Hello lovely people of the internet!
As I've not posted in forever (apparently blogging regularly isn't something that comes naturally to me!) I thought I'd show you two things today: my MUA haul and my recreation of
Ronnie from Bows and Curtseys's Mila Kunis look, which you can see
here.
First off: the mini MUA haul!
God bless Superdrug for giving us such a great brand at such an unbelievable price. I think by now everyone in beauty blogging has heard about the cheap and cheerful wonders that MUA has to offer: most products are just £1, with the exception of their gorgeous palettes that are a still-unbelievably-reasonable £4.
Don't let the price tags fool you: there are some real winners to be had here. Let's start with the eyeshadows:
This is
Shade 6, a really beautiful greeny-turquoise that you can find an additional review of
here, by The (fabulous!) Sunday Girl. Its pigmentation really is pretty impressive - better even than some MAC and Urban Decay colours that I've come across, though it's not quite on a level with Sleek. Well worth picking up for just a pound, plus you get quite a lot of product - 2g in fact (MAC shadows are 1.5g). (Swatches are down below!)
Shade 7 is a pearl (as are all the shadows I have for you today) and it's a lovely darker, foresty green. Weirdly enough,
The Sunday Girl has reviewed this too - her reviews came up two days after I bought these, how spooky! I prefer the pigmentation and texture of this to the last - it's not as chalky (not that Shade 6 is overly chalky) and it's slightly easier to get a nice strong pay-off.
And last but not least is my favourite of this selection, beautiful
Shade 12. Now, on paper, this sounds like a dupe for MAC's Club - it's a duochrome with a brown base and green pearl running through it. I don't have Club to compare it to, but from painstaking research I reckon this isn't a million miles off - and it's at £1 it's worth a try if you don't want to fork out for Club! (Prettymaking has a
comparison of Club vs. another high street shadow if you'd like to see swatches.)
Here are my amateur swatching efforts!:
Top to bottom: Shade 12, Shade 7, Shade 6
And on another camera setting that seems to show them up a bit clearer:
Left to Right: Shade 6, Shade 7, Shade 12
These are just three not particularly generous swipes each, with no primer or foundation underneath, to show you just how pigmented they are. Bargains!
I also purchased the much-coveted
Heaven and Earth palette, which has had the blogosphere a-chatter for a little while now:
What can I say? This has to be one of the best value palettes around and the colour range is just gorgeous for all us neutral-lovers. I initially ummed and ah-ed about getting this one, given that
Sleek's Storm Palette is already in my collection, and a firm favourite too, but this one is definitely different enough to merit a purchase. All I would say is that there are no mattes, unlike the Storm palette, but these are nevertheless a gorgeous collection of well-pigmented colours. My favourite is the warm goldy copper (last colour on the right in the top row). It'll make blue eyes look stunning.
I may well end up doing another post dedicated to this palette alone!
Finally I bought their
Bronzer Shade 1, the palest.
Compared to my other MUA purchases, I'm not as crazy about this bronzer as I am the eyeshadows (this may be because I am a slave to eyeshadows but have only recently got into bronzer). This looks really beautiful in the pan - while I'd love to try a bronzer without sparkles in it, this one is really pretty and though it's darker than I originally thought I could pull off, it's not orangey and I do like how it looks on.
This, unlike my lovely birthday present
Collection 2000 Bronze Glow in 01 Sunkissed, does seem to show up in photos! Hurray!
In fact, I used it in my homage to Ronnie's homage to Mila Kunis's Golden Globes makeup, along with a selection of colours from the Heaven and Earth Palette.
Here are my photos, please know that my new camera and I still haven't quite seen eye to eye on what makes a good makeup picture, and are trying to adjust to each other:
Okay, my rookie face pullng doesn't help either, I'm still very much new to this!
Here's another camera setting that makes me look shiny but does show the colours slightly better:
I will learn the art of face pulling, I will!
The colours are a bit faded here, apologies!
Here are some photos from my old faithful webcam, because I feel like I look less weird in these?!
And that's all of my photos! Woo, I bet you're relieved. Oh, I am in my PJs and dressing gown, in case you were wondering. It's traditional stressed-exam-period-student garb.
Products I used:
Face:
Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Ultimate Wear Concealer in no.2 Light
MAC Matchmaster Foundation in 1.5
Benefit High Beam highlighter
Eyes:
MUA Heaven and Earth palette - I used the lightest colour as a brow highlight, the second lightest all over my lid and a mixture of the browns in my crease and on the lower lash line - in real life the warmth of the browns, some of which have a purple frost to them, makes my green eyes look greener!
MAC Fluidline in Waveline on the upper lash line, set with a navy from the Sleek Bad Girl palette
Revlon Grow Luscious Mascara - my mum thought I was wearing false eyelashes when I Skyped her in this makeup! So sweet :)
Cheeks:
Benefit Benetint
Bourjois Blush in Lilas D'Or
MUA Bronzer Shade 1
Lips:
Benefit Benetint Lip Balm
Well that's all from me! I hope you have a lovely day guys, and that you enjoyed this post - see you soon!
