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All Day Glow For Under A Tenner!

Surely you know Gemma that good glow can come for way less than a tenner? Yes, yes I do, but I want to talk about all day glow. Highlight that sticks around blinding everyone all damn day long 🙂

I know for me, all day glow means layering product. I won’t get it by just applying liquid or cream highlighter. And I won’t get it from just powder. Applying them together though, gives me a way better chance of keeping hold of it from day to night.

This is the time of year where we all tend to have a lot more on. It’s also the time of year where your hard earned money is going on lovely things for the good people in your life. So I’m here to show you that you don’t have to sacrifice your party shine as a result. I have two products here that you can layer up, or just wear on their own to jazz up a makeup look.

First up we have the PS Custom Glow Liquid Highlighter.

This is in the shade Pearl Blossom. On it’s own it gives a pretty muted pink shine to the skin. I will say the packaging isn’t the best. The pipette doesn’t tend to work, so I just take the product from the build up on the applicator.

These come in three colours I believe and set you back €5 for 9mls of product.

To allow us to ‘glow all day’, I would tend to add a powder highlighter over the drops. To lock the shine in place and even make it more glowy. You can always top up powder too if you need to retouch your makeup. Liquid isn’t so easy. If you want a similar shade for a similar price point, this is the Mink Pink Highlighter again from Penneys.

This is actually a really pretty powder highlighter in it’s own right. Again, I believe these come in three colour ways too. You get 7.7 grams of product for €3.50. So together, for both products, you are paying €8.50.

Sandwiched together products tend to have a better chance of standing the test of time in my humble oily skinned opinion 🙂

I know I’ve been bigging up Penneys/Primark beauty of late. That’s simply because they’re upping their game and I’ve been enjoying alot of it. My last couple of posts on their makeup brushes and single eyeshadow pans are here and here too.

Have you tried either of my glow all day suggestions?

Let me know 🙂

xxx

November 15, 2017/by Gem

Bargain Buying, Makeup

Current Budget Friendly Makeup Favourites

I haven’t done a round up like this in a while. So, here is five of my current budget friendly makeup favourites.

I am not a makeup snob by any means. If a product is good, it’s good, regardless of the price 🙂

My first budget friendly makeup pick of the minute is the very talked about Coverage Foundation from The Ordinary.

I harped on about this here in a dedicated blogpost, so I won’t go into too much detail. But, I am a big fan. I always judge a foundation on whether I would pick it up to wear for a night out or going out all day. This is definitely one I reach for alot. I love the coverage, the finish and the longevity. Oh and may I add, the price point too!

My second choice will come as no surprise either (sorry ha!). The Maybelline Eraser Eye in the shade ‘Brightener’.

I like both of the colour correcting shades (details on both of them here). I think I just reach for the Brightener more. I feel like I can get away with it just on it’s own. Whereas the ‘Neutralizer’ leaves a bit of a yellow hue to the skin. I am delighted these shades are available in Ireland now, because for me, the ‘Light’ concealer version, just wasn’t light enough. These work so much better.

My third budget friendly makeup favourite is another Maybelline Product. This is their Master Fix Setting & Perfecting Loose Powder.

This is actually Maybelline’s first loose setting powder. It is super finely milled and applies really lightly and smoothly onto the skin.

It’s really mattifying, so I usually apply a liberal layer of it and then use a setting spray over top to lift the skin a bit. It absorbs oils really well though and definitely helps with the longevity of your makeup. It is a more pricey ‘affordable product’ at €13.79 from Boots here.

Number four is the Catrice Metallic Liquid Liner in 010 ‘Bronze Lee’. I bloody love that name 🙂

You can see it in action is a previous blogpost here. These Metallic liners come in a couple of different shades, I believe. I need to find the others to add to my collection. I really like the formula and the finish. The shade is less intimidating than black or even dark brown. And I can generally create a flick with the applicator. When I can say that you know a liquid liner is half good. Feline flicks are not my forte at all.

Last on my budget friendly makeup roundup is the Maybelline Brow Artist Plumper.

I am way late to the party with this one. I don’t know why I never tried it up until now. I have the shade Medium/Dark. I like that the spooley isn’t very tightly bound.

It means it doesn’t hold onto alot of product. I can find with some coloured brow gels, it can end up all over your skin. This doesn’t leave your eyebrows feeling crispy either. It just adds a bit of a tint with some added fibers for fluffiness. It’s a really decent tinted brow gel. It costs €8.49 from Boots here.

And that’s my five current picks! Things that are actually in rotation on my makeup desk at the moment, that hopefully won’t break the bank 🙂

xxx

*****CONTAINS PR SAMPLES*****

June 30, 2017/1 Comment/by Gem

Bargain Buying, Makeup

Essence My Must Haves Palette

The Essence My Must Haves Palette are such a great addition to the makeup brands line!

Affordable interchangeable palettes. They come in two sizes. You can buy a quad of an empty palette of eight.

Within the Essence My Must Haves Palette range, there is 20 eyeshadows shades, five blushes, and three lip powders, all with different finishes to choose from, There is also a pink lip base for the lip powders, a highlighter, a bronzer and a fixing powder. All I believe, retail for €1.90 individually.

You purchase the Essence My Must Haves Palette empty and then you can fill them with whatever shades or products you may want from the range. The four pan retails for €1.90 and the eight pan €2.50. All the individual pans are the same size. You just take them out of the cardboard and they click into the palette.

The name and what the actual product is on the bottom of the pan which is handy too.

I have two four pan palettes here filled to give you a closer look at some of the shades on offer.

One of them is actually part of the Essence 15th anniversary live.laugh.celebrate trend edition collection.

There is even more shades release with this collection and the packaging looks a little cooler too 🙂 The trend editions are generally limited edition.

Here are the pans I have swatched and named to give you a closer look and to see how they perform on the skin:

With Flash

Without Flash

Cotton Candy Eyeshadow:

Best Friends Are Forever Eyeshadow:

Peach-Party Eyeshadow:

Celebrate Good Times Eyeshadow:

Black As A Berry Eyeshadow:

The Sun Is Shining Eyeshadow:

Raspberry Frosting Eyeshadow:

Everybody Dance Now Lip Powder:

And that’s all that I have swatched :). All of the shadows I own are shimmery, but I believe there is matte ones available to choose from too.

The Essence My Must Haves Palette collection are in stores right now! Are you intrigued?

********PR SAMPLE**********

May 3, 2017/by Gem

Makeup, Youtube Video

Party Makeup Affordable Products

It’s Christmas, time to pull out the glitter and throw all the makeup on your face 🙂 Here is my version of a party makeup look using all affordable products. Even most of the tools are affordable too.

I went simple with a gold and brown eye with some gold glitter and lashes. I wanted to create a party makeup that I would actually wear myself. As I say in the video though, 2017 will hopefully be the year, I get out of my comfort zone a bit video wise and be a little braver with my makeup.

I mention all the products I use in the video as I go along, but to recap:

Primer: Maybelline Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser.

Foundation: Catrice HD Liquid Coverage (review here). Mixed with L’Oréal True Match. Full review here.

I used the Real Techniques Miracle Sculpting Sponge to apply them and have my full thoughts on that here.

Concealer: Maybelline Instant Age Rewind and the Collection Instant Perfection.

Brows: Nyx Micro Brow Pencil and the Freedom Duo Brow Powder. My full brow routine using both of these is here.

Primer: Flormar Eye Perfection Primer in Bright Illuminator.

Eyes: Sleek Strobing Soufflé in Smoky Quartz and the Diamonds In The Rough Rockstars Palette. I have swatches of both of these here. Makeup Revolution Fortune Favours The Brave Palette. There is a full review of this here.

Glitter liner is from Catrice. Mascara is the Catrice Glam & Doll Waterproof mascara which I have a review of here. The liner I use to tighlight is the Maybelline Master Precise Skinny Liner. I actually only reviewed it here this week.

Lashes are Kiss in the style ‘Ritzy’.

Cream contour was Colourpop Sculpting Stix in ‘Dove’.

I used the Nyx Highlight & Contour Pro Palette. I have up close swatches of this here.

Blush: Makeup Revolution Ultra Blush Palette in ‘Sugar & Spice.

Highlight: Sleek Solstice Palette. I have swatches of this here.

Bronzer: Note Bronzing Powder in 10.

Powder: Paese Rice Powder.

Lips: Penneys PS Love Lipliner in number 6 with Rimmel’s The Only One Matte Lipstick in 200 ‘Salute. I have lots of these swatched in a blogpost here.

Party makeup done 🙂

Sometimes it takes a village, I am happy with how it turned out though. I do love a bit of sparkle.

You can watch the video by clicking above or directly on my YouTube channel here.

I’ll stop rambling now, Merry Christmas!!

xxx

December 16, 2016/by Gem

Bargain Buying, Makeup

Festive Red Lipstick Budget Beauty

I did a post similar to this last here year for my first Christmas in Beautynook world. It’s a festive red lip for under a fiver. I still love and use both of products I used, these are just alternatives for your 2016 Festive Red Lipstick look 🙂

I think a decent lip liner is as important as the lipstick you choose when rocking a red lip. You can by all means go for a more soft approach and that’s beautiful too. But, when you’re going full out bright and Christmas-sy red, I think a crisp lip line is important. And you don’t want any bleeding, I mean lipstick bleeding but of course we don’t want any bleeding at all 🙂

For this year’s festive red lipstick lip liner, I went with the Rimmel Exaggerate in ‘Red Diva’.

I am a big fan of the Rimmel Exaggerate lip liners. They are super soft and easy to apply. And they now have an angled twist up nib which I find really handy for outlining and correcting my lip line. ‘Red Diva’ is the perfect classic red colour and actually works really nicely on it’s own as well.

This costs €5.49 and you can get it from the Boots website here.

The lipstick I chose is a new release for 2016. It’s one of the new Lip VIP’s from Sleek Makeup. It is called ‘Walk Of Fame’.

These are a semi matte formula lipstick. They are really creamy, pigmented and very comfortable to wear.

I just think both of these products together are a really lovely and affordable festive red lipstick combination. The Sleek Lip Vip’s are available from Boots too for €7.49 here.

Matte lips are everywhere at the minute so I thought I would go old school with more of a creamy textured combo. Layering the products means they are still long lasting but they won’t dry out your lips as much.

It is such a cliché I know, but I just love a red lip during Christmas time 🙂

xxx

December 11, 2016/1 Comment/by Gem

Bargain Buying, Makeup

Penneys PS Love Lip Liners

The Penneys PS Love Lip Liners have dare I say reached a bit of a cult status in the online beauty world.

We constantly see them in flat lays and in favourites, or at least I do anyway 🙂 I am no stranger to talking about them myself either may I add. But, I’ve never done a post on them specifically. So here are my overall thoughts.

I have four shades of the Penneys PS Love Lip Liners in my lip liner stash. Say that with a few gins on board!

All four shades are pigmented, soft, true to colour and apply to the lips without dragging or feeling uncomfortable. That’s no mean feat! That being said, because they are softer, I personally wouldn’t use them just on their own. I would just use them to do the job of actually lining the lips before lipstick. Or, I would add a gloss or balm over the top. They do transfer and fade after a short period of time, in my experience.

The one I use the most and looks a bit stubby next to it’s colourful friends is the brown, more neutral shade in 06.

My next most used would probably be the red in 05. It is a brilliant true red colour.

I actually did a post last year including this here. It’s about getting a festive red lip for under a fiver if you want to check it out. I think out of the four liner shades I have, this would be the most long wearing.

Then we have the deep plum shade in 04.

For me, this is the one that fades the quickest. But, paired under a similar coloured lipstick, it helps stop bleeding and gives you cleaner edges. If of course that’s what you want.

The last shade I have is a light powdery pink in 07.

This is my least used out of the four I have. Just because the colour doesn’t particularly suit me. Saying that, it works great for adding some pink to a more neutral lipstick. And, you can use it under darker shades and it won’t interfere with the colour of them too much.

Overall, I think it’s fair to say the Penneys PS Love Lip Liners are a hit with me. And for €1.50 they definitely won’t break the bank either. Makeup bargain personified!

xxx

December 5, 2016/by Gem

Posts

Surely you know Gemma that good glow can come for way less than a tenner? Yes, yes I do, but I want to talk about all day glow. Highlight that sticks around blinding everyone all damn day long 🙂

I know I’ve been bigging up Penneys/Primark beauty of late. That’s simply because they’re upping their game and I’ve been enjoying alot of it. My last couple of posts on their makeup brushes and single eyeshadow pans are here and here too.

Have you tried either of my glow all day suggestions?

Let me know 🙂

xxx

I haven’t done a round up like this in a while. So, here is five of my current budget friendly makeup favourites.

I am not a makeup snob by any means. If a product is good, it’s good, regardless of the price 🙂

My first budget friendly makeup pick of the minute is the very talked about Coverage Foundation from The Ordinary.

My second choice will come as no surprise either (sorry ha!). The Maybelline Eraser Eye in the shade ‘Brightener’.

My third budget friendly makeup favourite is another Maybelline Product. This is their Master Fix Setting & Perfecting Loose Powder.

Last on my budget friendly makeup roundup is the Maybelline Brow Artist Plumper.

The Essence My Must Haves Palette are such a great addition to the makeup brands line!

It’s Christmas, time to pull out the glitter and throw all the makeup on your face 🙂 Here is my version of a party makeup look using all affordable products. Even most of the tools are affordable too.

Party makeup done 🙂

I did a post similar to this last here year for my first Christmas in Beautynook world. It’s a festive red lip for under a fiver. I still love and use both of products I used, these are just alternatives for your 2016 Festive Red Lipstick look 🙂

The Penneys PS Love Lip Liners have dare I say reached a bit of a cult status in the online beauty world.

We constantly see them in flat lays and in favourites, or at least I do anyway 🙂 I am no stranger to talking about them myself either may I add. But, I’ve never done a post on them specifically. So here are my overall thoughts.

Overall, I think it’s fair to say the Penneys PS Love Lip Liners are a hit with me. And for €1.50 they definitely won’t break the bank either. Makeup bargain personified!