MUA Luxe Enrapture Palette

Morning!

I don't know about you but the endless stream of amazing palette releases have totally rinsed my bank account. There are some beautiful collections available froma variety of brands and I need them all in my life!

One of the palettes that caught my eye before Christmas was the MUA Luxe Enrapture palette, it's a darker and more sultry version on the Enchanted palette (click here to read my review on this one) and I knew I needed it for a variety of reasons.

Urban Decay Pulp Fiction Palette

There's not a lot to say in this post because to be perfectly honest, just look at these bad boys.

LOOK AT THEM

The packaging itself is amazing as it is and when I randomly went to buy something from the Urban Decay counter and was shown these I promptly put my name down for them when they were allowed to sell them.
How on earth had this amazing collaboration escaped my notice??

I'm a huge Tarantino fan, its something that me and my brother actually agree on and having bought him the box set many years ago i still steal them now. 

The orange and red writing stands out on the black box and it all looks so striking I'm surprised I didn't snap up the entire collection. But having put my name down for the palette, the only product they were allowed to reserve and the others being sold on a first come first serve basis I legged it into Cardiff on the morning and snapped up the lipstick and liner to match. Oops!

Here's a sneak peek of what's to come, I do love it when they show a swatch of the colours inside and give their names. Names always make things better don't they??

Here's a close up of the text:

Inside is the card I always look forward to reading when purchasing a limited edition palette from UD. The tips and tricks are always good to follow and give you an idea what they colours were there for; if only for you to totally break the rules and do your own thing anyway/

Be Cool Honey Bunny.

The attention to detail, as always, with these collaboration products always astounds me but this time I've been completely blown away.
My brother loves the quote below and even he was slightly impressed with how cool it all was (and as a mixed martial arts fan make up REALLY isn't his thing).

I really did just marvel at it for a while before even opening it, the packaging was just too special. I'm not sure I could have designed it better myself, although the paper packaging does worry me for long term usage but only time will tell what that will be like.

I always love the inclusion of a mirror with these products, it's a lovely touch and means it's a lot easier to use them on the go and travel with them.

Here are the four shades with accompanying names and brush. I'm not sure what I think about the brush to be honest, the quality was better than i thought it would be from first glance but I still find them too small to be of any use. I'm sure I'll be grateful for it when using the palette on the go though and for touch ups it should come in handy.

Righteous was the main reason for me buying this palette. As a firm Theodora palette fan ( I use it EVERY DAY without fail) which was also limited edition I was beginning to get worried after hitting pan on the lightest colour called Broken. It's the perfect colour for me and after telling the lovely Haddie on the counter in the Cardiff store she showed me these.

It's not a perfect match but it will certainly fill the gap in the 'limited edition' section of my collection. Or something like that.

Righteous can be described as a light cream colour and is matte.

In fact all of these colours are quite similar to the Theodora palette and so that was how I justified it to myself really, as I know that I should use all of the colours in it almost every day.

Tyranny is a lovely warm brown and is very pigmented and also matte. I didn't think I'd like this one on me but again I was surprised and it blends with so much so easily.

Vengeance is a colour I love, described by Temptalia as a deep taupe brown matte satin, which is quite a mouthful really. The colour is amazing and similar to Theodora's Bewitch, though you need so little I'd be surprised if this ever runs out!

Furious and Anger is the only duo colour. Furious is similar to Venus from the Naked Basics palette and Anger is similar to Crave but has a slight shimmer added as they are both satin shades. 

I've been using Furious on the inner corner of my eye and Anger to line the outer corners and they've both worked really well.

Here are swatches:

You can see Righteous is a little less pigmented than the others, this was a little disappointing as it was the colour I was most excited about but nevertheless I'll just have to use more!

Furious can be seen below, a lovely white satin colour:

Swatched on the back of my hand you can see the colours a little better, But how does it look on the eye itself??

Below shows Righteous and Tyranny on the eye (left) and Vengeance in the right picture.

Above shows Furious and Anger applied also. Its extremely wearable for a limited edition palette and this surprises me as well as lots of other reviews I've read online.


I can see me wearing this a lot and I've already been wearing it to many outings; see below for a recent picture with the Mia Wallace liner and lipstick on also:

The longevity of the lipstick is phenomenal, but that's for another post.

What do you think of limited edition collaborations? Are you a Pulp Fiction fan?

Would you snap up the eyeshadow palette or another product in the range?

L xxx

Naked 2

Morning all

Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine didn't go to plan with illness still hanging around but it turned out to be a great one. Sometimes lazy ones catching up with people are needed. I spent Friday night at the cinema (if you get a chance go see the Monuments Men. It was awesome!) Then after a lazy morning I finally tried to get over my mixing sweet and savoury foods and tried maple bacon pancakes on Saturday morning (mainly as it's a new food to cross off my list!) I was converted. The first mouthful was weird then it was good!! Saturday evening was spent with my housemate having a girlie evening and Sunday was a blogging, gym, coffee with friends and uni work! 

Anyway onto today's post. When I went to America 18 months ago I picked myself up Naked 2. After telling myself for months it wasn't needed and MUA was just as good and the price wasn't worth it. When I caved I realised how wrong I was! I've debated for a while whether or not to post about. It's been mentioned in posts but I've never reviewed it. But after recently picking up Naked 3 I decided to share my thoughts on Naked 2.

Since I got it 18 months ago I think it's probably been used 5 out 7 days every week. I've hit pan on 3 shadows and 4 others have sizeable dents! It's such an easy palette to use for everyday or for going out.

Firstly packaging. It's beautiful. The metal casing has lasted pretty well. This goes everywhere with me whenever I go away and apart from it few scrathes it's lasting really well. It comes with a great double ended brush that has a blending and shadow brush (which I also use as a liner brush!). The brush is super soft and doesn't shed and is still going strong.

For me there was no contest between Naked and Naked 2. I'm definitely a Naked 2 girl. I think the tones in Naked are too warm for me. Although there are a few I would love.

For a while I was drawn to bootycall and tease and would wear them everyday as they were so easy to wear without having to think. After hitting pan on bootycall I made myself use other colours. I really like foxy now and it creates the perfect base. With my blue eyes I love to wear bronzes and golds as it brings out the blue in them. So half bakes blended out with busted has been a firm favourite too.

The quality of the shadows are amazing. Some do give slight fall out but nothing major. I love the palette contains a matte black. For me this is an essential shadow. I always need a matte black in my collection and this is one with an amazing pigmentation.

Tease is the ultimate crease colour, the perfect matte mid brown. I would be lost without this shadow. It's got so much use. It blends out easily and has a good pigmentation.

YDK is a gorgeous shimmer colour. I love this lately for lazy day make up. I sweep this over the lid and under the lower lashes add mascara and my eyes are done.

When we went to the UD showcase we were shown Eden primer. I used to swear by using UD primer potion everyday but I got lazy. Eden is absolutely amazing and after being reminded the difference it makes I have to start using it again.

From L-R without primer then with Tease, YDK, Half Baked, Blackout.

Here is a post using it to make a gold make up look.

and here is my go to look using tease in the crease.

Now I just need to start using some of the middle colours more. Do you have any of the Naked palettes? I now have Naked 3. The sparkle made me by it!

Love M

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