Holiday

Hey everyone :)
so I'm gonna be on a hiatus until the 12th of september because I'm going on holiday and well, unless something exciting happens and I have to blog about it (like, I dunno, a really cool new buy), then I'll see if my sister will let me, but if not you'll have to be patient and wait for my return. I'm sorry I've been rather inactive this past few days but I've been busy hanging out with friends or packing.

So bye!!

WANT: Barry M new Trio Eyeshadow

My sister and I are browsing Barry M's site when I notice they have a new eye product :trio eyeshadows. Priced at £5.95 each, it's quite decent considering how much one dazzle dust costs.

The Pretty Pastels (above) has caught my eye and is now on my wishlist. Oh well, I'll have to wait a while though!

MNY Maybelline, oh how I'm torn with you... + FOTD

So, on saturday, I went to Saarbrücken (simply because it's the closest place to Luxembourg with Starbucks haha) and whilst I was there, I went to check out the new MNY range, which is a 'daughter' range of Maybelline, which currently only exists in central Europe.

Apparantly, the range is going to appear exclusively in Superdrug later on this year (according to MakeUpSavvy) so I suppose this could be a bit like a heads up for all the Brits.

Anyway, the display is actually a lot smaller than I expected it to be, from the pictures you'd think it's a big stand, but in reality it's only half a stand. Although some people seem to find the packaging tacky, I quite like it, although that might be all the colours screaming out at me.


Misleading, isn't it?

Surprisingly, I didn't buy any of their more colourful stuff, I bought two nude shades and a liquid blush which was the last in their 1€ Bye Bye Section. Unfortunately, I forgot to check which shades I've bought, but I'll go edit this tomorrow after I have a look :)




First of all, the darker of the two. It's a pinky/beige shimmery eyeshadow, which has similarities to UD's Sellout from their Book of Shadows II, although this one is a little darker. So first impression's not bad, I'm quite pleased, but then, I notice this.



A scratch. Right down the middle of the lid. Naty impressed? No, not at all. Ok, I get it. It cost 1.95€, but still! My MUA eyeshadows are in perfect condition and they cost even less! So yeah, packaging gets a minus point.




As you can see from the swatch, it's quite pigmented and not too shimmery, so I am still content. This is the kind of shade that I like because it's simple enough to go on its own or with a flick of liquid liner. It is quite similar to UD's Sellout, so for people wanting a cheaper alternative, this is ideal, even if it's not exactly a dupe.




Next up is a lighter shade, which is quite handy as a highlighter, as it's cream bordering on white.




But, it's happened again! Another crack! You might think that I'm very careless, but trust me, the bag didn't even fall on the floor, so this is really making me unhappy, because both my eyeshadows have got poor quality packaging, so it's obviously not just a one off.




To make things worse, THAT happened today. The lid broke off. Yeah, I managed to get it back on, but it just makes me a little bit more pissed off.

Now, on to the swatch...



So again, very well pigmented, not too much shimmer and it's a pretty colour. The quality of the actual products is excellent, just the packaging is a let down.



And now, just a little comparison to UD's Sellout (left). Ok, they're different shades, but the pigmentation and texture is quite similar, as you can see.

Next up is their liquid blush, which I got for 1€ in their 'Bye Bye' section.




Again, packaging is quite adorable and relatively simple.




A lot of product comes out if you squeeze too hard and with this stuff, less is more, so you have to be careful with that.




There you have it from the tube, then blended out, which still shows up remarkably well. If I had Benefit's Benetint, I would compare the two, but alas, my budget won't let me buy it and if you can get cheaper alternatives, I don't see why I'd want to. (Benefit is incredibly overpriced, in my opinion. Yes, the packaging is cute, but still..no)

So there you have it! A little preview of MNY's range and I have to confess, I have mixed feelings. The packaging thing really irks me, but the quality is still quite reasonable, so I'm gonna have to say, it is still worth the small price you pay.

And now for my EOTD, which was done using Sephora's Five-in-One palette (which I have yet to review)

I quite fancied something a little more colourful than my nude looks these past few days, and I'm quite pleased with this look.




Next up is a picture of my face, where you can see the liquid blush on my cheeks, more prominently, my left cheek.



So that's all from me for today, I might update tomorrow if I have the time, I'm going on holiday on friday, so I'm gonna be busy packing and stuff! Night, night :)

Manhattan Eyeshadow Base

Manhattan is a Germany/Austria/Switzerland/Luxembourg based supermarket/drugstore make up brand, from what I can tell and completely nonexistant in the UK (if anyone's seen this brand in the UK, please let me know so I can correct this :)

This brand has always blended in with brands such as Nivea , because usually it doesn't hold much of interest for me. Until one day, when I was searching for a black nail varnish (to put the dots on my watermelon nails - I can't pull off black), I noticed this.




Oh yes, a primer. A cheap alternative to Urban Decay's Primer Potion, is what I was hoping. But at €4.50 in my local supermarket, I thought 'Nahhh, my stingyness would never forgive me if I bought it now and found out it's cheaper in DM in Germany...' so I didn't buy it.

Saturday, I went to Saarbrücken and I went to DM, their Superdrug/Boots and foud it for €3.75, I think. So I got it, quite pleased that I managed to not fall victim to Luxembourg's 'Let's make everything more expensive!' route (yes, I am THAT stingy)



Excuse the chipped nail varnish, turned out one coat isn't enough for Urban Decay's Magic Bus.



So the base itself has quite a light creamy texture that blends in well on the eye to the point of not actually being visible once blended.



So you can see, once applied on the hand, it's a bit more of a pinky/purply colour than in the pot. And honestly? As far as primers go, this is pretty damn good. I used it yesterday with a mixture of eyeshadows, ranging from Too Faced's 'Heaven' to some unknown brand's eyeshadows from a palette I got for Christmas and Sleek's gel liner (I <3 it).
And they didn't crease at all after several hours.



There's my look from yesterday and it was still like this in the evening, when I removed it.
So there, I've found a cheap alternative to my UDPP and when it eventually runs out, unless something makes me change my mind, I'm rebuying :)

I used it again today and if there is any notable creasing when I go to remove my makeup, I'll take a picture to let you guys know .

The Golden Oldies!

When I read Beautys Bad Habit's post about the old Body Shop lotion she found (she is seriously becoming my top blogcrush - I love it!), I felt inspired to go through my mum's basket of old make up that she never uses. WARNING, image heavy!

So after chucking the ancient and STINKING mascaras that my sister and I went through (we went through the liberty of sniffing them to see how old they were, OH MY GOD, one smelt like petrol!) and other various crumbling stuff, I discovered a few things and asked my mum whether she would allow me to melt them into a pallette, because a) she never uses them and b) some are falling off but they're just so pretty! So she gave me permission to take a few things up to my room and leave the rest in there (surprisingly, we found stuff which was obviously still from this decade...impressive)


Oh yeah, that palette's got a gorgeous packaging, hasn't it? So let's start with that first.



So, upon closer inspection (ie, turning it over to look at the details), I discovered that it is St Michael by M&S or something like that.


As you can see, I have put an exclamation mark and underlined the year it was made, which is 1991!!! This eyeshadow's older than me, for crying out loud!



I suppose the colours are quite nice though, even if the palette itself has a...eccentric design, to put it nicely.



So I picked up the applicator, which was surprisingly still intact, only for this to happen when I used it to swatch the colours (oh yeah, I touched the old eyeshadow. Brave Nat, I am)



Erm yeah...Intact? Nope, not anymore.




That's where the spongey bit fell off into...it just completely deteriorated before my eyes! Anyway, moving on to swatches.





So the colours are actually quite nice and remarkably pigmented for being 19 years old, but I had to throw it away, cause it's just plain unhygienic using something quite old and I don't want any eye infections, no thank you! But it was fun whilst it lasted and certainly interesting to try out.

Next up is an older Clinique lipstick. I am assuming this because the packaging is completely different to any of their current lipsticks and from what I've checked (ie googled), this sees to be discontinued.


It's a bit more orangey in real life, but my camera has this annoying tendancy to take some pics with nice lighting and some with not so nice lighting.


So it looks pretty nice in the pot, but on y hand it's a bit wishy washy .


See? Old age has made it streaky, which is why I'm going to experiment with these three lipsticks and melt them (first time doing it!) when I have the time.

And now we have a Maybelline lipstick! Out of all the oldies, I think this might be the most recent purchase. Which does make me wonder...what on earth is my mother doing buying THAT shade?!



I know a lot of people like pale lipstick, but I just associate it with those orange fake-tan, backcombed hair disasters...whose role model seems to be Jordan.

Anyway, as far as I know, I think this one might still exist *shock*. The shade is 01 Vanilla Ice and is part of their Watershine collection of lipsticks.



I love the french name...sirop de sucre. Dunno how vanilla ice translates to sugar sirop exactly..



Erm, yeah, so I tried this on my lips and it didn't show incredibly well. Mainly because my lips are quite red so I'd have probably been better off using a lip base, but I don't have one so there haha.

Next up is possibly my favourite. It's part of the Allex Jane Aloe Vera Rose Garden lipstick collection and is called Night Rose. I adore the packaging on this, it's very floral which makes me squee even though anyone else would accuse it of looking like their grandmother's curtains, but I like it. The internet does not give me any indication of how old it is, so I'm gonna assume it was bought in the 90s because it's quite hard now.


See how pretty? I love it and the colour itself is gorgeous.



So as for swatching, it's still quite pigmented, so I'm gonna melt this as well, although I'd rather not, as the packaging is lovely, but it's fallen out already so I have to, I guess.



Next up is the Napoleon Perdis Liquid Lipstick, which actually has reviews on Make Up Alley!
Although, I would honestly rather call it a very pigmented lip gloss, cause that is what it is.


Again, I have no idea how old it is, I haven't actually heard of this brand before, but according to Wikipedia, it's an Australian brand which was started in 1995.



So this 'liquid lipstick' is in shade Paris Pink, that's about as much as I could find out from the back.



It's quite pigmented, yet quite pale on the lips, so I'm not sure whethe I would actually use something like this.

Anyway, phew, that took a while! I actually really enjoyed going through the old stuff today and I was gonna post about my little haul from Saabrücken in Germany, but I've spent ages doing this and photobucket is being a pain in the arse, so hopefully, tomorrow I'll continue!

When to start considering a lash perm...

That would be when even a combination of Diorshow Iconic and the Shu Uemura eyelash curler does NOTHING to your lashes.


My eyelashes are sort of thick, but pokerstraight. What's even more unfair is that all three of my siblings have lovely lashes, which range from the so-perfect-mascara-is-optional to -anything-from-chanel-to-maybelline-gives-my-lashes-perfect-curls (otherwise known as Dani). And then there's Joe....argh, my brother has the curliest lashes I've ever seen. Wasted. On a boy.

And moi?


They look better in the pic than they are but seriously! Only my end lashes curl. So to remedy the problem, I got the Shu Uemura eyelash curler and thought : "Excellent, my lashes will now be absolutely brilliant, judging by what I've read on Make up Alley".

Eh, not so. First of all, they can't even hold a curl for more than five minutes, which had me wondering whether it was a fake and why Selfridges would sell fakes, but then I just concluded that my lashes are defect, not the products. I had the some worries with my Diorshow mascara -was it defect?



Ok, so they're incredibly long. That's good. But...where is the curl I was promised??!!!




It barely even lifts them! So to make sure it wasn't defect, I used my best friend Stef as a test subject.


THAT is more like it. Incredible volume, length...yeah that's sounding more like the mascara I've read about.



Just compare that to my lashes, you can see the notable difference. AND she didn't even need the curler!
So as a conclusion, if you have average lashes and want something extra special, get this . If not, and you're like me...well, there's another option.

I wrote to the beauty expert on Beauty21, Sara Hill. She wrote back with this:

Hi Nathalie,

Thanks for your question.
It sounds as if you’ve tried about everything; my only suggestion is to try eyelash perming.
Eyelash perming is a salon or home treatment used to curl lashes.
Depending on the brand and type of eyelash perming kit used, permed eyelashes
will maintain their look anywhere from 1 to 4 months. More expensive brands are used
at high-end salons usually last much longer than cheaper versions sold in superdrug or boots.
Personally I think it is very important to have this treatment done by a trained professional,
that has completed the proper training course, as your dealing with chemicals near the eyes.
My close friend from China, where lash perming is very popular, has it done in a salon every
three months and doesn’t need to wear mascara every day except on nights out because the
effect is so good.
Hope this helps.
Let me know how it goes.
Kind Regards
Sara

So I may just have to consider that, because I said pretty much the same thing to the make up artist on the set of the first film I did and she said des sourcils permanents . Now I duno if she means falsies, which I don't want, or a perm. I'm gonna research the whole perm thing before searching for somewhere where they do it thought, I don't want any bad side effects!

Moving on, I tried a sort of pin-up look in my look today, only I didn't succeed so it ended up just being rather neutral.






And I painted my nails a new colour today, Urban Decay's Magic Bus from the Summer of Love kit!



I do really like this colour and I managed to apply it fairly neatly :)