Pixi Early Bird Kit Review

Firstly I will start of by saying that I love Pixi make up, everything I have ever used from this brand have always been amazing, from the packaging to the quality of the product. I have never had a bad word to say. I was really hoping my review on this product would be the same, unfortunately not this time.

 

This is the Early Bird kit, I picked it up from Boots, it retails for £16 but has a value of £64 if you look at everything individually.

I thought the packaging was so cute and as I've always loved their make up I thought it was definitely a good investment.

 

Its really sweet and girly packaging and when I opened it up I wasn't initially disappointed with what I saw, you'll see what I mean with the next picture.

This looked like a whole lotta happiness in one small palette. It contains 3 blushers, 2 bronzers, 1 highlighter, 4 eyebase powders and 16 eyeshadows. That in my opinion is a serious bargain for £16.

However after looking a little more closely I didn't feel that the palette was of such good quality that I am used to with Pixi products, the pans were loose from the palettes and were lifting out of the palette for starters which slightly disappointed me. 

I overlooked this and just tried to push them all back in being careful not to break the powders, this helped slightly.

The blushers, such pretty colours and I love the printing on them

The eyeshadows and eyeshadow base colours (central) you can see slightly what I mean about the pans here.

Bronzers and highlighter again lovely colours and printing on the product, I really like that they do pay attention to small details.

Now, here is what let the product down, possibly the most important thing, the pigmentation. Some of them are as usual really good quality and have excellent pigmentation but others are just not good at all. Some of then I couldn't get anything from them at all and others were just picking up glitter and no colour. Here are a few swatches of the better colours.

I attempted the lesser quality ones but I was essentially just photographing my arm and that seemed rather pointless.

The reason I am being quite negative on this product is, although £16 for a palette containing so many products from Pixi is quite cheap, there are lots of other brands out there that offer cheaper products that are much better quality than the duff ones in this palette. 

Would I buy it again? No, sadly not but this hasn't put me off Pixi as a brand and I will still be checking them out on my next Boots visit.

Have you tried this palette yet, or any product from Pixi?

New CID Cosmetics Review

I recently spotted this brand on a couple of peoples blogs and also on the QVC website. I never really paid much attention to them because no stores near me stock them and I do like to test a brand before purchasing when possible. I needed a new translucent powder and spotted on this on the QVC website for £17.52 + £3.95 postage and it came with a brush so I thought it would  be a great way to try out the brand.

I received the product really quickly and I was really excited to try it, I applied the powder with the brush supplied after my foundation and immediately I really disliked it. It didn't mattify my skin it just wasn't very good at all. However I think this was down to the brush, the brush has rave reviews on the website but I found it to be really difficult to work with. Its a beautiful brush and its so so soft  but I just didn't think it does anything for the product. I've used the powder with my normal brushes and its so much better. It does what it says on the tin, its a translucent powder. It mattifies my skin and leaves a nice finish. Although I don't think its worth the price. I have found other much cheaper powders to be just as effective. This one for example in my opinion is just as good. 

Next up I have the pressed powder in extra light, I love the packaging and I love that it has a little light on it. Its so cute! This retails for £24.00, again it does what it says on the tin. Theres not alot to say about it really. It does mattify my skin and eliminates any shiny areas on my face it is a very light coverage. I like the powder but don't think I would purchase it again at the price. Some much cheaper alternatives that are just as good in my opinion are the Rimmel Stay Matte priced at £3.99, the 17 pressed powder priced at £3.42 and the MUA pressed powder priced at £1.00, I love this powder and think its a bargain at only £1.00.

I picked up the Look Book palette from TK Maxx for about £7.99, it looks really nice but its a fingerprint magnet. It contains 4 neutral coloured eyeshadows, 2 lipsticks, a blush and a highlighter (it also has 2 of the rubbish applicators you usually get with palettes that are really not worth mentioning) The highlighter is beautiful as are the eyeshadows, they are so incredibly pigmented and give a gorgeous finish. The blush is slightly less pigmented but for me thats great as I am really heavy handed when applying blushes and its much easier to add more if you haven't put enough on than take some away when you have applied to much and look like a clown. The lipsticks are very sheer, they look fairly bright in the palette but just leave a very nice tint of colour and a sheen to your lips, again perfect for me as I haven't quite got round to rocking the bright lipsticks yet, I'm such a wuss!

 3 down, 2 to go. The I-Shimmer, a double ended highlighter with brush. The shade is marshmallow and its so nice. Its a lovely colour and I love that it has a brush on the end, its so handy and I think its much better than blending with your fingers which I always end up doing with other stick highlighters. This retails for £18.50 and is so worth it. I would purchase more but after looking at the other colours the marshmallow is the best for me but I will be repurchasing once this runs out. Love it so much. A cheaper alternative would be the ELF all over colour stick in either spotlight or toasted and these are priced at £1.50. I have tried these and they are good but I personally prefer the New CID.

Finally we have a lip product, its the i-gloss, light up lip gloss with mirror in baby doll. These retail at £16.00 on the website. This is alot more than I would normally spend on a lip gloss I will be honest. Its very glossy, a gorgeous colour and its not sticky at all and lasts a while before you need to apply but unfortunately I would not pay the full price of these or the £4.99 I snagged this for at TK Maxx. I'm not really  a gloss fan usually I just thought the name was quite cute, I'm more of a tinted lip balm kinda girl so will be sticking to my Revlon Just Bitten Balm Stain which I am in love with at the moment.

Hope you enjoyed my little review. If you have tried any New CID cosmetics that you have thought were worth the quite hefty price tag please comment below I would love to try something on someone elses recommendation.

Look Beauty Glow, Bronze and Sculpt

Look Beauty isn't a brand I'm really familiar with. I have a blush and a couple of nail polishes from them but never really looked into them properly but I spotted these on the Superdrug website. They do a selection of Look Books, they do a smokey eye, lashes, metallic smoulder and the glow, bronze and sculpt. This one in particular is £18 but they are on 3 for 2 at the moment so you could grab a few for Christmas presents at a really good price.

 

 It comes with this handy guide on how to contour and blush which will be useful for anyone new to make up or anyone unsure on how to contour.

In the box you get a blush in Rosy, a Holiday Glow in Rio, a highlighter and a brush.
 

I didn't like the look of the blush at first as it seemed to be really shimmery and I prefer matt blushes but once you actually apply it the shimmer really isn't too much it just gives a nice healthy glow to your cheeks.

Again the bronzer scared me a little, I thought it would be too dark for my super pale skin and it looked really glittery too but its not at all on the face. If blends out perfectly to contour and looks really natural. 

I think the highlighter is the winner in this set. Its a gorgeous colour and looks stunning on the face. It looks completely natural when blended out and I imagine it would look great in summer with a bit more colour on the face. 

The brush, well this is a bit awful. You can see from the other pictures that it sheds like mad, around 10 hairs fell out whilst trying to take the brush out of the packet but saying that I don't think I've ever liked an applicator that comes with a product, even high end ones so I'm not going to be too negative and I definitely think its worth it without the brush, especially whilst its 3 for 2 as well.

Have you ever tried anything by Look Beauty?