First Impressions: Sleek MakeUP The Primer Palette

I'm a huge Sleek fan and hardly ever skip any new product launches, and this eye primer palette really caught my eye as priming lids isn't just a gimmick and when I use the right product, I can seriously prolong the wear of eyeshadow on my oily lids (gak!).  Nothing looks worse than creased eye make up.

The palette was £6.99 from Superdrug and comes in the standard black plastic palette with a mirror in the lid.

Now ever since the Bad/Good Girl palettes Sleek have monikered their eyeshadows but I think something went awry with this insert as the green certainly isn't 'peach', or the peach shade 'noir'.  No biggie.  They just need to get these plastic inserts reprinted and replaced.  The double sided brush is pretty useless with the product, but works okay with powders, so I'm going to keep it in my 'work' make up kit in my desk.

Pretty pretty iridescent colours.

The Good: the palette offers a great range of neutral and bright shades, the consistency is creamy and they are nicely pigmented.  I prefer to apply them with my finger as it goes a bit streaky if you use a synthetic fibre brush.  I've tried using the white and two neutral shades as cream cheek highlighters and they're not bad.


Now, The Bad: it creased on me.  Very swiftly.  I chose the bright green hoping that would show up well enough in my little experiment.  In the photo below I'm wearing nothing but the green primer on my left and with Urban Decay's Misdemeanor on the right.  I noticed it had creased after half an hour, but it could have been sooner.  I also found it difficult to blend Misdemeanor over the top of it, so that's why it looks like it's been applied by a toddler!  Can't say it did anything to intensify the colour either.  What I don't want to have to do with these is apply UDPP under to make them work like I did for the Molten Metals, but I hate letting a product go to waste, so I may just do that.  Or I may just host a blog sale :)




I'm surprised I haven't seen more of this palette on other blogs, and where I have, there haven't been swatches or anything on durability.  Now I haven't played too much with the other primers in this palette, but I wouldn't rush out and buy this.  Instead it might be better to wait and see if Sleek reformulates the next batch into something with more staying power. In the meantime, I can highly recommend their Storm palette - truly beautiful and versatile - I always take it on holiday; the test of true love.  Any of these beautiful shadows works wonderfully over the infamous Urban Decay Primer Potion; the best eye primer I've tried. 


Have you got this palette? What do you think? Any tips for how I could use it better?

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MAC Wonder Woman Collection: Marquise D' Repromote

I had absolutely no plans whatsoever to fork out on the Wonder Woman collection, but when I saw that MAC was repromoting Marquise D' Lustre lipstick from the 'Blonde Brunette Redhead' collection a couple of years back I knew that I would be adding some primary colours to my make up collection!

Selfridges released the collection in store and online on 17th February so I took a stroll along Oxford Street on my lunch break last week and came back £15 lighter.

I'm a bit too young (for once!) to have any interest in Wonder Woman, and while the garish packaging makes me embarrassed to retouch my lippy in public, I have to say it's one of the prettiest, most wearable in my collection now.  If you're a ginge, definitely give it a go.

Marquise D' is described by MAC as a 'sandy cream peach' although it does look quite pink when photographed.

I almost caved and got Emancipation Lipglass which looked similar to Marquise D' but when swatched it wasn't nearly opaque enough, the tube was ginormous and the product almost splats out of it when you pull out the wand.

Comparing Marquise D' to a couple of my other favourite pinky nude MAC lippies, it looks quite similar to Viva Glam V, if not so much Delish.  I forgot about Creme Cup, which it also bears a resemblance to in the tube.

Below L-R: Delish, Viva Glam V, Marquise 'D

Marquise D' on me...

I've seen some really pretty swatches of Amazon Princess duo blush from the WW collection and am thinking it over.  Have you/do you plan to pick up anything from this collection?

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MAC Haul & My New Cheek Routine

It's been a while since I MAC-hauled.  I intended to pick up Club and Patina eyeshadows which had been recommended to me, but for some reason they didn't appeal in the flesh.  I have an MUA shadow - 12 I think - which is very similar to Club.  So I picked up Antiqued.  And then of course I had to have Amber Lights thanks to a blue eyes-enhancing YT tutorial by Tanya Burr and thought I might as well have Naked Lunch too!  This meant starting a new pro-palette and now the madness has kicked off again in wanting to complete it!

I was lucky enough to pick up these two blushes at Portobello Market for £8 each - half MAC's price.  

I've wanted Well Dressed for years now and although Blushbaby was an impulse purchase, I have been looking for a non shimmery face contouring powder and given its pink undertones it suits my skin very well and looks much more like an actual shadowed contour on my face than a regular bronzer.

Well Dressed is a very pale pink with a hint of glimmer.  It could almost work as a highlighting powder.  At first I thought it didn't work as it's so pale, but it does give a natural looking glow even though I do have to pile it on a bit.

Left: Well Dressed, Right: Blushbaby

My Blushbaby contour:

Well Dressed cheeks:

I'm sure Blushbaby wouldn't work as well as it does for me without this beauty of a brush - the MAC 109.  This was on my wishlist for ages and I intended to use it for liquid foundation, but it's turned out to be the perfect size for precise contouring and blush application.  I haven't had a chance to wash it yet, so I sincerely hope it doesn't go the way of my MAC 168 which lost it's shape after one wash.  My only hope it to bring it back to its former glory with a brush guard after it's next bath.

I had planned to pick this brush up at the airport, because MAC actually works out cheaper in the UK less VAT than it does in USD or elsewhere.  Sadly the Heathrow T5 MAC always seems to be out of stock.

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Benefit Georgia & Dandelion & A Dupe

Fellow blogger Phyrra asked whether I had a swatch of Benefit Georgia and since I've been asked about it a few other times I thought I might as well do a post on it and suggest a decent dupe for it.

Here's my ratty old box.  I've had it for three years (shock horror!).  I probably use it about 1-2 times per week on average, and every day when on holiday.

I finally hit pan on it recently and I am seriously considering repurchasing when it runs out, despite the eye watering £23.50 price tag.
Benefit says: "Our "just peachy" face powder leaves your complexion warm and vibrant. Georgia is a dream...it's peaches and cream!...Can be applied allover complexion or on the apples of cheeks."

Where people go wrong with this powder is by expecting it to work like a peach blusher, or be as pigmented as Coralista, Bella Bamba or even Thrrrob.  As Benefit says, it's a face powder.  Where they go wrong is by suggesting it can be used on the "apples of cheeks".

As you can see from my pitiful swatch below, it is extremely fine and not pigmented at all.  However, applied with a fluffy face brush, I find it makes a perceptible difference to my overall complexion.  There's a glow, a sheen...a not very obvious difference, but a good one all the same.  For me it's the perfect finishing powder.  If you try to apply it with the little brush supplied in the box it will all go Pete Tong.  I normally apply it after foundation but before blush, but you can just dust it on as a final step to your make up routine.  Also, it smells lovely.

I've used flash in the photos below so I think it may have distorted the effect a bit.  I'm wearing only foundation with Georgia over the top.

Without

With Benefit Georgia

The best highstreet dupe I've found for Georgia, and even more so, Dandelion, is No7's Highlights Illuminating Powder.  Unfortunately I've just discovered that they no longer seem to be selling it.  Boo!! I really hope it hasn't been discontinued ¬_¬.  It doesn't appear to be available online but you may still be able to find it in-store.  I picked the one below - 10 Dandy Pink - for £5 (full price £10) last year with one of those Boots No7 £5 off vouchers.

It's much more pigmented and shimmery that Georgia and Dandelion, so if you have pale skin you could probably get away with it as a blush as you'll see in the fourth photo down where it's heavily swatched.  However I just use it as a finishing powder.  It really lifts up my skin and gives it a glow.  If I remember correctly there were a few different shades of this powder.  I must start a petition to have it revived!

The No7 powder is like a more pigmented cheaper version of Dandelion (also £23.50).  Benefit says: "This classic ballerina pink finishing powder takes your complexion from dull to radiant in an instant...a celeb fave!".


You would have a bit more success using Dandelion as a blush, as I do find it a bit too pink to dust all over as I have a lot of pink undertones in my skin.  I probably wouldn't repurchase this one.

What are your favourite finishing powders?

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Portobello Market Haul - All This for a Tenner!

Remember getting lucky bags as a child? I used to be obsessed with them! This morning I picked up a couple of bags from one of my favourite make up stalls at Portobello Market for only £5 each.  I actually got two bags but I separated the make up bits out into the one bag below.  They contained a huge range of products, high, medium and low end.

One of my favourite bits if this Helena Rubenstein loose eyeshdaow - #13 'The Madonna'.  It's an amazing colour.

This Biotherm lippy was well worth a fiver on it's own.  The packaging is so sleek, like a silver bullet and the colour - shade 202 - is pretty much perfect for me.  It's very moisturising.

I'm also in love with these two Max Factor lippies, especially the pink one, I can't find the shade name, but the nuder one is called 'Skinny Dip'.

I'm a fan of Max Factor mascaras and this one is very lengthening.  The formulation is a little dry.

This Sally Hansen eyeshadow brush is great and very soft.  I didn't know she made brushes, I haven't seen these on sale anywhere in the UK.

This is a really heavy duty concealer and there was one in each pack.  The colour could be a little lighter for me, but I can still make it work.  It has a yellowish tinge which should go some way to counteracting my blueish under eye circles.

I didn't think much of this Revlon loose eyeshadow set at first, but used with a primer underneath they will be stunning.

A couple of Sally Hansen lipglosses. 

You can never have enough black liquid eyeliners!

NYC stick concealer - this reminds me of Benefit's IT Stick.

A couple of pretty nail polishes.  I haven't had a chance to try them yet but I think I'll need a few coats to get them opaque.

I got a few Calvin Klein bits.  The powder is just about light enough for me, but the liquid foundations are quite dark.  

There were a tonne of other bits in the packs but I just wanted to show you a few of the best bits.  So if you ever find yourself around West London on a Saturday morning, it's well worth stopping by Portobello market!

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