Slightly Speechless Sunday - Rose McGowan!

I came across this image of Rose McGowan yesterday and instantly thought she looked stunning in it - glamorous but effortlessly so. Her lipstick is stunning, I now need to find out what it is – or at least find something similar as I lurrrve it; and her eye make-up just works so perfectly with it.

Her skin looks amazing and glow-y, but still natural... like it’s had little to no touching up which is refreshing to see as she’s so beautiful without the need for it. I also adore her blush; it gives her the perfect flush of colour for her skin tone. Lush.

What do you think? Is it a look you’d go for?

ORLY Cosmix FX 'It's Not Rocket Science' Swatches!

I just love the ORLY Cosmic FX range, and ‘It’s Not Rocket Science’ is probably one of my favourites from the collection. It’s a gorgeous green/gold/brown duo chrome type polish. It’s glitzy and looks like a heavy glitter but without the rough texture and is also easier to remove than a glitter polish!

 

I find that ORLY polish lasts well when worn (at least on my nails) with usually only minimal tip wear after a good few days of wear. I don’t wear topcoat when I wear the Cosmic FX range as I just love the finish of these polishes without the need for it and because the formula wears so well, I don’t feel like it needs it to stop it chipping on me.

 

I’ve done swatches in different lights and on different backgrounds, hence the difference in each photograph - sorry it's so picture heavy. I also did a couple of videos and uploaded to YouTube so you could see just how beautiful this polish is and how it reflects light with normal movement (and no flash). All swatches show 3 coats of the polish.

Have you tried any of the Cosmic FX range? Do you love it as much as I do?

Sally Hansen Kwik Off Nail Polish Remover!

I bought this from eBay recently as I saw on Makeup Savvy that it was good for removing glitter polish quickly and easily – something I really felt could benefit me as a bit of a glitter polish lover. I’m a fan of sponge dip-in removers anyway and usually use a fairly cheap one from a shop locally to me so I was already familiar with the use of such a product. This Sally Hansen remover will probably set you back around £4 but you get a lot of product for your money.

My first thought on this polish remove is that the sponge is very soft, a lot softer than the sponge I’m used to, and whilst this feels lovely on the skin it does disintegrate a lot quicker. It’s not such an issue for a lot of the time as you can use different parts of the sponge and also turn it over to use the underside if necessary. It’s also white, which means it discolours very quickly, but then that’s also not a huge issue as it’s not a purchase to be looked at and adored!

The polish remover itself works a treat on most of the polishes I’ve removed with it, glitters are a lot easier and quicker to remove - although still obviously need a little more effort than crèmes etc.

The variation I’ve got leaves a lemon scent on my fingers after use which is nice but my cat doesn’t like it at all... it makes her eyes squinty, poor (cute) thing. I recommend using a decent moisturiser on your hands and cuticles after using this as it is rather drying, not enough to stop me using it though.

Overall it’s a decent product, not without its flaws and there’s definitely a bit of room for improvement but still definitely worth purchasing in my opinion.

Wahanda Murad MobDeal Offer!

I’ve just spotted an amazing deal on Wahanda... £10 instead of £50 for a travel sized Murad Intensive Wrinkle Reducer Serum! Not only that, but if you use my referral link, you’ll also get a £5 voucher to use towards it, making it just £5 – a whopping 90% saving and a great way to try this product, or even give it as a gift to your mother for mother’s day?!

You'll also get a £10 Murad voucher to use on the Murad online store on any order over £20 - even better, non?!

'This scientifically proven wonder serum will diminish the appearance of your fine lines and wrinkles by up to 45% in just 8 weeks, leaving you with a radiant, youthful and utterly gorgeous complexion.'

Follow my link and sign up to both the newsletter and the site, then click on MobDeals and you will see it there. :-)

Wahanda Website

GOSH Holographic & GOSH Holographic With OPI Black Shatter!

I’m currently having my kitchen ripped out so everything is completely upside down at the moment for me, however I did find a little time on Sunday (before it all got too mental here) to play about with some GOSH Holographic.The pictures show about 4 or 5 thin-ish coats; sorry for my cuticles and nail that needs to be cut but it was just a mess around that I didn't intend on posting up lol!

I like it, but I only *love* it when I look at it with a light reflecting off it as otherwise I can’t see the holographic nature of it as much as I thought I would; I’m not sure if this is because I haven’t used the specified base coat or not... does anybody know?

This photo is an 'out-take'but when looking at it, I quite liked how it showed the colours so posted it up anyway!:

Anyway, I then tried some OPI Black Shatter over the top and whilst I loved the crackle effect as usual, I didn’t feel that the Holo came through at all in the small cracks... I was hoping it would be as noticeable as having a glitter underneath so I was quite disappointed.

I know you can see it in the cracks on the pictures but in reality it could be any polish underneath there so I’d advise not to bother with anything like this over the Holo polish!

Hope you like the pictures, sorry for the shortness of the post – I just really wanted to get something posted for you to read whilst the chaos ensues as casa Beauty Scoop!

Max Factor Colour Precision Eyeshadow In Golden Green!

I bought this on a whim when in Tesco last week, I just liked the colour and didn’t really think about it any further than that; so I’ve now had a chance to mess around with it and test it out and I’m not entirely happy with it which serves me right for not looking for a tester of it, I guess.

I love the colour, obviously as it’s the one and only thing that my purchase was based on. The name of the shade ‘Golden Green’ is a perfect (if not slightly uninspiring) name for the colour as it really is an almost perfect mix of gold and green with a slight metallic-ness to it.

Unfortunately this is where the praise stops as this product is pretty pants when it comes to:

Staying power – I’m pretty gutted that the product is let down massively by its lack of staying power - especially when worn without a primer. Now, I usually use a primer anyway - which does help with the products’ staying power, but that’s not really the point as I don’t think a product should NEED to rely on another product, such as a primer in order for it to stay on the lids (or wherever) whilst still looking good for more than an hour at a time. Just as a side note, my eyelids aren't even that oily and I don't usually have this kind of issue, so god knows how bad it would be if they were!

Application - Another gripe I have is with this is its applicator and application, I kind of expected/assumed (wrongly) that with the word ‘Precision’ in the title of the shadow that this would have a decent applicator that allowed for a precise application of the product; and whilst I’m not entirely sure if this is actually referring to the applicator or not, there’s no getting away from how badly it applies when using the applicator included.

I didn’t find it very precise at all to be honest, I mean the applicator isn’t completely oversized but it is probably a bit chunkier than necessary in my opinion. It’s also quite soft and spongy which makes the product kind of splurge onto your skin, and it’s actually quite patchy too - as you may be able to see in some of the pictures. There doesn’t seem to be a way of applying the product easily, so that you get a good finish. I’ve swatched both a large area and also just swiping the shadow in a line so you can see both results of applying in different ways.

I really wanted to love this as the colour is beautiful, and whilst it seems a shame to waste it, I think this one may have to be given to my nieces to play with – unless anybody knows of a decent way to use it?

I have re-learned my lesson (thankfully not an expensive one); never impulse buy without at least looking properly at the product and swatching if possible.

Bourjois Round Little Pots - 03, 25 and 94 Swatched!

As promised yesterday, these are the second set of swatches from my Bourjois little round pots; this time I have swatched shades (L-R):

Shade 03 – Indigo blue, brilliant when wet... a bit powdery and disappointing when dry, however I’m happy enough to use it wet and it makes a great liner when used with a precision liner brush and a bit of saline! It’s not quite as bright as the swatches with flash show it to be, which is why I took a photo with no flash used – sorry for the bad lighting, I don't think it helped much at all.

Shade 25 – A glittery silver that is quite sheer when dry, but verging on metallic when used wet – I experienced a moderate amount of fall down with this which was expected with the glitter content.

Shade 94 – This is an ivory creamy colour and another disappointing when dry shade, you can barely see it on the swatch which shows 2 swipes, the same amount as I’ve done for every swatch in this range so far. It was a different story when wet though thankfully, another shade that I’m more than happy to use wet when required.

Flash:

No Flash:

I don’t mind the disappointing when dry shades in the range, so long as they’re good to use when wet as that’s how I prefer to use my baked shadows anyway and luckily every one of them has been brilliant when used wet!

I also wanted to add pictures of all the products available and the ‘groups’ that they come under within the range - see below!

Bourjois Round Little Pots - 07, 13 and 74 Swatched!

In the past I’ve always found Bourjois eye shadows to be a little bit too hard which made them appear to be less pigmented than other shadows I used, and as a result I found them hard to work with so they drifted to the bottom of my makeup bag; I always loved the colours in the Bourjois range so it was always a shame that I could never get them to perform for me.

I learned a while ago that they’d had a bit of a revamp and was sent these to try out, and I’ve been very impressed. When used dry the shadows are much easier to use with the new formulation, but as they are still baked shadows, they really come into their own when wet – as you will see in the photo’s (the top row are wet, the bottom are dry).

I’ve swatched the 6 shades that I was sent, but will be doing 3 only in this post and the other 3 in a separate post so as not to make such a picture heavy post. The first shades up are (from left to right):

Shade 07 – A gorgeous, metallic-like black/green duochrome. I think this has such a huge transformation when used wet, it's beautiful, I love it.

Shade 13 – A glittering, glistening prune shade. It did have some fall out, which is to be expected really with it being glittery but I loved it all the same.

Shade 74 – A fabulous brown that is almost metallic when used wet – I love this so much.

Wet (gorgeous, just look at that first shade especially):

Dry:

I’ve used water only for the wet swatches, I think saline solution or MAC Fix+ (or similar) are much better options, but I wanted to use the bare minimum with these so that the products stood out on their own merit, which is why I applied with the supplied applicators too.

No Flash:

Flash:

Edited to add this other photo, with flash that I forgot the first time - I wouldn't usually bother but I think this shows the shadows quite well:

Talking of the applicators, they’re not great... they're not the worst I've used but they’re just too small; I understand this is to fit them in the pot but they’re way too fiddly. They may not be that bad if they were a bit bigger, but then they wouldn’t fit in the pots then so I guess there’s no other option for Bourjois to include an applicator.

All in all I really love these new shadows, I really think that Bourjois have made a positive change with these and can’t wait to get more of the shades into my collection.