Claire

MUA Matte Perfect Shine Control Foundation | Review & Swatches

Well, it has happened. I always wondered when I would end up becoming a Jeremy Kyle level of tramp and it appears to be the month of November.

Claire and I decided to do some online shopping at work (er, big surprise there) and ‘invested’ in some bits and bobs makeup-wise from MUA. Read about what we bought here and for a more detailed review of the Pro-Brow Eyebrow Kit, have a clicky here. Out of sheer curiosity, I bought MUA’s Matte Perfect Shine Control Foundation. Which you can buy for £2. That’s right. You can buy foundation for as much as two steak bakes from Greggs.

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I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t expecting much. I do like MUA products, but I have found that some of them have a few drawbacks – which obviously you’d expect when things are cheaper than Katie Price’s face (ooo-er, I’m such a bitch). So, when our parcel of excitement arrived, I thought it would be a fun experiment to give this foundation a whirl rather than it become a permanent fixture in my makeup bag.

And guess what chums… it was actually really good.

In a slightly weird move on MUA’s part, the foundation only comes in two shades: fair and almond. I really love how MUA include swatches in their product information, which is super useful when choosing shades. The almond colour looked really orange (even for me), so I opted for ‘fair’ thinking I could always bronze up if the dreaded pale-face-orange-body issue occured.

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As you can see, it is quite a light shade but it works well on days that I haven’t tanned and I’m using my Bourjois Bronzing Primer underneath on days that I have oranged up to darken things a bit.

I thought that the consistency would be quite watery and a bit pathetic – with no promises of full coverage, I thought it would be more of a BB Cream sort of product. How wrong I was. It’s really thick and I’d say it’s most likely oil based, which is something I prefer with a foundation. The coverage is amazing – I’d say on a par with Estee Lauder’s Double Wear and Rimmel’s Lasting Finish 25 Hour Foundation, both of which are my go-to base products. It goes on very nicely and you don’t think for a minute that it only cost £2 when applying. For those who prefer a dewy look, it has a lovely finish and only needs a light dusting of powder on the t-zone. I prefer a more matte look, so I tend to go for all over powder, but it still looks grand.

The staying power is also surprisingly good. I wore this to work, to the gym and still came home with makeup on my face (PARDON ME?!). It’s very impressive.

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As always, I do have some issues with it (I am an old woman now and enjoy complaining as well as tense games of Scrabble. Deal with it). The product promises to “keep the shine at bay all day”, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite do that. I always wear a primer and find I need to powder by midday when wearing MUA’s Matte Perfect Shine Control regardless. SAYING THAT. The only time I don’t need to powder is if I wear Double Wear, so I feel I can overlook MUA’s false promises. I have a discoball face that loves to pester me with it’s shiny nose, so it’s not unusual for me to have to touch up during the day. Rather than shine control and mattifying, I’d say this foundation is better for full coverage and lasting – still really good but

Face snaps

And this is what it looks like on my face – NOT BAD, JA? JA.

What do you think? Have any of you used MUA’s Matte Perfect Shine Control Foundation? 

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Claire

MUA Pro-Brow Eyebrow Kit | Review

‘Ello chaps!

If you read our MUA haul post (can we call it a haul? We probably spent less than £20 between us…), you might have noticed that I picked up their Pro-Brow Eyebrow Kit.

Eyebrows are a big part of my life. I probably spend more time drawing my eyebrows on in the morning than doing anything else and nothing distresses me more than a wonky brow (apart from you know, war and running out of hair bobbles). I have paley-paley eyebrows, which means I look like a lunatic without eyebrow makeup- particularly after dying my hair brown. I’m a big fan of eyebow kits as opposed to eyebrow pencils, mostly because I think you have a lot more freedom in terms of shape. Pencils also don’t give the same finish as powders and wax, so I say yay to eyebrow kits and nay to nasty pencils.

My all-time favourite kit in the history of the world ever is the Sleek Brow Kit (which I reviewed here), but I thought that I’d give this MUA one a whirl – mostly because it is just £3.50. You heard it here first guys, this is cheaper than a cheap thing on wheels.

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MUA have called it (nice and succinctly), the Pro-Brow Ultimate Eyebrow Kit, All-in-One Shape, Shade and Highlight. For all you Benefit fans, this is somewhat similar to the Brow Zings eyebrow kit or the Brows-a-Gogo eyebrow kit. I say this mostly because MUA have included a mini pair of tweezers, a brush, two main brow shades, a highlighter (we’ll get to this…) and an eyebrow gel.

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In a bit more detail, the Pro-Brow Kit has two brow shades: a deep chocolate brown and a paler more tan coloured brown. These are both powders and quite obviously, designed to fill in your eyebrows and I have no complaints really. They’re fairly pigmented and buildable – I’ve found that I do a couple of layers of the deep brown for my scousebrows. I don’t have much use for the lighter colour, but it may come in handy if I ever go lighter with my hair. The powder is quite loose as you can probably tell from the swatches, so beware of fallout chums!

The highligher I have beef with. It’s in no way light enough to be a highlighter in the way I know highlighters. For my browbone, I tend to use a very light shimmery colour and this bizarre tan colour is far too dark. I tried to give it a go but I just looked mad.

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The gel is fine, it took a bit of getting used to after using a lot of waxes in the past, but it keeps my eyebrow hairs in place and is most excellent for neatening things up a bit.

The brush is another part of the kit I didn’t get on with at all. As it is such a cheap eyebrow kit, it’s not really a big surprise that it isn’t great quality although I was a bit disappointed. The brush has really thick, firm plastic bristles that are impossible to work with – I wasn’t able to draw on my eyebrow shape accurately and it just made the powder go all over the place. Thankfully, I had my Sleek brush to hand and that worked perfectly. If you do plan on purchasing this bad boy, make sure you have a back up brush!

Overall, I really like the kit. I’m aware that I sound like a terribly Negative Nancy about it, but on the whole it is a great eyebrow kit. Some things leave a bit to be desired (what even is the highlighter?) but it’s doing to job of giving me eyebrows when there used to be none. HUZZAH AND THANKS TO MERRY ENGLAND MUA.

Has anyone else used this little kit? What do you reckon?

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