Creepy Princess

I don’t really know where I was going with this one… I had a vague idea  a while ago of a dusty, crusty old looking demon queen or princess with some sort of carving on her head and wanted to give it a go. I guess that idea doesn’t really make sense as an old, dead demon queen probably wouldn’t have a fresh or scabbed carving on her face, more of a scar, but I wanted to play with some SFX bits and bobs and this is what I came up with:

Closeups of the greasy, bloodied eye, crusty dried blood lips, dusty-looking skin and scarred marking on the forehead. The lips were really easy to do and so was the skin. I just pursed my lips super tightly and applied colour over them. For the skin, I didn’t do a base as I normally would, just contoured and highlighted some areas, darkened my eye bags and tapped powder in random areas for a dusty look.

This is pretty much all I used apart from a black and red eyeshadow from Sugarpill – Just a MAC pencil, some blood, powder, rigid collodion for the scar on the forehead and my PAM Medium Petite Concealer Palette.

Some things I like (fake blood on the eyelashes? I think I probably a genius) and some things I don’t (should have done something more with the nose/contouring perhaps) but it was fun to do, especially as it was a really sunny day outside and I did something so anti-summer!


I’ve also just been thinking that my use of the upside-down star might not actually be cool but I just needed a short-hand for “evil,” and that’s what came to mind.

Quickie Review: Impulse Cosmetics Opaque Matte Lipsticks

 

A few weeks ago I noticed a lot of my blogger friends talking about the beautiful eyeshadows of Impulse Cosmetics. I don’t really shop for indie eyeshadow very often any more as I don’t wear eye makeup half as much as I used to and my collection is massive, but I checked the company out anyway. On a whim, out of curiosity, on… impulse (badum-tish!) I decided to try a couple of their Opaque Matte Lipsticks. I’d been looking at a lot of new companies with crazy lip colours, but a lot of them had horrific shipping costs and were more expensive meaning I’d get hit with import taxes too. Boo!

 

I was really impressed with the shipping and turn-around time – I had my order within ten days of purchase, which for an overseas indie company is amazing. Very happy with that indeed! The lipsticks cost $6.99 each, so super reasonable, and came packaged nicely in tissue paper with a business card with a 10% off coupon code for your next order.

So what colours did I get?

 

 

 

Melancholy

This is shown on the website as much, much deeper than my swatch, and it’s not super-matte like the website shows it to be.

 

 

Smoking Gun

This is shown on the Website as a super-deep, inky blue colour. Again, it was less matte than I had expected.

 

I was very impressed with these lipsticks! I didn’t know what to expect when they arrived, as I’m not a fan of chunky tubes like this for indie lipsticks and they do have a waxy scent, so I wasn’t expecting much when I went to apply them at all. Purples are notoriously hard to formulate and in my experience, deep purples of this ilk from indie companies tend to be a bit… well, rubbish! I’d head from another blogger that they found Melancholy very patchy, but I didn’t have many problems at all and found it looked great, but bear that in mind. I have to say that Smoking Gun was my favourite, and apparently this is limited edition, so if you’re a fan, snap it up fast! I’m really looking to trying both of these over a black lip liner to deepen the colours. I found the texture of these quite similar to Illamasqua lipsticks – they’re thick with a little bit of drag if you apply from the bullet, but if you use a lipbrush they’re a lot smoother. I experienced a little staining with Melancholy but Smoking Gun was thankfully fine!

To apply these, I used a lip brush and applied a thin layer, and then went over with the bullet. Just as a side note, I always make sure my lips are very well prepped before I apply crazy lip colours. They’re certainly worth taking your time over, especially blue and green colours where you can end up look strange if any pink or red tones from your lips are showing through. I also recommend extra-careful concealing of any redness round the lip area (I get lots of blemished on my chin and redness round those nose, for example) and then you might actually find that this sort of lip colour is really flattering!

 

 

A mattifiying powder is sold on the website to go with the lipsticks. I didn’t think this would be necessary to buy as they were billed as matte in the first place, but as you can see from the above,they’re not actually that matte at all. They do dry down a little more than my swatches above, but I went over them with a regular face powder, just for funsies:

 

 

While I do like these lipsticks and am particularly impressed with Melancholy considering how difficult purples can be both to work with and formulate, I have a few bugbears. The swatches on the website are horribly inaccurate and obviously photoshopped to high hell. I just don’t see why people do it. I know swatches are hard to capture accurately sometimes and it’s a lot of work, but I’d rather an honest effort, or that the company sent out samples for bloggers to swatch, or basically anything other than a crappy photoshop job. I’ve heard from a blogging friend that the owner is aware of this, so hopefully we’ll see some changes soon. I really do hope so, as these are lovely lippies and I know some people who have been put off by the swatches and that’s a bit of a shame really. I also don’t understand why these lipsticks are billed as matte, and then the company sells a mattifying powder to go on top of the lipsticks  – I don’t see the point!

 

 

However, aside from those things, I’m pretty sure I’m going to try out some more regardless. I really like how they look and they’re comfortable to wear. I’ve only worn both colours for a shorter amount of time so I can’t comment on if they’re super long wearing, but I tend to find crazier colours always need a bit more TLC to keep them looking good. As well as the crazier colours shown here, they also have lots of more conventional colours like nudes, pinks and reds. I’d like to see the green shades, and they also offer a service where they will fill a palette with five lip colours of your choice, which I think is a really fantastic idea and an unusual thing for an indie company to do.

 

Have you tried anything from Impulse Cosmetics? You can browse their shop at www.ImpulseCo.etsy.com, or shop through their Facebook page.


Edit: I have sadly heard a few cases of poor customer service from Impulse and also allegations of them stealing images from other makeup companies. Buy at your own risk.

Golden Hour

Have you SEEN the amazing crystal brows created by Alex Box for Illamasqua’s The Sacred Hour campaign? They’re stunning. While I have neither the skills or materials to get even close, I wanted to try something similar. I vaguely flirted with the idea of making something with latex and glitter and tissue but I’m an exceedingly lazy individual and ended up using gold leaf instead, a material which I actually hate due to it’s massive overuse and how fiddly it is (and being asked time and time again by photographers to use it. Sorry peeps, ain’t gon’ happen.)

 

Skin: Illamasqua Skinbase shades 3 and 1, MAC Whisper of Gilt, MUA Undress Me Too palette.
Eyes: Maybelline Eternal Gold Colour Tattoo, Barry M Black Dazzle Dust w/ Inglot Duraline, MUA Undress Me Too Palette, Illamasqua Emerge Liquid Metal, ancient Girls Aloud festival lashes from Eyelure, gold leaf applied with Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy.
Lips: Illamasqua Emerge Liquid Metal, MUA Undress Me Too palette.

 

I really like how this came out seeing as I wasn’t really thinking much about what I was doing. I wish I used creams to contour instead of powders and thought about the brows a little more. I think it’s still missing something but overall, not bad. And Illamasqua retweeted my photo of it which made me *really* happy!

Will you be getting anything from Illamasqua’s new collection? I’m eyeing up the beautiful polishes…and the palette…and everything else to be honest!

No Mirror Makeup Challenge!

It is what it says on the tin…. do your makeup with no mirror, film it, allow people to laugh. It was actually pretty horrible to do, some things feel very strange indeed and the heightened risk of poking yourself in the eye wasn’t fun either! However, I think I did pretty well! I did go easy on myself and choose my simplest, everyday look to do though.

 

See how I got on in the video!

Oh god….

 

 

 

Eeeeee… it looks okay if you look at it really quickly and then look away, haha! I was surprised at my lips, I think they went pretty well except I overdrew the cupids bow a lot on my right hand side. My brows are just awful though!

 

If any of you odd people want to know what I used, the eyes are the MUA Undress Me Too palette, brows are Rimmel Hazel pencil, cheeks are Sleek Suede and Boots No 7 Vital Enlightening Highlighter (LE 2012) and lips are Lime Crime Red Velvet.

 

Have you done this? Link me below!

Instanails!

I have been SO bad with taking photos of my manicures lately, especially as I’ve been making more of an effort lately. I’ve thrown together a quick post with some recent manicures, and they’re all Instagram photos, and they’re all rubbish, and there are SO many missing. Bad blogger!

Orly Honeymoon in Style, sponged over with a grey-blue Zoya and topped with China Glaze Snowglobe. I LOVED this manicure and wished I’d taken a real photo!

My new favourite – Sinful Colors Hottie, a beautiful blue jelly glitter. It takes a few layers to get opaque, but it’s SO pretty. The dark colour is a super-old Collection polish.

Good old L’Oreal Confetti over Barry M Yellow, with Barry M Navy sponged on the ring finger.

The gorgeous Illamasqua Purity, with Zoya Robyn and Barry M Pale Lilac and a white nail art polished  over the top.  I blobbed the colours on randomly and them picked them up with cling film. Possibly I used a touch of a mint polish too, but I can’t remember.

Some cutesy nail art for a shoot – didn’t get used in the end, I’ll have to think of a way to incorporate them into something else! Very fun to do though, it’s a different feel to doing your own manicure. More of a craft project!

Zoya Robyn, Barry M Navy used over the top with cling film again. LOVED this one.

Illamasqua Corrode, a hot neon pink, with some ‘drips"’ using a nail art polish. Topped it all with Maybelline Cosmic Flash, one of my favourite toppers. This is an awful photo, so google it!

 

 

Awful post, soz babes. What have you been wearing on your nails lately? What do you think the next nail craze is going to be?

Quickie Review: Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden Therapist's Secret Facial Oil

A skincare review? From moi? Oh yeah!

If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time you know I’ve got pretty dry, lacklustre-looking skin, and I’m always looking for moisturising products. I picked this little bottle up on a whim when Boots had a three-for-two on skincare a few months ago and I’ve been using it long enough to give you my thoughts. It’s the first facial oil I’ve tried, and the first Sanctuary product I’ve tried too. The ingredients list and pretty pink and silver box is what drew me in, I can’t lie, but the website promises “Rosehip seed oil helps rebuild & strengthen, while the balancing duo of precious rose & frankincense soothes & calms for skin that looks dewy-soft, radiant & noticeably younger.” Nice sounding spiel, but the TL;DR/don’t believe product speak version is: Nice moisturizing oil that smells like roses.

 

I like to use this best in addition to my regular, night time moisturizer two to three times a week, when I’ve had a long day or need an extra moisture boost. I find if I apply it alone, it takes too long to sink in, contrary to what lots of reviews on the website say! However, if I add a drop or two to my usual cream, the whole things sinks in beautifully well and helps my moisturizer to spread over my whole face and décolleté, so I use less of my moisturizer than I would, and it remind me to spread the cream down my neck which I don’t normally do.  I wake up with lovely soft skin – much more so than using my usual moisturizer alone, and for me, that makes it worth the extra small step in my routine and the price.  The lovely scent and routine of adding the two products together still feels like a nice treat, too.

The one thing I hate about this product is the packaging – it’s awful! The glass bottle and dropper look and feel decent quality and it’s certainly a nice addition to your nightstand compared to some other products, but on mine at least, the silver part is glued over a white plastic part and came loose, and the dropper has come loose inside the cap itself on mine and looks a little wonky. It doesn’t travel well either and leaked in my bag, which was super fun to clean up!

 

Would I repurchase? I probably would, but I don’t see myself running out of it for a long time! I do think it’s very expensive when I could probably just find a better moisturizer for half the price, but I like the results and think come winter time I’ll be really thankful for it.

 

Therapist's Secret Facial Oil cost £17.35 for 30ml and can be found in larger Boots or  www.sanctuary.com

Kiko Haul!

I’ve featured a few Kiko products on my blog before and from what I’ve tried, I really enjoy the brand. The range itself is pretty fabulous, is really reasonably priced, and they have lots of skincare and nail stuff as well as makeup, and rotating collections to keep things interesting. Everything here is from their ‘Fierce Spirit’ summer collection and was on sale, with the exception of the lip balm. The collections are often packaged really prettily, which is just a nice touch.

This whole lot cost me £22.60, with all the sale items being half price.  The blush was £6.90, the shadesticks and pigment were £2.50, and the Glow Touch Balm was £2.90. So even at full price, most things are really accessibly priced anyway. I had to stop myself going back for the other colour of Glow Touch, and the other Long Lasting Stick Eyeshadow and the summer body splashes!

 

Here’s what I got:

Clockwise from top left, Colour Explosion Multi Tone Blush in  03 Active Mauve, Long Lasting Stick Eyeshadows in 29 and 30, Glow Touch Lips and Cheeks in 03 Lucky Flamingo, Pigment Loose eyeshadow in 27 Beaming Beige, Kiss Balm Lip Balm in 01 Coconut.

L-R: Stick eyeshadow in 29 and 30, Glow Touch in Lucky Flamingo, Active Mauve colours 1, 2 and 3 and all the colours together.

Lucky Flamingo on the lips.

 

I’m super pleased with these products! The stick shadows are super vibrant in real life and don’t budge. I originally thought these were a different formula to the usual stick shadows as they take a while to set, but these are fabulous. The Glow Touch I am SO pleased with – this is genuinely pretty and comfortable on both lips and cheeks. Often dual-purpose products are horrible on one or the other, and this is lovely. I feel it won’t last long the cheeks (I only tried briefly) but it sure looks pretty.

The pigment I’m not stoked on – it’s pretty chunky and didn’t apply well wet or dry, but for £2.50 I’m not too bothered and I’m sure I’ll find a use for it. The blush however, is gorgeous. It’s a beautiful soft mauve and I really like the highlight shade in particular.

I haven’t swatched the lipbalm as it just comes off as a sheer gloss, but it was the scent that drew me in and I needed a new lip balm.There’s a whole bunch of buttery, fruity scented lipsticks in that collection that do have a colour pay off, each with a corresponding colour on the packaging so worth checking out if you like that type of lip product.

 

Well that’s my bargain haul! If you can’t get to the two Kiko stores in London you can shop their sale here: http://www.kikocosmetics.co.uk/sale.html