First Impressions - Freedom Makeup London Pro Artist Pad in Black Arts

Hey everyone,

Today's video is on my first impression of the Freedom Makeup London Pro Artist Pad in Black Arts.

I am really enjoying this palette!
Check it out for my thoughts and there's some photos below.

Makeup Revolutions Swatches Part 2: Mermaids VS. Unicorns Palette

Hey everyone,

Today's just a quick one as I'm afraid I'm pretty poorly this week, which is also why there was no YouTube post on Thursday. Just sharing with you some swatches of the colourful Mermaids vs. Unicorns palette from Makeup Revolution. Swatches of the Flawless Matte palette are still to come, but there are so many shadows in that one I didn't manage that this week.

First, a few images of the palette itself:

And then on to the swatches. Unlike the Mermaids Forever palette, the shades in this palette are unamed:

A few notes on this palette:

• These shadows are of a nice quality. While you only get 12 in this palette as opposed to 32 in Mermaids Forever, my opinion is that this palette has a more universal quality and is less hit and miss than Mermaids Forever.
• All the shadows are pretty highly pigmented, the strongest being those bright blues and turquoises.
• There's a fair amount of fallout from some of these and they take some building but not tonnes. 
• As I said in my previous swatch post - I REALLY RECOMMEND USING A PRIMER.
• It's a STEAL at £4.00 and personally I would say well worth the money.

Makeup Revolutions Swatches Part 1: Mermaids Forever Palette, Bronzers and Highlighters

Hey Everyone! So as promised, today's post will feature swatches of the products I talked about in my video earlier this week. However because their are SO MANY shadows in these palettes I am featuring the Mermaids Forever Palette, the Vivid Baked Highlighter in Golden Lights, the Vivid Baked Bronzer in Rock on World and the Summer of Love Bronzer in Love Hot Summer in today's post and the other items (The Mermaids vs. Unicorns Palette, Pure Pigment and Aqua Seal and the Flawless Matte Palette) will be in my next post.

First up, the Mermaids Forever Palette.

I have included the names of all the shadows in this photograph so that it's as easy as possible to match up the shades in the palette with the swatches below.

Okay so that's the whole of Mermaids Forever swatched close-up for you.

A few notes on this palette:

• The really lightest two shades in particular, especially Forever don't show up that well at all.
• All of these shadows have been swatched heavily on top of a primer to get as much colour payoff as possible without applying them wet.
• A couple of these shades are appalling when used dry - try them wet and they really pop
• The quality of these shades varies a lot from one to the next. A few of them takes tonnes of building up, most take a fair amount of building, a few of them one stroke and BAM - tonnes of colour so experiment.
• USE A PRIMER (I can't stress enough how important that is with this palette)
• My favourites: Enchant, Ariel, Pink Sea, Waves, Fishtail, Turtle, Treasure, Prince

Okay! Last but not least we have a swatch of the bronzers and highlighters from the video:

Swatched, semi heavily so you can see the colours but with nothing underneath this time. 

the Summer of Love Bronzer in Love Hot summer, the Vivid Baked Bronzer in Rock on World and the Vivid Baked Highlighter in Golden Lights. These are all nice but powerful! So use a careful hand. I'm keen to try their pink highlighter too, and their new strobe cream.

That's it for today, come back next week for part 2!

Let's Talk Liner: MAC Into The Well

MAC Into The Well eyeshadow/liner in Beg For It

Today I want to briefly talk about this eyeshadow/liner from the MAC Dark Desires collection that I purchased before Christmas. I was on the lookout for a new liner after my l'oreal pen ran out again and I hated the smudginess I was getting from my eyeko FAT liner throughout the day. I went for two: the MAC fluidline and their Into The Well shadow which is supposed to double up as a liner. I picked the shade Beg For It which is their matte black. 

The shadow comes in this sturdy sleek packaging, and features a dip or 'well' in the middle. The idea is, you wet your brush and swirl in around in the well a little, so you can use the middle part for liner but keep the rest dry for a shadow.

I chose this mainly as I had read about the whole collection on makeupandbeautyblog and Karen seemed to love these and raved about how easy they were to apply. I noticed from her photos that the black didn't look overly dark but decided to go for it anyway.

Wellllll, it is easy to apply. I wet my angled brush like the one in the photo at the top, swirl it around a little and draw on that line. However, it's soooo grey! It's just not black. It's like drawing with ink on your face - but watery ink. I really want a jet black liner and this just isn't that. Especially as I like to wear shimmery eyeshadows (take advantage while you're young boys and gals) and I feel like that comes through underneath, and I don't want that. As for the shadow, I haven't used it for that, I'm not really a black, smoky eye person but it seems like a pretty great matte black if I'm honest. Straight up matte black, lots of pigment. Nice.

So what's the verdict? If you're looking for a matte black shadow, go for it. For a liner, it's really easy to throw on in the morning, I find it hard to go wrong with this and that's great! But the colour's all off in wet form and it leaves a big void where my blackest-of-black liner should be.

YSL Couture Palette - Metal Clash

I purchased this pretty fall palette as a birthday treat for myself as I loved the look of the colours included and I normally purchase larger palettes from Urban Decay for example however I have found myself away from home a lot in the past year and thought it would be nice to have something more compact when I'm travelling.

(I usually end up being lazy and just taking a cream shadow with me - boy do I love cream shadows...) 

  The palette itself feels sturdy and I find the design fun and a bit edgy and futuristic. It comes with two mini sponge applicators which - let's face it, I'm never going to use.

  The shadows themselves are lovely. They are quite sheer so if you are after something heavily pigmented then these might not be for you. Personally I mostly buy shadows with loads of pigment and so these make a nice, subtle change which I feel makes them more flattering. The highlights for me are that icy, shimmery pink which is gorgeous and the gold, which is very heavy on the glitter and great for the party season and they blend BEAUTIFULLY. That's the key thing that I love about this palette is that the shades blend effortlessly from one colour in to the next, however you apply them.

It's pretty pricey at £42.50 and I don't feel like you get a whole of product for your money. It's definitely a luxury product and I think it feels that way when you use it. If you're tempted, maybe try and catch it at a bargain in the January sales.

Crazy Eyes!

This week I've been feeling really under the weather and unfortunately today I had to drag my self-pitying body out of bed and to a meeting. Therefore I think I subconsciously made the decision to overcompensate for my lack of enthusiasm for getting out of my PJs this morning with BAT S**T CRAZY EYE MAKE UP! I mean really over-the-top, I'm wearing a rainbow on my face kind of eye make up. 

I decided to take a couple of quick pictures for this spontaneous post and share the look with you which I created using a mixture of indie vegan eye shadows and the Urban Decay Vice 3 pallete.

For your reference, I'm wearing: Shiro Cosmetics' Finklestein all over the lid, Notoriously Morbid's Dita on the outer V and a little into the crease, Urban Decay's Alien on the outer half of my lid, Urban Decay's Alchemy  in the crease, outer V and outer third of my lower lash line (what a mouhtful!) and finally a little wash of Urban Decay's Bobby Dazzle  all over and then built up on the inner third of my eye. 

I was surprisingly happy with how this look turned out this morning and I felt it brought a little edge to my otherwise boring outfit today. As a side note, what you can't really see in these photographs is that Finklestein has a strange green/purple thing going on which I love. 

If you happen to have some of these products lying around, give this an experimental try! 

(Note: I'm wearing a coat of Pixie Epoxy under this to bring out the shadows to their best)

Kiko Cosmetics: Eyeshadow Review

102 Dark Pearly Gold

128 Macropearly Whipped Cream

132 Pearly Bronze

137 Pearly Copper

Let me start by saying, these eyeshadows are a steal at only £2.90. I find Kiko Cosmetics a bit hit and miss. All of their products are a bargain but some are of a much higher quality than others. 

 I was really looking for a nice red/burgundy shade when I purchased these colours and so was most excited about Pearly Copper. 

The claim on the Kiko website is that these shadows are highly pigmented and should last up to 12 hours. Highly pigmented is definitely not a phrase I would use for these. 
The photo below shows swatches of the four shades, with no primer underneath. Each one is two or three layers of shadow. 

From left to right: 132, 128, 137, 102

128 Macropearly Whipped Cream is the most pigmented on it's own, although I find this shows up less on the eyes than it does in a swatch on my hand or arm. It tends to get a bit lost, especially in the inner corner of the eye which is where I like to wear it although I do find it works pretty well as a highlighter under the brows, even if it's a bit over the top. It's the most chalky of the bunch and has a fair amount of shimmer.

From left to right: Over Pixie Epoxy, No 7 Smoothing Eyeshadow in Pretty Pink, Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Original

The white is hard to see on my deathly-pale skin so you'll have to take my word for it. This chalky shadow doesn't do very well over Pixie Epoxy. Over Urban Decay it looks pretty matte and it's at it's most chalky. I think this one works the best over the No 7 shadow (in the middle), probably because it is already quite white and shimmery underneath and so enchances these two effects. Ultimately though this shadow doesn't show up that well on any of them.

102 Dark Pearly Gold is my favourite, and the only one I really tend to use. It has the second-richest pigment and is a nice yellow-toned gold. It makes me think of Aztec gold. The pigmentation is still not great on it's own. 

From left to right: Over Pixie Epoxy, No 7 Smoothing Eyeshadow in Pretty Pink, Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Original

Primer brightens this shadow up wonderfully although I do find you have to pack on the colour. The Urban Decay gives the deepest, richest colour until it almost becomes a copper instead of a gold. Pixie Epoxy gives the second strongest colour but really brings out the shimmer which I love, and stays truest to the colour of the shadow on it's own. The No 7 eyeshadow (which I like to use as an eyeshadow base among other things) is the least vibrant and turns the shadow into a highly reflective rose gold. I like to use this shadow as a cheaper alternative to some of my favourite gold shadows and, over a primer, it lasts pretty well. 

137 Pearly Copper isn't really a copper at all. It's a slightly shimmery red/burgundy and the pigmentation is pretty poor. I very rarely use this shadow even though it was the main reason I purchased all of these.

From left to right: Over Pixie Epoxy, No 7 Smoothing Eyeshadow in Pretty Pink, Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Original

As you may be able to tell, this shadow didn't really work at all with Pixie Epoxy. This shadow is more metallic than shimmery like the others and this primer doesn't really bring out the colour much at all. On top of the No 7 the colour goes even paler but it is at it's most shimmery on top of this primer. It also goes quite a nice brown-y-pink colour. The shadow works the best on top of the Urban Decay primer which brings out the metallic quality and really ups the pigmentation too. I've since found some much better quality burgundy shadows (although not for a price like this!)

132 Pearly Bronze I wouldn't call a bronze. This is more a shimmery medium-dark brown. I'd like to use this in the crease and outer v of the eye but it just doesn't work that well. The colour is quite murky and not a rich brown like it appears in the pan.

From left to right: Over Pixie Epoxy, No 7 Smoothing Eyeshadow in Pretty Pink, Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Original

Over Pixie Epoxy the colour is at it's richest but it looks quite a mess (perhaps it wouldn't look as bad patted carefully on to the eyelid on top of this primer). The shadow acquires a grey tone over the No 7 shadow and has a nice shimmer to it. Over Urban Decay the colour is dark and richer but ultimately I find it quite boring (Hey, maybe that's just me).

So there's an extremely in-depth look into four of these budget shadows from Kiko. I hope this was helpful to some, and if you know of any other shades in the Kiko collection that you think stand out like I think 102 does, I'd love to hear about them!