Estee Lauder Pure Color Illuminating Powder Gelee Blush in Tease

The new Estee Lauder Pure Color Illuminating Powder Gelee Blush in Tease is so pretty. I love the design and the colour, so of course I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. It has taken me a while to use and review it, but I've finally managed.

Firstly, this is another one of the new gelee powder formula, so it's a powder, but feels and looks like a cream product. It is very metallic and gives a high sheen finish, so it's probably not for those who prefer their face products to be matte. It isn't glittery, but it's definitely rather shimmery.

I had a bit of trouble working out how to apply it best and it seems that the sponge applicator they provide with it is the best way to go about it. It doesn't pick up too much product and you can blend it out easily. When I tried using a regular blush brush, the result looked quite patchy. But with the applicator it looks nice and even yet not too heavy. I also found duo fibre brushes work well, but they give a much more subtle effect. With the sponge you need to be a bit careful not to overdo it, but if you do thin layers rather than try to pile it on, you'll be fine. The blush didn't last very long on me, it's practically disappeared after 5-6 hours of wear.

It's a lovely product, but even on my pale skin it's more of a highlighter than a blush. I haven't tried it on top of a powder blush, but I think it would work really nicely.

The blush costs £30 and you get 6 g which is actually more than previous illuminating powder gelees. It's still not a massive amount, but probably way more than you need. This is a limited edition product, so grab it while you can if you like what you see!

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains in Crush, Darling and Rendezvous

After trying out and loving Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Lovesick I decided to pick up another 3 shades and see if I like those as well. I got Crush, Darling and Rendezvous. Crush is a medium dark berry shade, Darling is a scarily light looking lavender that turns pink on me and Rendezvous is an orangey-coral (more orange than coral actually).

I'm not going to do an in-depth review on these because I have already done it for Lovesick, please check out my review if you want to read all the details. Out of the 3 shades I like Darling the most, although I was sure it was going to look terrible on me, it's actually a very pretty shade. It looks lavender when first applied, but turns more and more pink as time goes on (see the picture at the bottom of this post). Crush is also a really nice shade, it's not as scary and dark as it first seems, but it can be built up anyway, so if you like vampy, this is a good one to choose. Rendezvous is a bit too orange for my liking, I would've preferred it to be more coral, but I think it will look better on me in the summer when I actually have a bit of a tan.

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains cost £7.99 each and you get 2.7 g which doesn't sound too much, but these actually seem to last forever as they hardly show any sign of use so far.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Chantecaille The Evening Duo Review and Swatches

As you know, I love Chantecaille palettes, especially the pretty ones. The duo I'm going to review today I wasn't sure about buying for ages. Normally Chantecaille palettes retail around £75 for 4 shadows, whereas this duo retailed for £70. Ouch! However, since it was reduced to half price in the SpaceNK sale, I finally decided to buy it. So was it worth it?

The palette comes in a box about twice its size which causes a bit of a surpise when you pull the compact out of the box. The compact itself is shiny pewter decorated with 7 large(ish) and 7 small Swarovski crystals. Inside you find the two eyeshadows (Charmeuse and Carbon), as well as an eyeshadow and an eyeliner brush, and a full size mirror in the lid. The eyeshadows appear quite large (maybe because the palette itself is so small?), and in fact they are 2 g and 1.5 g each respectively.

Charmeuse is a light metallic pinky-nude colour with tiny sparkles and Carbon is a matte jet black. They are both smooth, they glide on effortlessly, blend really well and are well pigmented. You can use Charmeuse as an all over colour and Carbon as a liner, or crease colour which is what I did (plus used Freesia in the middle of the lid to blend the colours together and Perle on the browbone to highlight). You can see the pictures of the look at the bottom of this post. The eyeshadows lasted on me all day on top of a primer and looked really lovely.

All in all, this is a lovely palette, but not for £70. I know it's Chantecaille, but still, £70 for 3.5 g of eyeshadow is a bit pushing it. I'm happy I got it for £35 though. Sadly I don't think it's available anymore, but you might find it on eBay if you're lucky. It is still available on the Chantecaille website (US) at full price.

See more pictures including swatches and a look I did with this after the jump!

NOTD: Nails Inc Garrick Street

Sadly, the pictures don't do this gorgeous polish justice, it was so much prettier in real life. Absolutely stunning duochrome from pink to purple to blue and a bit of teal at certain angles.

Taken without flash in natural daylight

I used 3 coats to achieve opacity, but it was good on its own, rather than needing to be layered over black polish like many duochromes do. The formula was nice and easy to use. It did start chipping on me fairly quickly though, so that's not great, but it was pretty while it lasted.

I bought this as part of a set from TK Maxx, but Nails Inc polishes normally retail for £11. You get 10 ml for your money which makes them pretty expensive, but I do like the sets in TK Maxx very much as they're great value (usually better than half price).

See more pictures after the jump!

Urban Decay 24/7 Double Ended Pencil Duo Set Review and Swatches

Urban Decay 24/7 eyepencils are one of my favourite eyeliners and I can safely say I have pretty much every shade available now. So when I saw that this set was available on the Urban Decay website I knew I really wanted it because it contains a shade, Sabbath, I didn't own. Luckily it became available in the UK as well, so I could finally get my hands on it.

The set contains two double ended eyepencils and a Grind House Double Barrel Sharpener. The shades included are Zero (black), Corrupt (dark metallic brown), Stash (antique gold) and Sabbath (matte navy-blue). This set contains the essential shades, Zero is great black eyeliner, Corrupt is my favourite brown eyeliner, Stash is lovely with golds and greens, and Sabbath is a gorgeous smooth dark navy colour. Corrupt and Sabbath aren't available individually, although Corrupt has been included in a couple of sets before. Together with the sharpener, this would make an excellent starter set for someone who doesn't have many eyeliners.

All of them are really pigmented, smooth, they go on easily and stay put for hours. I use Urban Decay 24/7 eyepencils almost every day and would wholeheartedly recommend them to everyone. 

The eyeliners are 0.5 g each (well, 1 g per double ended pencil), so you get 2 g and the sharpener for £19. This is nowhere near as good value as the other eyeliner sets as you get just over £30 worth of products, but it's not bad. The sharpener retails for £7 alone, although I can live without it quite happily, and there's still £23 worth of eyeliner in there.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Another No-Buy Update

I'm trying to think how long it's been since I started my no-buy, I think it's 4 months now.This time I can honestly say I've done well. Last month I decided I wasn't going to buy any nail polish for a month and I did it - well almost. I actually only gave in to temptation at the very end of the month when I ordered the new Color Club holographic nail polishes. They only arrived on the 1st February, so they don't count, right? Just kidding. I also picked up a Butter London nail polish and lipgloss set (Shambolic) in TK Maxx on the last day of the month, but for £9.99 it would've been rude not to, right?

Other than that I only bought 3 new Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains (still to be reviewed) because I like the first one I tried out, so I really wanted to get a few more.

I guess that's not too bad, is it? I'm actually planning on continuing with being very strict with my nail polish purchases, the only ones I really have my eye on are the new China Glaze Hologlam collection polishes, I just love holographic polishes and I can't possibly not buy those.

Now if only I could say no to eyeshadows and pretty powders... But then what would I blog about they in day out?

Mac Year Of The Snake Eyeshadows - Aztec Brick and Once Upon A Time

At first I wasn't going to get anything from Mac's new Year Of The Snake collection, despite the products having snake prints on them, I don't really know why. In the end I decided to pick up the two eyeshadows I hadn't owned yet, Aztec Brick and Once Upon A Time. I have to admit, I mostly got them for the outer packaging, it is so pretty. But I definitely wanted to get something I didn't have yet. As pretty as Shell Pearl beauty powder is, I decided I didn't need another one. I also already owned the other two eyeshadows, and as I'm on a lipstick no-buy I decided not to go for any of the lipsticks.

Anyway, I got Aztec Brick and Once Upon A Time eyeshadows. These are larger size eyeshadows, they contain 3 g product and the pans are the size of the mineralize eyeshadow pans and the prolongwear ones. The eyeshadows have snake imprints on them, what looks like the middle part of a snake, no heads or anything. They're not that amazing to look at to be honest, but Aztec Brick in particular is a lovely shade. Both are Veluxe Pearl finish and have a nice texture. Once Upon A Time is almost the same colour as my skin, so it doesn't show up well, but it is pigmented and very smooth. Aztec Brick is a much louder colour and it also has a lovely texture. They both stayed on my lids for 8+ hours and didn't crease.

The eyeshadows come in the regular black Mac compacts and black cardboard box, but they also have a limited edition sleeve on top of the outer box with gorgeous colourful metallic snake prints.

Sadly as I type most of this collection is already sold out on the Mac UK website and it's a Mac online only collection, so if you haven't bought anything from it yet, then better get a move on because there isn't much left. Sorry. The eyeshadows cost £16.50 by the way.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!