MAC Moody Blooms collection: Black Ivy fluidline look

MAC's latest collection Moody Blooms arrived in the UK last week, and I must say it's gorgeous. Blooming gorgeous, in fact. (Ha.) Unlike the Fantasy of Flowers collection released in January which was full of sweet feminine pinks and soft yellowy greens, Moody Blooms is exactly that. Moody, dark sensual shades that would definitely not be out of place in Poison Ivy's makeup bag.

Described by MAC as "Exotic, night-blooming flowers with a hint of danger inspire a hothouse of seductive shades. Sensual colours shroud eyes in earthy metallic Eye Shadows and lips suggest hidden motives with deep blue plum and dark berry hues of Sheen Supreme Lipstick. Bronze Powder Blush provides a final adrenaline surge before these beauties dissolve into the night."

Hint of danger, ooh err! I must say that I really liked the pieces in this collection. The colors remind me of Indulge collection from last Fall, which I hauled BIG time from!

Today I have created a look using Black Ivy fluidline and three of the eyeshadows from this collection. Have a look at Black Ivy in the pot:-

Black Ivy is the most perfect blackened teal eyeliner! The only other product I have that's similar is MAC Siahi fluidline, but that's lighter and bluer than Black Ivy. Black Ivy is pure love, and its most definitely worth getting a back up of it for your makeup stash!

MAC Moody Blooms

That's Black Ivy lining both upper and lower lash lines. I buffed the lower line out with Green Room eyeshadow, and then buffed that out with Lucky Green eyeshadow. (Lucky Green is also permanent, so you can pick it up anytime!) On the top lid I used Stars n Rockets eyeshadow with Hidden Motive in the crease and outer corner. I already had Stars n Rockets in my kit, which is a dupe for Blooming Mad, an eyeshadow released in this collection. I always try and find dupes for MAC limited edition products, both in the MAC permanent range and other brands, because I know that if I fall in love with something, I won't be able to buy it again. MAC does sometimes re promote limited edition items, but its seldom something that I want! Toxic Tale please, MAC?!? Pretty please!

Did you pick up anything from Moody Blooms? What MAC products would you like to see re-promoted? 

MAC Rich Purple Chromagraphic Pencil

One of the main reasons why I buy my MAC products from the MAC US site, as opposed to my native UK site, is that MAC PRO products are available to purchase on the US site. I'm well aware that PRO products are available in the UK via telephone orders, but it's just that much easier to add my PRO products to my online orders rather than making two separate ones!!

My recent PRO purchase was a Chromagraphic Pencil in Rich Purple. These super soft pencils are multi-use, so you can use them wherever you so desire on your face or body. There are, however, some colours that are unsafe for eye use, and some which are unsafe for use on the lips. Rich Purple, is safe for use on both these areas. I have a Halloween eye look planned with this pencil, which I will show next week, but today, I can show you how I used Rich Purple as a super gorgeous lip product.

Rich Purple Chromagraphic Pencil

You can probably see from the swatch above, Rich Purple is a very soft pencil. I personally liked this about it, as it means that when I come to use it on my eyes, it won't feel like I'm dragging it across my skin! 

Following from yesterday's post of Talk That Talk lipstick, I thought 'huh, I wonder if Rich Purple would make a good liner for this patchy-@$$ lipstick?' As you can see above, Rich Purple applies nice and evenly (unlike Talk That Talk liner, which was hard work), so my reasoning was that Rich Purple would make Talk That Talk lipstick look smoother than on top of its counterpart liner. 

NOPE! Talk That Talk is still a big ol' patchy white hot mess. Le sigh. Never mind, I'm hanging my hopes on Nars' Train Bleu when I get round to ordering it!

Have you tried any of the MAC Chromagraphic Pencils? What are your favorite MAC PRO products? 

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! 

MAC Scorching Haute Nail Lacquer

At least my nails can be scorching haute, even if the weather outside is somewhat chilly.

Scorching Haute is one of the two polishes from the MAC Temperature Rising collection. I was a little bit underwhelmed by this collection, and for me personally, the polishes were its highlights. The Temperature Rising collection came out on the same day as the Fashion Sets, Art of the Eye, Baking Beauties, AND In Extra Definition collections. Compared to all these collections, the Temperature Rising collection just seemed a bit meh.

Scorching Haute however, is an absolute gem.

MAC Scorching Haute

Scorching Haute is a packed multi-sized magenta glitter suspended in a clear base. The applicationon this wasn't terrible, but wasn't the best either. On my nails it had a tendency to patch, so I had to manipulate the glitter somewhat. My swatch is three coats, and it needed all three to get fully opaque on the nail. 

All of my pictures are in natural sunlight, and you can see just how bright and sparkling Scorching Haute is. It is even more twinkly under artificial light. I was stood in my kitchen for a minute just admiring it!

MAC have decided to put the Temperature Rising collection in soft touch bronze packaging (see polish cap.) It's a nice touch, but I'm charged £1 extra for the luxury of it.  That said, I still think £11 is a decent price to pay for a premium nail polish. 

Did you buy any of the Temperature Rising collection? 

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.

31 Day Challenge: Day 6- Violet/Purple

Woo hoo! I have been looking forward to this day of the challenge! Last week when I was hunting for the recently re-released GOSH Holographic nail varnish, I found a little beauty called Gasoline. When I saw that Day 6 was a violet/purple challenge, I knew that Gasoline would be in the mix:-

 

Look at that shimmer. Oh yeaaahh!

You wanna click on enlarge on all of these pics. Beautiful!

 

I painted my nails in Nails Inc for InStyle in Power Pink first as a base for Gasoline. Once dry, I then applied a wavy nail sticker- like the french tip stickers, only wavy. A good idea here is to stick the template sticker onto your skin a few times, just to take away thereal 'stick.' You don't want to take your base coat away.

I then applied Gasoline above the sticker. Once it had started to dry and was still tacky, I gently peeled the nail sticker away. Once fully dry, I applied glossy top coat.

When the 31 Day Challenge is complete, I am going to dedicate a separate post to Gasoline! Its a beautiful purple-pink and blue fleck shimmer suspended in a clear purple jelly base. It particularly looks amazing under artificial light (strangely looking its best in my local coffee shop!) So, when I do a straight swatch, I shall be experimenting with some lighting!

 

Ugh! Disgustingly beautiful. I <3 Purple!

Tomorrow's challenge is black and white! Another one I have been looking forward to!!