£15 High Street Challenge | June

It's that time of the month again, time for the June instalment of my £15 High Street Challenge! If you're not familiar with this blog series, you can read my other posts here to see what I've bought.

I started this series because when I looked back at my 2014 blog posts, nearly all of them were PR samples, and that made me uncomfortable.  My reviews are always 100% honest as I'm sure you know, but I didn't spend any money buying things I wanted to try, so I decided to spend £15 every month on 3 different things, and then review them for you :)

This month Boots.com had an offer on L'Oreal products, it was the traditional 3 for 2 (gotta love that!). I'd been eyeing up the True Match foundation (£9.99) for a while, I know that Em from My Pale Skin blog uses this a lot mixed with the Bourjois Healthy Mix foundation for good coverage, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  Despite picking the lightest yellow-toned shade, it's still too dark for me, so not exactly a 'true match'.  Hopefully as my skim warms up in colour slightly over the summer (I tend not to let my skin get much sun as I'm so pale I just burn) this will become a better match.

Also, in a recent Fleur de Force video I saw her talking about the new L'Oreal Infallible mega glosses (£6.99), so I thought this would be a great option too - I don't tend to wear much lipgloss anymore as it drives me nuts the way my hair is magnetised to it (same as everyone else!), and to be honest, I don't wear much lipstick either, but I still wanted to give it a try.

Lastly, I needed and wanted a new kohl eyeliner, so I picked the black Infallible one (£5.19) to give it a go - I love that it has a little sharpener in the lid, a smudge stick (not that I use these) and it's retractable.

All together my purchase came to £16.98 (excluding P&P), so £1.98 over budget, but that's not bad going considering what I've bought :)

I actually have a first impressions video of the True Match foundation coming very soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that (subscribe here so you don't miss it!).

What do you think of this month's picks?

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Neve pastello eyeliners

I have blogged about the Neve eyeliners before, but not these particular shades.  I'm a big fan of them, they're affordable, cruelty free, long wearing, well pigmented and soft & blendable.  There's not much else you could ask for from an eyeliner!  I love how in the swatch of the purple shade you can really see the pink/purple glitter, it really shows up on the eye like that too.

Neve cosmetics pride themselves on being paraben free, silicone free, cruelty free and suitable for vegans.  Neve are arguably one of Italys best makeup brands, they make high quality products that are comparable to their high end counterparts.  Between the eye liners, lip liners and eye shadows I've tried of theirs, I've yet to find something I'm disappointed with.

One really nice thing you can do with these eye liners is apply them under your lower lash line and blend them in with a small brush and create a soft smokey soft look, one that will stay in place for hours.  Don't expect them to last as long as a waterproof eyeliner though, but they do last well compared to other kohl liners.

These are a great price of £3.95* each too - and at the moment over on beauty chamber they're buy one get one free from this particular set (Twenties icon set), the colours I have are: cincilla taupe beige shimmer and vanita dark purple shimmer.

This months Biggest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovelyLuchessa from Beauty Expression

 

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Chanel vs Collection - Liquid eyeliners

I'll be honest, I've put off writing this post a bit.  Let me tell you about my love for Chanel.  There's many reasons I love them as a brand, their style is sophisticated and elegant, their beauty products are outstanding in quality, and in my opinion often unparalleled by other brands.  The Chanel Ecriture liquid eyeliner I hailed as my holy grail of liners a few months ago (review here), I've been buying it for about 10 years, each one lasts me about 10 months, so I always felt I had value for money.  I've tried and tried to find other liquid liners which are as good (pigmentation, staying power, and most importantly, don't melt onto my lid during the day) but I've never found anything that can hold a torch to Chanel, until now.  I'll let the photo's do the talking.

I think it's pretty clear which one looks better.  Both were 100% dry when photo's were taken, but yet the Chanel one is glossy and looks almost wet.  I love how the Collection one is so matte and so black, it's exactly what I look for in a liquid eyeliner.  The most important factor for me was whether the Collection fast stroke liner would transfer to to my lid during the day, which is what every other liquid eyeliner I've ever tried (apart from the Illamasqua precision ink) has done.  I tested it on hot sweaty days and cool days where I had to wrap up in a jumper.  No matter what conditions I tried it on, it didn't budge, even after 18 hours of wear, 18 hours!!!!

But lets not get too carried away, the Collection Fast Stroke is flawed, the applicator isn't as easy to use as the Chanel one as it's not as flexible, and you need to keep dipping it back into the well, but is that a big deal? No.  Next up, there's quite a few parabens in it (Methylparaben, Ethylparaben, Butylparaben, Propylparaben & Isobutylparaben - Chanel has the same ones other than Isobutylparaben) but you know what, there's a lot in the Chanel one too, the one that's £23 more expensive!

I was really shocked, I'd found a replacement for my holy grail Chanel eyeliner, but there's no denying it, the £2.99 (currently on offer in Superdrug for £2.50) Collection fast stroke eye liner is better than the Chanel one... I'm almost sad about the fact I already have a replacement for my Ecriture de Chanel sitting in my drawer waiting for my current one to run out.  But I think when that replacement has run out, that'll be it for me, I'll be making the switch to Collection.  I think I'll also be trying some of the other colours in the set (blue & brown) to rock some double liner.

Now I'll need to find a whole new excuse to visit the Chanel counter :)

This months Bigest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Hayley from Water Painted Dreams

 

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Neve Pastello eye liners

The lovely people over at Beauty Chamber sent me these little beauties about a week ago and I've been wearing them every day since :)  If you've been following me on Twitter/Instagram for any length of time you'll probably know I really like wearing green eye shadow, so these have proved to be a great compliment to them :)

My Thoughts

When you see these in the pencil, they look nice, pretty, but nothing striking.  So then you swatch them on the back of your hand, that's when you say out loud 'oh my god' - there's beautiful shimmer and glitter in there that you don't see until you swatch them, these are seriously stunning :)

They blend really well as you can see from my pics and go beautifully under the lower lash line, and really pull together a nice green eyeshadow look.

There's two colours, a blue and a green (although the packaging makes them both look green).  The blue one is a deep dark blue with a slight deep green hue and it's packed with blue glitter that says put all day.  Then there's the green one, it's like a slightly muted lime green, with a brighter shimmer, and also stays put all day :)

These are stunning, my camera doesn't do them justice.  I'm always surprisingly impressed by Neve, their quality is always amazing, I'm looking forward to trying more from their collection :)  And don't forget, Neve products are cruelty free, suitable for vegans and free for parabens and other nasty chemicals.

Where you can find them: at www.beautychamber.co.uk
Cost: Only £3.95 each
Would I replace? Hell-to-the-yes!

This months Bigest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Laura from A Scottish Lass,
and my Big-Pixi3 advertisers Rachel from Emerald Skies, Tom from Daydream in Blue Sammy from Rambles & Jangles, Katrina from Carousel Diary, Hannah from Bailey Cakes and Lyndsay from Fizzy Peaches

  Written by Georgina Kent

Illamasqua precision ink

Hello lovelies :)  Today's post is full of close ups of my wrinkly eyes to bring you some Illamasqua goodness!  So, go grab a cuppa and enjoy the super duper close ups!

Slightly firm foamy brush tips

Illamasqua precision ink in Scribe (white) and Abyss (shiny black)

They say "Create looks with attitude that no one can ignore. Precision Ink's fine tip allows for defined application. Long-lasting and waterproof it's perfect for use anywhere on the face and body to bring out your bold side. You can even use it as an nail art pen; simply seal with Illamasqua Top Coat."

My Thoughts

So these little beauties found their way into my greedy mitts at the London blogger meetup back in April, quite surprisingly they were in our goody bags!  Uh-mazing!

Now, as you may recall, I'm a bit of a sceptic when trying new liquid liners, or any liner for that matter. As you can see from 3 pics up, I have quite a hooded right eye, oily ones at that, and apart from my trusty Chanel Ecriture liner every other one I've ever tried as transferred up onto my eyelid, trust me, this is not a good look.

So I put these through the most extreme test I could conjure up, no eye shadow, no primer, nothing on my lid to absorb the grease!  This method will even shift my Chanel liner, so I know it's a good one.  After about 8 hrs, a tiny bit flaked off, but no transferring!  I wore these that day for 12 hours and there was no transferring at all!  I've tested them several times since wearing shadow, primer, creme shadow, all for over 12 hours at a time and still no transferring or flaking - these are bullet proof! (maybe not bullet proof, but Georgina proof!).

There is one negative though, seeing as they're so super duper, they are a little tough to remove.  They peel off more than they rub off, so be gentle and let the cotton soaked pad of Bioderma, or finger tips soaked in hot cloth cleanser do their thing and take their time - it will all be removed, but it takes a little more patience than your average bear liner.

It's fair to say these are Pixi3 approved!  They passed my rigorous testing with flying colours!  Yay for my first Illamasqua!!!

Where you can find them: Debenhams stores with an Illamasqua counter, and online
Cost: £18
Would I replace: YES!

This months bigest pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Laura from A Scottish Lass, and the lovely Rachel from Emerald Skies

 

  Written by Georgina Kent

Sainsburys Haul

Hey guys, so you asked for more hauls, you shall get more hauls.  Now over the next couple of weeks, it's going to look like I've won the lottery because of all the hauls - this sadly isn't the case, and happily everything was cheap/on offer etc :)  Yay for a bargain!  So, today (or by the time this goes up, the other day) I went to the Drs and right next to it is my local Sainsburys, so I headed over to pick up my prescription and had a browse... bought a few things... spent some money... yeah... I'll just show you the pics!  (Video haul and vlog at the bottom if you're interested!)

This is being added to my giveaway as a Runners up prize :)  A nice bit of Brit love for 2012 :)

These were amazing bargains!  Maybelline was on offer of 3 for 2, the olympic bands were reduced to £2, and some of the jewellery was half price :)

Here's the random video - such a brain melt in it too!  And watch this space for full reviews over the next couple of weeks of the Maybelline goodies :) 

Pixi3 out

xXx

Strictly Eye Liners

Hey everyone!  How are you all today?  I'm fine, thanks for asking :)

So, this is a bit of a late post, in that I bought these Christmas 2011.  Only today when I took them out to photograph and swatch them did I really have a good look at them and think, you know what, these are pretty decent.  I bought them from Boots and it was actually in the January (2012) I bought them when they were trying to clear all the old stock. Now, I've had a look on the Boots website, and I don't think they're selling them any more - so I'm sorry to do yet another post of a discontinued item :(  But, I still wanted to share them with you :)  Photos and review below :)

These are my favourites of the collection, possibly becuase the items I can see myself using the most.  The plum colour liquid eye liner is stunning, in fact, they all are :)  To get that nice amount of glitter below, that was 4 heavy coats of glitter, allowing it to try between each application first.  But it's nice to see there are 3 ways to wear them - alone, both or just glitter.  I prefer them alone or with glitter :)

These are really thick and creamy - that might have been something to do with being photographed in a roasting hot conservatory though ;)  Either way, beautiful colours, the idea with these is to use them as a cream eye shadow, or as a highly blended eye liner for your upper lash line.  Now, my eyes crease like crazy so these aren't great on me, but if you don't have massively hooded/oily eyes I'm sure they'd be great :)

I love the colours of these, well, the light one - the other is just a standard black.  But, the light one, I'm not sure I'd ever use, I just can't carry off colours this light.  Maybe if I had darker skin I could, but as it stands, as pretty as it is, I can't use it, just too light.

To see the mascara, it's the the pic at the top :)  It's pretty decent, but likes to clump, so it was a challenge to get it as good as I did, not easy. Not the best wand, but I've used worse :)

Whoa, a lot of photos!  Did any of you pick these up at Christmas time?  What did you think?

Pixi3 out
xXx