Posts

Nope, I definitely didn’t need it! But, I got it anyways. This is the Mac Fruity Juicy ‘Oh My Passion’ Pearlmatte Face Powder! Isn’t she a beauty?

Mac Fruity Juicy

To be completely honest, I bought this completely based on how it looks in the pan. That is the most makeup addicted thing I have ever said, and I am completely OK with it 🙂

mac cosmetics

According to the Brown Thomas website the Mac Fruity Juicy ‘Oh My Passion’ Powder is: ‘A unique face powder featuring a flirty flower pattern pressed into it. Pearlized and satin shades feature a rich texture, velvet finish. Can be used as a blush and highlighter. (Also suitable for eye area.) Limited edition. Special packaging with tropical fruit and floral print.’ They had me at flirty flower pattern, ha!

I must admit, I do hate the name of this collection, it just makes me think of chewing gum. The packaging definitely saves it for me though.

irish beauty blogoh my passion pearlmatte powdertop irish beauty blog

There is four shades within this powder. The flowers are light yellow gold shimmer, lilac and coral. And then, then what seems to be a leaf motif in the middle is a shimmery bronze shade.

irish beauty blogger

Here they are swatched individually with and without the flash:

beauty blogger
top irish beauty blog

Then, here they are all swirled together and applied to the skin pictured with and without the flash on:

beauty blog ireland
top irish beauty blogger

All of the shades alone have a shimmer to them and apply really smoothly and opaquely to the skin. Mixed together you get a really pretty iridescent peach shade.

When I saw the Mac Fruity Juicy ‘Oh My Passion’ powder first, I thought it would probably be too dark for my pale skin. Also, the shades are quite cumbersome to use alone. You need to use a pretty small brush. It can be done though. And they are designed to use on the eyes too. However, I really like the peach sheen you get from all the colours together, so that is probably how I will use it myself personally.

top irish beauty bloggerbeauty blog

I picked up my Mac Fruity Juicy ‘Oh My Passion’ powder in store from the new Arnotts Mac counter. They don’t sell the brand online though, so here is a link to it from Brown Thomas if you like what you see. It costs €31.50.

Did you pick up anything from the collection?

xxx

I stalked the Mac Extra Dimension Skin Finish in ‘Beaming Blush’ for quite some time before I bit the bullet and picked one up. You know you’re a makeup addict when you go and visit makeup products in their natural habitat.

Mac Extra Dimension Skin Finish

I first set my eyes on it when I was in town with Sinéad from The Beautiful Truth and we were doing a little makeup perusing. One of the lovely girls in Mac on Henry Street got chatting with us and was showing us the new Strobe Creams. And then, the four new Extra Dimension Skin Finishes. If you follow me on Snapchat, you probably heard me squeal like a pig when I swatched them. I am super classy, I know 🙂

Mac Extra Dimension Skin Finish

The Mac Extra Dimension Skin Finish in ‘Beaming Blush’ was the one that caught my eye the most and then eventually ended up coming home with me. My brother always gives me a Brown Thomas voucher for Christmas so I used that to feed my highlight habit.

You get 9 grams of product in the typical clear lid Mac compact.

mac cosmetics

‘Beaming Blush is an iridescent pink powder highlight. The base colour is quite a cool pink but when it catches the light it shimmers gold.

mac cosmetics ireland

It is quite an interesting combo, I think that’s why it caught my eye so much. It is cool toned and warm toned all in the one powder. The powder itself is soft to the touch. When you swatch it with your finger it is definitely super opaque.

mac cosmetics ireland
irish beauty blogger
irish beauty blog
beauty blog ireland

It much softer when you apply with a brush to the skin, which gives you the chance to build up the colour to your liking. It isn’t a blinding highlight. I find it really easy to blend aswell.

I would say the finish is shimmery with a bit of sparkle to it. It lasts pretty well on my skin too.

irish beauty blog beautynook
top irish beauty website
top irish beauty blogger

I have nothing like it in my collection, and I thought it was fun and a little different to the typical highlight colours out there. All four of colours have an interesting iridescents to them.

The Mac Extra Dimension Skin in ‘Beaming Blush is available in Brown Thomas in store or online here for €31.50. All four are permanent in the collection.

 

I only went and spent some of my Boots points on the Nyx Highlight & Contour Pro Palette. I’ve wanted to try it for ages after seeing so many good things online about it. Using my Boots points made me feel less guilty about it because I definitely didn’t need another contour product, let alone a palette! 🙂

nyx highlight & contour pro palette

The description of the Nyx Highlight & Contour Pro Palette on the Boots website: ‘Define your features like a pro with our highlight and contour palette! Each set includes eight customizable highlighting and contouring shades perfect for emphasizing your favorite features’.

nyx highlight & contour pro palette

The packaging is a little more flimsy than I expected for the price. Each pan contains 2.7 grams of product.

Powder contour and highlight palettes are a pretty common occurrence in the makeup world nowadays. Alot of brands have tried their hand at variations of them. I have the Anastasia one and I have the Makeup Revolution Ultra Contour Palette that I reviewed here a while back.

In the palette there is eight powder shades.

affordable contour palette

The four lighter highlight shades are on the top and look a bit like this swatched on the skin.
beauty blog ireland

Ice Queen/ Soft Light/ Cream/ Nectar

nyx ireland

 

‘Ice Queen’ and ‘Nectar’ are a shimmery highlight. Then, ‘Soft Light’ and ‘Cream’ are matte.

 

Then, there is four contour shades to hopefully cover a multitude of different skin tones.
beauty blogger ireland

Tan/ Toffee/ Sculpt/ Hollow

nyx boots ireland

We all probably wouldn’t get use out of all four, but I always end up using these as eye shadows too so that doesn’t really bother me personally. What I do notice about the contour shades though is that they have more of a satin finish rather than being completely matte.

The powders are soft to the touch and they do blend. However, they are powdery and the pigment is softer when you apply the powders with a brush onto the skin.

The Nyx Highlight & Contour Pro Palette is available from any good Nyx stockists. I bought mine from Boots with my points as I said, but you can get it in store or online here for €25. You can also buy refills for the palette here that are €4.75 each. I really like this idea. It means you can just buy the single shades you want, or you can refill the palette as you see fit.

xxx

 

I only bought the L’Orèal True Match Highlight last week. I featured it in my haul video here. But, I wanted to get a post up about it asap because I can’t really find much information on them. If I google the name, only American websites come up.

L'Oreal True Match Highlight

America seem to have three L’Orèal True Match Highlight (s) to choose from, I’ve only seen two of them on sale here in Boots. A bronze toned one and the one I have here 302.R/C ‘Icy Glow’.

L'Oreal Ireland

L'Oreal True Match Highlight

With Flash

The compact comes in a clear topped plastic casing with a mirror and a little brush underneath the product.

irish beauty bloggertop irish beauty blogirish beauty vlogger

As you can see from looking at it (and the name) this is a icy, silvery highlight.

There is three facets to the powder. A beige toned shimmer. A blue toned shimmer. And then an silvery toned shimmer. Swatched they all look pretty similar though.

top irish beauty blogger

Natural Light

beauty blog ireland

With Flash

The compact is big enough that you could use the colours on their own. Or, you can of course mix them together.

beauty blogger ireland

Here it is swatched on my arm, with my finger on the left and then swiped on with the brush that comes with the compact on the right. Not the worst brush in the world, it would be handy for on the go. I myself would rather use a softer more tapered brush for highlighter though.
L’Orèal say they created their True Match Highlight to be used as a highlight on the general areas we would usually use one. i.e the cheekbones, or you can use it as an all over illuminator.

There is definitely a sparkle to this L’Orèal True Match Highlight. But, they are more reflective. It’s not just full on glitter. The powder itself is soft to the touch, but when use a  a brush in it, there’s is a good amount of fall out.

I picked this up because the colour choices in it attracted me to it. (And L’Orèal were on 3 for 2 in Boots) 🙂 When you apply it to the face with a brush, you get a subtle icy highlight. If you’re looking for full on see you from space glow, this is not the product to do this.

irish beauty blog beautynookirish beauty blogger beautynook

Overall, I quite like the L’Orèal True Match Highlight. I like the duo chrome icy colour that you get with it. I don’t have a highlighter in my stash that looks like it. I don’t think it’s going to change the makeup game, but I like this particular shade and will get use out of it for sure for days when I just want a little something something on the cheeks 🙂 For me, it would be a bit too glittery to apply all over the face.

I believe I paid €11.99 for it in Boots. When it becomes available on their website I’ll be sure to link it.

xxx

For black Friday Beauty Bay were doing 10% off Makeup Geek. Since the exchange is so bad here, this made the price of the shadows a little bit more bearable. And so I bought a few new friends to add to my collection 🙂

I did a look with some of the Makeup Geek eyeshadows I already own here not too long ago if you fancy having a look at some more.

I was quite restrained and only bought four new ones. Also Beauty Bay keeps selling out so quickly, so you can’t be too fussy when it comes to choosing.

makeup geek irish beauty blogtop irish beauty blog

My first purchase was a rather boring but still lovely brown.

irishbeautyblog

This is one of the Makeup Geek standard eyeshadows in ‘Brown Sugar’.

irish beauty bloggermakeup geek swatch

It’s a lovely warm brown colour and thought it would fit in nicely with my other brown Makeup Geek browns :p

This shimmery little number is also one of their standards in the shade ‘Cosmopolitan’.

irish beauty blog makeup geekirish beauty blog

I went online and saw swatches of this and thought it looked really interesting, so into the basket it went. It’s a lovely shimmery light bronze colour and super pigmented.

beauty blogger

I popped two Makeup Geek cherries in this Beauty Bay order.

One was to buy one of their duochrome eyeshadows. This is in the shade ‘Typhoon’.

irish makeup and beauty blogbeauty blog ireland

I love a green shadow I have to admit. This is kind of a blue toned one. I don’t have anything like this in my collection.

irish beauty blogger beautynok

 

The other cherry was to own one their foiled eyeshadows. This is in the colour ‘In The Spotlight’. I am very pleased to get my mitts on this.

Makeup geek Eyeshadowirish beauty blog beautynook

I think this is my favourite of my four new friends. It’s foiled so its super shiny. It applied much better with your finger, you just get a light wash of shimmer if applied with a brush. I am in love with it 🙂

beauty blog beautynook

I’ve mentioned a million times how big a fan I am of Makeup Geek so I am pretty pleased with my new additions and can’t wait to play with them properly.

Have you any Makeup Geek recommendations? I’m always in the market for more 🙂

Thanks,

xxx

 

 

 

 

Yep they’ve finally gone and done it! Cocoa Brown have released an instant tan! They’ve answered our tanning prayers 🙂

Cocoa Brown Marissa Carter

Us bloggers got all dolled up and headed to The Shelbourne this past Sunday where we were treated to a lovely and pink afternoon by Marissa and the Cocoa Brown girls. We were showered with gifts and the new Cocoa Brown Instant Tan Bronzing Gels were unleashed on us.

 

Marissa has created two different Instant Tan Bronzing Gels. One is matte.

Cocoa Brown Instan Tan Bronzing Gel Matte

And the other has shimmer running through it.

Cocoa Brown Instant Tan Bronze Gel Shimmer

Here’s the matte one Bronzing Gel on my hand.

irish beauty blog

And here you can see the matte and the shimmer bronzing gel side by side.

irish beauty blog beautynook

They both differ in consistency slightly, the matte one is more of a fluid gel, where as the one with the shimmer is, well more of a gel texture 🙂

Both of the Cocoa Brown Instant Tan Bronzing Gel’s apply to the skin super easy, there’s not much faffing about and they dry really quickly too. You can apply as many layers of them as you need to build up the colour you want without the product going patchy as they are a thin gel and blend really well.  Added bonus they smell really nice too 🙂

Obviously, I’ve only had these babies since Sunday so I haven’t given them a full road test yet, but first impressions are really good.

I applied them on both my legs to give you a better look at the finish you are left with. I applied with my hands, but of course you can use a mitt if you want too. (Cocoa Brown have just brought out a double sided one fyi 🙂

Here’s my pasty leg with nothing on it.

beauty blog

I applied a couple of coats of the matte instant tan.

irish blog

irish makeup and beauty blog

Then it’s time for the shimmer instant tan. Again, my other pasty leg :p

irish makeup blog

Then a couple of coats of the shimmer tan.

irish makeup and beauty blog beautynook

makeup and beauty blog

The shimmer is hard to pick up on my camera, but there’s alot of shimmer going on, I promise.

irish beauty blog

It really is tanning in an instant, and the product is splash proof, thank god with unpredictable weather like ours 🙂

 

I for one am so happy about these releases. I hold my hands up and admit I am such a lazy tanner, it’s one of my least favourite things to do, so I love a good instant tan, it just takes the effort out of it really. Also if you’re pale like me and your developing tan doesn’t always develop enough, it’s handy to have something like this in your beauty drawer for back up.

 

Cocoa Brown Instant Tan Bronzing Gel should be hitting the shelves in Penneys stores near you very soon or you can order from Cloud10beauty  here.  They will both be €6.99 for 150ml tube.

Will you be picking one or both of them up? Let me know what you think.

xxx