Collection 2000 Shimmer Shades - Way To Glow

 

Naughty Boots and their 3 for 2 offer, I had 2 of the new Revlon Lip Butters in my hand and realised that I needed something else. After the Collection 2000 concealer turned out to be a complete gem I decided to head to the Collcection 2000 stand to see what else they had to offer and found the Shimmer Shades. I chose "Way To Glow" which has 4 different shades, I'd say 2 blushers and 2 bronzers. 

Now as there would appear to be no official names for each shade I have just decided to number them as shown above. (1 being the lightest and 4 being the darkest). In describing these shades I would say that 1 is a very pale nude pink, 2 is a more peachy pink, 3 is an orangy brown and 4 is a darker bronze/gold. They all have a glittery shimmery finish but 4 is especially shimmery. Now for swatches:

(L-R 1-4 in artifical light)

(All shades blended together in Artificial Light)

(L-R 1-4 in Natural Light)

(All shades blended together in Natural Light)

As you can see above all shades have decent pigmentation however 1 is quite clearly a lot sheerer and I had to use quite a bit of product to get enough to show on camera. The other 3 shades give decent colour payoff, especially shade 4 which is a gorgeous bronze shade (I think it's my favourite)! I also tried blending them all together which gave me a lighter bronze. If I was looking for a light dust of colour I would probably recommened using this method even if that does seem a tad contradictory with the light dust sentiment.

Sadly, when putting the product to actual use it disappointed me quite a bit. While the swatches show it to be quite pigmented. I had to use quite a bit of product to get the colour to show on my face and sadly when it did the shades came out a bit garish for my liking. (That could however just be my skintone). Also the staying power was not very good. I'm not sure exactly how long it lasted but I do know that after about 3 hours you couldn't tell I had ever worn it. 

I will continue to practice with these shades in order to find the best way to work and for the price bracket they're decent enough but I can see these falling into the back of my makeup drawer pretty quickly. I'm still on my search to find the perfect bronzer.

MAC Haute & Naughty Lash Mascara

MAC's Haute & Naughty Lash Mascara landed on my doorstep this morning (another sneaky BuyaPowa puchase) and I couldn't wait to try it out. The main selling point of this product is that it has two seperate ends: the pink one and the purple sparkly one. (Although they use the same wand for the purpose of this review, I have decided to refer to them as the purple wand and the pink wand). The pink wand uses less mascara so that you get a more understated daytime look while the purple wand will ramp up the volume and give you a look more suitable for going out. I was worried that this would be a bit of a gimmick and in practice wouldn't work out very well however after comparing each applicator side to side it's clear that there is a difference. The "daytime" wand will only darken and slightly lengthen your lashes whilst the "nightime" wand will add both length and volume.

  p.s. if eyes make you squeemish it's best you don't look at the pictures below

Daytime/Pink wand

Nightime/Purple wand

A direct comparison: daytime on left/nightime on right

As for the actual mascara itself, it does a decent job. It's not the best mascara I have ever used but it's far from the worst. It hasn't created spider-lashes which is always a plus. Though, while I only tend to wear one coat of mascara, I did notice that the purple "nightime" wand has the potential to go clumpy, especially if layered, which could be a bit of a downside. 

Overall I wouldn't rush out immediately to buy this product however if I was in the need of a good new mascara I would definately give this one a second glance.

OPI Dutch Collection

Since I was little I've always wanted "pretty princess nails" (as my Mum used to call them) but alas I had a hopeless nail biting addiction. Fast forward 18 years and I finally have paintable nails! This will probably mean an abundance of nail posts over the next few weeks as I work my way through the rainbow so sorry in advance.

Anyway this one's going to focus on the OPI Dutch Treats Mini Collection which RRPs at £12.95 but I got them at the bargain price of £8 (Mega thanks to BuyaPowa!) It features 4 colours: "I Have a Herring Problem" (A shimmery grey/blue) "Red Lights Ahead... Where?" (A bright corally red shade) "Kiss Me On My Tulips" (A hot pink) and "Pedal Faster Suzi!" (A shimmery pale pink).

Personally I really like the OPI minis as I have never made it through a full bottle of nail polish so I feel much less wasteful using these. I also have very tiny hands & fingers which has resulted in me having quite tiny fingernails so I like having a much smaller brush to work with and find my results turn out a lot less messy.Anyway on with the pictures and reviews!

(Sorry for the upside down picture, still getting used to this!)
First up "I Have a Herring Problem". Sadly I found this to be quite a disappointment, it took 3 coats to get a decent colour payoff but even that didn't overwhelm me. Rather than the Shimmery blue/grey I was promised, it came out more like a faded grey. I also found it chipped really badly and within two days it would need to be re-done. Not good!

Now on to "Kiss Me on My Tulips". Now then this is the exact opposite of above, they must have used a different formula or something! The colour payoff is amazing and if you were in a rush you could easily get away with just one coat. I however always put on two coats and that just made it even better. The colour itself is an amazing hot pink which with two coats becomes slightly neon. I personally love it and so far there has been no chippage! So happy!

Next up is Red Lights Ahead... Where? This is a bright red with strong coral tones. It's the perfect colour for Summer and I had no problems with applying this or chippage. The colour payoff is great and two shades is more than enough.

And finally we have Pedal Faster Suzi. This is very sheer, in the picture above I'm actually wearing 4 coats. Two is enough if you're just wanting a sheen but if you want a full colour then I'd recommened four. The colour is very pretty, a baby pink which I found to have just the right amount on shimmer and so far there's been no chippage and I love this as a springtime polish.

Overall I would say this is a very nice set with good quality polishes and a good range of colours. It's fairly decent value for money especially if you can catch it on Buyapowa! The only disappointment for me was "I Have A Herron Problem" but it was nowhere bad enough to make me regret my purchase and the other three lovely shades made up for it.