MUA Smokin Palette

I've become a fan of the MUA palettes. Not all of them, but a fair few. Great pigment, last well over primers/paint pots and cheap. So I was rather excited to see a palette with mattes and heavy, deep shimmers - it even has an eyeliner pencil - I bought it in Superdrug and I just love it. Ten colours, 4 mattes and 6 heavy shimmers

Impressed, I am...

The opened palette. The pencil is stuck to a tacky glue to stop it from moving around and getting damaged.

The top first 3 colours, swatched from left to right. Two mattes and one shimmer. The second colour blends almost perfectly with my skin on my hand.

The two heavy metallic shimmers underneath those three colours. Wonderful pigment, so pretty...

The top last 3 colours - again, as above there are two mattes and one shimmer. These mattes are more impressive than the first two.

The two metallic shimmers below those three in the palette...

And finally the pencil swatched with just one swipe. Thick, creamy, highly pigmented and is easily blended for the perfect, smokey finish.

So I decided to wear the blue and green with the black eyeliner and a little highlighter on the centre of the eyelid and in the inner corners to stop the look from being too dark. I went to work with this look. Scary, I know. But I work with men, and they wouldn't notice my makeup even if it slid off my face (like creepy sci-fi alien-gunge), crawled across the floor and slapped them in the face, so I felt judge-free all night :P

Do I like this palette? Yes, very much so. Very highly pigmented, and a fabulous price of just £6!
Would I repurchase? If I got through all that shimmer, broke my palette or gave it away then yes.
Would I recommend? To all those wanting a cheap palette for smokey, sultry looks that don't mind wearing heavy metallic shimmer, then yes. To those wanting a more flattering, matte smokey eye, you'd best stay away from this one (unless you use it sparingly on the outer 'V' and crease and blend really well with some good matte blending colours)

Naked 2 palette vs MUA Undress Me Too palette

 Please, sit down and get comfy. This is gonna be a hell of a (blog) ride...

So, I finally caved in and bought the Naked 2 palette for £36 from House of Fraser. . . And decided to compare it to my MUA Undress Me Too palette (that I bought many months ago), which many have said is the almost-identical, cheaper dupe for a tiny £4. . .

So here are the palettes next to each other. I am not really pulled in by the whole packaging thing to be honest,  I only care about the product itself, but you can tell here that the packaging of Naked 2 is sleeker and more expensive-looking (plus the double ended brush is pretty darn good).

And these are the palettes opened up so the shadows can be seen. . . Yes, I can hear you all saying "where are our swatches already?" Well, here they are. . .

These are the first five colours. The top row are from the Naked 2, the bottom row are from Undress Me Too

The last seven colours. Top row: Naked 2.  Bottom row: Undress Me Too.

The colours are so similar it's unreal. I thought I'd ask my long-suffering husband if he could tell high-end from low-end (he's actually pretty good at spotting the difference - don't ask me how) and he got it wrong for the first time.

Smackdown:
Naked 2's eyeshadows are more finely pigmented and are more 'natural looking' than Undress Me Too.
'Foxy' and 'Naked' both practically disappeared on my skin.
'Half Baked' is fractionally brighter than it's (very slightly) darker rival 'Devotion'.
'Bootycall' and 'Shy' were practically the same colour on me.
'Chopper' had a slightly more peach-toned golden finish than 'Fiery, which had a more bronze finish.
'Tease' was more pigmented than 'Lavish'.
'Snakebite' and 'Dreamy' had almost the same finish.
'Suspect' and 'Tranquil' also looked very similar on me.
'Pistol' had a finer finish than 'Exposed', which had a heavier shimmer finish.
'Verve' and 'YDK' were brighter and had a finer finish than 'Reveal' and 'Wink'
'Busted' was lighter and had fine glitter particles against it's darker rival 'Obsessed'
'Blackout' and 'Corrupt' were practically the same colour. The only difference is that 'Corrupt' was quite gritty in texture against its finer, creamier rival.

Product Quantity:
Naked 2; 12 eyeshadows, plus a double ended brush and a mini naked lip gloss (not shown in blog). 15.6g of product (1.3g per eyeshadow) for £36 a palette.
MUA Undress Me Too; 12 eyeshadows, a double ended sponge applicator (not shown in blog). 9.6g of product (0.8g per eyeshadow) for £4 a palette

Naked 2 has 6g more product than UMT in one palette, but for a mere £8 for two MUA palettes, you would then have 3.6g more product than Naked 2 for a shocking £28 less
 

My Thoughts. I hate to think that I wasted £36, I really do, but there's this nagging suspicion that I have lost quite a lot of money for a product I basically already had. The thing is, I LOVE Urban Decay. They are quite simply amazing, and their palettes are nothing short of fabulous (well, most of them, no one's perfect). The pigment is finer and the quality of the shadows is definitely superior, but to be honest, there's not much difference between them when it comes right down to it.
Would I buy it again? I'm hoping not. I have so many palettes of eyeshadows it's stupid - that and the fact that I actually have two UMT palettes already (one used and one brand new), so I suppose there's no real need. Plus I hear that Naked 3 Palette will be out in England at the end of December this year and I really want it. . .
Would I recommend? For those who prefer a higher standard of quality when it comes to their eyeshadow wants/needs, Urban Decay Naked 2 is the way to go. For those on a budget and are happy to buy a dupe that has more shimmer and really basic packaging then I think you'll be happy with MUA's Undress Me Too.

MAC Lipsticks: Pure Zen, Half 'n' Half and Modesty

Like playing up your eyes but don't want to leave your lips feeling unloved and bare? Me neither. As you may or may not know, I've discovered my love for MAC products. I recently bought three lipsticks in Pure Zen, Modesty and Half 'n' Half. These are my current favourite nude colours to use on my lips as they're quite moisturising and creamy.

This is Pure Zen, a Cremesheen, pale, peachy toned pink.

And this is it swatched on my lower lip, leaving my top lip bare for comparison. Yup, my lips have practically no pigment. It blows. But, what can I do, eh?

This is Half 'n' Half, an Amplified Creme lipstick. It says on the website that it's a 'creamy pink'. It looks more along the lines of creamy brown with a pinkish undertone to me. . .

So here again, swatched on my bottom lip with my top lip bare for comparison. This doesn't look creamy pink to me. But it shows up as a lovely nude.

And here we have Modesty, a cremesheen, which is a muted pink lipstick with mild brown undertones.

As par to the above pictures, swatched on my bottom lip with my top lip bare for comparison.

Half 'n' Half and Modesty are my favourite of these three but Pure Zen is great for really dark, smokey eye looks as it's so pale. I might wear a lip stain underneath before I wear Pure Zen , to see if I can change the look a little.

Do I like these?  Yes, I like these very much. Great texture, creamy, good colour payoff and very wearable for every day and every night wear
Are these worth the money?  Good question. at £15 a pop, they're quite expensive, and I'm sure that there are probably some cheaper dupes on the market. If I found lipsticks of a similar consistency, colour and moisturising properties, I'd probably say no, but for me, at the moment, I'd say they are worth the money.
Would I buy these again?  Again, if I found dupes for the above reasons, then no. If I don't find/come across any then yes.

MAC Rubenesque Paint Pot

I've really been into buying MAC recently. I've forgone visiting Boots even, just so I can spend my extra moolah on MAC. Can you blame me? So I visited a MAC store in House of Fraser, and bought two eyeshadows, a lipstick, a lipglass and of course, Rubenesque. This baby will put you guys/gals back £15 in the UK.

As you can tell, I managed to rub off the 'letter-two-numbers' that states its year/month of production, but this is from a genuine MAC store and is a genuine MAC product.

This is blended onto my hand in natural sunlight (I know, I was up before the light started to fade, shocking, huh?)

I sat away from the window to take the above picture. As you can tell, it shines really prettily.

I put Rubenesque all over my eye (including lower lash line), did thick winged liner in MAC's Fluidline in 'Past Twilight' and finished off with two layers of MAC's In Extreme Dimension Lash. I didn't use any primer with this look as I find that MAC's paint pots can withstand my oily eyelid crease very well.

The paint pot colour is a very peach-toned-golden shimmer, the finish reminds me of Maybelline's Color Tattoo in Rose Gold; exactly the same shimmery finish but completely different colours.The texture is much smoother and creamier than Color Tattoo's, and blends very well too. Can be used on its own or with shadows blended over the top for extra oomph.

Would I buy it again?  Yes, without a doubt.
Is it worth the money?  Again, yes, most definitely worth every penny.
Would I recommend this?  Only if you like or use shimmery shadows and don't mind a £15 price tag.

My October Favourites SWATCHES

Hello Lovelies, today I'm bringing you my favourite beauty items that I've been loving all through October. . . The first on my list are drugstore chubby pencils for the lips; moisturising colour for the months as they get chillier.

Left to Right: Rimmel Lasting Finish Colour Rush in 500 The Redder The Better, Bourois Color Boost Glossy Finish Lipstick in 05 Red Island and Bourjois Color Boost Glossy Finish Lipstick in 06 Plum Russian.

The same colours swatched on my hand in the same order.

MAC's Showstopper Quad. I bought it from www.maccosmetics.co.uk and it is fabulous for everyday neutral eyes.
Top Row, Left to Right is 'Oh My Darling' and 'Jest'
Bottom Row, Left to Right is 'Mineralism' and 'Showstopper'

The lovely MAC eyeshadows swatched on the underside of my wrist. Left to Right: Oh My Darling, Jest, Mineralism and Showstopper.

These are the Rimmel Stay Blushed blushes. Left to Right; 004 Sunkissed Cherry and 001 Pop of Pink.

Blended in to the back of my hand in the same order. . . Hardly noticeable in artificial light, which was unavoidable I'm afraid. It was pouring down with rain, so I had to take these photo's in my front room lol.

Revlon Lip Butters, Left to Right; Peach Parfait and Créme Brulee.

Swatched on my hand in the same order.

MAC's infamous paint pot in Painterly. . .

Swatched thickly on the back of my hand with a finger. Here it's still wet. .  .

And here, dried down to a matte finish. This paint pot is so amazing, I cannot even begin to tell you how good it is!

An oldie but a goodie. Bourjois's highlighter in Light. This is so very highly pigmented, a little goes an extremely long way.

See what I mean? One swatch and the pigment is so incredible. Bourois are such a fantastic company and their makeup is superb (well, most of it anyway haha)

Bourjois 3D lipglosses, Left to Right; 29 Rose Charismatic and 03 Brun Rosé Academic.

Swatches on the back of my hand. Beautiful, moisturising glosses.

And lastly Bourjois Délice de Soleil Bronzing Powder in 14 for Olive/Tanned Skin

It does have a few golden sparkles in the pan but the colour left on your skin is matte with no sparkles; I'm assuming they run away the moment they realise that there's no sun to sparkle in. . . If you see my golden shimmer, please send it back to me, as glitter is a necessity haha!

Hope you liked looking at my October  beauty favourites + swatches.

Bourjois Intense Smoky Eyeshadow and Liner trio

Superdrug currently has a 3 for 2 offer. . .  How could I not go in and purchase? I mean it's practically criminal not to, right? So I headed with great confidence to the Bourjois section, and picked up this trio, along with a couple of their lip crayons (red and plum that are oh-so-gorgeous).

The trio I bought is called Paon Élégant, and it looks like this:

Yeah, ok, not the best shot but it's 4am and I'm using my camcorder to take these photo's. So you open it up and inside it looks like this:

Sorry, I've already used it, but hey ho. . .
Once I was home, I decided to swatch it. . . And this is where my HUGE mistake was made. . .

NOT swatching this palette/trio BEFORE I bought it and took it home. The pigmentation is so poor - it definitely lacks in colour payoff and leaves me wanting. . .  More. . .
Bourois. . . How could you? You are the one drugstore makeup brand that normally gives us everything we desire and more; the quality, the sleek beautiful packaging, the chic makeup and bold, daring colours. . .  but seriously, what happened?
Intense? No way.
Seriously, they should have named this palette "Not So Intense Smoky" or "Sheer Smoky", it would have been more truthful.

I tried doing a smoky eye with this and had to layer colour over and over again trying to get an 'Intense Smoky' eye, but failed miserably - this goes for both the silver and the dark green colour. I ended up having to use a black eyeshadow to make it intense and smoky, which completely defeats the object that this product was designed to do. Its one saving grace has to be its eyeliner, which does not apply well with the brush provided, but isn't a bad colour, and it definitely makes a change from my normal black.

The only intense thing about this product is how overpriced it is for the quality, but because it was a 3 for 2 offer, technically, I didn't actually waste any money on it. Still, it's going right into my makeup drawer for makeup that either never or rarely gets used. *sigh*

Bourjois Color Edition 24h

So I was reading about a Barry M eyeshadow palette from Superdrug on a blog that I follow (http://youe3.blogspot.co.uk/), and I went running down to Superdrug to see if ours stocked it. Which it doesn't. Our store never stocks anything *sigh*. Seriously, I don't know why I bother. I think it's in the vain hope that the store will someday stock things like their own makeup brands like B. and Sleek, but they don't. . .  Yeah, go figure. . .

While I perused the store for anything else it had to offer, I found these instead. . .

Bourjois now do cream-to-powder eyeshadows? I was intrigued. These seem to be the new up-and-coming way to go when it comes to our eyes; long-wear and intense colour that normally claim to be crease proof too. MAC have their famous paint pots, Maybelline have their color tattoos, Benefit have creaseless cream eyeshadows, Superdrug's brand B. have cream eyeshadows and now Bourjois have jumped on the bandwagon too.

I believe there are 6 colours, but our Superdrug store only stocks 4 of them.

 This is a metallic pink (they're all metallic finishes)

This next one is a metallic platinum/silver

The next is a metallic beige-gold

And the last one is a metallic violet/plummy-red

My thoughts: These have a really smooth, lightweight, creamy formula that apply really well and are beautifully metallic and pigmented. The last shadow doesn't show up on camera very well; it's a really dark plum colour with a lot of red shimmer/glitter finish.

Would I recommend these? Yes, if you like metallic cream eyeshadows, and at £6.99, they're not too expensive.