REVIEW: Lime Crime Velveteen in Cashmere - Swatches included

I'll be honest, I feel like a bit of a swine when I purchase a Lime Crime item. There is so. much. hate. when it comes to Doe Deer, and the practises of her business, and as someone who proclaims themselves to be a lackadaisical socialist, and someone who applauds morals and fair behaviour, it makes a little bit of a mockery of my preaching when I buy into a product from a company who have been accused of being venomous and unfair to customers and competitors. 

But truthfully, I just love their products so much, and my obsession with make up has rendered me disingenuous it seems. I hate it....but i've never been good at saying no to lust. Bane of my life. 

Make of that what you will. 

Anyway, I ordered this the day it arrived on the website directly from Lime Crime , as stockists for Lime Crime seem to be dropping like flies over in the uk for some reason. It took about 12 days to arrive, which is fine, as it's crossing a vast amount of distance to get here. It cost $10.95 in postage which isn't too bad either, seeing as Sephora USA are charging what feels like $100000000000000 to post to the UK. It's not that much btw, and I can't be bothered to check what I paid, but it was around $25.00 or so, and it pissed me off. 

Lime Crime Cashmere 

Lime Crime Cashmere swatched

So, as we've all been made VERY aware of, the 90's are BACKBACKBACK. For some reason all the stuff that us average teenagers wore is now a much desired thing, which is fine, because it makes life easy for me because I just have to remember what I wore then and wear it again, and do my make up the same. 

Me, in 94. How I miss having acceptable thighs!

This shade, Cashmere, otherwise known as 'Greige' so half grey, half beige, is the quintessential 90's lip shade and there honestly is NOTHING, well...not nothing, but very few that match up to this shade when it comes to pulling off a total look. It's the same formula, it stays put unless you're eating a macdonalds, which, admittedly I can do at 5.00am after a night out, but lets face it, at that point all I care about is that i've not been sick down my front and can see vaguely. The colour is opaque in one swipe, and dries with enough time to correct mistakes. I LOVE IT. 

LOVE. 

Me. Looking like a total arsehole. 

Listen. I know I look like a prick in that picture up there. However I am lazy and this was accidentally taken when drunkenly wiping my face of a red drink on my way to see Is Tropical play my mates club in hackney. This night was a testament to the lasting power of the pairing of Cashmere and Urban Decay lipliner in Liar. By the time I got to the gig i'd drunk about five beverages. Whilst there I drank another five, including the dregs of the rider because my card was declined after an hour, urgh, I danced to this...

Is Tropical - Dancing Anymore

I drank so many drinks I ended up in Lewisham in someones house, and fell asleep on my face. When I woke up, the lipstick was virtually still all there. I dribble in my sleep so...

THAT IS HOW WELL IS LASTS. 

Mind you, if i'd done kissing on someone (which I didn't), I imagine it would do the same that other velveteens have done and flaked off, but they're not built for krypton factor-esque make out sessions. They're made to last through general life. 

If you want to snap up Cashmere, it's not available yet through any UK distributors, and it's out of stock on the US website, but they do restock, so keep checking HERE at Lime Crime. 

Thanks for reading. Bye! 

PS I am aware that my blog reads like i'm a raging lush. I'm not, just on super party time nights I promise. 

REVIEW: NYX Macaron Lippie - Earl Grey and Coconut - Swatches inc

I love a fancy lippie colour. I get supremely irritated when people review unusual colours of lipstick and say 'it's a bit out there'. Perhaps it's not the norm, but like hair colour, I feel that we are young (ish, sadly i'm rapidly approaching 36) once and we have all these stunning colours in the world, and we, as humans, are allowed to PAINT ON OUR FACE! Think about that for a fact! We can buy all these things and paint  whatever we want on our face to make us look however we can, within the parameters of our aesthetics. I mean, I can't paint my face to be Angelina Jolie but I can give it a good go...

Anyway, back to the make up i've spent my hard acquired cashmoney on.

I happened upon these lipsticks in the Oxford Circus brand of Topshop. I was excited because I love NYX, but they didn't have the Macaron lipsticks on the uk branch of their website which felt rather unfair, so I snapped them up, at the very reasonable price of £7.00, which if you consider the fact that Rose's Beauty Store are selling them at the RIDICULOUS mark up of £16.99, which frankly is a massive piss take, given that NYX sell lipsticks from $3 in the USA, it stinks a little bit of pure greed.

However, as I said, I got to try these for the price of £7 each, so it didn't feel too much of a waste if they turned out to be a washout, so to speak.

So what do NYX have to say.....


THIS.


Fantasize in color with our neon and pastel lippies in 12 of the creamiest shades you’ll ever use.

NYX Cosmetic’s cruelty-free formula is packed with pigment and has a satin matte finish for long-wearing resilience.

Creamy and highly pigmented pastel and neon colored lipsticks. Creates various, pastel and neon lip looks.

These pastel and neon lipsticks come in 12 creamy shades, smell delicious, and add an eccentric pop of color to any look.

NYX Macaron Lippie in Coconut

NYX Macaron Lippie in Earl Grey

NYX Macaron Earl Grey and Coconut swatched. 

First up, Earl Grey. The feature I feel I need to point out quite urgently is the fact that it is, in fact, blue, not grey. Above in the NYX visual, it's very much grey,  but this is a light sky blue, a strong pastel, if you will. It's extremely creamy and applies without dragging, and feels emolient and light. However, this is where the joy of application ends. It's an odd colour to try and match with a lipliner, so I tried with a white Sleek Eau La La liner, as the colour applied straight on my lips showed my lip colour through quite quickly. When used with a lip liner, sadly it was still having to be swiped on about three times in a row to get coverage, and once I blotted, it crumbled off in the centre. 

So in summary, colour, fabulous,  performance, not a goer unless you don't mind a kind of deconstructed worn through look, which if you're beautiful i'm sure you could easily rock. 

As for Coconut. Well, i'm sorry, it's the same story but worse. It takes a lot of product to get the coverage opaque, and then once it is, it comes off very quickly. HOWEVER, it's an awesome product to use if you want to do a lip ombre, then its performance is only to lighten your existing lipstick, which looks great! 

So all in all, it's a thumbs down for this except as an accessory to other lipsticks. 

If you want to get your hands on these though, you can go online and get them direct from Topshop for £7 HERE

REVIEW: MAC PENCILLED IN LIP PENCILS - Talking points, Nightingale and Cyberworld inc swatches

MAC PENCILLED IN - MARCH 2015

I'm a massive fan of lip pencils. I haven't the most steady of hands when it comes to applying lipstick, and for some reason, if I don't line my lips well, my lipstick not only migrates around my face (I cannot tell you how many times i've found it on my nose, MY DAMN NOSE FGS!) but it just looks unflattering. I also love creating colour combinations with lipstick that verge on cartoonish, perhaps Liechtenstein-eaque, so dark blue to white, black to pink, dark red to neon orange. I also need my lipstick to last ALL NIGHT LONG, so lip liner is imperative to prevent that 3am mirror based freakout when I realise that I have looked hideous for the previous two hours. 

So, finances dictated, but when I saw the stunning visual above I had to snap up three of these mostly new shades from Mac, which have been created to be exact colour match partners for identical, or near identically named lipstick counterparts that have become iconic, such as Candy Yum Yum and Ruby Woo. A great idea, although I would really prefer ALL mac lip pencils to be the pro longwear formula. I mean, when there's a choice obviously you want your product to LAST, so....once the formula existed, why bother with anything else! 

Hmmm. Anyway. Pictures. 

Top to bottom Cyberworld, Nightingale, Talking Points

Cyber World

Nightingale

Talking Points

Left to Right - Talking Points, Nightingale, Cyber World

Left to Right - Talking Points, Cyber World, Nightingale

As far as a review goes, there's not a whole lot to say, they wear the same as all Mac lip pencils, the colour payoff is good, but not as buttery as the pro longwear as they are a lot drier in texture. The Cyber World is the best of the bunch when it comes to a generally unobtainable depth of colour (other than Nightmoth) on the high street, so if you're strapped for cash I would definitely pick this up. The other two are easily dupable.

If you want to pick these up they're online at Mac or at any Mac counter or standalone store NOW for £12.50. Lovely stuff. 

Now me and my migraine are off to sleep. 

REVIEW: Jeffree Star Cosmetics Velour Liquid Lips - I'm Royalty - Prom Night - Redrum - Swatches inc

JEFFREE STAR COSMETICS

I'll be honest here. I had never heard of Jeffree Star, who is apparently a make up artist, fashion designer, DJ, and singer - songwriter living in Beverly Hills, California, until I saw his new line of matte liquid lipsticks pop up on Love MakeUp. I am obsessive about liquid lipsticks in the extreme, I remember one of my first lipstick purchases was Max Factor Lipfinity in a incredibly 90's browny nude (although I don't recall it being called that in 93) which I would use without applying the gloss, thus it being a total flat matte. When Lime Crime started chucking out the velveteen lips a few years back, I was literally begging them to take my effing money, and subsequently I have purchased every release of this formula format, of any note, in the years since. 

Lime Crime's first foray into the matte lip

I am actually surprised i'd not heard of Jeffree Star, given the circles I operate in, I am often surrounded by many pretenders to the Club Kid throne. For anyone totally unaware of the phenomenon, they were a group of clubbers in the late 80's and early 90's that would take an awful lot of drugs, and dress in an exceedingly theatrical Leigh Bowery-esque manner and go to clubs and draw a lot of attention. This was documented in the admittedly quite dreadful film starring Macaulay Culkin, Party Monster, which although is basically about a load of rather awful human beings, one of them eventually turning out to be a murderer, a lot of young clubbers have tried to emulate the scene, and a lot of them that I know get paid just to turn up to VIP clubs to drink free drinks all night, to make places that, due to my job, shall remain nameless, look edgy and cool as opposed filled with rich businessmen, members of Made In Chelsea and girls in bodycon dresses and heels. I know this because although I don't subscribe to this lifestyle, I do like having free drinks with my friends and free entry when i'm bored of an evening. They never want photographs of me as compared to them i'm seen as a big fatso, so, all is well ultimately!

I've gone off the subject. I apologise. Also, I would like to point out that I ONLY like the free drinks, it's just some of my long term friends live in this silly world despite them being very different when I got to know them.  Fashion is an odd world and one i'm glad I don't work in.

Chloe Seveigny and Culkin in Party Monster

Anyway, onto the ACTUAL PRODUCTS. Essentially these are three liquid matte lipsticks, all with a blue leaning base so they are flattering to your teeth, which is something I need, as my teeth are horrid and yellow due to a childhood dose of antibiotics that were later removed from the market due to turning teeth very yellow, a 13 year smoking habit, and a subsequent obsession with tea and pepsi. I imagine you're getting the picture that i'm not the poster girl for healthy living. For that I apologise. 

Pretty pink packaging

They are housed in pleasingly lurid hot pink boxes, which do feel appropriately Beverly Hills in creation. 

Prom Night, Redrum, I'm Royalty

Redrum, Prom Night, I'm Royalty

The colours are housed in chunky, solid containers, which err on the side of cute as opposed to tacky. They are about the size of a normal lipstick, which makes them very convenient to pop in your pocket for a night out for top ups. The colours are bright, brash and bold, and are said to be universally flattering, but I would question this, as two of the three colours aren't particularly flattering on my very pale, pink leaning skintone. My favourite is the lilac colour I'm Royalty, which is absolutely beautiful. 

Red Rum, Prom Night, I'm Royalty - Just swatched

Redrum, Prom Night, I'm Royalty dried down (approx 10 mins)

So what does Jeffree have to say about his lipsticks....

Our liquid lipstick goes on opaque, dries completely matte and stays on for hours! This product is 100% vegan & cruelty-free! (tips before use: exfoliate then apply to bare lips! avoid food with oil... and no making out, kisses are ok!) 

And what do I say....

Being an aficionado of all the liquid lipsticks in the land, I would say that I am in a reasonably good position to give an opinion. It's refreshingly honest of Jeffree Star to point out that in fact, these, like so many, if not ALL long wear lipsticks, are not 'make out' proof.  This lipstick will last for about four hours, but you will see signs of wear on the inside of your lips, and more so if you drink any lovely drinks, which when wearing these lips, you probably will be as they are made for parties. 

The texture is intriguing, and like nothing i've experienced before with a liquid lipstick. The nearest I could liken it to would be the Lime Crime Velveteens, but it's got a much more stable substantial feel to the formula, thus making it easier to apply than the velveteens I would say. I would say it feels almost....oily at first, and its dry down time is rather long, but once it's set the finish is beautiful, so worth the wait. 

Of course at the end of the night, it's a bugger to get off, but what do we expect! It's made to last, we can't have everything. It doesn't stain, just clings. That's good enough for me! 

If you would like to try these, they are currently on sale in a bargain bundle via Love Make Up for £35 HERE or individually for £13 HERE.

REVIEW: Sarah Chapman Ultimate Cleanse

Sarah Chapman Ultimate Cleanse

I could never, ever, for one second, claim that I am not a victim of hype. You could tell me anything is the new ultimate product, whilst showing me a picture of a pretty girl with perfect everything, and I shall buy into it. I don't even need convincing. If anything, i'll be chucking my scant funds at you whilst apologising for taking up your precious time. I am a dream consumer. Happy to spend themselves into epic debt to attain the unattainable dream, whilst constantly berating myself for my weight and looks, but choosing to buy new products as opposed to get up off my lazy lazy behind, or say no to that third piece of cake. 

But enough about me. Lets talk about Sarah and her cleanse.

I'll admit I only heard about Sarah Chapman during a particularly hellish festival weekend that I was dj'ing, and the only shining light that came out of it was that the person I went with was using Sarah Chapman skin products, and i'd forgotten my cleanser, so I was allowed to borrow a pump of this, and I was immediately obsessed. I have used a million different lovely cleansers, high end, low end etc etc, and so it takes a lot for me to feel the need to spend a lot after discovering Soap and Glory Peaches and Clean for under a tenner, that takes my eye and facial make up off in seconds, plus exfoliates. 

So after much deliberation, and searching on e bay, I parted with £30 for the old style packaging. 

Sarah Chapman Ultimate Cleanse old style packaging

So what does Sarah say about this....

This intelligent aromatic infusion melts into pores, transforming into a milk for swift removal leaving clean, fresh, glowing skin. A delicious soufflé balm that works deep into the pores to combat daily grime, lift out impurities and remove make-up, even waterproof mascara. Soothing omega-rich baobab and borage oils are blended with a powerful dose of antioxidant vitamins A and E, precious white lily and Dermaxyl™ peptide to boost collagen production. This potent combination of anti-ageing actives gently exfoliates to help prevent pore clogging and deeply cleanses, softens, and brightens.

What do I say....

Well, hmm, my immediate reaction is to say that I love it, but it's not all perfection. On one hand, it leaves you with a glowing, soft, clean and healthy feeling face, all comfy and fragrant. It feels luxurious as you massage it on, and you feel like you're getting a nice deep cleanse. What I don't feel quite so enthused about is the fact that it doesn't remove my eye make up, so I have had to resort to cleansing my eyes three times in a row with this to get the mascara off. I don't even use waterproof, just regular L'oreal Manga Punky Eyes, yet still, it doesn't remove it at all, not with the special fancy mit, or extra special massaging. When I get in from a long night, and i'm drunk, and beyond knackered, all I want is to have a clean sparkly face and to go straight to sleep. This would make that process rather annoying. However, the actual skin benefits, which lets face it, are what we cleanse for, are fabulous, and I wake with a non greasy, brighter complexion.

So in conclusion, I do recommend this, but for times when you have, well, time. Despite all my endless product buying I cannot be bothered for the process involved with the whole rigmarole of the entire range, it seems a little bit much from what I have witnessed, endless rubbing and massaging and above all, A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF CASH. 

If you do want to get involved with Sarah, and her beautiful, if pricey products, you can buy from Space NK or direct from her website HERE for £40.

REVIEW: LUSH Emotional Brilliance Lipstick in Decisive - Swatch included

LUSH Emotional Brilliance Lips in Decisive

I love lipstick. I love it. It took me many years to come to terms with it. I wore it in the very early nineties, Rimmel's Black Cherry was my go to, or...actually, it was my ONLY, which I paired with green colour correcting powder instead of foundation, and mascara, and somehow I looked okay. This is an actual photograph, taken in my nan and gramp's flat. I remember I had spent all day watching the video to Lush - Hypocrite (see below) and decided I wanted to be Mikki Berenyi, so I went to the Superdrug next door, purchased the aforementioned lipstick and powder, and went to work on my face. Two hours later my gramps came home and yelled loudly that I looked like a tiny hooker.

Great days. 

Lush - Hypocrite video

Anyway, back to the lippie. My obsession with lipstick started again in the mid 2000's and I haven't looked back since. My biggest lust is deep pinks and pinky reds, and having never been an aficionado on Lush the brand, as all I knew was every time I walked by one, I was met with headache inducing smells and confusing levels of messy looking bath bombs, which, again, if you were a teenager in the nineties, you probably got sick of too, because its all your stupid friends got you as presents, when all I wanted was music and films. Bloody women (of which, I know, I am one).

So yeah, Waterloo rail station has a new Lush, so I went in, and felt like I had to own something from there to celebrate the fact that I knew eff all about them, and I had ten minutes till my next train. I swatched Decisive and I was SOLD, as it was opaque, matte and beautiful in every way. 

Lush - Decisive, having a little sleep

Decisive, swatched, on my arm

So, here's the first fact about this stuff. You will get opaque coverage in one swipe, no messing. The formula is super duper extra matte. You don't need any dry down time to see what this formula will look like, you will see the results straight away and if you love a pop of strong colour, you will LOVE THIS. Add to this that you get lip conditioning ingredients of jojoba oil, rose wax and candellila wax in this formula, you really cannot go wrong. 

My ugly mug with Decisive on.

So, I have paired this with lipliner, namely Sleek - Dragonfruit which is my longwear, waterproof go to every time I wear a pink lip. and this photo was taken at 1.00am. I had applied the lipstick at 8.00pm, and had wine and three vodkas by this point, and look, NOT ONE BIT OF WEAR. Now, this is pretty amazing, but I will warn you that I by 6.00am, things were looking a little less appealing, but I was very....very drunk, so I cannot vouch for why I looked like such a mess. 

In conclusion, this is a fantastic lipstick, which wears forever, is pretty indestructible and if i'm honest, I cannot find any fault with it at all. BOOM!

If you want to get involved, you can purchase this directly from Lush online - HERE - for £14.50.

AMAZE.

MY BAD

Dear readers, of which, amazingly, despite my massive absence, there seem to still be many, which leaves me flattered and grateful.

I've had a bad couple of months, which have involved burying best friends, poorly relatives and being unwell myself, as well as work, i've been a hot mess, literally, minus the hot.

I have however got reviews pulsating in my brain waiting to burst out like a fountain of judgemental diamonds. Probably.

AWAIT ME MY GEMS! I SHALL BE BACK!

PERSONAL HOLY GRAIL PRODUCTS: Christian Dior DiorShow Maximizer Lash Plumping Serum

DIORSHOW MAXIMIZER LASH PLUMPING SERUM

Due to being such a crazy obsessive product addict, there are few things that I use up, and even less that I repurchase, so if I actually do get to the point that I use something up before its sell by date, or before, it's a big day in this household, and i'll sit down and eat a chocolate mousse to celebrate. 

Anyway....

This product, the Diorshow lash plumping serum, is something that I have bought nearly a dozen times since it appeared on the market. As a teenager I was always desperate for lovely lashes like my friends seemed to be naturally blessed with, and improvised with clear mascara and powdering lashes, which, although slightly helpful, didn't really cut it, and once the grunge era was over, my cloggy lashes just looked a bit shit. Sad times. Anyway, I first started using lash primer when I got a free sample of a Lancome Cils Booster and fell in love with the results, which were, predictably, boosted lashes. However, this girl wanted to go bigger and better. Size DOES matter, WHO KNEW! So I decided, when purchasing my then favourite Diorshow Blackout mascara, which really is quite something when it comes to defining lashes as blacker than night, I decided to be 'upsold' the primer too, and my GAWD I was glad I did.

From the first moment I was in lust with this white shiny guy. I layer two coats of this thick white gloop on, which not only is filled with small fibers to plump my spindly pathetic lashes up, but also conditions, and apparently contains an ingredient called LashMaximiser (tm), heh, which is frankly a ridiculously bland name to make up frankly, and trust old hyaluronic acid, to moisturise and prevent breakage and brittle falling lashes.

My lashes have definitely got better over the years of using this, although they're not longer, but they are stronger, and the effects of two coats of this, left to dry, before applying whatever my current mascara favourite of the month is, results in pretty spectacular lashes in comparison to my normal pathetic smattering of stubby eye hairs. 

So, I heartily recommend if you're without natural lashes, and cannot be arsed to apply serums morning and night that might turn your eyeballs yellow, go and purchase this rather pricey, but super worth it primer.

It's fantastique! 

You can pick this up from Boots, Debenhams, House of Fraser and John Lewis for approximately £24.50

REVIEW: Hourglass Veil Mineral Primer

Hourglass Veil Mineral Primer

As a girl with long wear foundation needs, very oily skin, and uneven skintone, who doesn't enjoy the idea of wearing super matte foundations, I was an early adopter of the use of primers. I see many people going on about how unnecessary they are, and I cannot speak for other people, but without a primer, my make up swims around my face within a couple of hours, powder or no powder. Therefore i've tried and tested A LOT of primers over the past 15 or so years. When this product was brought to market a few years ago, with it's ridiculously high price tag, I was obsessed with owning it, and one day, whilst feeling fruity and wanting to reassure that ladies in Liberty that despite my scruffy appearance, I did actually deserve to be in there and I COULD afford stuff (read: I couldn't afford stuff, but like to look like I can, DAMN THEIR PRETTY GLOWING FACES) so I bought this, and my god I am glad I ruddy did.

They say this.....

A mineral-based, water-resistant primer with SPF 15 that creates an impossibly smooth canvas and seamless look.

Veil eliminates redness, minimizes pore size, softens fine lines and creates a uniform canvas for a flawless makeup application. This clean, satin-finish formula helps keep makeup looking fresh and prevents fading, while SPF 15 shields the skin from the sun.

I say this.... 

They tell no lies, every single word of that blurb is absolutely true. The texture of this white potion is extremely light, and it soaks into your skin immediately, shrinking your pores right down, taking down redness, evening tone and leaving you with a smooth base with plenty of slip to apply make up over. The most ingenius thing is the fact that not only is it water resistant, but it also makes whatever product you place on top water resistant too, which is great for hot weather or gigs or clubbing etc. I cannot say enough good about it, especially it's oil control. The downside, inevitably, is the price. At £52 per bottle, it's not a purchase you can lightly step into, and due to this, I only wear this for gigs I play, or long days at festivals or going somewhere special, otherwise the thought of the amount i'd have to spend to keep replacing this is panic inducing.


I highly HIGHLY recommend you pick this up, and if you're scared of the outlay, there is a mini 20ml version available at a more accessible price of £20.

Holy grail y'all.

If you want to purchase this you can get the mini version here from Liberty london, and the standard size here from Space NK for £52.