Brand Focus – Makeup Revolution

I feel like I’ve been talking about Makeup Revolution a lot the last few months but I love the brand and their products so I can’t help but talk about them (a lot!).

Instead of doing a few posts on individual products this post will be a brand focus post. If this works out well I’ll be doing a few posts on different brands such as MAC, Smashbox and NYC.

I have foundation, concealer, highlighter, blusher, eyeliner, mascara and lipstick. I have an eye shadow palette from them but at the time of taking pictures I couldn’t find it but their shadows are really good and I have a previous post done which you can read about them here.

I’m going to start with I didn’t love and leave the best till last.

Firstly we have the foundation and concealer. I bought the foundation as it has a matte finish and with having oily skin this is usually the type of foundation I go for and I bought the concealer as it was a brightening concealer so I use it to highlight my cheeks, nose and forehead. I’m going to be blunt and just say that I didn’t love them, I don’t know if it was just my skin that it didn’t suit or if it was the actual products but they were just not for me. The foundation looked thick when I put it on the back of my hand but as soon as I put it on my skin it went very sheer and dried so quickly that you didn’t have much time to really buff it into the skin and make it look natural. I found that using a damp blender sponge that it helped but it still didn’t look great. It also didn’t last too long being matte although that could just be because of my skin type. When I put the concealer on my face it was a very liquid substance and when blended into my skin it moved the foundation on my face and when I had just perfected the foundation and made it look decent it the concealer just ruined everything.

I suppose I shouldn’t expect much seeing as the foundation and concealer where £2.00 each but I did have a little hope they would have worked out.

The Vivid baked highlight is £3.00 and I bought mine in peach. The only other highlight that I have similar to this is the MAC Mineralise Skin Finish in Soft and Gentle so I’ll compare it to that one. The colours are very similar and it gives a lovely highlight but you do need to put what seems like a lot on just so it’s noticeable.

I have a few of their lipsticks but this is the latest one that I have. I love my vampy colours and this is from their Vamp Collection in the colour 100% Vamp. It’s a perfect colour for Halloween, it’s a dark black wine colour which are my absolute favourites and a bargain at £1.00 and if you don’t like the colour they have a huge range of different ones all for £1.00 so you should find something you like.

The Amazing Eyeliner in Ultra Black is awesome. It’s a super black liquid liner that is so long wearing it could put the They’re Real Liner to shame.  The only problem I have with it is the pointy brush, it’s very stiff and I think with a normal liner brush it would go on much better. This one is another bargain at £1.50.

Everyone needs this blusher; it is so pigmented and such great quality for a blush that costs £1.00. I have mine in Sugar; it’s a warm matte peach and brightens up your cheeks giving such a fresh look. A little goes a long way with this as a lot of pigment comes off on your brush so start off small and you can build it up to your desired colour. Absolutely love this blush and will most definitely be buying more.

Finally my favourite from the bunch is this Amazing Lengths mascara. Only £1.50, this plastic wand will lift and separate your lashes to give wide eyed natural look. It’s also a long wearing formula that lasts from morning till the time you’re taking off your makeup. My star buy and I really recommend it especially for more daytime friendly natural makeup looks.

The fact that the foundation and concealer where a disaster for me I still love Makeup Revolution they a fantastic inexpensive makeup company that keep their collections up to date and are always adding new lines so there’s always an excuse to buy more. You can find out more on their website and if you’re in Dublin, the Superdrug in the Omni Centre in Santry have a stand but keep an eye out as they are rolling out more soon.

I haven’t been paid or sent any of these items I just love their products hope that you’ll love them too.

Thanks for reading.

Love Sarah xoxo

March Favourites

Hey Guys, I’ve been sorely lacking in the posts recently, it’s been a hectic week or so and hopefully I’ll be able to put up one or two posts extra this week.

So these are my March favourites, some of these products I purchased in February but I got the full use out of them for the whole of March and looking back over them they are all super affordable, I don’t think I spent more than €10 on each of the products.

Starting off we have the Schwarzkopf Essence Ultime shampoo and conditioner created by Claudia Schiffer. They have a few different types of shampoos in this range; I got mine in Diamond Color which is for coloured and highlighted hair. Firstly it smells amazing, I can’t put my finger on it but its noting like I’ve had in other hair products so that’s bonus number one. The shampoo lathers so much, I also think that if it doesn’t lather then it’s not a proper shampoo, usually if I have one that doesn’t lather my hair always gets greasier quicker.
Now for my favourite part of this pair is the fact that it makes your hair super soft and it doesn’t knot at all. The knots just fall out even before you’ve put a comb through your hair.
I chose the shampoo and conditioner as over the years I’ve gone from blonde to brown to Cheryl Cole red to brown and back to blonde so my hair has been pretty damaged over the years and also with winter and being around heaters all the time my hair has dried out big time but the Essence Ultime shampoo and conditioner has brought life into my locks. I definitely recommend it if you have coloured hair.

This is my surprise favourite of the month which is the Rimmel BB cream matte foundation. I bought this in a 3 for 2 offer at Boots with a few other Rimmel products including their Stay Matte mouse foundation. I first tried the Stay Matte foundation and I really didn’t like it, you can see my review on that in one of my previous posts. But this foundation is really good, I’m not sure if the BB cream has any effect on the skin and it isn’t the most mattifying of foundations and they do have only 3 colours to choose from but apart from that I have fallen in love with it and have been using this foundation more than my MAC and the way my skin has been recently it’s looking a lot nicer on my skin than the MAC has been. After using it for the month and getting to know it, I found that applying it with my fingers rather than using my brushes makes the application much better. The light colour is a shade or too darker than my pale Irish skin but I’ve managed to make it work for me with a super amount of blending.
Now I have the oiliest skin in the world and hate to have even a little bit of shine and at the beginning of using the foundation I was touching my skin up with powder a lot but after buying a mattifying powder it has worked perfectly with the foundation. The foundation does last throughout the day and it doesn’t dry out the skin I suppose that’s part of the BB cream in it. It’s a great little foundation, although it isn’t properly matte but I’ve found a way for it to work for me. It’s super cheap and great for days when you don’t want to waste the good stuff.
Just to add on, it’s a sheer makeup and not too buildable and it’s not the best if you want to contour with powders but as long as you just wear it as a normal makeup with a simple bit of blush then your good to go!

I was out one night and had forgotten to powder my face so I asked a friend if she had any, she handed me an Essence loose powder and after hours of dancing my skin was perfect. I was on a mission I went to every Penny’s possible but they didn’t have it, but I kept seeing the same one only in a compact. I gave up and bought the compact. It works the exact same though, its translucent powder and really mattes the skin for hours.

My final makeup March favourite is the Scandaleyes Rockin’ Curves from Rimmel, I’ve done a blog post already on this one so you can read more of it on their. This was only launched a month or so ago but it has taken precedence over my other mascaras this month. What I love about this is the wand, it’s a curved wand which I had never seen before and in one swipe it gets every lash and the tip gets every little bottom lash. It doesn’t clump and it stays on all day without losing any height.

So this isn’t anything to do with makeup but I am in love with these two songs. All of me by John Legend and Magic by Coldplay, both of them are constantly on replay the last few weeks. I usually don’t love Coldplay but I love this one and listening to John Legend got me listening to his Love in the Future album. I hope he comes to Dublin this year!

Only a small bit of March Favourites but I haven’t been allowed to spend that much this month.
Thanks for reading
Love Sarah xoxo

Rimmel Stay Matte Foundation | Review

I recently purchased the Rimmel Stay Matte foundation, as part of the 3 for 2 offer currently running in Boots. I had seen a few online reviews and wanted to test it out. I love to use matte makeup as I hate to have any sort of shine on my face. Now when it comes to foundation I am a MAC junkie through and through for the last few years and before that I was using YSL, so it’s been a good few years since I’ve used a drugstore makeup.

I bought it in the colour Ivory; I only tested it on my hand so I hoped it would suit my skin tone. When I first used it I had prepped my skin with just my normal moisturizer and MAC primer. The foundation is a mouse and as you can see gave a good coverage and a matte finish, I did the rest of my makeup as normal and powered my face with my Stay Matte powder which I usually use everyday normally. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot as it does only cost 7.95 but it did last well throughout the day. My only major hang-up was that it didn’t match the colour of the rest of my skin but only slightly.

                

               

On my second time of using the foundation I called my friend over to test it out with me, as I have combination skin and she has normal skin I wanted to get a different opinion for you guys. That day my skin seemed to be oilier than usual and I didn’t use any primer so the result was a bit insane. Even though I was oilier the foundation seemed to stick to my skin in patches making it look very dry. On my friends skin it had a similar effect although when she powdered her face later she said it looked fine. I gave up a few hours later and had to take it off, I looked just too crazy!

I’ve used it the odd time since but I don’t think I’ll be buying it again, but I will use it when I don’t want to use my usual makeup. It won’t come as a shock to a lot of people but I’m extremely vain and hardly ever leave the house without any foundation so I would use this to go down to the shops or if I’m going to the gym (yeah i’m one of those girls).

Pros – covers my rosy red cheeks really well

-Under 10 euro

Cons – didn’t always suit my skin

– can stick to dry patches on normal and oily skin

– a bit too sheer and not very build-able

– didn’t match my skin

Love Sarah xoxo

Pennys/Primark P.S Love Beauty – Part 1

When it comes to affordability Pennys/Primark is the Queen of it. Just this month Penny’s have launched a new makeup range P.S Love Beauty and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. I picked up a few things and tested them out this is only part 1 of my P.S Love Beauty blog post as there is so much to show I had to divide it up. 

 

Starting off we have this little eye shadow palette at €3.50, it’s a great deal for 10 little shadows. The outside packaging is very pretty but when you take it out of the box its pretty plain, but it’s whats on the inside that counts isn’t it. 

When I saw it first I thought the colours where very similar to the original Urban Decay Naked palette, especially the dark blue at the beginning of the palette. It comes with a little eyeshadow wand which is handy but the tip broke after a few minutes of using it and I could’nt get it back into the stick, I probably wouldn’t have used it anyway.

 

As you can see from the swatches on my arm they don’t come up to well but they are build-able so just keep at it and they will come up, i’d also recommend using an eyelid primer or a good long wear concealer just to keep everything in place and make the colour stick and last a bit longer. 

I also got some shadow sticks (€1.50 each), I could only get my hands on the Purple and Cocoa (I think that’s what its called I don’t have it in front of me), they also have a gold one but they had none available in the Penny’s that I was in. I havnt done a look with them yet but I was impressed by the look of them. The purple is really metallic and the Cocoa is less metallic but has a bit of sparkle to it, they looked great when I swatched them and they seem to stay on for a long time without budging!

 

 

I’m saving the best till last with this one, they call it a blusher but it is a gorgeous bronze highlighter (€2) that can double as an eyeshadow. I just cant explain how much I love this product, you all need to go out and get it. If you use a light amount of product on the tops of your cheekbones it will give you a lovely glowing highlight and using your prefered eyeshadow brush it will be great on your lids and seeing as bronzed golden eye looks are all they rage for spring/summer i’d recommend popping down to your local Pennys/Primark and getting your hands on this beauty!!

 

 

So this is just some of the products that caught my eye from the new P.S Love Beauty collection, the only thing that I don’t love is that there are no names on the colours except for the eyeshadow sticks but other than that I can’t really fault it, the range goes from €1.50 and the most I paid for one item was €3.50. You can find out more information at http://www.primark.com/whats-new/article/358,ps-love-beauty-range-new-at-primark.

 

Have a good weekend guys, 

Love Sarah xoxo