My Top 5 Beauty Products of 2015

 

 

 

   Hi my lovelies I hope you're all well, today I will be sharing with you my top five beauty products of 2015, as yet another year is drawing to a close. This year I got to try out so many new amazing brands, both high end and drugstore and these are my top picks:

 

1. Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette - This is my absolute favourite eyeshadow palette of all time! There are 16 gorgeous shades within this palettes, raging from matte white to gold to bold dark cherry. There is a mixture of matte, satin and shimmer finishes and the pigmentation and quality of these eyeshadows is like no other; they are buttery soft to the touch and they blend like an absolute dream! The shadows perform well with or without a primer and stay on my lids all day long. This is one of my priciest make up items, however it was DEFINITELY worth it.

 

2. Make Up Forever Ultra HD Foundation - This foundation is one of my most recent purchases - after seeing plenty of American bloggers and youtubers raving about this product I took the plunge and purchased it myself ( Debenhams in the UK has recently started stocking Make Up Forever). To be completely honest when I first applied this product I wasn't amazed - the coverage I would say is light to medium (and I'm definitely a full coverage kinda gal) and I thought for the steep price tag of £29 it wasn't great. However after I'd let this foundation sit on my skin for a few minutes it had completely transformed the look on my skin - all the signs of redness were gone, my skin looked dewy and even and I was SOLD. As this foundation is made to look great on camera, it photographs amazingly well and DOES NOT BUDGE! I've used it for a couple of nights out and after way too many southern comfort and lemonades at early hours in the morning my make up still looked on point - I would highly recommend this foundation.

 

3. Bourjouis Happy Light Iluminous Primer -  I had purchased this primer in my local Boots in the summer, never having heard anything about it. As I have extremely dry skin but love a dewy finish I thought it sounded ideal, especially for the warmer summer months, and I can safely say I was right. This primer has a very light, serum-like formula that quickly sinks into your skin. It did help to prolong my make-up a little, maybe not as well as some other, mattifying primers; however it made my skin look so healthy and dewy and made my foundation glide on like a dream. If you have dry skin I would recommend you try this primer - as far as I'm aware Bourjouis also do a mattifying version of this primer for us more oily girls. The only downside of this primer is the price and how little you get - considering this is a drugstore product, you only get 15ml of product for £10, whereas the standard size for a primer is 30ml.

 

4. Urban Decay Naked Flushed Palettes -  I own a couple of these Naked Flushed palettes from Urban Decay; I have the shades Native and Streak. Each palette contains a bronzer, a blush and a highlighter. These palettes are so pigmented, so smooth and they blend like a DREAM. These two shades in particular are definitely suitable for fair to medium skintones, I think there are two more palettes who would maybe suite medium to dark skintones better. The highlights in these palettes are definitely not for those who prefer a more suitable glow, as they are very full on and noticeable, but that's the reason I love them so much. The bronzers in both of the palettes are gorgeous, warm toned powders (the warmth of them makes them unsuitable for contouring unfortunately) that instantly make your skin looked healthy and sunkissed. For the price of £21 you are getting three very high quality powders which will last a really long time, as the pans are HUGE. These are fab!

 

5. Jimmy Choo Illicit Perfume - I believe this is Jimmy Choo's newest fragrance, and as I have always been a massive fan of their scents I decided to try it out and instantly fell in love. I'm not the best at describing fragrance notes, but this is definitely quite floral, warm and musky. I would say this fragrance was quite sweet but not the sort of sweet you expect from celebrity perfumes targeted at teenage girls - this is definitely a more mature scent. The opening notes are honey and bitter orange, with middle notes being rose and jasmine, drying down to the base notes of sandalwood, amber and honey. If like me, you are a fan of Jimmy Choo's fragrances I would give this one a try.

 

So these are my 2015 favourites, comment what yours are down below! Until next time! Gab x



Makeup Revolution Essential Mattes 2 Review

Hi my lovelies, for my first ever post on my new blog today I will be reviewing the Makeup Revolution Essential Mattes 2 palette. I am sure many of you will be familiar with the extremely popular brand that is Makeup Revolution, they have a range of amazing products for incredibly affordable prices, and are a brand who are appealing to both those just starting out in make up and those of us who already have large collections.

The MUR Essential Mattes 2 palette consists of 12 matte shades, ranging from pale barely-there nudes to dark browns and greys. This palette is very versatile as you can create both daytime appropriate looks, as well as smoky, dark, blown out ones, This is what it looks like:

As you can see there is a nice range of nudes, with one more colourful mauve shade.

In terms of quality, the eyeshadows are excellent quality for the price, as these eyeshadow palettes are only £4. The shadows are buttery and smooth to the touch, however they do produce a considerable amount of fallout and perform a LOT better over a base such as a primer or a mac paint pot. The darker shades have considerably better pigmentation than the lighter ones, the shadows are also very blendable which is a big bonus.

 

 As you can see in the above swatches the first three shades are very similar, they are also very close to my skin colour and do not show up on my lids very well, however they are great for setting your primer or to be used as a base for other shadows to be layered on top of them. This palette reminds me quite a lot of the Urban Decay Naked Basics palettes and I would say a couple of the shades are probably dupes for ones from Urban Decay.

 

The shadows last quite well on my lids with a primer, usually about 6-8 hours before they start to fade. Overall I would say this palette is fantastic quality for the price.