Tesco All About Face..

I was sent these products by Sam at http://www.blogger.com/www.makeupadviceforum.co.uk to try out and create some Alice in Wonderland looks which Tesco said could be created with these products. If you want to see what I did go on the forum and have a look, I won't post it as the picture is awful and so unflattering as I couldn't use bronzer or blush or anything so I just have this big found face!

Anyway I thought I would share my thoughts on the products with you lovely lot!

The first set of products I will review..





Lipstick in Plum, Eyeshadow Pencil in Bronze, Mascara in Black, Nail Polish in Black Cherry and eyeliner in Black.



First the lipstick, on first impressions I don't like the packaging. I know the make up is cheap but I feel black casing would have looked nicer and look a bit more expensive. The lipstick itself is lovely its really moisterising and soft, it applies easily and lasts fairly well. I wouldn't say this colour is Plum though..







Next, Eyeshadow stick in Bronze. When I got this it really reminded me of a NARS eyeshadow pencil that my sister has the colour is very similar. I applied this on both my eyes straight from the stick, blended it and applied more. Then on one eye I put eyeshadow over it and I left the other one to see which would last the longest.




Before







After about 1 hour






So the eye on your right was the one without shadow and the other had eyeshadow on and you can see they both creased exactly the same. I was really disapointed, I know cream eyeshadows crease but I would expect it to last more than one hour. However I do this would make a nice liner for the bottom lashes.



Mascara and Eyeliner.



I really liked the idea of the eyeliner having a sharpener in the lid, however when I used it (twice) it just snapped the nib of the pencil off. Apart from this the eyeliner is fantastic, it goes on softly but not too softly (not like Urban Decay's 24/7 liners) and it lasted really well. The colour is a really nice intense black and not wishy washy black like some cheaper liners.



The mascara disapointed me, it did lengthen my lashes but it took a few coats and it didn't give me any volume which is what I want from a mascara. Also the colour isn't written on the tube, I was given a brown mascara too so I had to open them to find out which was which. I have the mascara on in the pictures above.



Nail Polish



I really love the colour of this nail polish. It goes on easily and dries very quickly, I did need 3 coats to make sure it was opaque and you couldn't see any nail or patches underneath. It didn't dry to be very shiny though it looked quite matte. I had really bad tip wear after about 6 hours and after 24 hours it was badly chipped. However, this could probably be stopped with a top coat, I didn't use one so I could give it a fair trial.



Please excuse the messy application





All of these products can be bought from Tesco and cost £1.50 each which is great value. I have another set of products to review which has some really great bits in that I reccomend.

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Wahanda Mob Deals..

Just a heads up to let you all know that Wahanda are offering £20 worth of Spa treatments for £2 over on their website!

http://www.wahanda.com/

Its a fab deal and you can even use it as a gift for somebody!

x

Estee Lauder Double Wear mascara

Another mascara review!

I got this mascara as a GWP back in March and I have to say I'm really impressed.

Nice sleek packaging as you'd expect from Estee Lauder, the brush (which I forgot to take a picture of) is a nice size and is just a normal mascara brush! I didn't have to wait for this to get all dry and goopy before I loved it either, the consistancy is really nice.

My lashes before mascara

And with the mascara on

I think pictures speak louder than words in most reviews and you can see how lovely it makes my lashes. I don't know if this mascara put's those tubes on your lashes like that Loreal one as when I take it off it seems to come off looking like tubes. It does take a bit of scrubbing to get it off but I think its worth it.

This mascar retails for around £17 for 6ml which I think is pretty pricey for a mascara, it does give lovely results but I am torn between this and Maybelline Falsies for my favourite one.

Recent purchases..

I don't think I ever buy enough in one shopping trip to post single "hauls".

So here is what I have bought recently

Sleek nail polish in Royalty, a really gorgeous rich colour I wish I'd had this at christmas! OPI Black Cherry Chutney, gorgeous colour but it looks black when its not in the sunlight. Two M&S polishes I'm not sure the names of the colours but the one that looks blue is more purple than blue.

MAC Satin Taupe, 2 Sue Moxley shadows - really love shadows and the pigmentation is great. Benefit One Hot Minute, love this bronzer it perks my skin up more than a usual bronzer which usually makes me look orange. And the Smashbox palette was a freebie RAOK as you can see it has been used a lot but I love the colours in it and as I've never used Smashbox shadows before it's good to get to try them, again the pigmentation is fab in these!

Over the Taupe..

Sorry for the cheesy title.

I have a bit of a thing for Taupe eyeshadows at the moment. I have wanted to buy MAC's Satin Taupe for months and always talk myself out of it, 2 weeks ago I was out shopping and decided to find some dupes so I went and swatched Satin Taupe and went round Boots and Superdrug trying to find something very similar. I failed, even the Ruby & Millie one that a few people have said is identical isn't in my opinion. As my luck would have it, someone was selling Satin Taupe on Make up advice forum for £5 a few weeks ago so I bought it. And then I realised I have quite a few taupe shades...but I love the way they look on my eyes they really make the blue stand out.

So here are my favourites..


All cosmetics companies seem to have their own version of Taupe.

Here is MAC's Satin Taupe


Sue Moxley's Katherine Taupe


A Smashbox Taupe


Too Faced Taupe


Urban Decay Stray Dog


Urban Decay Mushroom


Swatches in the order above



What are your favourite eyeshadow shade's? Do you have any Taupe eyeshadows you would reccomend?

x

Sarah's giveaway

My sister is having a giveaway on her blog http://make-itmake-up.blogspot.com/ Everybody go and enter!!

x

Neäl & Wølf Review.

I was sent these items to review by the lovely people at Propaganda and have been using them for over a week now.



Neäl & Wølf was created by Neil Capstick who has over 20 years experience in the hair industry. Their products are available to buy in professional salons, you can currently buy them from http://www.beautybay.com/neal-wolf/ and will soon be available to buy from their own website http://www.nealandwolf.com/home/

I really love the images they use on their website, they're beautiful and I think are a great way to portray the brand.




I really like the packaging, its simple but effective and definitely has that high end feel and look. The bottles are easy to get product out of, I know this is an odd thing to comment on but I have been using Herbal Essences for a while now and I hate their new bottles as I end up throwing half a bottle of conditioner away as it doesn't come out of the bottle! Anyway, there are no such problems with this packaging, and it looks good on my bathroom shelf!

I chose the Ritual Daily cleansing shampoo and conditioner and the Elevate volumising lotion.

When I first used it the first thing I noticed was the scent, its gorgeous! Its quite strong when your hair is wet but once its dry its not as strong but you can still smell it on your hair for most of the day which I really like. I always have to use conditioner on my hair else I can't get a brush through it, but after using the shampoo my hair felt so soft as if I'd already used conditioner, so if you didn't want to you definitely wouldn't have to use the conditioner. However, the conditioner does make your hair even softer and smooth, my hair felt lovely after I washed it.

I then let my hair dry on its own for a bit and worked about a 10p size squirt of Elevate through my hair, then blow dried it. I did notice a little bit of difference in volume, it wasn't huge but it was just right. To be honest I am yet to find any kind of volumising product that works with my hair, maybe my hair likes to be flat!


I am the kind of person who has to wash their hair every day, I hate not having fresh clean hair so that's why I chose the Daily shampoo as I thought it would be more suited to me and my hair OCD! I did need to wash my hair daily with using this shampoo & conditioner but like I said I expected that with it being called Daily shampoo. Once dry it leaves my hair feeling soft and manageable. In this picture I haven't using the Elevate lotion as I got distracted and my hair got too dry before I put it in!



Here's the ingredients in the shampoo, conditioner and lotion








I would definitely buy more shampoo from Neäl & Wølf, they have a few more products that I am interested in like the Guard Heat Protection, Silk Smoothing Blow-dry balm and Fix Hold & Shine spray.

You get 250 ml of Shampoo for £10.95, 200ml of conditioner for £11.95 and 200ml of volumising lotion for £11.95, so they are quite pricey but I reckon its worth it for a little treat for your hair now and then.

Sleek iDivine Acid & Safari

Now I know these are old news, so forgive me.

Sleek have recently (and finally) updated their website so you can actually order their products online, including limited edition palettes. So to celebrate they have been having competitions on Facebook. I won the first one and chose Safari as my price, I also won the last one and I won 2 of the new Kajal eyeliners which I am very excited about receiving. And I bought the Acid pallette out of my own money last week.

So I'll review that one first



I have wanted this for ages, and I knew I could get them on Ebay from the seller who also has a stall on our local market http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/lindas-cosmetic-corner/ so last week when I was out shopping I nipped in to see if she had one. She sells them for the same price as you can buy them from Superdrug, my local Superdrug doesn't stock Sleek so its much easier to go to her.

I'm a bit worried I made a mistake buying this as I am scared of bright colours! But I am going to see how much I use it during the summer as I think it is more suited to being used then.



No Flash



There are 4 shimmery colours and the rest are matte. I don't think the "Acid" colours are very pigmented, I put them over Urban Decay Primer Potion to see if it helped



Which does help a lot. I do really love the shimmery blue colours from the pallette they're beautiful. This is a great pallette but its not my favourite.

Now onto Safari.



I think its such a beautiful pallette, all the colours are gorgeous and perfect and I really love it :)



No Flash


All of the colours are pigmented apart from the matte brown colour are very pigmented. If you don't have this pallette I definately reccomend you buy it.

I love Sleek products, just look over my blog and I think most of my post labels are for Sleek. I think they are good value products that anybody could afford.

Here are the rest of my pallette's



You can see that Storm has taken a bit of a battering as it has been used the most. I use the dark brown colour in it for my eyebrows so I will definately be buying another one of those. I do wish Sleek would release the more popular shadows from these pallette's as single shadows. If I could pick them I would chose

1. The lightest shade in Storm
2. The darker Gold in Storm
3. The bronze/brown in Storm
4. The last purple on the bottom row in Graphite
5. The last shadow on the top row in Graphite
6. The Olive green from Original
7. The Goldy/Black from Original
8. The 4th shadow on the top row in Safari
9. The Brown shadow in Safari
10.The Purple from Original.

Weight Loss

So I may have mentioned that I have been trying to lose weight with Weight Watchers. I have been on the Weight Watchers diet since the beginning of Feb so 2 months now and have lost 15lb. I did lose 15.5lb but last week I put half on after the bank holiday weekend..oops! I'm really struggling this week and want to give up as I'm finding weekends really hard and even though I weigh in on a thursday it doesn't help. My big problem is wine, I'm not an alcoholic or anything but I enjoy wine at weekends when Alice is in bed and we're chilling out downstairs. I try to cut it out every weekend but it doesn't happen I end up buying a bottle.

Anyway I took pictures on Feb 23rd and today I took more to try and spur me on.

This is Before




This is After



And again Before



And after


I can see a difference and I can see its working but after losing 15lb I still can't get into the next size down jeans. I am the same weight I was before I got pregnant with Alice and can't get into those clothes, my body shape has changed a lot. So please everyone encourage me to keep going because I'm so ready to give up on this and I want to lose at least another 14lb.

xx

FOTD

A look I created with Alice in Wonderland book of Shadows..

Ignore the mad hair god knows what is going on with it!

I'll just give you the run down of my eyes

Alice all over the lid

Underland in the crease and lower lashline

Jaberwocky in the outercorner

24/7 Zero on upper lashline

24/7 Flipside on the waterline

Estee Lauder Double Wear mascara.

Its a bit brighter than I usually wear but I like it!

Mini blog sale.

Hello!

Yes I am selling things again. P&P is free.

The first is Estee Lauder Double Wear foundation in Bone. There is at least 95% left of this foundation if not more as I only bought it last month and have hardly used it.Originally paid, £18 or make me an offer.



The other item is the Estee Lauder Face Primer Plus Smoothing Matte Base this is a fab primer but I just never use it. Again it was bought last month and has been used one or two times originally paid £19.50, £14 or make me an offer.

Bobbi Brown Chrome palette Holiday 09, this was originally £50 I have used it a few times but I always forget I have it. The lipglosses have only been swatched with a brush. £25 or make me an offer.

Revlon Photoready Foundation Review

I'm sure everyone has had enough of the reviews of this foundation by now but I thought I would post mine anyway.




Being a big fan of Revlon Colorstay I was looking forward to release of this but managed to wait until Boots had it on offer for £9.99 (only after I bought it did they give me a £2 off Revlon voucher, I should've bought that hair dye seperately) I knew it had sparkles but I didn't let that put me off.

I bought shade 002 Vanilla which is the lightest they had on the shelf at Boots but the fact it says 002 leads me to think there is an 001 which is more pale.

This bottle has a pump (again hurrah! Revlon please put this pump on Colorstay) which makes it easy to distribute onto whatever you put your foundation on before you apply it, mine being my hand. The first thing I noticed was how hard it was to blend, I have tried a normal foundation brush and the MAC 188 and the 188 is slightly better but I would say you're best off using a combination of that and your fingers.

The coverage is nowhere near as heavy as Colorstay even though it says on the bottle it is complete coverage.



As you can see from this picture it still shows up a lot of my actual skin, which for some people is good but not for me. I might be tempted to use this in the summer when I need a lighter foundation, but then I have the problems of the sparkles which I have not noticed so far but I live in Manchester - we live under a raincloud most of the year.


If you want a lightweight foundation try it but don't fall for its "complete coverage" selling point. I don't even think photographs make it look better like they advertise.

Sorry for the huge pictures on my last 2 posts, Blogger is playing up.

x

Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Foundation Review.

I bought this foundation after seeing a few reviews of it, and because even though Colorstay is only £12 I wanted something cheaper.



It comes in a glass bottle and it has a pump! Hurrah no more wastage. And I think I paid £5.99 for it. I also bought the Lasting Perfection concealer with it which I won't review but its fantastic and you definately need to try it.

Its a full coverage foundation so don't buy it if you hate that and like a light coverage. I would have liked to have shown you my face without foundation for this review but my skin looks terrible without it so I won't put you all through that. But my skin is a little bit scarred from acne as a teenager and I get the odd breakout, sometimes my skin is a bit red and uneven. Its just not a pretty sight.

I found this foundation very easy to blend, I either use my Sonia Kashuk foundation brush or the MAC 188. I do find it needs setting with a powder, as if it isn't it can feel quite tacky to touch and it won't last all day. I usually use either MAC Mineralize Skin Finish, Collection 2000 Sheer Loose Powder or 17 Shine Control pressed powder.




Once its been set with powder it stays on all day until I wash it off. Now there is a downside, the colour selection. There aren't many pale shades, the lightest is 1 Vanilla and then 2 is Ivory. I don't think there is much difference between the 2 and I would say they could be a bit orange on some skin tones and I think Vanilla is only stocked by Superdrug. I know they have another 3/4 darker shades after that but I'm not really sure how they fair.



At the moment it is £3.99 in Superdrug (everything by Collection 2000 in Superdrug is under £4 at the moment) for that much its worth a look, but this is my favourite foundation at the moment.