No Money March: The Budget Contouring Palette

I know "strobing" is the latest makeup trend but I still think contouring is the most effective way to chisel out some cheek bones and add dimension to the face. I've seen the more high-end contouring palettes and while they look pretty I just couldn't justify dropping the cash on them since I wasn't sure how much use I'd get out of them. Then I found out NYX had one so I figured I'd have a look at it, and here's what I think.

So the palette is £18 in the UK and it's made up of 8 shades. My breakdown of the functions of those shades breaks down to 3 contouring colours, 1 bronzer, 1 banana-powder type shade, 2 shimmer highlights and 1 matte highlight/light face powder. This is currently available in the UK from Boots, Selfridges, Very.com and FeelUnique.com.

I'm really pale and I find most of these shades workable for my skin. Both of the shimmer highlights are lovely on me, the top left corner "Ice Queen" is a lovely pale pinky shimmer that looks lovely on the cheek bones and "Nectar" (top right) is an orangey peach shimmer that I use as a blush topper but I can see this working well on deeper skin tones as well. The formula on the shimmer highlights is the best in the palette, these are really soft and buttery.

The matte highlight "Soft Light" (second from the left) is slightly more powdery feeling. I use this as an all over face powder but it could work as a highlight on darker skins. "Cream" (the yellow shade) is really interesting because I though it would be too dark to work on my skin but I find it blends out great and really brightens the centre of the face. With it being another matter powder it's not as creamy as the shimmers but it's definitely not what I'd call chalky either.

For the bronze-y shades I find I can only really use the two centre shades. "Tan" (bottom left) is too dark to bronze with and too warm to use as a contour and "Hollow" (bottom right) is just way too dark but the formula is pigmented and blendable on both. "Sculpt" (centre right) is my perfect contour shade and "Toffee" makes a nice pale bronzer.

The packaging isn't the most glam looking and it feels a bit cheap, but it's really functional. It seems to be marketed as a pro product so the clear lid makes sense and the hard plastic is durable so I can see this traveling well. I also like that the pans are removable so if you just wanted to travel with one of two shades you could easily pop them out and put them in another palette.

In terms of bang for your buck, it works out at £2.25 per pan and each of the pans is 2.7g. For value it works out similar to their other bronzing products which run for £8 for 9g. I think these are really reasonably priced for what you get.

I also wanted to make an honourable mention to the Spectrum Collection Tapered Finishing Brush, for budget contouring, this brush is amazing. The pink handle and blue bristles is fun and the tapered cut makes it really easy to apply contour where you want it. It's a lovely soft brush that picks up product well and blends it seamlessly and it's a synthetic brush so its cruelty free.

Top 10 Under £10 - Complexion

The final instalment of the top 10 under £10 series here in Skint-tember is going to be focusing on all things complexion. This was a difficult one as even high-street base products often creep up to and beyond that £10 limit and there's a few amazing high-street base products that I love that didn't make it into the list on price, but here's the one's that made the cut:

I've said it before and I'll say it again, L'Oreal generally hit the nail on the head when it comes to base products and this list contains two foundations from them that are great. The True Match Foundation is a lovely light feeling foundation that's got a good build-able coverage and it lasts well on the skin, the shade range is amazing and it comes in just under budget at £9.99, easily comparable to much more affordable formulas and I'm more than happy to say that this is probably the best high-street foundation I've tried.

My second L'Oreal pick is there Infallible Matte Foundation, this is the one in the squeeze-tube packaging, again nice feel on the skin, good coverage, long-lasting. The shade range on this isn't quite as good at the True Match but the packing is very travel friendly. Best of all? This one's slightly more affordable at £7.99.

And finally for foundations, I thought I'd give the Maybelline Dream Satin Liquid Foundation, at £7.99 it's another one that's not going to break the bank and it's just a bit different. This foundation feels almost like a moisturiser on the skin and the coverage is build-able but it looks so much like skin. The thing I like most is the way it covers redness well but still lets my freckles peek through and it's a lovely comfortable formula with a decent shade range.

When I heard that New Look had released a make-up range I was all up for trying some bits but the stand was quite overwhelming and I only came out with a couple of bits but their Pure Colour Concealer is amazing. At just £3.99 it goes on like an eye-cream and the coverage is nice as well. The packaging does look a little bit cheap and the product doesn't actually say what it is once you take it out of the box which is a little bit annoying but the click-y pen style applicator is nice and the formula is clearly hat they're put the budget into.

I'd been looking for the perfect pale-skin contour for a while with no luck until I stumbled across the Maybelline Master Sculpt, this highlighting and contouring duo comes in at £6.99 and it's the perfect subtle contour for fair skins, not too grey, not too orange, not too dark. Love.

An oldie but a goodie is the ELF Studio Blush in "gotta glow" which is more of a highlight than a blush. It's great for the new "strobing" trend and it's the perfect way to lift the face if you wake up feeling a bit tired. I dust this under the eyes and on my chin, nose and forehead to bring some dimension to the face and it's lovely. At £4.50 it's not one of ELF's cheapest products but it's a solid pick.

And we'll finish things up with a few blush picks. When it comes to blush, MaxFactor are pretty much the brand to go to. Their Creme Puff Blushes are a lovely powder formula that bring a lot of glow to the cheeks, at £8.99 they're the priciest of my blush picks but the shade range is lovely , I think "Nude Mauve" is a particularly unique shade for the high-street. If you prefer a cream blush then their Miracle Touch Creamy Blushes are also really nice, slightly cheaper at £6.99 a piece, the packaging isn't the nicest but the formula is great and they're great for travel as they're so dinky.

If you want a standard one-shade blush the L'Oreal True Match Blushes are great. Lovely pigmentation and compact packaging all for £7.69. The shade "160 Peach" has been the only blush I've reached for since I picked it up a few weeks ago, it just brings so much life to the face. It also comes with a brush in the bottom of the compact but the brush is quite firm and the formula is quite pigmented so I'd recommend using a soft, fluffy blush brush instead.

The Baby Beauty Blender (and How it Compares to the Original)

A few of you may remember a post I put up a while ago about how I'd finally managed to get myself a Beauty Blender (about time too!). After the success of that particular purchase, and because I just can't help myself (the Beauty Ban is over, yay!) I decided to pick up the mini version to see how that one works, and here's my thoughts.

Okay, so my first though, honestly, was "light green? seriously" because from the very first use, my cute little makeup sponge has looked hideous. While the original Beauty Blender got the colour pretty good with the pink, I think the orange colour that Real Techniques picked for their Miracle Complexion Sponge is the best colour for a makeup sponge I've seen, just because it doesn't make you feel like you're dabbing yesterdays makeup all over your face. Also, the Beauty Blender Micro Mini is about 1/4 the size of the original and is marketed for concealing and highlighting.

So other than the aesthetics, my feelings are pretty mixed, while the small size does make the mini one really nice for concealing under the eyes because the shape fits nicely under the eye, I think for highlighting it's too small as it doesn't diffuse the product the way I'd normally apply my highlight. The small size also doesn't help the ease of application, as the Beauty Blender sponges are very soft, the small size feels a bit flimsy to hold and it makes the application a bit clumsy at times.

So all in all, not my favourite. I will continue to try it out to see if there's a way I really like to use it, but for now, it's just not something that I'm reaching for. If you've found a way that this is amazing for you I'm all ears.

High Street Hero's - The Make-up Edition

In a bid to write posts that were maybe a little more budget-friendly, I've lined up what I'm calling "High Street Hero's" for this week, which is going to be a series of 3 posts that are basically a "15 under 15" type post. I wanted to put a price limit on it because I've been noticing recently things I like in Boots that are high-street brands are creeping up in price ever so slightly, and now L'Oreal eye-creams are on par price-wise with brands like Kheil's and I didn't see the point in recommending products like these as "budget" offerings.

So to kick things off we'll start with the Soap and Glory Sexy Mother Pucker Gloss Sticks, particularly in the shades "Nudist" and "Plum Jam". These are the perfect no-fuss lip colours that you can generally apply without the need for a mirror. They're sheer and super glossy which makes them a good comfortable lip colour and while they don't hang around too long they are pretty much my make-up jogging-bottoms equivalent.

One that everyone and their nan will have mentioned on blogs and YouTube channels a like is the Rimmel Scandaleyes Eyeliner Pencils. If the colour selection for these was as good as the range of Urban Decay 24/7 Liners, I'd have given up on buying UD liners long ago because they are pretty much just as good. The Rimmel ones come in a decent array of colours and my picks from the range are the nude, the taupe and the bright blue.

A product that I've harped on and on about on this blog is the Maxfactor 2000 Calorie Curved Brush Mascara. It's just a brilliant mascara for length but it still gives a little bit of volume and (most importantly) makes my limp lashes hold a curl without the need to go waterproof.

A couple of Soap & Glory base products that you'll have also heard me mention on multiple occasions are their Solar Powder and their One Heck of a Blot Powder. The solar-powder is a blogger-rated bronzer and it's lovey. As a pale-complexion girl I often struggle to find bronzers that work for me but as this one has the 2 shades in 1 I've really been enjoying using it. The one-heck-of-a-blot is now my go-to setting powder, have recently repurchased for the 3rd time!

The L'Oreal True Match Foundation is an oldie but a goodie. I've been using this on-and-off for years now and I always come back to it. The shade selection is brilliant and it's one of the few high-street foundations that is a perfect skin tone match for me. Super pale girls might want to give this one a try.

Another foundation I've been really enjoying lately is the Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation. While their lightest shade is definitely more my summer colour I find that mixed with moisturiser it gives a nice coverage that isn't too obviously dark on my complexion. I've been loving it now the wether in England has finally started to brighten up as it's giving my skin that slightly sun-kissed glow that we all crave this time of year.

My Holy-Grail brow product is the Soap & Glory Archery Brow Pencil. While the shade selection leaves much to be desired I find that the shade "Hot Chocolate" works well for me. I love the thin-nibbed pencil and the spooly brush on the other end of the product is a very nice one. I do mix it up with brows quite frequently lately but I'm finding that I keep coming back to this one.

So for a while I didn'y bother with high-street eyeshadows as they generally only came in singles, so when you could buy a high-end palette where for £36 you got 12 shades and it worked out at £3 a shade, it made very little sense to me to be paying £5-£8 for drugstore single shadows. Then the L'Oreal La Palette Nude (Blush) hit the high-street and I found myself getting excited about high-street eyeshadows for the first time. Okay, so the pigmentation and blendability isn't as good as my much-loved Urban Decay shadows, but for what you pay, it's a beaut.

One that I've mentioned before but not for a while now is the Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvets, AKA my favourite high-street lip products ever. I have the shades "Hot Pepper" and "Frambourjois" but I'm also eyeing up "Olé Flamingo" at the moment. They're just a great long-lasting matte lip that's comfortable and easy to apply. That being said, avoid the shade "Grand Cru", have read many a duff review on that shade and it seems to really let the line down, hopefully they'll reformulate that shade eventually.

Another budget eyeshadow find for me was the Soap & Glory Lid Stuff palette. This palette does come in a few different shade ranges but I like the one with the more neutral shade selection just because those are the types of shades I reach for most often. Not as god a deal as the L'Oreal as you get 4 shades for around £10 but the shade selection and the quality of these for me is what sells it.

When it comes to blush, Maxfactor have got it down. I've got a couple of their cheek products and I think both are brilliant. For the powder-blush lover their Creme Puff Blushes are lovely, lots of bloggers compare them to the Hourglass Ambient Light Blushes but since I don't currently have one of those I couldn't validate that claim, my faouvirte shade from the range is "Nude Mauve". And for the cream blush wearer? Their Miracle Touch Creamy Blush, particularly in the shade "Soft Pink" is delightful. Blends nicely and gives just the right amount of colour, I like to apply this one with a Rela Techniques Expert Face Brush.

Another Maxfactor base product that I've been loving is their FaceFinity Primer. It's basically suerglue for your foundation and it also has SPF 20 so if you like your make-up to have some SPF to it, this is probably something you'd like. It glides on the skin like a moisturiser and dries down under foundation for a super long-lasting base.

And finally a fairly recent find of mine, the Soap & Glory Hocus Focus Highlight, this to me is very much like Benefit High Beam. It's a liquid highlight that can be applied before foundation, on top of foundation light a targeted highlight or, my personal favourite, mixed into your foundation for a subtle all-over glow.