Charlotte Tilbury Goddess Skin Collection

In my "What I Got For Christmas" post, I mentioned the Charlotte Tilbury Gift Of Goddess Skin Travel Set. While I'm not the this is a permanent product in the CT range, I did notice that there's a full sized version of the set available on her website and all of the products are available to purchase individually so I figured I might as well let you know my thoughts on the products.

So for pricing, the travel set that I have is still showing as available for £39 on CharlotteTilbury.com and the full sized set is £150. Both sets include the Goddess Skin Clay Mask (£45), the Wonderglow Instant Soft-Focus Beauty Flash Primer (£38.50) and the Charlotte's Magic Cream (£70). The products in the travel set are all 15ml each. All three of the products have the classic sweet-rose-esque Charlotte Tilbury Skincare scent, although to varying degrees. The scent is most obvious in the Magic Cream and least obvious in the Goddess Clay Mask.

The Wonderglow is an interesting product, while I can see the appeal I'm not sure it's something I'm going to use a lot myself. It's supposed to give luminosity to the skin but I can see obvious fine glitter in the product. While it does seem to offer a perfected look to the skin without giving much in the way of coverage, it's not completely natural looking. It's not at all heavy on the skin and I think the formula would work on most skin types if this is the look your going for. This strikes me as the sort of base product you might reach for if you're wanting a minimal but perfected look for a beach-y holiday.

The Goddess Skin Clay Mask is nothing special. It's a very creamy texture for a clay mask and the scent is pleasant but it's not standing out for me against some other clay masks I've tried. Bearing in mind that the full size is £45 for 75ml. I love the Aroma Actives Deep Cleansing and Purifying Clay Mask and I've found that for as little as £9 for 100ml, similarly to the Charlotte Tilbury one it's a creamy clay mask and it has a little more moisture than most and while this is a little more difficult to find (I get it from Sainsbury's), it's significantly cheaper.

So this review isn't looking too positive so far, but the Charlotte's Magic Cream is the game changer. For me this is the pick of the set and it's something I really like and will repurchase once I use up the small size. For a face cream, while £70 is up there, it's not outrageous. It has SPF 15 so it's a day cream rather than an all purpose moisturiser but Charlotte Tilbury has recently released the Magic Night Cream which I'd be interest to try. It makes a great base for makeup whilst still having a really nice moisture content. Just a really great day cream.

30 Lips in 30 Days - Rimmel The Only One Lipstick

Day 9 of the 30 lips challenge and I'm super excited about this one. I'd heard a lot about the Rimmel The Only One Lipsticks and they intrigued me and I had to pick one up. The packaging is a nice thick black plastic that's sturdy and interesting and I love the fact that they have a band round the bottom that reflects the shade inside so if you have multiple shades it's easy to find the one you want. The lid on these is quite long and the base is quite short which can make the lipstick a tiny bit difficult to open but that's my only issue with it so far. For £6.99 they're not bad.

It applies nice and creamy and has a good amount of moisture to it so when you first apply it, it does have a good have a bit of sheen to it on the lips. As you wear it, it does start to dry down and the sheen wears off and it does become less comfortable and I would just top it up as it becomes more uncomfortable. The scent isn't my favourite - I find that Rimmel lipsticks are very hit and miss with the scents, this one is very sweet but almost perfume-y but it doesn't linger too long. I also really love this particular shade "700 Naughty Nude", it's a slightly deeper nude and it really seems to just lift the face.

The Perfect Palette Tag

Best Packaging - Urban Decay Vice 2

When I think "best packaging" I'm really thinking "prettiest packaging" and the Urban Decay Vice 2 Palette is definitely the palette in my collection that comes to mind for this category. It has the mixed purple plastic and the gem stone UD logo in the middle which is beautiful. However It's also quite practical. I'd never need 20 shadows when I'm traveling so it doesn't need to be thin in my opinion, but it has a lovely big mirror that you could do your whole face in and a button-press closure so it won't open randomly. I also love how spaced out the shadows in this palette are, it really helps to limit pigment-transfer. Unfortunately, it was also limited edition (sorry, my bad!).

Best Colour Payoff - Urban Decay

In general, the majority of my eyeshadow collection is Urban Decay just because their formula is lovely and their products are reasonably priced for a higher-end brand. Urban Decay offer lots of eyeshadow palettes with 10-20 shades for £30-£40 and their single shadows are around £14 which is cheaper than many other brands and their shadows are consistently pigmented and easy to blend.

Most Versatile - Urban Decay Smoked

I'll admit, I don't use this palette as much as I should, but it's a real gem. Two rows with five shadows a piece, a row of neutrals, a row of smokey colours. What more could you want? You can use the lighter neutral shades to create a day look, the black and the liner to create a cat-eye or smudge-y liner look, or add in some of the colours to really mix things up. Also, this palette contains the shade Mushroom, my favourite ever eyeshadow shade!

Best for Travel - The Balm, Balm Jovi

If there is a palette better suited to travel than the Balm Jovi Palette from The Balm, I need to hear about it, because I don't think it exists. This palette contains 12 shadows, a powder blush, a powder highlight and two creamy lip-and-cheek products and is insanely compact. The palette contains a mirror in which you could do your whole face and aside from foundation, concealer, mascara and brows, it has all the bases covered. The mix of eyeshadows is perfect, theres 4 matte fairly neutral shades, and 8 wearable colour options that range from shimmers to metallics to satins. This is the only palette I took with me for my month-long trip around Europe last year and it saw me through the whole trip for eyes and cheeks (although I did cheat a little and bring along 2 lipsticks).

Biggest Regret - MAC Quad - Brule, Gleam, Shale and Sketch

This was a really had question for me, because even things in my collection that I don't use often now have had their days of being my most reached for make-up product. The only one I can say I felt even mildly disappointed with was my build-it-yourself MAC quad, and that's mainly because I could see the sales assistant was getting annoyed at my indecisiveness and didn't give myself enough time to think it through. While the shades I picked are nice, Gleam is a neutral shimmery shade with straight-up glitter in that falls down as soon as you apply it, and Shale is so sheer and hard to work with that it looks like I use it all the time despite me having used it very little in the year that I've owned it. Sketch and Brule are nice shades and are pigmented and easy to work with, but I barely reach for the quad as I'm always having to bring in shades from other palettes to complete a look as the other two just don't work for me.

Best Colour Names - The Balm, Balm Jovi (again)

This is the only palette I have that has themed names that seem thought about to me, so I had to double up a palette and award Best Colour Names to the Balm Jovi Palette. Most of the shades in the palette are named after things that are music related, and as a Music BA Hons graduate I really love the theme for this palette.

Least Used - Urban Decay Book of Shadows NYC

Where do I even begin to explain why I don't use this palette anymore? Firstly, this was the first big eyeshadow palette I ever bought, so this is the old Urban Decay eyeshadow formula, which is no where near the formula they're putting out recently. The palette contains four shades that (Like Gleam from my MAC palette) have big chunks of glitter in that fall down your face either on application or throughout the day, leaving you looking like a glitter bomb exploded on your face by the end of the day. Additionally, the packaging on this palette is so huge that I can't store it with the bulk of my makeup, and so even the shades that are nice barely get touched as I don't think to reach into the depths of my drawers looking for it.

Most Used - Soap & Glory Lid Stuff

This is the palette that goes in my daily (work) make-up bag along with a single of Urban Decay's Mushroom eyeshadow single (my aforementioned favourite) and a few coloured eyeliners and serves as my daily eyeshadow pick. It's small and compact and has all the shades I reach for on a regular basis, three mattes and one shimmery shade, it's all I need to go from the office to the bar and can deliver no matter what eye look I'm feeling. Love.