Review: Maybelline Illegal Length

I haven't bought a mascara from Maybelline in a long while, but I seem to be on a mascara shopathon at the moment as I have loads!

This week's review is on Maybelline's Illegal Length mascara which I bought in Blackest Black.

One thing I like about Maybelline's mascara is that they all come in packages, meaning nobody has opened it and messed around with it before you have.

This is always a massive bonus as who wants a mascara that someone else has put on their eyes?! Sharing a mascara wand shares more bacteria than sharing a toothbrush does, always remember that!

I firstly was drawn to the sleek and super cool curvy packaging, I have plenty of curves myself and this looks really cool as it still stands up and is a welcome break from the bog standard casing.

I also love pink so go Maybelline for stamping the name on with a girl's favourite colour!

I've had this since it came out and have been wearing it for the past few weeks.

My eyelashes if you haven't read a post from me before are luckily very long, however they're poker straight and won't curl whatever you do with them.

I find lengthening and volumising mascaras work best as I never have any joy with curling ones, if you have any suggestions feel free to comment below with them as I'm always up for trying new ones!

What I didn't realise about this mascara was that it contains fibres, silly I know, I obviously bought it purely based on the name and the packaging which I'm sure we've all probably done before.

So the fibres were a surprise for me however they were also a bit hit and miss.

I SWEAR some of the fibres in mine were actual bits of fluff!

I actually pulled them off the mascara brush and they were centimetres long not millimetres, what is that about?!

If you look closely you can see on the brush that some of the fibres are rather large, and as I wear contact lenses this isn't normally the kind of mascara I go for.

Having said that, I did quite like it as a day to day mascara, it did increase the length of my lashes and thicken them out a bit with the fibres but it wasn't anything that I would 100% rave over and I'd probably want something with more impact for going out in the night.

Overall I liked the packaging, the name and the price but felt this was you average day to day mascara that didn't live up to it's name, my lashes were in no way illegal in length!

What mascaras do you use? Are there any new ones out that I should try?

L xxx

Review: Sleek Blush by 3 Lace

When these were first realised I was instantly drawn to this palette. I thought it had the best selection of colours, but never got around to picking it up or even looking at them in Superdrug until a few weeks back when I went shopping with L. We are the worst influence on each other and always spend a fortune when we just meet to 'window' shop. You can see what other bit's I picked up here.

Who doesn't love a boxed product. Always makes it feel a little more luxurious. For £10 for 3 blush these palettes are such good value and you get a large amount of each shade too. Lace is out of stock online, but they still have the others. Found here. They still had them in my local superdrug but all the blush by 3 palettes were in the draws and not out on display. How annoying.

This is my first sleek product. How pretty is the packaging, textured black and the sleek logo simply printed in a shiny black. My love for the slightly rubberised black packaging of course didn't last long as similar to products such as Nars mine is now covered in my foundation finger prints, ooops.

They have the shades printed on the back but don't seem to stock the shades separately. I thought I'd instantly use the middle shade first as it was similar to Sleek's Rose Gold blush that never seems to be in stock in Superdrug (do you find the sleek stands poorly stocked around you aswell?

So here are the shades. In the pan they scared me, swatched they scared me. Blended I love them. These blushes are so pigmented you only need the smallest amount. They blend so easily. I find they do break up slightly with my brush so I find it best to just lightly dab my brush into the selected colour rather than sweep it across and end up with powder and a brush with way to much product.

Photo heavy section, as you can see the colours come out so bright so if you like a bright blush look no further or they can be blended for a softer look. I can honestly say I have used this blush every single day since I picked it up. I didn't expect to love it as much as I do. The colours are so wearable, so easy to blend and just look so pretty on. I find myself using the orange more than the others, something I didn't expect. I'm definitely not normally an orange blush girl but it gives a pretty flush. The middle shimmer shade is a very shimmery blush so I tend to use this one more as a highlight if I'm not using my MAC one. The red shade blends to a gorgeous winter flush on the skin, think English rose.

I cannot praise this product enough. I can't see me looking at other blushes for a while. They are amazing and they will definitely last me a while too.

Have you tried any of the Blush by 3 sets? I'm considering getting a second, any recommendations?

Love M

xxx

Lipstick Mondays Maybelline 10 hour tint gloss

I recently picked this up on a trip to boots, after spotting it at the till in Superdrug. As I said in my make up haul, I'm definitely not a lip gloss person. They just bug me but this is different. It's not sticky at all, it glides on the lips and is just soft and provides amazing colour pay off.

I picked it up in the shade forever fuchsia. It's £6.99 but currently on 3 for 2 in boots. This makes me want to go and buy another 3.

It has an easy to use heart shaped wand that holds the perfect amount of colour for application. It has a small hole in the centre of the wand that holds the product. I'd say this photo shows the colour best.

As you can see the colour pigmentation is so good and it just leaves a pretty glossy finish that isn't sticky and isn't going to instantly rub off your lips. It's a little bright than this photo shows.

As for 10 hours stay, that's a little adventurous. Due to the stain it does last longer. I tend to apply one coat let it dry and apply a second 30 minutes later. It probably lasts around 3 hours. Even though it doesn't last the 10 hours stated, I'd definitely buy this again and I'm wanting to try other shades.

I'm really lusting after the YSL glossy stains but every time I go into my boots the sales assistant just jumps on me and make me feel uncomfortable. They never seem friendly on my YSL stall :(.

Have you tried either of these? Even if you aren't normally a lip gloss person I'd thoroughly recommend this. I'm loving bright pinks at the moment for my lips.

Hope your week has started well.

Love M

xxx

Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish

So another weekend coming to an end and back to work in the morning. I've had a great weekend this weekend with the family so that's left me in a good mood today.

Onto today's post, both L and I have been loving skin care lately and taking a much bigger interest in it and trying other brands. (I had a recent splurge in Clinique and I'm loving there stuff, post coming soon). After Red magazine gave the free sample and a muslin cloth to try, we were both impressed with it. It's such a different cleanser, so thick and moisturising on the face and I enjoyed using the cloth.

L was so impressed she went out and picked up more straight away. I'd left mine longer before trying out due to being back in love with my Lush Herbalism cleanser. Now I regret that.

After seeing the great offer a few weeks back (Thanks Lola for sharing) I couldn't resist getting more. We decided to share the postage cost and ordered together. 

We chose the express delivery as the deal was just before L went away. I was so excited when she text me the next day to say it had already arrived and that it had come with lots of goodies.

It was with 4 sachets of their sheer skin tint (1 in each shade) and a 30 ml sample of cleanse and polish and another muslim cloth. L had the cleanser I had the skin tint. I love that with higher end brands they are always generous with there samples. I love trying new things.

I'm impressed with the sheer skin tint and will review full soon.

It also came with a colour chart detailing all of the new make up range and the shades. Also helpful was space by the shade of each shade so that you could compare it to colours you already own if you are ordering on line. I'm eyeing up the bronzer after reading rave reviews.

Another nice touch was a little note saying who had packed your package up for you.

And a big thick book showing there full product range with descriptions and prices. I've loved having a flick through this. L did mention that for a natural company though there was a lot of maybe unnecessary packaging that although it was a nice touch could have been done without.

All of that for one bottle each of 100ml cleanse and polish, I'm wondering next time whether to assume we'll get more good samples and it might be worth ordering separately to get all the freebies.

We will do a full review on Cleanse and Polish soon if anybody is interested in this product, I know we are late to the party on loving this product but it's definitely one that we will be repurchasing a lot now.

Love L and M

xxx

A little side note - after using the Cleanse and Polish sample I did indeed rush out to buy the full size, at 14 pounds (I'm using an American keyboard that doesn't have a pound sign, how inconsiderate!) it included a full 100ml of product and 2 muslin cloths in a bag along with the instructions card.

I really do believe that even after a week of using it my skin felt like velvet, my spots had cleared up and any blemishes had definitely decreased in size. I've now been using it ever since and I swear my skin has improved even more after the benefits of long term thorough cleaning.

I vote everyone should be using this baby!

L xxx