17 BB cream review

Hi everyone,

Today I am doing a review on 17's BB cream. BB stands for blemish balm if you didn't know. BB creams have become very popular recently and many brands are starting to jump onto the idea. BB creams claim to be the 'all in one product' that work as a primer, foundation and moisturiser all in one easy step. The 17 BB cream claims to; cover any imperfections with full coverage, help to control oil, smooth and even skin tone, and protect the skin with SPF protection (I'm a little confused with this part as online it says it has an SPF of 15 and on the box it says SPF 25, however any SPF is good to have in a 'foundation'). So it sounds like the perfect product! But is it?

The first huge downfall I would have to say about this product is the appalling shade range! It only comes in medium and light, which even for drugstore foundations is ridiculous. I have mine in the shade light as I am very pale, however it is not pale enough so I have to mix it with my Barry M white foundation (please let me know if you would like a review on this). But because this is quite a lightweight product you could get away with it not matching you exactly. What I will say about the shade is that it is not orange, which I hate! It may not be light enough for me but it is a lovely shade and does not look at all orange if I wear it on its own, it just makes me look a little more tanned. This is great considering the fact that most drugstore foundations come up orange on my skin tone.

Apart from the colour range though, I think this is a really great product! I have normal to combination skin and I find that it does tend to get a bit shiny throughout the day, but it stays put and does not melt of my face! So it doesn't bother me that it gets a bit shiny as I can just blot my skin as and when I need to. Because of the shininess though I think people with very oily skin may want to stay away, unless you use a really good setting powder. I love the coverage it gives also, I would not say it is full coverage like it says but it covers enough that I don't feel the need for concealer. I would also like to say that my skin is very acne prone and at the moment it has flared up! But this sits on spots really nicely, it does not make them look dry or crispy it just glides over them and makes your skin look much more flawless.

Overall I really like this product for an everyday foundation, it makes a nice change from my usual full coverage foundations. The consistency of this product is light and creamy, it feels so nice on your skin! It is available and boots and is only £6.99 which I think is a very reasonable price!

After trying this product I definitely would like to venture more into the 'BB cream world' so if you have any recommendations please let me know!

Thanks
xxx

Review and comparison of the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter and the L'Oreal Rouge Caresse Lipstick

Hey everyone,

Today I have a review and comparison of the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter and the L'Oreal Rouge Caresse Lipstick. I have one from each brand in similar colours and have been testing them for the past few weeks.

Some background information on the products...
Both products retail for £7.99 (UK) in both Boots and Superdrug, so there is not much to compare on price. This is not amazingly cheap, however it is a very decent price for a good lip product. I have the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter in the shade 'Strawberry Shortcake' and the  L'Oreal Rouge Caresse Lipstick in the shade 'Lovely Rose 03'. These shades both a sort of 'barbie pink' colour but because of the different formula's they apply differently on the lips.

The formulations...
The Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter is the most pigmented out of the two. The term 'lipbutter' certainly lives up to expectations, it is creamy, thick and very moisturising! It also lasts quite well on the lips, which is surprising. Once the product has worn off it leaves almost a stain on your lip,s which is really nice as you do not have to keep applying it as often.
The L'Oreal Rouge Caresse is a much thinner consistency and it is not as pigmented. It reminds me of a tinted lip balm, however it is not as moisturising as the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter in my opinion because it is not as thick. It also does not last very long at all which means you need to reapply it more often. However the plus side of this product is that you do not need a mirror to reapply it because it is sheer, meaning you only have to quickly sweep it on your lips and your done. Whereas with the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter you do need to be a bit more careful.

Overall thoughts...
In my opinion the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter  is the better product. It lasts longer, its more pigmented and it is more creamy and moisturising. However it depends what you are looking for in these products, a lot of people prefer the L'Oreal Rouge Caresse because it is more like a lip balm. So if you are looking for a tinted lip balm that you can just chuck on without a mirror you should go for the L'Oreal Rouge Caresse. But if you are looking for a moisturising lipstick that you have to take your time applying, but will last longer you should go for the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter.

I hope you found this review and comparison helpful, let me know what one you prefer and what colours you would recommend!

xxx

ELF £5 OFF CODE!!!

Hey everyone,

Just letting you know that ELF cosmetics are having a £5 off when you spend £20 or over! This is a great offer especially considering that everything on the website is so cheap!!! To get the £5 off just enter SPRING520 at checkout.

A few products I would recommend are the;
Studio powder brush £3.50
Eye primer £1.50
Studio cream eyeliner £3.50
ELF lipsticks £1.50

I wanted to let you know about this as i am a bid fan of ELF cosmetics! Hope you get some great stuff!

xxx

Fashionista palette review- Blush and Eye shadow

This post is going to be about the Fashionista palettes, available at superdrug. Similar to higher end brands, such as MAC, these palettes allow you to get a palette and choose your own individual eye shadows and blushes. The pallet's are £5 and the eye shadows and blushes are £4. You can fit 4 blushes/eye shadows in your palette and you can mix and match what product you can put in them. This means that overall your filled palette will cost £21, which in my opinion is quite expensive for drugstore make-up. However when I brought mine there was an offer on where you got your palette free when you brought four eye shadows/blushes. I am not aware if this offer is still on.

 The palette itself is very nice and good quality. I have it in black, but you can also get it in red. This is great because you can have one for blush and one for eye shadow and you don't have to look inside to see whats in them. The palette also has a big mirror which I use everyday when doing my makeup because it is a perfect size. the palette is also great for travel because it is very thin and closes shut securely.

Colours: Steel shade 3 (eye shadow), Amorous shade 33 (eye shadow), Blushing coral shade 5 (blush), Rose glow shade 2 (blush)

 I picked up two blushes and two eye shadows to test them out. Firstly the eye shadows, which i was not impressed with. I found the eye shadows did not have very good pigmentation and were hard to blend. Although they are drugstore products I expected more considering that they are £4 and MUA shadows (which are great quality) are only £1! So I would not recommend the eye shadows from this range. However the blushes are fantastic, they are super pigmented and matte which is really hard to find in a drugstore blush. If you are very heavy handed with your blush these may not be for you as you only need a light hand to get great colour pay off. I also love the fact that you can change the intensity of the colour, depending on how much you use.

Pro's...
-The blushes are great quality
-You can put blush and eyeshadow in the same palette
-Good to travel with
-Nice quality palette
-You can have the products in the palette or in single cases
-You can see the name of the product through the back of the palette
-It is easy to pop out the products and change what you have in the palette

Con's...
-The eye shadows are not great quality
-The price adds up quite quickly when buying the complete palette
-If you are heavy handed you will not get on with the blushes
-There is not a great shade range

Overall i think these palettes are a great idea, I was just disappointed with the eye shadows. I will definitely get two more blushes to replace the eye shadows in my palette because they are fantastic! I hope they will extend the shade range and maybe create new products to put in the palette such as lipstick and cream products. definitely check these palettes out when you next visit superdrug!

No7 Vouchers- What I would recommend using them on

Hi guys, The No7 vouchers are out again and I thought I would share some recommendations of what to use them on. The vouchers out at the moment are valid until 25th March 2012 and are worth £5. If you have never heard about the No7 vouchers they are money off any No7 product in Boots, you get them when you spend over a certain amount in any Boots store.

My first recommendation is one of my favourite products from No7, it is the Metallic eye pencil. This pencil is fantastic and in my opinion it is as good as the Urban Decay 24/7 glide on pencil. It goes smoothly onto the water line and lasts for a good majority of the day. The only downfall to this product is that there are only 3 colours available green, blue and purple. I have the green one and i am definitely going to get the other two with my No7 vouchers. This product is £7.75, which means if you use your voucher it is just £2.75 which is an amazing deal!

My next recommendation is the eyeshadow blend and contour brush. This is said to be a dupe for the MAC 217, however i do not own this brush so I cannot say if I agree with this. But what I do know is this is an amazing brush for applying shadow to the crease. It does shed a little but nothing drastic, it also cleans well and keeps its shape. This is usually £7.25 which is a good price for a decent brush, but with the voucher it is £2.25! It is hard to find any brush for that kind of money, let alone on that is good quality.

This one is for the nail polish junkies! No7 have brought out a mini nail kit with 4 limited edition nail polishes inspired by precious metals and gemstones. All the shades are beautiful and a great deal at £8.00, that's £2 per nail polish! But again if you use the voucher it will cost £3, which means you are getting each nail polish for less than a pound each!

My final recommendation is the beautifully balanced purifying cleanser, I have only tried the one for oily/combination skin. I really like this cleanser because it is really gentle but still leaves your skin feeling clean and very soft. I also like that it left my skin matte but not dry. This product is £8.00 but will cost you only £3 with the voucher.

Here are just a few of my recommendations for what to use your No7 vouchers on. I have tried other products from No7 but haven't been too impressed with them so if you would like me to do a post on them products then please let me know! They also have a new 'beautiful skin' range which looks very nice, but u haven't tried anything from the range so i cannot tell you if it is good or not. Please let me know what products you recommend i use my No7 vouchers on!

E.L.F cosmetics- product reviews, swatches and overall opinion

This post is going to be about E.L.F (eyes, lips, face) cosmetics. If you haven't heard of them before they are a brand of cosmetics that sell many items at very low prices. They have three different collections, the first is the basic collection. The majority of the products in the basic range are £1.50, however it can vary slightly depending on the product. then there is the studio line and the mineral line, these lines are slightly more expensive however they are still great value for money! I have made a couple of orders from E.L.F and I have mixed opinions on the products. First I will share my thoughts on the products I own from E.L.F.

First is the brightening eye colour quad, these retail for £1.50. This is a great deal for 4 eye shadows and they have a wide range of colours to choose from. The quality of the eye shadows is ok for the money however I found that the quality of the shadows varied in the palette I had. You can probably see in the swatches below that the blue and cream colour had good pigmentation and were not too chalky, these were the colours I was most happy with. The pink had great pigmentation but is quite chalky and has a lot of fall out. The purple however had rubbish pigmentation!

Punk Funk

The next product is the shimmer eyeliner pencil, this also retails for £1.50. The shade I have is Grassy Green. This eyeliner is nice and pigmented and is reasonably soft. It is great for applying on the lower lash line however it does not apply well to the water line. When I tried to apply it to my water line the colour did not come off. But for the price it is a nice base if you are using colour along the lower lash line.

Grassy green

I was very excited to try this product however i was very disappointed when i tried it. This product is the luscious liquid lipstick. It sounds lovely, I was expecting a smooth creamy gloss. However i find these to be very sticky, thick and goopy. I have two shades of these, strawberry and baby lips. Strawberry is the most pigmented of the two, it leaves a red tint to the lips. Baby lips is a gorgeous colour when swatched but when it is applied to the lips it does not transfer. These are £1.50.

left= baby lips

right= strawberry

The next item was a big disappointment, but don't worry I do have some good products after this. This product is the waterproof eyeliner pen, I had this in two shades coffee and midnight. But I cannot swatch them because I threw them away! It could have just been that I got a bad two but I still am not impressed! They were dry as soon as I opened them, meaning they would not apply well. These are cheap at £1.50 but I wouldn't waist your money on them!

Next is a product that is part of the studio line, the cream eyeliners. I only have one off these in the shade coffee however since I bought mine they have brought out a range of different colours which i am dying to try! Before I start raving about this product I need to let you know that they do not last well on the upper lash line as i find they print onto my upper lid, however if you have never had this problem with gel liners then you may not experience this. I use this product on my water line and it is fantastic! It glides on with great pigmentation and lasts all day, it also does not irritate my eyes which some eyeliners can do. This product costs £3.50, which i think is an amazing price for the quality of the product. The brush it comes with is also ok, it is definitely usable but you may prefer to use another brush.

Coffee

Another product from the studio line is the matte lip colour, this is also £3.50. This is a lovely product as it gives a beautiful matt finish and lasts really well. It is not very drying to the lips however if you are like me and like really moisturised lips at all times you may want to put a gloss over it. This is a nice product and definitely worth £3.50.

Coral

The final product is the eyelid primer, this is part of the basic range and is £1.50. I have also had the mineral eyelid primer but I cannot tell a difference so you might as well save some money and get this one. I have very oily eyelids so I can never go without a primer on my eye. I was using the urban decay primer potion and then I ran out, I couldn't justify spending the money on another one so I desperately searched for ways to get around it. Then I came across a comparison of this and the urban decay primer potion and it said it was just as good. So I ordered it from the E.L.F website and fell in love, it does a great job. My only complaint is that it runs out quite fast so you may need to stock up each time you order. Since then I have been trying the MUA eye primer and have chosen it over the E.L.F one only because I can get it from my local superdrug. But I definitely recommend getting this if you are looking for an inexpensive eye primer!

Overall I think E.L.F is a great brand as it offers nice products at great prices! But if you are new to E.L.F then i would recommend searching reviews of things before you buy them as the quality of the products do vary. Also the swatches available on the website are pretty rubbish to be honest so its best to search for swatches online. I will be making another order from E.L.f in the near future so please let me know what products you would recommend from them. Thanks for reading this post!



Valentines gifts under £15!

Gifts for your valentine dont have to break the bank. You can get some great gifts at low prices! Here are some of my top picks for valentines gifts under £15!

The first and probably most affordable is the MUA Love Hearts range. This range includes a selection of gorgous nail polishes and lip balms. At £2 each they are a bargain and a great gift for valentines! You can only order these from the MUA online store.
Available at www.muastore.co.uk

Next is one for the guys, this is one of the many fantastic deals from boots. This gift set i have choosen is the Gillette Fusion ProGlide elite shaving kit. In this set you get a razor, shave gel, face scrub and moisturuzer. This set was originally £25 but is part of a half off deal so it is £12.50, a great deal!
Available at www.boots.com

This sanctury gift set is a great deal at £10, but boots have an offer on at the moment where if you spend more than £10 on sanctury products you can get this gift set FREE! So you can choose a few items for you valentine and give them this as well! This set includes a Luxury Bath Float, Body Butter, Body Scrub and Moisture Rich Foot Butter.  

Available at www.boots.com

Another one for the guys, these Jeff Banks purple shield design cufflinks are a wonderful gift. These are available on the debenhams website for £14.80.
Available at www.debenhams.com

Next gift is a Lipsy phone case, both these cases are available on debenhams. The iphone case is £10 and the blackberry case is £12. These are great gift ideas, especially if your valentine has a new phone!
Available at www.debenhams.com

The next gift is this Ben Sherman wallet. this is the perfect simple gift for any guy young or old. It is also a great price, originally £15.00 but now reduced down to £9.00 in the sale. This wallet is available on ASOS.
Available at www.asos.com

This next gift is a simple but beautiful piece of jewllery that any girl would love! It is a Sterling Silver Mini Cubic Zirconia Heart Pendant Necklace from the brand simply silver. You wouldn't beleive this was under £15, at £14.40 its a great buy for your valentine!
Available at www.debenhams.com

The final gift is a very versitile gift and is a great idea if you are unsure about what your valentine would like. The gift is a Love2shop voucher, these are a great idea as they can be used at over 20,000 stores across the UK! So there is very little chance that they wont find something they love! These vouchers are available in £1, £5, and £10 so you can get the exact amount you want.
Available from www.highstreetvouchers.com

Hope you enjoyed reading about these gift ideas, even if you don't have a valentinees to buy for. It doesn't mean you can't check out these great deals!