Wednesday, 29 June 2016

Makeup Revolution Series - Face


Makeup revolution is one of those brands that's slowly building it's empire. I was one of the early birds to this brand and since then I've very quickly been building my own large collection. If I included everything in one post, you'd be reading for 35 minutes so what I'm going to do is start a Makeup revolution series. The first post in the series will be
all about the tried and tested face products I own.

Contouring is something I do every time I do my makeup. My face is very chubby and round so if I don't contour I just look like an egg. I use the makeup revolution Ultra Contour Palette and this is my holy grail. This was one of the first things I tried from this brand and it was love at first sight. This palette retails on their website for £8 (can also be found at superdrug for £8) and comes with 8 pans of product which can be used for contouring, bronzing and highlighting. It has nice black sleek packaging which makes it good for travelling as it's nice and thin, with a full sized mirror inside. I personally don't use some of the shades like the light pale pink powder, but as you can see from the picture I use the banana powder like no man's business. The banana shade is perfect for setting the concealer under my eyes and it's perfect every time. The two shades on the top right are both highlighters. They're both very packed with fine glitter so I only occasionally use these two as I find the glitter particles fall over my face as the day goes on.


The pink shade when swatched has a lovely sheen but then once applied the sheen blends away and your left with just glitter and this is the case with the white gold one too. As you can see this is a baked highlighter, but for me personally I just don't reach for these two because they're so glittery. Now I know highlighters are meant to be partly glittery, but I prefer highlighters that give more of a sheen. The whole bottom row are all meant for contouring and bronzing. All shades are very pigmented and good quality but I'm the colour of white paper so I can't use all of them. Obviously you can see which one I use more. This shade is perfect for me when contouring, because it's a very neutral shade it's not to ashy and not too warm it's bang in the middle. To bronze my face with this palette I mix that same contour shade in with the one on the right and this gives me a nice natural bronze. The marble shade on the end of the row, is a beautiful shade but I only reach for it every now and again, just because I prefer a more defined contour and bronze. However it'd be perfect for people just wanting a natural glow. All of the powders are very pigmented and very finely milled which is perfect to avoid that cakey look. The only critiques I have with this product is that the pans don't have shade names and also that you can't buy the pans of product individually. So if I wanted another banana shade I'd have to buy a whole new palette unlike the NYX contour kit which you can buy individual pans for. But for the price I think this is a star buy and I've never used anything else that has been on par with this product, and for only £8 for 8 pans who can complain!



My boyfriend knows how much I love this brand and he bought me the makeup revolution advent calendar. for the Christmas. I got three pressed blushes in this and I love all of them. One of them is in the shade Now (top left). This is now my number one blush! It's a neutral rosy shade with high pigmentation that adds a nice healthy flush of colour to your cheeks. These blushes aren't chalky they're very smooth which means they won't look patchy or too heavy on the cheeks. There's nothing worse than looking like you've just put children's chalk on your face. Another one that I got is in the shade Treat (top right).


This blush has a slight coral tinge to it but had a noticeable orange undertone. I love orange blushes for the spring time they're just perfect and their popularity is growing thanks to brands like NYX and Sleek that are bringing more orange tones out rather than the traditional pink. Both of these blushes have tiny shimmer particles in them, but they're so small you can only see them when you hold the blush right in front of your eyes. When on the face it is not noticeable at all and are so small the blushes look matte.



The third blush I have is in the shade Wow (left). This has the same shimmer particles as the other two, but because of the shade of blush they are slightly more noticeable. In the pan the blush looks scary, it look s neon. But when swatched it's not as bright and blends to a muted fuchsia colour. All three of these blushes are available on their website for only £1!

I also have two baked highlighters from this brand. I'm not going to speak about them in this post as contouring and highlighting products blog post. So if you'd like to know more about them then check out that blog post for swatches and more information.

The third face product which is a recent purchase of mine, but so far I've loved it, is the Ultra blush palette in the shade All about Bronze. This palette comes with 8 pans, ranging from mattes to shimmers, to baked bronzers. I've loved this palette from the moment I used it. My skin is very pale which means most bronzers on the market look like I've put a line of fake tan on my cheeks, there all just way too orange but this palette is so diverse. The shades go from neutral to dark but not so dark that they're not use-able, which makes this palette great for all skin tones rather than just being aimed at one market group. This is a high point for me, because I hate when I buy face palettes and can only use half the shades because the others have orange undertones. When I do my makeup I like to base it on the weather, so when it's winter I want a more neutral look as alot of bronzer and the dull weather and shade can make my face look radio active.

Whereas in the summer I much prefer to look glowy and bronzed. I love the packaging again with this product, it's the same as the contour palette with the sleek black packaging and mirror inside. I use this palette everyday and tend to gravitate more towards the bottom row as these are the matte shades, I prefer to use matte bronzers and then get my glow on with my highlighter. But then saying this, the two baked bronzers give me the bronze and the glow I look for mixed together, with it's easily blend-able formula giving me a more subtle flush of colour. Now that spring and summertime have arrived I can see myself using these more and more giving me more of a chance to experiment with the different shades. I personally don't have any problems with this product blending nor with it being chalky and I can go all day without these going patchy which for me as I work in a very hot environment is great, as I need bulletproof makeup. Again like all their products this is available on their website and also online at superdrug and can now also be found in selected superdrug stores. At £6 it would be rude to complain about this product as most single pan bronzers can retail in the drug stores from £5 onwards.


The last face product I want to mention is the Pro fix makeup Fixing spray. I might have mentioned this before but I have eczema which makes my skin extremely dry and makes my fine lines even more noticeable. So if I use powder to set my makeup it really accentuates all of the flaws on my face and makes my dry patches more noticeable. This is obviously not what I want, so rather than use powder I went on the hunt for a setting spray. Now the only ones that were very popular on the market were the urban decay setting spray and the NYX one. Both of these were a little bit pricey for me, I prefer to find the more affordable makeup products and when I seen this one for only £5 I thought I'd give it a shot. I now use this every single day to set my makeup and I recommend this product to everyone I know. I can notice a big difference when I leave the house without using this and I also see a difference in the longevity on my makeup throughout the day. The new packaging is to die for, I have a bottle which is in the old packaging and also two more bottles in the new packaging, which is a beautiful white and rose gold packaging. Now who isn't obsessed with rose gold! That's how much I love this, I just stock pile it. The most important thing for me besides if it actually worked or not, was the spray nozzle. The spray nozzle deposits just the right amount of liquid with each spray, I personally use about 3 or 4 sprays and that in my opinion is just the right amount. One thing I was worried about when I bought this was it soaking my face, there's nothing worse than spending all that time doing your makeup and then going to set it with a spray and it just drenching your face. This product does have a smell but once it's on and dry it's not noticeable but just remember to keep your mouth closed because I've made this mistake and it definitely doesn't taste nice. Again like all other products in the post, this is available direct from there website and also superdrug.

The prices are all so low that I have no problem paying full price for these products. But one thing I love doing is waiting until superdrug has there 3 for 2 offer on which means you can get all the products you want but for less. Not all superdrug stores have the products in store only a select few. Now I'm from Coventry and they only have a small stand in my local superdrug so when I want to buy products I haven't tried before I wait until I go to Birmingham. The superdrug in the bullring stock most makeup revolution products and they also stock their sister brand I♡Makeup. I would recommend if your trying the products for the first time and you have a superdrug near you that stocks the brand, to go in store and check out the products because you can test things against your skin tone before you buy. But if you don't and can only order online I'd still recommend trying out some products as 110% of effort is put into the quality and also the customer relations. I've never had a problem when ordering off there website.

Thanks for staying and reading I hope you enjoyed this post! This series will be continuing in the next blog post so if your interested in finding out about more products from this brand then stay tuned for the next instalment!

Tuesday, 21 June 2016

Makeup Shelf Life 101


Now I'm not claiming to be an advocate for taking care of my cosmetics, because I'm just as bad as the next person when it comes to not throwing out that mascara because it still has abit left in it. Now the summer's here it's important to look after our skin in the heat and sun, and making sure our makeup products aren't out of date is all part of this. Makeup products aren't actually required to have an expiration date on them, like food, but they normally have a small jar symbol with a number which tells you how long the product will last once opened. So for a product that lasts six months it'd be labelled - 6M. Now here's a list of dates I've found myself, but these may vary as different brands sometimes have longer shelf lives than others.

Foundation 6-12 months
Concealer - 12 months
Powder - 2 years
Mascara - 3 months
Liquid eyeliner - 6 months
Pencil eyeliner - 1 year
Eyebrow gel - 1 year
Brow pencil - 1 year
Eye shadow - 2 years
Blush - 2 years
Lipstick - 2 years
Lip gloss - 1 year
Nail varnish - 1 year

I have the memory of a gold fish so I've got no chance at remembering dates of when I bought my makeup products. So if you're the same as me a good way to keep track of these is by either keeping a log of  products and dates, or even buying small blank stickers and writing the month you bought the product on it and sticking it onto the individual products.

Even though makeup is labelled with how long the product lasts, still use your common sense when it comes to your products. If your lip gloss has separated and gone gloopy, toss it. If your nail polish has separated, don't just shake it and use it, toss it. The most important products to keep track of expiration dates are products which go around your eyes. So if that mascara is making your eyes itch, then it's time to go and buy a new one.

Thursday, 26 May 2016

Makeup Evolution

This is going to be a bit of a quick throw back Thursday episode. Now-a-days babies come out of the womb with a Kimmy K contour and highlight, but when I was little it was different. It was all about hair mascaras and glitter eyeliners, or hoping that for Christmas one of your relatives would buy you a pretty pink heart shaped makeup set from Argos. Kids these days are missing out on that awkward stage where you start to wear makeup and end up with an orange face with way too much blush and eyeliner on, they're jumping straight to the Anastasia Beverly hills contour kits and brow pomades.


Now I was born in 1995 and it was around the year 2000 that makeup started to evolve hugely, including bringing back past trends like those 90's dark brown lips which resurfaced around the autumn time in 2013. The influence of beauty guru's rose to an all time high in 2015 and is continuing to grow, with people more frequently turning to YouTube to learn how to do their own makeup rather than going to a makeup artist. Even some makeup artists are self teaching themselves and going into the industry self-employed. And of course we can't leave of the Kardashian's now! Kim kardashian in particular, being as influential as she is, really got the ball rolling with the world of contouring which is now used by a lot of people in their everyday routines. Including mine! I've probably said this before but my face looks like an egg without contour and bronzer because I have such a round face and such pale skin.


But it's not until you look at past and present pictures you actually realize how much your own makeup has changed throughout the years. When I was younger I was big on the eyeliner, and I don't mean the trendy cat flick eyeliner that everyone's big on now, I mean the heavy eyeliner along the waterline that's as dark as black matter.


I can see myself from looking at all these pictures of myself over the years, how much my own makeup taste and skills have evolved. When I was younger I was all about the eyeliner and strong baby pink blush. But as times gone one, as I can see from the pictures, my makeup has matured as I have and I've definitely picked up that 90's lips vibe! This is my favorite thing to do - looking back. As my skills have grown, so has my confidence. It's amazing the power you have to transform when you pick up that makeup brush for the first time!

What were your old makeup habits and have they changed much?

Friday, 20 May 2016

NuMe Discount Codes




This is just going to be a quick blog post about some discount codes I've found!

Now I personally do not own any of these products but I have been dying to get my hands on one of the curling irons, but the prices we're just eye wateringly high! So I never gave it a second thought. However I have a list of coupon codes that can give you drastic savings of over 50% on some! I'm going to include all links, codes, prices and shipping prices, and also the conversion prices as it is an american website, however they do ship globally. Click on the code and it will take you direct to the website page the code is for.



Code: GOTTACURL (exp 31/12)
This code gets you savings on ALL curling wands!
Shipping to the UK: $7 (£4.82)
Original price: $149
Price with coupon: Around £38 (Price based on the 32mm wand)

Code: MIRACLE (exp 15/11)
This code gets you savings on the Miracle maker (Magic+Silhouette)
Shipping to the UK: $11 (£7.58)
Original price: $109
Price with the coupon: Around £60 (Price based on duo with the 32mm wand)
This product is dual voltage 110v/220v and rated to work in the UK however you will need a wall plug adapter to fit the wall socket.

Code: SETSONSALE (exp 31/12)
This code gets you saving on the sets (excludes Octowands)
Shipping to the UK: $9 (£6.20)
Original price: $249
Price with the coupon: Around £90 (Price based on the Lustrum set)

Code: SMOOTHDEAL (exp 31/12)
This code gets you savings on the silhouette straightener.
Shipping to the UK: $7 (£4.82)
Original price: $139
Price with the coupon: Around £28

Code: MAY28OFFER (exp end of may)
This code gets you savings on the fashionista straightener.
Shipping to the UK: $7 (£4.82)
Original price: $139
Price with the coupon: Around £29
This product is dual voltage 110v/220v and rated to work in the UK however you will need a wall plug adapter to fit the wall socket.



Comment if any of you use these codes and how the process was ordering from them. I'd love to hear back from those who make a purchase about what they think of the product. I can't wait til payday so I can get some of these ordered for myself!

(All images are taken from the NUME website. I do not own any of these)

Wednesday, 18 May 2016

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