Birchbox October

Well its that time of the month again where birchbox sends me a beautiful box full of new products for me to try and test out. This months box took into account when my birthday was and issued me a box design based on that but there was no theme around the products in the box so lets jump straight into it. 

All product in the box

Urban Decay All Nighter Foundation

I've had this product for a few weeks now, I actually ran out on release day and bought it, fighting through people and the lack of supplies my local branch had to finally get my hands on this product and I knew from the moment that I heard about it I wanted it. All the greatness of the Urban Decay Naked Skin foundation but with better coverage and waterproof? I was sold just from that.

Any of my UK readers will know that although its officially Autumn here, or fall for my American readers, the weather is still red hot. Its October and there is still people still around in shorts and flip flops so the weather is still as hot and sticky as it was in the summer months which makes finding a foundation that stays in place all day no matter what I am doing was a challenge to say the least. So this seemed to get released at the perfect time for me. I've been testing this product for a good few weeks now so I'd like to think I have a good idea of the formula and stuff so lets jump straight in.

packaging on the bottle

Makeup revolution Radiance palette

I'm back with another makeup revolution palette to share with you, I have spoken before about how much I love this brand and I honestly can't recommend them enough, at least for their powder products, but today I am reviewing an oldie but a goodie in my opinion which is the Makeup Revolution Radiance Palette. 

Inside the palette (left to right - breathe, exhale, glow)  

TheBalm Frat Boy

This is one of those product that I received as sample for somewhere but I have no idea when or why I got it but I found it the other day and decided to start using it again. TheBalm are a higher end drugstore brand sold in Superdrug in the UK that are known for liquid lipsticks and the infamous Mary-Lou Manizer highlighter that I have spoken about before. But this is something else that they are known slightly for. The frat Boy Blusher.

Outer Packaging

Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer

Hey guys its been a while, I have Wifi back now though! Hurrah! so posting should be on time and more regular and I will do my best to keep that up but I guess we will just have to see. 
Now does anyone else suffer with dark under eye circles? *Patiently waits for people to raise hands* 

I do, I have massive circles that most of the time look like someone has tried to punch me in the face and given me a black eye which isn't a good look for anyone so instead of spending money on skincare to fix it, I have been spending money on concealers and this one has been collecting dust so I figured it was time to bust out this bad boy out and see what it was like. 

Outer packaging of the product

Urban Decay Naked Palette

This is one product that needs no introduction, the real question is why its taken me so long to purchase it. Well to answer that I didn’t buy any high end makeup for a long while, like a long time… and then in a matter of a week I was the owner of two naked palettes. Sorry not Sorry.

 

outer packaging

 

Maybelline Lash sensational mascara

Now this baby was a total ‘youtube made me do it’ to be more specific it was the lovely missbudgetbeauty who raved on and on about this mascara and so I was in superdrug one day and it was on special and so I bought it. What can I say, I’ve told you all before I’m addicted.

 

Outer packaging

 

Benefits Ready, Set, Brows!

You guys have seen in a previous post that benefit have recently released a new brow range including some brand new products and some packaging revamps for existing products, they were giving away testers of some of them in magazines and so yours truly had to go and get the only two that I could find, one was the ‘Goof proof pencil’ which you can find my review on here, the other is the product I am going to be chatting about now.

 

Outer packaging

 

Loreal True Match Foundation

Despite my ever growing collection of high end foundations I always like to keep a drugstore one on hand too, for if I am just food shopping or running erands so that I don’t feel like I am wasting my expensive products (it can’t be just me that does this right?) but anyway lets get into this.

 

Outer packaging

Mac Brave

This lipstick was my second Mac lipstick and it was worn non-stop for months (as the dint in the top shows) but what made it so lovely and wearable for me?

Lipstick in bullet

The Balm Mary-Lou Manzier

Way back when superdrug had first started to stock The Balm I went running to my nearest store to pick this up, it was sold out for months and every time they got it in it would sell out before I got there but one fateful day I got my hands on it and I was so happy that I practicly danced home to try it, did it live up the hype though?

Outer packaging

 

Bare Minerals Mineral Veil

A cult product is something this powder definitely is, every time I say I need a new powder at least one person tells me that this is the one to go for and so this time I gave in and bought it… only to review for you guys of course.

 

outer packaging

Colourpop Brow colour

If you read my previous colour pop haul posts on this blog then you know that I had an issue where colourpop sent me the wrong product and they sent me right one recently so I finally can review the brow colour/pomade for you guys! Whoop whoop!

Outer packaging

 

L'Oreal Paris Nude Magique blur cream

Primer is one of those steps it's hard to get right, you need to find something that makes a difference but doesn't cost the earth, something that makes your base sit better, last longer but doesn't break you out and they aren't that easy to come across and budget friendly ones are even harder to find, but have I found the answer to all your priming problems?

Packaging

Rimmel Santa Rose Blush

I picked this up after watching the lovely DramaticMAC on youtube and she said this was a dupe for dandelion by Benefit so I thought for £3.99 I would see I could find a nice natural every day blush for you guys, so here we go.

outer packaging

My favourite lipliner and Lipstick combo

Lip liner is one of those things that can completely change a lipstick shade or the way it sits on the skin (I know I'm making it sound like its magic) so I thought I would do my favourite li9pliner and lipstick combo that aren't meant to the be used together but look so god damn good, and it doesn't hurt that it makes a completely cult product sometimes that bit more wearable.

Now what are these mystical product I hear you say?

Urban Decay Primer Potion

Urban Decay have been long known for their amazing eye shadow pallets so it makes sense that a few years ago they came out with their own eye shadow primer. Its available in 4 different finishes and for £16 I needed to test it to see whether it would make their long wearing shadows even better.

Outer box

Colourpop Lippie Stix

Running on from the last post on here I have some more of my colourpop haul to share with you, the Lippie Stix! So lets get to this!

Lippie Stix come in a number of different finishes:

• Matte
• Satin 
• Glossy 
• Hyper Glossy 
• Cream 

Each Stix comes in a twistable white plastic use that has the shade colour and its name printed on the bottom of the tube, which is very very useful as it means you can store the colours upside down and it makes everything much easier to find. 

Colourpop Ultra Matte lipsticks *Review and swatches*

So as part of my colour pop haul I got some of the ultra Matte lipsticks, I bought some other stuff too but I ended up splitting this post because of the sheer amount of them that I bought, like I went a little crazy because I knew chances were I was never going to order from them again so theres a few to get through.

Full size ultra Mattes

Now all of the full size lipsticks cost me $6 which works out at about £4.50 which isn't bad at all. I also bought a set of the minis for $18 which is about £13.50.

The mini set in 'Foxy'

Clinique Moisture surge extended thirst relief

All out in the open here, I still only have a tester of this product but I will explain that in a bit. I picked this lovely little tub up from my local debenhams whilst buying a cleanser from clique (not gonna lie haven't used that yet) but I have used this stuff enough to develop quite a in depth opinion so lets get to it.

Urban Decay Beached Bronzer in Sunkissed

I got my makeup done months ago at Urban Decay and it left me with a love for this bronzer so much so that I travelled to four different Debenhams before I managed to get my hands on this little thing. But since then I use this every day as this is the only high end bronzer I have and is the only one I will ever need. 

Makeup Revolution Beyond Flawless eyeshadow palette

I love the brand Makeup revolution and my love for it all started with this palette when a lovely girl from work bought me it for my birthday and I instantly fell in love with it. Excuse the photos they were not taken when I first received the palette and so it looks a little beaten up. 

Too Faced Better Than Sex Waterproof Mascara

A couple of my friends raved about that original version of this product, and so when I saw they were releasing a waterproof one I simply had to pick it up. Now I hate myself for buying it because high end mascaras are something I said I would never buy, because they are just so similar to drugstore ones and you can nearly always nearly find a very similar product to the high end one but for half the price. But this I ended up buying. 

The tube of the mascara

Colour pop Eyebrow Pencil

I recently did a massive order from colourpop, a cosmetic company based in the US and that it cost a fortune to order from to get it to the UK but I digress. I ordered a number of their lipsticks, which will be featured in another post and a couple of there brow products. So I thought I would pop a review up for them, talk about my experience ordering from them and so on. 

Giorgio Armani Luminous silk foundation

This is a one of those products where someone else definitely made me do it, I was going to buy naked skin foundation by Urban decay and I ended up buying this as well... not that I have used the naked skin yet but that because I don't like having too many foundations open at once. 
So was the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk work the money? 

Loreal Charcoal Clay Mask

Masks are one of the few skincare items that I love and I will always be picking a new drugstore/lush one up as they seem to be really excelling at the moment bringing out new and exciting things all the time and this range is definitely both of these things. There are three possible masks to choose from which is:

• Pure Clay Purity Mask - purifies & mattifies
• Pure Clay Detox Mask - detoxifies & clarifies 
• Pure Clay Glow Mask - brightens & exfoliates 

Now due to my little student budget I only bought one of the masks and I bought the detox one as after being in turkey and abandoning the little bit of skincare I used to do I felt like what my skin needed was a detox and so I might pick the others up in future but for right now I only have the one. 

NYX Matte Lipsticks

So to kick off this month of everyday posting I thought i would talk to you about a NYX product that deserves more hype than it gets. Everyone has heard or owns by this point a NYX matte lip cream and they are amazing but I don't really hear all the much about the NYX matte lipsticks. 

Butter London 'No more waity, Katie'

It's been a while since I've done a nail post and I'm sorry but my nails have been in such a state lately I've had no colour on them for nearly 2 months so I could concentrate on getting them healthy again, or at least trying my best to. 
I saw this polish in a TK Max and just simply had to get it, I did no googling(maybe I should have) , no swatch hunting and just got it and ran. I picked it up for around £4.99 but it retails for about £12.

Dead Sea Spa Magik Delicate Boosting Mask

Holland and Barrett recently moved in the town near where I live and opened out on their beauty section and I was looking for a new mask and well this just kinda happened....

Freedom Pro Correct Palette

Colour correctors have been all the rage lately and with good reason, unlike concealers the colour correctors not only conceal but they also correct undertones in the skin. A colour corrector will make a spot or your under eye circles much less noticeable by concealing the imperfection but also by cancelling out the colour of the imperfection by applying a colour over the top that is opposite the imperfection colour on the colour wheel. 

This product from Freedom cost the grand total of £5 in superdrug and holds 6 colour correcting shades to help with everyday imperfections that you might need to colour correct. 

Outer packaging 

Urban Decay B6 vitamin-infused prep spray

I hate to admit it but I am super lazy with my skin care routine I am one of these people who loves the idea but in practise can never actually be bothered with all the different products (or afford them) and so I have been meaning to try this product from Urban Decay for a while, this little bottle claims, that due to its ingredients, it can absorb oil, minimise pores and reduce redness, but does it live up to its claims?

July birchbox

So its that time again when I get a lovely email from a courier service saying they will appear at my door with some new beauty goodies, and every time it makes me super excited and my poor boyfriend ends up stuck in the house all day waiting for the parcel (because I am normally at work) and this month was no different.

The box and its contents this month

YSL Rouge Volupte shine oil stick

There was a lot of hype around the new formulation of YSL lipsticks released in Spring 2016, they build from semi-sheer to semi-opaque colour making them slightly customisable to your needs and they claim to be conditioning onto the lips as well. The colours were all a lovely lot and as much as I wanted a lovely coral colour in the end I bottled and bought just the same nude/pinky shade that I always go for. So this is the shade Beige Blouse in number 47. 

Packaging

Liz Earle Daily Essentials Kit

Liz Earle is one of those companies that people keep name dropping into conversation and now more and more of the stands are popping up in Boots it is much more accessible to us Brits. Liz Earle is a skincare brand primarily, they do make up and perfume too but they are known for their skincare. The brand are cruelty free and also boast they they have simplified skincare so all you need is their three products, bought in the kit I am reviewing to transform your skin to wonderful clear luminous skin just by these three products, big claims.

Loreal nude magique cushion foundation

Cushion foundations have been massive trend taking on more of whats seen as the norm for foundation packaging in Korea, so when Loreal released a drugstore version I had to get it. There is a number of cushion foundations on the market but they are all high end ones whose prices are so high that I simply won't pay them. I was in Boots a few months ago though and they had them in and when I swatched the lightest shade on my hand it seemed to match my skin tone which in its self is a feat for a drugstore foundation so I picked it up. 

outer packaging

Benefit's Goof proof eyebrow pencil

Now I love my brow products and I am far from the days of using a simply eyebrow pencil to fill in my brow, unless running to the shops, I mostly use my Urban decay brow box that I wrote a review on a while ago (you can read that here) but when I was browsing through the magazines before going through the till when food shopping the other day I spotted that Elle was giving away a free mini of the brand new Goof Proof eyebrow pencil from benefit's up coming brow launch on the 24th of June and of course I had to. 

Outer and cardboard packaging of tester size

Makeup revolution fortune favours the brave pallete

You might have noticed by now that I am slightly obsessed with makeup revolution, but for the amazing prices and the beautiful looking stock I can't resist, and this particular palette was no different. I saw MissBudgetBeauty's blog post about this about a week before it was on general release and I found myself on the makeup revolution website on its release day and it was in my basket and I'd gone through checkout before I knew it, It wasn't my fault I swear..... 

Maybelline instant age rewind eraser dark circles concealer

Hey guys, its been a while I know, but what can I say, life got on top of me. Anyway today I am reviewing what seems to be constantly mentioned in the beauty community whether that be by people in the UK or people further afield. This little concealer bottle is coveted by bloggers and you tubers everywhere it being there go to product for under eye circles. Me however, not so much. 

Outer packaging 

MAC Mineralise Moisture foundation

MAC is somewhere that I normally just buy lipsticks from not going to lie to you all, but when I was there recently I asked if they do a foundation shade to match my face, with it being an almost corpse like colour this is sometimes hard. She pointed me towards this foundation after talking about my skin type for quite a while. 
Now MAC on the website claims this to be 

• Long-wearing
• Provides instant and long-term hydration
• Immediately blurs lines and wrinkles
• Provides instant radiance
• Provides stay-true colour
• Offers broad spectrum UVA/UVB SPF 15
• Dermatologist tested
• For all skin types, including sensitive skin

But did it hold up to its claims?

Makeup Academy Flawless Skin Primer

This product was bought for me at Christmas by a good friend and it's taken me  a while to actually write about it. I am so confused about it, online people like this generally, even rave about it for its low price point of £5 which is very cheap for primer. 

Outer Packaging 

Urban Decay Brow Box

In the same trip to debenhams that I bought the Naked Concealer I also bought their revamped brow box in the shade brown sugar, I mentioned in that post that it was buy two items and get a makeup look or lesson done free. Now when I went in I was actually looking for something for my brows, as I had just had them waxed and tinted at benefit and after looking at them in mirror knew that my NYX eyebrow pomade was going to be totally the wrong colour. The girl in the Sunderland branch, I think her name was Kayleigh, was amazing, she was very helpful and I didn't feel like she was just pushing me to buy a product for the sake of it. 

Essie Candy Apple Mint

While in superdrug picking up the usual shower gel and deodorants I came out with an Essie polish, this colour is one that I have coveted for a while and I needed it in my collection so in a moment of weakness I purchased it. 

The colour is a beautiful, you guessed it, mint green that just simply screams spring at me. The formula is beautiful, leaving level, smooth and opaque nail colour after just two coats. 

Now normally I would put a photo on of what it looks like on the nail but I smashed literally every nail on my hand bar my thumb nail so they all looked horrible, the only photo I have of the colour is in shockingly dark lighting but I will upload it, just know that it is not completely true to the colour. 

All in all this is a beautiful colour and one I am very happy to be adding to my collection 
Kim 
X

Urban Decay Naked Skin concealer

I've bought so many concealers this month but this was the only one worth blogging about. I was in the urban decay counter at my local debenhams and walking past the urban decay a girl looked at me and said ' if you buy two things today you get a free hour long makeup lessons our you can get your makeup done for free' these were magic words and so I gave in to two products that I have wanted for  a while the first being this concealer. 

Outer packaging 

At £17.50 its by far not the cheapest concealer I've bought but its still cheaper than the NARS one everyone raves about so I thought I would give it ago, its also very light, but more on that later. The girl in urban decay was incredibly helpful and wasn't just trying to get me to buying more stuff but just wanted to help. The packaging is lovely and has the very expensive feel you want from something that is considered to be mid to high range products. 

Inner packaging

The colour I got was fair/neutural and although there is not a great deal of colour ranges this blends in flawlessly to my skin. The formula is smooth and blends very well and although it doesn't feel thick because of it's 'weightless' quality it has very good coverage, I'd say its medium to full coverage and on days I'm not feeling the makeup or I have a good skin day I could see myself just wearing a little bit of this and some powder and I'd be set. 

The applicator is a doe-foot shape meaning that there is no need to go back form product while using it as it seems to bring out the perfect amount of product.

Colour on my hand

Now tested on my hand is not the best way to show this but you can see it is very light which is amazing for someone like myself. The product also seems very hard wearing, I am writing this while on holiday with my family and theres a hot tub in the place (I'm living in luxury for the weekend I know) but more importantly I was in the tub for about an hour and it had all not moved an inch, which is pretty good if I say so myself. 

So final verdict? I can see this getting a great deal of use and is by far one of the best concealers I have ever used, if there is a one for your colour go and buy it because if they all have the consistency and formula of this colour you will not be disappointed. 

Kim 

X

Makeup revolution Iconic Smokey Palette

I have wanted this palette since I first saw it announced on instagram and when I saw it in the flesh in my local Superdrug I simply could not resist and at £6 the price was amazing. This is a dupe of the Urban Decay Smokey palette which I would have loved to get but my inner cheapskate couldn't let me so I bought this instead.

OPI Jewel of India

I have a few OPI polishes and I will be working my way through them and reviewing them but this was an old one but a good one. I get so many compliments on this colour and constantly have people asking me what it is. The polish is from the Far east collection which first came out in 2000. The colour is a satin looking pink/magenta with slight gold looking shimmer to it.