AmazingCosmetics AmazingConcealer Review

I'd heard about this brand on YouTube a while ago and remember thinking you must have pretty big cahoonas to call yourselves 'AmazingCosmetics' if your products were anything but. I happened across this set on clearance in TK Maxx and picked it up out of curiosity.

 

 

 

 

AmazingCosmetics claims that "AmazingConcealer is a full coverage, water-proof concealer that makes all skin imperfections disappear...has a complexion-perfection, highly-pigmented formula that gives a natural-looking finish and full coverage for everything from dark circles to blemishes'.”

 

 

I can't find the kit online anymore, but these are two of the 'Little AmazingConcealers,' containing 6ml each. They also offer a larger, 15ml option for their concealer. The kit had a branded clear bag, a concealer brush and a small clear jar which I cannot see the use for in relation to this kit! The value of this kit excluding the jar and bag is $74, so around £45. I got it on sale for a fiver, so go me!

 

Fair Golden, Medium Beige.

 

The shades in this kit were 'Fair Golden' and 'Medium Beige.' Fair Golden isn't a dead-on match for me, but it was workable enough for me to review and test the product. There are 20 shades in the range, all with their undertones listed on the website which is great for those who can't try it instore. The shades are grouped into 'fair' 'medium' and 'tan,' which kind of craps on their claim of 'no skintone left behind.' (This is bullshit, companies, y’all hear? Bullllshiiit. It can't be true, so just don't say it.) Anyway… as you can see from the swatch, a little goes a long way! This has an unusual texture –  it’s almost like a thick gel.

 

On my right, no concealer. On my left, concealer. Well, duh.

Okay, let’s start grilling this bad boy! Under the eyes, the coverage is pretty darn good. No arguing with that - it combats both the darkness and the redness in my undereye area well. However, I find this really hard to work with under the eyes. As said, a little goes a long way, and this stuff is pretty thick. I find it too thick to blend out with a brush, and it’s difficult to blend a small amount out with your finger on a delicate area under the eye when the texture is a little tacky. I found it creased up before I could finish blending it out, which made it a pain in the butt to set with powder. I’m not convinced on this as an undereye concealer for me personally, but I’m going to try and make this work because I like the coverage and texture a lot.


On the face, I like this much better. I find the consistency much easier to work with on a smaller area, and the little brush that came with the kit is useful for blemishes. You really need to use the tiniest little bit and tap it over your blemishes – if you’re used to working with OCC Lip Tars, that’s how little an amount we’re talking here. Start with the teeniest blob and go back for more if needed. Because you need so little to gain coverage, a tapping motion works best when applying this concealer and that'll cover your blemishes a treat!

 

 The website claims all sorts in terms of wear – that it’s waterproof, for example. Unfortunately I don’t find it particularly long wearing – not to say that it’s bad, but when you’re expecting it not to budge all day and it needs to be touched up in the afternoon along with the rest of your makeup, it does miff you a wee bit.


Would I recommend this? Hmm… possibly. For some, this is going to be really great – a little goes a long way, it covers well and there is a good shade range for fair-medium dark skintones. So that'll make it a winner for a lot of people. However, while it wears pretty well on blemishes, I think there are much longer wearing concealers on the market and of course, this is something that is very dependent on your skin type anyway. For my undereye area, I find it difficult to apply and set.  When it’s not on sale, it’s pretty darn expensive at $28 for the smaller tube, and obviously for non-USA people, it’s going to be a pain in the arse to get hold of! It’s a nice addition to my makeup bag, especially due to it's size and the amount you need, but I was really dissapointed with it under my eyes and wished that it lasted longer on the skin.

Have you tried anything from AmazingCosmetics? What is your favourite multi-purpose concealer?

Quickie Review and Before/After: Bobbi Brown Concealer Kit

I’ve tried quite a few cult beauty products in 2013 and decided to see the year out with another, the Bobbi Brown creamy concealer. I’ve heard SO many wonderful things about Bobbi Brown concealers and correctors, and on a bit of a whim decided to try it out some of them! I kind of hate wearing under eye concealer so was hoping this would be light and lovely and still do the trick!

 

galaxy filter yo

 

 

The sales assistants at the Bobbi Brown counter, I have to say, were extremely lovely. She had me matched up and checked out in a couple of minutes and the store was absolutely rammed. Good work, lady.  This is the Concealer Kit in Ivory, which contains the Ivory Creamy Concealer and the Pale Yellow powder. As you can see, both items are peach/yellow toned to help combat the blue tones under the eye. Bobbi Brown does correctors as well, but I already have a cream pigment from Illamasqua –among other brands – that I really like for correcting.

 

 

I got excited with stupid filters, but you can see this is a really small little kit. More on that later, but the words ‘handbag friendly’ were made for this set!

 

 

Let’s do a couple of before and afters, shall we? I do apologise for the horror of the naked face, but I done a bit of smizing for you. I think that’s a good smize.

This a light layer of the concealer pressed in with my finger and then set with the powder, blended with the fluffy brush shown above. As I mentioned, I hate wearing concealer under the eyes because they always crease on me, so I don’t like wearing anything that feels too heavy. I have worn this with a little more layered on and it obviously conceals better, but I just honestly prefer not to wear much there. It’s not exactly dry, but it’s quite thick so I’d still recommend using your finger as opposed to a brush to help it ‘melt’ into the skin. The powder is possiblly a little on the dry side for my liking but you really do only need a touch of it to set the concealer - it does it's job.

 

You can still see some darkness afterwards but my dark circles are pretty nasty at the moment. I really like how this combats the both darkness and also the redness I have around my eye area – you can see on the second before photo I have redness in the corner of my eyes and some under my eye socket as well. So I’m pretty happy with the results! It works nicely on blemishes too, but I tend to touch my face a lot (I know, I know) so it does wear away a little quicker than I would like on them, but that’s probably my own fault.

 

It wears pretty well too – honestly, I’ve never worn a concealer that *doesn’t* crease under the eyes, and this doesn’t claim to be long wearing and it does better than some that do. I apply my makeup at around 7pm in the morning and tend to touch up around 3pm after my lunch break and this needs a little re-blending around that time, so not too bad at all.


I’m going to say this straight – this shit is expensive. You get 5.9 grams for £24.  My last concealer I was using from Collection costs about £4, so it’s a bit ‘ouch’! It is good, but expensive. I’m fine with that because I really like the product, but if I find something else I like equally for cheaper, I’m going to go for the cheaper version! I do find I’m only using a small tiny amount of the concealer but I’m still concerned that I’m going to run out of the concealer way before the powder.

Are you a Bobbi Brown fan? What's your favourite under-eye concealer?

Mini Illamasqua Haul

I recently went to one of Illamasqua's fabulous free classes at the Beak Street store and fell in love with a couple of products during the drag demonstration! If you’d like a post on the demonstration let me know, I learnt some cool stuff!

Pure Pigment in Beguile

Okay, so out of all the amazing sparkly things in the world, on the face of it this isn't that exciting. It's looks white in the jar but as it's made of lots of tiny multicoloured particles it comes off as a 'colourless' sparkle on the skin. It's a real workhorse as it could be used to add sparkle to any colour and I don’t see that I’ll ever run out! It's just really pretty and I couldn't help myself.

 

 Concealer in 105

Left, Illamasqua concealer. Right, NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk.

I know, I know, I don't have white skin. But this is actually a hugely useful product, especially if you do makeup on other people. For extreme highlighting (as in a drag or Kim Kardashian -style look) or lightening other concealers, it's invaluable but I've been using it mainly as most people would use NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk. I actually much prefer this to Milk as it's not as stark and the texture is much more akin to actual skin than Milk is. It's much less creamy as well, so should stick around that bit better. I’m basically in love with it and think it’s a fab product.

 

Here's a quick eye look with both the above products as inner eye and brow highlights. You can't see the effect of Beguile as much as I'd like but in person it's so pretty and looks lovely over the white base. You can certainly build them to get a stronger look as well. I’m also wearing Illamasqua’s Lover blusher here, and I prepped my skin wiiiiiiith…

 

Hydraveil

Everyone's been fawning all over this product! I've only worn it a few times so have yet to gather my thoughts but I'm pretty sure my review is going to be nothing but positive! It's SUCH an interesting product, but I’m going to wait till my review before I start rambling. I will say though that I really like the textural theme running through the Paranormal collection – the finish of the polishes is cool, the palette is a fun texture and then you have this frogspawny-ness when you mix Hydraveil up.

 

Are you an Illamasqua fan? What are your favourite products?

Le Maquillage Concealer Petite Palettes

Hello lovelies! I posted these concealer palettes in my March Favourites and a couple of you asked me to review them a little more in depth. I bought these for my kit and everyone I’ve used them on has been really intrigued! I first saw Sam from Pixiwoo use one of these palettes in her videos ages and ages ago, and re-discovered them on a trip to PAM London, which is just around the corner from me.

The palettes are made by  LeMaq (also referred to as Le Maquillage Professionelle or Maq Pro) a French makeup company who, from what I can tell by their (French) website and other stockists of their products, custom-fill palettes for various stores, schools and professional use. For example, The Neat Kit and Love Makeup also carry these palettes, but they look to have different colours in. I could be wrong but I will correct this post if find out!

PAM carries three of the concealer palettes, Light Tone, Medium Tone, and Dark Tone,the latter of which I don’t have yet but will be adding to my collection soon – I’ll update with swatches as and when. As you can probably tell, this is going to be a pretty positive review!

Here’s a photo of one sat on my phone so you can gauge the size of them.  As you can see, they’re really dinky, but quite deep. Each palette contains 30ml of product so you’re actually getting tons for the size. That was the main appeal to me, that they were so compact!

Light Tone Palette

Top Row: 124, 131, 14, 91, C1
Bottom Row: 153, CR,170, 111, 52

 

Medium Tone Palette

Top Row: TL2, 90, 143, 95, C1
Bottom Row: 141, 52, 1989, 128, 97

Just as a side note, I have no idea whatsoever what these numbers/colours refer to, but they’re on the packaging, so they’re in the review!

These are oil based cream makeup. If you’ve got any experience using stage/screen makeup, you’ll be used to this sort of texture. They’re not as heavy as something like Kryolan Supracolors or other greasepaints, and they feel a little smoother to work with but they’ve a similar sort of texture.  As you can probably tell from the colours, these particular palettes are meant for concealing and correcting. For example, the Light palette has a green tone for correcting redness, and a pinkish colour for neutralizing foundations/concealers that are too yellow. Both palettes come with peach and yellow colours, useful for correcting/brightening dark circles under the eyes (I wish the Medium palette came with a different tone of yellow to the Light palette, but hey ho! I would like a brighter, more true orange as well, but I believe there is one in the ‘dark’ palette) and an almost white shade too, which is generally useful. 

There are enough colours to make these palettes really multifunctional – the red tone would also make a nice cheek or lip colour, and some of the peachier shades could function as a blush colour, or as a base on the lids to neutralize veins on before applying eye shadow. The fact these are obviously based around skin-tone colours means there are plenty of contouring shades as well. However, you can get different palettes with a larger variety of colours in them – there are lip colour versions, and this bad boy which has everything!

 

These are much more geared toward professional than every day use. Some people will love this type of makeup, and it won’t be for some other people or their skin type at all. Personally I don’t have a problem using this type of makeup on my skin, but I wouldn’t recommend them for wearing all day everyday and would only really use them on clients and models for a short amount of time. Performance wise though, they apply smoothly, are blendable, don’t separate on the skin and while they need to be set (like all types of cream/wax/oil based makeup) once you’ve done so, they’ll stick around. As they’re wax based, they are water resistant as well which is handy. A little goes a long way and gives good coverage - while I probably wouldn’t  use them as foundation, you certainly could without worrying about totally emptying one section of the palette!

While I’ve yet to fully explore all the possibilities of these palettes, I’ve been using them for correcting and concealing, and I’ve also use them to tone down pigmented lips…

and to highlight  and contour…

Overall they’re a fab little addition to my kit and I’m very grateful to have them! The palettes retail for £24.50 and are available from PAM London, my amazing local professional store.

Quickie Review: Hard Candy Glamoflague (Tattoo coverage!)

Racheal went to the States for her holibobs recentely and very kindly offered to pick me up a few bits and bobs which I'll slowly be going though. I was quite excited to get hold of Glamoflauge - I've heard so many good things about it that even though I don't really wear concealer, I really wanted to try it.

As always, the Hard Candy packaging is lovely!

The cream is very  - a little goes a loong way! The pencil is a pretty standard concealer pencil in my opinion - quite creamy though. This is shade 'light.' It's perhaps half a shade too light for me, so I've been wearing it under my foundation.

The concealer claims to be able to conceal tattoos - well, look at the results for yourself. You can still see the black lines, but not any of the pink. (His wing on the left hand side is covered - I just did this really quickly as this tattoo is under my right arm and thus not very accessible!)

I'm not sure why you'd bother, to be honest, but there you are! I'm guessing this is meant to be a dupe of the Kat Von D concealer, which I understand even less than this one. (Y U want to conceal tattoos, Kat?!) Anyway, the packaging advises you to draw over the darker lines with the pencil and then layer the cream, 2-3 times - this is three layers. If I had to do this on a model, I'd probably use the relevant correctors instead of the pencil, and then use the concealer.


All in all, this a bloody good concealer if you need to conceal the shit out of something. It's a little too thick for under the eyes, in my opinion, and it sinks into my fine lines pretty quickly, but if you're hanging out of your arse and have big dark eye bags, this is going to do the job. I've had some monster spots this week and this is doing a good job on them!

I'd like to see more of a colour range as these are only available in 3 shade, which is a shame because for around $6 I don't think you'll find a better budget heavy duty concealer. Apart from the fact these are only available from Wal-Mart and the Wal-Mart site, which sucks, I love this and when I run out I'd probably try and get hold of it again.

Big thumbs up from me!