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Wednesday 30 April 2014

Wore it Wednesday ... pink dotticure

Simple but cute manicure this week, using Barry M's Gelly polishes in Dragon & Rose Hip (V).
Happy humpday!
Love & stuff
Sal xXx

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Friday 25 April 2014

A Friday Favourite

This week's Friday favourite comes from Seventeen - No 7's trendier, younger (and cheaper!!) sister. It's their Skin Wow 3 Way Highlighter (CV).


I LOVE this product. It's super shiny and gives the most gorgeous glow. You can use it under foundation (which I must admit I haven't tried yet) or on top for a cream highlight. Don't be fooled by the swatch below, this was a super heavy swatch so that it would show up on camera. I normally use it much more sparingly. It's also not glittery like it's coming across in the pic (probably the fault of Boot's fluorescent lighting!!), it's just beatifully shimmery.


I also just bought the tan version (which is the left hand swatch above), which I also swatched for you. It looks amazing and I can't wait to try it; even if it might look a bit ridic on my super pale winter skin!

Have a great weekend all.

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx

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Wednesday 23 April 2014

Wore it Wednesday: Concrete Minerals Zombie Girl Collection

My wore it wednesday this week is courtesy of the Concrete Minerals' Zombie Girl Collection. I believe this came out last year and I ordered it AGES ago but really haven't used it much. But look... it's so cute!!

I decided to use the purples, which is fatal because purple is notoriously hard to pick up with a digital camera; especially if there's lots of blue in it, it will just look blue! As it does below.






If you have a look at this link, there's some swatches of the colours.  I used Quarantine on the lid, over a white base, Nightmare mixed with Illamasqua Sealing Gel (CV) as my eyeliner and Blood & Guts in the crease. I probably should've used Graveyard instead because B&G was way too reddy and I spent ages trying to blend it down and take off some of the warmness with my Makeup Revolution Matte Palette (AV).

But it was still a pretty cool look in the end.

I paired it with the light pink Beauty UK Lip Vinyl (AV), which I think it's called Privilege, it's hard to tell from the colours on their website.

I bought the Zombie Girl set direct from Concrete Minerals' website because it was sold out at the time here and I'm impatient. You can get it in the UK from Cutecosmetics (and you won't have to pay import charges like I did!).

Bonus dumb selfie of the post....

Happy humpday!

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx


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Monday 21 April 2014

Vegan Nail Polish Options

Errrr hellerr everyone. Hope you are enjoying your bank holiday weekend?

I decided to make today's blog post about nail polish, to give you some ideas for vegan options. The ones I've picked are (as far as I know) fully vegan polish lines.  This doesn't mean that all their products are.... just the polishes!

Orly
I'm kicking off with Orly, because I am in love with their base & top coats. I was looking for a fast-drying top coat to replace my Seche Vite. I love Seche Vite and it really does dry quick but it stinks and it goes sticky and unusuable sooo fast.  So I tried this one and I love it.  It dries quick and it's lovely & shiny. Because I liked it so much, I bought the rubberised base coat too. Generally regular polish lasts less than 24 hours without chipping on me* but since using this duo, I get a couple of days out of a mani (way WAY longer on toes!); which is pretty good for me.  (*This is the main reason I prefer gel manicures!)

I have lots of Orly colours too which I like a lot, but most of those colours are in my salon.

Nubar
I researched long and hard when looking for a brand of nailcare products to use in my salon and I settled on Nubar. Not only cruelty free and vegan, but also awesome. Their mani & pedi products smell lovely and Gelicure is just a fantastic gel polish. They have a huge colour range and you can get matching polish usually, if you like your Gelicure colour!


Barry M
Hands-down my favourite 'drugstore' polish brand, if not my favourite in this entire post.. I absolutely love the Gelly polishes but they have a massive range of glitters, regular paints and nail effects like crackle polish (untrendy though it may now be!). Price point wise it's brilliant too.

China Glaze
Massive fan of China Glaze. I really love the polishes and I love their orange scented cuticle oil too; which I really must repurchase asap!! Not too expensive but also not that easy to get hold of; if you have a Sally's near you, you'll likely find some in there, if not you'll have to get them online.  Again, most of my CG polishes are down in the salon but I have some Neons that are fab and I love the polish pictured on the right below (That's Shore Bright, which I featured in a recent Friday Favourite post).

Jessica
A professional salon brand; I've never seen this available to buy in stores, only in Jessica salons. I think they are fantastic polishes with lots of colour choice. (Their Geleration gel polish is also vegan in case you have a Jessica salon near you; I don't know about their mani-pedi products though!) They are a bit pricier than some brands, but they're worth it.

Deborah Lipmann
This is the only DL polish I own; not because there aren't about 7 others that I want but because they retail at £16 each, which I think is FAR too much to pay for a polish. But dang, this is soooo pretty!

ELF
Good old ELF and their awesome veganness! Unfortunately I only own 2 ELF polishes because the 2 I have totally blow! The formula is terrible and really hard to work with.. I hated them, so I never bought more. I keep meaning to try a couple of others and see if I just picked turkeys or if all of them suck. Anyone have good experiences with ELF polishes??

NYX
I've said before that NYX have crappy customer service and they are not willing to take time to find out which of their products are vegan when you ask, so you have to go buy ingredients lists, if possible. So I am not sure about all of their polishes, but according to the PPK list that I have linked to below, the salon forumal polishes are vegan. I like these; they're nothing to write home about though.

MUA
Again, check ingredients lists on these because I only have a couple and they look vegan to me from the ingredients lists.  MUA is super cheap and I like the quake polishes which are basically crackle polishes.

Butter London
Again I only own one. For years I didn't buy any because I HATE the names of these polishes, I mean they're even worse than the stupid names that OPI give their polishes. Trout Pout, Slapper... etc? UGH! But people seem to like them so I bought this one when I was in Leeds. It sucks, it's really sheer and would probably take 5 coats to get a good colour. However, I don't think that's true of all the shades, I think I just picked a bad one. Needless to say I'm not in any rush to spend £12 on another bottle.

Illamasqua
Pricier / high end brand and not as widely available; unless you have a store or counter near you, you'll have to order online. However, Illamasqua do brilliant sales and offer discounts for returning customers on their website. They have loads of colours and so far, I like the formula of the ones I've tried!


OCC
I love OCC! I love that they are totally vegan and cruelty free. I love their pigments, their lip tars.... I really quite like their polishes too. Pool Boy polish was also a recent Friday Favourite of mine - although it does take 3 coats to stop it looking a bit streaky. That mani lasted really quite well!

Models Own
Models Own have a fab colour range, the formula is generally very nice and they're available in Boots, at a decent price point. Win! See that Hed Kandi polish, second from right? GORGEOUS!! So freakin gorgeous. Not sure if it was limited edition but if not, you should buy it because it's the most lovely orange red (it's called Hedonist!)

GOSH
Last but definitely not least, GOSH. I love GOSH, you guys know that and their polishes are pretty freakin ace too. They have a gorgeous holographic polish, pictured left below and it's soooo pretty but it's really really hard to get on without going streaky. I keep trying though because it's gorgeous.

Honorable mention also goes to Spa Rituals, which are all vegan but again, I only have a few and they're in my salon and Zoya - as above. A lot of people rave about Zoya, I found they chipped really quick but I haven't tried them with my awesomesauce Orly base & top coat yet, so I will have to dig them out!

Anyway, hope that gave you a few ideas and if you want some more brands that are vegan, check out this list on the PPK which is awesome.

Enjoy what's left of your long weekend all!

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx

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Friday 18 April 2014

A Friday Favourite

Beauty UK Posh Pout crayons (AV*).

I picked these up in Superdrug a couple of weeks ago and they're perfect for living in my handbag. Basically they are a tinted lip balm in crayon form that smell of spearmint. Nice! You can put just a quick coat on for a touch of colour or build them up a bit for something more intense.

As they're a balm, they're not particularly long-lasting. But they are pretty and nice and moisturising, so they're comfortable to wear. And they smell nice.

I have 2:

how nude!
A light baby pink

and big pinkin'
A darker, hot pink.
My camera has of course washed this out, it's a bit brighter in real life.

Have a great weekend.

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx

*these look vegan and I've emailed Beauty UK to check, but not had a response yet.

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Wednesday 16 April 2014

Wore It Wednesday: Sleek Limited Edition Showstoppers iDivine

My Wore it Wednesday this week is an eye look I did last night with the new palette from Sleek. I'm not sure if you can even buy this online, I got it in Superdrug and the packaging mentions that it is to celebrate 50 years of Superdrug. If you can find it, it's definitely worth picking up.

The Limited Edition Showstoppers Palette (AV*)

Here are some swatches; I apologise for the lighting, it was late afternoon when I took these and these are the best I could get.
Top Row
L-R: Paraguaya, Sunset, Me, Myself & Eye, Bad Girl, Noir, Ultra Mattes V2
I know it looks like there's only 5 shades here, but the far left shade (Paraguaya) doesn't show up in the pic  because it's almost the same shade as my skin - so great for blending! :o)  

Bottom Row
L-R: Oh So Special, Bohemian, Storm, Sparkle, Au Natural, Graphite

This palette is lovely. I love Graphite, it's a gorgeous bronzey brown and sparkle is a beautiful frosty highlight colour.  

Here's the look I created. I used a light concealer as a base as I don't have a white that'd work and I wanted to make the pink brighter. I think Bohemian (the peachy pink) shows up a little truer to it's actual colour in the swatch above; my camera washed the whole eye makeup look out. Fail.  I used Sparkle for the highlight under my badly-need-to-be-done brows and the inner corner. The waterline is Sleek's Eau La La pencil in Cobalt Blue (V). Gel liner is Makeup Geek's Immortal (CV).

Happy humpday!
Sal xXx

*As always, I have to mark this as appears vegan, because Sleek's customer services are pretty rubbish and do not answer emails, messages, tweets .... etc! I can never find anything in the ingredients lists of the iDivines that is suspect but they are not listed as vegan on Sleek's website (or the list they sent me) and they won't answer why this is.  But when I asked a couple of years ago they said it was due to possible cross-contamination.   FACEPALM!!  

So unless hell freezes over and Sleek actually bother to answer an email/tweet; I will continue to assume this is the case and that makes the palettes vegan to me.

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Friday 11 April 2014

A Friday Favourite

China Glaze's That's Shore Bright (CV) GORGEOUS!! Can't stop staring at it.
And Irn Bru obvs.
TGIF
Sal xXx

THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON LOVE-LIPSTICK.BLOGSPOT.COM 

Wednesday 9 April 2014

Wore it Wednesday - Makeup Revolution Iconic 3 Palette

This week I have mostly been playing with the Makeup Revolution Iconic 3 Palette (AV)!

Last night I used the palette for a gold smokey eye.  I used this colour on the lid - my camera really doesn't do this shade justice at all, it is SO gorgeous and shimmery and really really pigmented.  I used the shade immediately to the right in the crease and the one 2 to the right of that for the outer v.  I used the lightest shade in the palette for brow bone highlight. 
There is a bit of fall out from these shadows, especially from the shimmery shades so I'd recommend you use a shadow shield or do your foundation first, like I did.  I used a primer first and my eye makeup still looked great after a (fairly sweaty) night of salsa!


Eyeball closeup (please ignore dem horrific brows, I'm Billion Dollar'ing them this weekend!
(The gold on my waterline is GOSH's Velvet Touch Eyeliner in Renaissance Gold (CV), which I'm maybe just a bit in love with. I dunno what that weird black dot is.)

I also used it monday night and did something similar but used the pink to the left of the gold above but unfortunately my camera has washed it the hell out. The colour is really gorgeous.  I only posted it because something amazing happened on Monday..... I had a near perfect eyeliner night! This never happens. Usually I mess with it and mess with for half an hour, rubbing off the wing on one side because it's higher than the other and then I get frustrated and throw my liner brush at the mirror!  But Monday, no such problems were occurring!  It went on even both sides, good shape and the wings were both facing in the same direction! Unfortunately no matter how many pictures I took, I could not get a good one of both eyes DAMMIT!

I knew it would never happen again and true to form, Tuesday was a night of spending the best part of half an hour getting frustrated and just settling for not bad!


I've mentioned before my lack of selfie-skills.... does anyone else's camera roll end up something like this; one half decent one and a whole lotta fail?  No? Just me?  If it does then instagram it and tell me where to find you on IG, I wanna see your selfie fail collages too!


Happy Humpday!

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx

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Monday 7 April 2014

Makeup Revolution

There's a new budget makeup brand on the market, founded I believe by the same guy that was originally behind MUA.  So when I heard about this I was super excited and went straight to their website the day it launched to check out veganness etc.

Their testing policy is a little vague so I wrote to them to check this. Also, a lot of the products looked vegan aside from a few with beeswax and one with carmine, so I also checked that; here is their response:

I asked the usual questions about finished product, ingredients and 3rd parties and whether the items that look vegan actually are and they said:

"Hi Sal absolutely we do not test, or any third party, test on animals

We do not claim to be Vegan Friendly - however you are right - most of our products are - the obvious ones aren't"
I also asked about whether they will sell in mainland China (or any country requiring mandatory animal testing) and they said:

"No we won’t do that. Makeup Revolution will not supply a market that insists on animal testing."

They also added that they would clarify the vegan products in the next few weeks so if I hear more, I'll keep you posted!

So yay, all good news!  So I did a search through the product ingredients lists and here is a list of the ones you will want to avoid if you're vegan, as they contain either beeswax or carmine.  (When you're checking for these ingredients, as well as looking for beeswax and carmine, check for their chemical names which are "Cera Alba & "CI 75470" respectively.)

Makeup Revolution products that list beeswax or carmine in their ingredients list:
Awesome Eye Metals
The One Concealer
Lipstick: Glossy
Lipstick: Vamp Collection
Wanded Lipgloss
Cream Blusher
Eye Primer
Eye Dust (says =/- carmine so some shades may be ok, you'd have to email them to confirm)

So as you can see that's really not that many products out of a pretty huge catalogue. The mascaras appear vegan and liners and all the eyeshadow palettes, some of the lipsticks... Lots of choice!  The only thing I'm slightly bummed about is the Eye Metals as they look to be a dupe of the Stila Magnificent Metals.

I was hoping to have time to have a play and give a proper review of the items I bought over the weekend, but I wasn't very well; I'll be playing with them this week and will report back! So for now, here's swatches of the items I bought.

Let's start off with a couple of basics, foundation and concealer. I got The ONE Foundation and their Liquid Concealer (as the other concealer has beeswax in). I won't bother swatching these but I'll try them out this week and let you know what I think.

Then I got the Vivid Baked Highlighter in Golden Lights. When I first swatched it I was almost singing HOW GORGEOUS!! So shiny and shimmery. However, it's a little tooo gold for my very fair skin. It's gorgeous as an eyeshadow and I think it will look stunning on deeper skin tones. It's super shiny and very pigmented. When I swatched it, it felt really dry but it's not crumbly or powdery at all. I'm definitely going to try some other colours to try and find a better fit for my skin tone.


As you can see above, some of the lipsticks have beeswax in but some look. So I got 2 from the Scandalous Collection. These are quite sheer but they feel quite nice and not drying.  I got shades Crime (the pink) and Depraved (the purple).

The only gripe about these so far is the lid on Depraved is pretty loose and the whole bullet is kind of rattly. But for £1 I really can't complain about that! £1!!

These where what I'm pretty excited about: Lip Laqcuers. They're a liquid lipstick that dries matte, so I'm hoping they're something along the lines of the Limecrime Velvetines that I love, but in more wearable shades as well as brights.  I'm excited to try these out.

I got Keep Crying For You (Left) and What I believe (Right)

This was the hardest to get a swatch of, it's one of the Amazing Care Lipsticks. Basically it's lipstick surrounded by a balm. So it's super moisturising but the colour is very sheer. 


The shade I got is Love Nude

OK onto the main reason I was so excited to buy stuff from this brand - a dupe for Urban Decay's Naked 3 palette!  I have been hoping MUA would bring out another of their Undressed palettes to cover the Naked 3 but Revolution have beaten them to it!  Now I don't buy Urban Decay now that they're owned by L'Oreal so I don't have the Naked 3 to do a comparison. But if you google, there are a bunch of blog posts already comparing the two and I have to say, they look pretty damn close to me!

Swatchy swatches


PRETTY! I'm very excited to play with this.

I also picked up the matte palette, because I think a matte palette is such a useful thing to have in your makeup stash. Great for blending, shading and highlighting, anywhere you don't want there to be a tonne of shimmer.

The shadows are a little powdery, as you can see, so there might be some fall out. But I never really find that this presents much of an issue and a good primer on the eyes first will help them stick well.

Swatches. I knew that it would be tricky to capture the lighter half because matte light shadows really don't show up that much, so excuse that.  What I will say is the pigmentation appears to be pretty good and I really love the cooler shades in the second half of the palette.  I am looking forward to seeing how well they blend!


So that's what I have picked up so far. Has anyone tried any of the Makeup Revolution range yet? If so I'd love to know what you think!

You Can Buy Makeup Revolution from their website, they ship worldwide. I believe it will also be available in Superdrug stores from this week (Wednesday 9th April).

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx

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