Guest post from the lovely Lucy Lights!

I'm delighted to write a guest post for Rach, as we've known each other a while now and she's a really lovely girl. I hope I do Queen Of Turquoise justice!

 Now for my favourite thing: Lipstick. 

I first started getting into lipstick about a year ago. Before that I had been fooling myself that eyeshadow was my passion and I wore some truly hideous, badly blended monstrosities. In short, I gave up on glittery powder and turned to rich, creamy sticks of colour that can instantly lift and brighten a face with minimal effort. 

It took me months to perfect my lip routine and now I just about have it down pat. I am not saying mine is the technically correct way, it's just what works for me! I work very long days in a hot and steamy café followed by service in a busy restaurant. This routine helps keep my lipstick on my lips and not running down my neck and into some poor mans lasagne.

For me, the key is all in the preparation.

1. Scrub those lips. I use Lush's Bubblegum Lip Scrub quite liberally. Make sure you get into the corners of your mouth and the inner bottom lip, all those little nooks that lipstick likes to travel into.

2. Line your lips and fill in. You can use whatever you like for this really. A wax, a coloured liner or a stick concealer. I choose Benefit's It Stick and line my lips gently, then shade into the inner lip slightly. If you crave bigger lips, then simply bring your outer line slightly beyond your natural lips. Half on your lip-line and half off is a good formula to remember.

3. Add a light smearing of your chosen balm. I use Original Carmex as the thick formula is perfect for making a drying lipstick workable.

4. Blot, blot, blot, ever so gently. You don't want to yank all your base work off, just get rid of the greasy film that mixing liner and balm creates.

Now you're free to apply your favourite lippie! Just to prove how much the base helps, I've used three lipsticks of various prices and quality.

 MAC - £12.50

Barry M - £5.99

ELF - £3.50

The MAC doesn't need much help to begin with. It's creamy without being stodgy, the perfect formula and my personal favourite. 

The ELF is hard as a rock and drags but it glides when used over a good base.

The Barry M? It's a total bugger. A problem child. It shows every line, every flake, every little flaw when used straight with no base. Afterwards, it looks as innocent and perfect as the MAC.

And to really put my routine to the test.... a MUA £1 lipstick. 

The finished example looks no different to the MAC. Smooth and creamy, holds strong for hours. This is a typical face for me, strong lips with contouring eye and face make-up.

On a good day, I only have to touch-up twice between running around like a headless chicken making low-fat soya lattes with extra foam and cinnamon sprinkles.

If you give this a go and decide on strong lips for the day, do let me know how you get on!

:) xo

Thanks so much for such a great post Lucy! I'll be putting some more work into my lip bases from now on! :)

Lucy's blog- Lights can be found here, go and have a look! 

xx

MUA lipstick disaster...

The MUA range- especially the lipsticks- have grown on me over the last month or so, the range of colours, versatility, their lovely smooth sheen finish... The only down points for me are the availability (rubbish where I am) and this..

A hideous sheer, greasy, glittery mess. This is shade 5, I suggest you avoid it unless you're a 7 year old girl! It could have been such a nice colour if they'd just left the glitter alone!

MUA don't give you an information on the colour, or finish, or how much freaking glitter they've put in! They give you a tiny view of the lipstick in question (like the picture below) and you order hoping for the best... I know that it's only £1, but I'd still rather not be buying things there's no chance I'm ever going to wear! 

Rant over ;)

Have you had any recent makeup disasters that have left you looking like a glitterball or worse?

Rachel xx

A teeny tiny MUA order!

Whilst Superdrug had (and still has, till tomorrow!) free delivery I decided I'd go for a couple of bits from the MUA range.. 

I got:

Lipstick- shade 2

Lipstick- shade 9

Nail polish- shade 9

Now for the polish I found the online swatches to be just about perfect, but the lipsticks, I was expecting something lighter from both of them! 

Seeeee....

Shade 2. Image credit: Superdrug

Shade 9. Image Credit: Superdrug

and this is how they swatch "in real life"

Much darker in my opinion. The top one is shade 2, and the bottom shade 9. I really like shade 9, on my lips it just makes them look a little more polished rather than adding any sort of bold colour, whereas shade 2 looks pretty dark. 

Overall though, once again really impressed with the quality of the lipsticks for £1! They glide on smoothly, stay well, and don't over-dry my lips! 

I'm yet to try the nail polish, but I'll do a NOTD when I do!

Have you tried the MUA range yet?

Rachel xx

MUA nail polishes...

... Go on beautifully, look wonderful.. and last a day before needing touch ups! I don't find this bothers me too much, because they go on so smoothly and dry pretty fast I'm quite happy to add an extra coat every couple of days and I find that you can't tell where the chips were or anything.

For some reason I chip nail varnish super fast anyway, I'm not careful with my hands, they get banged into doors, caught on clothes, and I use them to open things like pill boxes, shampoo bottles and everything else in between! I also use a wheelchair when I'm out and about and there's something about it that makes it want to rip my nails and chip my varnish frustratingly.

Having completley wandered off my original point ;) I'm looking for a nail hardener/strengthener/growerer..er. And at the moment I'm probably thinking Sally Hansen (Hello Ebay!) but I'm not too sure which one or anything.. suggestions would be fabulous if I can find anyone brave enough to leave me a comment about it... Or an email, anything! 

Hopefully have a "proper" post for you later, with pictures of my face (sorry!) and everything!

Rachel xx

MUA FOTD/EOTD

I didn't take these in the dark :P but to get the best picture of the colours I had to use the flash!

This is what I used....

The little pots of eye shadow are samples from fyrinnae in colours Montalivet- I LOVE this, and Choco cake mix. Plus I used Pixie Epoxy too, which gives a really intense foiled look to the shadows without water.

I also used a gel liner from the all natural face in Swiss Chocolate on my upper lid.


I used the MUA glitter eyeliner on my lower lash line with a bit of choco cake mix on top so it looked less like explosion in the glitter factory! I really like this with something layered on top :)


MUA eyeshadow shade 16 as my highlight- really like this, smooth and lovely.


MUA blusher in shade 1- not overly keen on this.. it has gold spangly sparkles in... I don't like that.


And MUA lippy in shade 6 plus lipgloss in shade 3 on top. Pretty rubbish staying power from the lipstick though!


Rachel xx

MUA NOTD- shade 12

Love, love, love this! It was an absolute dream to apply, so smooth, just the right viscosity (oooh, science!) My only slight annoyance is that the square shape of the lid- with brush attached- is not great to hold, it's quite short too, but nothing major!

I do really wish they'd named the MUA products, shade 12 just sounds rubbish!

For £1 I can't really fault this, unsure as to how this holds up yet, I've only just applied it, but wanted to get an update to those of you who've been wanting to know about the MUA polishes! Will update with how well it lasts chip-wise and tip wear when I know more!

Rach xx

Superdrug MUA range!

It got here today! Yay! Just a quick post and I'll do some photos of them and a bit more of an in depth review tomorrow maybe as I'm off to see Peter Kay in Manchester tonight! :D It's a 2 hour journey though so I'll be leaving soon!

I'm really pleased with the colours of the nail polishes, the glitter eyeliner- shade 2- is very glittery.. and has stayed put on my hand very well since I swatched it earlier... I'm a little worried it has the look of a small child having accessed the glitter but it may just need some careful layering under something else.


The lip gloss has a really nice smell to it, not overly sticky and a nice colour, looks almost clear on my lips, but just adds a teeny hint of colour- shade 3- Lipstick- shade 6- hasn't fared well on my hand so can't imagine it doing well on my lips! 


The eyeshadow I love having just stuck my finger in it, smooth, seems well pigmented, I just got a boring colour- a peachy skin toned one for highlight, shade 16.

I can't judge the blusher at all yet, I got shade 1.

Further pictures to come and FOTD too :)

Rachel xx

Superdrug MUA line review... Coming soon!

Unfortunately none of my local Superdrug stores are going to be stocking this, so I've gone ahead and made an order online on their crappy website instead. I've got: a blusher, a matte eyeshadow, a glitter eyeliner, a lipgloss, a lipstick and 3 polishes! I was also waiting to see what anyone thought of the polishes and they seem to be at least half decent so I'm going for it (I know they're only £1, but without knowing I didn't want to buy a few and for them to be useless!)

Hopefully they'll be here at the beginning of next week, but I've never ordered from their site before so I don't know how fast they usually are to deliver!

I hope you're not all too sick of posts about it by then! ;)

Rachel x