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Archives, Bargain Buying, Makeup

Essence Autumn/Winter Collection.

I have here some of the new Essence Autumn/Winter releases for 2016/17.

It’s safe to say Essence have been kicking ass of late and are constantly upping their game with their releases. So, I thought I would bring you through some of the products that are going to be hitting stands soon in the Essence Autumn/Winter Collection.

I’ll start with some of the eye products.

We have ‘The Metals’ single eyeshadows.

These come in six colours. I have the shade ‘Frozen Toffee’ to show you here.

These will cost €3.10.

Eye contouring is playing a big part in the Essence Autumn/Winter Collection. We have the Contouring Eyeshadow Set.These are available in 4 colour combos. I have the shade 01 ‘Mauve Meets Marshmallows’ here.

They cost €3.10

There’s a Contouring Eye Pencil too. Essence say it can be used as a liner, eyeshadow or highlighter, and it’s available in two shades. One for darker skin tones, and there’s one for lighter which I have here. It’s called 01 ‘Caramel Meets Frosting’.

They cost €3.10.

There is six shades of the new Extreme Lasting Eye Pencil.

I have the colour 05 ‘Rockin’ Taupe’.

These are said to be waterproof and ultra longlasting. They cost €2.50.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Duo Stylist Eyeliner Pen has a ball-shaped felt tip for creating dots and lines on the eyes.

It costs €3.10.

There is three new mascaras in the Essence Autumn/Winter Collection. I have two of them here to show you.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll XXXL Volume mascara that has long and short fibers within the formula.

And, the False Lashes Mascara Dramatic Volume Unlimited.

All three mascaras are priced at €3.50.

Up next we have lip products. There’s a bundle to choose from including lip balms and plumping lip glosses.

We also have Matt Matt Matt lipsticks.

These come in a total of seven colours. The shades I have here are 07 ‘Purple Power’. And, 02 ‘Perfect Match’.

These retail for €2.90, not bad at all!

Essence have also jumped on the matte lipgloss bandwagon with these Matt Matt Matt Longlasting Lipgloss.

There will be five colours in these. I have here 03 ‘Girl Of Today’. And, 01 ‘LA Vie Est Belle’.

They again cost €2.90.

There’s BB beauty balm Lipglosses that contain vitamin E and shea butter with a subtle hint of colour. There will be five shades in this range. I have 05 ‘Heartbreaker’.

The retail price for these is €2.50.

The final lip product I have is the Essence 2 in 1 lipstick & liner. These are also part of the Matt Matt Matt range and come in three colours. I have the shade 02 ‘Make Some Noise’ here.

You are supposed to be able to define your lip line with these aswell as apply full on colour. They cost €3.10.

The Essence Autumn/Winter Collection has all new face products included too.

There’s the Camouflage 2 in 1 makeup & concealer. This claims to offer long lasting high coverage and provide a matte, flawless finish.

This is the shade 10 ‘Ivory’, there is a total of three to choose from.

The price is €4.80.

Here we have the Get Picture Ready Long Lasting Compact Makeup.

You get a mirror and a sponge inside the compact and the cream to powder texture is meant to be great for on the go. It comes in four shades. This one is in 10 ‘Mat Ivory’. And, it will set you back €4.95.

We have a Get Picture Ready brightening concealer too. Essence say it has light reflecting pigments to help diminish under eye circles. You apply to product with the ball shaped sponge applicator. It comes in two shades. This one is 10 ‘Ivory’, and it costs €3.80.

We also have a Light Up Your Face Luminizer Palette with three highlight shades.

It costs €4.95.

There is three Satin Touch Blushes for Autumn/Winter. This is in the shade 10 ‘Satin Coral’.

These will cost €3.10.

Last but not least we have an abundance of new nail products.

I am a big of The Gel nail polishes so I’m delighted to see Essence adding to the shade range.

I believe these cost €1.99.

The nail care products range from €2.10-2.50 and even includes hand cream and nail stencils!

Phew, so there you have it. Some of the products to expect to see from the Essence Autumn/Winter releases. 🙂 Anything tickle your fancy?

You can see them all listed on the Essence website here.

PS. Shout out to Rosie for all the help with taking the pictures in the garden 🙂

xxx

August 29, 2016/by Gem

Bargain Buying, Makeup

Five Budget Makeup Favourites

I have begun to do monthly favourites again on Beautynook a while ago now and am really enjoying it. It makes me extra conscious of products I continually pick up.

So, I thought I would start doing just general favourites too. Monthly ones can be for makeup, skincare and anything in between. These posts will be a little more theme driven. Hope that’s ok 🙂

So here’s five budget makeup products that have really been floating my beauty boat at the moment.

The Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer.

Excuse the appearance of mine, unfortunately the writing on the tube doesn’t withstand much…touching really :p

I used this years ago when it was all the rage and then just forgot to ever repurchase it, once I became a full on makeup fiend. Why, I don’t know, because it’s a bloomin’ good!

I have the shade ‘Fair 1’ which brightens up my pale complexion really well.

I do use this on it’s own and it works well. It has good coverage. But, most of the time I like to layer it over my Urban Decay Naked Concealer (I’ve a full review of this here). The Naked Concealer I have is too dark for me, so layering them on top of each other gives me hardcore under eye coverage and some brightness too. The consistency of the Lasting Perfection is really easy to blend so it’s works really well for layering. It’s a gem of a product. You can buy it from Boots here and it’ll set you back €5.79, not bad at all, right?

2. My second budget makeup favourite is what I use to apply the concealer with. It’s the Real Techniques Miracle Complexion Sponge. Again, mine has seen better days. But it means I do actually use it…alot!

I’ve had a Beauty Blender in my stash since we were first able to get our hands on them here in Ireland and I do really love it. In in my humble opinion though, the Miracle Complexion Sponge is just as good! It melts both cream and powder products into the skin so you’re never left with cake face. And as an oily skinned gal who loves her powders for longevity, this is awesome for me.

I also love that it has a flat end and a more pointed end because it caters to all contours of the face.

I’ve also jumped onto the ‘baking’ bangwagon of late, so this is perfect for applying powder under the eyes too. In fact, other than blush and of course whatever I apply on my eyes, I can pretty much do my whole face with this. My poor brushes don’t know what to do with themselves. I’ve just been having a real moment with my sponges 🙂 The Real Techniques Miracle Complexion Sponge is €7.99 here from Boots. They also come in a double pack here too for €14.99.

3. This is another product I picked up first years ago, loved and then forgot about. This is the Maybelline Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser Primer.

This is very much the stereotypical silicone primer so it’s definitely a love hate thing. For me and my skin it work really well.

I have large pores, so I need a primer that will glide over them and make them less visible. It has a matte finish too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a miracle worker or anything like that. But it does the job of holding onto my makeup for longer and gives a smoother base to work on top of. It’s something I’ve repurchased many times over the years and have never regretted it. It’s €11.49 again from Boots here.

4. Number 4 on my budget makeup list is the H&M ‘Sheer Tan’ Solar Flair Bronzing Powder.

When I was in Oslo at the start of the year, I picked up lots of products from the H&M beauty line. Some just didn’t cut the mustard for me at all. This bronzer however, has remained in my everyday makeup stash and I reach for it alot.

As the name would suggest it gives a sheer pop of colour.

It’s has kind of a satin finish to it, but no shimmer or shine. it is really finely milled, so blends really smoothly and naturally onto the skin. Their bronzers come in 6 shades so there’s one to suit all and they cost €7.99. We can actually shop online from H&M now so here’s a link if you fancy a nose too 🙂

5. My last favourite is a new one to me, and the first product I’ve ever used from the Freedom brand. This is their Duo Brow Powder’.

They look really similar to the Anastasia Brow Duos, right?

I bought this on a whim from the Superdrug website. I did a quick google for colour swatches and thank god for fellow bloggers out there because it worked out really well for me. This is in the shade ‘Soft Brown’.

I use the lighter shade to fill in my brows either on it’s own or over pencil, depending on the day. Then, the darker shade it great for adding dimension or filling in any gaps.

The powders aren’t super opaque in colour when you swatch them, which would have put me off buying one in store.

This is weirdly why I am enjoying them so much though. It actually means I don’t go over the top filling in my brows so they end up looking somewhat natural 🙂 You can buy them from Superdrug online here and they cost £3.

There you have it! Five Budget Makeup Favourites from me. These are products that I am using pretty much everyday right now and loving.

Let me know if you have any budget makeup favourites 🙂

xxx

July 25, 2016/2 Comments/by Gem

Bargain Buying, Beautynook Tips, Haul, Makeup, Skincare, Tanning

Beauty Shopping Online

I am an avid online shopper. I do love going into shops and seeing products in the flesh, don’t get me wrong. However, living on our little island, we don’t always get the products we want in store, or we just don’t have the time to do it! So, here are some of my favourite online beauty shopping haunts that I like to frequent 🙂

Of course, alot of our favourite beauty retailers give us the option to shop online too, as well as in store. Some of my favourites are Boots, Debenhams, Brown Thomas and Arnotts. And I love that with some of these you have the option to click and collect so you don’t have to pay shipping and then whatever you bought, is packed up and paid for, just waiting for you to pick it up in store. Superdrug is another one that does that too, although I know they only have stores here in Dublin. You can shop from them online too though.

My favourite Irish online store for beauty shopping has to be cloud10beauty!They cover some of our amazing homegrown talent like Cocoa Brown, Waxperts and Blank Canvas Cosmetics. As well as some harder to get brands here like Pestle & Mortar and Alpha-H.They have you covered with blogger/vlogger brands like Zoella, Real Techniques, Colab, Tanya Burr and of course SOSU by Suzanne Jackson. There is something on Cloud10beauty for everyone, the shipping is super quick, it is free over €40, you get free gifts with purchase. They always have website deals on and very generous sales.

My next favourite online beauty shopping destination is Cult Beauty

The name really says it all! Cult Beauty stock a good chunk of the brands we all want a part of. And not just old stock, we can get new stock from American brands we covet! They stock the likes of Anastasia Beverley Hills, Aesop,Becca, Daniel Sander,Eve Lom, FAIRYDROPS (I didn’t know that actually, this post is really enabling my shopping habit :)), Huda Beauty, Jouer, Laura Gellar, OCC. I could go on, I really could. They have free worldwide shipping over £50, and again you can get free gift with purchases. They are also based in the UK so no worrying about custom charges and the likes.

Beauty Bay is another UK website that is jam packed full of American brands we want to get our hands on.

Products are a little pricey and shipping takes a while, but once you’re aware of that the beauty shopping is awesome! They stock the likes of Gerard Cosmetics, Natasha Denona, Anastasia, Cargo, Cover FX, Dose of Colour, Ellis Faas, and of course Makeup Geek!!!

Look Fantastic is another….fantastic beauty shopping hub 🙂

They offer free standard worldwide shipping, it can take a while, so you do have to be patient, but again they are a UK registered company so no duty to worry about. They sell the likes of Illamasqua, EX1, Benefit, Deborah Lippman, Dermalogica and Nudestix. What I particularly like about Look Fantastic is their range of hair care. They cover brands like Kerastase, Redken, Phillip Kingsley, Nioxin and Tigi to name a few. And, they don’t scrimp on the money off vouchers either!

Feel Unique is another website I am often found browsing.

It is great for makeup and haircare, but it also carries an abundance of fragrance choices too, for both men and women. They cover the celeb fragrances as well as the likes of Marc Jacobs, Chanel, YSL and Stella McCartney. I rely on Feel Unique alot at Christmas time, it’s really handy for picking up gift sets.

For my last contribution in this post, I thought I would add in Asos.

Asos is a website I spend alot of time procrastinating on 🙂 It’s well known for fashion, but it does carry a good amount of beauty choices too. It has brands like Barry M, Rimmel and Benefit. But, it also carries harder to get brands (for us) like Japonesque, Anna Sui, Cowshed and so much more. There’s free shipping from Asos over €25 and they offer free returns too which is really handy.

I think I’ll leave it there 🙂 There’s other beauty corners of the internet I like to frequent, but I don’t want to bombard you. And these are all tried, tested and trusted websites that I’ve purchased from successfully on numerous occasions.

I hope you found this helpful and maybe discovered a new online beauty shopping haunt.

Thanks for reading.

xxx

July 22, 2016/2 Comments/by Gem

Bargain Buying, Makeup

MUA Luxe Strobe & Glow Highlight Kit

I picked up the MUA Luxe Strobe & Glow Highlight Kits after they scrolled themselves into my life on the MUA Instagram page. Social media completely enabled me and I’m ok with it 🙂

MUA say on the Superdrug website, ‘A multi-formula compact, ideal for effortless highlighting. The cream and powder formulas in a light, luminescent shimmer allow for a perfect strobe & glow, iridescent look.’

The packaging alone sold me on these as well as me being on a mission to find awesome more affordable highlighters. It contains two compartments to house a cream highlight on the bottom and the powder highlight on top, along with a mirror in the lid, which is always handy.

There is two MUA Strobe & Glow Highlight Kits to choose from.

This one is ‘Pearl Glow’, and is more of a gold highlight.

This is marketed to lighter skin tones.

Then, there’s ‘Pink Luster’, which is of course more pink in colour.

Here is both of the cream highlighters swatched side by side.

Pearl Gold Pink Luster

The two of them have a really different formula. The ‘Pearl Gold’ is nearly wet in texture and has a light consistency, with lots of shimmer going through it. ‘Pink Luster’ is more mousse like to the touch with a more opaque colour finish to the skin and has more of a shine to it than a shimmer.

Here are the powders on their own swatched side by side.

Pearl Gold Pink Luster

The powders are nearly opposite to the creams in their compacts. ‘Pearl Gold is more of a matte powder with gold reflects running through it, whereas ‘Pink Luster’ has more of a shiny, frosty finish on the skin.

Then, here are the MUA Luxe Strobe & Glow Highlight Kits used together so the corresponding creams with the powders over top.

Pearl Gold Pink Luster

Used together, they are both very shimmery, frosty and not the easiest to blend on the skin. The finish of either of the creams, doesn’t lend itself to much to layering, in my opinion really either.

Overall, I think the MUA Luxe Strobe & Glow Highlight Kits look really swish and are affordable. But if someone asked me for a ‘drugstore’ highlighter recommendation, I would offer the Sleek Solstice Palette (full post about it here) over these in a heartbeat.

I picked up the MUA Luxe Strobe & Highlighting Kits from Superdrug online here and got them delivered to my nearest store in Tallaght. They cost £5, but they do have them on the MUA stand in store too for €7.50 each.

xxx

July 13, 2016/by Gem

Archives, Bargain Buying, Makeup

Sleek Whimsical Wonderland Collection

The new limited edition Sleek Whimsical Wonderland Collection contains three colours of their new gel blushes, three new limited edition complimenting shades of their VIP lipsticks and what I am showing you in this post, the ‘All The Fun Of The Fair’ eyeshadow palette.

I do love a Sleek eyeshadow palette so I was excited when I saw one left on the shelf in Boots while I was doing my new in makeup beauty rounds 🙂

Like all Sleek iDivine Eyeshadow Palettes, the shadows are packaged in a thin, matte plastic case with as always a large handy mirror in the lid.

The name ‘Whimisical Wonderland Collection’,I think is most fitting to the ‘All The Fun At The Fair’ Palette. To me, the other products are quite normal and wearable everyday colours, whereas the palette is a pretty assortment of matte and shimmery pastel shades.

So onto the swatching 🙂

As with all of the Sleek palettes, you get a plastic sheet over the top of the shadows telling you their names, which are all very cute and fitting to the ‘All The Fun At The Fair’ theme.

Here they all are swatched from left to right:

Carousel

Shoot The Chutes

Loop The Loop

Ferris Wheel

Twister

Teacups

Hit The Bell

Swing Boats

Hook A Duck

Helter Skelter

Dodgems

Hall Of Mirrors

On first swatch, I can tell that the shimmers definitely pack more of a punch than the mattes do. Unfortunately, this is the case for alot of palettes, especially when it comes to brighter matte colours. Overall, the shades feel really nice, none of them are powdery or hard to work with. I think there’s some good wearable shades in the All The Fun Of The Fair palette for the lid, the crease and transitioning, aswell as some interesting shades that will be fun to play around with maybe with a white base to help them pop a little more.

You can pick up the whole Sleek Whimsical Wonderland Collection from Boots in store as well on the Sleek website. Cloud10beauty have the whole collection here too if you want to have a closer look at the other products included. The All The Fun Of The Fair Palette will set you back €10.45 on Cloud10beauty.

xxx

June 15, 2016/1 Comment/by Gem

Archives, Bargain Buying, Hair, Skincare, Tanning

Cocoa Brown Kind Range

Marissa and the Cocoa Brown team have gone and surprised us all with their four new arrivals. I am sure you have seen them all over your social media feeds, but here’s a closer look at the new Cocoa Brown Kind Range!

Marissa has begun the expansion of Cocoa Brown, it no longer just means tan and complimenting products….a new Cocoa Brown Kind Range era has started 🙂

It Continas contains shampoo, conditioner and a shower gel.

This Cocoa Brown Travel Set is our introduction into these with travel friendly 50ml bottles of the products. These will be released in full size bottles too!

They are all scented with the Tahitian gardenia scent which is now synonymous with Cocoa Brown with a hint of peach in there too. Cocoa Brown actually say the fragrance used in the products is so minimal that they didn’t technically even have to list the ingredients used on the tube, but they did which is nice. The Kind Range is derived from natural sources and contains coconut oil and fruit sugars. They are paraben,alcohol and formaldehyde free. Marissa herself suffers with dermatitis on her scalp so wanted to create and shampoo and conditioner that works for sensitive scalp and skin conditions. They’re also kind to coloured hair and extensions. An added bonus too, the products are ph neutral, so they won’t get interfere with your fake tanning!

The Cocoa Brown Kind Range Travel Set also contains their new Face & Body Self Tanning Wipes.

I was lucky enough to have lunch with Cocoa Brown yesterday to hear about (and of course receive) the new products. Marissa said upon talking to buyers of Cocoa Brown, there was a market for tanning wipes. So, she decided she wanted to release her own and do them right!

The wipes are said ‘to be an easy way to maintain your Cocoa Brown tan on the go’.

Marissa also made the point that when your travelling, the wipes won’t take up any of the liquid allowance in your luggage.

I will of course be giving all the products a go, so keep an eye on my social media to see how I get on. 🙂

So there you have it, the newest Cocoa Brown Kind Range in travel form. What do you think?

It’s available in Cocoa Brown stockists since yesterday the 7th of June, so you can get your hands on it and try for yourself. Cloud10beauty have it to buy online here. The set is priced at €7.95.

xxx

June 8, 2016/by Gem