England Picks

Once again I bring you a little beauty haul from the shops of London, Manchester and Leeds. Not quite as much was brought back this time compared to my last visit in October, but I figured it was enough to make a post out of it. Let's jump into it then, shall we?

FACE:

Revlon Nearly Naked Foundation in Nude // Maybeline Dream Fresh BB Cream in Light // Revlon Photoready Eye Primer and Brightener in 003

Topshop Cream Highlighter Quad in Kick Start // Revlon Photoready Cream Blush in Pinched

EYES

Maybeline The Rocket Mascara (waterproof) // Rimmel Scandaleyes Eye Shadow Stick in Bulletproof Beige // Maybeline Master Smokey Shadow-Pencil in Smoky Chocolate // Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Khol Kajal in Nude

LIPS

Revlon Just Bitten Lipstain + Balm in Flame // Rimmel Apocalips in Stellar // TopShop Lip Paint in Yeah Right (review here) // Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Rendezvous

And that was that! It has definitely created a little bit more of a spring/summer mood over my makeup collection, just the way I like it. Most of the products are ones I have been eager to try for quite some time now so I am glad to finally be in possession of them! If there are any particular products out of the ones above that you want me to do a review on then let me know either here or on twitter (which I am using far more now a days!) And if you are interested in me making videos as well as writing reviews then let me know about that as well as I am very eager to try and do some YouTubing in the nearest future!

I hope you are all doing very well, and I wish you a happy easter!

I am going away (again) for a few days, but expect a new post to be up on Wednesday:)

Lots of Love,

- Em

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Cheap, but pretty damn good

 Accessories Palette: You Are Everything

Accessories has started (a while ago) doing their own makeup. I did not expect much from them as I rarely do from the non-beauty related brands. However when I got this palette for a photoshoot with my friend Siren (post about that here), I was very surprised at how good the eyeshadows are!

First of all, their pigmentation is close to many of the other high-street and high-end brands, secondly their consistency is smooth and creamy rather than chalky and powdery. In other words these colours don't cause any extreme amounts of fall-out. Great bonus. As for their lasting power, well I would say that this is where the quality drops. Unfortunately they don't last for more than about 4 hours without a primer, but if you do use a primer then you can expect the shadows to stay for about a good 6-8hours which is nothing to complain about!!

I think that despite the longevity this palette is a good thing to have in your collection of you like having many choices in one:) The opportunities with these colours are endless :)

I am for the record on vacation, skiing in Austria but I am trying (and have been trying) to keep my blogging up as best as I can. However that is why I have been posting reviews lately:) Hope you don't mind and that you are enjoying what I do post! Have a wonderful day and keep reading for more beauty and fashion posts.

- Em

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ChanelChanelChanel

So that was a strange title, but I have a reason for it. Chanel was my inspiration a few weekends ago when I created the make-up look that my good friend Siren is wearing above. You see I have been applying to universities and a few of them require a creative portfolio. Now I am not very good with sketching, drawing and all that stuff so to have something to put into this portfolio of mine, I ended up doing some of my friends makeup, and well...with one of them I became quite a lunatic and took my inspiration from Chanel's famous glitter brows from the Autumn 2012 Runway. 

It was a friday and I was going shopping for the bits and bobs I would need for this look I was going to create, and 1st if all - I am one to stick with high street products as I don't really have a budget for all the high end products out there, so to go into the more "luxurious" make-up stores was quite fun. Very fun actually - just imagine me as a little kid in a candy shop and you've got it! Secondly I had no clue as to what exactly I was looking for so I had to come up with something as I went along. But oh well, with Karl Lagerfeld's out-of-the-box brow designs in the back of my mind, I stepped into the streets of Stavanger and started this quite exciting little hunt which in the end led me to this:

Make- up Store had quite the selection of loose glitter, and such a gorgeous range of cream highlighters!  (I will add the name of the products later today as I am not at home right now)

Eyeshadow palette from Accessories which has surprisingly good pigmentation! Care for a review?

Smashbox HD complexion set with a travelsize foundation, concealer, primer and powder.

Very good sizes for the price (£30) and the quality is extremely good so I will definitely do a review of these soon!

I am not sure if any of you are interested, but here comes a quick run-down of how I created this look: I primed her face and eyelids, then used a pritt-stick to "cover" her brows (just remember to wipe away any of the glue that might have come outside the brows). I then applied the Smashbox foundation in Light all over her face. Next came the "Very Berry" pencil from Make-up Store which I used to outline and fill in the brows with. I then added eyelash-glue on a cotton bud and spread that on the eyebrows (one at a time) before I applied the glitter, gradually moving from pink to green/blue (I created a mix of the two colours for the middle part so that they would fuse together naturally. Then I cleaned up any fall down of glitter with a tissue and then applied some concealer where it was needed, which was pretty much nowhere :) (a tip is to make your model hold a  tissue paper under her eyes while working with the glitter to reduce the amount of "cleaning" needed. )  For the eyelids I applied the cream highlighter from Smashbox and a swipe of the eyeshadows Copper and Bootycall by Urban Decay (Naked2) all over with some mascara on the lashes just to keep it subtle and natural. To finish off the face I used my Chanel Soleil de Tan Bronze Universal (Review Here) to warm up her complexion and do a little contouring, and the Smashbox highlighter on her high-points set with the TopShop highlighter in Crescent Moon. And that was it, as simple as that. Well it did take me about 2.5 hours so I guess it wasn't that simple but its not too complicated, just very time consuming.

I will leave you with a few more pictures of Gorgeous Siren and the completed brows, and if you want to know anything more about the products, the procedure or just have any questions or comments then don't hesitate to write them below or send me a tweet :)

  

Have a lovely weekend!

-Em

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The Review: Chanel Bronze Universal

Before I applied it, and after. Below is with blush and contour as well. Apologies for the yellow light in these, I know that distracts from the true colours, but I did this in the morning so the lighting was bad... 

Ok so I admit that I have been cheating a bit with only posting polyvore creations for the past week, but honestly I don't know where the time went! All I can say is that I will try to resume to my somewhat more normal content, starting with my Chanel Soleil De Tan - Bronze Universal review which is coming just below the next paragraph.

As for what I have been up to, there's not much to tell other than that my birthday was last Thursday which meant a celebration was in order for Friday, then a birthday party for a friend of mine on Saturday - and then a visit to my grandparents on Sunday.

So here it is, the long awaited review of my beloved (yes I attach quickly) Chanel Soleil de Tan, Bronze Universal. I showed you a quick glimpse of the actual product in this post so I will skip that part today and stick to the fun stuff, which is how it works.

This product is raved about on quite a lot of beauty blogs and in even more beauty videos. It is a staple for many make-up artists and on the runway it happens to be one of those “instant bronzed face” staples. So how does it work for us non-models? At first glance it looks like someone popped a big dollop of chocolate mouse in a Chanel jar, with the consistency of cold, hard butter. But once you actually get some on your little synthetic brush (I use this one) and apply it on your face it blends into a smooth, velvety creamy bronze glow that doesn’t look cakey, powdery nor too “creamy”. In a way it disappears, leaving only a nice glow and some colour, because it is quite pigmented and has a slight shimmery finish (although nothing too overpowering). As for the colour, it is more on the orange side than the grey-ish brown,  so please, if you have a skin tone close to mine (I’m MAC NW20) then use it as more of a bronzer, and not so much a contour product as that can easily look fake and not so flattering. In the pictures above I have applied it just above where I normally apply my contour and then blended it upwards and slightly down to the hollows of my cheekbones. This does create an illusion of a contour but not a super obvious one. I then applied some of my Sleek Contour Kit in Medium (only the contour colour) to shape my cheekbones and my temples. To finish off I used a swipe of my Sleek Blush Trio in Lantern.

The lasting power for this badboy is quite impressive, at least on me and I have combination skin. It lasts a good 10-12 hours without too much budging and it’s only when I wear it for longer that I notice it going slightly patchy.

All in all I love this product and it is now an everyday staple in my make-up routine. I just love how it gives my face that little bit of colour and healthy glow.

Have you tried it or du you want to give it a go?

- Em

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