Shopping Trip With Cosmetichameleon!

Today I met up with fellow blogger & YouTuber Cosmetichameleon! You can read her blog here as well. It's so exciting to meet up with another guru who lives so close to me. Lincoln is certainly much easier to get to than London!

Here she is doing some damage at Urban Decay:


It always feels a little weird meeting someone off the internet, but we were fine once we got into some serious shopping! I can't wait to meet up again, she's very fun to shop with :)


Haul post coming soon! Probably tomorrow once my feet have recovered.

FOTD: 31/07/10

I wanted something fun today as I went through to Lincoln to meet up with Cosmetichameleon for some shopping.


I used:
-Me Me Me Perfecting Base Primer
-Sassy Minerals Foundation "Cool Light"
-MAC Blusher "Plum Foolery"

-Urban Decay Primer Potion
-Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy
*-Sassy Minerals Eye Candy Shimmer "Smoke & Mirrors" - on lid
*-Sassy Minerals Eye Candy Liner "Endless Party" - in crease
*-Coastal Scents Hot Pot "M09" - highlight
-MAC Fluidline "Nightfish" - top liner
-Shu Uemura Drawing Pencil "ME Purple" - lower liner
-Rimmel MAX Volume Flash Mascara "Ultra Black"

-MAC Lipstick "Naked Paris"

I just love the colour of "Endless Party". I'm sure it's a great liner, but the purple was so gorgeous that I had to use it as a crease shade instead.

Products marked with a star (*) were received free for review/tutorial purposes.

MAC Shadow: Swish

Pink is a very hard colour for me to wear on my eyes. It's fine on my cheeks: I love a good pink blusher! But on my eyes, it just never seems to work very well. Most pinks I find are too warm toned for my colouring and I end up looking like I've either been crying or I've got sore eyes. Not a good look! So I need a blue toned pink (or one with plenty of golden shimmer for some reason).

The MAC website describes this as a soft bright pink with icy metallic shimmer. I'd say it was a mid-toned pink with a very slight lilac tone. There's quite a bit of metallic shimmer, but I wouldn't say it was icy in the same way that Pink Freeze is. I tend to wear this as a lid shade with purples in the crease. I really have to pack it on though. Not because it's sheer but if I blend it out then it gives me the sore eyes look. I have to put on a solid block of colour so that it's obviously eye shadow.

It's pretty decently pigmented and quite soft in texture. It's one of MAC's Frost finish eye shadows but it has high shimmer, not actual frost.


There's not too much difference in application colour with primer and Pixie Epoxy, just a more intense colour. Some shadows can show up quite differently over Epoxy than they do with Urban Decay Primer Potion. It's pretty true to pan, even over bare skin.

MAC Shadows are available from MAC (website/stores/counters):
-Pro pans are £9.00
-Pots are £11.00

FOTD: 25/07/10

Not strictly a FOTD as I only put this on when I sat down to record some videos this evening.


I used:
-Me Me Me Perfecting Base
-Sassy Minerals Foundation "Cool Light"
*-Bee Luscious Mineral Blush "Garden" - from Spring/Summer 2010 palette

-Urban Decay Primer Potion
*-Bee Luscious Shadow "French Lilac"
*-Bee Luscious Shadow "Naughty Blue"
*-Bee Luscious Shadow "Mirror Mirror"
*-Bee Luscious Shadow "Shark"
*-Coastal Scents Hot Pot "M19"
*-Bee Luscious Gel Liner "Scuba Dive"
-Rimmel Max Volume Flash Mascara

*-Bee Luscious High Impact Lipstick "Mardi Gras"


Products marked with a star (*) were received free for review/tutorial purposes.

FOTD: 24/07/10

I'm still getting used to Pixie Epoxy, so I'm not quite ready for the review yet. I think I put a little bit too much on today as I had trouble getting the lid shade to go on evenly.


I used:
-Me Me Me Perfecting Base
-Sassy Minerals Foundation "Cool Light"
*-ELF Studio Blush "Mellow Mauve"

-Urban Decay Primer Potion
-Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy
-Aromaleigh Shadow "Mania's Locus" - on lid
-Fyrinnae Shadow "Immortality" - in crease
*-Coastal Scents Hot Pot "M19" - (matte white) as highlight
*-Coastal Scents Gel Liner "Royal Purple" - top liner
-MAC Kohl "Heirloom" - lower liner
-Rimmel Max Volume Flash Mascara

-Collection 2000 Lipstick "Heather Forever"
-MAC Lipglass "Nymphette"


Products marked with a star (*) were received free for review/tutorial.

Haul: Aromaleigh

This is the last haul post of today! This is the combination of two orders that I made from Aromaleigh's closing down sale before international shipping was stopped.


-Full sized jars: Concrete Jungle, Hoity Toity, Frigid Gloom, Gaslight Tears, Mourning's Whimsy, Cyanide Sorrow, Tarnished Strychnine.
-Sample Sets: Spring Solstice 2009, Gothic Lolita

As always, the colours are beautiful and complex. I think I would have ended up ordering full sized jars of every sample I got in these orders!

Haul: Make Up Shopping In Turkey!

I couldn't go away without having a look to see what the local make up situation was like! The make up on offer was interesting.

Golden Rose seemed to be the most popular, with stands in pretty much every pharmacy I saw. And there were a lot of them! I could walk down one street and pass maybe 4 "Eczane" on one side of the road. Right at the other end of the street my hotel was on, there was a make up and beauty shop. I must admit, I only braved the walk in daylight twice! It was getting to 40C during the day so most of my shopping got done at night.

Familiar drugstore brands were very expensive in Turkey. L'Oreal foundations were about 57TL each, which is getting on for £25. The mascaras worked out to about £18.

Ignoring familiar brands, I had a good look at Turkish drugstore brands. Along with Golden Rose, I found Pastel, Orkide and Cecile. There wasn't much between them to be honest. Prices and products were very similar. There are a lot of baked products in each line, called "cooked Terracotta". Prices weren't too bad either. A Golden Rose baked blusher was 25TL, so just under £12.

Nail polish colours were pretty "safe", with plenty of reds, pinks, plums and browns. I saw a few holos and glitter top coats, but very few blues and not any greens! I hadn't planned on bringing back any nail polish, but the ones I found were very cheap and I needed to use up the last of my coins.


I had to stop myself buying loads of blushers while I was in Bodrum. There were so many gorgeous baked blushers!

-Golden Rose Terracotta Stardust "102"
-Cecile Cooked Terracotta "07"


I went back to the Pastel stand a couple of times, I think I liked that one the best!

-Pastel Metallic Duo Eye Shadow "Showgirl"
-Pastel Metallic Duo Eye Shadow "Forest"
-Pastel High Gloss "Bronze"
-Orkide Flower Terracotta Eye Shadow "108"
-Golden Rose Metallic Eye Shadow "318"
-Blue Heaven Kajal


For some reason, all the times I found nail polish, they were all just in a big bin. It took some digging for me to find some colours I liked.

-Golden Rose "106" - sapphire blue
-Alix Avien "205" - jewel toned red
-Alix Avien "194" - charcoal

I will be doing a haul video this weekend and I'll include my make up and non-make up items.

Haul: MAC At Duty Free

I think today there are going to be quite a few haul posts. Still to come is the pile of goodies I bought in Turkey, along with a couple of Aromaleigh orders. Since there's quite a bit in each haul, I'm doing them separately.

Our outgoing flight to Bodrum was delayed by two hours so there was plenty of time to spare for duty free shopping. I was quite happy to find a MAC counter at Manchester airport. I didn't buy too much though! Didn't want to spend all my money in one go. Even though it was only 6am, the MAC counter was quite busy.


-Mineralize Skin Finish "Stereo Rose" - I know pretty much everyone is over this by now and I hadn't even planned on buying it! I swatched it and it was too gorgeous to pass up!
-Eye Kohl "Tarnish" - black with a green shimmer overlay. Very soft & smudgy.
-Frost Lipstick "Lame" - exactly the sort of slightly muted plummy pinkish colour I normally wear.
-Eye Shadow "Tilt" - which I already have in pan form. I keep forgetting to use it.

This little lot cost me £42ish from duty free, which is quite a bit of a saving. The same haul would have cost £55 from a MAC store.

Review: Sleek MakeUp High Shine Gloss "In Your Dreams"

There are some absolute gems in the Sleek MakeUp product range. I'm not just talking about the palettes, kajals or nail polishes. I'm talking about the bits and pieces that don't seem to get sent out to bloggers and, as such, tend to get ignored.

One of these products in the High Shine Lipgloss. It's pretty much the best lipgloss I've found. They're available at selected Superdrugs or at sleekmakeup.com for £3.49. You get 7ml There are more shades available on the site, plus they won't be all used and gross like they tend to be at Superdrug.


The packaging for this lipgloss is pretty non-despcript and just normal "lipgloss" packaging. A lot of the Sleek MakeUp line is packaged very simply. I like the simple packaging, especially for a budget brand. Too much fancy packaging on a budget brand makes me weary that all the money has been spent on the packaging and not the product inside! There is a difference, however, between simple packaging and cheap packaging.

I have a couple of these glosses now and this is the one I wear the most. I probably will review the other at some point, but I think the review will be pretty much the same as this one! I also own "Shacked Up", just in case you were wondering.


In Your Dreams is quite a deep pinkish red gloss with golden shimmer. I love the colour of this! It's also incredibly pigmented. I think this even is more pigmented than my MAC Lipglasses! The texture is very thick, not runny at all like some glosses can be. I feel it's more like a liquid lipstick than a gloss. It is very glossy though. There's also an interesting taste, quite like burnt sugar or caramel. It's not too strong so I don't find it particularly offensive. I definitely prefer it to the vanilla of MAC's glosses.

For a gloss, this is very long lasting on me. I get a couple of hours out of it before I have to reapply. This is better than my MAC and definitely much better than the Shu Uemura gloss I own. It doesn't leave my lips feeling dried out, or even like they've been moisturised. It does contain Vitamin E but I'm not sure what benefit it's supposed to be having.

I'll definitely be picking up a few more colours in the future.

Review: MAC 109 Brush

The MAC 109 brush costs £20.50 and is available on the MAC UK website. It's also available from other MAC sites worldwide, along with stores and counters.

I bought this after seeing quite a few YouTube gurus using it to apply foundation. Before this, I hadn't really paid much attention to the MAC face brushes other than the MAC 187 which I had bought previously.

This brush came from the pro store in London during a Bloggers Event trip. Lots of fun.

It's made of natural hair and MAC suggests using this brush for contour powder products. It is, after all, listed as a Small Contour Brush. I have used it for blushers and highlighters and it does a great job of applying those. It's small enough to just deposit highlight on the top of my cheekbones. It's a little too small for pigmented blushers unless you wanted concentrated colour. I prefer a much lighter dusting of colour on my cheeks so I don't tend to use this for blush. It is useful for the less pigmented blushers as the small shape and dense head will pick up quite a bit more powder than bigger blusher brushes.

It is this densely packed head that does make it a very good brush to apply liquid foundation. There are a couple of draw backs to it though but I did use this almost exclusively for my liquid foundation for about 6 months.

To apply liquid foundation with this brush, I pump some foundation onto the back of my hand, dip this brush in so there's a light coating to the tips of the hairs, stipple over my face and then blend. This brush works very well in creating a very even and smooth foundation cover. As it has natural hairs, it does soak up a lot of foundation. I definitely use a lot more when I use this brush as opposed to a synthetic fibre brush. Due to the small brush head and dense hairs, this brush gives me more coverage than some of my other brushes.

One major issue is the shedding! I'm always left with stray black hairs over my face! It's really annoying to have to pick all those off. There's usually 4 or 5. It kind of makes me worried that all the hairs will eventually come out! I do understand that this is because I'm using it for liquid foundation. It requires heavier handling of the brush than if I were using a contour powder.

MAC use a numbering system for their brushes, like a few of the higher end companies do. Those with fewer brushes tend to use names, but MAC have a lot of brushes! The 100 series is for the face, 200 for the eyes and 300 for the lips.

The Sigma SS109 (though they are changing the numbering system) is a pretty much identical brush. It's available from Sigma for $14.00 (shipping on a single brush is $5.60). I've used both and there's virtually no difference between them.

Review: ELF Studio Under Eye Concealer & Highlight "Glow/Light"

Whew, this product has a bit of a mouth full for a name! I've got to admit, under eye concealers aren't exciting make up in the way that eye shadows, pigments, or even blushers are. But, we do need to find one that works for us!

ELF Studio Under Eye Concealer & Highlighter is available from the ELF Cosmetics UK website for £3.50. It's available in three shades and, amazingly, I'm not the lightest!


The packaging is pretty neat for this. It's a double ended tube and you just unscrew the end you want to use. That keeps everything pretty clean. I hate gunky make up containers. Each end has a doe foot applicator.


I haven't really used the highlight side much. I just didn't get along with a liquid/cream eye highlight, plus it was too sparkly and obvious for my cheek highlight. There's a little bit of sparkle in this, not outright glitter, but definite sparkle.

The concealer side is the one that really makes this product worth picking up.

It's quite thin in texture, so you need to be careful not to apply too much. I scrape off most of the concealer as I rake the applicator out of the tube, then dot it under my eye. I then use a fluffy blending brush to blend it into my skin and set it with the yellow part of Complexion Perfection. This does a really good job of getting rid of my dark under eye circles.

It will depend on the colour of your under eye circles though. Mine are blue/purple and the slight salmon/peach tone to this concealer works well to counteract those. If yours are slightly more green toned then you need a pinker concealer.

I haven't noticed any settling into lines, but that may be due to the fact I set it with the Complexion Perfection. It may settle if you don't set it due to the thin texture. It lasts pretty well throughout the day, but rubs off on the very inner corners of my eyes. I am a glasses wearer though, so that's just something I have to live with.

The product was provided free for tutorial/review purposes.

MAC Shadow: Pink Freeze

Pink Freeze is another MAC Shadow that I forget to reach for, although I'm not entirely sure what to do with this one other than use it as a brow or inner corner highlight. It's very frosty!

MAC describes this as bright pink with icy metallic shimmer. I have to disagree. It's a baby pink frost. I don't normally do pink as most come out too warm on my skin tone and it just not a good look. The silvery frost in this makes it more cool toned, but it doesn't really show as obviously pink when I've tried it as a lid shade. Most of what shows through is just the silvery frost.

This is one of MAC's Frost finish eye shadows. Usually that means it just has a decent amount of shimmer, in this case it means there's plenty of actual frost! It's pretty well pigmented, some of the newer frosts can be a little sheer. It's also quite soft compared to some of my other Frost finish eye shadows.


With it swatched over Pixie Epoxy, more of the pink base colour shows through so it might be worth trying it as a lid shade again. Might be worth trying on the lid with a purple crease.

MAC Shadows are available from MAC (website/stores/counters):
-Pro pans are £9.00
-Pots are £11.00

Review: Shu Uemura Gloss Unlimited "BG 980N"

This is the first (and probably the last) Shu Uemura Gloss Unlimited Gloss I have bought. I'm probably only going to stick to Shu Uemura's eye products in future, the gloss and blushers have disappointed me somewhat considering the price of the line.

I bought my gloss from the Neal Street Shu Uemura boutique, but it's available at Selfridges, Space NK and a few other department stores around the country. This cost me about £16.00, which isn't cheap for a gloss!


I do like the Shu Uemura packaging, it's simple but the product looks expensive (well, it is!). The silver cap is a fingerprint magnet though! Not usually a problem until you try and take photos of it. Shu Uemura (like a lot of other Japanese brands), use a numbering system to label their products. This is called "BG 980N" which signifies that this gloss is in the beige colour family. I'm not sure what the N stands for at the end, but this definitely is a pink/beige. It's quite pretty and usually the exact colour I go for! There's a little sparkle in this, but it's not gritty at all.


I had to show you the wand as I've not come across one of these before. It feels as though it's made of the same material as a doe-foot applicator but instead is just ling and thin. It doesn't pick up too much product and works quite well getting the gloss on your lips.


This gloss is is very thin and runny in texture. It's so thin that I have problems getting an even coat on my lips. I had to go over the swatch on my hand a couple of times so that it was even. It's also quite sheer, which doesn't help matters. One good thing though - it's very glossy! As I'm sure you can see from the swatch. It has a vague fruity scent and taste which is pretty non-offensive. However, it lasts less than hour on my lips.

Overall, pretty disappointing. Pretty colour though.

Mascara: Rimmel Sexy Curves

I bought this mascara after seeing a large number of positive reviews for it. Even I'm swayed by videos and blogs! Up until that point, I hadn't paid that much attention to Rimmel. Since I bought this several other variations have been released. There's now an "ultra-black" option, the store I bought this from didn't have that colour so I just have the plain "black" one for review.

Rimmel Sexy Curves Mascara is available all over the place! Rimmel is a very common drugstore brand over here in the UK. I've seen it at Boots, Superdrug, Tesco and Asda. I'm sure there are plenty of other stockists. Prices vary, but it's about £7.99.


It's shiny and purple. What more can I say?


This is an interesting wand and it's purple under the mascara. It's one of those flexible, rubber wands which are all over the place these days. The spikes (I can't say bristles, they really do look like tiny spikes) are quite small and vary in size over the wand. The wand looks like it's made of three balls, all connected together. I do find this quite hard to use. There's a lot more mascara in the grooves than at the balls so I end up applying too much mascara to some lashes, and not enough to others. Going over my lashes a few times in an attempt to even it our will give quite a clumpy effect.


Naked lashes!


It didn't curl my lashes a great deal. When I used an eyelash curler it did look better and did hold my curl for quite some time. If I take my time over application then I do get a nice, even coating. For me, this is not a mascara I can use in a rush. I get nice length on my lashes and a bit of volume. They are separated when I take my time but if I rush then I usually get clumps. The ball shape of the wand is useful for coating the very inner and outer lashes, along with the lower lashes.

I don't get any smearing or flaking issues but there is a waterproof version if you prefer. The tube of that is turquoise, not purple. This comes off easily enough with either my duo-layer eye makeup remover or cleansing oil.

Review: ELF Brightening Eye Colour "Drama"

I've got a couple of these now so I will probably get round to reviewing the others as well at some point.

The ELF Brightening Eye Colour Quads are available from the ELF UK website for £1.50 each, there are currently 17 different quads!


I do love a good smokey palette and the "Drama" quad is certainly a smokey palette. They're actually pretty compact, you get 2.5g in total. The case is clear plastic, which I'm worried would break if I tried to travel with it. There's also a tiny mirror, which I've found pretty useless. There was also a sponge tip applicator provided, but I don't use those.


Primer is definitely needed with these. The two greys are glittery and quite loosely pressed. Without primer they flake off and drop all over your cheek. I didn't get too much dropped glitter when I've worn these with primer, but make sure to pat rather than sweep when you apply to prevent fall out.

The white is pretty much matte and surprisingly pigmented. It makes a really great highlighter to counteract the glitter of the greys. The black isn't quite black on my skintone, it leans slightly grey/brown. Only very slightly though, only really noticeable when I've swatched onto my arm. I've used this with a damp brush as a liner and it creates a very deep black line.

Blending can be a little tricky. The two greys tend to overblend and fade quite easily so you need to work carefully with those.

Overall, this is pretty great for £1.50. If you're just exploring the smokey eye then this is going to be great. And may I recommend a couple of my smokey tutorials? Here, here, and here.

This product was provided free for tutorial/review purposes.

MAC Shadow: Sumptuous Olive

Sumptuous Olive is another MAC shadow that I don't seem to reach for very often. Probably because it's in my 15 pan palette which is kept in a separate drawer to my MAC eye shadow pots. Shame really, as this is quite a pretty shadow.

It's described on the MAC site as a subdued khaki with metallic coat. I'm not quite sure I agree with that! It's definitely olive green in the pan but it shows much more bronze toned on my skin. Even with Pixie Epoxy (which works wonders for getting "true" colour to show), it was still a bronze toned olive. Still quite a pretty colour, but just not exactly what is in the pan.

Sumptuous Olive is part of the Veluxe Pearl line. These tend to be softer and more pigmented than the other finishes and most seem to have a glow to them that the other finishes do not. The Veluxe Pearl shadows contain 1.3g as opposed to 1.5g of the other finishes. Sumptuous Olive seems to be a little harder than some of my other Veluxe Pearls. It certainly isn't as soft as something like Shimmermoss.


There isn't a great difference in the colour between the swatches, just the intensity of the base colour and shimmer. As I said, I can't get this to show up as true to colour in the pot on me. It's a bit better over a green base (like the Lucky Jade shadestick) but still has the bronze tone.

I like wearing this packed on as a lid shade with a very deep crease for a great olive smokey look. If that's too much for you then this would look great in the crease with a cream coloured lid shade.

MAC Shadows are available from MAC (website/stores/counters):
-Pro pans are £9.00
-Pots are £11.00

Review:The Body Shop Eye Shadow Brush

I've actually got two of these brushes. One I've had for quite a number of years, the other I received in my Body Shop event goodie bag last year. I had no plans to buy another though.


This brush is available from The Body Shop stores and website for £8.50.

I've got to admit: I'm not a fan of the brushes from The Body Shop. They just don't seem to work well for me. This brush does have its uses though, which I'll explain in this review.

This brush (along with all the brushes from The Body Shop) is made with synthetic fibres. A quick look on the website didn't tell me which fibres are used. The head is quite thin, but there are plenty of fibres packed into the head. It's quite stiff without being scratchy, the fibres feel quite soft.

I've found this brush to be pretty much completely useless for applying powder eye shadows. It just won't pick up enough product to apply. All I get is a little pile of eye shadow scraped off the top of the shadow. I've had success with other synthetic eye shadow brushes with applying powder shadows, so I suspect the issue is with the stiffness of the brush head.

This brush does work quite well for cream products though. I've tried it for MAC Paint Pots and it works fine, but you do get quite a heavy coverage with this brush. For me this brush works best for applying foiled mineral pigments. Dampening the brush then picking up some pigment turns it into an almost cream product. This brush will apply a nice layer of it over my lid.

Overall, not an essential brush in my collection.

Mascara: Rimmel Max Volume Flash

I don't really use a lot of Rimmel other than their mascaras. I guess it's because they were the brand of my teenage years! I've seen a lot of positive reviews for the Sexy Curves mascara so, as their mascaras are very reasonably priced, I thought I'd get a couple to try out.

Rimmel's Max Volume Flash is available at Rimmel stands all over the place. I've seen it at Boots, Superdrug, Tescos and Asda. This costs about £6.49 but prices may vary depending on the shop.


I've got to admit, even though I'm not a pink girl, I do love the bright pink tube! It makes it very easy to identify this mascara in my somewhat large collection. I chose the "ultra-black" option this time. I will always chose something along the lines of "ultra-black" over "black" as I like a very dark colour on my lashes.


This has a really big wand! The bristles towards the handle are really quite long and they taper toward the tip. It's a "traditional" type of wand - stiff, rather than a flexible rubber wand. Despite the size, I don't have problems applying it. Sometimes with a massive wand, I find it difficult to coat all my lashes but I don't have that problem with this one. The formula was quite thin at first. This is definitely a mascara that gets better with being open for a couple of weeks. I wasn't impressed at first but it definitely got better as it dried a little.


Naked lashes!


I really like this mascara! It's on my "to buy again at some point" list. While I don't get anything like the 14x (don't forget it's only "up to") volume that the label suggest, I do get fantastic volume and quite a bit of lengthening. It will clump if you add too many coats or if you wait too long between coats but if you apply a couple of layers quite quickly, it looks great! It will hold my curl for a few hours. I have been using this a lot in my FOTD posts, even though I quite often forget to mention which mascara I have used.

Removal is really east, it comes straight off with my duo-layer eye make up remover or with my cleansing oil. There's no flaking or irritation. Overall, a winner.

Review: ELF Studio Golden Bronzer

I've had a pretty much hate/hate relationship with bronzers. Most are too dark/warm/muddy for my skin tone. So I've pretty much given up with matte bronzers and instead use those with plenty of shimmer to add some colour and glow.

ELF Studio Golden Bronzer definitely falls into that category! ELF currently offers three shades of bronzer on their website, each costing £3.50. I've also tried the cool bronzer, but it was too dark on my skintone.


This is lovely! Four shades of golden, shimmery bronzer. The pan is absolutely massive! You get 12.3g of product which is pretty generous. There's also a mirror in the lid and it's a pretty decent size with no distortion. It's going to be pretty useful for travel. Actually, I'm taking this with me on holiday! The case is the typical black plastic of the Studio line. It looks more expensive than it is and it's pretty sturdy.


This thing is mega pigmented! Especially the lightest shade on the bottom. You only need to apply a tiny amount for some golden shimmery glow.

I don't tend to swirl this all together. The top left shade is a little too bronzy-gold for my complexion and tends to show orange on my skin. I use the lightest shade on the bottom to highlight my cheekbones and the two right hand shades for a little colour on my cheeks. They're all far too shimmery for contouring. The pale shade on the bottom can get a little chalky if you apply too much.

This product was provided free for review/tutorial purposes.

MAC Shadow: Trax

MAC Shadow in Trax is next in the series. There's a few of these going up while I'm on holiday as they're a pretty quick review post so you've still got something to read while I'm away.

Trax is described on the MAC site as a burgundy-plum flecked with bronze shimmer. That's pretty straight forward and accurate for a MAC description. It's actually a Velvet finish, which tend to have pretty matte bases with some shimmer added. This is the case with Trax as well. The bronze shimmer definitely applies as more of an overlay than as part of the base colour. The Velvet formula is also quite hard, I have to swipe over a few times to pick up enough colour.

I do find this eye shadow quite hard to wear. The base colour is too warmed plum for my skin tone and can make me look a little bruised. If I wear it blended out in the crease then it tends to blend out to quite a greyed tone. I lose pretty much all of the interesting bronze shimmer.


As you can see, it has lost all the bronze shimmer and taken on a greyish tone on bare skin. It's quite a bit better over primer, but the bronze shimmer still isn't held in place and will bled away quite easily. It's best over Pixie Epoxy as the bronze shimmer is held in place. I haven't worn this shadow for a while but now that I own Pixie Epoxy, I may give it another try.

MAC Shadows are available from MAC (website/stores/counters):
-Pro pans are £9.00
-Pots are £11.00

Review: MAC 129 Brush

I bought the MAC 129 brush quite recently from London after it was used on me while trying out some blusher shades. I quite liked how it applied the blusher so it was a complete impulse buy.

The MAC 129 costs £25.00 from the MAC UK website. It's also available on other MAC worldwide sites, along with stores and counters.

It is a natural haired brush, which I tend to prefer for powder application. I wouldn't use this for a cream blush as I think the hairs would soak up too much of the cream, making it hard to apply and blend. I use my MAC 188 for cream blushers.

When I first washed this brush (I always wash before my first use!), quite a lot of dye and hairs came out when I rinsed. I hadn't seen so much dye come out from a MAC brush before. After another couple of washes, no more dye came out. It does lose a few hairs occasionally but it's nowhere near as bad as the MAC 109! It also becomes quite splayed after washing. I quite like this so I haven't bothered to control it with a brush guard.

With a more splayed out brush head, it gives a softer application of blush which is what I prefer. I don't like too much colour on my cheeks. If you prefer a more concentrated area of colour then I suggest either drying this brush in a brush guard to keep the head dense, or not bothering with this one at all. The MAC 109 would be better for a heavier blush application. The MAC 129 only lost a few hairs once I used it to apply blusher and now it only loses the odd one now and then. I've found natural hair brushes tend to lose more hairs than synthetic.

However, it's not my favourite brush to apply blusher. It is somewhat scratchy which really surprised me as none of the other MAC brushes I have are scratchy at all. I tend to only use this if my other blush brush is too dirty or drying. I've seen other reviews that mention it feels scratchy, or else I would have assumed I got a bad one.

It picks up enough colour to give me a soft flush of colour. It blends the blush out quite well and can be used to give a heavier colour if I want it. It's a little too big to give very precise application, you're going to get more of a glow of colour with this brush.

MAC use a numbering system for their brushes, like a few of the higher end companies do. Those with fewer brushes tend to use names, but MAC have a lot of brushes! The 100 series is for the face, 200 for the eyes and 300 for the lips.

Mascara: Revlon Double Twist Mascara

I didn't want to review this mascara, I wanted to throw it in the bin and forget I'd ever spent money on it. But, I promised to review as many mascaras as possible and this is just another review.

Revlon Double Twist Mascara is available at all the usual Revlon stockists: Boots, Superdrug, Supermarkets, etc for about £8-£9. I'm not sure how many colours it's available in. When I bought this, only black was sold.


Nice, eye catching red tube. It's really, really fat. I can easily pick this one out of my mass of mascaras, if I actually wanted to use it of course.

Usually, when I see the adverts for mascara in magazines and on TV I just completely ignore them. Generally, they're full of crap (styled with lash inserts, blah blah, show us how it actually works!). But this wand caught my attention. It was a mix of the more "traditional" stiff bristled wands, plus the rubber, flexi wands that are available now.


Yeah, can you see just how much mascara has glooped on the wand? No matter how careful I've been with wiping the wand off, I end up with way, way too much mascara on a very huge wand. Bet you can't guess where this is going?


Quite possibly the worst mascara I have used up to this point. I'm sure there is worse out there. The huge size of the wand, plus the fact it's covered in chunks of mascara, make this a very difficult mascara to apply. This picture is after one coat of mascara. I twisted the brush as I applied to get the effect of both brushes and ended up with a clumpy, lumpy mess over half of my lashes. A little (very) careful wiggling later and I was able to add some to my outer and inner lashes. It's also a very wet mascara, which I dislike as they take forever to dry. This one smeared all over while I was waiting for it to dry.

The concept of this is pretty neat. The two types of wands together could easily have made this a really solid product. Unfortunately, the formula is completely wrong for the wand. A drier formula probably would have helped out here.

I washed the mascara off the wand so you can see how it looks. Mascara is not packed in the same way in the UK as it is in the US. We don't get the wands outside the tube with our new mascara. Most of the time, they're just on the shelf so you have no idea if someone has gone and helped themselves. Maybelline have got better by packing theirs on card though.


So much potential.

I've seen bad reviews of this absolutely everywhere. Don't bother buying this, there are far better mascaras on the market these days.

Sirvinya is Away....

Woohoo! If all goes to plan (and there are no more Volcanoes), then I'm currently enjoying Bodrum! My first foreign holiday in 7 years (hmm, does the US count as a foreign holiday?).

I'm back next week so I won't be gone for long.

Don't worry though, I've got plenty of posts ready and scheduled to keep you busy. Assuming, that is, that Blogger doesn't cock up the scheduled posting again. Comments are still moderated so won't appear until I get home.

Oh, and I will be keeping my eye open for any Turkish make up.

See you soon!

Review: Urban Decay Deluxe Shadows

My orginal plan was to include these when I did my individual Urban Decay reviews but I got these reviewed for YouTube the other day so I'm doing them all at once!

Urban Decay Deluxe Shadows are available from larger Boots stores, Debenhams, House of Fraser and some other department stores. They cost around £13.50 (so a little more expensive than regular UD Shadows).


I currently have 4 of the Deluxe shadows, and I'm sure I'll buy more in the future. The packaging varies from the regular line in that they're in an oval case with a thick, clear plastic cover on the lid. Also, the lid design is different for each shade. This does mean they take up extra room for storage as they're bigger than the regular shadows.


Oooh, aren't they pretty! As you can see, the pans are rectangular which means they won't fit into the MAC 15 pan palettes (I know a lot of you like to depot). They've also each got a little mirror. It's pretty small but there's no distortion within the mirror. Due to its small size though, I'm not sure how useful it would be.


These are insanely pigmented! I think I'd say they were the most pigmented shadows I've got in my collection. They're quite soft and feel almost creamy and very smooth. If you imagine a smoother, softer MAC Veluxe Pearl or Shu Uemura ME finish, you're about there.

The colours are all shimmery and most have an almost metallic finish. They blend beautifully together and they don't tend to blend off your skin. They do work best with a primer (like Urban Decay Primer Potion), but these will show on bare skin. They don't last too well on me without primer and tend to fade and crease (as my lids are getting oily in my old age). They stick fast all day with primer without any fading at all.

-Ransom - bold, electric purple. Think of Cadbury wrappers!
-Graffiti - bright, grass green.
-Peace - blue. Very blue, with a touch of a turquoise tone.
-Scratch - pinkish peach champagne.

The colours are somewhat simpler than the regular line, no duochromes or glitters here, but the quality is far superior. There are more brights and neutrals available. I'll certainly be buying more!