Long-lasting FOTD and review of Collection Extreme 24H Felt Tip Eye Liner

Often, I see Face Of The Day posts and think 'really? And how long did that last?' so I thought I'd post today's with a picture taken at half past nine, fourteen hours after putting on my make-up.

Products used:

• 17 BB Cream (most definitely still there, I used a cleansing wipe just after taking this picture and it came off onto it)
• Collection Shimmer Squares in Way to Glow (as above)
• Rimmel 1000 Kisses lip stain and balm (this I reapplied throughout the day, but the last time was at about 3pm, so this is still six hours' wear)
• Hello Kitty and Liberty eyeshadow palette
• Collection Extreme 24H Felt Tip Eye Liner Pen (still looking pretty much as new)
• Natural Collection LashCurl mascara in black.

And now the product review:

Packaging

It comes looking like a simple black marker pen - the end of the pen is a different colour depending on which colour you buy. It comes in black, teal, purple and blue. I had it in real about a year ago and lost it, and my mum has it in purple, but it is in black that this liner is indispensable. The lid fits nice and securely, which means the product doesn't dry out too quickly

Does it live up to its promises?

Be bold, bright and beautiful! The fast-drying versatile felt tipped pens give your makeup look an instant burst of colour.

Easy-to-apply felt tip nib for all day long lustrous looking eyes.

Obviously the instant burst of colour isn't applicable for black, but it is very quick to apply.

I totally agree with the easy to apply label, if I can do it, anyone can.

All day long - well, just look at the photo above! It's not even easy to remove with makeup wipes - even though mine say they tackle waterproof mascara. Maybe if I used my eye makeup remover pads they would work? On the odd days when I forget to take my makeup off, my liner is still ready to go the next morning.

It looks equally good when worn as a thin line or 'like Cleopatra' as my uncle put it. It also works quite well for the waterline.

Would I repurchase it?

I already have! Best of all, it's only £2.99!

NOTD: Because if you can't have sparkly nails on your birthday,when can you?

The title says it all, really...
Base coat: Miss Sporty vitamin cocktail (not in range any more, sad face)
Main colour: No7 Stay Perfect in Jammy (mentioned here)
Top coat: elf nail polish in Twinkle ( mentioned here) (the under a fiver bit)

e.l.f. Haul and free gift!

Last weekend, elf had a sale where, if you spent £10, you got a free gift and free shipping. 'Count me in!' I thought. There are two reasons that I love free gifts:

1. Freebies! Product without having to pay for it!
2. They help me to try new things that I wouldn't have, and in this case, since elf are mail-order, allow me to sample products that I would have doubts about buying sight unseen

This first picture is my freebie:

I received:

• A shimmer eye pencil in shade 7608 - Plum Passion. I'm really happy about this as I've been wanting a purple eye pencil, and, even better, this one is shimmery! It sells for £1 or £1.50, depending on colour, here.
• Nail polish in 1565 - Purple Pleaser - and 1573 - Twinkle. Purple Pleaser is a lovely sophisticated shade, which I think I'll wear a lot. Twinkle is a generic sparkly topcoat, which is also something I've really wanted. As with the eye pencil, it sells for £1-£1.50. And gosh they have a lot of colours.
• The eyeshadow palette, which I think was a part of a Christmas gift collection. It says it has '32 Warm colours' though it's actually the 'cool' palette on this page. The colours aren't so soft as the custom eye colours, but they're still divinely soft. Lily likey. I can see myself using this palette a lot for a while, and, like I said earlier, it'll get me to try eye looks with lots of colours I wouldn't normally use.

And here are the products I bought for myself:

• Custom Eyes element in Driftwood. They accidentally sent me two, which is great because it looks like a colour I'm gonna use a lot. It's a shimmery greenish brown, similar to Boots 17's Walnut Pearl.
• Custom Face element in Flushed, which is a bit darker than the Shy blusher I have. Looking forward to using this, but it'll probably have to wait til I use one of my three Custom Eyes shadows, as I only have the one space in my compact and I desperately want to try the Driftwood shadow.
• Eyeshadow duo in Olive, which is a nice pale green/brown matte duo. Fairly summery and springy.
• Shimmering facial whip in Persimmon - I bought it as a blusher, but I might also give it a try as a lip colour.
• Eyelid Primer in Champagne. Something I've been wanting for ages
• Brushes - Blending Eye Brush and Eye Crease Brush, both lovely and soft.

I will swatch and review these soonish, I hope. Even if I don't, they'll definitely appear in faces of the day :)

Boots hauls!

Over the past few weeks, I've been to Boots numerous times, so I thought I'd amalgamate everything I've bought into one big post.

This is really a bit fab. I've seen a few posts complaining that it didn't live up to its promises, but personally I love it. It is very light coverage, but I like that - there's nothing worse than looking 'caked' in foundation in my opinion. If you've got very pale skin, this probably wouldn't be the product for you - I'm not that pale but I found the 'light' shade to be perfect on me. 

Lots and lots of Natural Collection stuff!

I bought their 'LashCurl' mascara in black, and it's far better than I would have thought - I will do a review at some stage, but for now it's enough to say that it's properly black and that it actually does make the lashes look more curled, so that's good.

The green corrector stick is to help neutralize my naturally very rosy cheeks, and it seems to work, which is good - this is certainly something that I wouldn't buy from a posher brand when I know it's available and very good for £2.

The lipstick, in shade 'Rose Bud' is brilliant. A really good buy, in my opinion. It's pink and springlike without being too pink and horrible. I'll probably have to stop wearing it when I pick up a tan in the summer, but for now it's great. It doesn't come off on glasses etc either, which you would expect for the price. 

Centre front are bronzing pearls - I gave these a quick go just now and they're really good - I like that the different colours blend together. On the right is some loose powder - I'm going to give this a go. 

On top of the two little pots is a lip liner. I felt I ought to have one, and it's a nice nude/pink shade. 

I got these six products in two separate 'three for £5' deals.

This is No7's Stay Perfect Nail Polish in shade 270 - Jammy. It would normally be £7 but  I used one of those '£5 off No7' vouchers they like to give at the checkout.

It's FAB. The brush is really good, for a start. It's almost a one-coat polish, but the second just helps to add depth etc to the colour. I've heard that it lasts really well too.

Makeup from the poundstore!

Before you all cower in horror, I will give one bit of advice:
Only buy the brands you recognise - as well as the Rimmel stuff there were also some other brands whose names I didn't recognise, and you know what, their stuff might be worth less than a pound...

Anyway. On with the blog post. I had read on another blog (can't remember whose) that some pound stores have discontinued makeup for sale in them. So when I found myself walking past Poundworld on Saturday, I couldn't resist a look, and I found these really good Rimmel eye quads. These retailed at over £6 and are now only a pound each - bargain! There were a few different colours, but I picked up 016 - Urban Flower and 018 - Romantic Cool because I thought those were the shades I'd use the most.
And boy, are they good.
Here are the swatches:

 (urban flower)

 (romantic cool)

As you can see, the top right shade in each quad isn't particularly well pigmented, and the green in the urban flower one is also very sheer, but these are so smooth I almost don't mind. Also, a first for me: the applicators in the packs are actually not too horrific! Yay!

I wore the pale pink from 'urban flower' as an eyeshadow base yesterday, and it lasted really well so I'm happy about that.

e.l.f haul and unboxing

I ordered some brushes and a custom palette, for a total of £12 including postage.

When the order arrived I could see it was well packed in a good - but not oversized - box. It was well sealed but not impossible to get into - I just used a biro to open the sticky tape. The box seems really sturdy - I'll probably keep it, it will be good for presents or storage.

When I opened the box there was lots of bubble wrap (so I know what I'm going to be doing for therapy for the next week!) and a packing note on the top, and then the brushes on top of the custom palette and the elements I ordered for it, with some wrap between the brushes and the makeup to protect it all. I like the care that's gone into this packing.

I've swatched these bits later, but I thought I'd write more about them here. The compact is a really good size, and you can see why I like the versatility. The elements are packaged well, though slightly overpackaged - within the cardboard boxes there is a plastic frame keeping the element safe. Again, care despite the fact they only cost £1.

The brushes also seem really good; I haven't had a chance to try out the total face brush, but the blusher/bronzer/blender brush is really good, and I like the angle cut across the top of both of the fuller brushes. They're also lovely and soft! The lip brush I haven't had a chance to properly experiment with, but I had a quick go and it seems to work...

Here are swatches (top without flash, bottom with flash, I know, I need hand cream) of the elements I got for the compact. From right: 'sage' eyeshadow, 'wisteria' eyeshadow, and 'shy' blusher.

Sage is a lovely colour, a definite repurchase when I run out.

Wisteria is more purple and less pale than I expected, but I can see it being useful when I figure out how to incorporate it into looks.

Both of the eyeshadows have a lovely creamy (but still powder) texture. LOVE them.

Shy is nice and sheer, which will help to avoid the clown look.

Overall I love these!

Oh, and there is a free postage offer code that lasts until 9.30am GMT on Monday morning when you spend 10 quid - the code is SHIP24FREE

Review and NOTD: Rimmel Lasting Finish shade 193 - Black Cherries

In a way similar (probably) to most of you, I can't resist a bargain, so when I saw that this polish had £1 off at Sainsbury's, reducing the price to £1.99 I had to take advantage of it. I had a brief dilemma between this colour and a sparkly one (which I can't find anywhere online, darn Boots.com being down for maintenance), but decided that I'd get more wear out of this one.

The colour is lovely , a rich dark purplish red which, if you look closely under the right light, has tiny glimmery bits in it. I love the colour so much. Definitely made the right choice.

It goes on really nicely, it's nice and thick and gloopy, and although the brush is more like the Barry M ones than the Rimmel 60 Second one, it is thick enough, and the polish thick enough, for it to work.

It dried fairly quickly, and once it was dry it stayed dry and fixed to the nail (ie, not like the Barry M that slides off). The photo above was taken after I'd been wearing it for a day, with a little bit of wear but overall still looking very presentable. The one thing I have noticed is that there are a few little grooves from the tips of my other hand's nails (I think), but that seems to be a serial problem with most polishes for me. The colour of this polish seems to disguise those grooves quite well, though, so I'm happy.

As for Lasting Finish, I'm not yet entirely sure... it has seemed to stay on quite well, as you'd expect, but I'll have to see how it looks later in the week before I can really assess that.

Overall though, I love this polish, and I can see it becoming a staple.

http://www.superdrug.com/rimmel/rimmel-lasting-finish-nail-polish-black-cherries/invt/499951/

(note that it's only £2.49 at Superdrug anyway)

Swatched: 17 Solo Eyeshadows

So, I had these eyeshadows lying around, which are actually really good quality for the £3.89 you pay (it's the same price for normal and glitter shadows, the only difference being that they say '17 Glitter' on the lids rather than '17 Eyes')

Clockwise starting in the top left, the shades are Walnut Pearl, Night Sky, Regal, and Green Glimmer. The Night Sky is glitter and the others are standard shadows, though as you can see even in the non-flash photo (the top one of each pair) the Green Glimmer is fairly light-relective, and in the flash photo all four shades are shimmering.

The Walnut Pearl is one layer of colour; the other three are two. It's easily the most pigmented of the four, but it also sheds - when using this eyeshadow it's definitely a good idea to do it before the foundation.

NOTD: Barry M Nail Paint shade 290, Spring Green.

Right, I'll admit it, front and centre.

I used to be a Barry M Nail Paint devotee. Loved it.

But, since trying others (most notably Rimmel's 60 second one) I've realised that, actually, it's not that good.

I put on Barry M polish for the first time in a while today, in what for ages was my favourite nail colour. But, I'd forgotten how much better the little stubby brush in the Rimmel polishes is. The Barry M brush, long and thin, is very difficult to control, and get a good finish across the nail without getting polish all over your fingers - my nails now are even more untidy than normal.

Then there's the drying time. I know I'm used to special quick-dry formulas, but this still took quite a while, probably as a consequence of my bad brush usage meaning that I put too much polish on.

I've also put a topcoat on (for once) - 2true's clear polish, which says it lasts for 5 days. It has made the nail look overall much more 'finished'

It's a shame, really, to have to say bad things about a product I used to love.

One thing I can't fault, though, is the bottle size. For £2.99 (often £2.50 when there are 2 bottles for £5 deals) you get 10ml, working out at just under 30p per ml. In contrast, for the Rimmel 60 second polish you pay £3.69 for 8 ml, just over 46p/ml.

I think, to conclude, that the Barry M is still a very good nail polish for what you pay, but that there are better ones available at a similar price point.

http://www.superdrug.com/barry-m/barry-m-nail-paint-290-spring-green/invt/396362/

Afterthought: I'm writing this bit two hours after putting on the polish. 6 of my 10 nails are smudged horribly. I remember this being a problem with this polish, that it appears to have dried, but over an hour after putting it on it still doesn't seem to stick to the nail.

I'll have to take it off, it's annoying me that it looks so rubbish and I'm going out tonight.

Review : Rimmel 60 Seconds Nail Polish - Shade 610, Pompous

This nail varnish is definitely my favourite, so I thought it would make a good first review.
I bought it on a whim to match a dress I was wearing for a Hallowe'en party, and have worn it almost constantly since. I used to be a Barry M nail paint devotee, but that's all changed.
As you can see in the swatch, it's sparkly, which is always fun for nails, especially during the holidays and for parties. The sparkles in this polish, though, are quite subtle, and just add to the catching-the-light effect.
So now we now that I love how it looks - is it actually any good?
Yes!
It doesn't fully dry in the 60 seconds suggested by the packaging and name, and nor can I get the full colour payoff in the one coat stated on the bottle, but it's darned good. It dries almost fully in a couple of minutes, and enough to put the necessary second coat on very quickly - usually, by the time I've put he first coat on my second hand, the first hand is ready for the second coat.
Durability is a key issue for nail varnish, and one I can report back on with a smile on my face with regards to this polish. I've had this polish last three or four days with only tiny nicks before, and since it dries so quickly, touch-ups aren't an issue. For some polishes, I've noticed that due to slight colour variations it's very obvious where I've 'mended' the polish, but for this polish it isn't. Presumably it would last even longer if I could be bothered to put a topcoat on it.
Also, and this is a big bonus for such a dark polish, it doesn't seem to stain my nails when it comes off.
This polish sells at £3.69, and in my opinion is definitely worth it.
http://www.boots.com/en/Rimmel-60-Seconds-Nail-Polish_867420/