Maybelline | The Nudes palette

I think it's safe to say that 99% of bloggers know of this palette, and are probably either lusting after it or have it.  I've belonged to both camps.  

This, as far as I'm aware, is Maybelline's first proper eye shadow palette and, it's NUDE! Yes, you know I love my nude palettes, so seeing this excited me very much!

The palette is fantastic for so many reasons.  First off, the eye shadows are a really lovely quality, they're soft and blendable.  There's a great varity of shades, and finishes, so nudes through the spectrum (cool to warm) and mattes and shimmers.  The pigmentation is fantastic, I mean HELLO just look at that black!

What's more, and possibly what I love most about this, is how much effort Maybelline went to when thinking about the structure of the palette.  They've positioned the colours so you can work them as duo's, trio's or quads (or as a whole palette).  All the duo's and trio's are together, so for duo's they're the top left two, then the middle two, then the top right two etc.  Trio's are split to top left, top right etc, and then quads are the 4 on the left (top and bottom) then the middle 4, then the right 4.

Each of the segments and pairings work really well together.  I've honestly never seen a palette so well thought out.

I really love seeing big high street brands like Maybelline and L'Oreal bringing out proper palettes (not just quads etc), I think they've realised just how popular they are and that people will pay a bit extra for them.

I can't wait to see what colours they release next, especially considering what a hit this one has been. If you'd like to purchase it yourself, you can pick it up at Boots and Superdrug here in the UK for £9.99*.

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MAKEUP REVOLUTION | Mermaids Forever Palette

Go back a month or two ago, and Makeup Revolution caused a storm of excitement when they released their Mermaids Forever eye shadow palette, packed with 32 different colours, it really does look like there's something for everyone.

The shades start off as cooler tones across the top, finishing off as very deep warm tones that really pack some punch.  There's a fantastic range of colours included, right across the spectrum - highlight shades, corals, pinks/reds, purples, blues, greens, browns and silvery smoky shades.

Granted, not all of these colours are for everyone, some of the more adventurous shades could be used as tiny accents though, under the eye or as a hint of colour in the crease.  The brows, reds and coral's are my most used shades, in fact, I created this Summer Sunset look using this palette recently.

You can see that the pigmentation is great, the shades are soft, some are buttery, and all blend well with little to no fallout (this could be partially down to my application technique - patting the colour on) and all are shimmery.  The palette costs a purse-friendly £8, would you wear these colours?

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NEVE COSMETICS | Pop Society Mineral Eyeshadows

A few weeks ago I was the lucky recipient of a Neve cosmetics package.  You'll have seen me rave about their products before, I rave about them for a reason.  Apart from being cruelty free, vegan and fabulous - their makeup really does live unto the hype.  The quality is fantastic, great pigmentation, easy to use, and it's vibrant.

These days I see too many makeup brands staying safe and not do anything daring, that's one thing I love about Neve, they're not afraid to be bold and out-there.

Today's blog post is showcasing 3 shades from their fairly new 'Pop Society' collection.  It's taken me a while to write and put together as I wanted to include photo's of the products in place on the eyes, and these days with the baby, I don't get to put on makeup every day.

These eye shadows are intensely pigmented, soft, buttery and very blendable.  Yes, not all of these are the 'easiest' to wear, so they might work better as accent colours, or just to be worn in a slightly different way.

The shade 'Videogame' worn under the waterline for a slight different look

The shade 'Fuseaux' all over the lid - very easy to wear

The red shade 'Compilation' through the crease - this might have been more wearable in the same place, but with a different colour all over the lid, like my 'Summer Sunset' tutorial :)

All in all these are great eye shadows - I wish more people knew about Neve! I know it can be tricky when buying makeup online (Neve aren't in physical shops, only online ones) but I guess that's where us bloggers come in - showing you pictures of their products swatched, and in place so you can see how they work.  I've yet to try something from Neve that I don't like - their products are on pointe, great quality and well priced (you get what you pay for), and I love that they're cruelty free.

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NEVE | Duochrome palette

// look created using top left green in the centre of the ye, and top right green on outer and inner corners //

This is one seriously pretty palette.  Take the packaging for example, it's reminiscent of pretty unicorns (yeah, no idea why but that's what I think of!).  Then the shadows inside - there's a great range of colours, plenty of greens, pink/purple, neutral and blue, all in decent sized pans, as always with Neve.

The quality of the eye shadows is nothing short of amazing - I mean, just look at the pigmentation of that copper, it's SO buttery and soft, blending beautifully on the lids.  All the shades are seriously lovely, some with amazing duo-chrome effects, some are just simply gorgeous and don't need it, like the copper shade.  I was surprised just how soft these are, it can be easy to pick up too much with some of them (i.e. the copper one!) so you need to be careful.

What I love about Neve is that they're also cruelty free, and suitable for vegans - ok, I'm not a vegan and I haven't made the commitment yet to go cruelty free with my makeup, but I so admire anyone who does - I actually feel like a bit of a hipocrite since I donate to the BUAV every month to fight against such things... Anyway, I'm waffling again!

I'm just so impressed with Neve as a brand - every piece of makeup I've tried of theirs has been fantastic quality, the eye shadows are well pigmented and such a beautiful consistency and the palettes well thought out.  The eye liners are stunning and are different from what you can buy on the high street, just take a look at the green and blue ones I reviewed before - the blue one had proper glitter in it that I hadn't really noticed until I applied it, really really beautiful.

Next time I come into some money to spend on makeup (more than my £15 high street challenge) I really might place a big fat order with Neve to try more of their goodies.

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Yves Rocher | Smoky Eye Challenge

I was recently challenged by the lovely people over at Yves Rocher to create a smoky eye look using their products.  Not one to shy away from a challenge I thought I'd step up and see what I could come up with.  The only thing I didn't know until I opened the parcel was what colour eye shadows I'd be getting.  To my delight they were green (one of my favourite colours to wear).  I thought instead of just creating a look and going 'tah dah!' I'd do a bit of a step-by-step tutorial on how I created it too, that way you could try to recreate it if you wanted to :)  

This is pretty much the way I create most looks - as in light colour on inner third, medium shade on outer two thirds, and dark colour on outer v and blended into the outer third - then blend it all together :)

Before I get into the tutorial I thought I'd talk a bit about the products I used.  I prepped my skin with my usual base, my Bourjois Radiance Reveal foundation, setting it with Witch Anti-Blemish pressed powder.  I used my Anastasia brow wiz on my brows and that's it.

I've used Yves Rocher makeup products quite a bit over the last year and have always liked them, they're a decent brand with some lovely quality makeup.  I was pleasantly surprised just how good the eye shadow primer was (£12.50*), given how oily and hooded my eye lids are, it takes quite a lot of work to get eye shadow to stay put on me and this did the job well - at least 6 hours with no movement at all.  The eye shadow quad in the shade brilliant green (£25*) was like the others I've used, really nice quality, well pigmented and very blendable - I like how these colours weren't boring, there was a nice combination of brightness, darkness, matte and shimmer, a beautifully balanced palette.

The kajal liner (£15.90*) was great too, slightly on the waxy side, as opposed to being crazy soft, which I actually prefer as it tends to stay put better when it's more waxy (I find).  That being said, it blended really well with a fluffy brush when used under the eye too.

The mascara (£22*) was lovely, I actually reviewed this quite a long time ago (you can read my review here).  Their signature reservoir on the volume vertige works really well to grip the lashes, coating them well with mascara, giving them great definition and volume.  All in all a really nice mascara.

Here's how I created the look:

The finished look :)  I hope you the look I created - I tend to wear darker eye makeup and always have, so to me, I'd be happy to wear this out in the day, but I know that's not for everyone :)

I really like Yves Rocher makeup, I think they're lovely quality and I've been pleasantly surprised by some of their pieces more than others.  I think some of their products could have slightly nicer packaging for the price, but the quality of the actual products is on point.

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Makeup Revolution | Give Them Nightmares palette

Dramatic Evening Look

Wearable Day Look

[Each of the above looks were created using the same 3 colours - The Hunger (all over the lid), Wicked (outer half) and Beyond the night (outer V and crease)]

I've had this palette in my mitts for some time and haven't gotten around to photographing a look wearing it until today.  Greens are pretty much my favourite colours to wear, and purples.  So I thought I'd focus on one colour set in the palette to create my look - and I picked green.  I am a little surprised though that it's photographed pretty grey - my mother-in-law said it does look pretty grey on the lids too in real life (I think it looks quite green, but maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see).

This palette was launched in time for Halloween last year, it's packed with deep dark colours, some with glitter, some are shimmery and the bottom row are all mattes.  All the colours are really well pigmented and work well together.

Going back a couple years ago this would have been more of an every day palette for me and not one for more dramatic looks, however I tend to reach for what's easier and more fool-proof now, which is neutral shades - bringing the focus onto the eyeliner and mascara.  I liked the quality of these - I did start with an eye shadow primer, and then a matte skin coloured shadow all over the lid to give a nice even base.

For the every day look I created, I did struggle a little to get a more muted look with decent blending, I found that I had to add more shadow to get a smoother finish, so creating the every day look was a little more challenging than the dramatic look.  What I like is that I created both with the exact same shadows, and in the same places - one was full on and one was toned down - it's amazing how different they are, with the same colours in the same places.

All in all this is a nice palette - but I would suggest saving it for more dramatic full-on looks as subtlety isn't a word I'd use to describe Give Them Nightmares.

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