17 Wild Eyes Metallics

Rawr! Gotta love a bit of animal print, even if it can lead to Bet Lynch comparisons. I had saved up some Boots points on my Advantage Card so redeemed them on this little beauty, a cream eyeshadow from 17. This shade is Wild Nude, but there are currently six shades in the range.

I always worry about metallic shades incase they look a bit 90s, and for this reason I shied away from the blue shade. It might have actually been lovely on, but it looked SCARY. Anyway I stuck to boring nude, I have been watching a load of Pixiwoo videos recently and loving how they use cream shadows as a base to give depth to the overall eye look.

The shine coming off this shade is really gorgeous, and the formulation is very smooth and creamy. You do need to prime with this as I have found it prone to creasing. It doesn't crease if you prime and layer shadow over it, but you can't really get away with wearing it on it's own. But for £4 compared to around £17 for a not dissimilar high-end product, I can handle that.

This is the eyeshadow used as a base with a mid brown shade from the Bobbi Brown Bronze Shimmer Brick, and Chocolate gel liner. I do see what the Pixiwoo girls mean by adding another dimension to the look, as when you blink or look around the shadow shimmers and shines slightly.

Regardless of the tendency to crease, I give this 9/10 and would repurchase

Illamasqua Haul

Hello lovely people! Sorry I've been MIA for the past week, I've been working loads and been coming home drained and not up for blogging, just some sleep! Anyway I'm back with a vengeance and have an amazing Illamasqua haul to show you.
For my overseas readers, Illamasqua is a British brand launched in 2008 based on the dramatic makeup of the 1920's Berlin cabaret scene. There are some amazing products and collections, bold and shocking. I love their makeup so when I saw they were having a sale I was super excited and jumped online. For a high-end brand their sale prices are actually very good, around 70% off. Let's have a look what came in the post!

GOODIES!

How stunning! This is their Cream Eyeshadow in Wail, a muted grey-pink colour. I'm always a bit cautious of cream eyeshadows incase they crease badly but these have a really good reputation so I thought I'd go for it. I really like this colour, I want to try a couple of smoky eye looks with this as I think they would work really well.

The texture is very smooth, almost like a lip balm consistency rather than a cream, but it dried well on my arm, matt but somehow not a flat colour. I want some other colours now!

This is their medium pencil, a multi-tasking product which can be used on eyes, lips anywhere you like really! I went for Torment, a gorgeous raspberry-red colour, which I will use as a lip pencil as I'm no way brave enough to use it on my eyes!!

My skin looks so pale here! Might need to go for a Snow White pale skin and red lip look! I don't ever use lip liners but I hate my lipsticks feathering so now might be the time to start, and I love this shade, it's a warm shade, very romantic.

My last buy is their Light Liquid Foundation in shade LF120 which is one of the lightest shades but with pink undertones, which isn't exactly my skin tone as I'm more neutral but they didn't have any other options around my colour. However this actually matches very well.

Read the back! It's little touches like this that draw me to this brand, the packaging, the ethos and the fact that we finally have a British brand to rival the likes of Bobbi Brown and MAC makes me happy. Also, they have the S.O.P.H.I.E products and a short film dedicated to the memory of Sophie Lancaster, a British teenager who was beaten to death for her style (gothic). If you have a chance, watch the film as it's very beautiful.

It is a very light formulation as the name suggests, easily blended and doesn't feel oily under my fingers, although I can see from the ingredients it does contain Avocado oil. So I'll need to see how my skin gets on with this. If you like their Facebook page, you can get a code for 15% off, and it works on sale items. Delivery to the UK is only £3.50. They do deliver worldwide but advise that it can take up to a month! It's worth the wait, I promise.

Have you ever owned any Illamasqua products? Did I choose the best products or what would you have picked? Hope you are all well :)

Apothecary Essentials Kit

I know that palettes and gift sets aren't the most portable things, but there's something really nice about a gleaming, beautifully packaged box of pretty colours and multiple products. I was in House of Fraser the other day, and I had heard of their Apothecary range, and they had this set reduced to £10.40 from£26.00!

It's like an old-fashioned book, complete with a massive mirror, and there are pages inside with makeup related history snippets. This one made me laugh:

If you can't read it properly it says "In 1770, England's parliament passed a law against lipstick, stating that women who seduced men into mariage by means of make up could be tried as witches". Brilliant! Better get on my broomstick then...So I love this set already, the packaging is amazing! Cute, quirky and well made, and then look what you get inside!

12 individual eyeshadows, great neutral shades and some darker shades for smokey eyes, fake eyelashes, eyeliner, highlighter. And that's just the top level, you get a lipgloss and liquid lipstick underneath!

These shades are so versatile, as you can see I have tried a couple of the shades when creating a day to day neutral eye look, the shades are highly pigmented, there is more fall-out than you would like but for the price you can't complain. The highlighter is really nice, and you know how I love false lashes!

All in all I'm delighted with this, they have a couple of other sets in the sale which I'm pretty tempted by. I just think it's so cute, and as a book geek the look of this totally appealed to me. I also like the portable size of the highlighter, eyeliner and lip products for nights out. Will save my losing any more MAC lipsticks drunkenly (yes this has happened several times, boo). Nice little sale bargain :)