COLLECTION Dupes

Collection is the make-up brand I first ever used as a teen and as a brand it is one I have fallen back in love with, mainly because of these two products which team up as amazing dupes!

The Collection Gorgeous Glow Bronze Brick which costs just £3.99 is brilliant. There is a great range of shades from a highlighter to a much darker bronzer and they are all highly pigmented, much more so than I would have expected at that price. They are a velvety smooth powder formula which makes them really blendable. Then I have the Bobbi Brown Bronze Shimmer Brick, which I have duped before and whilst it is an incredible product, highly pigmented shades and as blendable as you want it to be, it costs £32.50.

If I had to choose a favourite, Collection edges it for me with this Glow Gorgeous palette because it highlights as well as bronzes and the shades are much more workable.

The Collection Speedy Highlighter, which is priced at £2.66 in Superdrug. As a Crayon it makes the job of adding some highlights to your face an absolute breeze and it is perfect for on the go. Then there is the Boots No.7 Instant Radiance Highlighter for which the Collection Speedy Highlighter is the perfect dupe and again I have duped this before. I love this No.7 Highlighter, it is has an amazing formula which dried incredibly quickly and creates an amazing highlighting effect and it costs just £9.95 but the Collection version is almost a third of the price!

Again this Collection offering is incredible, I absolutely love it and have already bought a back up in case I should run out.  It is so similar to the Boots No.7 version it is impossible not to love both, but the highlight that comes from Collection, as you can see below, is amazing and for me it is the winner of the two.

So these are the two current dupes that I am loving right now!  What do you think? Have you found any decent dupes lately?

Blogger Christmas Swap

This Christmas i took part in a beauty swap which was hosted by Clare from The Love of All Things Beauty and I'm really glad that I took part in it. I was paired with Natalie from Your Almost Alice and after a few emails back and forth we set a budget of £20 and gave each other a list of likes and dislikes and I have to say Natalie put together one amazing package, I was totally chuffed and this is what was inside - Santa said I could open it!

So In this box I have myself a really lovely litter pamper session waiting to happen! Lush Butterbear and I am so chuffed that I have finally got my hands on some Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish which I cannot wait to start using and it will also be my first time using Balmi lip balm too!  Plus the Collection Lip Butter shade is totally amazing and I cannot wait to use that as well! 

Thank you Natalie for my amazing box, it was so much fun to put yours together and I absolutely love mine! 

What do you think to my Christmas Swap?

Collection Cosmetics Lip Butters

I am a huge fan of lip crayons, I daren't even count how many I have, but I love them, they make a nice change to lipstick and are often easier to carry around in your bag. I was recently sent some of the Collection Cosmetics Lip Butter Pencils to try.

These Lip Butter Pencils come in four different shades which are:

01 Popping Pink,
02 Cappuccino,
03 Vintage Rose
04 Perfect Plum.

I have three of the shades which you can see below in Popping Pink, Vintage Rose and Perfect Plum.  The pencils themselves are quite thick in design, making them easy to hold. They are slightly fatter than the Clinique Chubby sticks and do feature a wind up bottom, so that as soon as your lip butter begins to disppear, one quick twist and more colour appears.

For me, all of these shades are stunning to look at.  They have a really creamy and very pigmented texture not to mention incredibly soft on application.  They have a wear time of between 2-4 hours at most, which for the bargain price of £2.99 each is pretty fantastic, I have some high end lip crayons which cost almost 5 times that price and they last nowhere near as long.  

L-R Vintage Rose, Popping Pink and Perfect Plum

My favourite shade of the three, or the one I wear the most is Vintage Rose which I would describe as being a coral pink and it looks great in the evening and in the daytime.

These Lip Butters were released on July 2nd and can be found at both Boots and Superdrug

Have you tried any of these Lip Butters? 

 Do you have a favourite brand of Lip Butter?

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Little Mix Make-up - New Releases!

Jade Thirlwall, Jesy Nelson, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Perrie Edwards, better known as girl group Little Mix, have been working with the cosmetics brand Collection to produce a range of make-up, some of which is available in both Boots and Superdrug.

Source

I was very kindly sent a package of new products to play with and when I first saw them, I was a little dubious that I would like them, but I was always taught never to judge a book by its cover and here is what I thought.

Recently, the Little Mix girls have extended their range to include moisturising lip balms, which are available in each of the girls' signature shade and favourite scent.  The lipbalms will have an RRP of £1.99 each.

Each Lip-balm is held within a black plastic tube with white see through plastic cover and the signature of each girl matches the shade of their lipbalm.  

Jade has gone for a raspberry flavour which is a baby pink coloured balm and when applied to the lips, it is really moisturising.

Jesy's lip-balm is a funky purple colour which is a vanilla scented lipbalm and sadly there is no colour transfer to the lips at all, but it does feel quite moisturising.

Leigh-Anne has opted for a mint flavoured lip-balm and the balm itself is a lovely mint green shade, again as with the other two balms, it is moisturising on the lips, though it leaves no hint or trace of the mint green colour behind,

The final lip-balm comes from Perrie, which has no scent to it, because apparently she has no sense of smell, is also colourless, instead it is called a natural shimmer and is a brilliant white shade, but this one differs slightly to the other three in that there is a shimmer to it. Within the lipbalm itself are teeny tiny little particles, which when applied to the lips, give them a bit of a shimmer.

I am a big fan of these lip-balms, they remind me of the Maybelline Baby Lips, which I happen to really like.

Also added to the range is the All About The Eyes Palette which will retail at a very pocket friendly price of £3.19 and includes six shades; Feather, Sunkissed, Golden Sand, Dazzling Brown, Cocoa Dream and Blackbird.

I actually really like this palette, it is a nice mixture of brown shades which are quite pigmented which is a lot more than I expected and they all work quite well together.  It is said that each singer within the band uses this palette to create their own signature look.

This is what each shade looks like:

 From left to right Feather, Sunkissed, Golden Sand, Dazzling Brown, Cocoa Dream and Blackbird.

Have you tried any of the Little Mix range so far?  

Do you like what is on offer here?

These lip balms and eyeshadow palette will be available to buy from Superdrug from 30 July.

My Favourite Products 2013 - Part 4

Having brought to you my favourite products for my lips, body and hair and then face, today I am bringing to you my favourite Make-up products of 2013, these are products that I have gone back to time and time again and absolutely love.

Make-Up

Make-up is one of those 'terms' and some of those 'products' that I love to use.  I am by no means an expert and nor I am overly confident in what I am doing which is why you will rarely see a FOTD post from me.  I tend to stick with what I know and like and experimenting isn't something I am good at, but here are my favourite products of 2013.

Seche Vite - Whilst I need to look after my nails a little bit more than I do to ensure they are not as weak and brittle as they are now, Seche Vite is by far one of the best products I have used on my nails.  I always use it as a top coat whenever I polish my nails and it dries so quickly and gives me a few extra days of no chipping with my nail polish.

Rough Dior 649 - I reviewed this lipstick HERE and it is to date my most favourite lipstick.  I was introduced to it at a Debenhams Beauty event that I was lucky to attend and have my make-up done by Dior and I was so impressed with the lip colour, I now own two for myself.

Porefessional - The first product I am to feature from Benefit and one of my favourites.  As a balm that minimises the pores I love that it does exactly that for me and I have gone through quite a few tubes of it to date and I am now using up my mini samples before deciding whether or not to re-purchase or try something else.

Fine One One - Another product from Benefit and one that I won from a Blogger Competition.  I wanted this product as soon as it came out, but I held off for ages reading review after review of it, some great and some not so great.  I love it and use it more as a highlighter on my cheek bones and it gives this really lovely shimmer and sheen once it is applied.

They-re Real - My current favourite mascara, the first time I used it, I knew it would be one of those products that would stay in my make-up bag.  I love how it makes my lashes look and appear longer, how it doesnt clump or flake once it is applied and it lasts a really long time once it is on my lashes.

Dream Weave & Co. Original Lash Extension Magnet Mascara - I was introduced to this product in October when I was kindly sent one to try out and review which you can see HERE.  I am so impressed with it that it is always in my bag.

Hoola - Again from Benefit, Hoola is my all time favourite Bronzer and when I was first given this I thought it would be far too dark for my very light skin-tone, however, I was mildly surprised that it actually looks really good on my skin and as long as I don't apply too much of it, it can look really natural.

Suede by Sleek - This product was my first introduction to the world that is Sleek make-up and it is currently my favourite product from Sleek.  I reviewed it back in October which you can see HERE and I pretty much wear it everyday because it is quite subtle and gives a lovely colour to my cheeks.

Hello Flawless - My all time favourite powder from Benefit and I wear it everyday, usually over a BB Cream as I am yet to find my Holy Grail foundation, they always seem too dark for my skintone, so I stick with a BB cream and this to give me a look I am comfortable with and it has an SPF15 which impresses me.

That Gal - Yep another Benefit product from me and I use That Gal quite a lot because I like it a Primer, it definitely does make my make-up last much longer and I dont get the feeling of clogged pores from using it, which is something I disliked from a similar product from another brand.

Collection Eyeshadow Pencils - I bought two of them on a whim a few months ago and Vintage Blush which is shown above is the shade I use more often than not.  As well as an eyeshadow, which is really easy to apply, I have also used it as a highlighter and it works really well.  I reviewed the two crayons  which you can read HERE

Max Factor Colour Elixir - I was introduced to these products when I took part in my very first beauty box swap and I instantly liked them.  My favourite colour of the two was Subtle Coral which is featured in the photograph above and reviewed HERE and I like the shade they give me when I wear them.

There you have my favourite make-up products.  

Do you think I am missing out on using anything or is there a product you think I should try?

Nail Varnish Haul...

I randomly found myself in Superdrug, as you do, looking for a pale pink nail varnish, the one I had was quite old and crusty and in need of replacing.  Anyway, as soon as I walked into Superdrug my eyes lit up:

Essie Shelves in Superdrug

A brand new Essie section that hadnt been there a week before!  So naturally I had to look and before I realised I had been stood there for a whole hour trying the different pinks out to decide which ones I liked best.

Then I moved along to the Rimmel section and NYC and put a few more varnishes into my basket and 7 varnishes later....

this is my Nail Varnish Haul...

My Nail Varnish Haul

So quite a few different types of varnishes in my collection now and the only one I have worn is Essie Delicacy which you can see below:

Essie Delicacy

Excuse the state of my nails... but hopefully you can see that it isn't too pink and instead adds a pearl-esque colour to my nails, which I really quite like.  I wasn't too sure to start with, but it has grown on me over the last few days and it hasnt chipped either which I am really impressed with.

What do you think to my haul?