I admit, when it comes to beauty products, this ho ain’t loyal. One of the major perks of blogging is trying new products and, even when I really love something, it’s never long before a shiny new version comes along that I want to try even more. So if I end up actually buying a product again and again, forsaking all others, then you know it’s a really good one.
Bourjois Twist Up the Volume Mascara | Review
4 Drugstore Mascaras in 4 Days | Mini Reviews
What’s In My Overnight Makeup Bag
If I Was A Rich Girl: Beauty Wishlist
After a bit of a shopping splurge on my birthday, I’ve actually been very well behaved recently in terms of spending. However, slowly but surely, little must-haves have started to creep their way into my mind. Here’s what’s on my mind this week…
Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Concentrate
I have to confess, for years I’ve never really cared about skincare. However, I suppose because I’m now old – like properly old, like ‘I bought a slow cooker and this bar is too loud’ old – I’m suddenly obsessed with it and want to start investing in good skincare that doesn’t just come from the pound shop.
One product I’m currently craving is the extremely popular Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Concentrate. I first read about this over at The Little Magpie (one of my all-time favey bloggers, FYI) and have since done lots of research, all of which has blown me away. Basically, this is a magic potion that casts a spell on your skin to make you not ugly anymore. That’s the gist I get, anyway. At £36, however, it’s going to take a while for my pound shop loving brain to convince my body to hand the money over.
Kylie Jenner’s lips
Obviously I don’t mean this in a creepy Leatherface-esque way; rather, I want to achieve that crazily voluptuous effect that has got the world digging lip liner again. For a while there was speculation that the youngest Jenner sister had had her lips filled, but people quickly realised her mega pout was simply due to makeup trickery. In a lot of pictures you can actually see her natural lip line, so I’m not sure why people are still speculating, but all I’m interested in in how I too can achieve this. I’ve just bought a lipliner and matching lipstick shade so that I can try it out for myself – expect a report back soon, which may or may not involve me saying I looked like a big clown.
Dreamweave Mascara
Mascaras were traditionally one of my favourite makeup products to try out, but since getting my Hollywood lash extensions regularly (which you can read about here), mascara’s taken a back seat as I rarely use it. If I was to buy a new one though, then without doubt it would be a Dreamweave one. This is hailed as being ‘eyelash extensions in a tube’ and supposedly lasts up to three days (though I don’t know why you’d need it to – just go to bed for heaven’s sake). This retails for around £14 from various stockists, making it a reasonable mid-priced mascara.
Has anyone tried any of the above products/techniques? If so, let me know below!
Seventeen Back Lash Mascara Review
Anyone who knows me and Claire at all will know that the quest for the perfect mascara is always present. From Benefit’s They’re Real to horrible excuses for mascaras like Rimmel’s Scandaleyes Rockin’ Curves, we’ve tried and tested so many different brands with varying degrees of success. I like to try and buy a different mascara each time I run out because to frankly, I haven’t found anything that has made me think ‘Zut Alors, I must give up my life as a rather short, stumpy ginger girl and dedicate it to this here tube of mascara’.
Unfortunately, Seventeen’s Back Lash Mascara hasn’t quite done that for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, it’s just that it doesn’t wow me (…who do I think I am? Simon Cowell?). So without further waffle (I want a waffle), here’s my Seventeen Back Lash Mascara review. With bells on.
Lets get started with the brush. I’m a fan of most brushes. Claire’s partial to a nice plastic brush that separates the lashes properly, but I’m not too fussed whether its fibre or plastic. Although there’s a hugey caveat on that. If it’s fibre, it can’t be rubbish. While Seventeen’s Back Lash Mascara isn’t exactly rubbish per say, it’s a bit on the weak side. As you can see from the before and after pics below, it’s tends to clump my eyelashes together a bit. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
On the other hand, it doesn’t flake off and lasts really well. I also hugely enjoy the silver packaging, it makes me feel mega jazzy. If I ever get stranded at the discoteque without a glow stick, I would quite happily whip this bad boy out and flail around.
I just can’t agree that it gives me over 100% greater lash impact. Maybe like, 23% greater lash impact but lets all be honest, that’s not particularly hard since I have the blondest eyelashes known to womankind. Any mascara would give me a greater impact, in the sense that it would actually make my eyes visible (fun fact, my aunty once told me that I should get my eyelashes tinted because they made my face look piggy. Cheers hun).
So would I repurchase Seventeen’s Back Lash Mascara? Probably not. But its handy enough to make me look less piggy eyed, so for that I will thank Seventeen profusely, and perhaps ask them to send a letter to my aunt in South Africa explaining that.
If you’d like to buy this silver tube of relatively alright mascara, you can do so for £6.49 at Boots.
Have you tried Seventeen’s Back Lash Mascara? Do you think its aight too?
Rimmel ScandalEyes Rockin’ Curves Review
It’s been a while since I have royally slagged something off. I think I can blame my recent rants about pretty much everything on the fact I’ve not had a proper complain here on Stylingo.
Thankfully, I can finally come to some sort of rant closure and finally I have something to properly complain about. And that something is bloody Rimmel Scandaleyes Rockin’ Curves mascara. In fact, it’s not just complaining. It’s full on hatred.
This is without a doubt the worst thing I have put on my face, even worse than that time I thought mixing yoghurt and porridge oats would be a pleasant face mask experience. Since my love of lists is almost as much as my love of complaining, here is my beef in list form.
- What in god’s good name is the brush about? It’s literally the stupidest thing I have ever seen. Why would you make a curly wand like this? WHY. It means that at any one time, you can only get a few of your lashes. It means that your hand flaps about because you don’t know what’s going on. It basically means that whoever designed this temporarily lost their minds and/or should be sacked.
- I was promised curves. Where are they? My eyelashes look like a big ball of utter wank (pardon). They look like tiny stubby midgets balancing on my eyelids. What they don’t look like is rockin’, or curvy.
- Why is my face crumbling like pastry? I have never experienced a mascara that crumbles like this. By the end of the day, it looks like I have been down t’pit. It is also extremely annoying and slightly uncomfortable when it flakes off and falls into your eyeballs. No, Rimmel. No.
- Why is the packaging so embarrassing? I’m sorry, but snakeskin and a pitiful attempt at a ‘cool’ logo makes me want to throw up. It also makes me wonder why I bought it in the first place, I must have felt some kind of 3 for 2 Boots pressure and temporarily lost it.
- Why have you given me eyeball disease? I can’t rightly blame this on the mascara, but I have a sore eyeball now and I strongly suspect it is because this pathetic excuse for a mascara has been flaking all over the place and making me touch my eyes more than I usually would. Owwy.
So anyway. The only positive I can give Rimmel Scandaleyes Rockin’ Curves is that it makes my blonde eyelashes black and therefore makes me look like less of an albino. That is all.
Don’t bother buying this girls, it will be the most upsetting thing you ever do.
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Primark ‘PS Love’ £2 Volumising Mascara | Review
Everybody who knows me knows that I love Primark, A LOT. In fact, if I ever turn up on the missing persons’ list then the first place people should check is my local store, as the chances are I could have just been crushed by a pile of jeans, or be in the changing rooms trapped inside a dress (which yes, has happened to me – twice…)
Anywho, Primark have been gradually expanding their collection over the last couple of years. By stocking a range of beauty products, from fake tan and eyelashes to face wipes and moisturisers, they were certainly becoming a one-stop for all of those ‘popping into town for a few bits’ needs. This goal seems even closer to being achieved now with this month’s release of their brand new beauty range, PS Love. With prices ranging from just £1 – £2.50 and including false nails, lip crayons, eyebrow pencils, eyeshadow palettes and more, they’re seriously reaching out to the cheap and cheerful shoppers out there.
OBVIOUSLY I couldn’t resist trying at least one item from the range (even though makeup from anywhere other than Boots or Superdrug makes me anxious), so opted for the Volumising Mascara in Ultra Black. I’m a huge mascara fan (and you can click here to read our other mascara reviews) so was intrigued to see what Primark were putting their name to and whether it could deliver for just £2.
Firstly, I was quite happy when I opened it to find the brush is a plastic one. These are definitely my preferred type of wand, as I find they separate my lashes much better than fibre brushes. It’s also nice and chunky, which bodes well for the volumising claims. Other than that, it’s quite a crude brush (by which I mean it’s very basic in design, not that it tells saucy jokes). We’ve grown used to a mascara market saturated with bendy, curly and twisted wands that are designed to catch each and every lash, so using something as no-frills as this definitely feels a little weird and you have to go quite steady to avoid a) making a total mess and b) taking an eye out.
However, once on the formula of the Primark mascara is actually pretty good. The ‘Ultra Black’ claims are 100% founded – it really is black. It also goes on nicely; not too wet like some mascaras but also doesn’t feel like it’s clumping your lashes together. The best part for me is that it lasts really well, with no flaking throughout the day – and it really does stay VERY black.
So what’s my overall opinion? At the end of the day, the Benefit team aren’t going to be losing any sleep over the PS Love mascara knocking They’re Real off the top spot or anything; but for just £2 this really isn’t bad. In fact, it’s better than a fair few drugstore mascaras that I’ve paid four times as much for. Even if you only pick one up to keep as a spare, I would say it’s definitely worth the money.
Have any of you tried this, or any of the PS Love range yet? What do you think?
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Maybelline Falsies Big Eyes Mascara | Review
If you read this blog regularly then you may know that nothing gets my pulse racing quite like a new mascara (I know, I know – some call me an adrenaline junkie but I just won’t stop). Although I only recently re-purchased my beloved Benefit’s They’re Real (my review of which you can read here), a few new releases lately had piqued my interest. One was L’Oreal’s Miss Manga, which I was dangerously close to trying out until I saw the advert for Maybelline’s offering.
Maybelline Falsies Big Eyes claims to be quite the revolutionary piece of makeup, giving us “360 degrees of lash glam volume” with its double ended mascara wand. The idea is that our bottom lashes are different beasts to our top lashes, and so deserve a separate brush to properly catch each eyelash.
This was a concept I wholeheartedly supported; how many times have we poked ourselves viciously in the eye with a fat mascara wand as we attempt to delicately wiggle it down our bottom lashes? Too many, ladies, TOO MANY TIMES. I know Clinique has a special Bottom Lash Mascara but I for one can’t quite bring myself to spend £12 on a product that can only be used on half of my eye; so Maybelline offering 2 brushes in 1 product was much more up my street.
So, does it deliver on its grand problem-solving promises? The answer: ehhhh kinda.
Firstly we’ll talk about the Upper Lashes wand. It’s not my usual wand of choice, being a fibre brush whereas I’m much of a plastic fantastic kind of girl. It’s also one of those wands that has twists in it for what appears to be no good reason. I like the brushes to be quite straight and even so that I can work all the magic with my fancy hand wiggles and so on. Wands like this never really seem to catch my lashes where they’re supposed to, and can distribute product too unevenly.
And then there is my main bugbear with this mascara. The length of the wand itself. Just look at it. The decision to make the wand double ended and have the product in both the lids was, in my opinion, the wrong one. It means you have to manouvre all of the bulky packaging while applying the mascara, giving you much less control than when you have a longer wand to play with. It also might bash off your nose and lead to you smearing mascara over your cheek if you’re a bit, er, like me…
The Lower Lashes wand, however, IS really good for the job. A nice, simple brush, it’s got much smaller fibres to properly coat the finer hairs on the bottom. I’ll go as far as to put my lady balls on the line here and say that it’s better at catching the lower lashes than They’re Real – and that’s a big claim for me to make.
I think the results photo here shows perfectly my overall issue with the mascara. Bottom lashes = PERFECTO. Top lashes = PERFECT-NO (sorry, that was the best I could do). As you can see, the top wand just didn’t work for me and resulted in uneven distribution as well as my inner lashes being missed due to the cumbersome wand issue.
In terms of formula, I think the mascara does fairly well. It lasts nicely and doesn’t seem to smudge. It’s also a welcome change, after using the very wet and stubborn Lash Vegas and They’re Real recently, to have a mascara that actually comes off with a face wipe and doesn’t leave me looking like a panda until I’ve quadruple-cleansed.
Overall, my thoughts are that Maybelline are onto a winner in terms of concept, but didn’t quite get it right with the upper wand. I’m sure other people would be able to manouvre the upper brush much better than me, but personally I don’t think I’ll get much more use from it. The bottom lash wand is an absolute god send though, and I think I’ll continue to use this alongside my normal mascara to better complete my look.
Have any of you tried this mascara yet? What do you think?
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Barry M ‘Lash Vegas’ Mascara | Review
Hey thurr everyone. We’ve had an insanely busy few days lately, as we both moved into our new house and then I finally passed my driving test! This has meant our days have been a whir of insurance quotes, Ikea flatpack furniture and (of course) celebratory champagne sipping. We don’t have Wi-Fi in the new crib yet so haven’t been able to blog, but today I’ve come to ‘visit’ my mum with the real intention of stealing her internet. Smooth, non?
Enough of my maverick antics, on with the show. Today I’m reviewing Barry M’s mascara ‘Lash Vegas’, which I’ve been using for around the last two weeks.
Despite loving Barry M, I wouldn’t ordinarily have chosen this mascara. Lash Vegas (£6.49) has a bristle brush, which I don’t usually go for because I prefer plastic, but I picked it up for free from Superdrug in a promotional offer so I wasn’t about to complain. Plus, has anybody else noticed the mascara’s oh-so-casual product placement in Iggy Azalea’s ‘Change Your Life’ video? If it’s good enough for Iggy, it’s good enough for me.
The brush is spiral shaped, supposedly designed to separate and define even the smaller lashes. It promises ‘show-stopping volume’ and ‘the ultimate oooooomph‘ – which is, of course, what every lady wants. So, does it deliver?
Overall, I do like this mascara. It’s a very ‘wet’ mascara, a bit like Benefit’s ‘They’re Real’ in the sense that it’s easy to get in a total mess when applying it and it takes a little while to actually feel dry on your lashes. One coat works well at defining your lashes and giving some added volume, though you have to be careful applying extra coats because the formula means it can clump quite quickly. Using an eyelash comb can quickly sort this thought, and you’re left with quite an intense black colour that lasts all day. During my weeks using it, I haven’t experienced any flaking throughout the day, and it never starts to feel at all crispy. The flip side of this is that it’s an absolute bitch to remove, so make sure you have a good eye makeup remover to hand!
For under £7, I think this is a really good value for money mascara. It lasts well, adds good volume and essentially does what it says on the tin. I don’t think I’d re-purchase it, because the only place it falls down is that it’s not fantastic at adding length – which is personally my main want from mascara. But if you already have quite naturally long lashes or are more about the volume, then I think Lash Vegas could indeed be the one for you. Barry M also released the waterproof version recently as part of their A/W range, so that might be worth checking out too.
Have any of you tried Lash Vegas? What do you think?