MUA and Fashionista mini haul!

Today's weather has been absolutely pants, and as such, I haven't been able to take any decent swatch photos of my last RiRi Hearts MAC Fall lippie! However, what I do have to show you is a mini that arrived from MUA the other week!

You may already know that MUA is owned by the same parent company as Fashionista,which when the brand was pulled out of Superdrug stores, it became available to buy from the main MUA website, at drastically reduced price points. Yes!

I was always keen to have a Fashionista palette, so a few of their eyeshadows got added to my cart! The look I created the other week was using Fashionista Double Take Baked Eyeshadow in Trendsetter, Fashionista Secret Gel Eyeliner in Cute Route and MUA Liquid Eyeliner in shade 3 (a bargain, for just £1!)

Trendsetter

Cute Route, Shade 3, Trendsetter.

How gorgeous is Trendsetter in the pan?! I was impressed not only by the quality of this eyeshadow, but also the size of the pan- its huge! I shocked that such a good product and such a generous amount of product cost me the grand total of £1.65. Yep, this beautiful eyeshadow cost me less than a single bus ticket in Birmingham! And the Secret Gel Eyeliner? £1.50. Fashionista is truly for a Recessionista! 

I used the Secret Gel eyeliner as a lid colour and a base for the baked powder eyeshadow to adhere to. I then simply buffed the powder eyeshadow up and out towards the brow bone. Trendsetter blended out really easily with a MAC 224 brush and had a good amount of pigment to it. Trendsetter is also quite glittery, due to its baked nature, and you can probably see it best in the close up shot of my eye. I then did a simple gold line using the MUA Eyeliner in Shade 3. I have a few of these £1 eyeliners by MUA, and I love them! (I just wish they did more colours in this formula- hint hint, MUA!)

All three products lasted well throughout the day, staying vibrant for around six hours, fading after the seventh hour, and needing a refresh after eight hours. However, this is probably due to the eyeshadow being a baked product, which for me, don't tend to last as long as a standard powder eyeshadow. 

Daylight.

Artificial light with flash.

Have you tried any of the Fashionista products? If so, what are your favourties? Share in the comments section! 

New York Color (NYC) Expert Last Nail Polish

Woo woo! The budget beauty quest rolls on...

Today I have NYC's Expert Last Nail Polish to show you. After really enjoying wearing NYC's Rock Muse Smoky top coat, I was expecting good things from NYC's more expensive polish line. When I say expensive, I mean it's still only £2.49. Their Quick Dry color range is even cheaper at £1.79 a bottle, but more on that to come!

When browsing the Expert Last polishes in Superdrug, I really wanted the glitter top coat, named Gramercy Glitz. I then picked a soft nude pink polish which I could layer the top coat on to. Here's my combination:-

Base color: Oh SoHo Sweet

Glitter top coat: Gramercy Glitz

I never usually go for nudes, much less sheer nudes! That said, I love how squishy Oh SoHo Sweet looks on the nail. Here you see three coats, and there is still some VNL (visible nail line!) I could have applied a fourth layer, but I really don't mind seeing a little bit of nail line, and I didn't want to make the polish look thick/clumpy.

Gramercy Glitz is a fine multi colored glitter suspended in a transparent pink base. I loved how it looked delicate both in the bottle and on the nail, kinda like angel wings. I want to experiment further with Gramercy Glitz and maybe sandwich it with a chunkier glitter in a jelly sandwich mani. Oh yeah!

The formula on both of these was good. Considering how sheer Oh SoHo Sweet is, application was good. I didn't find it to streak, nor did it bald in places, which I sometimes find in sheer polishes. The polishes were also quick to dry which is always a bonus.

You know what? I may just be a nude convert. I had hella lots of compliments at work when wearing this mani today! I will also be checking out the other colors in NYC's Expert Last range. If I remember correctly, I'm sure I saw a pistachio green...

New York Color (NYC) HD Color Eyeshadow Quad

Hey guys!

My budget beauty quest continues, and today I have a review of NYC's HD Color Eyeshadow Quad in NY Tribute. I picked this palette because I thought the pinks and purples would suit my green eyes.

Beautiful colors, non? Look at the shimmer in the light purple! 

Some application tips, which I roughly followed.

Here's the look I created:- 

When I first opened this palette and swiped the shadows with my fingers, I was impressed. they seemed nicely and soft, and full of pigment. However, this soft texture was the product's downfall, as the shadows literally crumbled upon application. Fallout, was unfortunately, a huge problem with these. 

In addition to this, as you can see in the photos, the pigment turned out to be not so great on these. I found myself having to use a lot f the darkest purple color to even make it look like I had some eyeshadow on! The best shadow was probably the highlighter shade, as it looked sheer, and not at all chalky.

So overall ,this product wasn't the greatest. In truth, the application was a nightmare. It took me a long time to build up these shadows due to the fallout and lack of pigment. It's such a shame, because if the shadows were pigmented, then the collection of colors would have been really nice. Boo.

The HD Color Eyeshadow quad is £2.99, and is available from Superdrug.

Budget Beauty: NYC Rock Muse Smoky Top Coat

After all the black glitter I've been rocking on my nails lately, you'd think I'd be bored of it. However, there's something about a particular type of nail polish that spins me out each and every time...

... the jelly finish. 

Oh yeah! NYC's Rock Muse top coat is a jelly all right! They describe it as a top coat which is how I've used it in these pictures. I chose to layer it over a dark grey No7 nail polish called Grey Matter. Have  a look at how gorgeous this polish is. 

 Rock Muse Smoky Top coat has small silver glitter particles and large

hexagonal silver particles suspended in a blackened jelly base.

I love how this polish looks, especially when I did a second coat, making the silver glitter particles in the coat underneath look all smoky due to the jelly finish of the polish. I would love to reswatch this, not as a topcoat, but as a standalone polish so I could really see layers of gorgeous cloudy glitter. 

And the price? £1.99. Yep, this little gem cost lest than a bus ticket in Birmingham! The next time you're in Superdrug, pick this little fella up. I swear, you won't regret it!

Budget Beauty: A Blogger's Quest

Hey y'all!

Blogging about beauty products is my passion (hence the reason you're reading this!) I seriously love ever aspect of it- shopping for it, the excitement of trying something new, taking photos of it, and then eventually, roadtesting it!

One particular realm of beauty products that has always appealed to me is the high street. High street cosmetics (drugstore for all my American readers) are an absolute joy for me. They're inexpensive, they're always on some sort of offer, and sometimes they're pretty damn good. However, some are real stinkers that always leave me feeling kinda... cheated. Annoyed that I'd spent money (even though it was only £3) on something that would never see the light of day again in my beauty storage.

I believe that the UK high street has an excellent range of cosmetics. So broad is it, that I see broad groups and even niches being nicely filled by the brands that are on offer. I have decided therefore, to break down our high street cosmetics in chunks, and for the next couple of months I will be focusing on the budget range of cosmetic brands. Just to be clear, I have determined what I see budget as: £6 and under for the items within that particular brand. Broadly speaking, a foundation is normally the most expensive item within a line of cosmetics, so if the foundation is more than £6, it ain't budget, baby!

So, here are the brands I'm going to be investigating...

• New York Color (NYC) Cosmetics
• Natural Collection
• Collection (formerly Collection 2000)
• Miss Sporty
• Make Up Art (MUA) Cosmetics
• Barry M 

I'm going to be trying one item from every line within these brands, i.e. one liquid liner, one kohl liner, for example. I'm going to review them fully, with pictures, swatches and creating looks using the products. Moreover, I'm going to tell you if they're any good. Each month I'll be focusing on one brand in particular, to keep it simple. At the end of these six months, I'm going to hold a Budget Beauty Awards, recommending hero products and advising you to steer clear of the stinkers.

Sound like fun? Hell yeah, it does! I can tell you now that January will see me focusing on New York Color Cosmetics, a brand which is exclusive to Superdrug. 

Let's go!