Strictly Fabulous Cosmetics Case 'Ballroom Palette'

And concluding our Strictly Fabulous Cosmetics Case posts, I have the Ballroom Palette here.
So out of the three palettes, I think this is the one which is most accessible for daytime. These colours could be pulled off without looking too dramatic, and on the left side, you could say that they're the nudeish colours.

Here we have the most BEAUTIFUL gold I have every since which is very velvety and even brighter than Urban Decay's Baked (which is the holy grail for golds for me), I think I may do some comparison swatches to show to you girls what it's like. Then you have a darker, coppery sort of colour which goes beautifully with the gold, a shimmery cream which would be ideal as a highlight and then a light pink/brown colour that also goes well with these. As for glosses, you have a see through sparkly colour, then a pink/gold duochromey colour with LOTS of gold sparkles.

Out of all three blushers/bronzers, this is the darkest. Again, it's shimmery but not that noticeable once on your face. When you apply it, it actually looks a bit redder than in the pan, so I'm thinking this is a blusher bronzer hybrid.

With the exception of the dark purple, all these eyeshadows are pastels, whether it's violet, blue or green/blue. The first gloss is a pale nude colour with lots of shimmer and the second is a darker red with shimmer, but not as dark as the one in the first palette.



The first four eyeshadows are again insanely pigmented (check out that gold!!!!) and don't let the palette down. However, the last four are rather chalky and a bit weaker than the others. It's like the makers got tired at this point and decided not to make them as magnificent as the others. It's no big problem, as they still are not bad without primer and I'm sure you can build them up.

So there you have it for the Strictly Fabulous palette. I'm definitely happy I got this for Christmas and I will enjoy using it!

Strictly Fabulous Cosmetics Case 'Salsa Palette'

Following yesterday's review of the Latin palette, I'm continuing with the Salsa palette.
This palette is the bright one. I'm real glad I got this at this time cause now I'm feeling motivated to start wearing more colour as it's Spring soon, which I cannot wait for. As you can see, the eyeshadows aren't diamond formed, but circles with 4 having patterns on them, which are already vanishing due to use.

Again, we have a silver shade here and in this palette, there are some matte colours, such as these two lovely greens. The second green (which I used in my Dior inspired FOTD) may not look matte but when swatched and on the eye, it is. The pink is shimmery like the silver and the first lipgloss isn't as orange as the picture depicts, it's actually more of a gold colour with sparkles. The second lip colour is a bright red, but with a bit of shimmer and not as orange based as the one in the first palette.

Again, the blush is shimmery and actually a bit pale for me, as it doesn't show up extremely well on my skin. I'll try and see whether the intensity builds up when you layer it, which I think is a good possibility.

Again, we have two matte and two shimmery shades here. Surprisingly, the matte colours are incredibly pigmented, which surprised me as they're generally a lot weaker than the shimmery ones and need a lot of building up. The shimmery blue is a gorgeous duochrome blue/turquoise and the first lip colour is a shimmery coral and the second is actually quite a neon pink, which it didn't look like it would be in the pan. The pink is very similar to the first pink, but slightly paler.



Again, the eyeshadows are really pigmented, although some are a bit crumbly, like the first palette. The blush doesn't show up at all on the first picture, but does a bit better on the third picture. All in all, I definitely like this palette as the colour selection is good and not too much of the same colours, so I look forward to trying out some looks with this!

Strictly Fabulous Cosmetics Case 'Latin Palette'

A small FYI, I shall be doing swatches on this in three parts, each time of the different palette. Otherwise, I'll be having a far too photoheavy post and I don't like that. Possibly my OCD tendencies showing up, but I just start eyetwitching at the thought.

Bon, moving on. I got this from my lovely grandparents for Christmas and received it a few days ago as they were on holiday over Christmas. Its RRP was £45, but my nan bought it the week it was on offer and I think it was reduced after Christmas, but I believe Boots aren't selling it anymore. I took the liberty of looking on ebay and there are quite a few people selling it, not sure if they're fakes or not, but if you want to buy this, that would be your best bet.

Upon opening the case, you have the three palettes 'Latin', 'Salsa' and 'Ballroom', all named after the three dances they do in Strictly Come Dancing. Well, at least, I assume they do in Strictly, as I haven't ever really watched the show myself. The case comes with a face brush, eye brush and lip brush that you can find underneath the three layers and it's a good way to use up the empty space.
These brushes are actually quite good. The lip brush sheds a bit, but still does the job and they eyeshadow brush actually gets a lot of product on your eye which is great for a brush that comes with a product as usually they're rubbish.


So then you pull out the three layers so that they're sort of next to eachother yet in a layered way. So this post will be concentrating on the upmost layer, which is the 'Latin' palette, I believe.



This palette consists out of darker shades which are meant for smokey eyes, and bright to dark red lip shades, so altogether a dramatic look, but then, these ARE for the dancefloor, so they have to be dramatic.


So the odd thing with this palette is that the eyeshadow pans are diamondshaped compared to the other two which are circles. First of all, you have silver and dark grey, so your classic smokey and then blue hinting towards purple. The first lip colour is your classic red and orange based, it's bright and hasn't got any shimmer in it. The second red is a bit bluer and has got some shimmer. These are also glossy in a way, which sounds stupid but compared to the very last one, the swatch will show what I mean.

And then you have a blush, which could double as a bronzer as well. It's got some shimmer in it, but it's not too visible, so it's still a bit subtle.


Here we have purples, a green and a brown. So basically with this palette, you can create some dark, bit more dramatic looks paired with bright lips. Again, a nonshimmery (don't want to say matte, cause it's not, really.) cherry red and then a darker red, which is the darkest lip colour in all three palettes.
And now swatches...for the first time in quite some time, I didn't bother with the primer.Yes, I'll still use it creating looks but I felt it wasn't needed for swatching as these were pigmented enough (and it's a double pain, swatching, then swatching with primer).

The eyeshadows are quite crumbly, so I think you might experience fallout with these. They're all quite soft and velvety and the lipglosses are great as well. The first three are quite glossy and sticky looking, although they aren't and the staying power's not bad on these.

As with my Sephora Colourplay palette, I think I'll post looks to go with these, so stay tuned!

Barry M and No7 Lipglosses

Well, hello there!

This is a very rare thing for me to be updating on a Monday night (ok, I can't finish this in 10 minutes, so probably Tuesday/Wednesday), but as I didn't update this weekend (has not been a fantastic one, that's all I'll give it), I felt compelled to update tonight.

I really need to stop using words that you generally use for essays in stuff like this, it makes people laugh when I use them in sentences and then that makes me, in turn, feel stupid.


So now it is Wednesday and I still haven't updated. I feel awful and I know that if you made a pie chart of my blog, 25% would be apologies and that. Theoretically, I have plenty of time, but it just goes away so quickly and then I realise I have no time to get on the computer. Ok, so moving on...

This post was originally going to be just the two Barry M lipglosses I acquired over the holidays, but then I realised I hadn't actually mentioned my No7 lipgloss in the previous lipgloss post, so I added that to it.


Soo...the first lipgloss is Barry M's Lipgloss Wand in Cherry Glitter was a Christmas present from Steph, the second was a Christmas present from the year before from my granny and has no shade name on it, so after a bit of investigating *coughgooglingcough*, I discovered that it is No 7's High Shine Lipgloss in Dream and then thirdly, we have Barry M's Lipgloss Wand in LE4, I believe, which was a limited edition Spend £6 pounds and get this LE lipgloss for free! in Boots.

First up is the Barry M Lip Gloss Wand in Cherry Glitter. I feel a bit stupid describing this, as the name is spot on. It's cherry red and full of glitter, but the glitter is not silverish glitter that you get in most glittery glosses, but RED glitter. Which is pretty and makes me feel like staring at it for hours on end going 'prettyyyy...' and acting like my sister in front of the Chanel counter. I jest, dani, I jest. (No seriously, she is like that.)

So the tube itself is actually quite misleading. One would think that it would be chock a block full of big glitter pieces, but as the photo shows, they're quite diddy. As usual, it's a typical lip gloss applicator, nothing special but it does the job. Another thing about this lip gloss is THE SMELL! Oh my god, it's definitely cherries and it makes me feel so hungry and just smells so good *drools*

I have swatches of all three lipglosses towards the end of the post, but as I like seeing lip swatches myself, here's one of me wearing the lip gloss.

And I'm actually wearing my glasses here, don't I look sexy?(!)

Excuse the bit of a silly pout, I'm not entirely sure why I was doing that. Anyway, it's quite a cool toned lipgloss and the glitter is a lot subtler than you think, so if the glitter puts you off this lip gloss, don't worry, because it's not that bad! You do have to watch out to apply it evenly, as it can be rather patchy, but that gets sorted out pretty quickly.

Next up is No 7 High Shine lip gloss in Dream. This is more of a shimmery nude gloss with a few sparkles.

So again, another standard applicator. This hasn't really got a scent, which isn't necessarily a bad thing of course, as sometimes lipglosses without scents can be a nice change.

So, another geeky pic from me. Here you can see that, despite looking quite thick and pigmented, it still shows your lip colour and just gives it more of a shine and nude gloss look. Well, duh, considering it's a nude gloss..

Last but not least, we have the Barry M Lip Gloss Wand in LE4, which was a LE lip gloss that you could get free in Boots if you spent £6 or over. I'm not sure if it's still going on, but it if is, it's certainly a great deal, as this is a lovely colour. It's quite unfortunate that this isn't in the permanent line.

Same as the previous one, this also has a standard applicator and funnily enough, also smells of cherries, although not quite as much as the other one. This is more of a sheer red, which is subtle to begin with, but can be built up if you want a bit more of a bold look, although it's not way out there, as it is just a gloss. It's quite decently pigmented and isn't patchy, unlike Cherry Glitter. I suspect that has something to do with the glitter, though. (Thanks, Sherlock!)

Here it's quite red on my lips, but it still has that sheer quality. The photo doesn't really do it justice, it's a lot redder in reality!



Et finalement, the swatches! From left in the order I reviewed them, the first two look a lot more glittery/shimmery than they are on the lips, so I suppose it's just as well I posted the pics with them all on my lips. These are all glosses that I really like, especially the Barry M ones and I would definitely recommend all of them!

So there you have it, a post that took a few days to come out. I hope you all like it and as I'm getting into lipgloss a bit more now, if anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!

MNY Maybelline "I'm An Iced Angel" Collection Part One

Just a little note, I'm posting this in two parts, as it'll be a little too image heavy otherwise and I don't like image heaviness!



Please excuse the massive fail that is me putting the package on the wrong way up...
Right, so for Kleeschen (AKA St.Nicholas in Belgium and Holland..basically their christmas), I got this makeup collection from MNY from my parents (ok, I was the one one who picked it out). It retails for €19.99 and funnily enough, I don't think the colours are the same as in the promo pic.

So the nail varnishes are completely different and I think the blue eyeshadow might be the same, but as for the rest, they don't look like the stuff in the collection!
Anyway, as you can tell by the oh so creative name of the collection, it's blatantly a winter collection


Here are the two nail varnishes in shades 653 (the silver glitter) and 655 (beautiful metallic dark blue).


So this nail varnish is just sparkly silver glitter and quite sheer, so it's basically a top coat to spruce up other varnishes.

Oh boy, do I love this nail varnish! The colour is just GORGEOUS and it was just love at first sight. I'm glad that the varnish isn't too dark as I'm not too keen on black and this is light even to be obviously blue.

Bottom is shade 175 and above it is shade 295. usually, I steer clear of the juicy tube lipglosses, because they remind me way too much of the cheap makeup you'd get as a kid that was unbelievably sticky and just awful. So, quite unfairly of me, I thought the worst of these and expected them to be awful, but they are actually really smooth and not sticky at all! I didn't really notice any scent but they're quite pretty, subtle with a little bit of glitter, in fact I think I'm slowly getting over my anti-glitter-lips thing.


So they're quite pigmented, but not too much so, and the clear one has more glitter particles than the pink one, which is the one I prefer because it'll give me a nice subtle colour.

Right, part II is coming right up and should be posted later on this evening :)

Teeny tiny haul

Ok, it's not really a haul, but I bought it yesterday, the same day that I got my Zoeva goodies.

I was in my local drugstore Schlecker (unfortunately it is NOTHING compared to the lovely Superdrug) with my best friend and we were looking at the skincare stuff when I noticed these two hidden palettes behind all the products. The eyeshadow one I dismissed, cause it looked rather boring and I have enough eyeshadows already but the lipgloss one I just HAD to buy, especially considering it only cost 1.99€!



(excuse the brown marks on my bed, whilst depotting my now broken Benefit Brow-zings eyebrow powder into a pot, some fell out, and in hindsight, my bed wasn't really the smartest place to do that, so apologies for the mess.)

Anyway, on to the actual product, it is obviously one of those unknown brands that do cheap palettes and are usually incredibly crap quality. But the colour selection looked quite decent, and at its cheap price, I didn't mind buying it.


Basically, you have ten nude-ish glosses, some of which are quite shimmery, and well, I'm not crazy about shimmery glosses, so they might end up ignored. It also has a brush, which is, to be plain, utter crap, as most applicator brushes that come with palettes are. The brush is really stiff and the handle just feels uncomfortable, so I think I'll stick to my Zoeva lip brush.



As for swatches, quite impressive and a nice surprise is the fact that they aren't AS shimmery as I thought they were, which is a definitive plus! Then I ended up putting the very right one from the top row on my lips and I actually really liked it.



It's quite dark and has more of a lipsticky feel to it than gloss.

So all in all, these are quite good, quite pigmented and very decent payoff for the price. I think if they still have them, I might buy one and include it in the giveaway that I'll hopefully have soon (although don't worry, it's not just gonna be cheap crap, I'm gonna go rack up some points in Sephora for that :))

EDIT: And about the coins from yesterday, Steph guessed 10$...more like 32€ (which is around 40$) so not very close :P But I had no idea it was gonna be that much :P