Review: MUA Elysium Palette

I was in Superdrug, on a mission to buy cotton pads, when I stumbled across this little beauty on the MUA stand today:

An eyeshadow palette consisting of 10 eyeshadows and a double ended black eyeliner/pale pink highlighter pencil. This retails at just £6. Of course this made its way into my basket! 

Above is a picture of the back of the palette, with the names of the shadows. 

And a picture of the ingredients. As you can see, these shadows do contain parabens, so if you're tempted to buy these then please use a primer (paraben free if possible!) underneath to stop your body from absorbing them. 

I noticed that at least 6 of the colours bore a striking resemblance to 6 of the colours in the Naked 3 palette...

"Air" and "Cherub" look very similar to Naked 3's "Strange" and "Dust".

"Charm" is an amazing dupe for N3's "Limit".

"Refine" is also a great dupe for N3's "Nooner" (one of my fave matte crease/blending colours).

"Adore" is similar to N3's "Blackheart".

"Astral" is a very good dupe for N3's "Buzz".

The other four eyeshadows don't much resemble the Naked 3 palette, but I really love this palette as a cheap dupe. It has 5 metallic colours, four mattes and one black matte with red sparkle (Adore). 

Of course I had to try this palette out (sorry, swatches turned out crap on my phone so I deleted the pics), so I did this look for college today:

For this look I used Charm as a transition/blending colour, then Refine in the crease and lower lash line. I used Cherub on my eyelid, Adore in the outer third of my eyelid and on the outer third of my lower lash line, lined my upper lash line with the black eyeliner pencil and set it with some more Adore. I then used a highlighter around my inner eyes to bring light to this look, lined my waterline with black waterproof gel liner and curled my lashes and added plenty of mascara (around 3/4 coats) to pull the whole look together. 

My thoughts: I absolutely love this palette, it's a fantastic price, the colours are well pigmented (the metallic ones are super creamy and beautiful to wear), has some brilliant Naked 3 palette colour dupes and they apply and blend amazingly well. The only negative thing I can think of (other than the shadows containing parabens) is that the double ended pencil (the size it is now with the lids on both ends) fits perfectly in the palette, but once the pencil is sharpened, it'll be shorter and it won't be able to fit, so will fall out easier and perhaps even get lost. But! That's only a minor negative - I'm sure I can move the pencil to somewhere safer! I will definitely be using this palette a lot in the future and I recommend it to anyone on a budget or that doesn't want to fork out £37 for the Naked 3. 

Hugs x

Review: MeNow Generation 2 long lasting lipgloss Shade "28"

So I don't know how many people have heard of these lip glosses, but I saw one on aliexpress.com and I decided to give it a try. It is in shade 28, as they don't have names, but this one is red...

It kind of reminds me of a test tube... 

It's really quite a long tube with plenty of product inside. It has a long, slender handle with a doe foot applicator. 

It applies like a smooth gloss, but sets into a completely matte, hard wearing colour. 

I applied this at 11am, ate a beef curry, drank two cups of tea and ate some chocolate and some mini cheddars and plenty of chatting with my hubby and little sister. It lasted a full 8 hours, with hardly any colour rubbing off... 

This lipgloss is really longwearing. The above picture was taken at 7pm. As you can see, hardly anything has rubbed away and I'm sure that it would have gone through another meal and a good 3, possibly 4 hours before it would have rubbed off much more - but I grew tired of wearing it and took it off. 

This stuff does not come away easily using normal facial wipes (not that I use them) or micellar water and the such - using an oil based makeup remover is kind of a must. 

For around $1.50 (around 99p for us in the UK) and free shipping, you really can't go wrong, and I've heard that these are a dupe for the Lime Crime Velvetine lip glosses but for a fraction of the price. 

The negatives? They come from China, so they're almost certainly not animal cruelty free :( 

Are they worth it? You decide! x