual exposure to air. But for £5.49, fair enough, really - it's not an investment-type purchase. This is the same design of packaging as Fashionista gel eyeliners (if you own any of these), but I don't know if the formula is the same as I haven't tried those.


The texture is great - really smooth, creamy and highly pigmented. The brush it comes with isn't super-fine, and you're more likely to create a smudgy sweep than a precise cat-eye with it. The champagne shade is pale and shimmery enough to be forgiving of this though, so it's all good.


It sets to waterproof in about 30 seconds, and stays put pretty much all day. Hooray!



Find it in Superdrug, Boots and at Barry M's website, where it costs £5.49

Saturday, 23 March 2013

Topshop Lost In Time eyeshadow palette EOTD

Nowadays, no trip to Topshop is complete without a sly appraisal of the latest bits and pieces in the makeup area. The Topshop beauty line always manages to tempt me - there's something about their well-edited range of colours and finishes, along with the distinctive chalk-on-a-blackboard packaging, that's just... well, stylish. (Which I suppose shouldn't be a surprise given that stylishness is their whole shtick.)



Anyway, the 8-shade Lost In Time eyeshadow palette made its way home with me last time I went to Topshop, and I have been acquainting myself with its various shimmery shades over the last week.

My thoughts on this palette are mixed. On the one hand I love the sleek casing with its star-covered lid, and the colours in the line-up look very inspiring sitting next to each other - I especially love that taupe there, third from the right. But on the other hand, the quality is not quite up there with the best eyeshadow-players in the mass market - the two palest colours in particular don't deliver on their highlightery promise, and manage to be both sparse and gritty. The darker colours payoff better, and surprisingly it's the two matte shades, the black and the brown, that deliver the best results.


I've worn a few of the shades in different combinations and they do play very well together, but I think part of the reason is the general lack of payoff - it's easy for colours to combine well when they aren't actually that colourful.

Here are a couple of EOTD shots using the two taupes and just a little touch of the blue.



For £16, I can't wholeheartedly recommend this palette, but I do like the concept of it very much. It's just that in execution it doesn't quite deliver 100%.

You can find this in Topshop stores with a beauty concession, and at Topshop's website, where it will set you back £16 for a total of 8g of product.

Thursday, 21 February 2013

EOTD: Mulberry and Gold



This EOTD is neutral and work friendly, giving a polished and pretty look which goes well with a strong lip, if that's your thing (it's definitely mine!).

Brows
Illamasqua Eyebrow Cake in Stark

Eyeshadow
Burberry Sheer Eyeshadow in Mulberry* (crease) and Gold Pearl* (lid)

Liner
Illamasqua Precision Ink in Havoc

Mascara
Maybelline The Rocket Volum' Express

Every time I use a Burberry Sheer eyeshadow I find myself pondering what they actually mean by "sheer".  They're not so high pigment they're unblendable, nor are they so sheer you have to work to build them up.  Either way, they're very pretty; easily blendable, with a lovely soft sparkle.

Oh, and if Illamasqua ever discontinue Havoc, I'll cry.  Literally.  Unless I can buy about 3592 backups.

Wednesday, 29 August 2012

EOTD: Back to MAC

Pretty much every beauty addict goes through their "MAC phase" - building up a collection of eyeshadows, lipsticks and lipglasses from the permanent line, and rushing to the counter for every limited collection to add the most coveted LE shades to their stash. Sooner or later, the ardour cools and you step off the merry-go-round of chasing collection after collection, returning to a more level-headed relationship with the brand.

My MAC phase lasted from around 2005 - 2007, and I've still got some of the colours I collected during that time. Many of them are discontinued now, but I still like to revisit them from time to time, particularly the eyeshadows in the three 15-palettes I amassed on a crazy shopping trip to New York in 2006.



Here's a look using some of my oldest and best-loved MAC eyehadows - Bitter, Blu-Noir, Tilt and Vex. Of the four, only Tilt and Vex are still on counters, and it's no wonder, as the pink-green duochrome on a champagne base and the blue/green/purple shift are both timeless classics.


Did you have a MAC phase? What were/are your big loves from the brand?

Saturday, 3 March 2012

EOTD - stars and stripes

As I'm going away to the States this week, New York to be exact (and am ridiculously excited about it), I indulged in a bit of "creative" makeup. Cracking out my faithful Yaby palette of brights, I produced this EOTD modelled after the American flag.


Unfortunately this fit of experimentalism struck at night, so the lighting is not great, but you can see what I was at least trying to do.


I think with a steadier hand and a bit of mascara and eyeliner, this could actually work for fancy dress or something.

Have you been to New York? Any makeup shopping tips?

Tuesday, 3 January 2012

EOTN: New Year's Eve



Due to the presence of my step children, I might not have been out partying til the small hours, but I was determined to start 2012 as I meant to go on - covered in glitter.  The products used were...

Stila Prime Pots in Taffy
Barry M Dazzle Dust in Mushroom
Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy
Makeup Forever Glitter in 13 Silver Multicoloured
Estee Lauder Pure Color Liquid Eyeliner in Black Quartz
Benefit They're Real mascara

What did you wear on New Year's Eve?  Do you think this kind of glitter is party only, or might it possibly work for daytime if applied with a light hand?  Let us know in the comments!

Disclosure: Products in italics are PR samples

Saturday, 26 November 2011

EOTD: Off The Wall Flowers by Soap & Glory

Off The Wall Flowers is the brightest of Soap & Glory's 3 Lid Stuff eyeshadow quads. It features a sandy pearlised highlighter (with a cute embossed detail), a plummy brown, a shimmery aqua and and ever so slightly chalky matte cool pink. The pans are about the size of MAC eyeshadows (and the palette's not unlike a MAC palette either).


Here are all 4 shadows worn on the lid...



And here, of course, are the swatches.




Soap & Glory Lid Stuff palettes are £10 each, available from Boots.com

Thursday, 17 November 2011

EOTD: Emerald smokey eye


Products used:



YSL Volume Effet Faux Cils - Noir Radical*
Bourjois Sweet Kiss lipstick - Fuchsia Cosmopolite*
17 eyeshadow trio - Broken Hearted*

I really like the pink lipsticks Bourjois brought out with their Paris Delhi Shanghai collection over the summer. Worn smudged on the lips like a stain, they add a very low-maintenance pop of colour. Fuchsia cosmopolite is the most vibrant pink in the collection.

Also, here's a closer look at 17's Broken Hearted eyeshadow trio, which is a mix of two cool dark greens and a silver-blue highlight. It creates a smokey eye that's just ever so slightly off-black.



*PR samples

Thursday, 24 March 2011

EOTD - Nars Nouveau Monde


I wanted a Nars eyeshadow duo for a long, long time. On many occasions over the years I brought one as far as the till in Space NK, before bottling out at the last moment due to the absurd £23 price tag. These days, £23 doesn't seem like as much as it did when I was a student, but it's still a pretty steep ask for two pans of colour.

On hearing the news that I had a new job a few weeks back, I went out in a fever of jubilant excitement and bought (among other self-indulgent rewards) Nouveau Monde, which is one of four new duos in the Nars Spring 2011 collection (including the stunning blue Bateau Ivre). I had to make my purchase in a rush, so I wouldn't stop at the last moment. Do I regret it? Absolutely not.


Nouveau Monde is a typically quirky Nars pairing. ("It shouldn't work, but it does" might be a good motto for their duos.) On one side, iridescent sheer lilac with a subtle glitter. On the other, olive green on a heavy dark brown base.

Swatches:


Worn:


There's something about this pairing that just absolutely *works* for me. It brings out the shape and colour of my eyes wonderfully. I look in the mirror while wearing this and just think... "yeah". Which is kind of what all makeup should do, in my opinion.

Nouveau Monde, £23.50, Nars.

Sunday, 13 February 2011

EOTD - Teal & Turquoise

This look was a quick and simple experiment in combining matte and shimmer finishes. I used MAC eyeshadows in Blu-Noir, Jewel Blue and Waternymph - the top row in the photo here. Unfortuntely all three are now discontinued (Waternymph was limited edition). I guess that goes to show how long ago I went through my "MAC phase" of collecting their colours - Waternymph came out in 2006!


However, you can find equivalent shades in the current MAC permanent line in Nehru (matte navy) Electric Eel (bright matte blue) and Steamy (shimmery turquoise) if you want to try something similar for yourself. Or indeed, you can find various dupes in other brands' collections.














Also used;

Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer
Bourjois volume Glamour mascara
GOSH Velvet Touch eyeliner (Black Ink)
Illamasqua Brow Powder in Motto

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Review - Clinique Strawberry Fudge palette (Christmas 2010)

Disclosure - PR sample


Clinique has never been a brand I would look to for innovative colour cosmetics. Harsh, perhaps, but true. I associate them more with skincare, and quality makeup basics like foundation and mascara, which they do very well indeed, but not colour. This perception has been challenged by the Strawberry Fudge palette, released for Christmas 2010 (available 12 Nov).

It's packaged in a solid double-walled plastic compact with a mirrored outer finish. The top of the palette is decorated with radiating circular lines - kind of bauble-like, but tastefully abstract. Inside, a large high-quality mirror takes up the entirety of the inner lid (excellent) and in the lower half, 3 eyeshadow pans and a large blush pan are arranged alongside a good-sized brush tray. I'm not wowed by the mini blush brush and applicator that come with the palette, but they're certainly fine for travel.

Overall, the packaging is very well designed and seems durable. (I'm not going to drop it on purpose to test that theory. I like it too much.)You can even lift out the insert containing the pans and brush tray, to give the palette extended use as a compact/mini brush case once you've exhausted the pans.


Colour-wise, I'm truly impressed. The star of the show is a perfectly balanced, vibrant and eye-catching pink/gold duochrome. It's by no means my only pink-gold duochrome, but it stands out a mile due to the way the pigmented base perfectly complements the gold highlight. In a makeup collection (such as mine) where duochromes abound, this one easily takes the top spot. In use, it actually does look like two equally pigmented eyeshadows blended together, not just a main colour with a slight cast on top of it. It's backed up by a sophisticated warm raisin shimmer that provides a perfect crease accent, and a versatile matte that's somewhere between black, grey and brown. Here are all three shades on the eye, photographed in sunlight and lamplight.


The blush, New Clover, is available individually and is apparently the inspiration for the whole palette. It's one of Clinique's strongest sellers and is a matte dusty pink that would work on pretty much anyone.

All in all, this palette is highly recommended and well worth the £25 price tag.

www.clinique.co.uk.

Wednesday, 18 August 2010

Blue EOTD -

I decided to haul out my Yaby palette today and do a full-on coloured eye. The Yaby palette is crammed with beautiful shimmers and brights and it never gets a look-in during the working week (nor really at any other time, as I don't have much of a social life right now being swamped with work). So despite having nowhere much to go besides the local shops, I went for a multi-hued blue look today using Yaby Pearl Paints.

Wow, I really do look as tired as I feel. Hi shower gloves!

I can't decide if it's a bit too 80s, or whether it works OK. I felt slightly daft wearing it, although that could just be because I'm not used to having much makeup on during the day.

What do you think?

Thursday, 6 May 2010

Quick FOTD with OCC Lip Tar & Stila

Here's a quick look using the following products

OCC Lip Tar in NSFW (these seem to have dropped off the map a bit, which is a shame because they're still as brilliant as they were back in Jan when they were getting so much hype)
Stila Oil Free Foundation in Shade A (as concealer)
Stila Convertible Eye Colour in Stone (gawd bless those bargain websites)
Belvada Noir sliding mascara (it's £5 in Boots at the moment but it's not that amazing, I am just using it up because I bought it out of curiosity)



Click for more pictures and a couple of close-ups

Saturday, 24 April 2010

Red eyeliner - surprisingly wearable



Here's an EOTD with my newest "adventurous" makeup purchase - Eyeliner Gel from Inglot in shade 79 - aka bright, pillarbox red.

I fell in love with this pretty much on sight. I didn't know if I'd be able to wear it but it didn't matter - the idea of a red gel liner had me sold straight away.

As it turns out, this stuff is great. It has a smooth, creamy formula and is no fuss to apply. It also dries down to an unbudgeable finish. The box describes it as "matte" but I actually found that it had a slightly shiny finish once dry.

I've DIY'd red liner in the past using red eyeshadow and various mixing media, but I feel that the itch is now well and truly scratched with this product.

One small complaint - the product seems to have dried out and cracked a bit in storage, as the picture above shows. I understand that these probably don't sell very often so the stock won't move very quickly. But Inglot, how about designing some decent air-tight packaging for your gel products?

Price was £8, bought from the Inglot store, Westfield, London. I don't have details of an online stockist for this brand, but I'll update this information if I discover any.

More pics below the cut.
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