Yep, this is another one of those products, or even in this case ranges, which seem mandatory to blog about. Apparently the FTC will be all over my ass if I don’t. Or something.

Anyway, I’m twaddling on about the MUA professional range of course, and more specifically the Heaven and Earth palette, which costs the princely sum of £4 in Superdrug – I was lucky enough to actually find one of these in my nearest Superdrug, as I understand they are proving more difficult to find that rocking horse shizzle… I’ve actually been sent some of the palettes too by the lovely MUA PR, so I’ll be posting further reviews on the range. This one however I bought with my own cash…

As you’re probably aware this palette is being given a lot of favourable comparisons to the Urban Decay Naked palette, which I don’t own so I’m unable to comment on. What I can say though is that these are buttery smooth, easily blendable, and well pigmented.

The other great thing about these shadows is that they don’t crease on me for hours and hours without a primer, but last forever with a primer. This palette in particular is so easy to use in terms of easy colour combinations, and like I say, they blend like a dream. The only criticism I can come up with for this palette is that there aren’t any matte shades – they are all shimmery and some contain small amounts of glitter, which for me this deems this not suitable for work…

Lovely palette, and worth every single penny. If you see it, grab it!

I have to say one of the great things about cheaper ranges of makeup (which I’m discovering are often as good/if not better than a lot of my heartbreakingly pricy “I’ll be eating baked beans on toast for the next three weeks” makeup purchases), is that it encourages me to play a bit more with my makeup. Whipping out a Sleek or MUA palette and experimenting doesn’t seem so “formal” or wasteful as playing with my YSL stuff for some reason. Do you know what I mean?

Anyway, apparently my playing with makeup has also extended to my nails – remember when the Barry M shatter top-coat came out and promptly sold out? By the time I got my hands on it, the rest of the blogosphere had pretty much pronounced themselves as “over” it. But I never played with shatter coats at the time, so I’ve pretty much unashamedly got back into them, especially coloured ones. I picked up the purple MUA shatter coat (or Nail Quake in the shade “Broken Arrow” as its formally known), and had a bit of fun…

Here it is applied over Orly’s “Lollipop”, a pastelly peachy shade…

For what it’s worth (ie for those who aren’t “over it” – this is not a bad shatter coat. I like the fact that it’s metallic and shiny rather than matte, which a lot of shatter coats seem to be. As is normal with shatters, a thin layer will give a finer shatter, whereas a thicker layer will give a more defined big ole crevice looking shatter… I can’t comment on the wear as I’ll probably only keep this on til I think of another shade to put it over.

Yes. I am 32.