2015 Favourites

Hey everyone, I hope you are all having a great new year! Today I am doing a list of my favourite products of 2015. I have included some links to my other posts including swatches/reviews of the products!

Lips

This year I have been trying heaps of new nude shades, and here are my favourites!

MAC Velvet Teddy: This is a super popular shade from Mac, and I can see why - it's a really unique colour, and is a cool toned brown with warmer reddish hints, whilst remaining a nude shade. It has become one of my everyday picks!

MAC Peach Blossom: Another nude, but this lipstick is a cremesheen and therefore slightly sheer and glossy shade, and is a gorgeous light pink nude.

Essence lipliner in In the Nude: Probably my most used lipliner, this is so versatile and goes with most lighter nudes or can be worn by itself. The best part is it only costs $2!

Australis Velourlips in Pa-ree: Again one of my favourite nudes. This is a light brownish pink and is a perfect natural nude for my fair skin.

Eyes

Maybelline Colossal Mascara: This mascara is the 'Smoky Eyes' version of the Colossal mascara. I picked this up not knowing what it would be like, and despite the larger wand which I usually do not prefer, this became a favourite! I found it really separated the lashes whilst giving plenty of volume.

Maybelline Big Eyes Mascara: If you like the Falsies mascara, you will love this! This is a double ended mascara, one end the normal Falsies wand, and the other a smaller, thinner brush for your lower lashes. This is a must have for me, and something I would by just for the lower lash wand, which tends to be hard to find in drugstore brands.

Maybelline Hyper Sharp liner: This liner is a new liner made to perfect your winged eyeliner, and it works amazingly! It is flat with a thick side and thin edge which makes it perfect to shape your wings.

Australis Metallix eyeshadow in Guns and Rose Petals: This eyeshadow is absolutely amazing and I have never seen anything exactly like it before! It is a creamy shadow which is incredibly metallic and glowy on the eyes, as if you have real gems on them.

Makeup Geek eyeshadows: The 'MUG' eyeshadows are incredibly pigmented, particularly the matte shades. They come in a huge range of colours with a reasonable price and are great quality. The foiled eyeshadows are especially incredible, similar to the Metallix in powder form.

Face

Secret Key Finish Up BB Cream: This is a Korean BB cream which I love for using as a base for my makeup. It works amazingly at covering up pores and redness, and reminds me of Benefit's Porefessional for a fraction of the price! (I bought mine from beautynetkorea.com).

Nars Creamy Concealer: I never thought I would splurge on a concealer like this one, but here it is and I can say it was definitely worth it! The tiniest bit of this concealer goes such a long way and conceals amazingly. I have the shade Chantilly which is perfect for under the eyes for fair skin as it has a yellow undertone, although I find it works anywhere on my face.

Models Prefer Contour Collection: Contour kits were all the range this year, and I'm glad that I picked one up, in particular this one! It has great contour colours for lighter skin tones which can be difficult to find, as well as a gorgeous yellow shade and highlighter.

Eyebrows

Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Pomade in Medium Brown: I love this product as it is so versatile and easy to use, and can be used for any style on your brows. I actually find it easier to use than a pencil or even powder as it glides on so smoothly and makes it easy to define your brows.

Maybelline Brow Satin in Dark Brown: I love this product for its convenience as well as its quality. It is double sided with a pencil on one end and a powder applicator on the other. It is a very easy to use product and I really love how it looks on my brows.

Cheeks

TheBalm Mary-Lou Manizer: This highlighter is a very popular product and for a good reason. It is a beautiful gold shimmery powder which beautifully illuminates the face.

Nars blush in Gaiety: This blush looks alarmingly bright pink, but actually applies a more natural almost peachy pink. It gives a lovely glow to the skin which makes you look slightly flushed without looking crazy.

Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector in Opal: Another very popular highlighter which I found works even on my very fair skin despite its slightly bronzier colour. I love this as it gives a gorgeous natural glow when used lightly or can be built up to look super glamorous, but just looks so beautiful on the skin.

And that's it for my 2015 favourites! What were your favourites from the year? Did you discover any amazing new products? Let me know!

- Ella

Essence Lip Liners: Review & Swatches

I'm sure many of you have heard of Essence Cosmetics - if not, they are a brand which offers a range of very affordable products available on their website or in Target and Priceline, and tend to be very good quality for the low, low price! So today I am going to be reviewing their lipliners, which run for only $2 each!

These lipliners come in a really versatile range of colours, meaning everyone should be able to find at least one shade you like! They range from a nude & light pink, to red to deeper purples and browns. You can tell which one is my favourite - I use 'In The Nude' By itself or under my favourite nude lipstick, 'Pa-ree' Velourlips by Australis.

L-R Soft Berry, Satin Mauve, In The Nude, Wish Me A Rose, Femme Fatale

The Essence Lipliners claim to create a "super soft and precise application", which I think is pretty accurate.

The texture of the lipliners is very soft, smooth & creamy. I would say the one downfall of the lipliners is that they are a bit too soft and break quite easily. 

As for its last-ability, I found the red lipliner which I think is an older formula of the liners lasts very well on my lips whereas the newer liners do not last quite as long. However they last just as well as any other lip liner I have tried, and for the price I definitely do not mind.

As I have quite dry lips, I first used a lip scrub then a lip balm on my lips which helps the application of the lip liner (and hence the slightly glossy finish).

#05 Soft Berry - A slightly brown dark purple

#06 Satin Mauve - a slightly dark purple mauve

#11 In The Nude - a brown toned pink nude

#12 Wish Me A Rose - a light pink shade

#10 Femme Fatale - a bright classic red

I hope you all enjoyed this post! Have you tried Essence? Let me know in the comments!

- Ella

Models Prefer Contour Collection Review

Hi everyone! I recently bought the new Models Prefer Contour/Collection - Ultimate Highlighting & Contouring Palette and thought I'd give you a review.

Contouring is very on-trend at the moment, and a lot of contouring palettes have come out. The Anastasia Beverley Hills and Australis contour palettes are the two which are probably most comparable to this palette in terms of the shades, although I have not tried them out myself.

I wasn't sure whether to get the Australis palette, especially after the quite negative reveiws (although it has supposed to come out with a better formula now), so when I saw that this palette had come out, getting very positive reviews and for the same price at AU$16.95, I jumped right onto it, and I'm glad I did.

Front of box

Back of box

The palette comes with a handy little booklet about how to use the kit depending on your skin tone and face shape and some other tips. The palette also comes with a big mirror inside which is actually useful.

Although admittedly the shades aren't all perfect for my fair skin, I manage to find a use for most of them. They are all matte shades apart from one, the shimmery highlighter, and come in warm and cool tones.

Highlight 1 -  This is the lightest shade, and is a light cool toned powder. The powder is just about the same colour as my skin so for me it works best as a setting powder.

Highlight 2 - This is a yellow shade, which is usually meant for under the eyes. The colour is very yellow so if you put too much on it can look strange, but blended lightly under the eye works quite well to cancel out and brighten under eye circles.

Highlight 3 - This is my favourite highlight shade. This one is an actual shimmery highlighter rather than a matte powder. Although it looks quite dark I still really like it even on my super fair skin. It blends out to just give a nice glow, and I think it would work on any skin tone.

Contour 4 - This shade is a slightly warm dark brown, and is what I use for light bronzing. All the powders in the kit blend out really well, and this shade is not too orange so it works well on my skin tone.

Contour 5 - I absolutely love this shade for contouring. It is cool toned so gives a nice shadowey affect and carves out my cheek bones nicely. It is a perfect contour shade for fair skin.

Contour 6 - This is the only shade out of the palette that I haven't actually used. It is very warm and quite dark, so would probably work best for bronzing on medium skin tones.

Swatches shades 1-6 (L-R)

Flash

No flash

Rundown

I think this palette is a very good, versatile palette. Although the shades are not all perfect for my skin, I still manage to find a use for most of them. The shades are all quite light, so I would say this palette would work for fair to medium skin tones, and not really anything darker than that. Hopefully they will release a darker palette like Australis has because this is such a great kit! The powders are relatively pigmented but still very blendable. 

Pros: pigmented, blendable, versatile, affordable
Cons: suitable only for lighter skin tones, not necessarily all usable

Rating: 4/5

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts.

- Ella

P.S. if you would like to follow me on Bloglovin', you can do so here. :)

Drugstore Makeup & Nail Polish Haul & Swatches! (+ mini review)

Hey everyone! So I am doing my first post in a while. I am planning to update regularly from now on!

So today I went to my local Chemist Warehouse and in the clearance section found a ton of makeup and nail polishes from $1 to $4, so of course I had to pick some up. 

The haul includes eyeshadows, lip glosses/stains, nail polishes and a foundation, from Maybelline, Rimmel, Revlon & Sally Hansen. I haven't swatched the nail polishes, but if I get round to using them I will make sure to update some pictures!

So here are the swatches. If you want me to properly review any of these please let me know, but for this post it will be just swatches and first opinions.

P.S. I was wearing fake tan which slowly faded after I wiped each swatch off, which is why my skin gradually gets lighter (lol).

P.P.S. All (or most) photos were taken with flash.

Eyeshadow palettes:

Maybelline Eyestudio in 500 "Violet"

This palette includes shimmery shadows including a white, silver, lilac and deep purple. I found these to be one of the most pigmented out of all the palettes (the picture does not do it justice). The silver is a gorgeous metallic shade which I am so excited to use!

Rimmel Glam'Eyes HD 5-Colour Eye Shadow in 025 "Victoria's Purple"

This palette has relatively similar colours to the previous, but I found the pigmentation was considerably worse, especially with the lighter colours. 

Revlon Colorstay 16 Hour Eye Shadow in 540 "Inspired"          

These eyeshadows also had quite sheer pigmentation, particularly in the blue & green shades which were very shimmery but did not transfer the colour well.

Rimmel Glam'Eyes HD Quad Eye Shadow in 004 "Green Park"

Despite the other Rimmel palette not being the best, I found this palette was very pigmented. However, apart from the cross in the middle the other colours are in such small shapes they are very difficult to get to! But I do really like this palette, featuring gorgeous a khaki, gold and browns. 

Revlon Colorstay Smoky Shadow Stick in 210 "Flare"

My first impression of this eyeshadow was; nothing. I had to really rub the lighter shade on to get any colour, and even then I could barley see it. I don't know if this will change after a few uses, but I am not incredibly impressed.

Lip Products

Rimmel Apocalips in 701 "Stargazer"

This is a gorgeous shimmery nude lip lacquer with great pigmentation. The colour is hard to explain - it has light brown/orange undertones with gold shimmer. I would say it would be a great nude for most skin tones.   

Revlon Colourburst Lipgloss in 042 "Bellini"

This lipgloss is a pretty nude orange. The colour is quite sheer but not bad for a lip gloss.

Maybelline Super Stay 10 Stain Gloss in 160 "Luxurious Lilac" and 110 "Fresh Fuchsia" 

These lip stains really do stain your lips. The colour is very vibrant, and although I am not sure if they remain glossy or vibrant throughout the day, they will definitely not come off. I have included a picture after I wiped (vigorously scrubbed) the swatch off my arm.

After rubbing it off (or at least trying to):

Foundation

Maybelline Dream Wonder Fluid-Touch Foundation in 75 "Natural Beige"

This foundation is very liquid-y, but after swatching it it seems like it would give a light to medium coverage, although I cannot say much as I haven't actually tried it out yet. The colour is very warm with an orange undertone.

Nail Polishes

Lastly I will just give a little overview of the nail polishes I bought.

Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat in 300 "Peach Fuzz"

This is a clear polish with flecks of orange and yellow which leave a "fuzzy" texture on your nails.

Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in 830 "Floaties"

This is a really pretty apricot pink kind of colour, in a thick formula.

Revlon Nail Enamel in 580 "Eclectic"

I already have a ton of similar blues, but I couldn't resist this for just $2! It is a nice aqua blue.

Revlon Transforming Effects Nail Enamel Top Coat in 790 "Matte Top Coat"

This is just a simple top coat which you can paint over any nail polish to make it matte! 

And that's it! I really hope you liked this post and found it useful. As I said, please just let me know if you would like a more in-depth review, tutorial or anything else with any of the products.

- Ella