The Perfect Lip Combo

Around February time MAC's lipstick in Faux entered my life and since then it has become one of my most reached for lipsticks. Faux is a MAC lipstick that I've never heard anyone say too much about, I just so happened to swatch it in store one day and fell in love with how it looked. It's a lovely pinkish brown shade with a Satin finish meaning it's comfortable to wear and not drying on the lips. As Faux is a Satin finish the colour transfers across very well with a slight shine to it and has that usual vanilla like scent to it that all MAC lipsticks seem to have. Very recently I began pairing it with a lip liner from Barry M in the shade Russet. Like Faux, Russet is also a dark nude shade however this liner is slightly more brown toned whereas the lipstick is a little more pinky.

Russet - although a beautiful colour is quite dry and the application can be quite difficult as it's not creamy or velvety in the slightest. However the liner does cost only £2.99 so some faults are to be expected. Despite this, the colour does go on well and it is an incredibly pigmented lip liner so don't let that factor put you off giving it a go. The pairing of the two together creates the perfect dark nude lip which at best could be described as another answer to the "Kylie Jenner" lip colour phenomenon which swept the blogging community. To achieve the look I tend to line my lips first with the liner, then proceed to lightly fill in the rest of my lips using the liner to create an initial canvas for the lipstick to go on. I then apply the lipstick all over to achieve the more intense colour.

If I'm wearing this combination during the day I like to blot it slightly in order to make it look more matte, however at night I much prefer the glossy finish as it feels that slight bit more glamorous. If you're looking for that perfect 90's lip colour that I'd highly recommend giving this combination a go. It's one that I'd believe would suit a lot of different skintones.

A photo of both Russet and Faux on together (after blotting)

New In: MAC Rebel

Hello Readers,

Today I will be talking about a lipstick which came into my life a little while back and I think it's about time I shared it with you all. Back in January I entered a MAC lipstick giveaway which was being hosted by the lovely Alice from The Fairest Of Them. I was fortunate to have won and Alice was in contact straight away asking me which shade I would like. Originally I was torn between two shades but in the end settled for the blogger favourite that is Rebel. 

When my lipstick arrived (accompanied by an adorable little note from Alice, thanks again!) I was over the moon. Rebel is a shade that definitely does not disappoint! It's described on the MAC website as a midtonal plum which I'd say is pretty much spot on. It's a really lovely fuchsia toned berry / wine colour, I'll admit that in the bullet it does look a lot darker - more like a vampy, purple shade but it really doesn't transfer like that at all. It's a colour which is both day and night appropriate, although I particularly like to wear it when I'm going for a night out as it's the perfect shade - not too dark and not too girly!  

Rebel is a Satin finish, it dries Semi-Matte but with a slight sheen to it, meaning it's very comfortable to wear and does not feel drying in the slightest. It's surprisingly long lasting considering that it's not a fully matte lipstick, I find that I can eat and drink and it will stay put with minimal touch ups required! The only negative thing I'd say about this lipstick would be that whenever I do wear it, I do notice that it stains my lips for quite a while after. I mean if anything that's proof as to how pigmented it is, however I don't appreciate waking up the next day with really dark pink pigmented lips as it looks rather bizarre. In all fairness though I only use baby wipes to remove my make-up, so perhaps I'm not scrubbing hard enough! 

Rebel - Featuring my awful application skills.

If anyone is interested in giving this lipstick a go then I highly recommend you do so. It's such a wearable shade and would suit every skintone! I've already wore it countless times since receiving it and have noticed that it's fast becoming one of my most reached for lipsticks. 

That's all for this blogpost, I hope you're all well.

Oh and apologies for the messy nature of my blog layout right now, I'm in the middle of trying to update it and do something different with it but as I'm so useless at this sort of thing, it's looking a bit rough. Hopefully I can get this sorted shortly..

Elf Cosmetics Haul

Hello Readers,

Today I have a ELF cosmetics haul to share with you all. Now if you didn't know ELF were recently offering 50% of all orders over £10 on their website if they hit 20,000 followers on twitter. Now naturally, if you tempt a bunch of girls with a 50% off code they will do anything to get their hands on it so it didn't take long till ELF had hit their follower target and had released the code. So with that being said I decided that it was the perfect time to treat myself to a few products on ELF that I'd been wanting to try. I don't believe the offer is still on now however ELF regularly do great deals on their already really cheap cosmetics so just keep an eye out!

 

 The first thing I picked up was this ELF HD blush in the shade Superstar. This retails for £3.75 and comes in 5 different shades. I have had this product sitting in my shopping basket for a few months now, I've always been curious about it but for some reason never picked it up. However the 50% of code was more than enough to push me into finally picking this product up. I was a little disappointed when I opened the product up to see that it appears to have separated in the tube as aesthetically it doesn't look very nice. However after shaking the bottle up and pumping a little bit of the product out on my hand the product came together in the tube again so it looks much nicer now. The product itself is a beautiful poppy pink colour which I think will look very lovely on the skin. I'm yet to properly use this product but from the swatch I did on my hand, I can already see that this is an extremely pigmented product. A small amount goes a long way with this blush which is amazing considering it's so cheap.

This is ELF's Mineral Foundation in the shade Porcelain. I've used this product before and I absolutely love it. It's a great mineral foundation which provides good coverage, it's fairly long lasting and it retails for £5 which is amazing as most mineral foundations tend to be quite expensive. I can't wait to get back to using this product and hopefully I'll be reviewing it sometime soon. Also, am I the only one noticing the web address typo on the product? Eyesliopsface? Haha. 

The next product I picked up was this ELF Blush in the shade Tickled Pink, which is a beautiful light pink colour with a slight shimmer to it. I decided to pick one of these blushes up as I really like the packaging and thought they had a great colour range to choose from. These blushes are very reminiscent of the NARS blushes due to the style of the packaging and I quite like that. I love the packaging of the NARS blushes however I personally wasn't really impressed with the product itself due to the poor pigmentation and transfer. (You can read the full review of the NARS Blush here.) This ELF blush was £3.75 and I'm hoping that it doesn't disappoint, however if it does then I don't mind as it was far cheaper than the NARS one!

 

Next I picked up ELF's Daily Brush Cleaner which retails for £3.75. I'll admit now that I am terrible when it comes to washing my makeup brushes. It's a beauty sin I know but it's just too much effort to wash them! I need to start making more of an effort so I decided to pick this daily brush cleaner up. All you need to do is spritz some on your brushes, a few minutes before use, give them a little wipe and they're good to go. Quick and easy! 

I decided to pick up my first ever ELF lipstick with this order. I went for the shade Gypsy which is a mauvey pinky purple colour. I don't normally go for shades like this however I decided to break out my comfort zone and try something new and for £1.50? Why not! I've only briefly swatched it so I'm yet to form an opinion of it but so far it seems like a really nice, well pigmented product. 

The final items I picked up were these 2 eye brushes. One is a concealer brush and the other is a smudge brush. Both were only £1.50 which is a fantastic deal! I already have 2 makeup brushes from ELF, one being a foundation brush and the other being a crease brush and I really like them. The crease brush is one I use on a regular basis and I really love it so hopefully I get on with these just as well!

My order should have came to £23.70 (including delivery) but using the 50% discount code I managed to get all these product for £13.32 which is brilliant!

That's all for this post. I hope you've enjoyed!
Have you used any products from ELF before? What products would you recommend to me?

Let me know!

I hope you're all well.

 



Beauty Photoshoot

 

Hello Readers,

I'd just like to apologize for my absence the last few days. I shouldn't make excuses for why I didn't update my blog so I won't bother making them! If you've been keeping up with my blog for a while you'll know that I love photography and it's my absolute dream to make it as a fashion and beauty photographer. So naturally, I spend quite a bit of time doing photoshoots! It's been a while since my last photoshoot as I've moved up to Nottingham and I don't have any friends on hand to use as models which is quite unfortunate. I recently felt so motivated to start shooting again that I decided to do something I'd never done before... hire a model from an agency!

I'm honestly so happy with the way the images turned out. The model I hired was lovely and was really easy to work with. Below I've included a few images from my shoot which I hope you enjoy looking at. The theme of the shoot was very autumnal, with the main focus being the very autumn appropriate vampy lip.



That's all for this blog post. Let me know what you think of my images, I'd love to hear some feedback!

Hope you're all well.

 

The Lipstick Tag

Hello Readers,

I was recently tagged by the lovely Rheya from Pixirella.blogspot.com to discuss my collection of lip products. I'd never heard of this tag before, however after reading through it I think it's a really great tag, if you're a lip product lover then it's highly worth reading or even doing yourself!

So enough chatting and on with the tag..

How many lipsticks do you own?

I own 23 lipsticks in total, 2 lipcreams, 1 lipstain, 1 matt lip colour pen, 1 chubby stick, 5 lipglosses and 2 lip balms. I honestly don't know how I've acquired that many but oh well!

What was your first lipstick?
I honestly couldn't tell you what my first lipstick was. When I was a little girl my nan gave me a bag of her makeup to keep. I was only a small child at the time so I just played around with it giving me and my little brother makeovers *sorry jack* and putting lipstick on dolls etc. I do remember my favourite lipstick from the lot being a beautiful plummy red colour. I think some of the first lipsticks I played around with were from Avon, however I'm not entirely sure.

What is your most worn lipstick?

I'd say my most worn lipstick without a doubt is MAC's Myth. Myth is a satin finish lipstick and is my only one at that. I picked myth up in the Summer of last year and have used it so many times now that it's almost all gone. It's my favourite nude and it looks incredible on a night out with a little bit of pink gloss on top.

What is your favourite brand of lipstick?

Oh goodness this is a hard one. Overall I guess I'd have to say Rimmel, as they have a huge range of colours, majority of the lipsticks are really good quality and have great colour payoff and last for quite long! They're also extremely affordable.

What is your favourite finish?

My favourite finish would have to be matte. I personally prefer the way that matte lipsticks look on me and I'm not really sure why.

What is the last lip product you brought?
It's actually been a long time since I last purchased a lip product. I do believe it was a MUA Power Pout Colour Intense Tint and Balm in the shade Justify. They are basically MUA's answer to the chubby stick craze and the colour I picked up is a beautiful orange shade. The colour is beautiful and it was only £3 so it was a good deal!

How many lip products do you have in your bag?

I currently only have one lip product in my bag and that is a lipstick. It's Rimmel's Lasting Perfection Lipstick in the shade Starry - Eyed as I was wearing it yesterday. I only ever have the lip product I'm wearing on that day in my bag.

What product do you use to rock a red lip?

I'm probably about to offend the entire beauty blogging world here by saying that I do not use any lip liners or lip scrubs etc before putting on a red lip. I literally just use whatever red lipstick I feel like and put it on without much thought about it. I normally go for either MAC's Russian Red, Rimmel's Tantrum or Rimmel's Apocalips in Big Bang as they are my favourite red shades.

How do you store your lipsticks?
I actually did a post about this a little while ago which you can see if you click here. You can also see how I store my lipsticks from the image above. I keep all my lipsticks in a acrylic make-up organizer which I got from Amazon for £7.33. It's really good quality and quite a good alternative to expensive Muji storage.


What lip products are you currently lusting over?

I really want to try some of the new lasting finish lipsticks that Rimmel have just come out with. I also want to get my hands on MAC's Lady Danger as I think it looks like a beautiful colour.


That's all for this tag post! I hope you've enjoyed and found it interesting. I found it really enjoyable to do so thanks once again to Rheya for tagging me to do it!

I tag any of you reading this to do this tag if you haven't already!

Hope you're all well.



September Favourites.

 

Hello Readers.

Today I will be doing my September Favourites post for you and I don't know about you but I can't believe that September is almost over. This year is flying by! It's true when they say "the older you get, the quicker time goes by". Before you know it Christmas will be upon us..

I've been a bit absent from my blog recently so I'd just like to apologize for that. I'm starting to feel motivated to get back into the swing of doing regular posts and have now found the perfect set up to photograph products! So let me know what you think of this new location. I think it's better then the floral bed sheets but that's my personal opinion! I'm still trying to find a good spot to do my OOTD shots however. I'm not really comfortable having my photograph taken in front of loads of people however now that I live in a city, I'm going to have to get over this. I'm never going to be able to make the most of my city background if I'm too scared to be seen doing my OOTD shots!

Anyway enough babbling and on with the post. This month I have 1 skincare favourite and 3 cosmetics favourites to talk about.

The first product I'm going to talk about is this Neutrogena Visibly Clear Pink Grapefruit Daily Scrub. I don't often talk about skincare products on this blog as I am useless at skincare. I just use whatever product is on offer usually. When doing my food shopping for my new flat, I picked this up on a whim. I've been using this for about a week now and I can honestly say that I really love it. My skin feels lovely and soft after I've used it and due to the pink grapefruit extract within this product it does leave a really uplifting and fresh feeling behind. I've been using this both in the morning when I get up and in the evening before I go to bed and I would say that my skin has been looking much better since using it. My boyfriend has also been using this and he loves it also! When I was a bit younger I found that my skin didn't really like Neutrogena products however I've had no problems with this one and will continue to use it.

 



The next product I have to talk about is Rimmel London's Match Perfection Foundation in Light Porcelain. I've been using this for months now so this is by no means a new product. I went through a quite a big stage of wearing either BB cream or just a powder instead of foundation, however since being away on holiday and gaining a tiny bit of colour I started using this again and have recently fallen in love with it again. This foundation is the lightest foundation I have personally ever come across and it suits me perfectly right now. It's a very light coverage foundation so those who like a lot of coverage may not like this one as much. I use about a pump and a half to cover my entire face and a little bit more on nights out. This foundation blends very easily and creates a sort of semi-matte finish. It looks very natural on the skin and feels very light also. The only negative criticism I would have to say about this product is that the pump does get very messy as shown in the image above. I do however love this foundation and will continue to re-purchase it.

 

The next product I have to talk about it another old product which I have recently fallen back in love with. This is Sleek's Blush in the shade Suede. Suede can only be described as a warm peachy toned bronzer, so it can easily be doubled up and used as a bronzer. At first glance, I'll admit it doesn't look like much however it really is beautiful. It's the perfect blush to use when you want to create quite a bronzed, contoured sort of look.This blush is super pigmented so a little goes a long way. I've had this blush for probably about a year now and I have only recently hit pan but ever so slightly as you can see from the slight dent in the image above. The compact is tiny however you get 8g of product in there so it should last you quite a long time. The compact itself is a very small and simple, matte black packaging with a mirror inside which is very handy. This is my only Sleek blush however I would happily purchase more as they all seem to be good quality products and for a fairly decent price too.

 

The final product I have to talk about this month is this Rimmel London Lasting Finish Lipstick in Starry - Eyed. Now that Summer is over and the colder months are upon us I'm itching to start wearing vampy looks. I've already been sporting a vampy look, quite a few times this month and this has been the lipstick that I've reached for. Starry - Eyed is a cross between a plum / red wine colour so it's a colour that I think will compliment a lot of different skintones. This lipstick is long lasting, super pigmented and like all of the lipsticks from the Lasting Finish line, it has a slight shine to it. I personally quite like this as it means it's more comfortable to wear. This lipstick retails around the £4 mark so it's really affordable and I would highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a good vampy lipstick!

That's all for this months favourites post. Please let me know what you think of this new set up to photographing products. I personally think I'm going to stick with this as it looks quite clean and shows of the products well, however I'd love to hear your opinions on it too.

I hope you're all well!

Paige.