Friday 18 January 2013

Brushes: Real Techniques

I've always been a massive fan of Crownbrush's products, they have an awesome choice of brushes (and palettes!) with great quality and great prices, but, for Christmas I received the Real Techniques Core Collection set, and I have to say I am in LOVE with these brushes. Well, two of them, the Buffing brush and the Contour brush.



These brushes have incredibly soft bristles, with no shedding thus far and a lovely textured handle.



The buffing brush is now my 'Holy Grail' foundation brush. I have gone through so many foundation brushes and have never been perfectly happy with any of them, they either leave streaks, lose bristles, are too small, too hard, soak up too much product etc etc, ugh I just hated foundation brushes for a long time! But this is perfect, you can buff your foundation in in no time, no streaks or foundation-sucking powers, the bristles stay soft and non clumpy between washes and it's the perfect size to do your whole face in no time at all. LOVE IT.



I find the contour brush perfect to carve out my cheekbones, contour my nose and temples etc. The size is nice and small with an oval shape, so you can be precise with your contouring, and it's dense enough to lightly buff out any harsh lines as well. The bristles have all the great attributes I said above and yeah it's just awesome.




I haven't really used the other two brushes in the set much, not to say that they aren't great but I have other brushes I use more than these. The case they come in I'm sorry to say I really didn't like. The black part of the brush handles have a rubbery texture, because of this it's quite hard to just slip the brushes back in and so the whole 'using it as a brush stand' thing that it's supposed to be, sort of doesn't quite work for me but it was a good idea I suppose, plus I either keep my brushes in my makeup bag or my brush belt (which I got a brand new Inglot one for xmas, thanks bro!) so it was a slightly unneccesary part of kit for me.

Sooooo if you've been on the same horrible search as me for a foundation brush or small contouring brush I highly recommend these brushes, and best of all you can get them from Boots for £21.99, Boots points ahoy! Or if you're not near a Boots, you can buy them internationally here.

*Edited to say that these are completely synthetic brushes so totally cruelty free!!

xxx 

Monday 14 January 2013

Naked Basics

For Christmas I was lucky enough to get something I have been lusting after since it was released, Urban Decay's new Naked Basics Palette!


I've had the original Naked palette since last year and I absolutely love it, but since it has mostly shimmery shades I used it more for night looks and the occasional sparkly day look, but as soon as I heard they were making a matte version I knew I had to have it.



I have used this every single day since I got it, I don't need any other eyeshadow to create my daily look, it's absolutely perfect. The shadows are incredibly highly pigmented, you only need the tiniest amount so hopefully it will last a long time.



I use either Foxy or W.O.S as a wash of colour on the lid, then Venus (the only non-matte colour) as a highlight on the inner corner, then Naked 2 on the outer corner, and Faint and Crave to darken my crease and extend the outer corners of my eye.

I BLOODY LOVE THIS PALETTE, BUY IT OK. It's £20 and available at Debenhams or House Of Fraser in the UK or online at www.urbandecay.com internationally :)

xxx



Saturday 12 January 2013

Inspiration: Lora Arellano

This girl inspires me on a daily basis on Instagram, she is beautiful, creative and fearless! Love her!







Stalk her on whichever social networking thingy takes your fancy -


xxx


Friday 11 January 2013

2013

I'm back! I had a bit of a hiatus over christmas so I could focus on family and holiday goodness, hope you all had an amazing time and are feeling positive about the year to come! I'm in a bit of a post-holiday funk but hopefully getting back to blogging will help my creativity and drive come back with a vengeance. This year my focus is work, work, work!! So I've bought lots of new awesome products recently so watch out for product reviews and hopefully some more tutorials if I get the time, and I can't wait to get back to shooting and getting more experience and furthering my portfolio. See you soon!

xxx