YSL volume effect, faux cils mascara

If you follow my blog you will know that I bought this mascara in the January sales. Its been sat in the box ever since because I was worried that it wouldn't live up to all the hype and that it could have already dried up like so many people warned me about.

This week I finally took the plunge and opened it and WOW! I love it, I may possibly have found my HG mascara!

The brush looks like nothing special really, a spiral fibre brush. Honestly if it was a cheaper brand I would have took one look at the brush and thought 'this looks crap'. The product is thick but quite wet and jet black.

One coat and all my lashes are separated, lengthened and lifted. It give such a fanned effect to the lashes. Although it is called 'volume effect' it takes quite alot of coats to get, what I would call, high volume, its more of a day mascara for me than dramatic evening. I found I get a little bit of rub down/'panda eye' in the middle of that day, although I haven't noticed it every single day, but that could knock it off the HG spot if it does that normally.

And now its just a waiting game to see what happens with the 'drying out' problem that everyone complains about with this product and I will keep you updated. I do have a theory though, that it is the metal tube that makes the product inside very cold and I think that's what dries it out. I have been trying to warm the product up before I use it and see if that helps.

I seem to be having abit of a mascara 'moment' so if anyone has any other HG recommendations, let me know!

My current favourite foundations

I am constantly buying new product all the time, but most of the time they don't make the grade and get shooved to the back of my make-up draw. I then go back to my old favourite and fall back in love with it all over again, currently I'm having a long term love affair with these two foundations.

I've had Dior skin nude for over a year now, its the perfect light shade for winter, I wear the 010 shade. Its a water based foundation and needs a good shake up before using. The formula gives almost like a second skin effect, the coverage is medium but it feels so lightweight you would never think it would give so much. I find the finish really similar to the Chanel vitalumiere aqua but possibly a tiny bit more dewy. It lasts really well on the skin too. To be perfectly honest I think this is the best foundation I have ever used!
My second love at the moment is actually the complete opposite in price to the Dior Nude, its the 17 BB cream. I was going to review this when it first came out but I couldn't quite make my mind up about it, some times it looked great sometimes it didn't. Now I have found the perfect way to apply it I love it. This product is best applied with your fingers or a kabuki brush like the Sigma F80, then the finish is really smooth, light to medium coverage with a dewy finish. Like most BB creams, this cream blurs imperfections like blemishes and fine lines without being really heavy.

Its quite thick and you only want a really thin layer of this product, its not that buildable and can cake up a little if you use too much. It stays on really well for this kind of product so its great for the day time.

Unbelievably I have actually almost finished the 17 BB cream and it only came out in November time I think so that really says something about how much I like it!

I do love these two but I am ALWAYS open to trying something new, so let me know what your current favourites are?

17 Peep show mascara

I've always had a soft spot for 17 products, for the price they always perform really well. I completely missed this mascara launching, I guess because I've not been working at Boots but I saw it as I was walking through last week and thought I'd give it a try. I think it was about £5 and at the moment it comes with a cute little eye palette free.

The brush is a standard small spiral bristle brush. It has a slight curve in the middle, but nothing particularly noticeable. The formula is very stringy, which I presume is designed to build length.

Its quite a 'wet' mascara and I do get the feeling that as the mascara dries out it will get better.

'Peep show' really does what it says on the tin, it really does build length amazingly. For the way I like my lashes though I do usually need to apply a thinker mascara over the top because it doesn't give the best volume, however like I said I think it will with time.

It doesn't wear off or flake through out the day at all. For the price it was a really good buy, especially suited for someone who has alot of lashes but wants to build length.

Sigma brush set

On black Friday back in November, Sigma offered free worldwide postage on their website so obviously I took advantage of this and purchased the synthetic kabuki brush kit. I mainly wanted to try the F80 flat kabuki but the kit was just such fantastic value.

With the kit I also got a blending brush free, which was lovely. I do have the Mac 217 but you can never have too many blending brushes.

Here is a close up view of all the brushes:
F84

F80

F86

F82

The brushes are so densely packed I thought that they would absorb all the product, but they spread foundation so smoothly and give an amazing coverage, even with lightweight products like tinted moisturisers. The bristles are super soft and fine. I have found these brushes work really well with liquid foundations and cream brushes, but don't really seem work as well with powders.

So far my favourite brush has been the F80 and the F84, the only one I don't really use at all is the pointed F86 because I don't really get what its for. If anyone's got any tips leave a comment below.

When you wash these brushes you have to be careful not to use too much shampoo as they lather up alot and hold the product in the bristles.

If anyones looking for a great brush to quickly and flawlessly apply foundation I would really recommend the F80 and the F84 its just annoying that sigma is so hard to get hold of in the UK.

2011 and my new years look

I am going to have a little self indulgent moment and have a look back at this year in my life. Where did 2011 go? it seems to have gone so fast but so much happened.

Inevitably in 2011 I turned 23, and for the first time in my life celebrated my birthday away from home and my family, with my amazing boyfriend, in the lake district. This year we also celebrated our 4 year anniversary awwww.

In April I went to New York for the first time with my family and had an absolutely amazing time.

I got a promotion within Benefit and actually became someones manager and then in December I landed my dream job as a makeup specialist for Chanel, and I am absolutely loving it.

In the summer I visited my gorgeous family in hawaii and stood on top of a active volcano!!!!

Beauty wise, 2011 was the year of actually taking proper care of my skin, and I managed to keep last years resolution of taking my makeup off every night (almost every night). I became obsessed with contouring and now probably couldn't live without a matt bronzer. I didn't cut my hair at all this year :S oh dear. 2011 was also the year I got well and truly OBSESSED with twitter and I'm sure 2012 will be no different.

I haven't quite finalised my new years resolutions so I thought I'd just show you my New Years eve look.

Started as this, very simple look...

And ended in this, possibly the best fancy dress costume ever done!
haha!