The One About MAC Haul The Week Before The Flight

I must be the only person in existence who decides to go shopping in MAC the week before an international flight, honestly WHO DOES THAT???

MAC Cosmetics is actually cheaper in the states (and FYI I'm actually in the states right now) but my “I want it NOW” nature defied my rationality and I had to make a stop to the MAC store the minute my payslip hit my bank account.

I would like to say first off that I am aware I’m on a spending ban (although cheating on it) so I didn’t go as crazy as I normally do. I steered clear of the lipsticks and bought items, which I felt were essential to my daily beauty routine.

As I don’t have any major makeup problems, I actually don’t wear any foundation, blush, contour, concealer etc. during the week, preferring to rock a lipstick/gloss with groomed brows. My eyebrows are a non-negotiable part of my beauty routine. I could swear off wearing any makeup for months on end but if my eyebrows aren’t allowed to come along for the journey . . . there will be a show of aggressive behaviour. *I’m just saying*

I decided to get MAC Fluidline in Dipdown as an alternative to my eyebrow pencil as I need travel appropriate brows that won’t need touching during the day and won’t mysteriously vanish after a nap on my flight. Dipdown is a warm brown matte gel liner that will suit anyone with brunette or dark hair as it will match your natural brow shade without making it look too dark. It is almost impossible to get dipdown on the UK MAC Website so a trip to your local counter might be in store (unless you have Lady Luck and some lucky charms on your side that is)

I normally use my Eco Tools Bamboo Angled Liner brush for gel-liner brows and while this does the job very well, I find that I don’t have as much control as I normally have with my MAC brow liner so I decided to get the MAC 208 Angled Brow Brush which is almost half the size of the Eco Tools brush which I hope will mean that I have more control and precision when doing my brows.

Last is some new concealer. I normally use NW45 or NW40 in MAC Studio Finish Concealer but I wanted to go for something in the middle that would be a little more subtle than NW40 as it can look very “striking” and I find that I normally have to wear foundation just add some subtleness.  I got NC50 which is literally half a shade lighter than my skintone and as this is still a new shade for me, I can’t really let you know right now if it was the right colour choice for me but give me about two weeks and I might just do a comparison post between the 3 shades.

I actually am still kicking myself that I bought MAC products whenI was so close to going stateside but in all fairness I want to explore cosmetics that I can’t really get easier in the UK, I wonder if I will even bother going to the MAC store in the end.

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Review: MAC Paint in Sublime Nature

Thought I should share with you a product that has been on the blogging back burners for a while. I bought this on the recommendation of Gulnit (my favourite Mac Artist) a few months back and I never got round to making a post on it  . . . so better late than never!!!

 MAC paint in Sublime Nature is a cool beige brown that has a slight shimmer to it. I have slightly oily eyelids but wear contacts I don’t find the consistency too dry as it doesn’t really bother my eyes; which is great. 

As opposed to some cream eye shadows which dry the minute you apply it, not really leaving much room for you to blend and work with it (*cough cough* Makeup Forever), plus I really love the fact that it comes in a squeezy toothpaste like tube which I feel is a bit more hygienic that cream bases in pots

For some strange reason, MAC have discontinued the majority of the MAC paint range so you can only get 7 shades in their MAC Paints, with Sublime Nature being one of those 7 options.

Honestly I was in the market for something a lot darker and closer to my skin tone (that wasn’t groundwork) as I currently use Illamasqua’s cream eye shadow in Linger as a base and these two shades are very close together (which might be why I haven’t really used Sublime Nature as much as I should have by now) but if you are looking for a light brown base/eyeshadow primer in a tube then you should probably give Sublime Nature a try

  

Is it just me or do you seem to buy the same colours but in different textures or variations?? 

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Products I HATE:- MAC Face & body (N9)

What is up with everyone’s love for MAC Face and Body Foundation??? I absolutely HATE this product and in my opinion, it is just expensive coloured water!!!

I (regrettably) bought the Face and Body Foundation on the back of many blog and YouTube reviews that sang it’s praised and claimed it was the best foundation for a natural coverage as it’s water based so it’s light and airy . . . .Honestly I think MAC just one-upped it’s customers and sold us a foundation mixed with water (water-based foundation, my back foot).

 This baby has the superpower to transform my normal skin into a shiny and sweaty looking mess, with the added anility of leaking off my face and onto my clothes like you would not believe.

Despite the many great reviews, I honestly would NOT recommend you buy this foundation!!

1.  It’s like slapping coloured Vaseline on your face 
2. NO SPF Factor – So if you are using this in the summer . . . that’s just skin damage
3. I’ve had this foundation for 2 months and the formula has already started to separate
4. It's just a slippery mess 

I am still trying to figure out what I’m going to end up doing with this at the moment, I don’t think it’s worth even using on the rest of my body as a bit of coverage but it makes a very good paper weight.

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Should I Boycott MAC???

I’m really not sure on whether to write this post or not as I am not the biggest advocate against Animal Testing and I secretly think that half the members of PETA are a bit bonkers but I do have a personal anti-torture, anti-cruelty and anti-unnecessary pain policy on anything and everything as I don’t enjoy the thought of benefiting from something else pain and misery (yes I am very empathic . . .hence why I am a Disneyvore).

Recently, I have found out that two of my all time favourite brands MAC Cosmetics and Revlon have admitted that they do test on animals and have been removed from the PETA cruelty free list.

Assuming that they have taken this stance as they want to break into China where it is required by law to test products on animal, I feel a bit uneasy that first of all I had no clue that Revlon wasn’t cruelty free and second what the hell happened to MAC’s policy of ‘Tested on Models, not Animals’???!!!!

Image from So What? So there!

I would really hate to boycott MAC as living in London it literally is one of the only brands where a dark skinned girl can easily find your skin shade so I would be really gutted to have to give it up.

What do you guys think about MAC and their new animal testing policy? Is it worth a boycott, should I look at it as more as them required to do so by law or should I stop imagining little monkeys with their eyes stretched out and little acid drops going into their bloodshot eyes (Yes, this is literally my mental image of what animal testing is about  . . . tad bit dramatic, but Oh well it’s the Disneyvore thinking)

I would really like to know what you guys think so please leave a comment below

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Recent Purchases:- MAC Eyeshadows in Embark, Club, Pink Venus, Fig.1 and Twinks

Having my office located 2 minutes away from a MAC store is slowly turning my blog into a one-brand swatches website, but as they are one of the only stores that stock my skin shade in a 15 minute walking radius, you guys are going to be getting a lot of MAC reviews.

Yesterday, I encouraged everyone to guess the eyeshadows I’m going to review today and despite me giving a HUGE hit . . . not that many people guessed any of the shades right.

Club is the most intriguing eyeshadow of the bunch as it’s a bit like a multi-dimensional chameleon. The purple, grey and green mixture of this shade gives it a flexibility that you really don’t expect so it works great as a lid colour for a smokey eye.

Pink Venus was a bit of an impulse buy. I will admit this right now as I’m not sure what was going through my head at the time when I bought this. Not normally a fan on Barbie pink or colours with a white-silver undertone but this shade was just tooo pretty.

I’m not entirely sure how I will use it as I find that when swatched it fails to show up very strongly on my dark skin. I think it would have to be relegated to a tear duct colour until I find a good use for it. 

Embark is a warm, dark brown that I would highly recommend anyone with dark skin like mine stocking in their MAC neutral palettes. 2 shades darker than my natural skintone, this shade works wonderfully as a crease and contour eyeshadow shade and I have sometimes even used this as a cheek contour as it is warm enough not to give my skin a dirty, ashy-brown effect.

This is the only shade that is a repurchase and this is actually my 3^rd time buying this eyeshadow colour, so just know that when I recommend it, I’m doing so because I believe in it

As I’m always expanding my purple and blue MAC eyeshadow palettes, Fig.1 was recommended to me by one of my favourite local MAC artist, who thankfully seems to be keeping tabs on what shades I buy.

I was looking for a dark purple but similar to Vibrant grape which I already had but was not quite right for the makeup look I was going for (had to create a specific look models face – will put up link later) and she recommended Fig.1 and omg can I just say it was perfect!!! 

Last but not least. Twinks – a beautiful dark bronze perfect for a black girl eyelid. This shade is so much better than MAC’s eyeshadow in Bronze (which I normally swear by) as it is one shade darker than bronze so looks more like my eyelid shade but with a little bit of a shimmer to it. I can’t wait to recreate a daytime smokey eye look with this because this just screams out for me to play with it.

 So Ladies (and gentlemen) that is it for the recent eyeshadows swatches, sorry I was a bit late posting this but my post schedule ran amok and this didn’t go up 10 hours ago like it was meant to.

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Review: MAC Lipglass in Spite

I’m not what you would call a spiteful person but I would really love to go around being a complete cow for a day and when I get confronted for my negative behaviour, I’ll just say “My lipgloss made me do it”.

Now while I don’t know how successfully that would work as an excuse (even though I would probably try it out one day), it doesn’t stop Spite from MAC being an absolute gorgeous lipglass shade.

Best described as a nude, plummy brown, Spite is another recent purchase that I seem to either find in my jeans pocket or in depths of my bag because I really seem to wear it more than my other glosses at the moment and honestly that has to be because Spite is one of those lipgloss shades that are so close (but a better version) of your natural lip shade that you can get away with being COMPLETELY lazy and not having to wear lipliner or a balm or anything extra. Which is super as I’m one of those people you see commuting on the train or bus who always seems to be putting on the last touches of their makeup.

Spite can look a little dull and cool in its tube and while it is not as richly pigmented as many of the products I would normally go for, it is very easy to apply this shade and once applied it kind of adapts to your lips

I think Spite is just one of those colors that would look great no matter your skin tones. It’s simple, neutral and you don’t have to think too hard to use it

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Review: MAC Fashion Set - Spice Lipglass

Earlier this month MAC introduced the ‘Fashion Sets’ which are sets of a lipstick, lip-glass and lip liner, colour-based on the six most popular shades of a particular region. For the UK, it was Girl About Town, Impassioned, Rebel, Morange and Spice.

Now before you get all happy and think MAC have finally thrown its faithful users a bone and all products in the set are sold separately

After seeing a swatch the Spice Set on Gulnit’s blog, I knew I wanted to get something from that set in my collection and after a pretty lousy day last week (Click here to read all about it; blog rant style) which resulted in a mini MAC Haul, I decided on the Spice Lip-glass. 

Since I’ve been getting more into the groove of lip-gloss, I love the that I now have a nude lip-glass for the lazy days when I’m on the train and can’t be bothered to dive into my makeup case looking for a mirror.

On my darker skin (I’m NW45 btw) Spice comes out a bit on the pinky side of nude, which is pretty much how I like my nude to be honest (No Beiges allowed!!). I think this looks so innocent. I know it might sound a bit odd to call a lipgloss shade innocent but I really think it brings out the girlie-ness in me.

I think I might get the rest of the set before the end of the month . . . . and maybe the Rebel Lipliner

As this is a Limited Collection from MAC if you re thinking of splashing out on one of these sets I suggest you make up your mind before it runs out. Visit your local/favorite MAC store or go online.

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Want to Combat A Bad Day? Add A Bit Of Chestnut, Spice and Spite.

You know you’ve had a bad day when you have the compulsion to throw an iPhone (with hopefully pinpoint accuracy) at the back of a stranger’s head.

Honestly though, they would have deserved it.

In their haste to get onto their train, this person bumped into me HARD and sent my iPhone sprawling to its concrete demise, leaving only a disfigured plastic and technological mesh

AKA

Someone barged into me at London Bridge and smashed my iPhone without saying sorry. I know I really could have just started off the post like this but I was really getting into the whole melodramatic storytelling.

Normally this would have pissed me off and I would have gotten over it but after a red pen exploded onto my favourite white cardigan (which fyi I only bought 2 weeks ago), I spilt tea all over desk at work, my camera’s SD card stopped working so I now have to buy a new one, some silly person smashed my iPhone and then I almost missed my 1st driving lesson in 3 years because some Nigerian lady decided to have an argument with the bus driver because she didn’t have enough money on her oyster card and thought haggling with the bus driver will get her to her destination . . . All in one day . . . Beauty Retail is in need.

Presenting a small effort to cheer myself up. MAC’s Lipgloss in Spice and Spite and MAC’s Lipliner in Chestnut.

 

I know that I might be a slave to consumerism for cheering myself up with lipgloss but lets be honest with a day this bad, a mini nude lipgloss haul gives me something positive to fuss over rather than the fact that I can no longer, tweet, instagram, listen to music or read iBooks for 2 weeks.

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Don't forget I have a May birthday giveaway running at the moment, so while you're scooping this post, ENTER!!!!!

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Review: MAC Lipstick in Lickable

MAC Lipstick is the newest pink in my lipstick collection, bring my bright pink lipsticks to a confusing four.

When the heck did I buy so many? And more important how did I get suckered in to buying so many???

Lickable is a hot and very bold fuschia pink-berry colour with a blue undertone that would be great for summer.

It's a cremesheen so expect this lipstick to have great wearability, a creamy formula, a great colour payoff and the infamous MAC lipstick vanilla smell.

Now while it does have a great colour pay off when built up, this lipstick comes off as semi-opaque, so depending on your preference that could be what yo umight be looking for or a deal breaker

Now while I'm still in a state of confusion on why I own so many bright lipstick, I just have to say that I  love the name of the shade . . . say it slowly with me lliiiiicccckkkkaaaabbbllllleeeeeee looool

I would love to say I preferring for the summer months and that why I own this . . but we all know it was an impulse buy.

What's been your latest impulse buy?? Or better yet what do you think is an awesome lipstick for summer so I can add this to my mental impulse buy checklist??

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