Accessorize merged blush review

Firstly I'd like to apologise for not posting for a few days, but I haven't been well (caught a lovely virus) and have been busy with friends and family. Also, it is very unlike me, but I haven't been buying a lot of make up lately, so have run out of inspiration on what to write about. But then I remembered these blushes I bought from Accessorize a while ago (you can check out my initial post here) and actually used them a few times the other week, so I thought I'd tell you all about them.

These are baked domed blushes, not dissimilar to Mac mineralize blushes in appearance, some with more than one colours merged in them, some with just one colour. I believe there are 4 shades in the range, but I only got 3, the remaining shade was too dark and bronze for my liking. You can check out the whole range on the Accessorize website. The shades I got are Pretty Pink, Starlet and Diva. 

I have seen Pretty Pink on a few blogs, it's been compared to Mac's Moon River mineralize blush (from Grand Duos). It is an incredibly sheer powder, gives nice pink highlights to the skin, but as a blush it's not much use. I'm fairly light skinned (Light Medium Mac MSFN shade in winter) and it hardly shows up on me. It's also very frosty (not shimmery though).

Starlet is a bit brighter, darker pink, but it still takes a few goes to show up on me properly. It gives a nice pink flush, but it's cooler than Pretty Pink. Still on the light side though and quite frosty.

Diva is my favourite, even though it's the least pretty to look at (I love the marbelised effect of Pretty Pink), it only has one colour in it, but it delivers the most colour onto my cheeks. Despite looking scary in the pan, it's nowhere near as dark, as you can see in the swatches below. All of these blushes are a lot less pigmented than Mac blushes, which isn't too bad with the darker shades as you can always layer them on and it's easier to avoid looking like a clown if you're a bit heavy handed, but the light shades (especially Pretty Pink) only deliver frost and not much colour even after layering. 

These blushes cost £5 each and you get 8 gramms per blush. Would I recommend them? Diva, yes, maybe even Starlet if you're light and cool toned (can pull of cool pink blushes), but not Pretty Pink unless you want a highlighter and not a blush.

See more photots and swatches after the jump!

Accessorize Pink Spice Nail Polish - a possible dupe for Mac's Bad Fairy?

I told you about my Accessorize haul a few weeks ago, but never got around to showing you the products in detail (I haven't actually used anything other than the blushes, which I will try to review in the coming week). Today I want to show you Pink Spice nail polish which is a beautiful pinky-red duochrome colour. I haven't done side by side comparison, but I think it is a very good dupe for Mac Bad Fairy nail polish (from Venomous Villains), maybe a bit less red and more pink, but pretty close. For comparison I reviewed Bad Fairy over here, but please bear in mind that those pictures were taken on a sunny autumn day whereas these ones were taken on a gloomy winter day. On my nails there really doesn't seem to be a big difference.

With flash

Pricewise, Accessorize nail polishes cost £4 which is half the price of Mac polishes. Both Mac and Accessorize polishes are 10 ml. Qualitywise, Bad Fairy took 3 coats to look even, Pink Spice took 2 coats. Pink Spice applied much more evenly and was less runny than Bad Fairy. Nail polishes chips on me almost instantly, so that's pretty equal really. Finally, since Bad Fairy is now discontinued, if you want the shade, Pink Spice is your best bet as it's available from Superdrug and the Accessorize website. I would recommend checking out the line, there are some real gems in there (including dupes for the entire Orly Cosmic FX collection).

See more pictures and swatches below!

Mac Bad Fairy nail polish review

As promised yesterday here's a quick review of Mac's Bad Fairy nail polish (part of the new Venomous Villains collection - out tomorrow!). 

 Mac Bad Fairy nail polish

My first impression is that it's very pretty. I personally don't like matte and creamy nail polishes, I like myself some shimmer. Bad Fairy certainly has that. As well as its orange and pinky red two tone, there is also some multicolour shimmer that makes is even prettier on my nails than in the bottle. 

The formula isn't the best I've ever tried, it's quite runny and it took 3 coats to get it even. First coat looked terrible, very thin and patchy, it was only after the second one that it began to look as it should. As I use Seche Vite quick drying top coat, I can't comment on how fast drying it is (for me it was a minute), but I've heard from someone that it took them almost an hour for the 3 coats to dry properly. It is very pretty though, so if you don't mind the 3 coats and drying time, it is still worth £8. 

I saw on Temptalia that Zoya's Gloria nail polish (from the new Fire & Ice collection) is a pretty similar to Bad Fairy, but it doesn't have the duochrome the new Mac polishes (and the Orly Cosmic FX ones) have, but might be worth checking out should you miss out on Bad Fairy.

See some swatches of Bad Fairy after the jump!