Thursday, August 26, 2010

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Magical Valentine Nails

I'm not sure if this stays the right side of glittery or crosses over into Bonne-Bell-My-Little-Pony madness. I love it anyway.



O.P.I. Love Will Blossom from the Valentine Glitters 2009 Collection (released in Japan & the UK).

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Part One of Purchases Over The Holidays: Benefit Celebutante

Hi! Many things have changed in my life.

  1. We've moved to a lovely flat near Peckham Rye park with a view of the South Bank.
  2. I've started temping. And I'm getting like a fairly decent pay as well.
  3. I started getting into Star Trek.
All in all I'm doing much better than I thought I would be last year. I've obtained many, many lovely new things in my life since I last posted and would like to show you. These include a one of those MAC holiday things, a NYX makeup artist set, my first OPI nail polish ever, and an assortment of cheap things, but to start off with I'll post about the Benefit Celebutante palette.

I love it.

I was a bit iffy about buying it because it looks a bit boring and Benefit are kind of gimmicky, so I hassled James to get me it for Christmas but he encouraged me to buy it myself when we were in Boots, and so I did.

It's amazing.

The amazement isn't immediately obvious. At first glance it's another neutral palette.



I love the Dallas blush. It's a very subtle colour.



With flash


Without flash

It's like a natural rosy colour on me.

The eyeshadows are very soft and pigmented. I have become increasingly disillusioned with MAC eyeshadows and after trying these I might be inclined to try out some Benefit ones.



One of them is called Leggy and one Dandy Brandy.

I like the light (I assume a highlight) colour a whole lot. It's brilliant and, most importantly, blendable so it's not starkly white. The brown I can do with or without, it's pretty easily duplicated but I can't deny it's good quality.


LTR: Lady's Choice lipstick (Lana), No Competition lipstick (Betty), I'm with the band lipgloss.

There are two lipsticks associated with the imaginary Benefit archetype personality women, and a lipgloss. I really like the Lady's Choice lipstick which is like a mauvey nude on and not sheer so it shows up on my pigmented lips. The other one is okay too and they're both flattering on me, but it looks kind of ordinary to me? The lipgloss is pigmented and heavily shimmery and has a really sweet kind of artifical scent so is not really my top lipgloss if only because of the weird-ass smell. It's a really familiar smell but I can't quite pinpoint it. It bugs me when I wear it. I need to know what it is.

I like the little double-ended brush: fluff shadow/talent brush. I use both ends for eyeshadow though I guess one end is supposed to be for your lips or something and I find the bristles soft, kinda like a nice, furry cat.

Other things you get are: Benetint and High Beam. I use a faux Benetint by MeMeMe called Pussycat Lip & Cheek Tint (also rose-scented), and honestly I don't find the real Benetint any different.

I have Moon Beam, and I compared it with High Beam:



I have very dry skin. It is winter.

I've used High Beam as a highlight and when you blend it out it's alright, but I like the Moon Beam better. It's less brazenly white on me and has a cute pink sheen (Benefit website says: 'apricot'). I also fear mixing High Beam in with my foundation or moisturiser because it might be too pale and will make me look a bit unearthly, like in LOTR and Cate Blanchett starts to glow? I mean, you'd like to be glowy, but not luminescent.

The plus point is the High Beam in this kit comes with a little doe foot applicator instead.

A huge huge negative for the entire kit is that everything is tiny.

The lipsticks are like a gwp size or something. I can see that this would be a terrific neutral kit for travel and things: it comes in a cute box, instructions, its own brushes, etc. For the price it's a bit weird to purchase little gwp sizes of stuff. The High Beam, Benetint and lipgloss are 2.5ml, the lipsticks 1.2g, the eyeshadows 1.2g, and Dallas is 3.0g. I figured it's okay since I have a nice collection of makeups to choose from and it's a nice way to try out Benefit items. It's just a bit on the expensive side.

I paid RRP for it before Christmas but it's now selling for £20 or something in Boots. It made me a bit sad, but if I'd waited for it to go on sale I wouldn't have been able to use it over Christmas.