Urban Decay Gwen Stefani Eyeshadow Palette Review and Swatches

The Eyeshadow Palette was the first piece of the Urban Decay Gwen Stefani collection to be released. It's currently out of stock on the Urban Decay site, but is available on Feel Unique for £40 with the option to use a student discount or other voucher codes that can be found online to reduce the price ( I love Feel Unique). 

I've had this palette for a few months and whilst I was counting down the days for it to be released, I'm a little disappointed by it. 

The Palette contains fifteen 1.4g shadows, three of which are permanent shades (Skimp, Stark and Blackout) with the remaining twelve being limited to this palette. The palette contains a mixture of matte and shimmer shadows in both neutral and bright colours. 

The shadows themselves are a fantastic formula, as with pretty much all Urban Decay shadows. All are creamy and pretty pigmented, though 1987 is a little creamier than the rest. 

Swatches over Urban Decay's Primer Potion in Original on the left, no primer on the right.

What bothers me about this palette is the range of colours you get. I felt like a palette with fifteen shades was great value, but it doesn't feel like you get as many as that as a lot of them are incredibly similar. Most of the shades are neutrals and a large chunk of those are very light. Once on the eye, I find it pretty difficult to distinguish between Skimp, Bathwater, Blonde and Pop.

The only colour in this palette that I actually use regularly is Punk. Punk is a gorgeous, warm, dark brown shade and is great in a warm toned smokey eye look. I use this pretty much every day and am pretty disappointed that this isn't one of the permanent shades as I'd love to be able to buy it separately. I'd love to hear about any good dupes for this shade in the comments!

I'm not usually one for pink eyeshadow, but Harajuku mixes very nicely with 1987 for a rose gold eye look, these are the only other two shades I use fairly frequently. 

When I ordered this, it came with samples of four of the Gwen Stefani lipsticks which was a nice surprise. I'm not sure if it still comes with these but they are a pretty great bonus as the lipsticks are fantastic and I've since bought a few. 

All in all, I'd say this palette probably isn't worth purchasing in my opinion. There are better neutral palettes out there for less money that I feel you would get more use out of. It's a shame as there are a few great shades but they alone don't feel worth the hefty £40 price tag!

Let me know what you thought of the palette in the comments!

Lime Crime Velvetines and Jeffree Star Velour Liquid Lipstick Review

Lime Crime have had a lot of bad press and as a self professed lover of drama, I have spent longer than I'd care to admit reading over blogs and tumblrs dedicated to reporting all the failings of this brand.

I am however weak and easily swayed when it comes to pretty lipstick, so forgetting momentarily that I have no money I ordered some velvetines and a Jeffree Star liquid lipstick to see what the fuss was about. I ordered them from DollsKill at about $15 each, after import costs and postage it came to around £90 for all six.

From Left to Right; Jawbreaker, Jinx, Wicked, Pumpkin, Squash and Beet it

The packaging is lovely and I've kept all the boxes, but when it comes to the tubes themselves, the velvetines feel very light and kind of cheap when compared to the Jeffree Star. The Jeffree Star is also contains considerably more product and feels better value for the price. 

(Messy) swatches, I'm clumsy. From Left to Right; Jawbreaker, Squash, Pumpkin, Beet it, Wicked and Jinx

After a very good scrub with a makeup wipe

They are all incredibly pigmented and are fairly difficult to remove once applied. I'm still sporting coloured stripes on my arm a good few hours later. The velvetines also have a strong and slightly unpleasant scent that reminds me a lot of playdoh.

They are still incredibly pigmented on the lips and I found them very easy to apply with the doe foot applicator, I find that I don't really need to use a lip liner to get a clean edge. 

Lime Crime Velvetine in Jinx

Lime Crime Velvetine in Wicked

Lime Crime Velvetine in Beet it

Lime Crime Velvetine in Pumpkin

Lime Crime Velvetine in Squash

Jeffree Star Velour Liquid Lipstick in Jawbreaker

I found that Jinx applied slightly more patchy and had a thinner formula than the others, but this was easily rectified by adding another coat. Out of all of the shades I like Pumpkin best, I find it to be the most wearable and have had many compliments on it while out and about. All six last fairly well, though I did find that I had to reapply a few times throughout the day and after eating as they did lose colour in the center of my lips. 

You would definitely need to use a lip scrub before and probably after using any of these as they are fairly drying, the velvetines considerably more so than the Jeffree Star. They do become fairly uncomfortable and I feel very conscious of how dry my lips look. The Jeffree Star feels far more moist and I feel it looks a little less matte than the velvetines. 

Overall I think they're good lipsticks, but I'm not sure how worth the hefty price tag they are. If I was to buy more I think I'd probably go for more of the Jeffree Star Liquid lipsticks as they're more comfortable, It's just that Lime Crime seem to offer a better range of colours at the moment. 

Let me know what you've thought of your Lime Crime or Jeffree Star Lipsticks in the comments! 

The Importance of brushes.

I've been experimenting with make up for more than half my life, and in this time I have been trying to find myself the ultimate foundation. I've tried hundreds of different foundations, but never managed to get the flawless complexion I have seen allover instagram. I figured it might have something to do with my application, bought a sponge, but still no potato.

It always looked slightly cakey, dry and my flaws were still pretty visible. Yesterday I chanced upon a set of eco tools brushes, that came with a tutorial as to how to use them, and at £10.49 for the set I figured there was no harm in trying.The set was 'Fresh and Flawless' by Eco Tools. They come in a lovely box and are very pretty things.

There's a guide within the box that gives you enough to get going with, and this is the wonderful difference.

I feel airbrushed. This is the best my face has ever looked, and I am using the exact same products as in the first picture. I never thought something so simple could make so much difference.

Has anything revolutionised your face? I'd love to hear.

CB x

Yves Saint Laurent Touché Eclat!

     I thought it was definitely time that I shared one of my absolute favourite products with you. As you can see from the rather fetching photo below, I suffer with very dark under eye circles (much worse than they look in the photo, I promise!).

        Even under full make up they tend to show up and I have always struggled to find anything that conceals them properly. Everything I tried either barely covered anything, or was so thick and pigmented that it stuck out like a nun in a porn shop . I have been desperate to find something subtle enough that I can pop a bit on and go without any other make up, and my prayers have been answered in the form of Yves Saint Laurent's Touché Eclat.
     
        It is a highlighter and concealer and is fabulous in many many ways. It retails at about £20 but you get the occasional bargain - I found mine in the amazon lightning deals after Christmas for £13. Like all high end products, it looks and feels lovely. It comes packaged in gold, which I admit I'm a sucker for, and feels... good. It feels like a nice product.

Being pretty pale, I went for the lightest shade, 1 Luminous Radiance, but there are about nine shades to choose from. You click the bottom, and spread it on with the brush at the top. Below is the swatch and next to it, the product blended.

       

 It feels quite thin and as you can see blends to virtually invisible, so  I wasn't particularly optimistic that I would get great coverage from it, but I was pleasantly surprised. I dabbed a thin layer on in the darkest areas of my eyes and blended with a finger - I'd get a better finish from a brush I think, but I'm still pretty happy. You can see a side by side comparison on my wonky eyes below, I have the touché Eclat on the right eye, nothing on the left.

I've finally found something I can pop on and go out without bothering with a full face o' slap. And I get to have my freckles on display, yay freckles!