Summer makeup/perfume haul

I didn't think I'd keep to my New Year's Resolution of a no-makeup-buy but I was very good this year and decided I would splurge this summer as I've used up a lot of my makeup.

First up I purchased the Sleek Suede Effect Powder in Shade 01 (the lightest) which was £7 for 10.5g. I finished the Bourjois powder I loved and was going to repurchase it when I saw Sleek's powder. I've tried one of their powders before but it was a luminising powder and since I have oily skin (which is plain old greasy in the summer) the luminising powder did not help at all. This Suede Effect powder, however, has a mattifying effect without being mask like. You can also build up the coverage you want (as seen by finger swatches below). It has SPF15 which really doesn't do much at all but I'm not fussed either way.

Comes with a little sponge

Heavily and lightly swatched

I'm definitely tempted to pick up a darker shade to use for contouring. There are four shades in total.

Next up I bought another GOSH blush for £6.99. I now own one cream blush, 5 powder blushes and one bronzer from the brand and I love them all. They have a nice subtle but buildable coverage and last quite well on my skin. I also love the fact that they don't have shimmer or glitter in them. Sleek blushes have fantastic pigmentation and come in an array of shades but when I need something easy to work with that doesn't require too much blending I always go straight for GOSH.

I hate Superdrug's sticky security tags :(

I bought my first ever Collection (formerly Collection 2000) single eyeshadow. I decided to try a safe highlight colour and it's decent enough for £2.19 but I can find better and cheaper eyeshadows from MUA so it's safe to say it's my first and last foray into Collection eyeshadows.

Talking of MUA here are the two single eyeshadows I bought at £1 each.

The matte purple is pretty good for a drugstore eyeshadow although of course it doesn't rival better mattes from higher end brands like Inglot. But I mean for a pound it's quite impressive. The shimmer brown/dual chrome eyeshadow looks grey in this picture but goes on brown with a hint of blue/green, similar to MAC's Club eyeshadow.

Obviously I've mismatched my swatched fingers but here you can see they have good pigmentation, especially the shimmer shade.

I picked up the MUA BB foundation for £4 in the shade Medium. It has good coverage for a BB cream but made me an oil slick within 5 minutes so it's completely redundant on me :( I will save to use on my dry skinned pals when I do their makeup but I wouldn't recommend for oily or combination skin types.

The August edition of Marie Claire magazine came with  a free Avon mascara. I chose a copy that had Supershock in it only because it's the only mascara I had heard of and I'm glad I did because this mascara is usually priced at £10 and the magazine was less than £4 so I made quite a saving.

Barry M currently have a 2 for £5 deal going so I grabbed 2 of their glitter nail polishes and LOVE them. Unlike a lot of glitter polishes that deliver a clear polish with very little suspended glitter in them these cover the whole nail in two coats. I am certainly going to go and purchase some more Barry M polishes because I now see what the buzz was about.

Finally I purchased Hugo Boss Boss Orange Woman Eau de Toilette. I had a look on the Debenhams website and it says it's £29 but when I bought it in store a few weeks ago it was £24. I also got £10 off with my Debenhams beauty card so I think this was well worth it for £14 :) It's subtle, soft and feminine which are the adjectives I go for with perfumes (I hate overpowering and heady scents) and has a hint of sweet oranges as the name implies. It doesn't last as long as I wish it did so I think I will invest in parfums rather than eau de toilettes in future.

The side of the bottle

I love getting free samples.

The end :)

Superdrug haul

Popped into Superdrug on the lookout for some cheap skincare products. Here's what I found.

I love Strawberries and Milkshake body butter (£2.05).

Mango and Papaya version (same price).

Average looking body cream.

Not sure if this is a new brand or not but it's the first time I've seen Arora. This scrub was £3.99 and is what I'm currently using until I take a trip down to Lush.

 St Ives Apricot Scrub £3.99.

I love coconut and cream shimmer and shine lip gloss £1.

This looks sickly on the lips unless sheered out. Looks good on top of a dark lip colour.

Vaseline healthy hands UV protection hand lotion £3.49.

Individual reviews to follow.

Haul via the MUA website

MUA is a comparatively new and extremely affordable makeup brand available from Superdrug and the MUA website. Whilst there are other cheap brands available in Superdrug (like Miss Sporty or NYC) I'd say MUA is by far the best of the high street brands for price as well as quality.

I really liked the Heaven and Earth palette (my review here) and so when I heard a dupe of the Urban Decay Naked palette was going to be released I had to get my hands on it. The Naked palette is my favourite neutral eyeshadow palette of all time so new dupes are always going to interest me. I've got a whole bunch of other neutral palettes too (from self-made Inglot and MAC palettes to the Naked2, thebalm Nude 'Tude and a few others) and since i wear neutral shadows daily I figured one more palette wouldn't go amiss.

Instead of waiting for the palette to be released in my local Superdrug I decided to order from the MUA website because they have often have offers available and I also wanted to try the Going for Gold palette which was a freebie at the time I ordered it. As always I picked up a few extra items to try too.

First up the MUA Undressed palette (even the name is practically the same as Urban Decay's original). Only £4.

w/ flash

Even right down to the order of colours it's a complete dupe for the Naked palette. Can't wait to try this out.

The Going for Gold palette is also £4. I think it's limited edition, inspired by the Olympics.

w/ flash

Some of the shades are bordering a little more on orange than gold as you can see here, which isn't my thing but it's always good to have variety in your collection just in case. From initial swatches I did the silvers don't have as strong pigmentation as the golds but overall it's still a great palette. I'm glad I own it but also glad it was a freebie because I can't see myself repurchasing this as the it's not a palette I will use as often as others.

Next: Glamour Days palette (£4).

w/ flash

Not had a chance to use this one yet but it looks okay.

Overall I'm happy with MUA palettes. They are very affordable (dirt cheap seems like a put-down but they seriously are cheap, £4 for 12 colours that have decent colour pay off is a bargain). And since the website often has freebie palettes getting sent out with purchases there's always the chance to grab a palette for free.

I also picked up some glitter liners which are £1 for 1.6ml. There isn't much product in the tubes at all and I've found the formula isn't the best (the glitter tends to separate from the clear gel which you can see happening already with the silver liner). But for £1 I can't really complain. I think for newbies starting out with makeup, young'uns and those on a budget these are okay but for better quality I prefer the Collection (formerly Collection 2000) glitter eyeliners.

Finally I ordered some Lip Booms which are a new product designed by Alexandra Burke apparently. They have lip stick on one side and lip gloss on the other and are priced at £3.

I am not a fan of the packaging at all as I hate excess paper, cardboard and plastic (which is why I rant at Sigma all the time, I can't forget their enormous cardboard palettes). These Lip Booms seem to do a better job of promoting Alexandra Burke than the lipsticks themselves. They are reasonably priced at £3. I got three: Bring It, Vibe and Doin Good.

 

So far I like the lipsticks but they are quite similar to MUA's £1 range of lipsticks so I'm wondering if I should have just bought those instead. I hate the lip gloss side of these so badly - it's literally chunks of glitter suspended in an average formula. The glitter in Bring It especially is super gritty and unpleasant. The glitter in all the glosses also migrates so you end up with a glittery chin. Urgh, it's just glitter overkill. I'm sure my 8 year old niece would quite like the sparkly effect but for me it's a total miss. As a result I will enjoy using the lipsticks but will not repurchase for the fact that the lip gloss side is a complete fail. 

Overall I am very happy with my order. Not all products were hits but I will still use everything and the price point means I feel I got a lot for my money. The freebie is greatly appreciated and the shipping time was pretty good (took around 4 days). I will definitely be ordering from the MUA site again in future.