Eyelashes from KKCenterHK

A few months ago the lovely people from KKCenterHK sent me some false eyelashes to review. Unfortunately I appear to have lost my favourite eyelash glue (Duo surgical adhesive, the best stuff ever!) so I spent ages trying to find a suitable replacement because the stuff that comes with most eyelashes is just rubbish. Eventually I discovered that the glue that came with some pricier Eyelure lashes worked almost as well as Duo so I was able to finally use what I was sent!

KKCenterHK sell wigs, nail accessories and some clothing and makeup but seem to specialise in false eyelashes. They've got all sorts from natural to really wild and accessories such as adhesives and applicators as well. The site has a bit of an Engrish vibe but it seems comprehensible and easy to navigate to me. The prices are generally very cheap but more elaborate styles are of course pricier.

I was sent 'ES Natural Cross Short To Long Fake Lashes' which you can find by searching their item number which is 'A399'. These are criss-crossed medium-long length black lashes and cost $6.50 for a pack of 10 pairs of the lashes.

They arrived to me quite quickly after I was told they were despatched (probably a week and a half). They were packed in an ordinary brown envelope (not a bubblemailer) and the box did seem to have been a little bit bashed about when I recieved it.

 

But the lashes inside were completely unharmed so I guess it doesn't really matter :P

Inside the box you can see the 10 pairs of eyelashes. They are simply slotted into a piece of cardboard so there is little protection. However like I said, even with the box getting a bit squashed all the lashes were fine.

 

To keep them in place the lashes slot into the cardboard through little holes. They have extra little 'wings' on the sides of the base to allow this. Before you apply you have to snip these off. I also cut mine down just a little to fit my eyes better.

 

So for reference here is my eyes with just mascara. On one eye I have eyeliner and the other is bare to show how the eyelashes look with or without liner.  

And now with the lashes.

They look a lot better with the eyeliner on but I find that's true of all false eyelashes, especially as I'm not the best at applying them.

I absolutely love the look they give me. They're sort of natural-ish because they're quite thin and fluttery and the criss-cross shape seems more natural to me but they're so long and dark they're still really glamourous.

Compared to more expensive lashes... well to be honest I didn't see any difference. They were no better but no worse. I found them difficult to apply but I find ALL false eyelashes difficult to apply. Oh and considering the price I actually think they're really good in terms of quality. Because I am so rubbish at putting them on I probably used one pair at least 6 times before I got them on well enough to leave them alone. Despite this and not being the gentlest person with my handling of them, they are still absolutely fine, I could wear them again with no problems. For about 40p a pair I think they're pretty wonderful to be honest!  Perhaps with more elaborate lashes there would be a difference in quality between cheap lashes from sites like this and pricier products but for simple lash styles like these they seem pretty much the same as brand name lashes. The only difference I can see is the less glamourous and protective packaging, lack of free adhesive and the fact you have to cut a tiny bit off them before you wear. It's actually quite difficult to review false eyelashes because... well they all seem pretty much the same to me! The fact it got bashed in the post and had little in the way of protection might be a bit of a problem though. While my lashes were fine other items might not be so lucky.

I would definately recommend this site if you were looking for false eyelashes. I could imagine it would be great for makeup artists because you get so many pairs for so little money you could dispose of a pair with no worries about cost, so that would be good for hygiene reasons. Wearing these has made me determined to teach myself to properly apply and wear false eyelashes again (I used to be a lot better at it but am out of practice) because I loved the way they looked on me. I'd be interested to try some different products from the site.

*I recieved these in exchange for a review but all thoughts and opinions are my own*

Just my Big ol' face again

I wish I was able to think up creative names for my looks but I'm just not able to!

Wearing:

Face: Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation in 02, Sleek blush in Flamingo

Eyes: Venomous Cosmetics eyeshadows in Prince Charming, Fairy Godmother and The Most Beautiful Princess

Lips: Venomous Cosmetics Lip Poison in Genie

I've been terribly slack at commenting recently. Please forgive me, I'll get right on it!

Harry Potter face!

Last thursday I went to see Harry P and the Hallows of D at the Imax. It was fantastic! I'm a super Har Poz nerd so was basically vibrating with excitement the whole week before I saw it and haven't been able to stop talking about it since. I'm sad it's all over though. 

Here is my face:

  

 

Wearing:

Face: Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation in 02, ELF Studio pink passion blush, High Voltage Cosmetics Brow Powder in Redhead, Avon Supershock gel eyeliner pencil in Silver, Makeup Store glitter eyeliner in silver hologram.

Lips: Venomous Cosmetics Lip Poison in Dazed

I couldn't wear any mascara as I knew I was going to cry. And I did. A lot. Ridiculously.

And then to add even more stupidity to my look: 

Oh boy am I the coolest!

By the way thank you to everyone who sent my Mum birthday wishes or good luck to Neil with his eye operation. Annoyingly the op was put off for the second time so everyone's a bit fed up! It's a serious operation and it being moved back is very stressful. Especially for poor Neil.

Anyone here Harry Potter fans? If so who's your favourite? Currently mine is Neville because I just want to marry him and have lots of lovely fictional rufty.

Venomous Cosmetics review

A short while ago I was contacted by Tracy from Venomous cosmetics. She said that she'd seen that some of Venomous' lip poisons are on my wishlist and offered to send me a few of my choice for review. I of course leapt upon the offer greedily but as often happens I couldn't decide what colours to try so asked her to pick some for me. Originally I was supposed to get 4 mini glosses but instead Tracy astounded me with her genorousity by sending me 6 mini glosses, 3 pressed eyeshadow samples and 8 loose eyeshadow samples.   

As I was sent these I can't review how long it takes from shipping to recieving the order, or the actual ordering process but I can say that the communication was great, my enquiries were answered really quickly and there was a slight accident with the email containing my address going missing, even though I was being sent the products free of charge Tracy was extremely apologetic about the delay in shipping. My package arrived a bit after a week after it was sent, which is pretty good from the US!

There's a LOT of photos under the cut :) 

Blog Sale - DVDs, Jewellery and misc

Da Rules:

Paypal only please.

Please email me at queen-cry-baby@hotmail.com with what you want and I will invoice you as soon as possible.

After I recieve your email the item will be put on 'pending'. After I send the invoice you have 2 days to pay me otherwise it will be put back up for sale. However if you know you won't be able to pay that soon for some reason if you tell me beforehand I will keep it for you for up to a week.

Shipping within the UK will be £2 for most items (box sets cost more so the shipping is included in their price). I will combine shipping if you buy several items so please email me what you want, I will weigh everything together and find the shipping cost. If you're outside the UK the shipping will cost more so please ask me in a comment or tell me in your email and I'll get a shipping price to you.

If you want recorded delivery it will cost more, otherwise i can't be held responsible if anything happens once i've sent the package. I will get proof of postage with every parcel. I've described the items well and honestly so i'm afraid there's no refunds. Everything will be well wrapped so again I can't be held responsible if anything happens during shipping.

Products will be shipped ASAP after payment but I am unable to take it to the post office myself so am relying on my pack mule, Claire. I can't load her up too heavilly so it may take a day or two, I'll tell you as soon as it has been sent.

I think i've made fair prices (on quite a few i am only asking the postage costs) but feel free to make me an offer.

if you want any more photos or have any questions please just comment or email and ask.

Follow the cut for the goods
 

Blog Sale - clothing

Da Rules:

Paypal only please.

Please email me at queen-cry-baby@hotmail.com with what you want and I will invoice you as soon as possible.

After I recieve your email the item will be put on 'pending'. After I send the invoice you have 2 days to pay me otherwise it will be put back up for sale. However if you know you won't be able to pay that soon for some reason if you tell me beforehand I will keep it for you for up to a week.

Shipping within the UK will be £2.50 for most clothes or £2 for the tutus. I will combine shipping if you buy several items so please email me what you want, I will weigh everything together and find the shipping cost. If you're outside the UK the shipping will cost more so please ask me in a comment or tell me in your email and I'll get a shipping price to you.

If you want recorded delivery it will cost more, otherwise i can't be held responsible if anything happens once i've sent the package. I will get proof of postage with every parcel. I've described the items well and honestly so i'm afraid there's no refunds. Everything will be well wrapped so again I can't be held responsible if anything happens during shipping.

Products will be shipped ASAP after payment but I am unable to take it to the post office myself so am relying on my pack mule, Claire. I can't load her up too heavilly so it may take a day or two, I'll tell you as soon as it has been sent.

I think i've made fair prices (on quite a few i am only asking the postage costs) but feel free to make me an offer.

if you want any more photos or have any questions please just comment or email and ask.

Follow the cut for the goods :)

Chatty chat chat chat

Hullo everyone,

Posting might be slow for the next few days I'm afraid. I've finally got all my information and photos ready for the grand blog sale but now I need to write it all up on blogger, post the pictures, decide prices etc which could take a while because I have soooo much to sell! 

But It will be up at 6 pm GMT on sunday. So watch this space for tonnes of makeup, clothes, jewellery and various other bits and bobs I don't want in my house anymore :P

Tomorrow I'm finally going to see Harry P and the Deathly He part 2 which I'm so excited about! I've been all impatient since it came out almost a week ago but I'm going to the Imax so it should be worth it. I want to be super lame and dress up but I have no witchy clothes :( I might dig out a pair of glasses and draw a lightning bolt on my forehead though.

Friday is my Mum's Birthday so I will spend the day making endless cups of tea for her. Sadly her day might not be that great as tomorrow my Brother in law is having eye surgery so things are going to be a bit stressful. Everyone wish Neil luck ok? No? I WILL FORCE YOU TO WISH HIM LUCK!

Now I leave you with the sexiest picture ever

Ohhh yeah.

Evil Shades Swatches

Hullo everyone.

Since my last Evil Shades post I've had two small (practically all sample) hauls. So in this post I have swatches for:

9 Deviant lipstick colours,

4 blushes,

 11 eyeshadows,

 6 Spectrum Pots (these were free samples)

7 Hardcore Lips glosses

Also (this isn't photographed because I forgot to :P) Andrea was lovely and sent me a pot containing all she had left of her indulgent cuticle cream. I had a sample of it before and looooved it but was sadly it was discontinued. I'll be reviewing this too sometime soon. It's my favourite ever cuticle cream and I'm dreading the pot running out!

Here's swatches of everything. There's a review on the way for the spectrum pots, if you'd like a review of anything else then just ask :)

First here are swatches of all the deviant lipstick colours I got:

Fateful - black with a small amount of purple glitter:

Lots more after the cut!

Some High Voltage Cosmetics Lip swatches and Amped Up Gloss Review

About a month ago High Voltage had a little sale where you could get 5 lip products for $20 and as their lip products are some of my favourites in the whole world I had to indulge myself :)

So I got: 

3 lip candies in Neostyle, Orestea and Ultra Violet

A lip whip in She's got the Look
and an Amp'd Up Gloss in Jukebox

 

Since I made my last order the products have all changed appearance. The lip candies used to be in clear pots, now they are black and the lip whips briefly changed into the tubes you can see above but are now back in the squeezy tubes (which personally I prefer). Both the Amped up Gloss and Lip Whip have new labels which look really awesome but have some problems. While personally I don't pay much attention to my makeups ingredients I know it's very important to a lot of people.  Unfortunately the silver writing on black is very hard to read, parts of the list is cut off on the round label and the ink comes off the rectangle label very easily. If this can be sorted out then the new labels would be brilliant, they look really cool and professional. But at the moment the old lip candy labels are better for clarity.

Amp'd Up Gloss lid

  

Lip Whip label

  

Lip Candy label (this is on the bottom of the pots, the tops are plain)

 

The Lip Whip in She's Got The Look is a lovely pale, slightly muted, coral peachy colour.  

  

This is about as close as I come to nude lips and I really like it. It's not bright and brash like most of my lip colours but it's not dull or drab either and I don't feel naked wearing it. I didn't like the new lip gloss style packaging as much as the old squeezy tubes but it was perfectly adequate and it's a moot point now as Jasmine has reverted back to the old packaging :P

Now here are the three Lip Candies.

Orestea. This is a cool slightly blue toned mint green. On the website it looks like a proper turquoise colour and is described as a teal-green but while it's got a hint of blue it's definately a minty green. 

Ultra Violet is a fantastic slightly metallic pale-ish purple (less blue than it looks in my photo)

 

Neostyle is an amazing colour. It's a bright cyan blue with a gorgeous violet shimmer which of course I couldn't capture at all in the photo. 

It was a limited edition colour from a sci-fi future themed collection (the name of which I have forgotten). While it's gorgeous it has a completely different formular from all the other lip candies. It's very... liquidy and thin. It's also sheerer and wears off quicker than the usual lip candies. It's beautifully glossy though!

Here it is after about 2 hours: 

 

The wear certainly isn't bad but it's not as good as the usual lip candies which are just amazing. 

Finally I tried my first Amp'd Up Gloss. This is Juke Box which is probably my perfect purple. The Amp'd Up Gloss formula is good but personally I prefer the lip candies and lip whips. It's a very thick gloss texture and is opaque, which is great! You can apply just a light layer and it's sheerer but still beautifully pigmented. It's also very comfortable, it feels like I'm wearing a nice moisturising lipstick instead of a sticky gloss. However I find that it wears off quite fast. I've seen other reviews which say these last like lipsticks or leave a stain which I didn't find at all, so perhaps I got a dodgy one? Also if I apply it heavilly so it's opaque I can see little gritty bits. I can't feel them at all and they wear off after a while but it looks a bit weird at first. 

Here's a light application: 

 

And here's an opaque application:

 

And here it is after about two hours:  

So, yeah, I think it's a good gloss but I'm not sure if I would buy more because I prefer High Voltages other lip products. If I could get this colour in the Lip Candy formula I would be a very very happy bunny :)

 Well worth my 20 bucks!:D

Born Pretty nails

A while ago I was contacted by the lovely people at Born Pretty who asked me to choose a product from their website to review. I asked for a surprise as there was so much to choose from I couldn't decide.

So I was sent this Laushine cracking polish in L022 which is a very blue toned purple (or blurple, if you will :P). I know tonnes of people are bored of crackle polishes, but I love them so I was very happy.

Now call me a cynic but I didn't expect this no-name brand polish to be much good but I was very happily surprised! It gave me a nice even crackle effect that looked basically the same on each nail (sometimes I have problems where the nails will all look different because each nail will have a slightly lighter or heavier coat of crackle polish), it dried really quickly and the effect is quite chunky, which I prefer to some crackles that give you just little 'fault lines' of shattering. I actually liked the formula of this polish better than the china glaze and models own crackle polishes I've tried, and it was as good as the Barry M Nail Effects which I love. I was really impressed.

So I tried it out over a few different base coats to see how nicely it would contrast with various colours. 

 

Over (left to right):

Illamasqua Rare, Models Own 24 Karat, Color Club Screaming Tangerine, Nubar Marble Tower

 

And over Rimmel Black Pearl. It's less shattered here as I accidentally did a ridiculously thick coat :P

I really liked it over the gold polish and it was pretty over Screaming Tangerine but I wonder if you can guess what I went for for my full mani? :P

   

Ahh yes, Rare by Illamasqua. It's a fantastic colour, a real eye-searing neon yellow but it applies a bit patchy. To get it looking nice I have to use at least 3 coats and then it gets a bit thick looking. The crackle disguises that a little and also makes for the most 80s looking nails ever! :D

I've been wearing this for about 4 days now, without a top coat. It's hard for me to discuss wear in comparison with my usual manicures as I nearly always wear a top coat but for this I wanted to keep it matte because it looked so cool. But anyway at the moment I've had a tiny bit of tip wear of both polishes but no chipping so I'm very happy.

After trying this I am looking forward to actually ordering from Born Pretty. They have some other unusual coloured crackle polishes from the same brand as well as some bizarre looking glitter polishes, nail art pens and other equipment. They also sell some random cosmetics and false eyelashes. The prices are very fair, if I had paid for it this polish would have cost me $4.91 which I think is very fair. They also ship for free worldwide.

I was told it would take 2-3 weeks to arrive but actually took about 1 week, if not less! I can't say if thats true for actual orders but considering I was told 2-3 weeks, which is what I'd imagine most parcels from Singapore to the UK might take, I can assume it might be a similar delivery time.

They were also kind enough to give me a coupon code for all my followers to use :)

It expires on 31/12/2011 so you've got plenty of time to use it!

*I was sent this product for review but all my thoughts and opinions are my own*

Quick look

I thought I'd just quickly post what I was wearing with the Birthday Girl :)

 

I tried to use a bronzer to contour and try give me some cheekbones. It didn't really work but I thought it made quite a nice blush when combined with my naturally super pink cheeks :P

Wearing:

Face: Illamasqua Skin Base foundation in 02, Illamasqua blusher in Writhe

Eyes: High Voltage Cosmetics Eyebrow Powder in Redhead, Sugarpill Chromalust in Birthday Girl, black mascara

Lips: ELF mineral lipstick in Cool Coral. 

Sugarpill reformulated Chromalusts

Claire is a huuuge Sugarpill fan (as am I) and basically as soon as Amy releases anything new she will buy it. So when Sugarpill brought out some new Chromalust colours late last year (I believe, it's been a while...) Claire instantly grabbed them. Then a while later 2 of the colours were reformulated because Amy wasn't quite happy with them and because she is great and wondrous she offered to send Claire replacements with the new formula. So when they arrived I nicked them so I could compare the new formula to the old one. And then of course I procrastinated for months and months until finally this week I decided to get off my big lazy bum and do it!

Firstly Paperdoll.

Paperdoll is a gorgeous light lilacy purple colour with tonnes of silver sparkle. In each of the 3 photos below the new formula is on the left hand side.

 

Things I want but can't afford number 2

Deborah Lippmann glitter polishes! 

A year or two ago if anyone asked me whether I would ever consider spending £16 on a nail polish I would have fallen about laughing. Oh how I wish I could go back to those days! It's all evil nail blogs fault  I never would have known about this brand if I didn't follow them! Now I'm longing for these so much I'm feebly trying to justify the cost. Some of them are just so cool and unique. I mean look at this, Funky Chunky:

(photo nicked from Vampy Varnish)

It's just... SO COOL! Huge black sequin chunks all covered in a black creme like tar or something.

While the creme and shimmer polishes don't really thrill me to much I love basically all the glitter polishes. Bad Romance, Glitter in the Air, Across the Universe, Marquee Moon and most especially Happy Birthday! 

Ohh Happy Birthday. It's called a 'party in a bottle' which is just the perfect way to  describe it. The bright, multicoloured, different shaped and sized glitters remind me so much of being a small child at a birthday party. Or well the aftermath anyway! Floors strewn with confetti, streamers, party hats and so on. And those thoughts give me happy memories of jelly and icecream and musical chairs and party bags.

While there are some very, very similar polishes around (Milani Gems which I own, Wet N Wild Party of 5 Glitters, Ulta Pinyata-Yada-yada) none are complete exact dupe as none of those have the tiny square shaped glitters. 

Now I had decided to just give up on my high end dreams and collect more of the cheaper dupes came along but then I saw this:

This is a new collection for Nordstrum in the US that should be coming out any day now. It contains Happy Birthday and two very similar polishes but with sheer pink and black bases. SO SO AWESOME!

And my little evil brain is going 'hmmm well it's $42 for 3 polishes, that's only $14 a bottle. That's about £9 and they sell for £14 -£18 over here. I'D BASICALLY BE MAKING MONEY!'

Somebody stop me before I shop again! D:

Friendship is Magic Look and Tutorial - Rarity

Sorry I've been gone for a few days everyone, I've been a bit busy working. Claire and I think we'll be ready to set up shop by the middle of August or failing that the beginning of September and we're so excited! Eeeh!

Here is my second Friendship is Magic look, based on the lovely Rarity.

 

Rarity is Claire's favourite pony and I love her too. She's the seamstress for Ponyville and while she has her own strong ideas about style she tries her best to make her friends and customers happy, even if that means going against her own instincts. She's a little vain but never snotty or haughty. And while she is always ladylike she can be tough and strong when she needs to be. I find her character very refreshing, most times when girls are portrayed as being preoccupied with their appearance it goes hand in hand with being selfish. Rarity isn't at all, she's incredibly generous, always willing to give to those in need, even at her own expense.

So here's my look:

 

 As Rarity is an elegant and sophisticated pony I tried to make the look quite classy and stylish, while sticking with the royal purple and light blue colour scheme.

There's a step by step tutorial beneath the cut if you are interested :)

Wow

So sometime between last night and now I got my 700th and 701st followers!
All I can say is, well, wow! Thank you so so much. It absolutely amazes me that so many people could possibly be interested in my little witterings.

I know this may sound super silly but it really makes me feel wonderful to know that there are people who like my blog and what I have to say. At the moment I'm very isolated, I have few friends and I'm too anxious to see the ones I do have very often and so being able to talk to people over the internet really means a lot. Keeping this blog has helped my confidence in ways I can't really describe.

Hopefully soon I'll have the finances or find some other way to do a giveaway so I can give something back to you, but for now I'll just say that I am so grateful and I just hope I can keep entertaining you!

xxx

Friendship is Magic Look and Tutorial - Applejack

Hullo everyone! I'm in a good mood today as it's the first time in about a week I haven't felt ill, yay!

I've decided to do a series of looks based on My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Claire and I just discovered this amazing programme and we watched all the first series in a couple of days. We've been childishly going 'PPOOONNNIEESSS!!!!' to each other and then giggling madly. If you haven't seen it go watch it on youtube! The animation is beautiful, the stories are fun and all the main characters have proper, well rounded personalities which is rare for any kids programmes but especially one made for little girls. They're actually allowed to be different and disagree and it's shown that that's ok, you don't have to be exactly the same as your friends. Ahh I just love it :)

So this is my first look based on the character Applejack.

Applejack is one of my favourite ponies. She's down to earth, loyal, hard-working, fun, fair and kind. She works on her familie's apple farm and isn't quite as 'girly' as a lot of the other ponies, she still wants to look her best but isn't completely obsessed with her looks, she's too practical for that. So I wanted to keep the look quite simple and natural (well natural for me anyway!)

So here's my finished look!

Please follow under the cut for a step by step photo tutorial. This is only my second ever tutorial (my first was from over a year ago, you can find it here) it probably not amazing but I hope you enjoy it!

Sawchestra Outfit

A couple of Saturdays ago Claire and I went to see my friend Foz's Sawchestra, which is an orchestra of musical saw players. They play along to silent films, that day we went to see The Adventures of Prince Achmed which was a fantastic old animation made from shadow puppets or silhouettes or something. 

Foz is probably the most amazing person I will ever meet.  He's the guitar player for my second favourite band in all the world, David Devant and his Spirit Wife. He plays just about every stringed instrument under the sun as well as the melodica, saw and various toy instruments. He likes all good things like puppets and art and magic and everything I like too. He's also an amazing graphic artist, he designed the Pop Idol logo! Despite being busy and cool and doing fantastic exciting things he always has time for me and is the sweetest, kindest man. His whole family are amazing too, his wife writes for various theatre magazines and teaches dancing and his sons make films and study circus skills! I want to live with them in their lovely house in Brighton!

Anyway here's what I looked like. These photos were taken after I got home so the makeup is several hours old. 

 

Wearing: 

Face: Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation in 02, Mac Wonder Woman blush in Mighty Aphrodite

Eyes: High Voltage Cosmetics Brow powder in Redhead, Mac Vex eyeshadow, Sugarpill Tako Pressed Eyeshadow, black liquid eyeliner, black mascara

Lips: Mac Dame Edna lipstick in Kanga-Rouge

And here's my outfit, once again situated right near the bin: 

 

The pom-pom headband and dress are from Asos

Tights are from urban Outfitters (and featured in today's tights post at my other blog :) ) 

And behind the cut I pull some Funny Faces!:

Rhubarb Rhubarb

Wow haven't I been good? I've posted every day for a whole week! I think that might be a first in the whole history of this blog :O I feel really good about it, It's been fun! Hopefully I'll keep this up as long as possible, though I ain't promisin' nothin' :P I shouldn't be too proud anyway as today's post is just a sort of round-up as I've been both busy and ill today.

Firstly I wanted to say thank you so so much to everyone who is now following my hosiery blog, I'm very touched that so many people are interested in seeing picture after picture of my legs and read me wittering on about tights.

People are beginning to get their second videos up over at The Makeup Heroes so check them out! I'm not sure when I'll even get to film mine though as I lost my voice over the weekend. It's back now but I'm very croaky and incomprehensible :(

I've realised that I forgot to describe how the Intertubes wear on me in the Shiro review so have added something in now if you're interested.

I'm sorry I'm taking forever to reply to some comments, I've been busy working on the secret project, being poorly and finding things for my blog sale, but I'll have them done in the next couple of days I swear!

Speaking of the blog sale, I'm been quite ruthless and so I have a lot more to sell than I expected. I reckon I should have it all ready by the weekend. Once I've got it ready I'll tell you and schedule it for a couple of days later (so possibly sunday) so you all know when it will start. I've got lots of good stuff including Illamasqua, Mac, Philosophy, Barry M, Sleek and Models Own :)

I made the first of my series of looks at the weekend, complete with a (probably quite rubbish) photo tutorial. I'll give you a little clue as to what the looks are based on: poooonnniiieeeesss!

And now because a post with no pictures is no fun, look at this tiny baby froglet I found in my garden!

(he's under the cut because I know some people are squeamish about amphibians. I don't understand how, he's soooo cute!)

Illamasqua Skin base Foundation

A couple of weeks ago Illamasqua had a little event to celebrate the launch of their new foundation and I was invited. Sadly at the moment I'm just not up to going to any kind of event  or leaving the house in general :( But the lovely Alex was very understanding when I explained and popped a few samples in the post for me to try.

If you've not heard of it before, Skin Base is Illamasqua's take on a BB cream. BB creams are a product started in Asia that act as a moisturiser, foundation and skincare balm all in one. Usually they contain SPF and whitening ingredients but Illamasqua has removed those.

Illamasqua claims it's Skin Base is 'Easily blendable, it effortlessly creates a perfect complexion, and like the entire Illamasqua foundation range, is undetectable in a professional HD environment. Suitable for all skin types, it smoothes, softens and conditions your skin whilst providing natural, buildable coverage.'

It comes in 18 shades from pure ghost white to a deep chocolate so hopefully there's something to suit everyone :) 

My skintone is very pale and very pink (i don't really know if thats my undertone or overtone or whatever and i think i might have very mild rosacea on the lower part of my cheeks) and it's very hard to find a foundation that really matches me. Usually they're either too dark or too yellow for me. I was sent the shades 02 which is the palest pink toned foundation, 04 which has both pink and yellow undertones (somehow :P) and 05 which is the second lightest pink toned shade.

Here are swatches of them:

02, 04 and 05 swatches heavilly

 

And blended out.

You can see that 04 and 05 just aren't right for me at all. Claire is quite pale and has more yellow toned skin than me so I've given 04 to her, if it suits her i'll get her to tell me what she thinks. 02 seemed a pretty close match so I have been trying that one. When I first applied it I feared it still wouldn't work for me but once I blended it out it matched me perfectly. Wahey! I've only been using this a few days but I absolutely adore it. 

It blends really easily. In fact while Illamasqua claim this is a medium/heavy coverage foundation, I've found that if I only use a tiny dot of product I can blend it out to give a light, sheer look. However it's really buildable, I can layer a bit more over my facial redness or any blemishes and it disguises them beautifully. The finish is beautiful, it's neither super matte nor dewy or shimmery, it looks just like natural skin. I love this because I have quite nice skin in general and the buildability means I can use a very thin layer over my whole face, letting my freckles and naturally good parts of my skin shine through, and then build it up on places that need more coverage and because of the finish it looks just like I have naturally flawless skin!  It's really easy to apply, I just spread it on with my fingers and it feels really light, I can't really notice it at all once I've put it on.

The longest I've worn this so far is about 8 hours (this is about as long as I ever wear makeup) and it lasted really well. I got a tiny bit of shine on my nose (the only place my face has any oil) but other than that it looked basically the same as when I'd first applied it. Maybe if your skin is naturally a little oily you'll need to powder over the top. The only negative I can think of is that if I have any flaky patches of skin then the foundation does tend to gather there and emphasize it. However after the actual flaky bits of skin had gone away it never emphasized any dry patches of skin. Oh and while it works brilliantly over spots and my redness I can't quite make it cover the blueish circles under my eyes.

Here are some photos of my face au naturale

 

And now with the Skin Base foundation:

As I've been using it for less than a week I can't really review it for it's skincare benefits. However I swear I've already noticed my skin feeling smoother, softer and with less dry flaky patches. This might of course be coincidental but I haven't changed anything else in my skincare routine (and at the moment my skincare routine consists of removing my makeup with wipes, cleansing and exfoliating about twice a week and moisturising when I remember to. I really need to treat my face better!).

Personally I would love to have some SPF in this product because I am terrible and always forget to put on sunblock (I burn ridiculously easily so I really need a high SPF everyday but I just never remember :( I suck) but I understand why they've removed it. SPF often causes light to act oddly in photoshoots and as Illamasqua like to cater for theatrical use they wanted to get rid of that problem.

They also removed the whitening ingredients so that the formula would be suitable for all skin tones, which I think is great. Most BB creams only seem to come in a few shades, Illamasqua is the first company I've seen that has shades that would cater to dark skinned people (though of course there may well be other companies that do and I just haven't seen them). Also I don't really know if I'd like to use a whitening product myself, I have some discolouration and redness on my face that I'd like to be rid of, but I also have freckles and I love them and don't want them to go anywhere so I don't think I'd better chance them!

So basically I'm in love with this foundation, it's probably the best I've ever tried. I'll definately be buying a full size bottle once I've used up a few other products. When I do end up getting a full bottle I'll do another review!

*I was sent samples for review but all thoughts and opinions are my own. I'm well aware that this review is so incredibly gushing it might as well be another 'Lillian Loves' but honestly this is how I feel about this foundation. I don't want to desperately rack my brain for more negative things to say just for the sake of it. It's a holy-of-holies!*