Woops. .

Sorry everyone I'm a total dipstick 

I totally forgot to tell you what shade it is!

It's Pearl Shade 12 and you can see it on the website here

Thank you for all your comments!

Sophie

xxx

MAC Club Dupe. . For £1?

If you're not familiar with MAC Club Eyeshadow, it's a beautiful duochrome shade with hints of green and reddish brown. I've wanted it for a very long time, but I read that it's one of those eyeshadows that might not suit everyone.

So when I saw this when I was browsing the Superdrug aisles I knew I recognised that greeny tone from somewhere. . . 

This is AMAZING. I haven't tried it without a primer, but with UDPP it lasts from the moment I put it on to the moment I take it off, so around 15 hours. When it's packed on it's a lovely blue green and when blended out it goes to a super flattering brown shade. I don't have MAC Club but what I've seen from Google images, this is an almost perfect dupe.

You can see the more brownish side of this eyeshadow in these swatches, but you can see the shimmer of it in the blended swatch (the bottom one)

This is from one eyeshadow. Yes one. You can see where I blended it in the crease the browner side of the eyeshadow really came through

I love this eyeshadow so much I'm not lusting after Club so much now. . .

What do you think ladies?

Love Sophie xx

Forget Neutral, I'm getting Naked!

Okay, picture the scene. It's 10.08am, the doorbell rings. I'm half asleep. The doorbell rings again. I run around half naked, find a dressing gown and go downstairs, there's a car parked outside my house. A woman waves and says I've left it by the recycling bin. This woman looks identical to my french teacher. Being in my still half asleep state I think, what has my french teacher left for me? Oh crap, I haven't done the holiday homework. Maybe she's left a letter for my parents by the recycling bin. Wait, it's not a letter, it's a BOX. That says House of Fraser on it.

OMG IT'S THE NAKED PALETTE!

It's love at first sight. It's a beautiful brown velvet palette, in a purple velvet case. If Cadburys did make up . .

LOOK AT THE COLOURS!!

(Clicky click to zoom)

Obviously I had to get down to giving myself a Naked makeover. It says you can go for office-appropriate, deep and smoky or summertime bronzed looks. Um, miracle in a palette! 

Excuse the funny looking photo. Ooh btw I'm wearing Gosh Darling here, this could be the first time I might've made it work for me. .?

And let me just say now, the pencils, as I was using them I was thinking wowzas do these glide or what. Then I realised they're called glide-on or something. I am so buying more of these!

The next photo was taken 6 hours later. UDPP you are a godsend!

I've labelled the picture up there with what colours I've used where

Okay, you know what I'm like, I've got to justify EVERYTHING I buy ;) so let's talk money

The palette cost me £27 (£3 delivery but that doesn't count, it'd cost double that to get the train into London to buy it)

For £27 you get

• Eyeshadows: 12 x 1.3g 
• Eye Pencils: 2 x 0.5g 
• Eyeshadow Primer Potion: 3.7ml
  
  
  House of Fraser sell single eyeshadows for £12.50. 12 x £12.50 = £150 plus Eye Pencils and a Mini Primer Potion thrown in!

The eyeshadows are 0.2g off full size, so for arguments sake I'm used the price of full size for this comparison

Um bargain! I can't seem to find it on the website at the moment but I got it from the House Of Fraser website

Let me know if you want swatches, I thought this post was long enough already, and if there's anything else you want to know, feel free to ask!

Love Sophie xx

Let's Get Neutral ;)

Hello lovely ladies

I got my AS results today, don't you hate that tummy churning feeling when you're about to get results?! Ahh.

Anyways on a lighter note, I've completed a MAC Palette, I've been buying myself an eyeshadow everytime I need cheering up and here's what I've come up with

Top Row: Wedge, Brule

Bottom Row: Mulch, Naked Lunch

I would've done a 15 palette but I'm always taking make up away with me up to Yorkshire and it's more practical this way. I'm in love with the colours, Brule makes a lovely all over eye colour, and Mulch has been on my wishlist for a very long time (thank you Sinead!) 

Now I know they're all neutral, but I love my neutrals, especially MAC's as you can go neutral without sparkly bits, are there any truly matte eyeshadows on the high street?

If you could pick 4 MAC colours what would they be? Let me know! 

Sophie xxx

PS If you were wondering, I got AAB in my AS!

Loves and Hates of July!

Hey everyone!

Wowee can't believe we're going into August! This year is going by so fast, don't you think? A couple of loves and hates for you, not a very hateful month this time as I'm trying to buy things that will actually work!

Loves

 17 Wild Curls Mascara - £5.99

I got this about a week ago, and I actually quite like it! I like the brush and I find that despite it not being THAT volumising I think it holds the curl, so I may have to add a couple of coats of L'oreal Voluminous on top. Here are my lashes with it with 2 coats. What I do like about this mascara is that it stays black all day. You know how some mascaras, by the end of the day you might as well not put any on in the morning? I hate that, but it's not the case with this.

Marks and Spencers Ladder Resist Cooling Open Toe Tights in Sun Tan - £4

Recently, Grazia did a feature on skin coloured tights so I thought I'd treat myself to a decent pair considering the recent drop in temperature, and how can you resist that sheen? How moisturised does that look? Hoping I can get away with the open toeness with my new sandles! 

Hates

Eyelash Curler as part of gift set with Wild Curls Mascara - £Free

Now I know its free and all, but it took me FOREVER to work out how to use it, and it looks like a weapon of torture. It gave an alright curl when I figured out how to use it (flip down the bit at the back?!) but it was so awkward to use I'm sticking with my Body Shop ones (an ultimate love, see my review here)

Rimmel Glam Eyes Mono Shadow in Spicy Bronze - £4.49

I'm a bit on the fence with this one. The price is a bit high for the quality and when I use it my eyes either look really nice or a bit bruised. It's a shade that needs eyeliner. I wouldn't say I hate it, but I think there are eyeshadows that are much better quality for the same price. On the other hand, the sponge applicator it comes with is actually quite good, it has two different sized ends for different application techniques.

What do you think guys? Got any of these products? What are you loving and hating? Let me know!

Love Sophie xx

Freebies :D

Now what beauty blog doesn't have these Benefit goodies at the moment?

Yep, I'm talking about the ones that come free with this month's Glamour, and I kind of bought all 3. I was too embarassed to buy them all from one shop so 2 are from WHSmith and one is from a local newsie, which was a right pain, more about that later.

(Oh and if you're wondering, that nail varnish was also a freebie, it's the Nails Inc London that came free from Boots when I bought two 500ml coke bottles!)

So here are some swatches for you, the first is normal and the second image is when I rubbed them in, as all 3 are designed so that you can rub them and smudge them about a bit)

Ok, so what did I think? The liner is fab, was expecting a bit more colour pay off as I wanted a real 'carbon' black style but when it comes to smudging, it's great! It gives you a real smokey eye in seconds.

The eye brightener? Yep I liked that too. To be honest for me it's not entirely necessary, as using bare study by MAC kind of does that eye brightening job for me, but it makes a good highlighter for the cupids bow and underneath eyebrows. And my goodness the smudging is heavenly, it rubs in like a dream!

And lastly mister It Stick. The one that nobody wants :( I don't see why though, I have to admit that at first the colour put me off, a bit too cheapo-foundation-orange for me. Until I rubbed it in. Again, it rubs in so well, I thought I'd have a play with it and it covers under-eye circles, makes a great eyeshadow primer I find, and neutralises the eyelid.

Go buy all 3 now, it'll only set you back £6!

So anyways, as I was saying the newsagents trouble. . well of course they would only accept card if I spent over a fiver, so I picked up a Grazia and a More as well. I don't buy more any more (hehe), it's gotten too expensive but I realised my purchase was worth it when I got home to discover I could get a free Dazzle Dust and this is the shade I bought, in Chocolate

One word; BEAUTIFUL. I'm in love. I've been wanting to buy Mulch by MAC for a while now, and whilst this isn't really a dupe as such (what do you think?) it does the job!

So that's my freebies for the time being, did anyone else get these? 

Sophie x

It's Paint Pot Time!

Ok I've got a new addiction and it's not a cheap one at that. It's the MAC Paintpots and I think they're absolutely amazing. They're so beautiful and really pigmented. You know how I wanted to find something that would do the job of the ELF products? That's these beauties. 

Brown is Constructivism and the other is Bare Study

I dont use them with a brush to apply my 217 is too harsh on them and it leaves dents, I use a finger and then use the 217 to blend. They're 13 pounds each but I know they're gonna last forever, they're £1 less than Benefit's Creaseless Cream Shadows and there's an extra 0.5g in the MAC Paintpots. I can't tell you how much I love them. I did a 4 hour shift at work (I work at GAME so theres a lot of running around to the store cupboard) and by the end they were still there, and holding on to another brown shadow I use (darkest shade in Metro Quartet by NYC make up -- review coming soon) so they make fab primers too.

This is what I knocked up using them, bearing in mind its literally only these two and I did it at 7AM and its now, what, 5.45PM? Pretty good going;

Ooh and can you spy a new fringe there? I got it done today! And even though I had practically the worst hair washer ever (she took half an hour and my face was soaked by the end, how is this possible they wash your hair behind you?!) these amazing eyeshadows stayed in place.

Have you ever used them? Or got one yourself? And should I go for Painterly too?

Thanks ladies  

Sophie x


PS as soon as Youtube starts letting me upload I'll have a threading your eyebrows tutorial posted right here!

first post -- and superdrug MUA?

So I love lipstick. Any brand, any shade, I'll want to try it at some point. So one day this week I was watching a random The Hills episode, the one where it's Lauren's birthday, and she was wearing the most beautiful lipstick, one which of course I can't find a photo of, but if we're thinking colours it was a kind of a NARS Fire Down Below or a MAC Dubonnet and considering pay day isn't for another few weeks I had to get mine from some place else, enter the Superdrug MUA.

It's that new brand in Superdrug where everything is £1. Yes, £1. But of course that means quality isn't going to be so great, but I thought I'd try it anyway. I tried every single shade, tested it on my hand (and to be fair they're still there, so guess they've got staying power if it can last 2 hours worth of Tae Kwon Do and 2 showers). But then I got to shade 1. Almost almost identical to the shade that Ms. Conrad wore.

And it's a really beautiful creamy colour, the same kind of consistency of MAC's Amplified Creme lipsticks. I found it quite easy to apply, but it requires a lot of concentration to get it just right so it's not really an apply and go lipstick (as you can see by my messy edges)

HOWEVER, and it's a big however, I was a bit disappointed in the eyeshadows. I've needed a neutral (cheap!) eyeshadow for some time now, and no matter how many I try it always seems to remind me that if I want a good job doing, I'll have to pay a bit more. And this eyeshadow is no exception, again part of the MUA range, in shade 17.

So it doesn't look too bad, does it? Yet if you look at it in real life, its got BUBBLES on it. Since when did eyeshadows bubble?! Or maybe they do I don't know but it's never happened to me before! I had a photo of a swatch but you really can't see it so there wasn't much point uploading. To cut a long story short, it's very drying and touching it with my finger makes my skin crawl!

So does anyone know of a good eyeshadow in a skin tone kinda shade?

Until next time,
Sophie x