Elf Blush & Bronze vs. NARS Laguna & Orgasm

As you will have seen in my previous post I purchased the Elf Contouring Blush & Bronzing duo from the new Elf Studio Line.

I have seen a lot of people comparing this to Nars Laguna/Orgasm so I thought I would put them to the test!

As you can see from the first picture the packaging is very similar although the Elf one isn't rubbery like Nars. Even though the Elf one looks slightly bigger you are getting just less than half the weight of product you get with Nars but the Elf costs £3.5o and Nars £27!

The Elf is slightly more powdery than Nars but the Bronzer is actually more pigmented, it took only two swipes with an eyeshadow brush to get the swatch whereas Laguna took about 4!

So here are some comparisons photos, first of the products themselves and then swatches!

Ok so my opinion, I think they are similar but not at all identical! The blush is more peachy/coral whereas Orgasm is a bit pinker. The bronzer is a lot darker than Laguna and looks slightly less orange. I have heard that its closer to Casino but I don't have that so can't compare!

I would highly recommend trying this duo, for the money its amazing quality!

ELF Studio Haul

Yesterday my order from ELF arrived and I have to say I am really impressed with everything I got!
Me and my Mum placed an order together so we got free postage. The only dissapointment was the eye shadow/liner stick that my Mum ordered, the eyeshadow part is broken and fell out as soon as she took the lid off! I have watched a couple of hauls on youtube and they have had the same issue so maybe its a problem with the packaging?!?
Anyway here is what I got and my thoughts so far:

Complexion Perfection: I am really looking forward to using this, its got a colour to cover all types of discoloration on the face, will post a full review once I have used it for a week or so!

Contouring Blush & Bronzer: I really like this! The blush is a really nice coral/pink and although the bronzer is really dark it will be fine used with a light hand! I will be posting a comparison of this with Nars Laguna/Orgasm tomorrow.

Eyebrow Kit: I got this in light and it really is a lovely product. You get a brow powder and a tinted brow gel, these can be used together or the gel alone and it really works well. I have been alternating between MAC Fling brow pencil and Smashbox Brow powder and I have to say I prefer this!

Under Eye Concealer & Highlighter: I really like the look of this but haven't had a chance to try it yet so I will report back once I have tested it out!

Eye Primer & Liner Sealer: Again I have yet to test this out but first impressions are good! The primer seems like a really thick concealer and the liner sealer had a really nice brush on it, love the packaging on this one!

Hollywood Eyelashes: I will admit I mainly bought this for the applicator! But actually the eyelashes are really nice too!

Complexion Brush: I honestly cannot stress how soft these brushes are, I could just sit and stroke my face with it lol! I have tried this with blush and bronzer and its great! It would work really well for powder too.

Powder Brush: This again is super soft, its a flat top brush which I had been wanting for ages, I used it today to apply my MSF Natural and honestly it gave me the best finish of all the brushes I have tried! I was reading reviews of this on Make Up Alley and apparently a lot of people really like it for liquid foundation so I think I will picking up another one for this!

So overall I love the products I bought, all this added up to the grand total of £28! You really can't go wrong!

Swap with Lipstick Rules!

I was so excited on Monday that my swap package from Michelle aka "Lipstick Rules" arrived! I really wanted to post this straight away but I have had a hectic couple of days!
I asked Michelle do to do this swap as there was a specific Canadian item I really wanted to try, we set ourself a spending limit (although I didn't stick to it!) and it was honestly so much fun picking out stuff!
You can see what I sent Michelle by clicking "here"

There is one more thing that I really wanted that was out of stock that Michelle is still trying to find for me so expect another post at some point!

These are the lovely things she sent me:

-Joe Fresh Fine Tip Liquid Liner in Brown: Love this, really looking forward to trying the black one!)

-Joe Fresh Cheek Tint in Pink Rose: Really like this, its a beautiful colour!

- Joe Fresh Eyeshadow in Pale Pink: I really, really like this colour, although the name is a bit misleading, its not pink at all but more of a golden colour, it actually reminds me of a colour in the Fafi quad, it did get a tiny bit broken in the post but is 99% intact!

-Joe Fresh Lipstick in Strawberry: This is such a great colour, its got a great consistency and I love it!

-Anabelle Eyeshadow in Carbon: This is a lovely sparkly black, very similar to MAC Black Tied!

-Anabelle Smoothliner in Jade: This is such a gorgeous colour, the texture of this really reminds me of Urban Decay 24/7 liners

-Sephora Lipgloss in Rosy Glow: This smells amazing, its like Sherbet Dip Dab! Gorgeous colour too!

-Quo Eyeshadow Quad in Sandbar/Sable: This is a gorgeous neutral quad, the shadows are super pigmented and I love the packing with the little protector that goes over the colours!

-OPI Nail colour in Electric Eel: I have to say I would probably never have picked out this colour for myself but I would have been missing out! Its a gorgeous sheer gold/green with shimmer, I think it will look amazing over black polish, can't wait to try it!

I love everything I got, I can hand on heart say that I love Canadian Makeup! Expect a Canadian FOTD at the weekend!

Thanks again Michelle!!!

Elf Studio On Sale Now!!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that the Elf Studio range is now available on the website! I have just placed my order and will post a haul/review once it gets here!
I have been really looking forward to trying this range!!
http://www.eyeslipsface.co.uk/category~catID~13.htm

Nails Of The Week - China Glaze Up All Night

Hey!
So here are my nails for this week! This is China Glaze Up All Night, its a gorgeous dark blue colour that has really subtle blue shimmer in it, they only really show up in the sunlight which is why I have taken this picture outside!!

Hope everyone is looking forward to the weekend! I am so glad its nearly here, I need the sleep lol!

Grimm Fairy Tale Contest Entry

Tali over at the Gloss Gloss is holding a great competition at the moment! Its to come up with a look based on a Grimm Fairy tale but with a dark twist, it closes tomorrow so there is still time to enter, here is her post about it http://theglossgoss.blogspot.com/2009/07/contest-brothers-grimm_10.html. I was researching different charachters but in the end I couldn't resist doing Snow White which I think has been popular!!!
When I was researching the story I found that the original was really dark, it said that Snow White came back to life because blood trickled into her mouth (ick!)
Anyway this is the look I came up with based on that!

(Please excuse the eyebrows, they are getting threaded on Saturday!)

Products used:

Face:

Bobbi Brown Corrector in Light Bisque

MAC Studio Sculpt Foundation NC15

MAC Transparent Setting Powder

Illamasqua Rude Cream Blush

Tippy Blush

Loads of Talcum Powder!!

Eyes:

UDPP

MAC Vanilla Pigment

Brown from Costal Scents Matte Palette

Revlon Antique Lace Eyeshadow

Bourjouis Eyeliner

Loreal Telescopic Mascara

Cheryl Lashes

Lips:

Revlon Cherries In The Snow

Kat Von D Lipgloss

This was so much fun, look forward to seeing all the entries!

Nails of the week - China Glaze LOL

As the title would suggest I am going to try and post one of these a week! My nail varnish collection seems to have doubled over the past couple of months! The majority of my collection consists of OPI, Nails Inc, China Glaze and Barry M.
So here is my first NOTW, I thought I would start with my all time favourite colour! This is China Glaze LOL, its a gorgeous purple with holo. Whenever I have this on I can't help but stare at my nails, in the sunshine this looks incredible!
I am definately going to be buying more of the colours from the china glaze collection!

What is your favourite Nail polish? I would love to know!

Bobbi Brown Corrector = no more dark circles for me!

One of the things I dislike most about myself are the circles under my eyes! I am very pale so have always had circles although lately they seem to have gotten worse.

As well as the usual blue tones I also have some red/pink in them!

Now I know these are not the worst under eye circles ever but honestly when I look in the mirror in the morning they are all I see, I hate them and feel so self concious if I don't cover them up!

So here is a picture of them in all there glory on the left, this is taken later in the day and I think they tend to look worse in the mornings but the last think I think to do when rushing to get ready is reach for my camera! The picture on the right is after I have applied my Bobbi Brown Corrector in Light Bisque and MAC transparent powder.

I think the picture speaks for itself.

If you have circles that you are concious of then I would really recommend trying the BB Correctors. When I went in to get colour matched the MA tried to sell me the concealer too but honestly I was happy with the results with just the corrector and I find that the more product used under the eyes the more chance there is of creasing and gathering in fine lines, which is what happened to the ton of product she put under there!!

Hope this was helpful! I have lots more posts coming up this week as well as a huge CCO haul, I need to stop lol!!!

Non Make-up purchases!

Hey!

I just wanted to share a couple of things I purchased last week that are not make up related!
As I said in my last post I buy a lot of clothes/accessories from Tesco, well I had been looking for a pair of Gladiator Sandals for ages but hadn't seen any I liked but I found these ones in tesco for £10! They are so comfy I lived in these over the weekend.

I then went and looked at the accessories and I fell in love with this necklace, it was £7 and I just love the charms!

Then when I was in Camden I found this pendant, it came without a chain. It doesn't look that great in artifical light but in the sunlight it is gorgeous! The first photo is without flash, the second with. Best of all this was only £1.99! I love Camden for cheap original accessories!

I hope everyone survived the day without getting too wet! My workplace flooded and the last hour of the work day was spent bailing water and putting down pads to soak it all up! Fingers crossed it doesn't rain more overnight!

20 Questions Tag

I wasn't actually tagged for this but I wanted to do it anyway!!

1. Thing you cannot leave the house without? Um the obvious answer for me is Keys!! Seriously I can survive without most things but if I don't have my Ipod and a Book in my bag I am lost! I get the tube to work everyday and I would go insane without these things!

2. Favorite Brand of Makeup? For high end I would say MAC just because of the variety available, for drug store I would have to say Sleek and Barry M, I know I cheated!

3.Favorite Flower? To be honest I don't really like flowers, I mean I like seeing them in gardens but I just seem to kill any that come into my house (Or my Cat tries to eat them!) My mum has some gorgeous wild Bluebells in her garden so I will go with them!

4.Favourite Clothing Store? Truthfully I probably buy the most clothes from Tesco! It's just so convenient to pick up some stuff while doing the weekly shop and they do have some really nice things. Other than that it would be New Look/Dorothy Perkins.

5.Favourite Perfume? Rock & Rose by Valentino, the plain one without the lace round the bottle, I absolutely adore this scent, when I wear this I can't help but keep sniffing my wrist!

7.Do you make Good Grades? At school not really, I was going through a really rough time around my GCSE's so despite being predicted A's I only came out of there with 3 passes. I made up for it at college later on though.

8.Favourite colours? Black & Purple

9.Do you drink energy drinks? Not really but I do like them, I had a bit of an obsession with Rockstar when I went to LA for the first time but I am so sick of it now! I do like the taste of Red Bull but truthfully I don't find they have that much effect on me!

10. Do you drink juice? Yes but not very often, my favourite is Pineapple

11.Do you like swimming? Yes but again I don't go often, I hate wearing a swimming costume, I feel so exposed!

12. Do you eat fries with a fork? In a restaurant yeah but otherwise its fingers all the way!

13. Favourite Moisturiser? Clean & Clear oil free moisturiser

14.Do you want to get married later on in life? I am already married, its my 4th wedding anniversary this year.

15. Do you get mad easily? Yes and no, stupid things irritate me! I used to let things build up and then lose my temper but I am getting much better at just letting things go lately!

16.Are you into ghost hunting? Not really, I had a couple of things happen when I was younger that scared me enough to put me off! I really don't thing we should mess with things we don't understand!

17. Any Phobias? It's not really a phobia but I hate swimming in the sea, I will only go in up to my knees, there are way too many other living things in there for my liking! And I hate wiggling insects like Silver Fish they make me cringe but I'm fine with snakes, I'm just weird lol!

18.Do you bite your nails? No, I used to be really bad and grow them and then bite them off when they annoyed me! I am enjoying painting them too much to bite them now!

19.Have you ever had a near death experience? Nope

20. Do you drink Coffee? Yes probably too much! I have about 3 cups a day at work. My favourite coffee is a Starbucks Skinny Peppermint latte.

I tag anyone that hasn't done this yet!

My illamasqua purchases

Hey
So this week I went to Selfridges and pick up a few bits from Illamasqua. I have to say the MA that helped me was lovely and there was no hard sell at all.
Here are the things that I picked up

The first item I picked up was "Rude" cream blush as Jenn aka Mizzworthy recommended it and I have to say I really do love it.
Here are swatches, the top heavily applied and blended in underneath.

Pure Pigments in "Involve" and "Chasm" I do really like these colours but I do think they are really expensive for the amount of product you get.

The texture of them reminds me of Barry M Dazzle dusts. I know a lot of people have raved about the packaging of these but as you can see my Chasm's lid must not fit perfectly as it does leak out when its closed.

Here are swatches without flash on left, with on right. These are with no base.
I am happy with these two but I don't think I would purchase anymore as these are the only colours that really appealed to me! These look amazing when used wet!

The last thing was a concealer, I wanted an under eye concealer but the MA said that she prefers using the regular concealer as it has better coverage. As I have a lot of red/pink in my undereyes she picked out a yellow based concealer, it looks much too dark for me but actually under my eyes it does work well! I forgot to take a picture of this, sorry!

I was impressed with the brand overall, there are so many products that are unique! I just don't know how much I would use some of the products, I do want to look at the Lipsticks/Lipgloss next time, will have to wait till pay day though.

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend and isn't too sunburnt!

Jo