Chanel Peridot Inspired Eye Look: Gold/Green/Blue/Purple!

After all the Chanel Peridot (along with its two dupes, OPI Just Spotted the Lizard and Sephora Diving in Malaysia) hype, I thought to myself, since I liked the Chanel Peridot colour so much, why should I limit myself to just wearing it on nails? I wanted to see if I could recreate the look or feel of Chanel Peridot on my eyes!



I was looking at my own bottle of Sephora Diving in Malaysia (one of the Peridot dupes - I'm cheap like that, but hey, my spending money comes out of my salary, aka money I actually have to earn), and I paid attention to the colours at the edge of the bottle, where you see the duochrome. To me, it looked as though the gold colour was ringed by concentric circles of green, blue, and purple, each blending into each other. Well, it's quite complex, but that was my oversimplified way of breaking it down.

So, in order to recreate this look, I used a bunch of colours. I used Urban Decay Maui Wowie for the gold part, mixed with the tiniest bit of Sleek Screwdriver, from the Sleek Curacao Palette, to make it a little bit more yellow for colour accuracy. For the blue and the green I used two shades from an el cheapo Love Alpha Palette I got sometime back (middle two shades on the bottom row, if you really want to know). For the purple shade, I used the purple shade in my BeautyUK Day and Night Eyeshadow Palette. I don't know how much of each of the individual colours you can see (other than the gold), because I was trying to blend them one into the other - sort of like the nail polish.



Anyway, I used the gold shade on the lid, and then added on the blue, green, and purple respectively nearer the contour area. And then I blended everything together. And that's it, really. I had to adjust some of the blending a little bit here and there to match my bottle of Diving in Malaysia a little more. It's not a perfect match, but it sort of looks like Peridot, right? Sort of?



While this isn't normally a look I'd wear (or a colour combination I'd even think of making up), I think I quite like it. I wouldn't wear it out or anything, but I did have fun doing this look!

Valentine's Day Candy Hearts Inspired Eye Look

Valentine's Day is coming, and that's great reason to get a little more creative with an eye look! This year, I felt inspired by Sweethearts - the absolutely adorable conversation candy hearts that are a mainstay of every Valentine's Day!

After last year's hot pink and purple Valentine's Day eye look, I decided that this year, I wanted to do pastels. But I didn't want to do sweet girly, on-a-date type pastel pink eye. So, instead, this was my inspiration:

Source

And this is the look. For this look, I was trying to fit as many Sweethearts colours onto my eyelid without running out of space, LOL! I was thinking of pastels with a pop. I hope I succeeded.

For this look, I used the pink and yellow shades from my BeautyUK Day and Night Palette, the light purple shade from my Superdrug MUA Eyeshadow Trio in Passion, and the green from the Superdrug MUA eXtreme Metallics Quad in Starstruck. All done with budget beauty products - another yay in my book.



I was trying to get the right type of shades so that it would be pastel but still vibrant - after all, nothing's quite as gross as overblended muddied up pastels. So I ended up with a sort of pastel rainbow, which I hope wasn't overblended or underblended. Well, when you have as little lid space as me, it's a challenge fitting more than three colours in an eye look!



The BeautyUK Day and Night Palette (which I've reviewed before) had good pigmentation and texture, and so did the Superdrug MUA Eyeshadow Trio (I've reviewed a Superdrug MUA Eyeshadow Trio before too, only in a different shade). The only one with a slightly odd texture was the Superdrug MUA eXtreme Metallics Quad, which was a little more powdery. You'd have to use it foiled to get the full metallic effect. I didn't for this look though, because I wanted it to look pastel.



Anyway that's my Valentine's Day inspired eye look! I don't recommend anyone actually wearing this out for a date (unless a pastel rainbow is your kind of thing), but this was just something I did for fun.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Spring Pink and Green Eye Look (and a tad of Aqua)

Spring isn't technically here yet, but I keep seeing all these gorgeous promo photos and ads for the upcoming Spring collections that I'm in a Springy mood - hence today's EOTD (Eye of the Day)!

I used three shades for this Spring-inspired look. The pink shade the pink from my BeautyUK Day and Night Eyeshadow Palette, the aqua shade (Blue Hawaiian) from Sleek Curacao Palette, and the deep green shade (Green Iguana) also from the Curacao Palette. The photo below shows which shades I used.



For this look, I was thinking of spring flowers and their leaves...pink and green. Very girly, springy, and romantic even! Like Valentine's Day came early! And I snuck in a little aqua in there because it's just such a fresh colour, you know? Also, aqua shades happen to be pretty on-trend for this spring season. I used the pink shade on my inner lid, the aqua in the middle, and the deep green on the contour and outer V area.



Blending and pigmentation of all the shades was good. I'm starting to think that Sleek and BeautyUK are two really value-for-money drugstore brands. I've never met a Sleek palette that sucked (then again, I don't have every single palette), and the BeautyUK palettes are pretty darn good, too.



I really like this look, it's really pretty and feminine, while still being really fresh looking. I'm totally thinking I could pair this eye look with China Glaze For Audrey on my nails, since both have a springy sort of aqua in them. I kind of like how the look adds a pop of colour, while still giving off an overall girly vibe. Perfect for Spring!

BeautyUK Shatter Polish: Swatches, Review, NOTD

The BeautyUK Shatter Polishes have landed! And once BeautyUK puts them out, they do not one, but three amazing colours! The Shatter Polish comes in three colours, Goth, which is a matte black, Glam Rock, which is a silver with a foil finish, and Punk, which is a matte hot pink. A matte hot pink - can you imagine that? I'm excited!



Anyway, I'm sure you don't want me to blabber on unnecessarily, so without further ado, here are swatches!

First of all, let's take a look at Goth. This is a pure black, simple as that. Here it is over another drugstore brand, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold. I rather like this combination!



One of the things I found when applying Goth was that it really shatters into tiny bits, thus displaying very prominently the colour underneath. So if you would like the under-colour to be more visible, this is a great one to choose. However, I found it a little clumpy even in the bottle, and hard to work with. It was a little difficult to get an even coat on the nail. Still, the effect it gave was gorgeous.



The next colour is Glam Rock, which is silver foil. I was so excited for this, as the large majority of matte polishes up to now have been mattes, so it was great to see them come in other finishes! Here it is over Boots No. 7 Totally Teal. I love how the deep teal base makes the silver just pop!



Like the Goth shatter polish, I found this a little tricky to work with. However, it wasn't as lumpy as Goth for some reason, and I applied it with reasonable ease. Another thing I noticed was that this didn't "split" as much as Goth did. When I wore Goth, you could see big patches of the base colour showing through where the polish had split. Here, the gaps were much smaller, and if you apply too thick a coat, the polish won't shatter very nicely. You can see this on my index finger, where the shattering effect was pathetic as the coat was too thick. A little goes a long way with this one.



Lastly, we have Punk! I was so excited for Punk - after all, how many hot pink shatter polishes are there out there? So I just had to try this. Here it is over Wet n Wild Quartz of Course. On hindsight, maybe I could have picked a more contrasting colour to pair Punk with, but hey, it still looks gorgeous right? And I'm not sure how clear it is from the photos, but Punk is HOT NEON PINK! Woohoo! Retina-searing, breath-bating, ice-melting hot pink! Such a beauty.



I personally felt that Punk was the easieset out of all the three polishes to apply - it wasn't lumpy in the bottle, and application was good. I had no issues with this. As you can see in the photos, it also shattered very nicely, and I didn't have big bald patches or tiny shatter lines. As with most shatter polishes, though, the thicker the coat, the larger the shatter pieces.



Since I'm a huge fan of shatter polishes, I'm absolutely in love with BeautyUK's latest offerings. Goth, as your standard black shatter, has been done before by other brands, but I especially love Punk and Glam Rock, both of which are of good quality and are unique in the colours. I don't see many coloured shatters by readily avaialble drugstore brands, so these are definitely worth checking out.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

BeautyUK Baked Eyeshadow in Wave: OMG I'm Wearing Blue Eyeshadow!

BeautyUK is a UK-based brand that has been getting lots of raves for its range of colours and cosmetics at an affordable price. I have to admit, the brand has never been on my radar very much, but I've begun to like their products quite a bit.

One of the products I've tried and liked lately is the Baked Eyeshadow. These are domed eyeshadows trios, similar to MAC's MSFs and other baked products, but in eyeshadow form. There are three colours in each eyeshadow pan.



The Wave eyeshadow trio basically consists of three types of blues - a light pastel blue, a medium cobalt blue, and a blackened blue. All of them, being baked eyeshadows have a shimmery, almost frosty finish.



Here are swatches of the eyeshadow. You can see the shimmery, frosty finish, as well as the excellent pigmentation. These are swatched using a finger, on dry skin.



And of course, no review of an eyeshadow trio would be complete without an EOTD (Eye of the Day), right? I used all three colours so you could see the gradiation in colours.



Here's a shot of the EOTD with my eye closed. Hopefully, you can make out all three colours on the eye. All the colours blended easily, and were very pigmented with a base.



I really quite like this trio. It does totally look awesome, doesn't it? With all the blue and the shimmer, and the sheen - it's gorgeous, even if blue isn't typically the colour I'd wear on my eyes.



If you want a cheap, cheery baked eyeshadow, this is definitely worth checking out. It's easily available, it's cheap at just £3.99, and it works.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

BeautyUK Lip Lust in St Tropez: Summer Hotness for Lips!

Now that Summer is officially here, all of us are looking for quick, cheap, easilly available Summer pick-me-ups - you know, that cheap and awesome bronzer, that great teal eyeliner, or - in the case of BeautyUK's newer range of lipglosses, the Lip Lusts, the perfect bronzey, shimmery lip. I have to admit, bronze generally isn't a colour I'd wear on my lips, but BeautyUK's Lip Lust in St Tropez looked so hot, I was sorely tempted to give it a go!



The Lip Lusts come packaged in a small, slim squeeze tube with a black cap. Pretty normal, as far as lip glosses go. The applicator, though, is a fuzzy slant tube, which isn't that common.



If I were brutally honest, I'd say I didn't really like these types of applicators - fuzzy tips, brush applicators, etc - because they do tend to get all gunked up with product and clogged up after some usage, and they aren't the most hygenic way of applying the product to your lips. Fortunately, if you're a lipgloss-germaphobe like me, there's a very neat way of getting around this issue.



Yup, you saw correctly! Simply twist off the fuzzy applicator cap, and use a lip brush! The applicator is simply screwed on by a cap, so you can just twist it off!

The St Tropez Lip Lust is packed full with shimmer, so for those girls who prefer shimmer-less glosses, you have been warned. There are small gold and silver glitter bits, which I think go very well with the bronzey, summery feel of the lipgloss - St Tropez is such an evocative colour name isn't it?



Still, although it's glitter-heavy, the glitter isn't too overpowering, because some of the glitter is hidden in the pigmentation of the gloss. BeautyUK advertises the Lip Lusts as being very pigmented, and they are right. What I love about the colour of the gloss is that althought it's bronze-ish, it's not totally unwearable - I'd call it red-bronze, so it doesn't look like you're applying metal foil to your lips. It still looks like the colour of actual lips, just with a bronzey, shimmery tinge.



Here is a shot of the gloss on my lips. Once applied, the Lip Lusts have this tingly, menthol-ish feeling on your lips, which could be a good or bad thing depending on your preferences. Personally, I'd rather not have the tingling sensation, but as long as it doesn't burn I'm indifferent. They're also not too sticky, which is a plus point.



So if you're looking for a cheap, summery gloss with oodles of shimmer, this is definitely worth checking out. With good pigmentation, good texture, and the very cheap price point of £2.99, you could get one of every colour.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Rihanna Who's That Chick Eye Look Dupe!

I was watching Rihanna's latest music video, Who's That Chick on Youtube lately (oh yes, I do watch pop music on Youtube!). And while I was singing along, "Who's that chick, who's that chick", I was also ogling her eye look in the video:


Image from Great Black North, credited to Hiphopconnection.com)

There I was, marveling at the stunning eye look, when a thought struck me: Hey, I have all those colours in my stash! So why shouldn't I try out that look?

Of course, I couldn't possibly wing my liner all the way out like that and wear it out, and my very different eye shape necessitated different eyeshadow placement, but I did try to stick to the colours and adapt them to my tiny, puny, contour-less Asian eyes. And this is what I arrived at:



Okay, fine. So my eyes don't look anything like Rihanna's. What can I say, I'm not gorgeous! For this look, I used the cheap but still awesome BeautyUK palette I got awhile back. Yes, it so happens that the main colours used in Rihanna's eye look were all found in this palette - how lucky is that? The photo below shows which of the colours I used:



For the lid area, I used the yellow shade. On the crease/contour area, I used the light brown to blend in. And the shimmery white shade was used as the browbone highlight. And I finished off with mascara (this time, I'm also using the BeautyUK mascara, which I really need to get around to reviewing soon), and eyeliner. I used MAC Ostentatious Fluidline, which has sadly been discontinued. *Kicks a rock and mutters* Darn MAC, making stuff I like limited edition...

Anyway, here's a shot of my closed eye, so you can see the colour placement and blending. Looking at these shots, I really envy Rihanna's gorgeous peepers!



The thing I really liked about this eye look is that while it's certainly the kind of look that adds a pop to any outfit, it's not terribly difficult to do, and can be done with just three simple colours - yellow, brown, and a white highlight. I love using browns in makeup looks. You can't muddy up a brown look with overblending, because it's already brown!



Obviously, I can't sing, dance, or pull off outrageous brightly coloured outfits like Rihanna. And my eye look doesn't even end up making me look any closer to her! (Darn.) But by adapting her Who's That Chick eye look to my eyes, I guess I can now channel my inner (if a bit non-existent) pop star!

(Product provided for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company for this product.)

Hot Pink and Purple Valentine's Day Eye Look on the Cheap

Valentine's Day is coming up, and I felt inspired by all the pinkness going on to do a pink eye too! But I didn't want to do a pastel pink out-on-a-date kind of eye look, because I didn't actually want to make Valentine's Day all about dates and guys and flowers and that kind of sterotypical stuff, you know? I wanted to give my Valentine's Day eye look a bit of an attitude, so I gave it a bit of an attitude by making it hot pink!



For this look, I used shadows from my recently acquired BeautyUK eyeshadow palette, No. 6 Night and Day, which I previously blogged about. I previously said that I wanted to use the bright shades for an eye look, and Valentine's Day is the perfect excuse! I used the two pink shades, the violet purple shade, as well as the shimmery white shade for a highlight. The shadows I used are marked with an X.



I used the shimmery white shade as a highlight, the light pink shade in the inner third of the eye, the hot pink shade in the middle third of the lid, and the deep purple shade in the outer third, and blended just a little into the crease. I was surprised how the shadow were actually very pigmented on the eye, and blended very well with not too much fallout. The photos speak for themselves.



Here's a shot of the eye closed, just so you can really see the colours. For some reason, the light pink shade doesn't seem to show up much in photos, but I swear the gradiation is there! My camera just couldn't capture it:



I doubt anyone would want to wear a hot pink shade on an actual Valentine's Day date, so this look isn't quite date-appropriate, unless you're the kind of girl who wears hot pink shadow regularly anyway. But this EOTD (eye of the day) can be made appropriate by replacing the hot pink shade with a pastel pink, and viola! Pastel pink and purple eye, all date-ready! But for all my girls who aren't going on dates (and why should Valentine's Day be only about dates, anyway?), this is a great chance to get away with a pop of pink.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

BeautyUK Day and Night Eye Shadow Palette Swatches and Review

BeautyUK is a drugstore brand hailing, as the name suggests, from the UK. It's one of the cheapest brands in the UK, and can be found at Superdrug. BeautyUK is a family-own brand, and unfortunately gets overshadowed in the drugstore by bigger, more corporate brands like Sleek and Barry M. As a result, its one of the more underrated drugstore brands I've come across, but there are gems to be found if you like brights and colour.

I figured it's about time I checked out this brand, so I turned my attention to one of their six eyeshadow palettes. The names are not written on the palettes, but a quick check with the BeautyUK website showed that this is palette No. 6, with the name Day and Night.



The palette comes in a slim plastic compact, and the compact has a black base with a clear lid. I like clear lids - you can see all the colours in your compact without having to open it. The only thing is, because it's small and plastic, it doesn't look exactly very sleek or expensive. It does look a little cheap, but hey, it is inexpensive (£3.99 from Superdrug), and it's the inside that counts, right?

Here's a closer shot of the colours. As you can see, this palette is very aptly named Day and Night, because half the colours are neutral, everyday colours - beiges, browns, and of course the basic black adn white, while the other half of the palette is brights - hot pinks, a purple, blue, and yellow.



So how does the palette stack up when swatched? I'm pleased to say it actually isn't too bad. I have to confess to having a case of judging the book by the cover, and I thought that the palette would be absolutely craptastic. Turns out, it's better than I thought.

As you can see from my swatches, these are actually decently pigmented. They don't look like it in the pan, but they are. With a couple of swipes, you can definitely build up the colours to opacity. I noticed that for some reason, the mattes were a bit more pigmented than the shimmers, and easier to build up in colour, too.



Top Row, L-R: Shimmery white, shimmery light neutral beige, lemon yellow with slight shimmer, matte teal-tinged blue, matte light pink

Bottom Row, L-R: Matte black, shimmery medium brown, shimmery burgundy brown, matte violet purple, matte hot pink

And this is going to be really uncharacteristic of me, but my favourite colours in the palette AREN'T actually, for once, the neutrals. *Long pause as shock sinks in* Nope, they're not. I actually really like the pink, purple, and blue colours on the extreme right. They're matte, but they aren't flat, and there's something about those colours that just glows and grabs your attention. I'm definitely going to have to do a look with those. I also really like the shimmery burgundy brown in the middle of the bottom row - it kind of reminds me of Milani Java Bean, which is a colour I've loved through the years, and have had to procure backups when it was discontinued. *Shakes fist at Milani for discontinuing the colour*

So, do you need this palette? Well, why not? Whether you're a neutrals girl who only wants to dip her toe into brights, or whether you're a brights girl who only wears neutrals at weddings and funerals, I think this palette would be handy. And the BeautyUK website does ship internationally, so if you ever want a cheery palette from the ol' land of absymal weather (I can say that - I've lived in London :P ), it's worth checking out.

(Product was sent to me for review. Review is my honest and complete opinion on the product. Not affiliated with/compensated for this review.)