Max Factor Whipped Creme Foundation First Impression

I found this foundation on offer at Tesco for £7.99. I do tend to find Max Factor Foundations a really good colour match for my skin and they tend to sit quite nicely on my oily skin too so I thought I'd give it a go. 

I picked up the shade Light Ivory. The product is in a sturdy glass jar and contains 18ml of product. You only need a small amount as a little goes quite a long way so I can see this lasting me a while.

The texture is quite thick, not to dissimilar from whipped cream funnily enough and it doesn't really have any scent to it whatsoever.

If your looking for a full coverage foundation then I don't think this will be for you, I would say its definitely more on the medium side, if you have any acne, acne scarring or redness you will need  some concealer, I have a few small blemishes at the moment and I could still see them after 2 thin layers of foundation.

 Here is the foundation after being blended out on my skin. I used the Real Techniques Buffing Brush. It blended nicely worked well for my oily skin. It also didn't accentuate my humongous pores which is a major bonus for me!

I didn't need to powder and it lasted around 5-6 hours before starting to wear off. 

Overall I'm quite happy with the foundation, its by no means the best I have ever tried but its certainly not the worst. I can see me using this on good skin days when I don't need too much coverage and I don't want to powder throughout the day which is something I hate having to do. 

Thanks for reading, have you tried this foundation yet?

NYX Give A Little Love - Soft Matt Lip Creams

I've always been a fan of matt lip products and love my Kate Moss by Rimmel lipsticks but I was incredibly intrigued when I spotted this little set on the NYX website. It retails for £12 and can be purchased here from their website. They retail for £5 each so its a little cheaper buying this set than individuals. 

When I saw the colours in person I thought that there was only 1 which I would be able to pull off which was Tokyo, a pale pink colour. The other two were Antwerp which is a warm coral pink colour and Addis Ababa which is a beautiful bright pink colour. 

Corals never look good against my skin and always wash me out and make me look quite ill and I never feel overly confident in wearing bright lip colours, however all 3 of these colours look amazing on. I can say that I will happily wear all 3 and so far since I purchased them I have.

I was incredibly surprised at just how long these lasted on my lips. I put on Antwerp at 12pm, did an hour long drive to Huddersfield, watched a whole football match (I drank 2 drinks and also had something to eat), did another hour long drive back, went out for some tea and it was still on my lips when I got home. I didn't reapply once and I didn't end up with that awful ring around the outside of my lips that I get with some lip products. That is quite possibly one of the most unattractive things ever! It just stayed on perfectly. I was also very very rough that day after having one too many bottles of wine at my mums house so I looked like crap that morning but as soon as I put this on it instantly brightened up my face and made me look alot healthier. The colours are near enough exactly as you would expect looking at the tubes.

They also didn't dry out my lips which I was expecting, my lips are a bit dry anyway at the moment so I did expect my lips to feel quite dry but they didn't - bonus!

I will definitely be purchasing some more of these in the other colours they offer. I think they are fantastic value for money and the quality and colours are amazing. I definitely recommend them.

L'oreal CC Cream and Giveaway

I'm not going to be doing a full review on this product, purely because at the moment I'm not wearing it on a daily basis so I feel that it would be unfair to give a full review on something I haven't had the chance to test properly. I will however be giving my initial opinion on the product.

As you all will know BB creams have become a huge thing recently with so many brands bringing out their own take on the 'miracle' product. I have to admit I was suckered in and purchased quite a few different BB creams, none of them really lived up to their claims and have now ended up in the cupboard of which we do not speak.

Well to stir things up a bit we now have CC Cream or Colour Control Cream. L'oreal have brought out a CC cream as part of their Nude Magique range, there are 3 options to choose from, Anti-Fatique, Anti-Redness and Anti-Dullness. I opted for Anti-Fatgue, I gathered that they would all do basically the same thing but Anti-Fatigue sounded pretty good to me.

The product itself is in the same style packaging as their BB cream and it still has the smart pigment capsules. Here is what L'oreal has to say about their product:

New Nude Magique Anti-Fatigue CC Cream works with your natural tone to help wake up tired looking skin. Smart Pigment Capsules in a feather-light apricot hydrator transform into foundation on contact with the skin. Weightless bare sensation. A perfect nude look with buildable, lightweight coverage. See the magic for yourself! 

Now I was really excited to try this product, and reading what they have to say about it, who wouldn't? Anything that helps wake up my skin  is ok in my book.

The first thing I noticed after putting a little on the back of my hand is that it was incredibly dark for my rather pale and pasty skin. 

After I started to rub it in a little I did get a little more worried about what this was going to look like on my face.

Now that is frighteningly orange! However after blending it out thoroughly the orange did fade and it did leave a rather nice glow to my hand and wasn't orange at all.

I did use it on my face and I have to admit it did leave my skin looking surprisingly healthy with a nice glow, the coverage wasn't too bad. I don't have awful skin but I do need foundation to feel comfortable going out but this was fine for me. If you have acne or scarring then this probably wont be enough coverage for you. There was a few areas on my face that I know I definitely like a little more coverage. 
This being said, the CC cream is definitely too dark for me, in summer when I have a bit of a tan I think this would be perfect when I don't want a heavy foundation but would still like a little bit of coverage but during the winter months I think I would just look nuts if I went out in this.

When summer does come round and I get to use this on a daily basis I will be giving it a full review but for now I will just say I'm on the fence!

I do have one of these CC creams to giveaway (brand new of course) in the Anti-Fatigue formula, all you have to do to enter is leave a comment below letting me know which BB creams if any you have used and your thoughts on it or your thought on BB creams in general if you haven't had the chance to try one. Easy as that!

The winner will be chosen at random a month from today!

Thanks for reading!

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?

Soap and Glory Skincare

I've recently run out of my current moisturiser so I've been looking at various blogs and review sites trying to find something that is going to change my current dull, wintery skin into the glowy, fresh and young skin that I desire.

One product that seemed to have numerous good reviews was the Soap & Glory Make Yourself Youthful Super Serum. Youthful? That'll do for me. (You can read the reviews here on the S&G website, 4.8 stars out of 5 ain't bad!)

I picked this up from Boots for £20 (30ml), they also had an offer on their Soap and Glory skincare range, 3 for 2. Get in!

The other 2 products I picked up were the Night In Shining Armour Cream (£13 for 50ml) and Wish Upon a Jar (£15 for 50ml)

I am planning on trialling these over the next 4 weeks and then giving my full opinion on them all. If the claims on the boxes are anything to go by, I should be one happy girly.

Night In Shining Armour cream, err I'll have some of that me thinks, reduce wrinkles? Hell yeah! 

Here is the side of the serum, also sounds pretty damn good to me.

 And finally the Wish Upon A Jar, smoothes fine lines and wrinkles, do you see a pattern emerging here?

As usual with Soap and Glory all the products smell amazing, especially the serum and the packaging is so cute. The Wish Upon a Jar will look nice on my dressing table which is obviously a major factor when purchasing a skincare item, well it is for me anyway. 

 Have you tried any of the above? I would love to know what you think about them?

ELF Haul

ELF have recently done a 48% off sale and as I'm never one to pass up on a bargain I decided to put in a little order. I ordered either Tuesday or Wednesday morning and it came on Saturday, super quick considering how many orders must have been placed during the sale.

As usual it arrived well packaged, in perfect condition and with everything included.

There was one thing in particular that I really wanted to order from ELF and was my main reason for putting an order in, this item was the brow stencils. I was chatting to a friend at work who mentioned these and I really wanted to give them a go, they were only £1.50 (78p after the discount) for 4 different shaped stencils. I can't use all of them due to the shape of my brows but there are two that I should be fine with.

So after popping these into my basket I then ended up with this

All for only £35 delivered, bargain in my opinion. I've had a quick go of everything apart from the mascaras and nothing has disappointed. A few items are repurchases such as the brushes but everything else was new to me.

I've broken them down into sections, first up is brushes

L-R Concealer brush, blending eye brush, angled eyeliner brush, eyeshadow brush, lip defining brush and Kabuki brush

All the white brushes are part of the essentials line and are £1.50 each, the angled liner brush is part of the studio line and is £3.75 and the Kabuki brush is also part of the studio line and is £6.00. I already have all of these brushes apart from the Kabuki brush and they are really good quality, especially the angled liner brush, I can't be without this now and its the only brush I use for applying my eyeliner. 

Next up we have eye products

L-R Jumbo Eyeshadow Stick (Little Miss Thing), Lengthening & Defining Mascara (Black),  Regular & Waterproof Mascara Duo (black),  Jumbo Eyeshadow Stick (Turkish Coffee), Jumbo Eyeshadow Stick ( Check Me Out), Mineral Eyeliner (Coffee) and Pressed Mineral Eyeshadow (Bridal Party)

The Jumbo Eyeshadow Sticks are £2.50 each and are great, I've given them a little go and I find them so much easier to use than the NYX Jumbo Eye Pencils, they crease so badly on my lids but these are fab, even without a primer. The mascaras are both £1.50 but I haven't tried these as of yet because of the sheer amount of mascaras I have on the go at the moment. The eyeliner was £3.00, I swatched it on the back of my hand and it seems nicely pigmented and quite creamy and smooth so hopefully it wont tug when putting it on my eyes. The mineral eyeshadow was £3.50, its a really pretty white. I used it as a brow highlighter today and it worked perfectly fine for what I wanted.

Here we have a few lip products

L-R Luscious Liquid Lipstick (Baby Lips), Long Wear Lipliner (Natural Blush), Luscious Liquid Lipstick (Pink Lemonade), Long Wear Lipliner (Mauve Luxe) and Lipstick (Classy)

All of the lip products were £1.50 each. The liquid lipsticks are amazing and I can't wait to get my hands on some more. Baby Lips is definitely my favourite and I'll be popping a few more in my basket on my next order so I have plenty of backups. 

Finally we have the face products

Top Row L-R HD Blush (Superstar), HD Blush (Showstopper) Contouring Blush & Bronzing Powder (Turks & Caicos) , Contouring Blush & Bronzing Powder (Antigua)
Bottom Row L-R Maximum Coverage Concealer (Porcelain), Contouring Blush & Bronzing Cream (St. Lucia) and Healthy Glow Bronzing Powder (Luminance)

Everything here was £3.75 apart from the bronzing powder which was £1.50. I swatched the HD blushes and they are amazingly pigmented, I definitely going to need some practise with these, I put the tiniest amount on the back of my hand and blended it out and it covered the whole of my hand! I used the pink blush from the Antigua duo today when we went out for tea and its lovely, its really pigmented and really flattering, I had some concerns of it looking slightly clownish but it was just a really nice flush of pink when blended out. You can build it up to a more intense colour if thats what you like but I only used a tiny amount.

So that was my ELF haul, not bad for £35 I don't think. You can buy ELF from here if your in the UK or here if your in the US. If you have never tried ELF before I definitely recommend it, if you like them on Facebook they are always doing various offers and promotions so its worth keeping an eye out if your wanting to put in an order. They also have great customer service as well and have always got back to me really quickly if I have had any problems with anything, they are super friendly too!

I'll be doing full reviews on individual items once I have given them a good go but if there is anything above that you would specifically like a review or swatches of please comment below and I'll get one posted for you.

Thanks for reading!

Ebay Palette Review - 88 Warm Palette

I’ve seen so many of these palettes floating around on blogs and Youtube but never took the plunge in buying one. I know they are really cheap but I had low expectations of them with their extremely low price. After much deliberation I decided to take the plunge and buy one from Ebay. I purchased it from a UK seller so it would get to me quickly and that it certainly did. I ordered Wednesday night and it arrived on the Friday. 

Unfortunately as the shadows are quite delicate and Royal Mail aren’t a few of the shadows smashed. I’m not too fussed though as there are loads to choose from and a couple shadows are quite similar so I don’t feel too bad about this. 

The palette cost me a whopping £6.25 and that included delivery. This to me is absolute madness, madness I tell you!  This works out at just over 7p per shadow. I don’t even know how this is possible.

The first thing I have to say is that I am in love with this palette. It really is truly amazing and I will be buying the others they have also, they do some brights and shimmers etc and I will be getting all of them. 

I’ve done some swatches below for you, you can see how pigmented these are, they are really soft so there is quite a bit of fallout but for 7p an eyeshadow can you complain? 

  These are just a couple I chose at random, look at that black! I find it really difficult to find a really good matt black from any brand including high end brands and this one is so good, it really is incredibly black. The other colours are beautiful too, there is a good mix of matt and shimmers. There is also plenty of highlight colours, browns, taupes and a few really nice colours thrown in. There are so many looks you can do with this palette. I have been using it for a very neutral base but quite a strong crease colour and it blends perfectly, dare I even say better than my Urban Decay which has recently been neglected due to me finding a lot more affordable brands that I find better quality. Yes, I know this may be considering swearing in the make up world but in my opinion its true :-) 

You can find these palettes all over Ebay, if you type in 88 palette or 120 palette it will bring up lots of results for these.

What do you think of these palettes? Are you sceptical at the price or do you actually own one? I would love to know your thoughts!

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.