Late to the Party

So I FINALLY saw Avatar last night at the IMAX cinema at Waterloo. It was amazing! The CGI looked so amazing, it was like looking at the future - can you imagine when all films are that good? I was amazed at how realistic it was. If you haven't gone to see it yet, then do. It basically *is* Pocahontas, but even though the story has been done before, its still a good tale.

Even though the IMAX was brilliant, getting home at half past five in the morning from the cinema and having to get up five hours later for a ten hour shift means that doing Avatar inspired makeup is probably not the best idea:





I think it turned out a bit poopy, although my boss said she liked it! Nothing on Anastasia from Lipstick and Lightsabers Avatar look. I really should have spent some time on it, rather than trying to take pictures of it and also get out of the door. Also, Note To Self: Put mascara on before you take photos.


Anyway, I just used the blues from Sleek Sunset and Original,(whoever said people with blue eyes can't wear blue eyeshadow, you are clearly a very silly person) with Barry M white kohl eyepencil for the dots. I wish I had some white pigment, as this would have looked soooo much neater. The pencil made it very blobby and I didn't have time to clean it up. My mascara is Loreal Telescopic, which I don't think I'll be purchasing again. I am not blessed in the lash department, and I need a bit more oomph. The light blue 'wiggles'' which I realise now should probably be darker, were done with a super cheap metallic eyeliner from Primark! I got this blue colour and a gold, and they were 50p each! 50p! The brush on them is terrible, but for 50p, the product is very good indeed. For higlight I used one of those white eyeshadows that turns a sheer blue, which is a loose pigment from NYC. It was £2 and is very pretty if not that pigmented.


I also did Na'avi nails! Again, I should clean up my mess before taking pictures, but they look pretty good, and quite subtle in my opinion:




You only get one nail because they were messy, and I could not take a good photo!There's a lot more difference in the blue tones in real life. I did a white base coat, and painted the outer edges of my nails with a navy blue. I then sponged a light blue colour over the dark colour, leaving the white coming through in the middle. (These three colours were Barry M Nail Paints.)I then painted a shimmery blue colour over the top, and used striper pens for the dots and stripes.



On another note, the MUG Lady Gaga challenge? I'm all over that like Marmite on my toast. I have a killer idea, and need to go to Camden to get some lashes and maybe contacts. I just don't think I have the skill to execute it. But I'm going to try anyway!

Thats enough from me, I have a burrito to finish.


Love and Kisses,

Robyn xxx

P.S: Look out in Superdrug for cheap Gosh stuff! In a couple of my local Superdrug shops there's been stuff for £1! I got a white shimmery single eyeshadow, and two Effect Powders (in Pineapple, which is a pineapple-y yellow and.... er, another one in a taupe shade) and a few nail polishes to boot. I'm such a cheapskate, I will buy ANYTHING for a quid.

Sleek Divine Eyeshadow Palettes: A very long and boring review and swatch post

If you haven't heard the buzz about these, you probably don't live in the UK. Sleek is a UK based drugstore brand that (originally) caters for darker skinned ladies. Their 'iDivine Mineral Based Eyeshadows Palettes' come with twelve pressed eyeshadow palettes each and cost a few pence less than £5, and each eyeshadow is about the size of a 20p coin. I will admit, I have no idea what mineral-based means. Are they mineral or not? Personally, I don't care if something is mineral or not, I care if it is pretty or not.

There are four Palettes permanently in the collection, and these are Storm, The Original and Sunset, all of which I own, and Acid, which I don't. I think Chaos may be permanent too, but I can't usually find it in Superdrug. They usually have a limited one, currenty this is the Bohemian palette, (which comes in a white case as opposed to the matte black) which I will be buying soon. Maybe I'll pop along and get it today :D Other discontinued ones are Safari and Curious. As I mentioned, they're available at Superdrug, sleekmakeup.com and some hair and beauty stores.

All the below pics are without flash, and all the swatches are on bare skin, though I always wear them over Urban Decay Primer Potion. I just did a couple of swipes with each shadow, as I didn't want to pack them on and make them seem more amazing than they are. Hence, the pics do not do justice.

The Original:



L-R, Top-Bottom, you have: Matte Black, shimmery purple. shimmery navy, shimmery blue, shimmery aqua, shimmery khaki-ish green, shimmery light gold, shimmery pink, shimmery pink-bronze, shimmery copper, shimmery bronze, and shimmery olive.





Pretty! I really think that this palette has something for everyone. The blues and green are so beautiful in this palette, particularly the bright blue. If you're normally a natural kind of girl, and want to try a bit of colour without going too crazy and spending a lot of money on something a bit more adventurous, this is a perfect palette for you.

As you can probably tell, apart from the black, all the colours in this palette are shimmery. Most of them have a lovely smooth texture, but the light gold has a very odd, slightly chunky sort of texture. This is a shame because that means this palette doesn't have a great highlight colour. Its not horrendous though, and its certainly workable. Its just that I'm lazy - I normally apply my highlight colours last, and can't be bothered working at a shadow when I've done the majority of my face already.


Storm:


L-R, Top-Bottom you've got shimmery light brown, shimmery vanilla, matte latte sort of colour, shimmery gold, shimmery bronzey peach colour, shimmery plum-bronze, dark shimmery brown, shimmery gun-metal blue, shimmery dark blue-green, shimmery dark navy, matte dark brown and matte black.





As you can see, this is the more neutral palette that Sleek produce. If you can't wear crazy colours because of work or school, this is a great palette. I've made some lovely darker looks with this, however - the three blue shades together look amazing - so don't write it off as boring. I nearly didn't buy it because of this, and I'm so glad I did.

When I first got this palette, I thought the darkest blue and the peachy colour were the same as the dark blue and the pale pink from The Original. They're not! They are a little similar, but I think this is actually a good thing. If you have a couple of these palettes, you have more choice, more colours that go together, more colours to use to blend, etc.

I don't have a problem with the texture of any of these, and the second colour in the top row makes a lovely highlight. You can see from the lower row of swatches though, that they're quite soft, and with the darker colours you can get a lot of fall out. I don't really care, you might. They're not glittery, and if I do get fallout, it wipes off quickly with a baby wipe and doesn't leave any shimmer behind. The matte colours, particularly the light one, are a little hard to work with, though the quality of the black is great. As with all of these palettes, its nice and pigmented and blends well over/under the other colours.

Sunset:



L-R, Top-Bottom, matte black, shimmery red, shimmery reddish-orange shade, shimmery orange, shimmery gold, shimmery bright blue, shimmery plum, another shimmery reddish-prange, shimmery copper, shimmery lgiht bronze, shimmery light brown, shimmery lgiht pink.





OMFGILOVETHISPALETTE. Not for the faint of heart, huh? These pictures do not do the colours justice. The red and orange are so, so, so beautiful. WOWZA. I mean, the red is freaking amazeballs, and when I hit pan on it I am literally going to weep.


Two of the colours in here are reeeeeeeeally similar though, the colour on the right and the colour underneath the red only have a subtle difference. This doesn't bother me particularly, though I wish they'd scrapped one for another higlight colour. The pink is nice if you wear the red, but if you've got a lot of the orange or blue on, I think a light gold woud have been nicer.

Again, I thought there were some duplicate colours in this palette. The top right hand colour in the Storm Palette and the bottom left hand of Sunset are VERY similar indeed, but they're not the same colours. The Storm is darker. I also thought the blue from Original was the same as the blue in Sunset, but the one from sunset is much brighter. This might piss some people off, and yeah, perhaps I would like some more original shades. But you get twelve in a palette, so a couple of almost-dupes is a small price to pay.

The chunky texture crops up again in the Sunset palette:



See what I mean? The texture of the two colours on the right are kind of wierd. Again, its not the worst, but it always seems to be the lighter colours. Its just these two colours though, and luckily they seem to be the ones I use least!

Why I don't own Acid:

Acid, as the name suggests, has acid-bright colours.




Pretty huh? Unfortunatley, there are a lot of mattes in this palette. And the mattes are the bright, acid colours. And the mattes SUCK. They're really hard to work with. if I had a white, creamy base (which I will soon!) maybe they'll be good. But I don't want to spend the money on it yet. There is a silver and some lovely blues which are shimmery, so I do want this palette. I just don't want to get it yet. I also bought a while ago (and threw away) the Chaos palette, which I picked up by mistake.



(Pics are from www.sleekmakeup.com.) This was also mostly mattes. I don't know if they were less pigmented, or if it was the fact mattes in general are a bit crap and I was even worse at make-up then than I am now. The white and yellow made me really sad. Still, with a better base maybe...

A Look!

Phew. Are you still with me? This post is taking me about a decade!






Thats a little look with the red shades from the Sunset palette. (Note to self: clean fallout before taking photos.) It looks prettier on, but I suck at taking pictures. If you want to see more Sleek looks, go on YouTube. Or if YOU have sleek looks, leave a comment with a link, I wanna see!

And finally...

Pros:

-Price: Less than a fiver. AMAZING.
-Pigmentation is AMAZING.
-The range of colours in each palette is great, so you can get a lot of looks with each one.
-Lots of complimentary colours across the palettes
-Each palette comes with matte black, which is super-useful
-The palettes are nice and slim, so they fit in a make-up bag eaily, and look and feel more high-end than they are.
-We get to have them, and America gets to pay horrible shipping charges if they want to have them >:D Tee hee.
-They come with a nice, big mirror. I normally do my make-up using these mirrors, even when I'm not using these shadows.

Cons:

-Eyeshadows are very soft. None of mine have broken, but they do make the mirror a bit messy, which can be a pain in the arse.
-Some of the eyeshadows have an odd, chunky texture
-The mattes are a bit crap.
-Majority of palettes are mostly shimmery colours.
-Often there is no good highlight colour
-Applicator that comes with it is useless. I hate sponge applicators, and these soak up a lot of the product.
-Some colours are very similar indeed


Would I repurchase?

Hell yes! They are amazing value. If you're a make-up beginner and feeling a bit lost, go and buy these, now. Go on. Off you pop. Actually, just go and get them anyway.

Love and Kisses,

Robyn xxx


P.S. I suppose I should say I bought these with my own money, bla bla bla, but really. I have seven followers. Who the hell is sending me free stuff?

P.P.S For those of you that follow me, thankyou! I wasn't expecting to get any followers for a looooong time, so it means a lot :)

LOTD: Pink and Grey

Ok, so this is yesterdays look. Today I'm wearing orange with brown in the crease and a purple glitter cat-eye liner, but it didn't turn out quite how I wanted it, so no picture for you. Anyway, yesterdays look was inspired by this MAC face chart:



It's Lady Gagas look from the latest Viva Glam campaign. I LOVE the pink brows and next time I go clubbing or dancing I'm going to try this, coloured brows are so fun, and you can keep the rest of your make-up simple. I normally just mix pigments with water, colour in my brows, and add a lick of clear mascara, but I have bum-fluff blonde eyebrows, so its not difficult for me.

I wanted just to do the pink and grey, which I think is a gorgeous colour combination. I'm trying to make an effort to use my 120 palette a lot more than I have, but I'm finding it difficult as the colours seem really hard to blend. I tried to blend the pink and grey together with a brown, but it felt like the brown just wouldn't apply. Its really hard to layer these shadows and I had to use a black from one of my Sleek palettes in my outer V as the crappy black from the 120 just wouldn't co-operate. (Fear not, I sent it to bed with no dinner.) The matte colours in the palette are reeeeeally hard to work with, and I hope I get better payoff when my NYX pencils come. I still think the palette is great value, and I love the shimmers. Anyway, the look....








I suck at taking photos of my make-up! Flash or no flash? It's never representative. Still, you get to see me in my jim-jams, so I think thats a fair trade, no? I had to scrap the pink lips and brows because I was going to work but I think its come across very soft and pretty. I just did a nude lip with my Barry M lip paint in Golden Bronze, and a swoosh of Benefit 10 to give me a bit of a glow.


Theres two pics of my face because one is a (dorky) attempt to show you my nails. Zebra striped nails are so bloody easy to do, and look great. The pink nail polish is No 272, Shocking Pink, by Barry M, which I totally adore and is much more vibrant than my camera wants to pick up. Barry M nail polishes are a bargain, if you haven't checked them out before. They're only £3 each and the range of colours is fantastic. Its mainly creme colours, but they have some shimmers and glitters and the range is pretty consistent, apart from the yellow colour they have which takes about 59202847401 coats to become opaque. (I grounded it, and it shan't be watching any television.)

Thats enough yapping from me, swatches soon I promise!

Love and kisses,

Robyn xxx

Crap I Want To Buy

Dr Martens 'Triumph' boots:




Fimo nail art sticks:



Lady Gaga's Viva Glam Lipstick (Ok, ok, I want Cyndi's as well, but this is a budget blog, y'all):



Sugarpills 'Burning Heart' Palette:





Fyrinnaes 'Crimson Ghost' eyeshadow:




What pretty things are you lusting after, ladies?



Love and kisses,

Robyn xxx

P.S: Coming up soon are some tutorial responses and Sleek reviews!

Pin-up of The Week: Shirley Manson

Every week, I'm going to feature a gorgeous and talented chick who I find inspiring both as a person, and as a beauty icon. First up is Shirley Manson, lead singer of Scottish rock band Garbage:









Oooh, isn't she just gorgeous?! I love the slamming combo of red hair, red lips, and dark, smudgy eyes she often wears and desperatley want her hair from the first picture! She rocks this look so well. I literally could have posted pictures of her all day, I think she is totally stunning and she is one of the reasons I have red hair myself. Manson has always been a bit of a stylish chick - she used to pinch hair product samples from Miss Selfridge, where she worked, to style local bands hair - and as such, always look fantastic.

Anyway, enough of her face :D If you haven't heard anything by Garbage, prepare for me to be shocked and appalled. YouTube them. Now. A new Garbage album is rumoured, which I would be really, really stoked for. Shirleys solo album has been postponed, which makes me sad as I'd love to hear what she comes up with alone. From what I can gather, her 'people' deemed it too 'noir', which is total pap in my opinion as fans of Shirley know she can be extremley dark and ballsy. She's stated she doesn't want to make 'silly pop music,' and I totally love her for that.

Despite rocking out and being sex on legs, she's a humanitarian as well, working for PETA, the MAC AIDS fund (Vivaglam IV? I could be wrong) and the Pablove Foundation, a children's cancer charity, among others.

I love you Shirley, please make more music soon!

Who inspires you?


Love and kisses,

Robyn xxx

LOTD: Make Up Geeks

So here is my entry to Make Up Geeks Weekly Challenge, and the theme was a plumeria flower! I love these flowers and have one in my kitchen. I'm not expecting to win at all because there are some bloody good looks there, it was just really fun.









One day I will learn to take good pictures. I used the copper BeautyUK pencil, Barry M Dazzle Dusts in Neon Pink, Candy Floss and Orange, Barry M glitter Liner in gold, Primark Foiled Again liquid liner, Maybelline Colossal mascara, Gosh single eyeshadow in 244 and cheap no-name false lashes.

I actually did two entries, but the first one was crap apart from the lips:



I wish I had OCC lip tars!


Love and kisses,

Robyn xxx

Barry M Lip Paints

So for those of you who don't know (and where the hell have you been?! Leave the house once in a while!) Barry M is a UK brand who call themselves the "most colourful name in cosmetics." I'm in love with thier Dazzle Dusts, the loose pigments, but recentley I've bought a few of thier Lip Paints. I remember having the black colour back in my (bad) goth days, and a black Dazzle Dust. Needless to say I couldn't apply make-up to save my life back then - so much so that my DAD would adjust it for me before I left the house!

Anyway, Barry M has about thirty colours of lipsticks, or Lip Paints as they call them, though sadly most of them are not available in shops. Barry M is carried in Boots and Superdrug and normally they have around 10-15 shades, ranging from oranges, pinks, nudes and reds. I got all these in Superdrug for £4.25 each, but Boots nearly always has Barry M on three for two. Barry M ships worldwide, but the shipping is pretty expensive at £8.00 for countries outside Europe.

So anywhoo, here are the colours I have...

-No. 117 Orange: This colour is a bright orange/tangerine colour. I bought it for St. Patricks day where I paired it with green eyebrows and am trying to be brave enough to wear it out on a normal day!



Thats the website photo, and here it is on my lips:




I totally recommend a balm under this lipstick. As you can tell from the lovely skin flakes on my lips, its not the best for lips that are feeling a bit sorry for themselves. The forumla of this one is slightly dry, but as I hope you can tell, its pretty pigmented so I will forgive it. It takes a few swoops to become opaque, and it stains a teeny, tiny bit. But its orange, guys! I think it looks pretty fab. Also, I don't have it, but Barry M make a lip gloss in this colour, which would be fab on top or great for those who want to do orange but aren't this brave. I shall be purchasing it on pay day, it's amazing. :)

-No 136 Golden Bronze: This is a bronzed nude with what I think is a slight golden- rose undertone to it.







Nice, huh? This is a good nude for me. As its slightly metallic with that bronzey-rose undertone, its not too cool. The second photo is paired with Barry M lipgloss (ha, I totally typde lip glodd) in No. 2, which has a yummy chocolate scent, fyi. I have no problems with the application of this colour whatsoever, it is much creamier than the orange shade.

-No 129 Palest Lavender: A pale lavender! Shocking! You may have noticed that the colours on the Barry M website are not really representative. This one looks like its a pink shade:



But it ain't:



Waaaa :( I really, really wanted to love this colour. I had so many smokey purple eye looks in my brain ready for this. But it so hard to work with, and out of the five colours I have, its definitely the worst forumla. Its really sheer, hard to layer up, and as you can see, it goes on all streaky. Still, its only £4.25 and so its much cheaper than other lippies I know this has been comapared with, such as Mac Lilac Whip and Lime Crime Airbourne Unicorn. I *can* get this to look nice with a lot of patience and blotting, but not truly opaque. Serves me right for buying stupid lipstick shades because Lady Gaga wore one.

-No 141 Royal Raspberry. I LOVE this colour, and my boyfriend really likes it as well, so this has become my go-to 'sexy' lippy.






In reality, this is more of a berry colour, its a little darker than shows here, and a more definite blue undertone. It lasts pretty well on me, and reds usually don't for some reason. I think it's totally gorgeous, and because it has that metallic look to it, its really nice for giving a slightly modern twist on the classic 50's pin up look.

-Touch of Magic Lip Paint:



'TIS GREEN! Ha, its not really green, although they do carry a green lipstick. Its a balmy lipstick that turns a different shade of pink according to the alkali levels on your lips. Now, I'm always sceptical of this sort of claim - I think the alkali thing is a big load of bollocks, and that balmy, sheer colours will turn a different colour because people... wait for it... have different colour lips! However, whether this is cobblers or not is irrelevant because I love this product!



Thats right after putting it on. It looks like I have the rose Vaseline on. I don't have a comparison shot of my lips with nothing on them, but trust me, they are not very pink at all. And now once its 'developed':




It doesn't look like the biggest difference from the first picture, but my lips are a bright pink rose colour. Barry M promises that this lippy lasts for eight hours, and it does, but it's because it dries from a balm to a stain. Personally, I love it because I can pop it on and not have to retouch while I'm working. I don't find it drying like some stains and long-lasting lipcolours, but because its balmy at first, I do like to re-apply balm over the top as that feeling wears away fairly quickly. Basically, this is all I wanted Benetint to be .(Benetint, in case you don't know, is a cult best-selling rose coloured lip and cheek stain. In my opinion, it is total crapola. It's really runny and you don't get a great colour, also it's about £18, and you can get a dupe from MEMEME for like, a fiver. I love Benefit, but Benetint = bleh.)

So anyway.... to summarise:

Pros:

-A great range of colours. Some more out there shades for the cray-cray girls but some nice neutral and classic colours too.
-The price. £4.25 is pretty darn reasonable.
-The majority go on nicely, aren't difficult to make look nice and last fairly well.
-Don't have a strong smell, which is nice.
-Packaging is nice if fairly standard; matte, squared off tubes with the logo in gold.

Cons:
-The range is no consistent, but then, no large range of colour is.
-They're not all available in stores, so if you wanted something really mad like the blue or green, maybe £4.25 is a bit much to gamble on.
-The orange stains a little, so I bet some of the other colours like the bright pink stain a little too. I think this is a con, you may see it as a plus.
-Each tube only has the number, not the colour on it (apart from the Touch Of Magic.) If you're not very organized, have a terrible memory and/or a lot of lipsticks, this can be a pain in the bum. I have five of these and I don't know which is which.


Would I repurchase: 100% yes. I'll be getting the black, a peach and a bright pink in the very near future.

Love and kisses,

Robyn xxx