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I came across the Max Factor Creme Bronzer completely by chance while having a nose around my local Boots.

Max Factor Creme Bronzer

I am a bit fan of the Creme Blushes, so it was a no brainer to pick one up to try. There are two shades. Bronze is the darker or the two. Me being the pale Irish girl that I am, I went with the lighter shade Light Gold.

Max Factor Creme Bronzer Review

The packaging on the Max Factor Creme Bronzer doesn’t really wow me too much. To be honest the blush packaging didn’t either. It’s kinda bulky. They are really similar only the bronzer packaging is obviously square and a little bigger.

Mac Factor ireland

I kinda wish the pan was bigger, just because I generally use a bigger brush to apply my bronzer.

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The Max Factor Creme Bronzer is a baked mineral bronzer with a lighter base, with a darker colour swirled within it. It looks more cool in the pan, but when you apply it to the skin it definitely has a warm tone to it, but just enough in my opinion. No orange in sight. I sweep it into the ‘hollows’ of my cheeks too and it gives a subtle contour. I put hollows in inverted commas because let’s be real, there is nothing really hollow about my face 🙂

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The powder is soft to the touch and applies smoothly and blends nicely onto the skin. The payoff is more sheer as you apply it. I prefer this as you can build up the colour on the skin to your liking. It has a satin finish, but there’s no sparkle or shimmer to it.

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beauty blog ireland
beauty blogger ireland

It lasts well on my skin and does a great job at warming up my complexion.

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top irish beauty site
top beauty blogger ireland
top beauty blogger ireland
irish beauty blog

Overall, I a big fan! To be fair I knew I would be, it’s the blush in bronzer form 🙂

The Max Factor Creme Puff Bronzer is available from Boots in store or online now here. It costs €12.99.

xxx

I wanted to create a simple Summer makeup look and I made it a bit more interesting and used all affordable makeup products!

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This is about as fresh and simple summer makeup like my oilier and dare I say more mature skin will get 😛 Obviously, there is the bb cream and lip balm option too. This is more the ‘put together’ simple makeup look. After I filmed this I went out and had some dinner and felt very much put together.

On a side note, how much difference does filling in my brows make??

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irish beauty blogger

My simple summer makeup does use alot of products, but sure that’s how I roll and they are all affordable and easy to get a hold of here in Ireland. I used alot of L’Oréal products, Not on purpose, it just what I seemed to gravitate towards at time of application 🙂

Simple Summer Makeup Look
simple summer makeup
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  • L’Oréal Infallible Mattifying Base. (Full review here).
  • L’Oréal Infallible 24HR Matte Foundation. (Full review here).
  • L’Oréal True Match Foundation. (Full review here).
  • Maybelline Brow Precise Micro Brow Pencil in ‘Soft Brown’. I picked this up the other day in Boots, It’s on their website here.
  • Freedom Brow Powder Duo. (I talk more about this here).
  • Soap & Glory Brow Archery 2 in 1 Pencil (Full review here).
  • Flormar Primer.
  • Note Mineral Eyeshadow in 301.
  • Soap & Glory Solar Powder. (Full review here).
  • Wet n Wild Eyeshadow Palette in ‘Walking On Eggshells’.
  • Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer in 1 Light. €5.79 from Boots here.
  • Catrice Glam & Doll Waterproof Mascara. (Full review here).
  • Maybelline Colour Show Eyeliner. (Full review here).
  • Rimmel Lasting Finish Concealer. (More info on it here).
  • L’Oréal Soleil De . (Full review here).
  • L’Oréal Infallible Blush Paint. (Full review here).
  • Nyx Contour Palette. (Full review here).
  • Bourjois Healthy Balance Powder. Available from Boots here.
  • Sleek Solstice Palette. (Full review here).
  • L’Oréal Color Riche Matte Addiction lipstick. (Full review here).
  • L’Oréal Infallible Fixing Mist. (Full review here).

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beauty blog ireland
As always you can watch the full video by clicking it above, or watch it directly on my Youtube channel here.

Thanks so much for clicking 🙂

xxx

I already gave my first impressions of the Kat Von D Shade & Light Eye Contour Palette here not too long ago, along with some other bits from the brand.

Kat Von D Shade & Light Eye Contour Palette

I finally got to go into the counter in Debenhams on Henry Street and check out everything in the flesh. How cool is it we have counters in Ireland now though? So exciting 🙂

Kat Von D Makeup ireland

After using the Kat Von D Shade & Light Eye Contour Palette consistently for the past couple of weeks, I feel I can give a decent enough opinion on it. I also wanted to swatch all of the shades so you can see them in action on the skin.

Kat Von D Shade & Light Palette

The packaging is pretty robust cardboard adorned with hand drawn calligraphy depicting the palette name done by the lovely Kat herself. It has a generous sized mirror in the lid too which is always handy. Although if you look at the American site here, you’ll see they have redone the packaging and the shades are now housed in a plastic palette.

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The palette is described as: ‘Inspired by an artist’s palette and loaded with twelve matte shades that capture the true hues of shadow and light, this ‘Shade and Light’ eye contour palette is arranged by undertone for neutral, warm and cool shades. Use deeper contour shades to add natural shadow and depth to the face, then accentuate best angles with the brighter highlight shades. These silky, buildable powders blend effortlessly into the skin with a formula so incredibly fine, it’s like brushing on powdered silk.’

So we get 12 shades in this palette. All matte and they are a mix of neutral,cool and warm shades.

Kat Von D Ireland

They are arranged in their tone families, each one has a base, contour, define and highlight shade. Of course you can mix them whatever way you see fit though! I’ll swatch them in their tone groupings (from left to right) just to give you an idea of what they look like together:

Kat Von D Debenhams
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For me, the shadows are rich in pigment, soft and really easy to apply and blend. I do find you get some kickback when you dip your brush into the pan. But, that doesn’t take away from the quality, it is just something to be weary of. There is a good range of shades to suit everyone too! You can go from a really simple makeup look to a full on smoky eye with one palette. Matte colours aren’t always the easiest to get right, I find, but Kat Von D have done a stellar job. The shade range covers a multitude too! I’ll be honest and say I find the colour selection very similar to the Urban Decay Naked Ultimate Basics Palette which I have a blogpost on here. The Kat Von D Shade & Light Eye Contour Palette did come before it though 🙂

Kat Von D Shade & Light

The Kat Von D Shade & Light Eye Contour Palette is available from Debenhams in store or online here. It’s priced at €46. It’s nice to note, the Kat Von D brand is 100% cruelty free!

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top irish beauty blog

Have you picked up anything yet? Do you have your eye on anything?

xxx

The weather is kind of changing. I can see daffodils when I am out and about. That’s proof 🙂 With the changing season comes new beauty releases, which is always exciting! I thought I would compile some that I have from a few different brands. This is some of the new Spring Blush And Cheek Releases for 2017!

spring blush releases

 

First up we have two (of three) new Perfect Blush colours from Isa Dora.

isa dora perfect blush

05 ‘Poppy Peach’ which is a soft slightly iridescent peach:

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isa dora ireland
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And, 60 ‘Pinky Peach’, which is very much it’s name sake.

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beauty blogger ireland

I have been using these quite regularly over the last couple of weeks and have been enjoying them. I found them online from Feel Unique. They have an abundance of shades to choose from here. They retail for €15.30.

Next is the Clarins Contour Kit.

clarins ireland

I already have a full blogpost on this here, so I won’t go into much detail. But, I thought it deserved to be in the mix. It’s a cheek product and it’s new 🙂

Next we have a couple of different offerings from the very affordable Essence Cosmetics.

As part of their Spring/Summer range for this year, they have the BlushPlay Sculpting Blush Palette.

essence cosmetics ireland

This is in the shade 10 ‘Play It Peach’.

essence makeup

It has a highlight shade, a scultping shade (although to me this is more of a blush colour) and then a light satin coral ‘define’ colour. This is of course the blush shade. It retails for €4.95.

irish beauty site
irish beauty website

Another new cheek palette from Essence is their Prismatic Rainbow Glow Highlighter.

essence unicorn blush

The internet is kind of going mad for this at the minute. The shade is called fittingly 10 ‘Be A Unicorn’.

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The colours, indvidually do show up true to colour.

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unicorn blush

Swatched together though, they give you a really lovely light gold highlight, with subtle flecks of the colours shining through.

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essence highlighter

This retails for €4.40.

 

Next, is the very beautiful 7 Lights Powder Illuminator By Shiseido.

shiseido ireland

This powder was first created in 1917, and this offering is the modern day version of it.

The packaging alone is pretty stunning and then the powder contains 7 colours that are meant to help uneven skin tone and freshen the skin.

shideido makeup

 

I have been using it to touch up my makeup of late and have found it works really nicely.

shiseido 7 colour powder

The brush that comes with it is really perfect for on the go too. Swirled together the colours give you a really pretty peach, wearable sheen.

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Shiseido is sold in pharmacies here in Ireland. It was actually quite hard to source it in stock online. I managed to find it on the Escentual website here. It is priced at €48.76.

The last Spring blush release I have to show is Benefit’s newest Boxed Blush in Galifornia.

benefit galifornia blushbenefit cosmetics

It smells like holidays in a box.

benefit cosmetics ireland

 

Once the gold overspray is gone, you are left with a really pretty peachy pink blush, with a hint of golden shimmer running through it.

benefit makeup ireland
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Galifornia is available now from Debenhams here and Cloud10beauty here. It retails for between €30-34 depending on where you buy it.

spring blush colours

And that’s pretty much Spring Blush products in a nutshell right there 🙂 Any of them take your fancy?
xxx

 

 

 

 

 

I did a What’s In My Handbag video last year when I was heading to a blogger event here. That was more of an evening appropriate bag. I thought I would do an updated one.

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This is completely just for fun, no rhyme or reason. I love seeing what other people lug around in their handbag. My bag is technically a bag pack, I am trying something different for me. I adore handbags, but I am a little brat when it comes to carrying them. I thought a bag pack might make things a little easier. So far, so good 🙂

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I don’t have a link for it unfortunately, it seems to be gone now. But Zara have lots of lovely bags in at the minute. So many in fact, that I am going to leave a link here, but I’m not going to click on it myself. I can not afford to ha!

zara handbagzara bagpack

The contents of my handbag comprises mainly of makeup. Shock horror I know! When I put something in, I rarely remember to take it out. So, the bag becomes it’s residents for the foreseeable future.

what's in my handbag

You can of course see me talk about everything in a bit more detail in the video above, or you can click here to watch it directly over on my YouTube channel.

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I admire people who have their shit together and have their handbag neat and tidy. I am definitely not one of them. Things just get thrown in and I hope for the best. The bigger the bag, the bigger the mess. I like to call it organised chaos though. I know what I have in it, it just might take me a while to find it 🙂

As always thanks for taking the time to watch and read. Do you like these types of ‘nonsense’ videos? I would love your feedback.

Gemma

xxx

Clarins are releasing some awesome products at the moment. You know how enamored I am with their 4 Colour All In One Pen. I did a post on it here a little while ago. Another one of their limited edition releases is a Face Contour Palette. This is their first one.

Clarins Face Contour Palette

It contains 3 shades. A highlight, a contour and a blush colour.

clarins contouring palette

The packaging is beautiful. The powders are packaged in a very swish gold palette.

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irish beauty blogger
clarins ireland

 

And a large mirror is always welcome too.

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It also comes with it’s own mini contouring brush.

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clarins makeup
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The natural hair brush is super soft and actually super functional. It works really well at applying the product. The angled shape makes it great for applying contour, but it’s wide enough that you can blend out with it too.

Here are all three colours swatched side by side on my arm, just to give an idea of the finish and the pigmentation. They are enriched with plant extracts that are supposed to help nourish the skin. As well as Clarins own Anti-Pollution Complex.

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All the powders are soft and pigmented. The highlighter is not what you would expect. It’s matte for a start! Clarins say use to enhance the face rather than add glow. Like under your eyes, the chin and the middle of the forehead.

The contour powder is quite warm toned.

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For me, although the powder is lovely and blends really nicely. It doesn’t work as a contour. I much prefer using as a matte bronzer around the perimeter of my face to warm up my complexion.

The blush is pink toned with a satin finish. It’s a nice universal colour, that I think would work on a lot of skin tones.

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top beauty blogger ireland

Overall, I think the Clarins Face Contour Palette is nice. It is always nice to have multi functioning products under a pretty roof. The powders are really good quality, they are packaged beautifully and the brush is really functional. The highlight shade for me, works better as a setting powder and the contour shade as a bronzer. If you are looking to use it for their stated purposes however, it might not be the palette for you.

It is available in all stockists now. You can buy it from Boots online here. It will set you back €47 for 13.8 grams of product, along with the accompanying brush.

xxx                                       ****PR SAMPLE****