Review: Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance Palette

Good morning!

I'm sure you've probably read a few posts on the fabulous Anastasia Beverly Hills palettes by now but I'd still like to add my own thoughts to the mix.

I bought the Modern Renaissance palette with some money I had pre Christmas and couldn't wait to share. The colours are perfect for this time of year so it was the best time to treat myself.....right?!

NYX Liquid Suede Lipstick Metallic Matte in Biker Babe

I'm pretty sure everyone who owns a liquid lipstick will own from NYX....am I right or am I right???

If you don't own one of the Lip Lingerie products then I'll be surprised as they are just so popular! However I actually don't own any because I just can't get on with the formula as it's so drying.

Cue the Liquid Suede effect that I tried about a year ago now, and I'm obsessed with the suede finish instead of the matte finish. It was a win/win situation for me as I love the finish plus there is a huge colour range! I've got a post coming up soon on this so I'll just stick with this beauty for now, the new Metallic Matte range.

Lush - Five Gold Rings Bubble Bars

Hey all!

Christmas is getting SO close now and I cannot wait for the festivities to start. One of my favourite things is pampering over the Christmas period, not only is it great timing for the party season but also when your skin needs a little extra help in the colder months.

A bath is a great way to start - 5 Gold Rings from Lush is the perfect product.

It's quite simple really, there are five super sparkly golden rings on a string that mean you can have 5 super sparkly bath times! 5 baths for the price of one is great value for money in my opinion.

All you need to do is crumble one of the bars under running water for a bubbly bath filled with Fair Trade sweet vanilla and the obvious super sparkly gold glitter that takes over your bathroom!

Each ring is infused with skin softening illipe butter and moringa oil to uplift, it also contains a product called benzoin resinoid which I have to say I've never heard of before.

Lush has a wonderfully helpful website though and clicking on it gives me this description:

'We use benzoin resinoid (Styrax benzoin) to deeply cleanse and soothe skin, add shine to hair, to ease muscles, and to give skin a sweet, lingering vanilla and balsamic aroma.' 


Well you learn something every day don't you??

This is what the bubble bar looks like when you crumble it under the water...





It's lovely and yellow gold and a happy uplifting colour. My skin also felt amazing as soon as I'd finished the bath and felt so much smoother and hydrated.

Although you do need to watch out for getting the glitter EVERYWHERE!

5 Gold Rings comes in at £4.95, so that's only £1 a bath - well worth the money!

What do you think of this bubble bar? Will you be snapping them up?

L xxx

MAC Eyeshadow Refill - Sable

Hello lovelies!

Pinch punch first of the month!

I wrote a post last week about my amazing new Illamasqua lipstick which was bought for me by a lovely person that you might have heard of (yes you guessed it thank you M!)

The other half of my present was an amazing addition to my MAC eyeshadow palette. I've been saying for ages how I needed more to add to it, I've got quite a few random colours that have been bought for me over the years and I'm in desperate need of some additional colours to blend my palette together better. This has filled the perfect gap!

As I have a palette M has bought me the refill which is perfect, I can slot it straight into one of the gaps and apply my eye make up as I wish. She knows me too well!

This shade is called Sable and its a 'gold plum with a bronze pearl' according to MAC's website.

The photo below shows the shadow taken with a flash and the one below that without a flash:

As you can see, my palette below has some pretty random shades, some very light, some very dark and a few brights. I've bought the large palette and an eyeshadow insert so that I can fill it up and keep my collection together. I'd definitely buy another insert, ideally I'd have a neutral side and then a darks and brights side as it is double sided and I'd love to make the most of it.

Sable clearly fits in perfectly with my small collection of nudes. I have Shroom, a limited edition shadow I cannot remember the name of and All That Glitters so I definitely needed a darker shade to create the perfect nude toned eye for day to day.

Sable is the perfect colour to blend into your crease for a wearable day to day eye for work, lunch, dates and can help to create a beautiful smokey eye with a gold bronze tinge to it. You can see swatches on my hand below:

With flash you can see how the light really catches it and makes it shimmer, it's so pretty I've been swatching it for days! 

Here it is on the eye, applied to the outer corners and blended across the lid of my eye. This is a light application and you can definitely apply it more heavily for a stronger and darker eye look. This is the look I go for on a normal work day with a bit of liner.

It's enough of a shimmer and shapes my eye enough to make sure its not boring and flat.

What do you think of Sable? Do you have a palette you're adding to? What shades would you recommend to complete my palette?

L xxx

Maybelline Color Show: Brocades

Good morning to you all!

These polishes were snapped up by myself on a shopping trip over Christmas and although they've been worn lots I just haven't had chance to post about them yet!

I'm a fan of the Color Show range from Maybelline, the bottles aren't huge but for £3/4 you can try out some new colours that you weren't sure you'd like etc and its a great way to build up a collection with a great quality product.

The Brocades were brought out in time for the festive period; you can NEVER go wrong with a glitter at Christmas time and Maybelline brought out the brocades in a gold, black, pink and a silver.
I'm not a big silver wearer so decided to pick up the other three in a 3 for 2 deal at my beloved Boots.

I swear almost all my wages get spent there!

You can see in the pictures above the colours; the Knitted Gold is very much a rose gold colour, Woven Skyline is exactly how you'd expect New York to look at night if it was a nail varnish and Rosy Rosettes is a gorgeous shimmery pink.

So how did they fare on the nails?

I decided to do an accent nail over the past few weeks so here are my shots with the pink and gold colours doing just that.

These were taken with and without flash after 2 coats. Some nails as I;m sure you can see could do with another coat....but 3 layers of a glitter polish is nightmare number 1 when it comes to removal so I had to stop myself knowing how fickle I am with changing them.

The colours are great and the gold was a nice addition to my collection as I don't have any rose gold colours.



I have to say though, however much i love the pink and gold the black didn't fare as well. The photos below show 2 coats again and it just wasn't enough.






You can still see a lot of my nails through the polish as it wasn't dense enough. This was a beautiful polish but would definitely require another polish underneath as a base colour before application otherwise who knows how many layers you'll end up with and that many hours of removal would drive anyone insane!



I really love the effects though, I'm a sucker for a glitter and these jelly types ones were really good and the range of colours means that anyone will want one.

Being glitters they also lasted really well on my nails even through working in the lab and i did get some compliments of how lovely and sparkly they were!

Have you tried the Maybelline Brocades? Which colour is your favourite?

L xxx

Urban Decay Vice 2 Palette

Hi all!

I've got a palette review today which you've probably seen before on plenty of other blogs but lets be honest; Urban Decay do such beautiful palettes I needed to photograph its beauty and share with you my thoughts on another limited edition sold out blogger 'must have'.

Urban Decay Vice 2 is the most beautiful palette I've ever seen, and I know I say this often about UD palettes but it is gorgeous. It's also unlike any other palette that I own so I don't feel that it was too much of an unruly purchase....

The box itself is gorgeous, I do like swirly mystical patterns and this is no exception. It was handy as well to see all of the colours on the back with matching names...lush.

The outside of the palette is unique to each individual one; the technique used to create the swirling pattern enables them to ensure that no two will be the same...nice touch!

The button to open the case (shown above) is also inlaid with Urban Decay text, as if you'd ever forget the brand!
This then opens the palette lid slowly to reveal the most beautiful collection of pigmented shadows in existence.

I've taken the following photos both with and without flash so that you can see them in both lights. Unfortunately some have blurred slightly but you can still see the colours and names for each one.

There is a fabulous selection of both metallic, glitter and matte shadows and basically in any colour you could ever need. There are neutrals for day time, blues, greens, blacks and purples all for any kind of occasion you can imagine.

I have swatched the shadows on my fingertips below, they follow the palette in a downwards motion except the last picture which is the last column on the right (hopefully that makes sense!)

It also comes with one of their infamous double ended brushes. Their brushes are always made of very good quality bristles and in the future i hope to buy more of them, especially the face make up brush as I've heard so much about it!

I have so far created two separate looks with this palette, both at 6am before work so it was a little hard to take photos in such bad light.

However I took them anyway!

The above photos show me wearing Derailed, Poison and Smokeout, and the below photo shows the nudes; Dope, Ambush and Derailed.



The shadows are very pigmented and easy to use and the colours are very much true to the colour they appear. The only colour i found wasn't true was Dope which appeared to be a beautiful light shimmery beige colour (very much like MAC's Shroom) but turned out pink toned on my skin and didn't look good on me at all!

I'm not quite sure why this is but at least it's only one shadow that i will be unlikely to use out of the entire palette. My only other problem with it is that because this colour comes out darker and pinker than you first thought, there is no light shade to create a base. This is rather annoying at 6am when you're trying to apply your face before work and can't find a base colour! I obviously have others to use and this means I have to get another palette out....time I don't usually have in the mornings.

Aside from that I love the other colours and I'm sure I'll be using them a lot over the coming months/years.

As my first purchase from Beauty Bay in their Christmas sale I was impressed with the price (it was £33 instead of £42). However after it being dispatched on one day and supposedly being on their 2 days Tracked service I was VERY disappointed that this came 7 days later. After emailing to ask the whereabouts of my order as my tracking number didn't even work, I was pretty much fobbed off each time and after tweeting them they weren't much help either.

Can't say I'll be in a rush to order from them next time, or if I do I won't be expecting my 'tracked 2 day' postage to be turning up on time which in this day and age is pretty pathetic.


Have you ordered anything from Beauty Bay before?

What do you think of the Vice 2 palette? Should I have ordered Naked 3 instead or are you a colour fan?

L xxx