MAC Giveaway with Cohorted

I must say, I feel like the luckiest blogger recently being able to host so many wonderful giveaways for you all.  Today, it's a BIG one.  Three MAC products courtesy of the lovely people over at Cohorted.  I must admit, I did lust over their latest box since there was a gorgeous MAC blusher in there, so when this giveaway email landed in my mailbox I was very excited to work with them for you :)

In the past my MAC giveaways have been some of my most popular and that was just for one lipstick, so to be able to give you the opportunity of winning 3 MAC products is really fantastic.

First off, I thought I'd tell you a little about the brand since they're new to me too (I haven't sampled their boxes yet, only drooled over my keyboard while reading blogger reviews about them) :) Cohorted are an online retailer who sell makeup (high end), skincare and beauty accessories as well as putting together a limited monthly beauty box.  Each box costs £19.99 and contains a selection of 'beauty must-haves' which are presented in a black box with a hand-tied bow (all very sophisticated). To pick up the boxes you simply pre-order them in advance, but please note these are very popular and sell out quickly from what I've seen!

Now, on to the prizes!  They are giving away:

1 x MAC Blusher in Dolly Mix

1 x MAC Bronzer in Refined Golden

1 x MAC Mineralize Skin Finish in Light Plus

Simple rules

1. Follow the Rafflecopter widget

2. Cohorted will send the prizes to you

3. This is only open to UK residents
4. The giveaway will run for 1 month, ending on the 15th May

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Five Favs #2 | Blushers

If you recall, last month I started a new blog series called #FiveFavs, I didn't commit to how frequently I'd be writing instalments, but that they'd have different themes.  Well, this time it's all about blushers, and the ones I reach for the most.  I must admit, I do reach for more than this 5, but I had to limit it somehow, otherwise it'd be an endless post.

1.  NARS Dolce Vita*

I absolutely adore this blusher, it's pretty much matte and a beautiful deep berry tone, which is typically my favourite shade to wear on my cheeks.  The quality is fantastic - just as I like in a blusher, not crazy pigmented like Sleek blushers can be and other similar ones, but nice, and easy to work with and blend on the cheekbones.

2.  Sephora blusher in Healthy Rose

This really is a very pretty shade, and perfect for spring.  It's sort of a soft peachy-coral with a hint of pink and a bit of a duskyness to it.  It's also completely matte, which I love - sometimes I love a matte blusher, as it looks really natural, and other times I love having a shimmery cheek, but this is a blusher for natural looking cheeks.

3.  Smashbox blusher in Chiffon

This really is a gorgeous shade, very similar to NARS Orgasm.  It's rose gold with a nice shimmer/sparkle.  I wouldn't call it a dupe as it's pretty much the same price, but if you didn't want to buy the NARS one, for whatever reason, this is a great alternative.  It's a great texture, nicely pigmented and very, very pretty on the cheeks.

4.  Eddie Funkhouser blusher in Peep Show*

This was in a Wantable makeup box some time ago.  I'd never heard of Eddie Funkhouser before and haven't since, but this blusher is something special.  Yes it's a bright pink, but it's pigmentation balance it's great, not too much and not too sheer, and it looks really pretty on the cheeks, almost like you've just come in from outside.  And, it's matte, so a winner for me.

5.  MAC Mineralize blusher in Gentle

The newest blusher in my collection and the one I've been wearing almost every day for the last 2-3 weeks since I've had it.  It's leaning towards berry-toned, and has a soft goldish shimmer, but it's not rose gold, which I like.  I feel like too many blushers have jumped on that bandwagon in the last couple of years, it's nice to see a shimmery blusher that's a bit different.  This sits on the cheeks beautifully, looking soft and 'gentle' with a very soft shimmery glow.

So there's my top 5 blushers as the 2nd instalment of my #FiveFavs series.  I have quite a few others planned, but if there's any you'd like to see, like foundations, palettes etc, anything really, just leave it as a comment below :)

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*Some of these blushers were PR Samples

MAC Retro Matte in Flat Out Fabulous

** Please note, the lipstick was applied using a lip brush, this will result in the lipstick looking lighter/brighter than if applied directly from the bullet - it also makes the lipstick last longer on the lips **

I don't have many MAC lipsticks, I kicked off my collection with Rebel, and then added Creme Cup, which I subsequently lost, and now I have another one to add to my collection.  I'm a big fan of matte lipsticks, they're my favourite, so when I saw this one crop up when searching online, I had to try it.

This, like any other MAC lipstick you'll have tried, is lovely quality.  Yes it's matte, which can often mean 'dry' but this isn't, it's surprisingly moist for a matte lipstick, and doesn't stain the lips too much either, unlike some.  It applies (with a brush) really nicely and stays put for a long time, another thing I love about matte lipsticks.

I really like the colour, although I'm not sure it goes that well with my freshly dyed red hair! Maybe if I applied it from the bullet it'd look better against my hair?  As much as I'm a total sucker for red lipsticks, I do really love a bright pink too - like the Illamasqua Eurydice matte pink, utterly gorgeous!

Overall I really love this lipstick and I'll definitely be wearing it more - I think it'll look much better in a couple of months when I dye my hair chocolate brown :)

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MAC Haul

Remember a couple of weeks ago, I asked you what I should spend my £60 on?  There were quite a few suggestions for 'By Terry' but that was far too expensive, I really wanted to get 2-3 products for my money. A couple of people suggested MAC, and after much deliberation, and I mean, MUCH, I decided to listen to you lot and buy some MAC.  It's not something I have much of in my collection, so thought I'd use the opportunity to try some new things - here's what I bought :)

MAC Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow, in Pinkluxe - £30


MAC Mineralize Blush, in Gentle - £21


MAC Retro Matte Lipstick, in Flat Out Fabulous - £15.50

Swatches of the Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow in Pinkluxe


 Left: Mineralize blusher in Gentle, Right: Retro Matte lipstick in Flat Out Fabulous

 A closer peek at some of those shadows

As you might be able to guess, I picked up the eye shadow palette purely for one shade - that stunning, glittery, beautiful purple shade - it's so stunning!  I'd looked up swatched of it first and could see just how pretty it was - my only niggle is that I'm struggling to recreate that - I use an eye shadow primer first, but I just can't seem to get it to translate on the lid, some of the glitter comes off the brush, but that's about it, the darkness of it stays on the brush, and only some flakes of glitter transfer - any tips for helping with this? Should I try applying it wet?

I have an MSF in Blonde and have always loved it, so I decided to pick up another one, this time in Gentle.  It's a plumy slightly berry-toned blush, with a gorgeous glow and subtle gold sparkle (not like NARS Orgasm).  It's soft and very blendable - I wore it today for the first time and love it - I'm looking forward to wearing this more :)

Last but not least, the lipstick, a retro matte in Flat Out Fabulous - a dusky but bright pink, VERY well pigmented and utterly gorgeous.  I'm such a fan of matte lipsticks, I can't wait to try this and see how it wears :)  Keep an eye on my instagram for pics!

I'll be coming back to write reviews for each piece, so don't forget to check back :)  Oh and for those of you who've added up my total, yep it was a little over £60, but I think they're worth it :)

What did you think of my picks? Would you have recommended anything else?

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MAC Alluring Aquatic lipstick - Goddess of the sea

Never before have I jumped on a MAC limited edition launch bandwagon.  Yes I like their products, but for some reason, none have really grabbed me before, until now.

A couple weeks ago I saw a blogger share a picture of a lipstick they'd bought from the 'Alluring Aquatic' collection, and I honestly though she'd sprinkled water on it to make it more 'Aquatic'  Oh how I was wrong!

After seeing a couple of bloggers talk about the 3D droplet effects on the packaging, I was hooked!  I had to go into MAC anyway to pick up some giveaway prizes and when I was there I saw the collection.  They'd sold out of nearly all of it, apart from the lipstick shade I was most drawn to (Goddess of the sea).

Goddess of the sea is a mauvy plum colour from their cremesheen range, so it's also fairly hydrating. It's not exactly a matte lipstick, but a fairly glossy one.  This is only the 3rd MAC lipstick to make it into my collection (others being Rebel and Creme cup).  I've only worn it a couple of times, but from when I have worn it, it lasts as well as other MAC lipsticks I've worn, and lasts best when applied with a lip brush (I find this true of all lipsticks), you get a nice defined line that way too.  It also has that MAC lipstick smell that you find with all their other lippies, it's a lovely sweet scent.

It's a beautiful lipstick in even-more beautiful packaging - this certainly won't be a piece making the chop when I have a clear-out ever, this is a dressing-table piece that I'll keep well beyond it's time to throw it away.

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MAC Hey Sailor Highlighter

Hey everyone, slightly old news with this one, but I've been using it a lot and wanted to share my thoughts with you :)

MAC Hey Sailor! Highlighter Crew

So here's the bit where I tell you what I think, and I'll warn you, it's mixed.

So, partly my fault for not reading up reviews first.  But, I didn't have a highlighter and I wanted one.  I was using my MAC msf in Blonde as one and as lovely as it is, I wanted a proper highlighter.  So, from what I can gather, like most people we seemed to think the colours were just sprayed on top and once they're gone you'd be left with a lovely shimmer for a highlighter underneath.  WRONG.

These colours go all the way down.  It's not a highlighter, despite what it says on the back.  It's quite clearly a blusher, as you can see by my swatches.  So, after being initially very disappointed, I then started wearing it as a blusher, and loved it :)  It's just a case of re-purposing this one.  It's a blusher, end of.

Did you get this at all?  What did you think about it?

Pixi3 out

xXx

MAC Mineralize Skin Finish - Blonde

Hey everyone, today's post is about the fabulous MAC Mineralize Skin Finish (part of their Naturally collection) in Blonde.  Now, I believe this was limited edition, but from what I can gather they bring this back quite often, like, the last couple of years.  So fear not, should you love this, just wait six months or so, and hopefully they'll re-release it again :)

But for the moment, here's all the lovely pics :)

The darker colour (on the left on my hand) is the one I use for a blush on the apples of my cheeks, and then the far right colour (the lightest on my hand) is the one I use as a highlighter - I love, love, love this blusher, it's so pretty and really good if you have fair skin :)  Keep your eyes peeled for the next time they release it :) I'll try to keep you posted :)

Have you tried this before?  What did/do you think?

Pixi3 out

xXx

Chanel and Smashbox Haul (and MAC, and L'Oreal)

Hey guys - I just wanted to share a few things with you that I've bought recently, I've done a Haul video to go with these too which you can check out below :)

So the first purchase I was and still am, super excited about! It's the Chanel single eyeshadow in Fauve (90). Lots of the youtube beauty guru's I follow have raved about this colour so I felt it was worth a trip to Chanel to pick up :) And I'll tell you what, it does not disappoint! It's the most beautiful colour, and depending on the lighting, depends on what colour it looks like. It's got brown, mauve and taupe in it.

The swatch on the left (above) is a dry swatch, and the one on the right is a wet swatch. The left one doesn't really do it justice, it's a stunning colour and I just can't get enough of it :)

Also from Chanel, I bought their Le Vernis Nail Colour in 521 Rose Cache, I do have quite mixed feelings about this colour. It's my first Chanel nail polish, and before judging the entire line, I will try other colours first. With this one, I had to apply it 3 times before I couldn't see my nail colour underneath, so I was a bit disappointed, but that could be the colour itself because it is very nude, which is what I was going for :) It's a bit orangy in the pic but, nice to see it on the nails too :)

Ok - on to Smashbox :) Really pleased to see them here in the UK and in Cardiff, hadn't seen them here before so I was very happy about that :) I'd initially gone to Chanel to buy their new Spring 2012 blusher, howerver, it was £45 and as amazing as it was, I just didn't want to spend that much money on it, so I decided to get a smashbox blusher instead :) It's in the colour Chiffon - it's a beautiful peach toned blush with tiny teeny sparkly bits in - but not too many :) The blush was about £18. The Chanel nail varnish was £17.50 and the eye shadow single was ..... £22 I think!

Since I bought those, I've also been back to visit MAC to pick up the Mineralize Skinfinish blush in Blonde - on launch day here in the UK! So excited! It's so so so pretty, you've basically got 4 pinks running through it from darker to light - the lighest one I'm tending to use as a highlight on the top of my cheekbones, and the darker side as the actual blush, it's actually really nice on top of my Chanel blush in number 18 Orchid Rose or on top of the Smashbox blush. This cost... £22 I think - maybe 50p less, but there abouts.

Then, today I had to pick up a new liquid eye liner as it seems my cat has hidden my Chanel one. And by that, I mean that I chucked the eyeliner on the bed, then went to pack it away later and it was gone. My cat is notorious for throwing things on the floor, then playing with them until they're hidden from hooman sight :) So, as I can't find it, I thought I'd grab the opportunity to try a new one, whoop! I picked up a L'Oreal Perfect Thin Super Liner in Intense Black, it has a foam applicator which I love love love! This takes me back to an old Max Factor one I used to use, so I was really happy with that. I applied it on top of the gel liner I was wearing when I got home and it's still going strong with no bleeding etc so I'm really happy with it. I think it was about £7-8, so watch this space for a proper review on it :)

That's it for now, thanks for reading :)

Here's the video

Pixi3

xXx