What I wore: Winter Daisies

I wore this last week when I had a job interview in a clothing store (didn't work out by the way, boo!). I bought this dress back when it was warm, just after I got home from England. I only got a few wears out of it in the warmer weather, it shrunk a little in the wash so it was a little too short for me to wear without tights. But now it's winter, I can chuck a pair of tights on underneath and a cardigan on and it's perfect. Because this dress is very neutral, I can really go out there with colours for everything else, and I love coloured cardigans and tights. Kmart have a bunch of pink and purple tights at the moment for only $3. I may have gone a little crazy and bought at least one pair of each colour. So far no holes, so I'm pretty happy! You can also see my tattoos through them, which I love. As for the cardigan, both Cotton On and SES had a bunch of coloured cardigans last Autum/Winter, but I haven't seen them this year. Modcloth have a bunch of rad coloured cardigans, but are a little more expensive.

Top 5 UK products

I've been home a while now, so I thought it was about time to let you guys in on a few amazing products I picked up while I was overseas. Some of these are easy to get here (even if they're a fair bit more expensive) but others will be more tricky.
Also, a sneak peak of one of the Ulta3 speckle polishes!

Rimmel Apocalips - Nova and Across the Universe

These were something I got just before we left, and I'm glad I did. They're lovely colours! I have 2 other shades - Luna and Galaxy, but I've kind of stopped using them. The new shades I've picked up are much more vibrant colours. Nova is a light pink, and Across the Universe is a dark red. You can get Nova here, but Across the Universe was only just release when I left England. It'll be perfect for 

MUA Colour Blast Eyeshadow tint - Bring it Back

This is SUCH a good eyeshadow base! It's so easy to apply, easy to blend, and once you put shadow over it, it's not going anywhere! By itself I'll admit that it's pretty awful, it fades away within a couple of hours, but it turns to gold when you pop some shadow on it. For £3, it's an excellent product!

Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer - Fair

While I was away I misplaced my Maybelline dream lumi touch concealer and it was tough to decide what concealer to pick up. I was a bit worried about this one, I only use concealer under my eyes and thought this one might be a bit thick, and I was tossing between a few different ones. I'm so glad I chose this, because it does work perfectly under your eyes, especially if you warm it up between your fingers first.

Sleek Blush by 3 - Lace

I'm mostly chuffed by the huge mirror in this palette. It's so great for when you're traveling! Apart from that, the shades are beautiful, and they're easy to blend. I'm bummed I didn't pick up more while I was there, especially Pink Lemonade! See my review of this blush here.

MUA One Direction Kiss You Lipsticks - Moments, Rock Me, I Want, I Wish

This range! So good! I kinda like One Direction, and snapped this up in a second. All the lipsticks are fantastic colour, and apply creamy and pigmented. Rock Me, the lavender, is definitely my favourite of the lot. Not bad for £3 ($5ish) See my review here.

Swatches!

1. Apocalips - Nova and Across the Universe  2. MUA - Bring it Back   3. Collection - Fair

4. Sleek Blush by 3

5. MUA Top - I wish, Rock Me  Bottom - I want, Moments.

It was hard to chose. Seriously hard. So I'd like to give special mentions to Urban Decay Naked 3 (I wasn't going to add it because obviously it was my favourite), Maybelline Baby Lips - Pink Punch (Such a nice colour, our babylips have nothing on these! And it smells good. It would have made the list if I hadn't lost it!) and Rimmel Scandaleyes Lycra Flex (I absolutely hated this when I first got it. I only realised it was fantastic after I got home, after I had sent it home before I left the UK!)

MUA blush in Marshmallow

I'm a big fan of MUA. Ever since I won their Undressed Palette in a giveaway I've been interested in reading lots of reviews about their poducts, and keeping an eye out for new products. So it's been pretty cool to be able to check out their stands here! Unfortunately a lot of them aren't kept very well (think the Australis stands at Kmart!) and there aren't a lot of testers either!

They did release a new range of blushers recently which are all really lovely colours! So far I've picked up 2, cupcake (see here) and the brightest of the range, Marshmallow! For £1, these are fantastic. You get quite a bit of product, considering you only use a little bit at a time. These are also super pigmented! You can't really tell from the swatches, but you really only need to touch your brush onto the product and you've got almost enough for both cheeks. It's not even just because this is a bright, in-your-face pink, Cupcake is also super pigmented. 

The colour is fantastic. I don't own any pinks quite like this, and certainly didn't bring anything so bright with me to England. It is really lovely paired with the Rimmel Scandaleyes shadow stick in Turquoise, and MUA Kiss Me Lipstick in I Wish.

It is quite powdery, as you can see from the picture below. I just touched the pan with my brush and that much powder came off. Luckily the lid is quite secure and you can just leave that product in there for next time and it wont leak out. It's not at all powdery on your cheeks, and blends really easily.

heavy swatch (l) and blended (r) with flash

  same as above in natural light

I'm a real fan of this blush, and will no doubt buy more from the £1 blush range.

Have you tried any MUA blushers? What did you think of them?

One Direction... makeup!

It's no secret that I am a bit of a fan of One Direction, so it's no surprise that the new One Direction range by MUA was released I had to get my hands on it, or that it managed to break my blog-drought (Sorry about that guys, now that I'm back into a little bit of a routine I can try and do some blogging in my spare time, and I have a lot of photos to share, along with the huge array of new products I can buy now I have an income!)

I haven't actually done any real research about this new collection. All I know is there's 5 lipsticks, 5 lip polishes, 5 nail polishes and 3 cheek tints. I have absolutely no idea if 1D had anything to do with it, but I don't really care because I like MUA's products and I'm a sucker for branding! Hence the 1D mug I also picked up today. Each 1D boy has a lipstick, lip polish and nail polish named after them.

I ended up picking up 4 lipsticks and 1 of the lip polishes. I hadn't intended on getting a lip polish at all, but saw a good review about it on Pretty in Pink and decided I needed it. The nail polishes didn't really tickle my fancy, and I can't wear nail polish at the moment because of my job. I may have a look at the cheek tints in the near future.

The lipsticks I got are I Want (Liam), Moments (Niall), I wish (Zayn) and Rock Me (Louis), with the lip polish in Liam Loves... Blueberry. All the lipsticks come in a bullet similar to MAC lipsticks, with a scent that also reminds me of MAC's lipsticks. The silver inside has the signature of the corresponding 1D boy on it, and the lipstick bullet has X's and O's down the side, with a 1D embossed on the top. This doesn't last very long, as you can kind of see on I Want (no matter HOW many times I checked and re-checked in Superdrug, I still managed to get a lipstick that had been tampered with. What is with makeup companies not sealing up their products?!). I've found the tubes of all of them are quite hard to push up and down. As for their formula, they seem to apply very smoothly, almost buttery. However, they do end up quite sheer (apart from I want), but still manage to cling to dry patches. You can't expect perfect quality for a £3 lipstick though.

I want, Moments, I Wish, Rock Me.

I want is a bright red with a hint of coral and a gold shimmery finish.

Moments is a lovely nude-pink with a nice gold shimmer to it which is totally work appropriate. 

I Wish is a pretty candy pink. It's not as scary on the lips as you would expect, but still not quite a nude.

Rock Me, although pretty scary looking in the bullet for those who aren't used to bold lipstick, is quite an understated pinky liliac shade. It's a little sheer, and would be perfect if you wanted to wear something different, but didn't want to stand out.

As for the lip polish, I'm pretty happy I picked it up. It's got a lovely buttery texture, a little like the Nivea lip butters, and is surprisingly pigmented! It leaves a lovely sheer colour on your lips, and smells a little like grapes.

Swatches with Flash (l-r) I Want, Moments, I Wish, Rock Me and Liam loves... Blueberries.

Swatches in natural light (same as above)

So far these have only been released in Superdrug stores, and on their website (which I had to find through a link, I couldn't find it by going through the Superdrug site). I haven't heard anything from MUA's facebook about when these will be going on their website. I have a feeling this may be because  there'll be a huge influx of traffic once they are released and they don't want another fiasco like the 50% off sale!

Review: MUA Glitterball

This is a review I've been putting off for some time now. I haven't really used this palette much, and I didn't want to do a really negative review on it. I have managed to pick it up a few times recently so I thought it was time to write this.

When I first got this palette, I did a quick swatch of it and was really unimpressed, which is why it sat in my makeup draw untouched. The pink shade stood out to me one day recently though so I picked it up and was a lot happier with it than my first impression.

I found these shadows aren't very pigmented. They seem quite crumbly and chunky, and are really hard to blend, as you can kind of see in the swatches. They also aren't as glittery as you would expect from a palette named Glitterball, and you can see 1 and 3 came up mostly matte! Some colours are better than others, with my favourites being the pink(7) and brown(10) shades, and the pink can become quite bright if you pack it on. The gold colour(8) isn't as good as the golds in Undressed, which is unfortunate because it's a lovely colour. I think I don't use this as much is because a lot of the colours aren't ones I'd go for, especially the greens. The black would also be particularly useless as you can't blend it well. They produce a lot of fall out, which is something I haven't experienced before with MUA shadows. I should have probably given it a better go before totally dismissing it, but the first impression really stuck.

Swatches in sunlight

Overall, these shadows aren't nearly as good as other MUA shadows I've used. I'm going to try and get Glamour Days or Starry Nights, which is what I would have originally gotten if they were in stock at the time I placed my order.

Have you used this palette before? Or another MUA palette?

Weekly nail: Polka Dots and Glitter

Im sorry that these posts may seem to be starting to get a bit repetitive, but I really like pastels and I really like polka dots! I decided to give MUA's Pistachio Ice Cream another go, because there are a few colours of their polish I want to get when I'm in England, and so far I've hated this polish. It's safe to say that the reason this polish is so bad is the brush. It's so hard and leaves streaks. I put it over Face of Australia Castle On a Cloud (I accidentally painted all my nails) and it was perfect in one layer! I'm still not happy with the colour, i'd rather more green (although, against the purple of Castle on a Cloud it looks quite green) but now they've changed their brushes I'm keen to try out more colours. I also finally bought some of the new face of Australia glitters! I wasn't able to get them during the 75c Kmart sale, so I only bought 2. I used Heart of Glass over Castle on a Cloud and I'm pretty happy with it. Obviously I would have preferred of it had more glitter, and more hearts (I did 3 coats on both my middle fingers and no hearts were seen) but I bought it after reading many reviews, so I can't really complain! I'll have a post up later this week with the other polish I bought, Studio 54, which I'm over the moon with!

MUA Pistachio Ice Cream, Face of Australia Castle on a Cloud and Heart of Glass.

I've only got 3 days left of work now, and I leave the country next week! The boyfriend and I had our goodbye drinks to see some friends before we left and it was seriously so fun! We had so many friends show up, and even though I'm going to see most of them again before I leave, it was nice to hang out with them. I've got a pretty full schedule this week. I'm going to get ice cream on Wednesday night with friends, dinner with work friends Thursday, a 21st on Friday, going up to Sydney for the day on Sunday, then I'm having coffee with a friend on Monday and then going to dinner with some other friends. Not sure when I'll have time to hang out with my family, or even pack my bag! (Just kidding, I did most of my packing last night because I got too excited and I'm going to just leave everything in there!)

Battle of the BB creams Feat. Nude by Nature, MUA and Pond's!

I'm here today to share with you all my BB cream collection. My collection is quite small, and is composed of mostly not so well known BB creams within the Australian beauty blogging community! Or in fact, maybe they're not so well known at all? I haven't really seen reviews on these, so I thought that it's my job to tell you all about them.

First up, Nude by Nature. This was my first BB cream, and to be honest, it was a real let down. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not putting enough on (although I thought the idea was to use only a little?) but this just doesn't work. It's kind of thick, and doesn't blend in at all. When you try and bend it in, it leaves streaky lines, and when you try and blend those in it just ends up coming off. If you're having a good skin day - I'm talking perfect skin here (I have dry skin so usually I have a few dry patches), it does blend in ok, but it really has no coverage and looks like you're not wearing anything at all - in a 'you're actually not wearing makeup' kinda way, not the good kind. I really wanted to love this product, but it just did not work for me. I do like the scent of this though, so that's a plus?

MUA's All in One Beauty Balm. This really feels like more of a foundation than a bb cream. It's very thick and gives about a medium coverage (although this is coming from someone who has owned all of 4 foundations in my life, 2 of which were when I was in high school and didn't know anything about makeup!). Unfortunately, sometimes this goes on very streaky and can be very difficult to work in, and can even accentuate the little hairs on your face! No one wants that! Luckily I've managed to use this without problems more often than not, so it's not a complete waste. It does leave your skin a little dewy, and evens out skintone (by covering everything up!). I bought this in the lightest shade - light - and found it was a little bit too light for me, which I was pretty surprised with seeing as I'm usually the lightest shade in foundations. For £3 (about $4.37 Australian at the moment) you can't really complain! I don't think it's possible to get any face product for that price here!

Pond's Age Miracle BB- I won this BB cream from a giveaway, and Jasmine got this in Indonesia. Hallelujah! This is what a BB cream is supposed to be like. It has the thinest consistency of the 3, and is the easiest to work into the skin. I found I need a decent amount of this to get it over the face, but I use my fingers to apply so you could probably get away with less if you were to use a brush. I found this was slightly grey toned, but that was fine for my pale ass skin. You can tell from the pictures that this is the darkest of the 3, but it definitely works with my skin.

I've included some swatches. I apologise that they probably aren't the greatest photos to accompany this, but you get the general idea of the consistency and colour of the creams here. I wanted to include blended swatches, but because they're BB creams, blended in they kind of disappear because their aim is more skin perfecter rather than coverage. In the top photo there is blended product below the swatches, and the bottom has blending above (which you can see a bit better).

(l-r) Nude by Nature, MUA, Pond's

March Favourites

This month, even though I've been stuck in a bit of a makeup rut, has found a bunch of new (and a few old) favourites!

Revlon Lip Butter in Peach Parfait

I found this hiding at the boyfriends place late last month after it had been missing since before New Years! I've been using it almost daily since then because it's such a great subtle lip colour.

MUA Shimmer Kisses Bonzer

Yes, I was disappointed in this product but that doesn't stop it from being amazing in a totally different way than what I was expecting. It's a great highlighter!

Ulta3 green mini polish from the Be Mine pack

Holy dooly, I love this polish! I've been after a green like this for ages!

Essie Bikini So Teeny

I've been using this polish quite a bit with my 'nail art' (if you can call painting each nail a different colour nail art) and it's just perfect for it. Ok, maybe I want to just add every polish from this weekly nail to my favourites, but if I had to pick one it would be this blue.

Revlon 3D mascara

I hadn't really given this a fair go until now after getting it in a gif with purchase last year (and not opening it until January). I find that it's really runny and more often than not I end up poking myself in the eye when applying it. But when I actually get it on it's fantastic for lengthening my lashes and the thin brush means I can get really close to the lashline, and in turn not have to bother tightlining (which I never do because I hate doing it).

Non-beauty
Author: John Green.  I read The Fault in Our Stars last month and absolutely adored it. I haven't done much reading in the last few years so it's great to finally find an author I love again. I then read Paper Towns and couldn't put it down! I've been to the local library to try and pick up more of his books, but seems everyone is loving him at the moment and all of his books have a long wait list!

Drink: Cointreau Fizz. I've been loving this drink this month! It's just Cointreau, lime and soda water but it's real delicious! I got the recipe from watching Dita Von Teese on a morning show. I've also been enjoying Southern Comfort and lime over ice (with a teaspoon of sugar stirred in).

What were your favourites this month?

What I wore: Confetti dress

excuse the duck face

I bought this dress towards the end of last year off Modcloth and I really love it. It was reduced from like $90, and I was contemplating buying it at full price, but then it went on sale for half price! I had to get it then, but left it too late and they had sold out of my size. Just when I was about to order it a size down, my size came back on sale! Fate! It is a little frumpy, the bust is huuuge! I could probably get it tailored but I don't really mind. Possibly the best thing about it, after the awesome print that makes me think of confetti, is that it has pockets! It's still been reasonably warm here. We had a nice week where it was really cool, but now it's hot again. I really really cant wait for the weather to cool down more so I can start wearing tights and cardigans again (I bought some lovely scarfs and a granny jumper that reminds me of Grifindor from work recently and I can't wait to be able to wear them!).

Products:

Nude by Nature Undercover Airbrush Mineral Primer

Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation in 51

Rimmel Stay Matte powder in Peach Glow

Essence Renesmee Red Blush

MUA Shimmer Kisses Bronzer

MUA Pro-Brow eyebrow kit

L'Oreal Color Infallible Tender Caramel

MUA Undressed palette shade 1 and 4

MUA single matte shadow shade 19

Revlon Photoready 3D volume Mascara

Ulta3 Lipliner in Honey Bun

MAC Angel

This is basically what I've been doing with my face lately! Neutral eyes and lip, no liner, bronzer. I dug Tender Caramel out recently because for some reason I didn't get much use from it after i bought it and I've been loving it lately! Same goes for the Revlon 3D volume mascara, for some reason it sat in my draw unloved... but it gives amazing length (not so sure about volume though). The formula is a little wet and I've managed to poke my eye with it more than once, so it took a little to warm up to it. I've also dug out my Essence Renesmee Red blush from the Breaking Dawn Pt. 2 collection, which I hid because it's scary lookin'. Candice from YouReview inspired me to give it another go after reading this post and I've been applying it with a very light hand and we've been getting along ever since. The Rimmel Stay Matte is a new purchase and so far, so good!

Today I'm going to my university graduation! 3 years of hard work (ok, just work) and I get a degree! Yipee!

What have you been wearing a lot lately?

Win the MUA shimmer kisses bronzer and undressed palette in my giveaway!

Review: MUA £1 line! Eyeliner shade 3, eyeshadow shade 19 matte and lipstick in Juicy

I got all of these items in my MUA haul last month. These are all from their £1 line (around $1.46 at the moment! The exchange rate is excellent at the moment!).

The liquid eyeliner in shade 3 is a lovely gold shimmery eyeliner. It's got a long thin tip that allows you to draw a really thin line. The length is a little tricky to work with, but should be fine for anyone used to using liquid liner. The colour is quite light, so I prefer to apply this with a thick line. It dries quickly and once dry doesn't budge! Because it's such a light colour, it doesn't tend to stand out against eyeshadows, and I haven't actually tried wearing it on it's own.

The single  matte eyeshadow in 19 is a lovely dark brown shade. I was going to use this as an eyebrow shade, but when I got it I realised it was much too dark. I don't have any matte shades this dark, so I'm definitely getting use out of it anyway. Compared to other MUA matte shadows from the palettes I own, this is a lot more pigmented and way less chalky! It could be because it's darker, but a little goes a long way. Like all of MUA's shadows, this is lovely to apply, easy to blend, and doesn't feel at all like it's £1 price tag! I've actually been using it a lot lately as a crease colour and loving it! Excuse the dint in the pan, I managed to dig my fingernail in there while I was taking photos.

Lastly, their lipstick in Juicy (shade 15) is a lovely bright coraly pink, almost fluro, shade! I really wanted to try one of their lipsticks, and this was definitely my favourite shade. I'm so surprised at the quality. It's super creamy and opaque, and smells nice too. It does accentuate dry patches a lot though! I think this shade is a little weird against my skin tone, so it's found it's way into the depths of my makeup draw (The photos don't show at all how weird it is). Now we're coming into the cooler months I'm not sure how much I'll get to pull it out, especially seeing as I have a mountain of other bright lipsticks I love to wear (like MAC Vegas Volt). It is lovely though and I'll be bringing it to the UK with me so hopefully I can make it work there, and help brighten up any dreary days. I'm giving away this lipstick in my giveaway at the moment! Click here to enter.

Juicy with flash

Juicy natural light

(l-r) thin line of eyeliner, heavy line of eyeliner, eyeshadow and lipstick with flash

same as above, natural light

I'm pretty happy with the quality of all of these products, and I can't wait to try more from their £1 line when I'm in England! I've got my eye on some more of the single eyeshadows and liquid eyeliners.

Have you tried anything from the MUA £1 line? What did you think of them?

Or what would you like to try from the line?