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Pastel Purple, Hot Pink and…Neutrals? May Favourites

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I thought I’d succumb to blogger cliché today and share with you my recent clothing and make-up obsessions! I’m almost always obsessed with items in shades of purple and hot pink, but last month I stepped outside my colourful comfort zone and explored the possibilities of neutral eyeshadow!

I normally only wear neutral eyeshadow when I’m meeting new people and feeling shy, or when I’m attending an event where I want to look professional, so it felt kind of weird to wear the champagne-y Midnight 15, from the Urban Decay 15th Anniversary Palette, to a close friend’s birthday party! I didn’t want to be my usual garish self, because we were going to a fancy hotel for afternoon tea, and I wanted to look elegant. Don’t worry, I’m still me, I was wearing a bright pink dress, and Midnight 15 is glittery. It’s not as massively glittery as a certain other UD eyeshadow with Midnight in the name, but it’s still glittery enough to require Pixie Epoxy to stop fallout. I also made it a bit more interesting by putting a little Half Truth (a blackened purple, if you can’t see it clearly) in my crease, and I also wore thick black eyeliner, though it was a little thinner than I usually apply it.

This is fast becoming my favourite Urban Decay palette. Also this month, I was getting ready for work one day and feeling experimental, so I used Flow on the lid and M.I.A. in the crease. I loved it, and my manager said I looked really nice, so I will definitely try that again. More typically for me, I wore Omen a couple of times with a little Blackout in the crease. The only colours I haven’t tried yet in this palette are Chase, Evidence and Deep End – I think the last two look stunning but I don’t have many clothes in those colours. I’m hopelessly obsessed with matching my make-up to my clothes.

Of course, I couldn’t wear neutral eyeshadow without some sort of colour on my lips, and this month I’ve been all about shades of pink. For work, I’ve been wearing this ancient Maybelline Watershine lipstick in Raspberry Cream in an attempt to finally use it up, but I’ve started to genuinely like it! My lips are so pigmented that Raspberry Cream is almost a ‘my lips but better’ shade.

Outside of work, I’ve also been wearing the brighter lipsticks pictured, Revlon’s Cherries in the Snow (a very bright pink), and Lush’s Decisive (definitely a pinkish red on me, but your mileage may very as lots of people describe it as a cool red). Both of these are really long lasting and high quality.

I’ve been obsessed with lilac nails, mostly thanks to this little bottle that I got in a Colour Unlimited set at Christmas. It’s a beautiful shade and I’m afraid I’m going to use it up soon as I’ve been wearing it so much. I was a bit disappointed when I first tried L.A. Colors’ Flurry, because the lilacy base colour barely shows up. But it makes a great glittery top coat, especially over the Colour Unlimited lilac. Another lilac that I’ve been loving is Aromaleigh’s Penelope eyeshadow, an absolutely gorgeous and pigmented product.

Finally from the make-up favourites, Clinique Redness Solutions Daily Protective Base. This is a green coloured primer that I find too thick to use all over the face, but it works really well applied to the skin by my nose, though it took a lot of practice to get it right!

Onto clothes: I’ve been wearing this skirt to work a lot as it’s long and office-appropriate, but also quite light and floaty, great for the warm weather that we’re currently enjoying here in London. It’s a hand-me-down from my Mum, retro M&S. It’s probably from the 1980s going on the tininess of this size “14”.

This jacket was a hand-me-up from my sister. It’s funny that I’ve taken to wearing it so much because she used to practically live in it, though she styled it in a completely different way. I find that it works really well over pretty dresses, top and skirts, and I pin badges and brooches to the lapels to match my outfit. It’s also a lot easier to photograph than that skirt, as you might have guessed!

To be honest, I was wearing all of these quite regularly during most of April too! Should probably wash that jacket. What colours have you been loving lately?

2012 Make-up/Skincare Favourites

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This is a bit behind the times, as I’ve been really busy recently, but hopefully some of you will still be interested though it has last year’s date on it!

My absolute favourite new product of last year was the Revlon Just Bitten Lipstain + Balm in Gothic. After Sarah at SillyGrrl mentioned it several times, I tested it out in a shop and was smitten by its bright red stain. I love lipstains. They are lighter and more comfortable to wear everyday, and don’t come off on mugs and boyfriends. I also like to apply them before lipstick so when the lipstick wears off, I still have colour underneath and it’s not so obvious. I put this product on my Christmas list for 2011 and luckily I got one. It’s not perfect – the drier skin on my lips absorbs more pigment from the pen so if I get lazy about lip care it can look really patchy, and the lid on the balm has slid off a couple of times in my make-up bag – but the bright red colour is just what I was hoping for. I wear this at least once a week, it’s become my go-to lip colour.

I started using tea tree oil this year to battle my spots. The bottle pictured is the Superdrug blend, but I’ve also tried one from The Body Shop. They each have their own pros and cons. The Body Shop one has a much higher concentration of tea tree oil and works better applied to individual spots as its quite drying. The Superdrug one is less drying (despite containing alcohol) and I can use it on large areas. Confusingly, the Superdrug one says it is a blended oil, and it certainly feels oily, refusing to dry, but the only oil listed in the ingredients is tea tree, so I’m not sure what’s going on there. I think that I might try buying the pure essential oil, which Superdrug also sell, and adding a few drops into the blended oil, but I also want to repurchase The Body Shop one as it dries properly and feels a lot better under makeup.

I recently started using Lush’s Cosmetic Lad because the skin of my face was getting a bit dry with all the central heating and cold winds. I usually use Vanishing Cream but I felt it wasn’t thick enough. I did try buying a cheap moisturiser from Simple, the Clear Skin Oil Balancing Moisturiser, but it was a disaster. Blackheads on my cheeks. Seriously. I have never in my life had blackheads on my cheeks before. On my nose and forehead, yes, but never on my cheeks! I do not have blackheads on my cheeks now that I’ve stopped using it (just a lot of tiny whiteheads). I don’t think Cosmetic Lad is doing anything for my spots (I’m going to buy some Vanishing Cream to use at least some of the time) but it has really helped soothe my skin. I had a cold a few weeks ago and usually this means red nose and cheeks for at least a few days, if not a week afterwards, but I put on some Cosmetic Lad before going to bed and when I woke up my face looked normal! I was really impressed as this has never happened before, and I have tried all sorts to avoid the Rudolph look – olive oil, Savlon, layers of my usual moisturiser.

The Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Shadow Pencil in Sin is basically an portable version of one of my favourite eyeshadows that I can apply without a brush. It also makes a great base for the Sin eyeshadow when I want to give it a bit more oomph and works as an inner corner highlight. The downside is that these set really quickly so I have to do one eye at a time, which means that I usually put a bit more on one than the other.

The Ecotools Shade Brush (from the eye brush kit) is my brush of the year. I don’t use most of the Ecotools brushes for their intended purpose. I like to use this one to apply highlight shades under the brow or in the inner corner. It’s the ideal size for me.

The Benefit Bad Gal Lash is a mini that was free with Glamour magazine some time last year. I decided to try it after a friend recommended it and I was delighted. I don’t know if I’ll buy the full size because the brush on the mini is massive enough (though not as long as the brush for Revlon Grow Luscious, which is ridiculous) and I think Benefit test on animals, but it is a really nice mascara. I can apply multiple coats without any clumping at all, even if I leave several hours between coats (ie. if I put one on in the morning for work and then want to amp it up for the evening).

You can’t really see the name in the picture, but that’s Lush’s Karma perfume. I love this stuff. It’s so fresh and bright and spicy and delicious. It’s such a strong scent that I can still smell it on me the next day. I also have the soap and body lotion (Karma Kream), plus a bubble bar in my stash. Yes, it’s hippieish and laden with patchouli like an old goth but I think it is one of the nicest smells in the world and sometimes reach for my pot of Karma Kream just to sniff it!

Finally, I started buying the Barry M Base Coat, Top Coat and Hardener this year after getting fed up with Rimmel base coats drying out before the end of the bottle as they have no ball bearings. The only reason I stuck with Rimmel for so long was because I kept buying their base coat in sets or getting it as a gift. So much happier with the Barry M one. It dries fairly quickly, has TWO ball bearings, and was made in the UK.

Special mentions go to the products that have been my favourites for multiple years now: Lily Lolo foundation and concealer, Aromaleigh eyeshadows, Urban Decay eyeshadows (especially Sin), Bourjois eye pencils and The Body Shop lip balms. I particularly love Bourjois’ liquid eyeliner Liner Pinceau, which I abandoned for a little while this year, but the much raved about Rimmel liquid eyeliners just do not compare!