No Money March: The Affordable Brand Overview - LOC Cosmetics

I've spoken a lot about Birchbox lately (although rest assured that I have no sponsorship or affiliations with them, they're just doing some cool things lately) and I've been waiting for this UK launch since I saw Tati's video about her collaboration with them (here). Birchbox recently started up there first in-house brand LOC (Love of Colour) and I managed to get my hands on the whole collection, so lets have a look.

So firstly, when I say "the whole collection" I should be clear that the whole collection currently consists of just 5 products. They have 2 eye shadow sticks and 3 lip crayons available at the moment and if the US line is anything to go by I feel like it won't be long until the range expands a little.

The first thing I picked up were the eye shadow sticks. I have both shades but of the two I personally find "Champagne Problems" to be the more wearable shade, it's a nice cool silvery-taupe shade with shimmer and it makes a great lid shade and also works nicely on the lid. The other shade available is "Perfect Cents" which is a warm golden shade with shimmer. Both shades are really pretty, I just find that really warm shades don't sit as nicely on my skin tone.

The formulas on these are amazing. They apply nice and creamily to the lids and you have a decent amount of time to work with them so they blend out really effortlessly. Once you've blended them in they set down on the skin and are pretty much budge-proof. I don't experience any creasing with these at all.

I also really like the matte lip crayons. These are currently available in 3 shades: "Skinny Dip" (a warm nude), "Trouble" (a vibrant slightly warm red) and "Uncorked" (a bright berry). I find the formula on these to be comparable to the Nars Velvet Matte Lip Pencils, they're not quite the same but they have that almost powdery feeling finish on the lips and the staying power on them is really good.

They're super affordable products at £8 each for the eye pencils and £6.50 each for the lip crayons. They're also available in value sets which makes them an even better deal, you can get all 3 lip crayons in a set for £14 or if you want the whole collection thats available for £25 so definitely high street pricing. Being an in-house brand these products are currently only available to purchase via Birchbox's website.

My one gripe with these is the amount of product you get. The shadow sticks contain 1.35g of product and the lip crayons are a mere 0.6g a piece. Now for the shadow sticks it's not too bad as I find the standard amount of product for an eyeshadow pencil to be around 1.6g a piece. The lipsticks however, not so much. I compared these to the Nars pencils before and Nars give you 2.4g of product for £19, so LOC give you a quarter of the amount of product for around a 3rd of the price. I do really like the LOC lip crayons but I can't honestly say I feel they give you value for money.

Beauty Brands You Can Pick Up In Manchester

I can imagine there are people in the world that plan a trip solely around the tempurate of the country, or the sights to be seen. I guess there can be a whole range of factors that might have an effect on where people choose to travel to when they're booking trips, but for, the local shopping has become one. So with my home town of Manchester being a seemingly popular tourist destination (for reason that I unfortunately can't understand let alone explain) I figured I'd let you know which beauty brands you can pick up in store here.

You won't find a Space NK store in every city in the UK but you will find a little one in Manchesters St. Ann's Square. Don't be fooled by it's size it is small but perfectly formed, and the staff there are so friendly and helpful. If you're not into online shopping this store has brands like Becca, Hourglass, Oskia, Oribe, Sarah Chapman, By Terry and Aromatherapy Associates on the shelves where you can see/feel/sniff them.

For department stores, we don't have a Fenwicks or a Liberties, but we do have 2 of the 4 UK branches of Selfridges, Debenhams, House of Fraser and a John Lewis (but you do need to go specifically to the Trafford Centre for John Lewis and our House of Fraser can be found near Deansgate in Manchester city centre). Between those stores you'll find Urban Decay, Nars, MAC, Diptique, The White Company and Tom Ford (and if you find yourself in the Trafford Centre branch of Selfridges you'll even find a little section dedicated to Muji).

There's a Boot's or a Superdrug (or one of each) in most areas that have some form of shopping centre in Manchester but I find the Superdrug in the Trafford Centre to be the best one for beauty selection here and the Boots on Market Street in the City Centre carries NYX and Origins which you wont find in most other branches. Market Street will also be the one place you'll find a H&M that stocks their entire range of beauty products.

You'll be able to find Lush and The Body Shop in most area's and we have a stand-alone Yankee Candle store in the Arndale Centre - but you can find a selection of Yankee's products in some branches of Clintons Cards.

If there's anything I've missed feel free to update in the comments - I think this is one of those posts that will need revisiting as new brand become available etc.