When I was in Selfridges, I stopped by the Suqqu counter and noticed this really colorful eyeshadow palette. I love colors that stand out and this one had colors in it that I love to wear.
This one was a 4 color palette called Iwaiakari. In this palette is the most amazing bright pink along with orange, nude and a deep plum. The packaging has a really nice luxe feel to it too.
The colors can be worn in many different ways, on their own or blended together. I liked to wear them together to create a unique look. To prevent creasing and to make sure the colors stayed on all day I used my Urban Decay Shadow Primer first and then applied the nude color as a base. I put the orange all over the eyelid and up into the crease. The pink then got blended into the inner corners along with the deep plum in the outer corner.
All colors had a really nice soft texture to them and were very pigmented. I found it was really easy to blend them together too. By using my eyeshadow primer first I got the color to stay on all day without creasing.
Primark's makeup range - P.S. is infamous for trying to copy other makeup brands. One of the latest brands it has tried to copy is Too Faced, by bringing out their own range of Chocolate themed makeup. Too Faced's Chocolate Bar palettes are very well known and have the amazing scent of chocolate as they contain actual cocoa powder. Primark have even gone as far as to add a supposedly chocolate scent to their range of products.
The chocolate range at Primark actually comes in two parts - regular chocolate and white chocolate. The white chocolate range had lip and eye products, with the regular chocolate ones also having face products too. I didn't fancy anything from the white chocolate range so decided to get some products from the regular chocolate one to try out. The good thing about the P.S. range of makeup is, it very inexpensive, so if it does end up to be rubbish, it hasn't cost a lot of money.
I decided to grab an eyeshadow palette and a cheek palette too.
The packaging does have a cool cute look to it and unlike Too Faced it actually comes in hard packaging, although you can't go expecting high quality packaging for a cheap price. Although for the cost the packaging really isn't that bad.
Cheek Palette
This palette has 4 different colors with a mix of what looks like blusher, bronzer and highlighter. I really didn't like the look of the bronzer as I could tell it would make my face look orange. The blushers really weren't that bad, a bit on the dry side and the pigment could have been better. I did think the highlighter was good and although not on the same level as Too Faced, for the price of this palette it really wasn't a bad highlighter. The colors did take some building up as the pigment wasn't amazing but it was workable.
Contour And Eyeshadow Palette
Although described as a contour and eyeshadow palette, I'm not quite sure if the brand means eye contour or face contour. There are some brown colors in the palette which I'm guessing could be used as a face contour. As I'm not a fan of contouring I didn't bother and just used the eyeshadows. I do like darker colors that stand out, so I really did like the color choice in this palette. They were a bit on the dry side and did take some building up. I found blending wasn't too difficult either and I was able to create a look I liked with this palette. To stop creasing, I used my Urban Decay Shadow Primer before applying these colors.
It's obvious that this is meant to be a copy of Too Faced's Chocolate Bar palettes. Quality wise there is no comparison and I found the chocolate scent in the P.S. palettes did smell really fake, whilst the Too Faced ones have an amazing scent that makes you feel like eating it as there is actual cocoa powder in the palettes.
Yes, the Too Faced ones are more expensive but I really would advise getting there ones if you can. If you are on a tight budget and really don't want to spend on Too Faced then the P.S. chocolate range isn't that bad.
Having the right tools when doing makeup is very important, which why investing in high quality brushes is a must. At IMATS there were many stands selling brushes, some I haven't heard of before and others I have tried too. One brand I had tried before was Nanshy. At a previous event I had tried one of their brushes and thought it was amazing. I was really glad to see Nanshy were back this year as I wanted to get more of their brushes.
They sold their brushes as singles or as part of a set. As the brushes were fantastic I decided to get myself a set of face brushes. The set features 5 brushes including buffed base, blush and bronze, conceal perfecter, flawless foundation and angled airbrush.
These are very good quality and feel very well made. The brushes are very soft and do give my makeup a flawless finish to it. I just hate it when hairs come off brushes and with these ones the hairs stay on the brush and off your face, just as they should do. Another bonus is that they are cruelty free, vegan too and are approved by PETA. If only more brands would be cruelty free.
I highly recommend these brushes to anyone as they are very easy to use and are high quality. I also got myself a brush holder to go with these which makes them easy to carry around.
At IMATS, one of the brands I shopped at was Inglot. I've used a few products from this brand before and liked what I tried so I decided to grab some more stuff. The lipsticks are great so I decided to try the eyeshadow, especially as they have so many to choose from.
At Inglot, eyeshadows are sold in refill format allowing you to put them into a palette. They sell palettes for one color or as many as 12. I love my purples, so decided to create my own 4 color palette with two purple shades, black and a shimmery white.
All colors are very pigmented and blend nicely too. They have this awesome texture to them, to allow for building up color and easy blending. I like to use the shimmery white as a base and highlighter. I then apply the purple colors all over the lid and blend the black into the outer corner.
The quality of the eyeshadows was great considering they were only £4.00 each. I think the whole idea of creating your own palette is great and I wish more brands would offer their colors in refills. I want to get more colors and create another fantastic palette.
A while ago Urban Decay brought out a Kristen Leanne makeup collection featuring products such as eyeshadow and lipsticks. A few months ago I got myself the eyeshadow palette and loved it, the colors were so bright and right up my street. The lipsticks did unfortunately sell out and I was unable to get them.
The other week I was IMATS and I stopped by at Urban Decay. I was in luck that day, as they had a few items from the collection for sale, including those lipsticks that I had wanted. I took no time at all in getting them and I'm glad I did as the colors are amazing. The two I got were Cloud9 (Bright Purple, Comfort Matte) and Spellbound (Dark Purple, Mega Matte). They also came in this awesome purple pink limited edition packaging too.
I'm not too sure about the differences in finishes with the lipsticks. Both are matte but are different sorts of matte - comfort and mega. Even though they are both mattes they don't feel at all dry and stay on my lips feeling comfortable all day. I found the pigment in them was amazing and they glided nicely on my lips too.
I just loved the look of them on my lips too as they looked amazing. The color really stood out. I liked Cloud9 best out of the two.
 |
| Spellbound |
 |
| Cloud9 |
NARS have recently teamed up with fashion designer Erdem to create a limited edition makeup collection featuring products such as lipsticks, blushers, eyeshadow and more. I noticed this collection a while back when I was shopping and it really caught my eye, especially with the grey blue limited edition packaging.
Every item in the collection looks amazing and items that stood out to me the most were the blushers and highlighting pencil, so I grabbed those. At first I did like the lipsticks but they were really sheer so I gave them a miss.
Blushers
I got the two in the colors Loves Me and Loves Me Not. Loves Me is a strawberry pink with golden shimmer, while Loves Me Not is a soft lavender pink. Both were very pigmented and I found the best way to use them was to gently tap my brush into the color to avoid getting too much color at once. It's always easier to build the color up rather than try and tone it down. The texture of the two was really nice and soft, blending was very easy. Once on they didn't fade or need reapplying.
 |
| Loves Me |
 |
| Loves Me Not |
Highlighting Pencil
I was told by the staff at NARS that this product is quite unique to NARS as they haven't brought out a product like it before. I'm really into my highlighting and when I swatched it I knew I had to get it as it looked amazing. It's basically a crayon for your face and to use you just draw it on areas of the face where you want it to stand out. It's got a nice creamy texture to it, with plenty of pigment. I even applied it on top of powder and it didn't go patchy either.
I'm loving the products I have tried from this collection and think that they are very good. I'd like to try one of the eyeshadow palettes too.
