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I’m not afraid to admit it, I am a makeup primer junkie. My life (nor my makeup) would be complete without it. So I am always on the look out for new ones to try. The Barry M Flawless Original Primer caught my eye in Boots a couple of months back. There is three primers to choose from in the Flawless range. They have a green one to help with redness and then a purple one to that is supposed to help with brightening the complexion. The original seemed the most suited to me, although they do say it suits all skin types.

 

I always enjoy a pump on a product. Not great when you’re nearing the end of it and want to get your monies worth, I know. But until you reach that point, it’s super handy.

Barry M Flawless Original Primer

The Barry M Flawless Original Primer is white is colour and has quite a wet texture when applied to the skin initially. It nearly feels like lotion.The first listed ingredient in it is Cyclopentasiloxane which is a type of silicone even though it doesn’t feel like your typical silicone primer.It also smells really nice and fresh!

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Barry M say it’s for all skin types, pore minimising, smoothing and mattifying. Perhaps I’m wrong but I am guessing people with a drier skin probably wouldn’t be too interested into mattifying their skin any more than it already is?

On me, the Barry M Flawless Original Primer is somewhat smoothing and somewhat mattifying.

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Clean moisturised skin

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One pump on my foundation brush

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I dab it onto the centre of my face and buff outwards

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After application

My skin isn’t as shiny and does feel smoother after I’ve applied the Barry M Flawless Original primer and I’ve let it settle into my skin, but I don’t notice any major diminishing to my pores. Makeup does apply easily over the top of it, although if you have larger pores like me, you have to really buff your foundation in to make them look less noticeable. Whereas if I use a a primer with a more gel like consistency like the Smashbox Photo Ready, or one of my very favourites the Benefit Porefessional, they tend to help fill the pores in so you get a much smoother application. The Flawless primer does help the longevity of my makeup though, which is I guess is the main reason why we use a primer!

I picked up the Barry M Flawless Origninal Primer from Boots in store and of course you can buy it online too here. It costs €8.99.

So enable me…what’s your favourite primer? 🙂 xxx

 

If you follow me on Snapchat (my username is Beautynook if you don’t, shameless plug), you’ll know I’ve been testing out the new Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat pretty vigorously.

Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat

I’ve used it about 5 times on top of different branded nail polish and base coats and I pretty much had the same outcome with them all. Boots describe it as “Rimmels first ever 2- step Super Gel nail polish for superior colour and shine that lasts for up to 14 days. Easy to apply, it dries like a regular nail polish, no UV lamps needed.”

It has the standard Rimmel nail polish packaging, which I am a fan of.

rimmel irelandI love that the brush is quite large,flat and rounded at the tip. For me, this makes application easier.

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Just to show you the process quickly:

Here’s my bare nails.

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Here’s the base coat applied.

irish beauty bloggerTwo layers of nail polish.

top irish beauty blogI let the nail polish dry for a few minutes before applying the Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat.

top irish beauty bloggerYou can see, it definitely adds a lovely glass like shine to your nails and really finishes them off. It’s easy enough to apply and doesn’t drag or move the nail polish underneath. It also dries reasonably quickly, which is a plus too! I painted my nails in the evening time, so the next morning, they were still looking good!

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My Nails The Next Day After Application.

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My Nails On Technically The Third Day.

After the second full day of wear, you can see (especially on my pinkie finger), bubbles have started to form.

By the third full day, this had happened.

Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat_2071The nail polish on my little finger had completely come loose and just peeled off. Not ideal!

Overall, and after testing out the Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat on numerous occasions, I really can’t say it lasts as well as gel UV nail polish. I got pretty much 3/4 days before it started to crack and I was at the stage where I could just peel it off my nails (I do really enjoy doing that though) :). For me, I will use it because I have it, but I won’t be repurchasing it any time soon.

 

You can get the Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat from Boots in store or online here. It will set you back €7.99 so definitely not the cheapest version on the market at the minute.

On my weekly trip to Boots (no judgment, it’s all for research purposes,right?) :). I came across these new Barry M Illuminating Strobe Cream Sticks.

Barry M Illuminating Strobe Cream

Stobing is such a buzz word in the beauty industry at the moment. I like to just think of it as good oul highlighting myself.

Anyways the new Barry M Illuminating Strobe Cream Sticks are bascially cream highlighters in twist-able chubby stick form.

Barry M Illuminating Strobe Cream

They come in two shades and are part of Barry M’s new Summer collection.

The first one is aptly named 1 and is in the colour Frosty Pink.

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The second one is 2 Iced Bronze.

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The Barry M Illuminating Strobe Cream have a really light texture to them. It nearly feels oil like on your fingers, but then when you apply them to the skin they dry and blend in really nicely to give the skin a really subtle sheen. If you are looking for your highlight to be seen from space, I don’t think these will work for you 🙂 Although, there is two colours, I think they both have a really similar colour effect when blended in.

For someone like who is on the oilier side (skin wise), I can’t get away with the ‘healthy’ skin look, sure my skin does that to itself after a little while as it eats up all my lovingly applied makeup 🙂

So I would use the Barry M Illuminating Strob Cream as more of a base for a powder highlighter.

Here’s Frosty Pink with theBalm Mary-Lou Manizer applied on top (I have a review of this on it’s here).

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And then here’s 2 Iced Bronze with Becca Champagne Pop applied over top. (There’s a review of this here too, if you’re interested).

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You can pick up the Barry M Illuminating Strobe Cream from Boots in store or online here. They will set you back €6.49, but Barry M are currently on buy one get one half price. Do they float your strobing boat? Let me know 🙂

xxx

 

 

 Sleek are such an awesome affordable brand. They do so many great eyeshadow palettes (amongst other things of course). The colour range and the choice of finishes are really second to none within the more ‘drugstore market’.

Today’s really easy (remember I’m not a makeup artist) look is courtesy of the Sleek Vintage Romance Palette. You can pick it up from Boots here.

Sleek Vintage Vamp Palette

I think this would make a great Christmas party makeup. The Vintage Romance palette offers great shades for bit of shimmer and a bit of smoke. This look would work well on a more hooded eye shape too as the concentration of colour is on the lash line.

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I started out as always by priming my lids and adding a matte skin colour shadow over top.

I took some of the shade ‘Propose in Prague’, the only matte shade in the Vintage Romance Palette.

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I applied a wash of this with a blending brush into my crease, just to add a little definition and give the lid colour something to blend into.

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I then used the colour ‘Lust In LA’, which is a shimmery taupe.

beauty blogger beautynookI patted this with a flat shader brush all over my lid.

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Then with a clean blending brush just did some window wiper motions to blend it into the crease colour 🙂

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To smoke things up a little, I took some ‘Forever In Florence’. a dark purple shimmer.

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I patted this quite thickly along my lash line.

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This colour comes out much more purple over the ‘Lust In LA’ shade and I wanted it a little darker, so did the same thing again with the darkest shade in the palette ‘Love In London’.

top irish beauty blog vintage romance paletteI used a small more precise brush and kept the colour more to the lash line so ‘Forever In Florence’ is still visible.

top irish beauty bloggertop irish beauty blog beautynooktop irish beauty blogger beautynookIf you lose some colour intensity you can just go back in and apply more of the colour.

I added some lashes and a slick of liquid liner to the band, totally optional of course, you can just do mascara by all means.

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For the lower lash line I went a bit colourful, you can of course just add the darkest shade to smoke things out more and or just leave bare and add some mascara.

On the outer half of my eye, I used the true purple shade in the palette ‘Bliss In Barcelona’.

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Then to brighten things up a bit I used the light gold shimmery shade in the Vintage Romance palette ‘Meet In Madrid’.

irish makeup blogWith a pencil brush I applied this under the rest of my eye and on the inner corner.

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I finished off the eyes with some brown liner in the upper and lower waterline, some mascara to my lower lashes and a light shimmery brow highlight.

beautynook beauty blogger And then we’re dunzo!

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I hadn’t used this palette in so long and a few of you had told me it was your fave Sleek eyeshadow palette, so hopefully if you own it, this might give you some inspiration.

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Thanks as always for stopping by 🙂

xxx

 

Beautynook Beauty blog Haul

I went and did a bit of spontaneous shopping yesterday…it’s always the best kind isn’t it? I bought a few bits myself and then the other half kindly bought me a couple of early birthday presents, which was very nice of him 🙂 I love having a nose through people’s shopping bags so I thought you might like to have a look through mine.

So first up I went into Boots and literally spent an hour looking through the makeup aisles. I love having time to do that, just going up and down swatching and deciding.

I have seen a few people talking about the Seventeen Phwoarr concealer so I decided to pick that up.

Phwoarr Paint Seventeen

Phwoarr Paint FairThis is apparently a hard core under eye concealer. It feels thick in consistency, but I am hoping it blends out making it similar to the Bobbi Brown one…we shall see.

Seventeen was on buy one get one half price. So after much deliberation. I also picked up their Stay Time Foundation.

Seventeen Stay Time Foundation

The shade range is a bit crap, but Porcelain seemed to be the closest to my NC20 skin. It has SPF 25 which is great for the day time and it claims to be full coverage too as well as lasting all day.

I hit the Barry M stand next. My last review here on Beautynook was all about the Barry M Matte Me Up Lip Crayons, you can read it here Because I liked the two I got then I chose another one to add to my collection.

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Barry M Matte Me Up 3

Matte Me Up number 3

I got the shade number 3. It’s a lovely pinky brown neutral shade, that I will get alot of wear out of.

I also grabbed another one of their waterproof eyeliners, which I have a few of already and really like.

Barry M Bold Purple

Barry M Bold Purple EyelinerThis is in the colour Bold Purple and has glitter flecks going through it…I’m a sucker for a purple liner.

Collection had their Work The Colour Eyebrow Kit on special for €3.99 which I thought was a bargain so I threw that into my basket to try aswell.

Collection Work the color eyebrow kit

collection irish beauty blogIt comes with three powder shades, a little double ended brush and a clear brow gel aswell! If this is any good I will be shouting it from the rooftops!

While I was in Boots eyeing up the makeup, I did grab a couple of everyday essentials too.

Botanics Shampoo conditioner

The Botanics range is taking the beauty world by storm at the minute. Their Radiance Balm which I reviewed here not too long ago has reached cult status, so when I saw they were doing shampoo and conditioner I had to give them a go. I got the Instantly Volumising ones but there was a couple of different types to choose from. Excited to give these a try.

I also got some Mitchum deodorants, which I have never used before.

Mitchum Deodrant BeautynookNot the most exciting of purchases but like mascara I am always on never ending quest for the perfect deodorant. I love the Sure Maximum Protection, but at over 7 euro a pop it’s not always the most purse friendly, so lets give these a go 🙂

I took a quick detour into H&M and thought I would include these shorts into this haul because they’re cute and they were only €10!!!

H&M shortsThey have them in lots of different prints, and they are very flattering and comfortable!

As I am turning 30 next week (the horror) the boyfriend told me to pick a couple of bits while we were out to ease me into the transition of another decade slowly. So I just chose two things to ease him into the financial transition of someone close to you having a big birthday ha!

I got the cult phenomenon that is Charlotte Tilbury’s Lip Cheat Lip Pencil in Pillow Talk.

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Charlotte Tilbury Lip Cheat Pillow TalkRimmel do a very good dupe for this pencil in Eastend Snob which I’ve owned many times. The one that I have now broke though so I thought I would give the posh one a try. This is a great liner for when you want to over draw your lips slightly to give an extra little pout. I’m excited to play with it 🙂

He also bought me something very random and not like me at all usually.

Nike TheasThese are the Nike Air Max Theas. Runners,trainers,sneakers whatever you call them have been making a comeback in the fashion world and I am jumping on board the bandwagon because they’re bloody comfy! I had planned on getting the all white Theas which are much more respectable, but the bright orange ones just spoke to me and I wasn’t forking out for them so I took the risk…why not! They will definitely be a love/hate thing I’m sure though.

I also bought some toothbrushes too on this shopping trip but I didn’t think you would be bothered seeing them aswell 🙂

As always thank you so much for reading, it makes me so happy. And if you’ve been shopping recently let me know what you bought. I love to have a nose.

xxx

Barry M Matte Me Up Lip Crayons

I was in Boots last week swatching lip products like a good thing and I ended up getting a couple of the new Barry M Matte Me Up Lip Crayons. These are (as I am sure you can see) twist up lip colours…and they are matte!

On first swatch in store, I thought oh these are really soft and pigmented and also not really drying and I can concur after playing with them and wearing them that they are like this in ‘real life’ too.

I chose two shades.

The first one is number 4, original I know 🙂

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This is literally my favourite shade of pink to wear. Think of Mac’s Girl About Town but a little more muted and matte.

Number 4

Matte Me Up Number 4

I know I know my skin is different colours, I fake tanned my body not my face ha I probably should have slapped some makeup on to swatch…sure not to worry, you get the idea :p

This out of the two colours of the Barry M Matte Me Up’s I got is my favourite. It is a gorgeous blue toned pink. It goes on the lips really smoothly and lasts really well too.

The second shade I got is…number 1

Matte Me up Number 1This is a true peach shade.

swatch number 1

barry m matte me up lip crayon 1This is a more unforgiving shade on the lips, they need to be in tip top condition to pull it off. I also think it would be more suited to someone with sallow skin, it is still a gorgeous shade though.

The Barry M Matte Me Up Lip Crayons are gorgeous in my book. They are easy to apply, really buttery, comfortable on the lips and last very well too. I’m very happy I bought them and will be open to buying more the future I’m sure 🙂

At this minute in time the Matte Me Up Lip Crayons are on special for €4.99 in Boots They will normally retail for €7.49 so if you like what you see, get them while they’re hot!

xxx