The High-Street Makeup Starter Set

It wouldn't be a high-street-centric month without a post dedicated to my top high-street makeup picks, so I've rounded up my recommendations for what I'd pick up for someone just starting out in makeup. Maybe you don't need an item from every category but if you wanted to buy a full face with every step, here's what I rate from the high-street:

So for primer, there's only one, high-street or high-end, that I really reach for these days and that's the MaxFactor FaceFinity Foundation Primer. It's designed to make your makeup stick to your face better and I think it does a great job at just that. This is one of those products that I maybe don't reach for everyday, but when I need my base to really last I crack this out.

In my opinion, L'Oreal do some of the best foundations on the high-street, and their True Match Foundation is one I've been a fan of for a long time now. It feels light on the skin but the coverage is nice and last a long time without feeling heavy on the skin. Also? The shade range is great, so there should be something for most people.

Concealer was always that product that I thought high-street brands didn't do overly well, I'd tried a good few over the last few years and they were all just a bit heavy or drying on the skin. In the last year or so that seems to have changed dramatically and now you can pick up great formulas for less and my favourite at the moment is actually the New Look Liquid Concealer, it feels like it could be a skincare item it's so light on the skin, and the coverage is nice without being cakey, it's also insanely affordable.

My powder recommendation is obviously the Soap & Glory One Heck of a Blot, will I ever stop bleating on about this? Probably not. Its finely milled, controls oil amazingly. A must-have for all with oily skin.

I've foud that MaxFactor seem to do the best blushes on the highstreet, with both there Creamy Touch Blushes and their Creme Puff Blush formulas being lovely, L'Oreal do some nice powder blushes too but I think MaxFactor wins on the grounds that they offer two different but great formulas in a good range of shades and so I can imagine most would find something they liked from Maxfactor.

If you're into contouring, you can now have that on a budget with the release of Maybelline's Master Sculpt Contouring Palette. I really struggle to find contouring products even in the high end, they're always a bit dark or a bit orange or a bit muddy. But this one is amazing, and it comes with a small but perfectly formed highlighting powder too. Genius.

If contouring isn't your thing but you just want a bronze-y glow, the Soap & Glory Solar Powder is probably a pick you'll enjoy. It's has two shades, a lighter and a darker bronze that can be used separately or swirled together which means you can customise how much bronze you get. And they're updated the packaging so it's not so flimsy anymore, yay!

Finding a traditional eye-primer on the high-street was a tough-y. The only brand that really seems to stock one was Rimmel, and while their Exaggerate Shadow Primer doesn't quite rival formulas from Urban Decay and such the like, this is still going to be a nice base for your eyeshadow that will make them apply a little easier and last a bit longer.

For a powder eyeshadow palette, I was going to choose the Maybelline The Nudes Palettes because the shadows in that palette are not messing around, they're buttery and pigmented and rival higher-end brands in terms of quality, but if you're trying to cut back the price even more then it's got to be the Revolution Redemption Iconic 1 Palette, as mentioned in my review post last week, it's a dupe for the Urban Decay Naked Palette for £4, who could ask for more?

Now for eye-liner I was going to recommend the Rimmel Scandaleyes, and if you want some nice coloured liners, that's where you need to go, but for a basic black the Maybelline Master Drama swooped in at the last minute and stole my heart. It's a great formula, a solid jet black, so comparable to Urban Decay's Perversion liner. I won't dwell on the Maxfactor 2000 Calorie Curved Brush Mascara because we all knew it would be in here. It's amazing, it's the best, need I say more?

For brows I'm loving the No7 Beautiful Brow Sculpting Pencil the chunky nib makes for a speedy application and the spool-y brush on the end is perfect. This has kicked my Soap & Glory Archery Brow Pencil to the back of the class in my collection.

And then for lip products, I had to pick two, a bold matte and a glossy neutral, becuase not everyone likes both. The bold? Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvets, again you've heard about them on here quite frequently but they're just great. The my glossy option would be the Maybelline Colour Sensational Shine Glosses, nicely tinted, not sticky, great shine.

And there we have it, a whole face of high-street products.

Top 10 Under £10 - Lips

As promised, this is the second installment of my top 1- under £10 posts here in Skint-tember, and this time we're focusing on lip products, I have a good range of products here from glosses to stains and hopefully everything in between, so lets get started.

So in my opinion, the absolute créme-de-la-créme of matte lip products is the Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvets, they're a super long-lasting, matte lip product that come in a variety of shades so there's bound to be one that tickles your fancy in the range. They're thin in consistancy which makes the matte formula relatively comfortable but they're  really pigmented too. Love.

A couple of matte-to-satin formulas I'd recommend would be the Rimmel Kate Moss Lipsticks or the Maybelline Colour Drama Lip Crayons. These are both nice formulas that bring saturated colour but don't have such a drying effect on the lips. I like these two formulas for those "I want something bright but my lips aren't in the best condition" days.

If you want something even more comfortable but that still has a decent colour pay off I'd point you in the direct of the Revlon Lip Butters these are somewhat of an oldie but a goodie, and Revlon are always releasing new shades so there's something in this line for everyone. They were marketed as a sheer lip product with moisture but they definitely have a lot more colour than you'd be expecting from that description. They're really comfortable and come in a variety of shades and finishes.

And then for the straight-up lip balm lovers: the MUA Sweet Sheen Lip Balms are lovely. These are a comfortable balm with a sheer hint of tint to them and they're the perfect your-lips-but-better product. They'll obviously need to be reapplied if you want to keep up the finish but I love these.

My Favourite line of high-street lip glosses are the Maybelline Colour Sensational Shine Glosses they offer that super shiny, almost vinyl finish but they have a nice tint to them and a super hint of shimmer and they're smooth on the lips rathe than thick and sticky. They also have a really pleasant sweet scent/flavour to them.

If you like the look of lipgloss but you just can't handle the sensation of them on the lips, I have two recommendations: the Soap & Glory Sexy Mother Pucker Gloss Sticks and the No7 High Shine Lip Crayons, these are very similar products that are basically the shiny finish of a lip gloss in a twist-up pencil format that feel more like a balm on the lips. These are great for entry-level lipgloss wearers who like shine but hate sticky.

And finally, lip liners. I have two recommendation for this category and they are the Rimmel Exaggerate Full Colour Lip Liners and the No7 Precision Lip Pencils the Rimmel option is slightly cheaper but the colour range isn't quite there for me, the only shade I like the look of is "East End Snob" the No7 are a little creamier and are a touch more expensive but the shade range is lovely, I have a few from the range already but the temptation to pick up more is there.

Review Friday: Revolution Redemption Palette Iconic 1

Sticking to our affordable beauty theme for September I thought I'd try out some majorly affordable make-up products and picked up some bits from Freedom at Superdrug (sorry Boots, you're still my favourite). I got really excited about their Redemption Palettes as they're often coined as being the perfect dupes for the Urban Decay Naked Palettes and that was a theory I needed to test.

So firstly, packaging wise, I actually prefer the packaging for the Redemption Palettes than the original Naked Palette packaging. The Revolution packing is compact and has a good close and the plastic makes it easy to keep clean, my only complaint packaging wise is that there's no mirror, but in their defence, they're £4 a palette so I guess I can forgive that.

Shade wise, I can see why there's a lot of hype around these palettes, heres how Redemption Iconic 1 swatches shade-for-shade against the Naked 1:

And the shades are super pigmented too so that's really nice. My only point is the blendability of the shadows. Although the Revolution shades are super pigmented, they don't blend together as nicely as the Urban Decay shadows, but for £4 VS £38, if you're thinking of picking up the Naked range, I'd give the Revolution Iconic Palettes a go first.

Brand Binge - Maybelline

I've seen a couple of vloggers do videos where they focus on one makeup brand, do a full face with products from that brand and then review the products and I was interested to see how that concept translates into blog from. So I thought I'd have a go and here's the first brand: Maybelline.

So first things first: foundation. The foundation I picked for this post was the Dream Satin Liquid Foundation in the shade "10 - Ivory" which is a tiny bit too dark for me but other than that teensy issue (which lets face it, I have with at least 90% of base products) then this is quite a nice pick. It's very emollient on the skin which makes me think you might really like this if you have a dryer skin type and I'll definitely have to check back in winter once my face starts to dry up a bit on that front. The coverage is decent for a very natural-finish foundation and the lasting power is good. The thing that really makes this foundation stand out for me is how nicely it breaks down on the skin, it doesn't leave you patchy or orange-y at all.

My second base pick is the Instant Anti-Age Eraser Eye Perfect & Cover Concealer, which I had to majorly hunt down to get my hands on. The shade "light" was particularly tricky to track down but after getting my hands on one, I can see why. Much like the foundation I picked up from them, it's a nice coverage without being heavy and it's hydrating but stills packs a punch where lasting power is concerned. The price points on these products are brilliant too, definitely worth a go I'd say. (Although whats with the sponge-tip-thing? trés germ-tastic if you ask me).

To set everything I dusted on some of the Fit Me Pressed Powder in "115 - light" (are we sensing a theme here?) which is a product I usually keep in my hand bag and while it's great for on-the-go touch-ups, for me, it's not a setting powder. It's a lovely, finely-milled powder that's weightless on the skin but for me, the oil control just isn't there and it doesn't lock my make-up in place the same way as a MAC Mineralise Skin Finish Natural or my Soap & Glory One Heck of a Blot, for me those to are the bench mark for setting powders and this just doesn't seem to be one of those products to me.

To chisel in some cheekbones I reached for the Master Sculpt Contouring Palette in "01 - Light Medium" and this has quickly become a staple in my collection. It's the perfect contour for those with a fairer skin as it's light but it's not orangey or muddy. Then to warm up the cheeks I nipped in to the blush side of the Dream Sun Bronzing Powder With Blush and ran some of the bronze-y side down my neck to blend the foundation in with my actual skin tone. Now for me, this was a flat-out bad product. The Master Sculpt and the Fit Me Pressed Powder are finely milled and pigmented powders, so Maybelline can do a good powder formula, but I found the Dream Sun to just be a bit chalky and I felt like I had to do a lot of work to get some colour out of it. I'd give the bronzing blush a miss if I were you.

Then moving on to eyes, I used the Eye Studio Colour Tattoo 24hr Gel-Cream Eyeshadow in "05 - Eternal Gold" as my base, from what I could see Maybelline don't currently offer a standard primer that would be comparable to say the Urban Decay Primer Potion but the Colour Tattoo's are great for holding powder shadows in place. I was going for a gold-y shadow look on the eyes and this made the colours pop a bit more and kept my shadow looking fairly polished all day long.

I topped the Colour Tattoo with some shades from their The Nudes Palette, which I've been reaching for a lot recently. The shadow's are buttery soft and I find the formula completely comparable to more expensive brands, the shimmers are slightly easier to work with than the mattes but you get 12 shades for around £9, which compared to the Urban Decay Naked Palette range, it's a steal.

I tight-lined with a little bit of the Master Drama Khol Liner in "Ultra Black", which I'd completely overlooked for a while because I'd gotten very much caught up in the Rimmel Scandleyes ones but these eye liners are not messing around. Creamy to apply, good lasting power, It's safe to say I won't be picking up another Urban Decay 24/7 Liner in "Perversion" while Maybelline still have this formula on their shelves.

To finish off the eyes I brushed on a few coats of their The Colossal Volume Express Cat Eyes Mascara which was a dud for me. Mine came with a massively faulty wand that was bent in on itself to the extent that I had to re-work the wand to actually use it, and the formula just did nothing for my lashes. I'd love to try a few more from the line as I was under the impression that Maybelline were sort-of known for their mascaras but this just didn't hit the mark for me. I used the Brow Satin Brow Pencil in the shade "Medium Brown" to fill in my brows. I really liked this when I first got it because tit has both the pencil and the powder and I was just getting into pencil brow products at the time, now I'm more into a pencil formula I find I rarely use the powder end and would much prefer a spool-y brush on the other end. That being said, the pencil is nice and the shade selection is quite good, especially for the price point.

And finally, the lip. I'd left it quite neutral on the eyes so I wanted something a bit punchier on the lips so I slapped on their Colour Drama Intense Velvet Lip Pencil in the shade "410 - Fab Orange" which is an orange-y red (think Nars "Red Square" but more satin in finish). While these aren't as long lasting as the Nars pencils, they're obviously much less expensive and more comfortable. Personally, I never find anything that will last a whole day without touching up at all on my lips so I'm happy to opt in for a slightly more comfortable lip product most days and reapply every so often.

Disappointing Products: High-Street Fails

I'm not a massive fan of the typical "disappointing products" posts as they can be a bit negative and obviously everything in beauty is subjective and just because I didn't like it, doesn't mean you won't. So this isn't a post of me saying "I hate this product, don't buy it". It's me saying "This is a product I may or may not use or enjoy, but I was disappointed with it BECAUSE...", and in giving my in depth opinions, I hope I can help you make your own decision on whether or not it's something you'd want to give a go.

A quick one because I mentioned this in my review post last week is the Rimmel Lasting Finish Foundation. I use this a lot and I love the coverage it gives, it's actually a beautiful coverage and the finish looks great in pictures and I'm really not knocking it in terms of it's appearance. That being said, when you see "25hr lasting finish" on a foundation bottle, you expect it to be a least somewhat long lasting and, for me at least, it's just not that product. Maybe it's not intended for my skin-type or maybe there's something I'm doing wrong with my application, but for me, it needs a mid-day touch up as it deteriorates in my t-zone by lunchtime.

Mascaras always make it into disappointing products posts it seems and the one I've been really unimpressed with lately is the Bourjois Liner Effect Mascara. It doesn't seem to do anything for my lashes at all except tint them. I have quite straight, short lashes so I need a mascara that does it all really and this one just didn't seem to do much.

And finally for makeup: the New Look Pure Colour Eyeshadow Pencil. I've been trying out a lot of shadow sticks lately and for me this works more as a sticky base if you wanted to go in with a powder shadow after applying. The colour is beautiful and it applies nicely, but it seems to blend out to nothing and even afew applying a few layers, it still looks sheer. It's a shame because there's lots of products in New Look's line that I've heard great things about and the concealer in the line is amazing, but these were just a bit of a miss for me.

A couple of skincare bits that I wasn't much of a fan of are both exfoliating products interestingly enough, the first being the Nip + Fab Glycolic Fix Serum, firstly, it's heavily scented and I really don't get on with the fragrance in the product. That aside it just didn't seem to do much for my skin. It's the only exfoliating serum I've tried so maybe my skin just prefers a manual or liquid exfoliant but Nip + Fab do some amazing glycolic pads so the serum was a bit of a disappointment by comparison.

The last product I wasn't such a fan of was the Soap & Glory Peaches and Clean Cleanser which is a 3-in-1 product that is basically an exfoliating cleanser. I used this quite a lot when I first got it and really enjoyed it, but I tried to come back to it recently after not using it for a while and my skin seems to have gone off it. It leaves my skin feeling red and irritated and I think it's just a little bit too harsh.

The Friday Review: Rimmel Lasting Finish 25hr Nude Foundation

I've been in a serious foundation-testing mood of late (and may have had to expand my make-up storage solution as a result - can do an update post for anyone who's interested?), and one that I've picked up recently is the Rimmel Lasting Finish 25hr Nude Foundation, so I thought I'd share my findings with you all.

So when I saw this in Boots I think I got a little bit overexcited about the shade selection (if you're super pale or very dark skinned you'll probably understand the excitement of finding a perfect-skintone-match foundation on the high street) and grabbed a bottle to try. My first impression of the foundation was really good, it didn't feel overly thick on the skin and the skin-tone match was great. The coverage is actually really nice, it's light to medium and has a nice glow to it that I can imagine a dry skin type would really enjoy.

My main complaint about it is that the foundation claims to be "25 hour wear" and I'm finding that even when applied on top of a primer and when set with a powder, my T-zone in particular is very shiny a few hours into the wear. Admittedly, I have quite an oily skin type and those of you with dry skin may have no issues with the staying power at all, but oily girls beware, you will need to touch up with powder with this one. The wear on the rest of my face was lovely, I actually really like the look it gives to my cheeks a few hours in.

I find Rimmel foundations to be among the most reasonably priced products on the high street so it might still be something you want to try, I'm going to continue using it but probably not for days where I need the coverage to last all day.

Skint-tember Begins! Top 10 Under £10 - Eyes

So in light of many of you that are jetting off to begin (or continue) your university adventures this month (and because I love a good pun), I thought I'd dedicate this month to budget beauty buys, and what better way to kick things off than a top 10 under £10? This is the first instalment and we'll be focusing on eye products.

I've been loving cream eyeshadows in stick form lately and I've got two to mention today that won't break the bank, firstly theres the Bourjois ColourBand Eyeshadow Sticks. These are lovely, pigmented, long-lasting eyeshadow sticks that are easy to blend and come in a small but carefully selected colour range and you can pick these up in Boots. If a large colour selection is something you're after, the KIKO Long Lasting Eyeshadow Sticks are a little bit harder to find (I'd try the website if you're no where near a store) but the colour selection is insane and they're very comparable to much more expensive formulas.

I've picked out quite a few neutral palettes in a variety of sizes so there should be something for everyone here. If quads are your thing I have two that I like, Soap & Glory Lid Stuff is the most expensive product in this line-up at dead-on £10 but it's lovely and the shade selection in the neutral version is well thought out and comprehensive. If that's a little too indulgent I'd also recommend the NYC HD Quattro Eye Shadow quads, I have the shade "Best of Broadway" and it's lovely but their selection of these is really nice and they're well within the £10 budget.

If you're looking for a slightly bigger eyeshadow palette, again, I have two that I'd recommend. Firstly the Maybelline The Nudes Palette is a great pick, the 12 shades are laid out in the palette to be used as duos, trios or quads or of course you can mix and match the whole palette to create your looks, and the shadows are buttery smooth to apply. Alternatively, you can pick up the Revolution Redemption Palette Iconic 1 (which you'll hear more about later this month) for a mere £4 in super drug. The quality isn't quite as nice as the Maybelline but you're still getting 12 shadows and the price point on this is amazing.

If you're sat there thinking "just give me a loose pigment eyeshadow" you need look no further than the Barry M Dazzle Dusts, they're an old classic but they're brilliant and they're still available in a really good selection of shades (and if you ever manage to finish one, well done to you).

My favourite budget eyeliners are the Rimmel Scandleyes Eyeliners, the shade selection is nice for a high-street liner and the formula is up there with the Urban Decay 24/7 Liners. It was very difficult not to pick up every colour when they first launched.

The brow product I decided to include is the No7 Beautiful Brow Sculpting Pencil, mainly because it's the fuss-free high-street option. The pencil is nice and chunky which makes for a speedy brow application. The shade selection is great and the spool-y brush on the end is brilliant.

And finally, my high-street mascara pick is obviously the MaxFactor 2000 Calorie Curved Brush Mascara and I will continue to repurchase this until death or discontinuation (although the thought of it finding a way off the shelves of Boots makes me want to run out and buy 20 right now). It's a brilliant mascara that makes even my worst-of-the-wort lashes look somewhat acceptable.

So there we have it, a round-up of all of my high-street eye favourites, I hope you enjoy Skint-tember!