Boots 'Better Than Half Price' Offer of The Week - FrontCover 'Style Queen' Set!

Boots’ ‘Better than Half Price’ weekly offers seem to be back, and this week is a fabulous looking set from Frontcover Cosmetics! The ‘Style Queen’ set is priced at £17, just less than half its original price of £35 for one week only.

The set includes

• 7 Dome Baked Powder Eyeshadows
• 6 New Satin Pressed Powder Eyeshadows
• 6 Lip Glosses
• 2 Fine Line Baked Powder Cheek Domes
• Double Ended Mascara/Sealer
• 2 Iridescent Pigments in Coal Hoal & Saddle Brown
• Shadowline
• 6 Professional Make-Up Brushes
• Mini Lash Curlers
• Double-Ended Pencil Sharpener

Not bad for £17, don’t you think? I’ll be swatching some Frontcover sets very soon so you can see the brilliant sets in all their glory for this Christmas. Oh yes, and a quote of mine is in one of them this year, on the inside cover of the ‘A Billion Stars’ set to be precise – how exciting!!

http://www.boots.com/en/Frontcover-Style-Queen-Make-up-Colour-Set_1219447/

Front Cover Wide-Eyed Set - Swatches!

More swatches of Front Cover, this time it’s their Wide Eyed set and I’m swatching the shadows and pencils from the set. This is currently available in Boots stores (sold out at Boots.com), priced at £22 but also included in their 3 for 2 offer.


This box set is really well thought out both in terms of content (pencil sharpener that is suitable for chunky pencils, mascara and sealer etc) and also the colours; I especially love Nightshadow, Coffee Liqueur and Pewter metallic pencil (the chunkier ones) but all the colours included are very wearable really - with a number of looks included on the 'inside cover how to guide' which is not only very useful, but also inspires me to try new things too.


The daytime shadows seem a lot more pigmented than the baked shadows when used dry, but the baked shadows really come into their own when used wet, I really recommend you using them wet. I love using the shadowline, as this allows me to be more creative with my choice of liner colour, since it turns the shadows into eyeliners.

The Kohl’s come with a smudgy tool at the other end, which is always handy. They’re really pigmented and seem slightly metallic/shimmery – especially the brown. All the pencils are easy to work with but I would definitely recommend that you use a primer with them to help them last longer when being worn.

I really like this set and feel I’ll be getting a lot more use out of it throughout the year.


L-R Iced Green, Tandori Spice (No flash - day lamp):

 With flash:

L-R Nightshadow, Hades, Vanilla Ice, Bluebell (No flash - day lamp):

 With flash:

L-R Vintage Peach, Coffee Liqueur (No flash - day lamp)

With flash:

The pencils:

The Beauty Scoop Christmas Gift Guide 2010 - Part 1!

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find myself at a loss as to what to buy my loved ones for Christmas. Now I know it’s the thought that counts, but I like buying gifts that are loved and actually used by the person I buy them for; not just given a polite acknowledgement and then stuffed to the back of the cupboard, waiting to be recycled into a present for somebody else because they secretly hate it!

I’ve decided to give a little run down of items, to suit all budgets that I think anybody would love to receive over Christmas; from stocking fillers to main presents I hope to give you a little inspiration from both the products that I have been using and loving and those that I would still love to receive in my present pile this Christmas!

Aveda have some utterly fabulous gifts available, and if you (or your intended recipient) haven’t had chance to try Aveda products then now is a great time to do so! Their Ritual of Repair gift set (£49) comes complete with Damage Remedy Shampoo, Conditioner, Intensive Treatment, Daily Hair Repair and Tagua Hair Band – it also has a £28 saving on the individual retail prices of the products included.

Burts Bees – Get lovely lips for kissing under the mistletoe with this fantastic Burt’s Bees ‘Lip Balm Tin Ornament’ (£9.99) that has 3 of their fabulous lip balms (Beeswax Lip Balm, Replenishing Lip Balm in Pomegranate and Honey Lip Balm) packaged in a metal tin that can be reused – so it’s also great for the environment too.

Clinique have a selection of gifts available, from candles to skincare, they’ve got it all. Two gifts of note (ie that I would love to receive) are:

Laser Focus Repair Gift Set (£50, shown above), a silver travel bag containing Repairwear Laser Focus Wrinkle & UV Damage Corrector (30ml), Youth Surge SPF 15 Age Decelerating Moisturiser (in dry/combination) 15ml and Repairwear Intensive Eye Cream 7ml.

Pretty Day Into Night Looks Gift Set (£38), a gorgeous pink bag containing a Round Compact with 4 Eyeshadows & 2 Powder Blush Shades, High Impact Mascara 4g in Black, Double-Ended Lipstick in Different Grape 1.3g/Long Last Glosswear SPF15 in Bamboo Pink 4.5ml, Cream Shaper For Eyes in Starry Plum 1.1g and All About Eyes 15ml.

Dermalogica products would be a lovely gift for anybody who likes to look after their skin as Dermalogica, in my opinion are still one of the best skin care brands around (I thoroughly recommend that you try their PreCleanse if nothing else as it's suitable for all skin types, review coming soon to the blog). You may not be able to keep this one a secret as a skin mapping session is always recommended to find out the best products for your skin but you could actually make that part of the present if you were to pay for a facial too.

A Denman Brush (approximately £7) – If you want to give a gift that will just keep on giving then one of these bad boys would be great, they look fab and are built to last. There’s an assortment of great designs available (I’ve shown just a few of them here) and you just know they’ll be used as everybody brushes their hair, right?!

Elemis have a fabulous range of gift sets available, many of them offering a saving off the RRP of the individual products which is a winner to me. I especially like the Exotic Spa Secrets gift box (£49.50), which contains 3 full sized products including: Skin Nourishing Milk Bath, Exotic Frangipani Monoi Bath & Shower Cream and Exotic Frangipani Monoi Moisture Melt and offers a £38 saving from the usual retail price of each item. Other Elemis gift sets that are worth considering are: Elemis Skin Brilliance, Elemis Perfect Pro-Collagen and Elemis Timeless Radiance.

Front Cover Cosmetics have a selection of gift sets available but the one that stands right out for me is their Moonlit Metals set (£16, swatched here), as I think that the colours contained in it would suit most people -plus it also offers such fantastic value, is on trend and generally just looks like a nice present to give/receive (and is easy to wrap too)!

Molton Browns’ gifts are to die for. Their Treasure Island (£65) and Colour Purple (£42, shown above) gifts immediately caught my eye. The Treasure Island gift includes Heavenly Gingerlily Moisture Bath & Shower Gel, Body Cream, Shimmer Fragrance and Airlight. I haven’t had the pleasure of smelling this set but it sounds beautiful. The Colour Purple set contains Relaxing Yuan Zhi Bath & Shower Gel, Body Cream and Airlight - and might I add, smells divine.

No7 have some beautiful gifts and palettes available right now, I've recently swatched their Precious Metals Mini Nail Polish set (£8) here, and their Limited Edition MirrorBall Eye Palette (£12.50) here but there are so many other gorgeous gifts and fantastic products available (to suit all budgets) that I really do think that it's worth looking to the brand for both stocking fillers and main presents alike.

OPI's Burlesque range is causing quite a stir because it includes a great range of polishes, that all have a Christmassy feel (in my opinion) and I feel would be well received by most people as a gift for Christmas. If you didn’t want to buy them individually, there are gift sets available such as their Little Teasers Mini Lacquers Gift Set (available for around £12.15 online).

Better still QVC have a brilliant set available (shown above). For just £34.10 plus postage (this is an introductory price and could end anytime and go back to the usual price of £37.50) you can get a super gift box which includes: Original Nail Envy (15ml), Avoplex High Intensity Hand & Nail Cream (50ml), OPI Crystal Nail File, Bring on the Bling Lacquer (15ml), Tease-y Does It Lacquer (15ml), Let Me Entertain You Lacquer (15ml) and a mini cuticle stick. Bear in mind that the polishes alone usually retail for £9.95 each and you can see what good value this gift set is – and the person you’re buying for will think you’ve spent even more on them!

Perfumes or perfume gift sets are a safe bet for most people, I’m currently loving Paco Rabanne; in particular their ‘Lady Million’ and ‘Black XS’ fragrances. Other perfumes worth checking out are Viktor & Rolf’s ‘Flowerbomb’, Armani ‘Code’, Marc Jacobs ‘Daisy’ and/or ‘Lola’ and Nina Ricci’s ‘Nina’.

Talking of perfume, Penhaligon's have some beautiful gifts available (as well as some stunning standalone perfumes) a few gifts of note are: the Crystal ‘Bullet’ Atomiser (in Amethyst £120), the Ladies Fragrance collection (£32) which includes 5 miniature 5ml bottles in a lovely bow-topped gift box, and their Votive Candle Collection (£45) which includes 4 miniature (70g) scented glass candles.

Sisley has a fantastic new autumn/winter makeup collection that may just hold a few potential gifts within it. Shown above, the collection contains 10 pieces – all of which I’d be happy to own. If the makeup collection doesn’t grab you then maybe a piece of their award winning skincare range may be more to your taste? After all, who doesn’t want to take care of their skin?!

Sleek palettes (£5.99 each) are cheap in price but fantastic in quality, there’s also a decent amount of palettes for you to choose from so you can be sure there’ll be something there to suit anybody you’re buying for. They’re currently on 3 for 2 at Superdrug, making them even cheaper – in fact if you have a secret santa present to buy then this could be a perfect purchase – much better than socks anyway!

Urban Decay’s Naked Palette (around £27) is bound to be a hit, you can’t really go wrong with neutrals as they suit everybody and this palette is currently one of the best to be had.

Anyway, this rounds up my first gift guide - I hope you've found it useful and maybe solved a few gift dilemmas too!

Swatches: Front Cover Moonlit Metals Gift Set!

If metals are your thing then this offering from Front Cover is perfect for you. It’s genius, its bang on trend and at £16 it won’t break the bank – not least because it’s currently included in the Boots 3 for 2 Christmas gifts offer (but if you want to buy one to keep for yourself then I won’t judge).

The set includes 6 pigment powders (Dawn Chorus, Cloud Dancer, Nightfall, Deep Lake, Darkly and Prism Violet) and 2 glitters (Sparkler and Moonshine), plus a tube of ‘shadowbase’ and a double ended... application brush!

Without flash (under a day lamp) L-R Sparkler, Dawn Chorus, Darkly, Cloud Dancer:

With flash (under a day lamp):

I have to say, I really like this set as it has such a great mix of colours, all of which are fabulously metallic and perfectly pigmented. The brush included is ok, the smaller end is great for more precise application but I’ve not got on quite as well with the larger end – that could just be because I’m used to my own brushes though.

The ‘Get The Look’ guide (shown above, kind of) is a great addition to the set as it tells you how best to use the products in the set, and also how to achieve the look shown on the box. It does keep going on about a sponge applicator which I don’t understand as both ends of the applicator are brushes!

Without flash (under a day lamp) L-R Nightfall, Deep Lake, Moonshine and Prism Violet:

With flash (under a day lamp):

No flash and slightly dark but I thought it showed the colours quite well, still:

Application is a little trickier because they are powders, and there can be a lot of fall down with most eye shadow powders, but it’s definitely worth spending a little extra time and care as the looks you can achieve are nothing short of amazing.

Also the tip to dab the product on rather than sweep it is one of the most important included in the guide, in my opinion as you get better coverage and a more precise application – I generally do this anyway with powders but it’s always worth noting for those that aren’t used to using them.

With flash:

Without flash:

The ‘shadowbase’ is definitely needed to help the shadows and especially the glitters to adhere better to the skin, and stay where you put them.

I really don’t think I could pick my favourite colour(s) as I think they’re all equally lovely and I am happy to wear all of them (not at once) without hesitation. The glitters are great for party season, I especially like the holographic glitter but I can’t seem to get a photo that shows just how stunning it looks.

My only real issue with this set is that it’s hard to get the plastic inlay out of the pots without splattering product everywhere – in fact it’s a bit messy all round, but again it’s really to be expected with powders and glitter products.

I hope you found the swatches useful; I’ve tried to catch them in different lights and show you in the pictures but I don’t think any amount of pictures can completely capture how brilliant the powders look.