Intro

Make up is something I've never really been interested in...it might be to do with the fact that growing up there wasn't a female present to teach me which products do what and how to apply them. My dad tried his hardest, bless him, but being a single father was hard enough and growing up he did his best in the make up department when school discos were coming up and other social events we wanted to wear make up for. Moving from primary school to secondary school you learn a bit on your own from new friends and observation. But apart from foundation (a few shades too dark), mascara (applied too thick, like spider legs) and eyeliner (thick with wings heading to your eyebrows) you don't learn much. Already I felt behind compared to other girls my age; their eyebrows plucked to a neat controlled shape, bronzer defined their cheeks, lipstick skillfully applied with lip liner and eyeshadow  blended with presision. Anything different from the little bits of make up I used seemed alien... eventually you learn a bit more but then another trend takes over and you try hard to catch up but suddenly everything in your make up bag is out of trend and your five trends back from the current. The make up world is ever growing and quick, you have your basics; foundation, mascara and eyeliner then you have the trends; contouring, highlighter, glitter everywhere and of course different applicators like the new silisponge by Molly Cosmetics. In this blog I'm going to be honestly reviewing different brands, trends and trying to keep up with is crazy world. I hope you'd like to take the ride with me and maybe learn something new yourself.

~ From A

Sleek Box of Tricks - Reviews Of Products Inside The Box and Which I'd Buy Again

Sleek Box Of Tricks

Christmas is a wonderful time for buying new make up, with the gift sets and exclusive products. Scrolling through Facebook is normally annoying with the adverts, but this time Sleek popped up with an offer too good to scroll past... They offered Sleek Box Of Tricks, was £45, reduced to £25 in Boots while stocks last. Another thing with Christmas is always the random gift vouchers you receive from family, this year my brother gave me a Boots voucher for £10. It's like he knew! Heading straight to Boots as soon as I could I, luckily, managed to pick the box up knowing it was too good to pass up! The rest of the shopping day I picked up a few other pieces but couldn't wait to get home to open it and try all the products out!.

On the outside of the box it lists items contained in the box; Vintage Romance I-Divine Eyeshadow Palette, Face Contour Kit In Medium, Lip VIP Lipstick In Guestlist, Twist Up Midnight, Eyebrow Stylist In Medium, Solstice Highlighting Palette, Matte Me In Shabby Chic, Full Fat Lash Mascara, Blush By 3 In Lace. Opening it up you can see all the beautiful packaging (bravo for Sleek) and opening all of those up you can see all the festive colours perfect for the holiday parties and Christmas day photographs.

First product I used was the Lip VIP Lipstick on Christmas Eve, what I didn't know at that point was the bottom of the lipstick is actually a lip liner, by twisting the lipstick up fully so you can pull up the top up to use the liner with a thin brush to create a longer lashing lipstick. This is a great idea for Sleek to have and very useful! I prefer lip liners as a pencil though as you get a sharper point and is easier to use rather than using a brush and hoping for the best. I would definitely buy these style of lipsticks again considering they're only £5.50 they are high pigmented very long lasting and with the bonus of the lip liner as well they're amazing for the price! It's a very nice formula with almost moisturising qualities which is nice after wearing liquid lipsticks for so long.
 

The second product I tried out from the set was unfortunately not the right shade for me. The Eyebrow Stylist in Medium is obviously not black like my eyebrows, but I have gave it to my sister which it suits perfectly! I can't give a review for this as it isn't the right shade so I can't use it. They do have other shades so I am thinking of buying the black as they're only £6.49.

The third product I used was the Twist Up Midnight (eyeliner). If you want a eyeliner in the style of almost lip liner style (not pencil) then this would be perfect for you. What ever is in the formula makes it stay on your lids through out the night and only has a little bit of smudging throughout the whole night. However I didn't use an eye primer so it could of had no smudging at all. It's a really nice pigmented black which comes out sold. Sold on its own it costs  £4.99 (but it's on sale for £3.49) which makes it a steal!

The forth product I went for was the Full Fat Lash Mascara, this is now part of my make up bag every time I go any where!, the wand has an almost ball on the end which makes it easier to grab the little lashes and still have even coverage everywhere. I've never used a mascara with this type of wand so I was surprised at how easy it was to get used to after just using regular wands. It is definitely a clump free mascara with even coverage and also seems to make lashes look longer and fuller. This costs £7 on their website and I would definitely buy it again when it runs out.

As I love liquid lipsticks (if you can't tell already) I couldn't wait to try the Matte Me liquid lipstick inside the Box of Tricks. The shade is almost a purple with a pink undertone with a regular doufer applicator. It gives a nice matte finish drying down completely within two minutes and doesn't leave any reside as some of the other brands I've tried have. Eating and drinking you can't even tell it's on as there are no lip stains and it lasts all night only needing slightly topping up in the middle of the lip which goes faster. These cost £4.99 on the website.

Since I have used the W7 contour kit since contouring became a thing it is refreshing to be able to have a choice between using the darker Sleek contour or the lighter W7 shade. As I have quite pale skin using the W7 always made my contour really dark and it was hard to blend without the colour becoming too strong or pretty much being non existent. With the Sleek contour kit you can easily blend in and still have the colour left. I haven't used the highlighter which comes in the same packaging because I fell in love with the Solstice Highlighting palette. The Solstice Highlighting palette has one creme highlighter and three power all in the gold packaging. All of them give off an amazing shine, adding one swipe of a brush gives a casual glow and around 3 swipes gives you light reflecting dazzle. Since I've got this highlighting palette I don't use any other highlighter apart from occasionally using my Strobe Stick made by Smashbox on more natural looking make up days. The contouring kit costs £7 and the highlighting palette costs £10. Both of these I will definitely be buying again when they run out.

The Vintage Romance I-Divine eyeshadow palette has a lot of beautiful colours in it, at the moment I am obsessed with the cranberry and silver smoky eye so I use the berry colours out of this palette and the silver to create the look. They all have this almost creamy texture and do not smudge when you're wearing them! All of them stay put even without primer, I only use a dab of concealer which I do even when I'm not doing an eye look just to cover veins. This seems by far the best palette they have out as it has a lot more natural colours which can be used in every day looks and going out looks. These are only £8.99 which is a really good price for the quality of the palettes!.

 The only product I haven't used is the Blush By 3 as when I did a swatch of them it doesn't look like they are going to suit my skin tone and I tend to stay away from blushers now to avoid having clown face. They do have different shades,but as I said I don't tend to use blusher anymore. They are a good price being £10 for three shades of blusher.

Overall this is well worth the money! Adding up everything included in the box from the original prices (£64.96) means you save £39.96 from the deal they had at Boots and £19.96 from the original price of the gift set! Hopefully they'll do more sets like this for next Christmas! But until then I've got plenty to use!. http://www.sleekmakeup.com/uk

Kylie Cosmetics - Liquid Lipsticks Swatches and Review

Kylie Cosmetics 

Since Kylie Jenner released her first lip kits back in November 2015 the news spread like wildfire about the formula, beautiful packaging and of course the applicators. Catching onto the hype I have ordered all of her larger limited edition kits - Koko Kollection (4 pack), Holiday Edition (4 and 6 pack), the Holiday Edition Merry Ornament (single liquid lipstick and liner) and the Birthday Edition (6 pack). I found because I like experimenting with lipstick, but not enough to spend $29.00 USD on a lip kit with one shade that might not suit me, so I found these kits are the best for the price and product only costing around $45.00 USD and you have a lot of different shades to try to see which suits you.

The first kit I brought was the Birthday Edition she released back in August thinking while I'm on the site I'll buy one for me and one for my little sister as a Christmas present as I wasn't sure when I'd see her before Christmas. In the kit there's; Exposed (an peachy orange, top of the swatches), Koko K (a warm pink, the next one down), Dolce K (a dark peach tone pink, 3rd shade down), Candy K (a deep pink, 4th shade down), Kristen (a red, second to last) and Leo (a dark red, the last shade on the swatch). Each of the colours are high pigmented, fast drying and non sticky with a sweet almost vanilla smell to them (I would happily bottle this smell up and use it as perfume). The darker the shades I've found that they can come out a bit streaky as unlike with the kits you don't get the lip liners to go with it to even out the colour and make it less streaky and less patchy. The darkest shade - Leo - tends to have a bit of flaking around the middle of the lips after a few drinks and a bit of food, but apart from that they do not budge! After scrubbing my lips with baby wipes I found that using a lip scrub melts away the lipstick. I use one from Lush called Sugar Plum Fairy which costs about $6.00 but you can easily make one from caster sugar and honey that works the same. 

The second kit I got was the Koko Kollection she released in November containing 3 matte lipsticks and a gloss. In this there's the shades KhloS (a burnt orange, the first colour on the swatch), Gorg (a red burgundy, second shade down), Okurrr (a really bright fuchsia, 3rd swatch down) and Damn Gina (a peach-pink gloss, bottom of the swatches). I wasn't sure on some of the colours from this kit as having pale skin and dark hair light colours doesn't really suit me, but I was pleasantly surprised from all the shades in this kit obviously Gorg being a darker shade does still come out streaky and patchy in some places without the lip liner underneath to help even out the colour but I have found that if you put another thin layer over the top it does even out really well as long as there isn't too much on the applicator. They still have their sweet smell and last long enough to have to scrub them off with lip scrub at the end of the day with only the middle loosing some colour. The gloss is really long lasting seeming to half dry but still have the wet look with lots of pigment and sparkle. I love the look of these as well, the matte finish of the packaging with the gold almost rose gold colour packaging makes it look elegant and a lot of people say how nice it is when I take one out to top up the gloss through out the day.

The next few pieces I brought from her was the Holiday Edition 6 and 4 set with Merry ornament. She's out done herself this time with the packaging and branding of the Holiday Edition, the silver lipsticks look sleek and elegant and don't get as many marks on them like the KoKo Kollection and the Birthday Edition. The shades she brought out for the collections were the nicest she has so far, in the 6 mini pack Moon was by far my favourite (the top shade on the swatch) as I haven't got a shade like it in all of the lipsticks I own and brands I've got. The next shade underneath Moon is Ginger (a really nice warm almost orange shade) then Kristen (the same as from the Birthday Edition) third from bottom is Angel (a really nice rich pink tone). Second to last is Love Bite (a darker pink from Angel but a purple undertone to it) and last but not least Vixen (a dark purple red).

The shade Vixen was also one of the ornament shades but as I knew it was in the 6 set I decided to get Merry, a bright red, first one of the swatches in the image below. As I haven't brought just her kits before on their own I haven't tried her lip liner until now with the ornament having one with the full size lipstick. I thought her liners were going to be more precise but I couldn't get it to a sharp enough point to be able to get the line of my lips perfectly. This has got to be my most favourite shade of red lipstick I own so far with it light weight feel. The 4 set from her holiday edition has two new glosses. The first shade in the swatch (underneath Merry and Merrys' liner) is the Cupid gloss (a pink shimmering shade) followed by Angel again but in full size, Blitzen (an almost red pink) and the last new gloss Noel (a gold shimmering shade). These are all swatched in order.

As you can tell I love Kylie Cosmetics; her formula, the packaging, her branding and advertising. I know a lot of people said she's not worth the hype but considering how good the lipsticks are I say bring the hype on! She deserves it, its a cult classic now and the limited time she puts on some of her items make it just that little bit more special. Lover her or hate her, it may have her name on it but it is still the best lipsticks I own. 

https://www.kyliecosmetics.com/collections/matte-lip-kits