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J.Cat Xtreme Access Pocket Pocket Eyeshadow

The J.Cat Xtreme Access Pocket Pocket Eyeshadow made it into my latest monthly favourites, along with some other lovely products. I didn’t properly swatch it in that though. I’ve been getting so much use of out of this little palette and gravitating towards it a lot. So, I thought it deserved some extra swatching attention 🙂

This is a brand I knew feck all about in all honesty. I had a voucher to spend on the new Irish beauty website, Beaut Essential and they stock it. I wanted to get a couple of things from brands I had not tried before. The J.Cat Xtreme Access Pocket Pocket Eyeshadow Palettes are a mouthful and a half to say. But, they’ll only set you back €9.95, which I thought was pretty good!

There’s three colour ways to choose from on Beaut Essential. I went with the one called Walk Of Stardom.

It’s a fairly small palette, it fits in my hand, but it holds 12 fairly decent sized eyeshadows. There is 6 mattes and 6 shimmers. All more on the warm spectrum, although there is a couple of more plum/cranberry shades that in my opinion could shift things more neutral or cool.

Visually, the J.Cat Xtreme Access Pocket Pocket Eyeshadow in Walk Of Stardom is so up my alley, but in all honesty I wasn’t expecting much for a tenner. It has proved me wrong no end. The colour pay off on these shadows, both matte and shimmers is really bloody good.

They all, for the most part, apply and blend really well. Something to note, the gold shade (swatched fifth, is more of a gold shimmer topper, rather than an actual eyeshadow shade.) And the second matte plum shade isn’t great. I don’t gravitate towards it too much, so it doesn’t affect me overall.

I’ve been reaching for this palette so much on the daily and love that you can create a full eye look with just it on it’s own. There’s transition shades, lid shades and even a highlight shade.

Overall, I am a big fan of the J.Cat Xtreme Access Pocket Pocket Eyeshadow in Walk Of Stardom and now I need the other two colour ways on offer to compare 🙂

Have you tried anything from J.Cat? Any recommendations? Let me know.

xxx

*PR SAMPLE**

November 19, 2018/by Gem

Makeup

Urban Decay BackTalk Palette

There’s been a lot of talk about the new Urban Decay BackTalk Palette. Yes I was trying to be clever using the name there and what of it? 🙂

I’ve had my eye on it since it’s release. As you probably know I am a huge Urban Decay fan just in general. I always keep informed about their new releases. And Jesus there’s a lot of them to keep up with. I may look at the brand through rose coloured glasses, but I always feel like they put their own spin on new trends. The products are generally really good quality too, so they keep me interested.

I’ve been really liking the Huda Beauty Mauve Obsessions Palette of late, so the Urban Decay BackTalk Palette is right up my mauve loving street.

Just in case you didn’t know the BackTalk Palette is completely inspired by Urban Decay’s best selling Vice lipstick BackTalk, which as you can see is a mauve lip lovers delight.

I recently went to a Masterclass in the Urban Decay Flagship store here in Dublin for the palette. They kindly gave me it to bring home and the lipstick too. I am obsessed with the lippie, it’s right up my street. Mauve, matte but not drying, opaque in colour and really comfortable. I can understand why it’s a best seller. We’re here to talk about the new release though 🙂

The Urban Decay BackTalk Palette contains two components separated by a magnetic, removable mirror within the middle of it.

On one side we have blush and highlights, all within the mauve monochromatic theme.

From left to right:

Cheap Shot, Double Take, Low Key, Party Foul.

Then if we flip over to the other side of the mirror, there is eight eyeshadow shades. Ranging from a pinky nude, to a dark coppered brown shade. Containing mattes and shimmers.

From left to right:

3 Sheets, Bare, Curve, Backtalk, Shade, Attitude, WTF, 180.

If I am being completely honest. Overall, this palette just doesn’t perform for me. There are some shades that I do like. The Party Foul highlighter is nice and I like Backtalk, Shade and WTF particularly. There’s no consistency to the formulas though. The lighter shimmer shadows Bare and Curve take a lot of work. I find the magnetic mirror really good in theory, as you can take it out to do your makeup or whatever. But if you leave it in it’s just a bit cumbersome when you are switching between sides. It moves around! If I hadn’t been kindly gifted this palette, I totally would have gone out myself and bought it. Would I have been disappointed with my purchase? I think I would have been yes 🙁

I’ll definitely do a look over on my YouTube channel with the palette so you can see it in real action on the visage. For now, I’ll just leave you with my messy swatches.

The Urban Decay BackTalk Palette will be available from House Of Fraser and Debenhams in store and online from the 14th of June here in Ireland. The RRP is €43.00.

Does it float your mauve loving boat?

xxx

PR SAMPLE

June 6, 2018/by Gem

Makeup

Wet n Wild Megaglo Highlighting Powders

The Wet n Wild Megaglo Highlighting Powders have been around for a while now. I had tried to get my hands on them a few times as such good things were been said about them online. Unfortunately for me (not Wet n Wild of course), they always seemed to be sold out in my local Penneys and Dunnes.

Luckily (for me), I was sent a package from the brand with their best selling products of 2017! Included, were two shades of the Wet n Wild Megaglo Highlighting Powders.

There is more in the within the range, but I believe these are the only two shades available in Ireland at this time.

I can honestly say, they are some of the best affordable highlighting powders I have yet to come across! If you follow me on Instagram, you’re probably sick to your back teeth of listening to me talk about them. I thought they deserved a blog post for reference purposes though, and some close up pics too.

The packaging is a little bit flimsy on these. I tend to find that a lot with Wet n Wild products. I guess they have to cut corners somewhere to keep costs down. The powders themselves are soft and easy to blend. They leave a shine on the skin, with a hint of shimmer. I find they apply really nicely with a dense brush for more pigment pay off. But, you can also get a lovely, more subtle effect with a fluffy brush.

The first shade ‘Precious Petals’, is a pale golden pink shade.

This, for me, is the colour I reach for most as an everyday highlight. It’s a shade that compliments my pale pink toned skin.

‘Crown Of My Canopy’, is very much a rose gold shimmer.

Although I can get away with it as a highlighter if I warm my skin up. In my humble opinion, I think it is more suited to more medium tones. I use this A LOT for eyeshadow. I reach for it so much to use as a wash of colour all over the lid.

Wet n Wild Megaglo Highlighting Powder_3526

I think it’s safe to say I am a big fan of the Wet n Wild Megaglo Highlighting Powder. Since receiving them myself, I’ve seen them a few times now in store. It’s always the same, isn’t it? 🙂

Have you tried them?

xxx

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

January 22, 2018/1 Comment/by Gem

Skincare

Lush The Man In The Moon Christmas Gift

Don’t be jealous, but last week I popped into Lush in Grafton Street to have a look at some of the new Christmas stock. Yes it’s not even Halloween yet and I’m talking about Christmas. This is the way of the retail world 🙂 I got to hang out, play with some bubbles and even got to make my own Butter Bear! I also very generously got to take home a goodie bag with me. Mine contained the new Lush The Man In The Moon Christmas Tin. Do you want to see what’s inside?

Lush The Man In The Moon comes in a really cool Christmas Tin. When I first saw it I was saying if you wrapped it up and gave it to someone, they would just assume it was a box of Roses or Quality Street. The theme of the tin is very much night time relaxing and helping you to drift off to sleep.

It comes with eight products within. Two bubble bars, one sparkle jar, three bath bombs, a shower gel and a body lotion. You can have a look at it in full on the UK Lush website here.

First up we have the gift’s namesake, the Man In The Moon Bubble Bar.

It’s very sweet and limey, but it has an underlying muskiness too. It will turn your bath green. Neroli and lime are the main components of the scent so that makes sense completely.

The Magic Of Christmas reusable bubble bar in the other bubble maker in the tin. I’ve actually had this before. I got it a couple of Christmases ago in the Lush Wonderland set here.

Cinnamon is definitely the main component for the Magic Of Christmas, which I’m sure isn’t surprising it all. The star is on top of a cinnamon stick 🙂

Almond is another scent front runner here as it contains almond oil. It’s very much Christmas in bath form. I am not usually a cinnamon fan, but I actually really enjoy this. And it looks so pretty too!

There are three Twilight related products within the Lush The Man In The Moon tin. If you like lavender, you will love these.

First up is the Twilight Sparkle Jar.

This is a massage bar, so you use it to moisturise your skin. Your body heat allows it to melt and then you can massage in the product. It contains lavender oil, cocoa butter, tonka and chamomile. It also leaves behind a gold sparkle, so probably not for everyday use. But nice for a special occasion over the festive season. You can press something pointy into the dimples of the crescent to get even more sparkle.

Next is the Twilight Shower Gel. You get a 100 gram bottle.

This again has lavender and tonka within. It also has Ylang Ylang oil.

The last Twilight offering is their well known bath bomb.

This contains all the main ingredients that the shower gel has with added benzoin resinoid. This is an anti inflammatory. This is one of my favourite bath bombs.

Next up we have the Sleepy Body Lotion. You get a mini 50 gram tub of this.

It has all the lovely ingredients of the Twilight shower gel & bubble bar with added oatmeal. It’s made specifically with sleep in mind.

The last two products are bath bombs. We have Shoot For The Stars.

This is honey scented with orange oil, bergamot and coconut cream. It turns your bath blue with golden glitter from the bath melt stars.

Last but not least is the Rocket Science bath bomb.

Mine got a bit of a bashing in transit, but he’s still lovely.

This is a slow fizzer so it’ll give you something to focus on in the bath 🙂 It has bergamot and lemon oil in it and turns your bath blue.

And there we have the Lush The Man In The Moon Christmas Gift Tin. I am a huge fan of Lush, so cannot wait to get stuck in. If I were more fancy, I would have shown you them all in action, but I didn’t want to waste anything 🙂 I’ve linked all of the goodies individually so you can see what they are priced at alone. What’s your favourite Lush product?

xxx

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

October 23, 2017/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

Monthly Favourites, Youtube Video

November Favourites

As I am writing this we are in Kinsale for a couple of days. I thought I would bring my camera with me and film my November favourites.

You can see I brought my ring light too and it gave me somewhat of a halo as it is reflecting off of the picture behind me. Apologies! but sure if the halo fits and all that 🙂

My November favourites consist mostly of makeup with a couple of random things thrown in for good measure.

If you follow me on social media, you know I have begun a bit of a gym journey. I am enjoying it. However the results are slow ( I do like my grub) 🙂 My earphones have become a necessity in my life. So, I had to include them.

My House Of Harlow Sunburst earrings have appeared in my favourites before. I just get so much wear out of them though. I’ve definitely got my monies worth! I thought it was ok to include them again since it was a couple of years since they made an appearance 🙂

I have used the Urban Decay Naked Ultimate Basics Palette probably everyday of November, so it was a no brainer that I would include in my November Favourites. I have a full review of it here if you want to see it in action.

The L’Oréal True Match Foundation has made its way onto my face on a daily basis over the course of November. I have a full review and all the deets on it here.

The Kiko Longlasting Eyeshadow Sticks are just awesome. I am a huge fan and they are so affordable. You can get them on the Kiko website here.

And then finally we have the Colourpop Créme Gel Pencil in ‘Get Paid’. You can get it from their website here.

And that’s my November Favourites done 🙂 Happy December….roll on Christmas!!!!!

Have you had any faves this month?

xxx

December 2, 2016/by Gem

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