Showing posts with label boots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boots. Show all posts
Thursday, 5 September 2013

One Direction for MUA mini review - Little Things range.

Unless you follow my personal twitter/tumblr/any other social networking platform, most of you probably don’t know my deep dark secret. I am a HUGE (referring to my interest, not my dress size) One Direction fan. S kept this in mind when purchasing my birthday presents (she is fabby), and bought me a lipstick, lip polish and nail varnish from their new 1D for MUA “little things” make up range. As she knows that I have singled out Harry Styles as my one and only, she bought me his colours. This means that I have the “Fuschia Frenzy” nail varnish, Harry Loves Strawberry lip polish, and “Be Mine” lipstick. Now I knew that I wanted these products (I love makeup and I love 1D, of course I wanted them), but I’ll be honest, I didn’t have very high expectations for the quality. MUA, in my opinion, used to be a bit rubbish. Although recently they have seriously stepped it up, I will admit. I have had some really good pieces from them, and I know that Sam loves their heaven and earth palette. For such a reasonably priced brand, you can’t really complain.

So anyway, after receiving these from S, I was tres excited to try them out. I dived straight in with the lipstick. The packaging is nice enough. They all say kiss you on the outside, a cute little merger of a 1D reference and obviously, lips. The lid stays on, which is majorly important for me, and the bottom of the packaging is clear, so you can see what shade the lipstick is. It’s cute, and serves it’s purpose. “Be Mine” is actually a really nice shade. In the packaging, it looks a dark, cherry shade, but when applied it’s actually a very pretty, strawberry kind of red. Not matte, but not glitter overload. It has a shine to it, but you could apply a gloss on top if you wanted a different kind of finish. This product is impressively highly pigmented, and is lovely to apply. I’ve tried it with a lip liner and without and was pleased with it’s staying power. Overall, I really like this product. (And I think it’s so cute that Harry’s signature is on it, awh).



On to the lip polish. Now, I know that me and Harry are destined to be together because I love strawberry too! Coincidence or what? I am a big fan of lipgloss. I love the shine it tends to give, as well as the fact that I don’t always have a mirror to hand which makes applying proper lipstick a risky business. At least with lipgloss I know I can’t go far wrong,. The packaging of this polish is actually really cute. It’s fairly flat, which means it fits well in my makeup bag. It doesn’t look exactly high end, but I’m fine with that. It lids are coloured pretty much the same as the actual gloss, so that you can see what shade it is straight away. And, of course, the boys have their lovely signatures on top. The lids twist off, which is great for making it secure (is there anything worse than ending up with lipstick all over your bag? I think not). Now, the first thing I noticed about this product, the second I had untwisted the lid, was the smell. Harry Loves Strawberry smells amaaaazing. Like strawberries, weirdly. But it isn’t sickly or overpowering. It’s strawberryish in a lovely subtle kind of way and I like it a lot. I applied this product with my fingers. I didn’t need a lot, and it literally glided on. What I liked was that it didn’t make my lips feel too sticky, and it actually stayed on really well. The colour showed up a lovely baby pink. My lips felt extremely kissable (hint hint, come on H).


Finally, came the ultimate test. You lot will probably know by now that I love to have my nails painted, and therefore am a huge fan of nail polishes. However, for some reason, every kind of polish that I put on my nails seems to chip within a matter of hours. I’m pretty critical of nail polishes, I don’t mind admitting. A lot of them, I think are rubbish. So to me, I’d saved the most interesting (and potentially disappointing) until last. My nails are currently in a bit of a sorry state. I recently had acrylics, and although I absolutely loved them, they didn’t last very well at all. I had to take them off and now my real nails are all short and sad. This means that I have the perfect excuse to paint them, and make them look a bit more presentable. Cue time to try out “Fuschia Frenzy”. Again, the packaging of this is quite nice. The bottle is a decent size, and all clear glass so you can see the exact colour that the product is. Plus it has a cutesy little plectrum of Harry’s face, attached, always a winner in my book. On opening the bottle, I had a look at the brush. Let’s be honest, a lot of brushes that come in nail varnishes are utter crap. They’re cheaply made, the bristles come off and end up stuck in your polish, or they just don’t apply smoothly at all. I was very impressed with this brush. A lot of product came out with one dip, enough to paint several nails. This was so easy to put on, I couldn’t believe it. Not much product was needed at all, due to the pigmentation and consistency of the polish. I applied two coats, more for peace of mind than anything else. Habit, I suppose. These both dried in record time. And, as of yet, they have not chipped. So weirdly ,the product I expected to be the least impressive, has been my favourite. Thanks, Harry! And thanks to S for my perfect birthday presents. Love you, kid.


B xxo
Friday, 16 August 2013

Garnier Moisture Match

Sorry about the lack of posts lately, I've taken on extra shifts at work and so finding the time has been a little bit tricky, but I'm trying to plan ahead so hopefully the blog won't go so long without a post again any time soon!

Onto the product(s) in hand, Garnier Moisture Match moisturisers. If you haven't heard about these (seriously? Their advertising campaign was massive, to have missed it you must literally not own a television) this is an assortment of moisturisers- 5 in total - that are each tailor made to suit a certain skin type. The five tubes are really similar to look at, but each a different colour. When I picked these up a few weeks ago they were on offer in Asda, so I managed to pick up three out of the range "Wake Me Up" for dull skin (the orange tube), "Protect and Glow" for normal skin (the yellow tube) and "Shine Be Gone" for combination to oily skin (the green tube). You'd be forgiven for thinking that these would contain similar products, each matching the colour of the tube, but I was surprised when I tried them out because this actually isn't the case. Wake me up is a sheer slightly peach tinged gel, Protect and glow is a glossy yellow cream and Shine be gone is a lovely matte green lotion.


As their marketing campaign promised, it seems like each really is tailored to a different skin type, and perhaps more surprisingly each one genuinely seems to do a brilliant job or at least certainly in the three that I picked I can't find a dud. Wake Me Up is for dull skin, and I can see how this would work really well for someone targeting that specifically. It goes on as a gel and settles as a sheen on the skin, too much for my oily skin but for someone who lacks moisture and natural shine, this would almost definitely give a lovely dewy finish. Protect and Glow is a weird one, it's a standard moisturiser as far as I can tell and it's smell is identical to wake me up. It's not unpleasant, and it's nice that it has an spf 20 but I'm just not as blown away with it as I feel like I am with the other two. Having said that, I'd still happily repurchase it as a Summer moisturiser.

My favourite out of the three is by far Shine Be Gone, though. This is a personal preference definitely, a dewy glow is something I will take off running from and I would always pick a matte finish. This is lovely, you only need a tiny bit for your whole face and although it has the texture of some primers (l'oreal studio secrets resurfacing primer springs to mind as the closest comparison for texture) I feel like it doesn't sit uncomfortably on top of the skin but sinks in nicely instead, and it does keep shine away for a decent length of time.

I'd recommend these three moisturisers in a heart beat, but if you're not sure which one is right for you and you're not willing to pay out for a few, you can do a quiz to find out which is probably the closest match to your skin. I'll definitely be trying out the other two when I get the chance, especially at £3.99/50ml.

Sammy xo
 

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