cosmetics | makeovertoday.co.uk

Posts Tagged ‘cosmetics’

16
Jan
2014

Lancome Hypnose mascara review

categories: Blog

Ok, recently I have been on a mission to review many mascaras that have received attention in the media and some that I have found to be popular without the hype. I trailed the review section for hours or research on the Superdrug wesite to find mascaras that have received a 5 star review with the public, and pitched them against some bigger named brands to see what the results were and see what really is value for money.

Lancome Hypnose is around the £22 pound mark here in Britain. A little pricey some would say, but others might consider it mid range. Whatever you viewpoint, this mascara is nice and performed well. I test with and without an eyelash primer. Without the primer it was ok but with the primer it performed much better. However that does seem to be the case for most mascaras.

Hypnose mascara

To me this mascaras lengthened and added a little volume. I would keep it because it really performed well on my bottom lashes and as I have a few missing on one eye, this has really become a standard test for me. Apart from that it did not dramatically add volume.

If you are looking for a mascara to fill in sparse areas and lengthen your lashes then is a mascara for you. If you are looking for volume, then perhaps another brand would be better.

This Hypnose mascara did not perform better than my drug store brand collection 2000 mascara so I would rather pay £4 than £22. If I could not get hold of my regular brand, this is definitely an alternative.

03
Jan
2014

A Great Little Brow Kit .

categories: Blog

Eye brow kits are something of a recent phenomenon in the makeup and cosmetic industries. Before their existence women relied upon a bit of plucking and an eyebrow pencil. Eyebrow pencils are still very much in, but since eyebrow grooming has become so much more fashionable,( with the introduction of precise waxing and threading,) HD eyebrow kits have become essential.

This one from Gosh has exactly what you need for a nice HD, high definition look.

Eyebrow compact from Gosh

This nice looking eyebrow compact has three powder colours, a wax cream, a brush and a mirror.

It’s usually priced around £8.50, but it’s on offer right now at Superdrug, and you can get it online for £6.49.( just search for brow kit) It has an amazing five out of five stars review at the time of writing, And as I am typing, I am finding it very difficult not to buy another one right now to stock up..

13
Nov
2013

Liz Earle Lipstick – Azalea

categories: Blog

I bought this lipstick shade last year in Leeds in one of the Liz Earle Stores. I bought it along with another shade Rosewood. The Rosewood lipstick I initially found more wearable, however yesterday I decided to go for a completely different make-up look and the Liz Earle Azalea shade seemed to fit the bill.

The initial problem for me with the Azalea lipstick was that it seemed to have pinky undertones and that just did not fit in with the more coral warm shades that I seem to favour. I am blonde and blue eyed with a fairish skin tone, and the Azalea lipstick just didn’t sit right. But yesterday when I was wearing teal, the bluish undertones in the lipstick just seemed to pop. So I highly recommend it if you are going to be wearing blues.

The other product I wore was an Avon Khol eyeliner in cobalt blue. I would have been better off with a teal eyeliner shade, ( which I have in another product line, ) but at the time I forgot all about it. I love Avon products, but I hate, the way they sell them. I love the old Avon, the one of the fifties, sixties and early seventies. But the way they treat reps today, well, I just don’t agree with it. Wouldn’t it be great to have the old Avon lady back; the one that sat in your living room and opened her cosmetics box and brought out a tonne of lipstick shades to try? Those were magical days.

Well I digress. So Azalea lipstick from Liz Earle, it’s a winner when worn with the right colour. If you have dark hair I think it would look great without the additional worry of wearing blue tones. But for very fair blondes, make sure you wear it with the right blue.

12
Nov
2013

Finding The Perfect Mascara

categories: Blog

The perfect mascara, the best mascara, the mascara that will provide you with the most fantastic lashes; it’s like finding the Holy Grail in the make-up world.

All we can hope to accomplish is finding the mascara that works best for us without being ripped off. And I think that I have found one that ticks all the boxes

The mascara I use is the Collection 2000 Multiplier. I always use eyelash curlers and then use Estee Launder’s Lash Primer and top off with Collection 2000 Multiplier mascara.

I have wondered about other mascaras in the range and so recently I bought the Colour Lash All Day Mascara by Collection 2000.( Oh Ok I will admit it, it was a bit of a mistake. I was looking for an alternative lash primer to the Estee Lauder version and bought this new mascara thinking it was a Collection 2000 primer.)

On trying the Colour Lash All Day Mascara, I have to say that this product was a bit of a let down. The only way that I could recover the situation was to use Maybelline Colossal Volume Express Mascara and add some of it to my lashes before they dried. I don’t really like this particular Maybelline mascara. They used to do a perfect formulation a few years back, but it appeared they changed the product range, yet again, and so that mascara was discarded from my make- up kit. So the Colossal Volume Express Mascara was just one I happened to have lying around.

I have to conclude that the perfect mascara is Collection 2000 All Day Multiplier. It performs well with and without lash primer. But for perfect results get the Estee lash primer. At the moment of writing the Estee lash primer is £18.00 but it is worth every penny in results when used with a great mascara. The collection 2000 Lash Multiplier is around the four pounds mark, but I think it is far better than many premium brands, so to me this is the perfect mascara.

11
Nov
2013

Make up Snobbery – it has no place in makeovers, or anywhere else!

categories: Blog

Time and time again I hear – I don’t use cheap make up – it has to be MAC or Urban Decay or some other such brand of the moment. Wake up people – it’s marketing. Yes premium brand cosmetics may be very good quality, but a huge chunk of what you are paying for is the branding, the advertising and PR.

There are brands out there that don’t get the same exposure, PR or branding, but that does not mean to say that you compromise on quality by investing some of your money in a cheaper brand.

I have various brands in my make- up box. Taking a look I see:

Lancome

Clinic

Laura Geller

YBF

Natural Collection

Collection 2000

Max Factor

No 7

Body Shop

Revlon

Bare Minerals

Lord and Berry

Shu Uemura

Fran Wison

I can assure you there are more, but I am going to stop the list there. Some of the cosmetic brands you may recognise, some you may not as I am a big fan of QVC (and their return policy with make- up) and they often bring over American brands of make- up that cannot be found elsewhere in the UK.

Having said not to be a snob about make-up brands, I will also add a caveat. Be careful about some lesser known make up brands.

We should all be careful about unbranded or unrecognisable brands from China and the Far East. A lot of make products are made in China under license by EU and American companies. The USA and the EU have strict guidance about what ingredients can and cannot appear in make- up, and as long as the the companies making their products in China have very strict quality control policies, all should be fine.

However, it is very easy to obtain cosmetics which may not meet EU standards on sites like Global Sources. Here you can buy pallets full of cosmetics, and unless you have a chemist test the formulation, it is impossible to know what the cosmetic ingredients may contain. So beware about buying makeup on sites like ebay or on market stalls. If big companies like Fisher Price, (who had problems with lead paint in children’s toys a few years back) have quality control issues, then how on earth are we supposed to know what is in that highly pigmented make up, bought from a market stall.

So the message is beware, but don’t be a makeup snob. (Although, I was very guilty of it myself in my twenties. Nothing but Estee Launder!) But do try out other lesser known brands. You never know, they might just surprise you, and you will save yourself some money.

PS. If some well known make-up artist has produced a video demo using lots of expensive brands, remember that PR companies send out cosmetics FREE for them to use.