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Monday 30 June 2014

IMATS London 2014 Haulage

So this weekend was London IMATS and I've been dying to go for years but had always been working. But as I left my old job at the end of last year, I was free! hurrah!

Here's a pic of my swag (well most of it, I didn't snap the boring, bridal kit stuff)

First up, brushes. I was excited to see the Bdellium stand as I love their brushes and they had all the Bambu brushes up front and centre on the stand.  From left to right, I got the 949 Pointed Foundation, 945 Contour, 954 Duet Fibre Slanted Kabuki, 776 Blending brush (I got 2 of these as I have one already and love it so wanted some back ups), I got a 735 Tapered Blending (again I already have 2 of these so this is a kit back up) and a 760 Liner/Brow which I also already have one of.

Then I was happy to find that the LoveMakeup stand had some Limecrime stuff. They had sold out of Coquette lipstick which I wanted to buy but they did have the Uniliners. So I got Blue Milk and Quill. I wanted Quill because I've being trying to find a black liquid liner I like as much as my old Bourjois one, as I don't buy from them anymore and I like the brush and formula of these liners.  I also picked up the Wicked Velvetine, which is really the only one from the Clueless Witch collection that interests me.
 Swatchy swatch, it's pretty obvious which colour's which! :)

OCC, the second stand we went to (I had marked it on my floorplan!) and we went twice. Mainly because it was cash only and I didn't have enough on me for everything.  I got the new pencils (YAY) in Hoochie, Grandma and anti-feathered, which is clear so can be used with any lipstick or lip tar.  I got the Lip Tars in Hoochie and Black Metal Dahlia* and the stained gloss in Aurora and I finally got my hands on the concaeler in R1, which has been out of stock for ages on the websites I normally buy for.

* I am SO freaking excited for Black Metal Dahlia, been trying to get this for months but it's been out of stock and it's so damn purty!!

L-R: Aurora, Hoochie, Black Metal Dahlia, Hoochie Pencil, Grandma Pencil.

I picked up a couple of essentials, a small Z-Palette and some Skindinavia setting spray. Been wanting to try this for ages and I finally used up my Neve one this week.

And onto my first stop of the day. I actually marked this on the floorplan and our route to it from the entrance.  I got Olivia, which is the limited edition loose eyeshadow and I got the Sparkle Baby Eyeshadow in Candy Crush, which is a lovely sparkly baby blue.

Candy Crush top, Olivia bottom.

I also got some stuff for my kit like a new bag and a Graftobian concealer palette (which isn't vegan, hence I didn't show it) and some sponges and sundries.  

I loved IMATS and I can't wait to go back next year. I even got to meet lovely Amy/Shrinkle from Sugarpill and have a photo taken with her. I just wish I was less awkward so I could've actually talked to her.. haha ah well there's always next year! :)

Did anyone else go? Would love to see a pic of your swag if you did!

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx

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

Friday 27 June 2014

A Friday Favourite


I bought these in either Boots or Superdrug the other week, I forget which, after seeing this brand mentioned a couple of times in blogs / youtube vids etc. Apparently Eyelure's parent company animal tests (bad news for my beloved Katy Perry lashes :o( ... ) so I've stopped buying those and I was happy to discover that Kiss are a cruelty free company. Hooray! I'm not 100% sure that the glue that comes with these is vegan (it probably is but I need to check that) but I never use the glue you get with false lashes anyway, I always use Duo (CV).  

Anyway, these are the lashes I got, they're the featherlight lashes and they're called vamp; they're super light and wispy, like the wispies from Ardell really.  What I like is that they don't have a thick lash band so you could wear them without eyeliner if you wanted and they're also really comfy to wear and easy to apply!


You can see that they just give a bit of extra oomph but it doesn't look like you're obviously wearing false lashes. They're lovely.

Here's an awkward underneath shot to show you how pretty and wispy they are.  Ignore the inner corner - my eye was watering like a muthabitch that night and I really struggled to get them to stick (that is also why my concealer looks so weird!)

I kept the eyes pretty neutral as I was wearing a bright orange lip. That's the Barry M Gelly Hi Shine Lips pencil in gsl2 (V) that I love love LOVE! 

Have a fantastic weekend all. I'm going to IMATS tomorrow to spend a crap tonne of dough on Sugarpill and OCC! haha, who else is going?? I'll post a pic of my swag next week.

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx

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

Thursday 26 June 2014

Why I haven't blogged for a while and why the cereal bar aisle at the supermarket makes me stabby

Q - Why haven't I blogged in a while?
A - I'm lazy.

Q - Why does the cereal bar aisle make at the supermarket make me stabby?
A - Honey. FORKING HONEY!!  Why. Why Why WHY WHY why does every feckin cereal bar that is magically free from dairy or eggs have honey in?

Ok so now that that's out the way... how the devil are you all?  I thought I should post as it's been forever. But because it's been so long I have a crap tonne of pics on my phone, most of which are not really anything of note. So I'll just post a couple of fun ones.

Starting with afternoon tea at Terre a Terre.  Jojo and I and her husband Nick and friend Tabitha went there t'other weekend for Jojo's belated birthday celebration. And needless to say it was epic.

Check this shit out....

The menu. Obviously Jojo and I went for the one with Prosecco!

3 tiers of rad

The Savoury Tier
It had a seaweed cracker, which is basically like a prawn cracker, with fancy tomatoes on. Then sesame hoisin tofu with some fancy veggie sandwiched in the middle. Jojo knew what it's called but I've forgotten. The one at the back I'm struggling to remember exactly what it was, but it was potato based and delicious. All 3 things were amazing.

The Middle Tier
This had 2 mini churros, 2 little cakes (an almondy fruit one and one with chocolate in the middle) and a piece of chocolate brownie. It also had a pistachio cracker and some cherries. All of this was insanely good.

The Top Tier - The Scones
YES! Perfect scones, yummy creamy stuff and jam. Triple WIN!

For £18 ish, including a glass of prosecco, I think this was totally worth it. Everything was delicious, it looked amazing and it was the right amount of food.

OK so onwards.

Last weekend we had some nice weather and because it's meant to piss down for oh I dunno, the rest of summer probably... we made the most of it with a barbecue.

Wait, COME BACK!!  I KNOW YOU'RE BORED OF MY BARBECUE POSTS.... But we changed it up a bit.  Just a bit though, don't get too excited!

I made a yummy salad with some fancy yellow and red tomatoes, an avocado and some chilli and lime. Kind of like guac but without the mushing (and the coriander!).

Garlic bread of course. I added extra nooch!

Sweet potatoes that I roasted in olive oil with a bit of chilli and sea salt.

a crappy blurry pic of my plate, that's a Vegusto wiener (hehe) and a no cluck cutlet from Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day (this is fussier than I usually like to deal with for seitan, but so totally worth it, they rock socks!)

Homemade lemonade - there's a recipe for this below if you want it. You know you want it!

And baked mini donuts, because I bought a tin. I just veganised the recipe on the tin box by changing out the dairy for the usual stuff, using flax seeds + water for the eggs and adding a bit of extra bicarb. It was nothing life changing, but nice. I reckon I could do better. The glaze was just soymilk and icing sugar, that I heated and whisked then added strawberry flavour and some (apparently really crap!) red food colouring too. And sprinklez. YEAH sprinklez... ok I've had too much sugar.

Lemonade Recipe
6 Lemons (plus an extra one and a lime if you want to put some slices in the jug and be fancy like me)
1 cup sugar
Water water water
Ice ice baby

Method
Peel as much of the skin off the lemons as you can be arsed to, with a potato peeler, taking care to get as little of the bitter white crap as possible. Put in a pan with sugar and 1 cup of water and bring to the boil, stirring constantly.  Turn the heat down a bit but it should still be bubbling, let it go for 5 minutes.

Pour into a jug and leave to cool completely.

Squeeze the juice from the lemons then strain it and the syrup into a jug and add ice, lemon & lime slices if you're fancy and top it up with water. Just add it until you are happy with the taste, I added about 1.5 litres / 6 cups.

Easy and everyone will woo and coo at you like you're some sort of domestic goddess because you made your own lemonade. Until you trip over and fall on your face with a plate of food in your hand. Not that that happened, just sayin.

Have an ace weekend.

Laterz
xXx


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Monday 23 June 2014

Barry M Loud Mouth Extreme Lip Colours

Last week I was super excited to find the new lipglosses from Barry M (V) in my local Superdrug. They had a deal on Barry M stuff, where if you spent £6 you got a free limited edition nail polish.... I spent enough to get both! I picked up 3 of the new Loud Mouth lip colours and their new matte nail topcoat, which I'm excited to try out.
The colours I got, L-R: Chatterbox, Tell-Tale and Gossip
 
L-R: as above.
 Starting with my favourite of the 3 I bought, this is Chatterbox which is a beautiful coral colour. I love this shade.
 Secondly, Tell-Tale, which is a lovely pinky nude, but not too pinky. It's gorgesous.
Lastly I got Gossip which is a bright pink.

I actually love all 3 of the colours I bought. They go on lovely and you don't need very much of them.  They are a bit thicker than a regular lip gloss too so last a fraction longer but let's be frank, they're lipgloss... they're not gonna last all night! They also smell like watermelon jolly ranchers! I like that smell.

But I love these and would definitely buy more colours!

Have you tried these glosses yet - let me know what you think!

Have a great week.

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx

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

Friday 20 June 2014

A Friday Feature: MUA Velvet Lip Lacquers - the new shades!

So instead of doing a Friday Favourite this week I'm doing a Friday Feature, on the new shades of the Luxe Velvet Lip Lacquers from MUA (AV).  When I saw the picture of these on the facebook page I was really excited because usually, this type of long lasting, matte liquid lipsticks only come in super dark / vibrant colours and I was looking forward to trying something more wearable for the day.

The colours are actually darker than they look in the tubes and I have struggled to get accurate pics of the colours.  They are all slightly brighter than both my hand and lip swatches are showing up on my pc, even though they look about right on my camera. 


From left to right, the shades are Tranquility, Halcyon, Serene & Aflush

The formula of these is tricky, as are all of the products like this that I have tried but with a bit of extra work, they are worth it because they really do last a lot longer than a regular lipstick!

Starting with Tranquility, which is a lovely light browny nude.  When I was applying this I was thinking ERGH vom. But once it was on I actually really loved it.  This one was the easiest one to work with and went on smoothly and easily first time.

Then Halcyon, which is a bit more of a brick type shade in real life. Again, another one I thought I'd hate but ended up liking. I think though if you have a lot of pink or red in your skin tone, this one wouldn't work for you!

Then we have Aflush, which is quite a lot brighter than I could get it to show in the picture. It's actually a lovely bright pink, not as bright as Criminal which I will talk about below, but very pretty and still a nice bold lip colour.  In fact, my brother's comment about this lipstick after I came downstairs from taking this photo wearing it was 'erm, you know it's that bright right?'. So I think he was unimpressed but I personally love it!

I left Serene for last because this is the one I struggled with the most.  It took 4 separate occasions of me trying to get this on nicely to be able to get this photo, which I'm disappointed about because I really LOVE the colour. Also, as you can see, I smooged my lips together before it was dry and got a bit of transference, as you can see in the pic below! Harrumph!  I've got some tips for working with these colours below, because they are a bit of work.

So basically if you want to try these, make sure you exfoliate your lips if needed and apply some lip balm. But before you apply the lacquer, wipe your lips completely dry. Any oil on the lips will stop them going on smoothly.  Work quickly and don't try to apply too thinly. Just try to get it on as even as possible and perfect the edges with your finger if you smudge it outside the lip line too much.  Don't rub or press your lips together to distribute the product. Keep your lips apart until totally dry otherwise they cake up a bit and look patchy.  If you need to add a bit more to patchy areas, wait until they're fully dry and add a tiny bit more.

With regards to wear, once they are dry they don't transfer onto your glass / hand etc!  I found that after just being out for salsa class with one or 2 drinks with a straw, these lasted pretty well, just a wee bit of a touch up needed...

After wearing it out for dinner and having (fairly oily) Italian food, it didn't fair quite so well. The oil breaks down the product and it wears off quite a bit...

I found that putting a bit of gloss over it makes it a bit more comfy (if you don't like the matte feeling) but anything petroleum based breaks it down pretty quick.

Removal... easy but it'll take more than a quick wipe off on a tissue. I use an eye make up remover to get these off, as it's less harsh on the lips than rubbing it off with a tissue or makeup wipe.

My overall opinion of these is that I like them a lot.  They last a long time with only minimal touch up needed and with a bit of patience, look really good.  I still prefer the Limecrime Velvetines I have which I have found don't need to be touched up at all during a night on the drink (admittedly I haven't tested them on how they last during dinner!)

So that's the new shades. I also have 3 of the older ones so I thought I'd post a swatch of those and also some comparisons to similar shades from other brands that I have.


Top to bottom: Criminal, Funk, Atomic

Some comparisons then:

Left to right: MUA 'Serene' & Makeup Revolution 'What I Believe' and MUA 'Aflush' & Makeup Revolution 'Keep Crying For You'. 

The top two are MUA 'Criminal' (L) and Makeup Revolution 'You Took My Love' (R) - these two are almost identical!

And here is MUA's 'Atomic' (top) and Limecrime's 'Suedeberry' (bottom). Suedeberry is a bit more pinky and lighter and Atomic is a truer orange.

So that's all for this week. Hope you have a fab weekend.

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx

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

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Monday 16 June 2014

New Stuff!

Well hello there!

I have a load of new stuff lately that I've been playing with and so I thought I'd talk about some of it here.

Firstly the last palette I bought from Sleek, it's the (sadly) limited edition Del Mar palette. As I said it's limited edition and the Sleek website isn't showing it anymore. But Superdrug's website appears to still have it if you're interested.

So it's mainly matte colours an they're all bright and super pretty.... check it out!  I will post full swatches of all the colours in another post as soon as I can so for now here's a pic of the palette colours.



I used the matte brown (mixed with a bit of the orange shade) and the two bright orangey pinks and also the lighter purple on the lower lashline to create this look. I was pretty happy with how it came out.  Because they are matte, it takes a bit more work to get the vibrancy you want. So I used a light base (I used OCC Conceal in R0 for this) and packed the lid colours on with a flat brush.

Some other recent purchases I've been playing with...
Eyeshadows and eyebrow kit from B, Makeup Revolution highlighter, eyeliner, liquid blush and lip gloss.  Firstly the stuff I love!  

The B cream shadow is a gorgeous green and with the green from the palette on top (which is pretty much a dead on match colour wise) it is lovely and lasts all day.


The eyebrow kit is not bad at all. It has a couple of waxes and a couple of powders and a brush that is ridiculously tiny but does the job ok if you don't have another to hand.  I still prefer a pencil on my brows but I like to use the wax and powder in this as well sometimes, to add a bit more dimension.

From Makeup Revolution I got the pink lights highlighter and I like it. It's a lovely colour and not too glittery.  I also have the gold one which is beautiful but too gold for my pale skin. I use it on the eyes more often than not but I think it would look amazing as a highlighter on deeper skin tones.  Unfortunately this doesn't show up well in the photo below but I'm sure it'll be in a future favourites post so I'll try and do a hand swatch.

I also love the liquid blush that I got.  (They're very similar to the ELF ones which I also love!)  This is the shade O' Boy which is a lovely pink. You only need a teeny amount, as below (in fact that was a wee bit too much and I blended it down a bit with my foundation brush!) I'll probably pick up some of the other shades of this, at £3 each, they're a bargain!
Blended

Then what I didn't like, the eyeliner from makeup revolution.  Maily, I hate the applicator. It's awful! It's the shape of a felt tip but it's plasticky and SUPER hard to work with.  So I started with that and gave up and switched to dipping my Louise Young fine liner brush into it and working with that.  Even that way I struggled to get a decent line....
That took absolutely ages faffing around trying to get it need and using an angled brush dipped in eyemakeup remover to clean it up. So yeah, not a fan of that. Although it's waterproof so it did stay on all day, so silver linings and all that!! haha

I have so much other new stuff to play with this week too, so I'll keep you posted on anything I love!

What have you bought/loved lately? I'd love to know!

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx


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