Friday 30 January 2015

Makeup Revolution Colour Chaos Palette Vs Urban Decay Electric Palette

I've seen many blog reviews on Makeup Revolution's Colour Chaos Palette and a lot of them are saying how it is a dupe for Urban Decay's Electric Palette. I absolutely love the Electric Palette and it is one of my favorite bright palettes out there. I decided to get the Colour Chaos Palette and compare the two and actually see if if is a dupe.

I reviewed the Electric Palette last year, and you can read my review here

Revolution's Colour Chaos is from their Salvation range of palettes and has 18 eyeshadows. Most of the colors are very bright, although there are some dark shimmery ones as well as a white and cream colored eyeshadow.

Makeup Revolution's Colour Chaos is £6.00
Urban Decay's Electric is £38.00

There is a big price difference, so on this post I am going to compare the two and see if there is any difference in the two.




Top - Gleam, Wkd, Tom Tom, Pink Obsessed, On A Mission, Overbored
Middle - Needed To, Me Three, Do It Now, Toxic Apple Tini, Ammunition, Deliver Me
Bottom - Super Y, My Demons, Tip X, I Said Go, Beyond Real, Calm Me Down


At first glance, the two palettes may look the same. The colors in both are really bright. Although if going by looks alone, Revolution's isn't an exact dupe because there are 18 colors compared to Urban Decay's 10 colors. I also think some colors in Revolution's don't belong in the palette such as Ammunition and Calm Me Down.

As for packaging, both palettes are quite study, although Urban Decay's wins on this one. The packaging is much harder, color names are actually printed in the palette rather than on a plastic insert and the outer packaging has a bright design printed into it. Not to mention Urban Decay gives you quite a good eyeshadow brush and not one of those sponge tipped applicators. 

Colour Chaos and Electric

Packaging

Top - Revolt, Gonzo, Slowburn, Savage, Fringe
Bottom - Chaos, Jilted, Urban, Freak, Thrash


Now for swatches. I'm not going to go into detail about Electric as I did a review of it last year. I did find that most of the Colour Chaos colors did swatch a bit on the powdery side and a number of them lacked pigment, especially the mattes. The top row of Colour Chaos swatched the best.

Colour Chaos Swatches

Gleam, Wkd, Tom Tom, Pink Obsessed, On A Mission, Overbored

Needed To, Me Three, Do It Now, Toxic Apple Tini, Ammunition, Deliver Me

Super Y, My Demons, Tip X, I Said Go, Beyond Real, Calm Me Down


Electric Swatches

Top - Revolt, Gonzo, Slowburn, Savage, Fringe
Bottom - Chaos, Jilted, Urban, Freak, Thrash

I decided to try and create some looks with Colour Chaos. For anyone who loves bright colors, this palette is definatly a must. There are endless looks that can be created with it. I blended the colors together rather than wearing them on their own.

After trying some of the colors and blending them together, I can say this palette is not a dupe for the Electric palette. A lot of the colors in this one were quite powdery and could have done with more pigment. They also seemed to have a dry texture, Electric eyeshadows have a nice soft texture to them when applying and the pigment is fab. 

The best colors in this palette were - Gleam, Wkd, Tom Tom, On A Mission, Do It Now, Ammunition and Deliver Me. These still were a bit on the dry side and could have done with more pigment. They did do a lot better to the rest of the colors in the palette. The silver color - Gleam, actually was a lot better than Urban Decay's Revolt, which is the silver in the Electric Palette.

Colors I thought were halfway. Better than worse, but not as good as the best. These were Pink Obsessed, Toxic Apple Tini and I Said Go.

Most of the mattes had to be the worst colors in this palette. These were very dry and needed a lot more pigment. They were difficult to blend and build up. They were - Overbored, Tip X, Needed To, Me Three, Super Y, My Demons and Calm Me Down. 

The colors I did use did stay on for most of the day and didn't crease. I know there is a big price difference between these two palettes and for those on a budget Colour Chaos is fine, but I just don't see it as being just as good as the Electric palette and no way is it a dupe. I really recommend saving and spending a bit more on the Electric palette as you are getting a far superior product.

Pink Obsessed, Wkd, Needed To and Me Think

I Said Go and Deliver Me


Toxic Apple Tini and Tom Tom

Wkd, Overbored and Gleam

Tuesday 13 January 2015

MAC Marge's Extra Ingredients Eyeshadow Quad

Last year MAC released a very limited edition Simpsons collection. I say very limited edition, as this collection was hard to get hold of in the MAC store in Cardiff and on the website. I remember being told that the store only had two of each item and wouldn't be sent any more. By the afternoon there was hardly anything left, which meant having to rely on E Bay and buy the items at double the price.

Last week I had my makeup done in the MAC store in Cardiff and was told that MAC had sent them a few items from the Simpsons collection. The staff had no idea why MAC had done that, so I decided to take advantage of my bit of luck. The only item they had that I wanted was one of the eyeshadow quads. The palette is called Marge's Extra Ingredients. This was £33.00, almost £20.00 cheaper than sellers are now putting them on E Bay for.

The packaging is a slimline quad with Marge on the front. On the eyeshadows is a design of Marge stamped on them. The good thing about this palette is the design doesn't fade as you use the colors. Some products have different designs stamped into them and they disappear very quickly.

The colors are all named as go as follows:
  • Harpooned Heart (Light baby pink)
  • Sexy PB & J (Mid tone bright violet)
  • Beehive Blue (Mid tone bright blue)
  • Vivacious Vacuum Cleaner Bag (Deep navy)





Harpooned Heart, Sexy PB & J, Beehive Blue, Vivacious Vacuum Cleaner Bag


Harpooned Heart, Sexy PB & J, Beehive Blue, Vivacious Vacuum Cleaner Bag

I decided to get quite creative with this palette and wear all 4 colors together. I used Harpooned Heart as a base color all over my eyes and then blended Sexy PB & J into the outer corners. I then added a bit of Beehive Blue above the socket and under the brows. Vivacious Vacuum Cleaner Bag made a really good eyeliner. To make my eye makeup even more like Marge I added a bit of Illamasqua Hype eyeshadow into the corners and under the brows.

All of the colors built up really well and had plenty of pigment in them. They had a really nice texture to them and stayed on all day without any creasing or fading. I loved all the different looks you can create with this palette. I also tried a new way of applying my eyeshadow. I added tape to the sides of my eyes to help me create a sharp clean effect with my eyeshadow. I thought this was a much better way of applying eyeshadow rather than trying to do it freehand like before.





As I did a Marge themed makeup, I decided to give myself blue lips. I used Lime Crime's - No She Didn't. I even managed to match my clothes up too. To go with my makeup I wore my Marge t shirt and blue skinny jeans.


Sunday 11 January 2015

Cosmetics Company Store Mini Haul

Yesterday me and my friend went shopping in Clarks Village in Somerset. Clarks Village is one of those outlet shopping places that is full of well known brands that sell their products a lot cheaper than you would normally pay. When we were walking around I noticed that they had a Cosmetics Company Store, which got me very very excited.

There was a good reason for my excitement. The Cosmetics Company Store is an Estee Lauder brands outlet that sells makeup, skincare and fragrance from brands such as MAC, Bobbi Brown and Smashbox. I've only been to these stores in America and have always picked up a bargain. Over here, there was one in Bicester Village that I knew of, but it is quite a trek away. Clarks Village is a lot nearer to where I live and it means good quality discounted makeup is even nearer to home.

I had a really good browse and found some items that I liked. In the MAC section was quite a few items from limited edition collections such as Sharon and Kelly Osbourne. 




MAC Three Ring Yellow Eyeshadow £8.75 RRP £13.00


MAC Bloomin Mad Eyeshadow £9.25 RRP £13.00


MAC Exotic Ember Mineralize Blush £14.00 RRP £21.00


Bobbi Brown Pale Pink Blusher £13.50 RRP £19.00


Altogether it all came to £45.50. I definitely got some good savings on the products and was glad to find discounted makeup not too far away from Cardiff. 

Saturday 3 January 2015

Marks And Spencer Paddington Bear Suitcase Gift Set

For Christmas, Marks And Spencer released a range of Paddington Bear themed gift sets. I'm guessing they brought them out in time for the release of Paddington's movie (which I recommend, as it was great fun to watch). All of the sets featured Paddington themed bath products.

The one I got was the Suitcase Gift Set. This is a set of two bath fizzers, bubble bath, shower gel and an orange marmalade sponge. How cool. All the products are orange scented, just like marmalade.

It also comes in an actual suitcase. It's not card but a sort of plastic material. It's quite a cool case and can be used to store all different things. I'm using it to store my lipsticks and nail polish in.




Bath Fizzers


Bubble Bath


Shower Gel



All of the products are really nice to use. I really like the orange scent too. It's not overpowering or too citrussy, but more like a sweet orange scent. Even the sponge has the same scent to it which I find quite cool. Overall this is a great gift and one I really like using.

ELF Large Makeup Holder

Having somewhere good to store your makeup brushes is very important, especially if you have a lot of  them and use them quite often. I have loads of brushes and until recently, kept them all in a coffee cup near where I keep my makeup. This was great when I didn't have many brushes, but lately I needed something a lot better and more organized to store all of my brushes. I found that ELF offer two different makeup holders, a regular one and a large sized one.

The regular sized one is just a small sized square holder to put all your brushes and whatever else you may need to store. I guess other stuff can be put in there like lipsticks and nail polish. I decided on the large, as this looked just what I was after.

The large is priced at £14.95 and is a long black makeup holder that stands nicely on the furniture. The large comes with three separate compartments and is made of hard plastic and is black in color.








The holder gives me plenty of room to put all of my brushes in. I like to separate the brushes over the three compartments. I keep my lip, face and eye brushes all separate, which makes it a lot easier to organize and to find brushes. When I had them in the cup it wasn't that easy trying to find a particular brush.

The holder is quite sturdy too and doesn't feel like its made out of cheap materials. I don't like ELF's brushes and find the makeup can be hit and miss, but when it comes to things like this ELF is quite good. Their brush shampoo is great to use at the end of the week to properly clean brushes.