August Favourites 2012

I have discovered so many awesome things this month and I have been so excited to do my favourites post. Everything here is new for the month of August - and I have more new makeup that I love but I decided to leave a few things that I discovered at the end of August maybe for next months favourites.

So the things I will be mentioning in this favourites post are:

• Estee Lauder Double Wear foundation in Fresco
• Korres Wild Rose Mineral Foundation in Fair
• Jordana Eye Primer in 01
• Real Techniques Brushes
• Maybelline Super Stay 14 Hour Lipstick in 005 Perpetual Peony
• Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in 015 Cherish and 025 Sweetheart
• Bourjois Blushes
• Bourjois 10 Days No Chips nail polish
• Marc Jacobs DOT perfume 

Estee Lauder Double Wear foundation in Fresco
I decided to grow up this month and get a better foundation for nights out and important work events etc. I decided to try the Estee Lauder double wear because it has a semi-matte finish and doesn't contain oils. I initially got a sample from the Estee Lauder counter at Myer, which allowed me to test it over a few wears and I got properly colour matched. I also wanted to see if it would make me break out, as I often break out from heavier foundations. I didn't want to buy the whole bottle if it was going to make my skin horrible, but so far my skin has been fine. I don't wear this foundation daily, so I don't know what it would be like if you were to treat this as your every day foundation. This is easy to apply, it doesn't go on patchy and takes a little while to set so you have plenty of time to blend. It is also medium build-able coverage, so I often build it up over problem areas and use this more as a concealer. I do need to set it with powder, but if you had dry skin you probably wouldn't need to do this. I find that this does stay put all day without getting patchy or oily. This is available in Australia for $50. My only wish is that this came in a pump container.

Korres Wild Rose Mineral Foundation in Fair
Strawberry net were having a sale and this mineral foundation was only $12.50 (closer to $11 with discounts). I decided to give it a go, and I have been very impressed. Its so easy to use, and it gives a nice light matte coverage, which is perfect for me since I have combination oily skin. I have never used a powder foundation before, and I really like the finish, however I do often need to use some concealer on hard to cover spots. This is slightly too light for me, but because it is a light coverage it blends in really well. I liked it so much that I bought another light, and a medium (for summer) before the sale ended.

Jordana Eye Primer in 01
I am not a pro on eye primers, I rarely wear them and so I don't know a good from a bad, but I really liked this one because the colour is a perfect neutral base for when I do a light eyeshadow look with a dramatic eyeliner. This primer blanks out any colour imperfections and makes a great canvas for your makeup. Its almost like NYX's jumbo pencil in milk, but is a more skin toned colour. It was also only $2. See my post on it here.

Without flash: Estee Lauder Double Wear foundation in Fresco, Korres Wild Rose Mineral Foundation in Fair and Jordana Eye Primer in 01

With flash: Estee Lauder Double Wear foundation in Fresco, Korres Wild Rose Mineral Foundation in Fair and Jordana Eye Primer in 01

I know that the foundations look ridiculously different, Fresco is one shade darker than what I am now (since it in the end of Winter and I won't be this pale for long), and the Korres powder is too light, but once it has blended out you can't tell.

Real Techniques Brushes 
I bought the whole set of the real techniques brushes at the very end of July and I have been loving them this month. You can see my post of my collection here. I decided to show my most used brushes. For my eyes, I am loving the base shadow brush for a versatile brush - I often will only use this brush for everything when I am doing a quick look. I am also religiously using the deluxe crease brush to blend my eye shadow. I also love the accent brush which is perfect for putting highlight in the corner of your eye or putting a cream shadow under your eye (which I have always found to be quick tricky with bigger brushes). For the face I mainly use the blush brush, which is a strange shape but works beautifully for blush. I also have been loving the expert face brush for applying powder foundation. This brush was my favourite to begin with and I did try to use it on liquid foundations, but I felt like it left streaks which I would have to buff out with another brush, so now I only use it for my powder foundation.

Maybelline Super Stay 14 Hour Lipstick in 005 Perpetual Peony
I have two of these lipsticks, and I will start by saying that they do not last any where close to 14 hours. I would say you can easily get 2 hours + without eating or drinking, but less than that if you are eating or drinking. They do smell nice, almost like a berry gloss, and there are beautiful colours in the range. This is my favourite out of the two I have, its a nice opaque mauve and I haven't seen a colour like this before. This reminds me of a work friendly St Germaine from MAC, and I would repurchase this colour over and over. These cost about $18 in Australia, but you can often get them in Priceline on sale.

Without flash: Maybelline Super Stay 14 Hour Lipstick in 005 Perpetual Peony

With flash: Maybelline Super Stay 14 Hour Lipstick in 005 Perpetual Peony

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in 015 Cherish and 025 Sweetheart

I was loving these balm stains for the first half of the month when I only had three colours (Cherish, Sweetheart and Rendezvous), but then when I bought two more (Charm and Crush), I sort of lost interest. These additional colours were no where near as good as the three I originally had and I was pretty disappointed. I do need to give these the praise they deserve though because I was using them almost daily for a few weeks. I just decided to show Cherish and Sweetheart because they were my most used colours. You can see more swatches on them here, and I will have to do an updated post with my two new colours soon.

Without flash: Maybelline Super Stay 14 Hour Lipstick in 005 Perpetual Peony, Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in 015 Cherish and 025 Sweetheart

With flash: Maybelline Super Stay 14 Hour Lipstick in 005 Perpetual Peony, Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in 015 Cherish and 025 Sweetheart

Bourjois Blushes
I discovered Bourjois blushes this month and I love them all. You can see a more indepth post and swatches here, but I just wear them most days and thought I had to include them. They are great colours, smell nice, have nice packaging, and they have heaps of shades. I am loving these this month.

Bourjois 10 Days No Chips nail polish
Heads up, this nail polish is going to be in my top products of 2012! This is the longest wearing nail polish I have ever tried. You can wear this easily 4, maybe 5 days with minimal wear. I love doing my nails, but I don't have enough time to do them every 2 days, so I hate nail polish that wears off quickly. I know I can put this on Sunday night and only need to take it off on Friday, that is amazing in my books! Sadly this is limited in colour range, I think there may be about 8 of them, but you can buy them from Priceline for $13 and I have most of the range. See my review of them here.

Marc Jacobs DOT perfume 
I got this sample from my August Lust Have It box (see review here), and I am loving it! It is the perfect light sweet floral perfume. I wore this out to my boyfriends birthday and got a lot of compliments on it. This will soon become my go to perfume, so I guess I will need to splash out on a full size version soon.

What are your favourite products of August?

My collection of eyebrow products, and my three favourites!

I love eyebrow products, if I had to leave home with only two items of makeup on, it would be my eyebrows and mascara. So the above photo is everything that I use for my eyebrows, which ranges from matte brown eyeshadows, to eyebrow pencils, waxes, gels etc.

In my collection I have:

• Various matte brown shadows in my nude z-palette
• The dark brown matte shade from the Sleek Storm palette
• Benefit Brow Zings brow shaping kit - Light
• Smashbox Brow Tech and Cream Eye Liner Palette - see full review here
• Smashbox Cream Eye Liner - Java and Putty
• Prestige Brow Perfection Clear Brow Gel
• Rimmel Professional Eyebrow Pencil - Brown
• Calvin Klein Brow Definition Pencil - Brunette
• NYX AUTO eyebrow pencil - Light Brown
• Prestige Ultimate Brow Definer - Blondy
• MUA Eyebrow Pencil - Blonde and in Brunette

Before I get into my three favourite brow products, I thought I would mention that my absolute worst product is the NYX AUTO pencil, I bought this online and thought it would be safe to order the light brown, but its orange! Its hideous and I can't imagine anyone liking this colour, I have never, and will never use this! I also hate the Calvin Klein one because the shade brunette comes out black, and it doesn't even have a brush so you can't really blend it out. Now to my favourite products...

#1 Smashbox Cream Eye Liner

These are my number one favourite brow products, and ironically, they aren't supposed to be brow products. I was given Java (the dark colour) as a present with a few other Smashbox products for my brithday in May. I hated it initially, but thats because I was trying to use it as a cream liner. It is a horrible cream liner and I wouldn't recommend this as a liner to my worst enemies. It's dry, it smudges, it is quite sheer, its hard to work with. Well I didn't want to throw it out so I tried it on my brows and it was awesome! It is almost like using a shadow, but it is slightly more moist so it stays better, and you only need a tiny amount of product. This reminds me of using a heavily coloured wax, but it is smoother and easier to use. 

Swatch of Java and Putty

I swatched Java and Putty quite heavily, but then I blended it out a little with an angle brush so you can see what the colour looks like when you apply it to the brows. Java is a pretty dark brown, and I am more inclined to use this at night when I am going out. I have also recently bought Putty on eBay for a more day to day look. Putty is a pretty warm taupe, and would work well for anyone who has light to medium coloured brows. I bought Putty for $14 off eBay including shipping, but I think if you buy these in store they cost about $30+ in Australia. Luckily because they are bad eyeliner products, you can get them cheap online.

#2 Benefit Brow Zings Brow Shaping Kit

My boyfriend bought me this product for Christmas a while ago so I'm not sure how much it costs , but I think its around $50 here in Australia. This is in the light shade, and it gives a perfect natural looking brow. I don't use this as much as I should, mainly because it is a two step process where you use the wax and then the powder on the top. It doesn't sound hard, but when you are in a rush to get to work I tend to always reach for a one step brow product. I do always use this when I am spending more time on my makeup though, and I do think it gives the most natural perfect look. I love that this comes with a coloured wax, I think the effect is nicer when you use the wax as the colour and the power more to set it, compared to using a clear wax and trying to press coloured powder onto it to fill in the colour. I also like that I have been using this for about 18 months and I have heaps left, also this is perfect for makeup bags as it comes with two brushes, tweezers and a mirror.

Swatch of wax, powder, wax and powder

#3 Prestige brow products

The main thing I love here is the pencil, it is just sooo easy to use. This is my brow product for when I am lazy or when I am running late for work. This is similar to the MUA blonde pencil which I also use, but this one came out on top because it has a twisty applicator which means I don't have to sharpen it, and with the MUA brow pencil I am sharpening it all the time. The colour is also a nice taupe and works well for just slightly filling in my natural brows. I decided to put the gel in here as well, it's not my favourite brow product but it is good to use in combination with the pencil. I did more a review on both of these products here. In Australia the pencil retails for $13.95 and the gel for $12.95. 

Prestige brow pencil in Blondy

Smashbox Java and Putty, Benefit Brow Zing Kit gel, powder, and both, Prestige brow pencil in Blondy

Sportsgirl Make Scents perfume review!

I am loving the new things that Sportsgirl are bringing out these days! Yesterday I was having fun playing with their nail art pens (see my review on it here), and today I am rolling their perfumes all over my arms. I first saw these in store about a month ago, so they are pretty new to the Sportsgirl beauty range. Heads up, I was sent these by Sportsgirl, but I can honestly say that if they didn't, I would have happily bought at least two of these, maybe even three... and eventually probably all of them.

This is the whole range, so there are four to collect. Each perfume contains 12mL of perfume and costs $9.95. What I am most happy to say about this range is that I would wear every one of these scents, and I am actually quite picky with what perfumes I like.

The Sweet Truth (pink label and floral packaging)
"A floral scent wrapped in oriental inspired flower wallpaper, The Sweet Truth hits you with a hint of bergamot spice and an underlying aroma of sweet tea. With a touch of jasmine, freesia and orchid, The Sweet Truth is a perfect floral mix" - Sportsgirl website

I thought this would be the sweet smelling perfume, since it has sweet in its name - but it is definitely the most floral smelling perfume of the four. It is a nice young pretty smelling floral, and definitely not a stale grandmother smelling floral.

Bright Young Thing (purple label with colour blocking design)
"A citrus based fragrance that evokes a sense of youth, whimsy and summer. A fresh mandarin and wild strawberry scent to begin with, Bright Young Thing slowly matures into a delightful jasmine and sandalwood aroma" - Sportsgirl website

This is the most citrus and summery smell. It's not a harsh citrus, but is still quite sweet citrus. If you like fresh summery scents, then try this one.

Into The Wild (turquoise label with waterfall design)
"A musk base scent, on first application Into The Wild evokes a dark chocolate and Sicilian lemon fragrance, which gradually evolves into a honeysuckle and lily aroma" - Sportsgirl website

This is the hardest for me to describe, it's probably the cleanest smelling scent of the four - almost like white linen with a soft floral scent. This is also the most mature smelling scent, not in a bad way, but more in a way that I think this would be the perfume that would be most work appropriate, or the most suited for a special event

Over The Rainbow (red label with colourful painted effect)
"A floral scent with a hint of musk, wrapped in a rainbow of watery colourful raindrops, Over The Rainbow is both calming and enchanting. A fresh kiwi and red lychee fragrance mixed back with a heated musk and white chocolate aroma" - Sportsgirl website

This is definitely the sweetest of the four perfumes. It is a fruity musk which smells like a delicious cocktail. This reminds me a little of the Brittney Spears perfume range - which I personally really like. 

The packaging of these are superb! They are really eye catching with all the different colours, and its a nice touch having a rose gold lid! The container is glass too so it feels quite expensive. I also love the way that it contains a roll on applicator. I haven't used a roll on applicator for perfume for years, and I forgot how handy it can be. A roll on make it so much easier to control the amount you use. The size of the bottles are great as well, they are pretty much the size of a pen, so it makes it super easy to fit in any bag you want - even small clutches. I think I will be bringing one of these in my bag with me at all times.

After smelling these for so long, its hard to pick my favourite, but I think Over The Rainbow is probably the one I am drawn to the most. It's smart of Sportsgirl to have such distinctly different scents - sweet, fresh, clean, and floral, because it caters for everyone. I spoke to the girls working at the Sportsgirl store yesterday and they said that Over The Rainbow was the most popular, but the three girls working in the store all had a different favourite. One thing that I also like about these is that if you like a floral sweet smell, you can buy Over The Rainbow and The Sweet Truth and mix them, I have had fun this afternoon trying different combinations of smells. The only downside to these perfumes is that the scent doesn't last all day, I wore this to work today and it wore off after about 5 hours. If this was a big clunky bottle then this would bother me because I wouldn't want to carry it around, but because these are designed to be handbag friendly then it's easy to reapply during the day.

These are awesome for the $9.95 price tag, and would recommend picking up one, two, three, or all of these. They are fun, eye catching, smell nice, and are in the most handbag friendly perfume packaging I have ever come across, pretty much if you can fit a pen in your bag, you can fit one of these! These would also be a perfect gift idea! Note to Sportsgirl, you should sell these in box sets.

Sportsgirl I Art Nails! 3 in 1 DIY Nail Pen

I had a coffee with my friend today, and we were near a Sportsgirl so we had to go in. I was so excited to see that there was something new and amazing in store - Sportsgirl now sell nail art pens! You can either get a pack that contains black and silver (which is what I bought), or a pack that contains fluro pink and orange (which is what my friend bought). Each of these come with nail polish, which can be used with the brush applicator to paint your whole nail or you can apply it with the pen to draw designs on your nails, and it also comes with diamontes of the same colour as the polish. Its hard to see in the photos above but the pink and orange pens come with pink and orange diamontes, but the back of diamontes are silver, which is why they look silver in the photo.

These retail at Sportsgirl for $12.95 for a pack of two colours, and each pen contains 5mL of polish. 

The packaging is cute, it has little pink designs on it, but the best thing about it is that it clearly explains how to use the pen - and even contains a diagram. I will use this as a nail art pen, and I will use the diamontes, but I am less inclined to use this as a nail polish purely because I have a lot of nail polish, and these are so fun that I won't want it to run out too quickly. It is great that they have that as an option though, I do understand that not everyone has a huge nail polish collection.

I can't wait to play with this more and do some awesome designs. The pen is really easy to use, the section that contains the polish is in a soft plastic so all you have to do is squeeze the sides to get the nail polish flowing through the pen. The harder you squeeze, the more that comes out, so its easy to control. The packaging also says that if this gets blocked, you just have to use a pin to unblock it.

This is the quick test I did while having a coffee with my friend, it was really fun and easy to use. I am sure you can do a lot of creative things with these pens, and I can't wait to have more time to sit down and start having fun with the diamontes.

Well done Sportsgirl for coming up with such a fun idea!

My newest and most expensive makeup products: Tom Ford Blush in 03 Flush and 06 Cheek Brush review and swatches

My lovely friend gave me a Tom Ford cheek brush the other day, which I was gob smacked about! As it's such a nice brush, I though I should invest in a Tom Ford blush to use it with. These are currently my most expensive makeup products I own, and they will probably have that title for quite a long time! The blush contains 8g of product and costs $85, and the brush costs a whopping $110. In Australia you can buy these products in David Jones.

06 Cheek Brush

The brush is a work of art. It is the 06 Cheek Brush, and is made of goats hair. It is made in Japan and is supposedly a Hakuhodo brush. It is extremely soft, beautifully crafted, and immensely dense. I used the Tom Ford blush with this brush and with another brush, and this brush transfers the product so much better than any other blush brush that I own. I think it is because the bristles are so dense that the product stays on the tip of the brush and allows for perfect application, and means you use less product for the same result.

Would I recommend this for $110? Well, you can tell it's a very high quality brush, but I almost feel it is wasted on me, as I am quite easy to please when it comes to brushes. I do appreciate this brush, and I do recommend giving it a go if money isn't an issue, but I think this is where my Tom Ford brush collection starts and finishes.

Blush in 03 Flush

The packaging of this blush is very impressive, it even comes with a pouch so you can avoid getting the shiny brown and gold case scratched. It also comes with a good sized mirror which I am always happy to see. The container closes with a magnet, so it makes a satisfying click when you close it shut.

Photo taken while indoors

The shade 03 Flush is a vibrant coral pink, the photo taken indoors looks more pink than what the blush looks like in real life, and it looks a lot more dull. I tried to take a photo of this blush while in sun light but it just bleached out the photo. The only way I could accurately capture the colour was on my phone. Here is a photo below of what the colour of this blush looks more like in real life.

iPhone photo

This blush is very pigmented, but is not at all chalky or powdery. It is very finely milled and smooth to apply.

Swatch without flash - heavily swatched and blended out

Swatch with flash - heavily swatched and blended out

The swatch without flash shows more a true colour of the blush, the swatch with the flash is far too pink, but demonstrates the slight shimmer that this blush has. The shimmer is barely noticeable, but gives a nice gold sheen. This is my perfect coloured blush for summer, and I am looking forward to getting a lot of use out of it. I usually am reluctant to use something this expensive on a regular basis, but I did buy it with the intention to appreciate it and to get the most out of it.

The best thing about this blush (other than the colour) is the fact that it applies extremely evenly. A lot of my bright blushes create a bright spot on your cheek and you spend a lot of time trying to buff it out and spread it out evenly. This blush does not have that problem, it applies effortlessly and is perfectly even. I also love that this blush is quite pigmented, so a little product goes a long way. It would be a shame to have spent so much money, and you hit pan within a few months.

Would I repurchase this? I think this blush will last me a long time, but when I run out I would consider investing the money again to replace this colour. This was the brightest most out there colour of the six shades available, and I would consider investing in a more toned down shade in the future, but I think because of the price of this blush, I will be in the distant future.

What's your most expensive makeup product you own?

MUA Lip Boom in the shade OMG: review and swatches

When I placed a large MUA order a while back, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try one of their Lip Booms. This isn't normally a thing I would wear, but it looked like a lot of fun. I decided to get it in OMG which is a coral colour with a light coral gloss that contains translucent peachy gold and pink glitter. This costs £3 on the MUA website, which is about $4.50 in Australia, but I got this while there was a 25% off all products discount. This product comes in eight different shades.

The overall packaging is very cute, and they went to a lot of effort to make it look appearing. I like the holographic logo, I especially like that it is also holographic on the actual plastic, and not just the cardboard it comes in. It comes with Alexandra Burke on the cover, but being an Australian, I have no idea who she is and it is not a huge selling point for me, but might be if you are from the UK.

Here is the fun bit! The single tube comes apart and contains two lip products: a glittery lip gloss (the highlighter) and a lipstick. Just a warning, the end of the lipstick also comes off and looks like a little balm, some people have reviewed this saying that it is a balm, but I think its just a foamy rubber that shows what colour the lipstick is in. It's a bit odd, because if it was just to indicate the colour then it shouldn't come off, and if this is a balm, its a horrible one! An addition of a nice balm would be the perfect way to add an extra element to this product.

The package recommends that you can use this product in four ways: lipstick on its own, the highlighter on its own, the lipstick with the highlighter in the center of the lip, or the lipstick with the highlighter all over the lip. I can't imagine just wanting to dab a bit of gloss on the center of my lip, so I will only demonstrate the three other ways to use this.

Swatch without flash. Left to right: lipstick, highlighter, lipstick and highlighter

Swatch with flash. Left to right: lipstick, highlighter, lipstick and highlighter

The flash photo of the swatches make the lipstick look more pink than it truly is, it is much more coral and the swatches without flash is a more accurate representation of the colour.

Swatch of lipstick

Swatch of highlighter

Swatch of lipstick with the highlighter on the top

Lipstick: The lipstick is a great colour, and has a semi-matte finish, it claims to be matte but I think its a little too glossy to be a matte. It gives a good coverage, but it isn't completely opaque. I find that this lipstick goes on easily enough, but settles into dry bits of your lips and is quite hard to get a nice even look. I did try to remove all the dry skin from my lips before applying this, but it didn't really help. Normally I would love this colour and finish in a lipstick, but this one would be too hard to maintain an even look. One nice thing about this lipstick is that it has a slight caramel smell, I love nice smelling products. I am a little disappointed that I didn't get along with this lipstick because I have read other reviews and most people didn't seem to have this problem as much as I did... and I don't have particularly dry lips.

Highlighter: This gloss smells amazing, its a super strong caramel/vanilla fudge type smell. If you don't like highly perfumed glosses, steer clear, but if you like yummy glosses then this is for you. It only has a slight colour to it, and there is a lot of glitter. The glitter is a translucent peachy gold colour with a little bit of pink glitter. I found that this gloss is not sticky, but it is a little gritty - but that might be normal for glitter gloss, I don't usually wear them so I don't know. This glitter sticks around though, when you try to take this gloss off you get a lot of glitter stuck to your lips.

Lipstick with highlighter: This is a fun look. I do think that when I use this, this is how I will use it. It is super pink and girly, but the glitter gloss tends to take away the dryness of the lipstick and stopped it settling in the dry skin. It's still a little uneven, but its not too bad. The only problem with this is that this combination can wear off easily.

Overall, this is a fun idea for a product. I kinda wish it was of a higher quality, because I would buy one of these for $20 or so if the lipstick was nice, and I would no doubt get a lot more use out of it. If  I were to use this in the future, I would consider putting like gloss over a different coral lipstick that I own. This would be a nice introduction into lipstick for young teenagers, but I don't take this product too seriously, which is a shame.