Purple FOTD with MAC

I did not leave the house and did absolutely nothing this day except my makeup and finally reading Death Note (which, hello, worst ending ever amirite), so naturally, enormous lashes happened. Let us examine further:

Eyes: MAC Paint Points in Dangerous Cuvee and Blackground, Very Violet Eyeshadow. Nude shadow on browbone from MUA palette. Brows Rimmel Hazel and touch of dark brown from MUA palette. Lashes Eyelash Laboratory (cheap but super awesome Korean lashes)
Lips: MAC Up The Amp, with a touch of Pink Noveau in the centre, Creamsheen Glass in No Apologies.
Cheeks: MAC Autoerotique


Ugh, I looooved this look! Dangerous Cuvee is a new baby for me, and I have to say, I love it. I’m never really that drawn to MAC Paintpots for some reason, but this one screamed my name and I just had to have it – it’s a deeper silver with subtle green and pink shimmer in it that just elevates it slightly. Ooh, it’s lovely, and juuuust about work safe! What’s been on your peepers lately?

Thanks for looking at my mug!

MAC x Maleficent “True Love’s Kiss” Lipstick: Swatches and Comparisons

“…gold of sunshine in her hair, lips that shame the red, red rose. In ageless sleep, she finds repose.”

Who is hella excited for this movie? Hint: me. Like most Disney loving beauty bloggers, I was super excited to hear of this collaboration between Disney and MAC, and like most Disney loving beauty bloggers, I was pretty damn disappointed. The colours were pretty boring, and most items are available permanently anyway. To add insult to injury, MAC have repeated the lazy packaging ethos they rolled out for the Venomous Villains collection. However…. I got the lipstick anyway. What can I say? I love a red lip and I love Disney.

This is not special packaging really, is it? I find the high shine on it actually makes it look cheaper than the regular MAC casing in my opinion. Bear in mind this costs £16.50 compared to the regular £15 for a lipstick. I mean… the Maleficent logo is pretty cool and all, but they could have done SO much more with this. So much. Le sigh.

Anyway. On to the colour itself. Not as deep or blue-based as many of us might have guessed this to be, MAC describes this as a ‘clean, bright red,’ which is spot on. One would guess this is meant to pay homage to Aurora, rather than Maleficent. It has light shimmer throughout and is an amplified formula, giving it a slightly glossy look. Gorgeous.

L-R: True Love’s Kiss, Russian Red, MAC Viva Glam Rihanna, MAC Viva Glam I.

Just a quick swatch of a couple of reds from MAC for comparisons sake. VG Rihanna is indeed pretty similar in terms of base shade, although the VG is a frost finish and has a lot more shimmer, giving it a much more vibrant look on the lips.


So…should you get this? In all honesty, probably not. Even though this is one of the limited edition items in the collection and not a re-promote or a permanent item, it’s not all that super special. While perfectly lovely, the packaging is a bit lazy and it’s similar enough in my eyes to the MAC Viva Glam Rihanna that if you wanted a MAC lipstick specifically, I’d send your money in the direction of charity and save yourself £1.50 in the process. If you’re absolutely bonkers for Disney like I am, it’s a nice little addition to a red lipstick collection.

What’s your favourite MAC – or any! – red?

Detox, VIcky Vox and Willam!: LOTD with OCC Black Metal Dahlia

What does one wear on one’s face when they’re off to see their favourite drag queens? The same shit that they hawk themselves, naturally – a little OCC!

 

 

My hair was setting, I didn’t go out like this!

Eyes: Illamasqua Neutrals Palette and Scribe Liner, MAC Reflects Gold Glitter, Kiko Precision Brow Pencil in Shade 03
Lips: MAC Vino lipliner, OCC Black Metal Dahlia
Cheeks: Sleek Contour Kit in Light, Sleek Suede blush

Black Metal Dahlia is super gorgeous, but it takes a little work so putting it over a deep lip liner is my favourite way to wear it. This is easily one of my favourite looks I’ve done all year.

 

And here are the lovely ladies we spent all our rent money on going to see!



DUCK FACE WITH DETOX. It was so hot in the little venue we were in my hair dropped right out, boo! I am 100% ridiculously in love with her. I was always rooting for Detox on RDPR but having met her and seen her perform I can’t even. She is just a perfect being and I want to be her slave or some shit. Absolutely beautiful.

 

SO QUICHE. I’m sad that this is the photo we got because I am standing at a way dodgy angle which makes me look like a brick. I mean, bricks are fine and all, but I don’t want to look like a brick next to Willam. The boy people in the photo are my cousin and his boyf. Anyway, they were flawless, it was flawless, too fucking flawless. If you get the chance to see them, go. They got it down pat, and they sing and rap pretty damn well!

#byefelicia

MAC Alluring Aquatics Swatches: Goddess Of The Sea and Seduced By The Sea

Alluring Aquatics came out last week, seemingly hitting the UK shelves before the US, yadda yadda yadda. I’m going to give you the TL;DR version straight up – average MAC products, AMAZING PACKAGING. I could leave it there but that’s the general gist.

LOOK AT THIS SHIT. Each item in this collection is a shiny blue metallic packing, covered in 3d fake water droplets. FAKE WATER DROPLETS. I didn’t realise this until I opened it – I thought they were embossed somehow and when I opened the packaging I was like IS THIS REAL LIFE? If you’re a makeup collector you need at least one piece from this collection, man. It’s really, really cool. Like every woman my age who is pissed off that we actually have to be adults now and give a shit about things, I want to be a mermaid and this collection I feel helps a little with that. Is it cool enough to warrant the extremely cheeky price raise to £16.50 on the lipstick? If this collection wasn’t released on payday I may have had a different answer to that question, but I think yes.

 

L-R: Extra Dimension Blush in Seduced At Sea, Cremesheen lipstick in Goddess Of The Sea. More water droplet action, and the MAC logo is inlaid in some fancy blue pearlescent writing.

L-R: Blush in Seduced At Sea, cremesheen lipstick in Goddess Of The Sea

Goddess Of The Sea. I totally am the Goddess Of The Sea but I’d probably pick Illamasqua’s Apocalips for my official duties. Described as a ‘dark vibrant violet,’ I was expecting this to be a little less wearable and quite frankly darker. Not what I was expecting but lovely nonetheless. I do like the cremesheen formula so I expect I’ll get a good bit of wear out of this one.

Here I am wearing Seduced At Sea on the cheeks. Described as a ‘mid tone neutral plum’ which is quite frankly absolute bollocks. This more like a light, burnt orange to me. I wished when it arrived that I’d ordered the coral, but applied this is actually rather lovely. I’d apply with a light hand to avoid looking like an Oompa Loompa. A nice colour for medium skins or tanned lighter skins.

The products themselves are very nice – I love the extra dimension blushes and wish they were a permanent fixture because I would sop them up with a biscuit. They’re just lovely. And a cremesheen lipstick is always a winner. While I only got two items, I don’t think there is one overall standout from this collection. Everything is nice, wearable, something you’ll get use out of. That’s fine, but this collection in my opinion is outshined by the absolutely banging packaging.


Almost everything seems to be sold out at the moment, but will you be picking up anything from this collection?

Spring Green LOTD

I am sick as a dog right now, but also sick of looking like it, so some makeup was much needed! A little pop of colour from the old Sleek Circus palette – which I haven’t touched in ages! – and some fluttery lashes did the trick and perked me up a bit, even if it was only for a duvet day!

 

Eyes: Barry M Kohl liner in brown. Neutrals from MUA Undress Me Too Palette. Green from Sleek Circus Palette (discontinued)
Lips: L’Oreal Extraordinaire lipgloss in Nude Vibrato. Brows, Kiko. Lashes, Vintage Lash Company Gracie.
FACE: MAC Face and Body, Rimmel Stay Matte powder, Collection2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer
Cheeks: MAC Buff, Boots No 7 Vital Enlightening Highlighter

I do miss wearing colour! I need to do a proper, all-out bright look soon!

Are you looking forward to the warmer weather? What are your favourite colours to wear in Spring?

MAC Retro Matte lipsticks in Relentlessly Red and All Fired Up

 

Inspired by the classic shade Ruby Woo’s ‘one-of-a-kind texture’, toward the end of last year MAC released a series of Retro Matte colours. To anyone familiar with MAC lipsticks, this could be seen to be the biggest dick move MAC have made for a while, as Ruby Woo is widely known for being dry as hell. However, being a fan of mattes and spying some shades I’d not seen before on a recent trip to my local MAC stand, I picked up two shades.

 

All Fired Up on the top, Relentlessly Red on the bottom.

 

Relentlessly Red, All Fired Up.

 

 

MAC All Fired Up.’‘Bright Fuchsia matte.’ Err, if you say so. Not fuchsia to me at all, though it’s certainly a pink-leaning red.

 

 

MAC Relentlessly Red. ‘Bright Pinkish Coral matte.’ Why on *earth* they named this shade Relentlessly Red is totally beyond me – in the words of Willam, “Girl, it’s fucking pink!”

 

 

Wearing ‘All Fired up’ with a deeper red liner on the lip line.

While I don’t hate these, I can’t say I’m in love with them. I don’t really know what I was expecting from this formula, there’s something about it that bothers me. I find them rather flat and feel they need a cgood couple of swipes to get to full payoff – I know you can’t always expect eye-popping vibrancy from mattes but there is something rather dull about these in real life. Well, my boyfriend complimented me when I wore them, so what do I know? They look good, I think I just wanted more from them.I  wouldn’t rush out to buy them just because of the formula, but if you happen to like the colours, I don’t actually find them that drying - which I was expecting considering they're based on Ruby Woo – certainly no more than MAC’s regular mattes.

Retro Mattes cost £15 from MAC.

MAC Viva Glam Rihanna Lipstick and Lipglass

Happy Monday everyone, let’s do some lipstick swatches! Hurrah! I have both items from Viva Glam Rihanna, a lipstick and a tinted lipglass.



Oooh, innit gorgeous? These two have the same sort of soft touch rubbery-velvety packaging as the Temperature rising collection from summer 2013 and they are just lovely. Viva Glam lipsticks normally have a little red band on them, so I like that they kept a red colour to the packaging. Riri fans will like the addition of her signature on the bottle of the lipglass and the twist-up part of the lipstick.



Viva Glam Rihanna Tinted Lipglass. What a gorgeous finish on this one!

Viva Glam Rihanna lipstick. This is a Frost finish and has a gorgeous strawberry tone to it.



Both products layered together.



Unnecessary hand swatch.



Both products layered.

Aren’t they lovely? I think I may actually prefer the lipglass slightly out of the two, but they’re both so pretty and girly. I’m glad MAC is finishing up their run of products with Rihanna with a Viva Glam collection. I’m a huge fan of Viva Glam, and I’m glad to see them bringing back some colours that are more likely to suit a huge range of skintones (*cough all the VG Nicki  and VG Gagas*), which the permanent line of VG colours are supposed to. It’s  worth noting that in the promo pictures, Rihanna is wearing Brick lipliner blended into the lipstuck, so the look in the promos is a little different – there’s a face chart and instructions  on the MAC site. I’ll have to try the look soon as it’s gorgeous

The lipstick costs £15 and the tinted lipglass costs £14, with all proceeds going to help men, women and children living with HIV and AIDs. Yes, these are dupeable colours, but as it’s for charity you’ll get no suggestions from me! It is a limited edition collection, but I believe it’s sticking around for the year, so you’ve plenty of time to go and get it!

Have you picked this up?What’s your favourite Viva Glam Lipstick?

Jessica…Dragit? Drag makeup experiment

Netflix added RuPaul’s Drag Race a week or so ago, so naturally I’ve been doing nothing else except watching that! I am absolutely fascinated with drag makeup, and even though I’m, you know, an actual girl, I kind of love doing it. It’s certainly a challenge to do and there’s a *ton* of stuff you can learn from doing it, so I kind of see it as a worthwhile waste of a couple hours!

I apologise for the nasty picture quality , but it’s dark and dingy here constantly, and I have a new camera I don’t know how to use yet. Score!

I went more old school, comedy drag than sexy drag which was fun to do!However, let’s just say there are a lot of things I’d try differently next time! I like how the false brows worked out, but I really need to suck it up and try to cover my own brows properly instead of finding creative ways to draw over them as this didn’t work out so well.  I like how the cheeks worked out (low contour inspired by Divine yo) but I can’t for the life of me work out that frigging nose thing all the queens do at the moment. Boo!

 

Next time I try this I’m not going to be scared like I have been, and I'm really going to pile that face on and let it bake! I just physically can't bring myself to apply that much makeup...yet!

I used a whole bunch of crap for this, but if you’re gagging on my eleganza and need to know what I’m wearing please just say and I'll let you know.

MAC Magnetic Nudes Collection: Autoerotique and Fairly Precious

As soon as I saw the promo images for the Magnetic Nudes collection, I knew that Autoerotique was coming home with me! I love a peach toned anything, and I LOVE a MAC blush. Blushes are one of my favourite items MAC do –I’ve never had a dud from them, the range is fantastic, the finishes are fab. I also love the one other Extra Dimension Skin Finish I have (Whisper of Gilt, holla!) and I picked 'Fairly Precious' from the collection in the hope it would become a new favourite for me.

MAC Extra Dimension Blush in Autoerotique.

MAC describes this as a “dirty coral rose.” That’s pretty bang on – I had it in my head it would be a little less red and a little more peach than it is. I’ve never tried this formula of blush before and in the pan, it almost looks like a plastic blush – it looks very hard and smooth! It’s a little stiffer than some blushers but still picks up well and blends onto the face. MAC also says this is “a liquid-powder blush with prismatic reflections.” Um… okay? I guess this is referring to how the blush is made, because there's nothing liquid about it - it's a powder blush.

MAC Extra Dimension Skinfinish in Fairly Precious

 

Again, MAC describes this as ‘liquid-powder.” I really have no idea what that is supposed to mean. This highlighter is “Peach with a dimensional pearly sheen.” Like other Extra Dimension Skinfinishes, this has a buildable shimmer and can really be piled on into a strong sheen on the face. If that ain’t your thang, it work well subtly applied too.

These are swatched fairly heavily here – there’s good pigmentation without them being crazy, a good thing in a blush in my opinion! The texture of Fairly Precious is smooth with no chunky glitter or shimmer and I had no problem with getting good payoff from Autoerotique despite how hard it looks in the pan.

 

 

I’m wearing both here and I love how they look! Fairly Precious is actually pretty pigmented on it’s own on my skin colouring - I actually wear this on it's own as a blush most of the time, but I do like to buff a little bit of Autoerotique in the middle which is how I'm wearing it here. I've been wearing one or the other of these pretty much since I recieved them, which is a good sign of them becoming favourites as I don't normally go more than two or three days without reaching for Sleek Suede blush.

According to the site, Autoerotique claims six hours of wear, and Fairly Precious claims ten hours of wear. I’d give it MAC on both of those – I can put these on at around 7am and they'll both be hanging on when I got home at 7pm. So long wearing, check. Gorgeous, check. Annoyingly limited edition, check.

Did you pick up anything from this collection? What are your favourite highlighters?

Quickie Review and Swatches: MAC Punk Couture Cremesheen Glasses

This is a bit of a 'mixed feelings' review. I both like the products and am quite disappointed at the same time!

Lots of people were excited by the Punk Couture release, especially those with a penchant for unusual or darker lip colours. I skipped the lipsticks (not that I could have got my hands on them anyway!) as I have purples, wines and blacks galore and went for the Cremesheen Glasses instead. Initially I wanted the black shade, Dark Outsider, as I love using these for layering and have misplaced my black Inglot gloss, and the green shade, Jet Boy, as I love green lip colours. On a whim I chucked No Apologies into my basket as well. In for a penny, eh?

Dark Outsider

Dark Outsider Layered over MAC Russian Red

I really enjoy black lipglosses. They do tend to be sheerer, and this one is no exception, but for once that's what I want from a gloss. You might ask why you want a sheer black gloss - well, if you've ever put your clear gloss over a black lip product and ruined it, that's one reason! They're also really fun for changing up red and berry shades.

So while this one is nothing overly exciting, if you like the Cremesheen formulas and don't have a black gloss for layering, I would happily recommend this one.

Jet Boy

^{Jet Boy layered over MAC Russian Red}

Oh, Jet Boy. This is the one I was really disappointed in. As mentioned, I know Cremesheen Glasses aren't big on pigmentation or anything, but I really, really wanted this one to show up more on the
lips in terms of the green sparkles. Compared to how it looks in the tube, it ain't shit. I do like how this one looks over red shades, however, and the grey undertone is really interesting, but what a let down!

No Apologies

No Apologies over a Sleek Matte Me Lip Cream

Again, this one is sheerer than I expected and not as sparkly. Due to the more conventional colour though, this comes off as a really pretty gloss. It still has the greyer undertone but I don't read it as
strongly as with Jet Boy on my skin due to the purple sparkles. I wore this on New Years Eve with a purple smokey eye and have actually worn it to work a few times as well. Again, I wish it looked more like it did in the tube. I really like it but wouldn’t normally pay the price for something so sheer. When it comes to lipgloss I tend to prefer more expensive ones but I still want the bang for my buck.

 

Dark Outsider, Jet Boy, No Apologies

So... would I recommend getting these? I find the formula comfortable, non-sticky and lightly moisturising and it lasts around 2-3 hours on me, which isn't bad for gloss with little tackiness to it, so that's nice.  If you're a MAC collector or like to use sheer tints to change your lip shade, yes, perhaps. If you want over the top sparkle or a really unusual shade on your lips, steer well clear. While I like the products and will use them, I wish MAC had chosen to release these shades in a different formula that offered more sparkle and pigmentation as these are way too expensive for what they offer.  If you like sparkly, unusual lipglosses and don’t want to spend these prices, I can’t recommend Darling Girl Cosmetics enough.

These can be purchased from MAC for £17.50 each.