Because sometimes I just want to look like myself but slightly less… tired… (actually, this rule applies most of the time)

Anyway, a supernatural, super-fast face of the day;

On the skin I applied Illamasqua Skin Base with fingers, and powdered with Illamasqua loose powder. A little Bourjois chocolate bronzer to contour, and Illamasqua blusher in Morale applied very lightly to the cheeks.

On eyes I skipped concealer, but layered a little extra foundation, and applied one coat of Illamasqua Masquara.

On lips I applied Sleek True Colour lipstick in Liquor.

I’ve noticed actually whilst writing this post that a few of these products have become staples – the Illamasqua skin base is one of my regular “reach fors”, as is the masquara, and their blushers, in whichever colour I am using, never let me down. What are your “can’t do without” products right now?

x

I’ve finally got round to trying the new Skin Base foundation from Illamasqua (I’m shade six), and my first impressions are very good – I’ll do a full review when I’ve had more time to try it. I’m liking this applied with fingers and layered in areas where I need more coverage, for a dewy, medium coverage yet very natural looking finish…

I was off today so fancied something pretty but not too OTT, as I was only doing a few dull errands and things…

As mentioned, the skin is Illamasqua Skin Base in shade six, applied with fingers. I didn’t bother with concealers, just layered a bit more of the Skin Base where I felt I needed more coverage.  I set it with a little MAC setting powder on the T-Zone only. On the cheeks I contoured lightly with the bronzing side of my Bourjois mineral powder, I used the new Sleek Suede blusher mixed with a little of one of the Illamasqua eyeshadows I used on the eyes…

On the eyes I used Illamasqua powder shadows in “Courtesan”, a pale lilac pink shade on the lid, with a little “Feint” which is a darker chocolatey-pink blended on the outer corner and socket. I lined the eyes with black kohl, and also added a thin line of precision ink in “Abyss” to the upper lashline.

On the lips I used a Rouge Bunny Rouge lipstick in the shade “Word of Mouth”, which is a fresh cherry-pink shade…

Hope you like it… Do you like wearing girlie shades like pink?

I recently placed myself on a bit of a spending ban where makeup is concerned… After all, a chest of drawers full of the stuff, plus the kit I use for jobs is more than enough for several lifetimes, and there’s rarely a shade I can’t dupe these days. So I’ve taken to rediscovering some of the forgotten treasures in my collection, in a bid to entertain myself, and appreciate the goodies I already have rather than wasting moolah on pointless duplicates…

In my makeup bag this week…

It seems this weeks stash selection is something of an homage to mineral makeup, and this is no coincidence – I often find when I go to work with anything higher coverage than tinted moisturiser I get a lot of comments and compliments, which is nice, but my main aim at work is to look human, rather than overdone…. a no makeup makeup look if you will. Secondly, my skin seems to have had a flare up recently, so I opted for minerals as they seem the least irritant to my skin. Finally, it gave me a chance to try the new mineral bronzing foundation from Bourjois…

On the subject of the Bourjois foundation, I’ve been really happy with it and I’ve been using it for about two weeks now for work. I love the packaging, which has a clever twisty shaker, which enables you to customise the shade of foundation, as well as eliminating the horrors of messy mineral foundation…

This gives light to medium coverage, depending on how much you apply and buff it in, I’m pretty impressed with the longevity too – it seems to survive a full shift at work on most days, which for mineral foundation on my dryish skin is impressive… Topping it with the ELF mineral booster pictured above seems to boost its longevity too.

Bare face before foundation application...

Face after application of foundation and light contour using the bronzer...

Have you tried this foundation? What are your thoughts?

Another Bourjois product has also found a place in my makeup bag this week as well – their healthy mix concealer (I use shade 51), which deals with undereye circles and blemishes well for everyday use – I have a host of MAC concealers which I keep in my kit, but this one seems to work well on me without looking cakey or overdone for day to day use.

I’m also loving these two items from the Body Shop’s past baked mineral collection – blusher in “Coral Nuance”, and eye colour duo in “Copper”, although I usually leave the eyeshadow off for work…

Finally the lippie I’ve been using the most is my trusty Estee Lauder Crystal Baby, which is probably my all time favourite lip colour. Definitely worth a mention though is Sleeks True Colour in the Shade Liqueur, which is a very close high street match for Crystal baby;

Top - Crystal Baby, Bottom - Sleek Liqueur.

As you can see, the two aren’t exact dupes, but when applied to the lips they are pretty darned close – Crystal Baby is slightly more peachy pink toned than the Sleek shade, but in terms of wear and feel on the lips, they are very comparable, so this is well worth looking into for those interested in Crystal Baby but want a more affordable option…

Finally a quick snap of the whole lot applied;

Apologies for the ungroomed brows and seen-better-days hair…

What are you loving at the moment?

…. But I think I can get away with bright blushers…

I love a cheery and bright blusher shade.

They look as intimidating as hell in the pan, but applied carefully with a decent amount of blending (the look often favoured by my fellow scousers of two bright red unblended stripes atop and orange fake tan is one which fills me with horror – and I know not all scouse girlies do that, but why is it always the ones who do that get featured on the “Lets All Laugh At The Scouse Birds at Aintree Ladies Day” newspaper articles?) they brighten up my pale complexion and makes me feel a lot less like I’m one of the undead…

I’ve applied a teeny amount of my new favourite bronzer from Bourjois (see review HERE) to contour a bit, and then used Sleek’s blusher in “Scandalous”, a bright bright red which looks as scary as heck, but looks lovely and fresh when applied and blended with a stippling brush…

Oh, and once again I’m wearing another current favourite – Sleek’s True Colour lipstick in “Liqueur”…

How about you? Are you a bright blusher fan? Which shades are your faves, and which brushes are your favourites for applying them?

xxx

I mentioned on twitter the other day that I didn’t feel I could carry of bright shades, and immediately the lovely Liloo (AKA @tsunimee on twitter) who blogs HERE (go follow her – she is great!), challenged me to create a look using a bright palette. Like a fool I accepted the challenge and well, all I can say is, at least this will give you a laugh!

I chose Sleek’s “Circus” Palette, which is ine I usually only use to add little pops of colour to the lower water line…

I got creative… Oooh orange I thought, Orange looks great with blue eyes…. And to be fair it usually does, it’s one of my favourite eyeshadow shades, however I think the addition of other clash-tastic shades by me in creative mode, didn’t really help matters.

It turned out a mess.

I’d have added some false lashes, but frankly, I didn’t want to waste them on this cosmetic vomit that landed on my eye… A flash photo doesn’t really help it look any better either… It highlights how terrible the liner looks doesn’t it! In my defence I couldn’t find my gel liner, so attempted to fake it with a pencil. Don’t do this kids!

Oh well, you win some, you lose soon… *resolves to see this as a learning experience*…

Be sure to trot over to Liloo’s blog and have a butchers at her look – I don’t doubt it will put my disgraceful effort to shame!

xxx

I knew nothing about this palette, having been unable to attend the recent Sleek MakeUp event, so when I came home to find this waiting on the doormat for me, I was extremely pleasantly surprised.

I have to say I have always been a fan of the Sleek palettes – they are great value, and I also love the quality and pigmentation in the shadows. Some palettes are obviously going to be more to your own particular taste than others though. The “Acid” palette for example, whilst well made, is never a look I’m personally going to be able to rock – at the grand old age of 32 I think it’s sensible to leave neon yellow and pink shadows to the “yunguns”.

Anyway, I babble, onto the palette, which as I said really is quite spesh in my opinion. I don’t own the world famous “must have” Naked palette from Urban Decay, but I’ve read claims on twitter and the like that this is good budget version…

Packaging wise this comes in the standard black Sleek casing with a jazzed up cardboard outer packaging. I feel I’m going to have to get one of those label making machines from off of the ’80′s for all my black Sleek palettes… They are so worth rumaging through though.

I’m loving the fact that Sleek are now naming their shadows… And in this palette one of them is named Gateau, which is also a bonus, for the gateau is the queen of any buffet… unless it’s black forest - I don’t like those wierd fakey cherries that come in those… *shut-up Jen for God’s sake and get on with the frigging review*

As you can see, there is a good mix of matte and shimmer shades, and a lovely combo of neutrals with a few more interesting shades thrown in for good measure – “Gateau” is actually one of the more interesting in the palette, and reminds me of a shade by MAC called Trax, which is a purple shot though with gold. “Organza”, “Glintz” and “Celebrate” are also a bit more complex and interesting than they look in the pan, while “The Mail” and “Boxed” would possibly make good brow shadows as well as crease colours…

All the shades swatch well on my skin  (the only reason the shade “Bow” seems not to is because it’s pretty close to my own skin tone). If you have darker skin, and want to see how these swatcch, I’d highly recommend taking a pootle over to Vex And The City’s post HERE where she has some fab piccys…

I have had a play with the palette too, and did a bit of a daytime smoky, and I’m pleased to report that the shadows lasted well (used over an Estee Lauder doublewear cream shadow as a primer), with no creasing or loss of colour… Apologies for this not very good and shadowy picture, but you get the point!

Wow, that really is a bad picture isn’t it? You wouldn’t think I had a half decent camera would you… well, let’s distract ourselves from that by talking about the fact that my “sources” (ie Twitter) tell me that this is a permanent palette – Hurrah!

I’d highly recommend this palette, which is going on sale in Superdrug and Online at £6.49, and is available now.

The disclaimer bit – this product was sent to me for review purposes/consideration. Honest review as always peeps!

These two new collections are just peeking around the corner for Sleek addicts… and I was lucky enough to be sent a couple of things to review…

The mediterranean collection launched on the 8th June, and consists of an iDivine palette, a pout polish and blush, while the caribbean collection is launching on the 6th July.

I was sent the pout polishes from both collections – Monte Carlo (from the Mediterranean collection) is a cool blue-pink, and Bonaire (from the Caribbean collection) is a hot orange shade. I also recieved the blush from the caribbean collection – Aruba – which is also a very hot orange shade.

Love the packaging for these – It’s nice to be able to pick out the products you are after from the others I own!

The pout polishes have a lovely coconutty and almond scent to them, both have SPF 15, and both are limited edition. Although they both look very scary bright in the pot, they are both fairly sheer on the lips, and on swatching…

Monte Carlo Pout Polish applied.

The blush I was sent is very bright on swatching and contains a lot of pigmentation…

I was slightly worried when I swatched the blush initially, as it seemed slightly chalky, however it applied quite well, although on my pretty fair skin a light touch was needed otherwise I’d have looked quite ridiculous. I’m always a fan of orange and pink hued blushers though, so I like this one – I also think this is pigmented enough to double up as an eyeshadow…

I’m hoping that I can get my mits on the palettes from both these collections – I’m an unashamed fan of the palettes and blushers from this brand, but they sell out fast!

What are you planning on picking up from the new sleek collections?

Disclaimer – these products were provided for review purposes by a PR for the brand. Honest opinion in the review as always!

This is one of the latest releases from Sleek, and promises to luminate and conceal at the same. The product comes in a click pen, with a brush applicator, similar to YSL’s touche eclat.

This comes in three shades and I was sent the lightest of the three. The pen comes with a brush aplicator;

 The product itself has creamy consistency, and is more thick than similar pen style concealers.

As you can see, the product has a peachy undertone, which makes it good for undereye concealing. It blends out reasonably easily, but I didn’t use the applicator brush to blend – I used my regular fluffy blending brush.

Eye before application;

Eye after application;

Results are pretty good, and the concealer does do a good job of covering up the worst of undereye shadows, and luminating the area, so it lives up to its claims in this respect, however ifyou have particularly dry skin, you may prefer a more emolient formula for the area, as I did feel this was slightly drying. This did give good staying power however.

Disclaimer – Product set by PR for review purposes.