Today's Makeup Bag

So, I decided it was time to clear out my makeup bag and throw in a few products I haven't used in a while/put away colours I'm not wearing at the moment. And I took some photos.

I'm always shocked by how MUCH this looks all laid out like that! I split it up into eyes/face/lips, so it's a bit less intimidating!

EYE PRODUCTS

Nothing that revolutionary here, with lots of the same old favourites making an appearance.

In the MAC eyeshadow quad I have (clockwise from top left) Vex, Dazzlelight, Patina, and Satin Taupe. I want to finish up these pans of Vex and Dazzlelight as they're now a bit of a pain to apply, and Satin Taupe and Patina deserve a bit more love than they currently get in my 15-pan palette. The lone eyeshadow pan is Coquette, my eyebrow colour, and the NARS shadow top right is (surprise!) Lhasa.

I've owned this MAC Paint in Bare Canvas (in the metal tube packaging, below the quad) for a while now, having randomly ordered it after I sent back a dried-out jar of Painterly Paint Pot. It's not a product that's talked about a lot on blogs/Youtube, and I was curious to try it out - however the ointment-style packaging, while cute, is a bit of a nuisance. My current tube of Too Faced Shadow Insurance is on its last legs, so I'm trying out Bare Canvas as an alternative eye primer.

The Bourjois pot eyeshadow bottom left is in shade 90 Blanc Diaphane - I've had this for an unhygienic length of time, but it's just so useful for popping a white highlight in the inner corners (and yes, I do use the crappy sponge applicator!).

Mascaras: I'm still enjoying Benefit's They're Real!, but after my Revlon Grow Luscious dried out, I felt I needed another, more "casual" mascara which isn't so hard to remove at night. I picked up Rimmel Lash Accelerator in Extreme Black, having previously loved the regular black version, and so far I'm pretty happy with this - a much smaller brush than the Revlon version, which makes it easier to get at the corner lashes. I may be saving They're Real for evening use in future!

Liner-wise, I'm using my trusty L'Oreal Super Liner in Carbon Gloss for when I fancy winged liner, and have thrown in Topshop Kohl in Saddle (shimmery dark brown) for a change, since I never usually wear pencil liner. I also have a rather battered Mac Eye Pencil in Ebony, which is a more or less permanent fixture in my makeup bag - these days I mostly use it on the waterline of an evening. Finally, I'm experimenting with Topshop Kohl in Frost (matte white) as an inner corner highlight and on the lower waterline - white looks pretty stark, of course, but until I get round to acquiring MAC's pale flesh-toned Chromagraphic Pencil, this will do for those especially exhausted mornings!

FACE PRODUCTS

L-R, top to bottom: No. 7 Perfect Light Loose Powder in 05 Translucent; Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum in 51 Light Vanilla; Illamasqua Cream Pigment in Hollow; Jemma Kidd Dewy Glow All Over Radiance Creme in Iced Gold; NARS blush in Desire; Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer in 1 Fair.

The only new product here is the Jemma Kidd creme highlighter, which I bought after hearing rave reviews from other bloggers, particularly Anna! So far I only own powder and liquid highlighters (such as MAC Lightscapade and Benefit High Beam), and I love the simplicity of creme products which you can apply with your fingers. This was pretty expensive - £17 I think - but no more so than MAC! It's a gorgeous product, which can be blended out to a subtle glowy sheen, or applied more heavily for a more intense white-gold highlight.


I chose NARS Desire as my blush of the moment - we got off on the wrong foot, since I was more taken with Sin, but I feel it's time to acquaint ourselves. After spending that much on a blush I'm damned if it's going to languish in my makeup drawers unused! Report to follow.


The other products are fairly standard, and I think I've mentioned most of them before, and/or lots of other bloggers have! I do like the Illamasqua Cream Pigment as an eye base, but at the moment I'm using it as a contour shade, with varying degrees of success.

 LIP PRODUCTS

L-R: Neutrogena lip balm SPF 20, MAC Hue, Revlon Lip Butter in Sugar Plum, and (front) Rimmel Exaggerate Lip Liner in 063 Eastend Snob

 This basic Neutrogena lip balm lives in my makeup bag all the time - I prefer the Lanolips 101 Ointment, which resides in my handbag, but that doesn't have SPF. 

[Warning: rant ahead!] Ah, MAC Hue. This is a glaze finish lipstick which I'm sure many of you have heard of/own. It's one of the most talked about lipsticks MAC make, so when I first started buying MAC products, I ordered this online after watching girls on Youtube rave about it as the most wearable nude. Thankfully I passed on Creme d'Nude and Myth, realising even in my naive state that these would be a disaster on me. However, so many beauty bloggers rated Hue in their top handful of MAC lipstick colours, or as their favourite lipstick ever, that I didn't question my need for it. I probably would have bought it even if I'd swatched it in a shop, to be honest, since it's a non-offensive-looking sheer peachy pink when swatched. On my lips, however, it's just - horrible. Why?

1. (Oh yeah, I'm listing.) It's lighter than my lips. Quite a bit lighter, in fact. Since I am very fair, the combo of pale pink skin and pale pinky lipstick is - not good. It's also a touch too orange for my taste/skintone.
2. If I were ever to want the nude lip/smokey eye look (which is so gorgeous in my head/on other people!), I'd need a lipstick which was opaque/pigmented enough to cover my natural lip colour. This is not it. I find it applies not only sheer but also uneven and streaky. Nice.
3. It doesn't last. This isn't surprising given the glaze finish, but it wears badly, gathering in lines and generally making a nuisance of itself.
4. OK I'll stop now. Sorry. As ever, this is just my personal opinion - I've certainly seen many a blogger/Youtuber look gorgeous wearing this shade! But I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone with my colouring (pale, pink-toned skin) and taste in lipstick colours (namely, my natural lip shade or darker).

So that's my beef with Hue. Like an ex-boyfriend of a similar name, it's good on paper, not so great in real life. (I couldn't resist it.) Having spent £13 odd on this lipstick, though, I'm gonna wear the damn thing. At least you have to reapply often, which gives me a chance of finishing it up!

And finally, my latest lip product acquisition, courtesy of Stacey, is the Revlon Lip Butter in Sugar Plum. This is AMAZING. I love the two other shades I picked up (Raspberry Pie in particular, a stunning deep pink, and Peach Parfait), but this is the most wearable everyday "my lips but a LOT better" colour.

I've got to say, for my purposes/tastes at least, the Revlon Lip Butters are beating Hue hands down. (They remind me of MAC's lustre finish, which I do like; in particular, Sugar Plum is comparable to MAC Plumful.) Pigmented, glossy, not at all drying - all that, and they wear surprisingly well! I get a few hours' wear out of these, and they seem to fade pretty evenly. There are loads of blog posts and Youtube videos on these Lip Butters (such as Allison's post, which features a swatch of Sugar Plum), which apparently launch in the UK in mid-March, so I'll stop rambling here - but I will definitely be picking up more shades!

Till next time,

Josephine x

PS. This is the bag all this fits into! It's a purple leather James Lakeland bag which I got for about £10 in TK Maxx. I love that shop!

(Mascara tube for scale in otherwise featureless table landscape.)