Thursday 10 April 2014

Urban Decay Ammo Palette

Another lovely prize from a giveaway from Sophie from Born to Buy was the Urban Decay Ammo Palette. At the time I won this, I didn't have any other UD shadows. Before I got home and got my mitts on this palette, I bought myself the Naked 3 Palette (read my review here). I loved it, so was excited about getting to play with some colourful UD shadows!
This palette is in cardboard, but is surprisingly sturdy. I wouldn't be worried about traveling with it at all. This is the first release, which comes with the dreaded double ended sponge applicator. It's not my first choice of applicator, but I do find it comes in handy with cream eyeshadows and to highlight the inner corner of my eye. It comes with 10 of Urban Decay's best selling eyeshadows, which are a lovely mix of colours and neutrals, so a large amount of looks can be created with this palette. They are arranged in pairs, so the top colours compliment the colours below them, but you really can use any combination of colours!

Smog - Deep caramel shimmer
Mildew - Light mossy green shimmer
Oil Slick - Glittery black
Last Call - A lovely deep pink shimmer
Chopper - Light carmel with glitter.
Maui Wowie - golden brown with glitter. (FYI, this is also the name of a strain of marijuana. I did not find what I expected when I googled this shade name.)
Shattered - Light blue with glitter
Polyester Bride - Off white shimmer
Grifter -  Light pinky lavender with glitter.
Sin - Champagne shimmer, the perfect highlight shade.

In direct Sunlight - in the same order as the palette.
Natural light.
With flash.

The formulas are lovely and pigmented, and so easy to blend. There is a lot of fall out with glitter, but I haven't found it to be a problem. Last Call is my favourite of the lot, but I find it to be the least pigmented of the lot. Maybe that's just me being picky, or maybe it's because I'm not using a primer. I'm on the search for the perfect pink, this is lovely, but not it. There is also enough neutrals in this palette to create every day looks, maybe not so much work appropriate because there is a lot of glitter and shimmer. I've had a lot of fun playing around with the the colour in this palette and I really can't wait to get my hands on some more UD shadows!

This palette is available off Beauty Bay, in the second release of the palette - Ammo 2. This release comes with a 'good karma' brush rather than the sponge applicator, and a primer potion sample. Also, the shades are apparently Urban Decya

What's your favourite Urban Decay palette? Or your favourite colourful palette?

Friday 4 April 2014

OPI Euro Centrale minis!

The OPI Euro Centrale collection has been out for a while now, I know. I never really paid much attention to it before I went to Europe. But now I've been to Eastern Europe, the area which these polishes base their names from, I've opened my eyes and realised how pretty these colours actually are! They're like little souvenirs of my adventures! I was eyeing the larger bottles off towards the end of my travels, and although I knew there was a mini collection somewhere, I was going to wait and buy a few full sized bottles when I got to duty free in Sydney airport. But of course, they didn't have them. But then my lovely friend Patty bought these for me when we went for coffee recently because she's amazing.

The mini collection consists of 4 colours,
Can't find my Czechbook - Bluey teal. It also makes use of a pun that got extremely overused while in Prague.
Suzi's Hungary AGAIN! - Coraly Red. Another overused pun from my trip.
You're such a BudaPest - Grey toned purple. This joke also doesn't work if you're using the Hungarian pronunciation - 'Budapesht'.
OY - Another Polish Joke! - Yellow gold glitter with a clear base.
Can't find my Czechbook and You're such a BudaPest both apply opaque with about 3 coats, Suzi's Hungary AGAIN! only takes 2 coats, and the glitter takes about 4 coats, and that's with a colour as a base. The glitter in OY-Another Polish joke is really tiny, and quite sparse. When I applied it over 1 coat of You're such a BudaPest, I needed 4 coasts to get a decent coverage, and could have even gone another coat. That being said, because the glitter is so tiny, you could get away with just using one thin coat over other polishes to give them a nice gold shimmer. If you're looking for a full on gold glitter, I would suggest trying Ulta3 Precious (if you can get your hands on it).
There is a little bit of shimmer in You're such a Budapest, but you can only really notice it in certain lights, like in direct sunlight. Unfortunately it doesn't photograph, so I can't show you.
They wear like your average polish. I usually find I get chipping the day I apply polish, which I found with Can't find my Czechbook, but I've worn You're such a BudaPest for a day now and had no chips! This was over Essence Studio Nails XXL nail thickener, and only had Essence nail art express dry drops put on top.
Can't find my Czechbook, Suzi's Hungary AGAIN!, You're such a BudaPest, OY-Another Polish Joke.
Natural Light
Sunlight

I think the mini's are an excellent way of allowing you to own a lot of a collection, without having to spend all your money on full sized bottles. They can be quite annoying to apply, as you need to make sure the brush is really full of polish to avoid the polish going on unevenly.
This set also had the colours I wanted from the collection, except for Polka.com which is a really beautiful blue, teal and purple glitter.
OY-Another Polish joke and You're such a BudaPest

Can't find my Czechbook

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Wish list: Now I'm home

I've had enough time now to sit down and browse through some blogs. And I think my wallet wishes I hadn't! There's so much I need to catch up on beauty wise, and it couldn't come at a worse time... when I don't have an income!

Wishlist

1. Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette            2. Benefit lollitint
3. L'orel Paris False Lash Butterfly Wings mascara             4. MAC lipstick in Saint Germain  
 5. Nars blush in Gilda


I must have been living under a rock for a month because I have only just noticed the Too Faced Chocolate Bar eyeshadow palette. This is seriously pretty! I really love how the 2 highlight shades are bigger, because I end up using up the highlight shades way quicker than any other. The shade range is beautiful. You can never have too many neutral palettes, right?

Lollitint came out a while back now, and I have had a chance to look at it in store. It's gorgeous! I think it's the perfect shade for a tint. Light pink with a hint of lavender. I have one benefit tint, which I don't really use, but I think I would get a good deal of use out of this.

I confess, I'm someone who doesn't throw their mascaras out every 6 months. I throw them out when they start drying up and not working as well as they used to. I'm at a point where most of my mascaras are getting to that stage, so I'm starting to look at a new mascara. This one really caught my eye. I have seen an add for it, and I really wish they wouldn't use fake lashes to advertise mascara! The plastic wand is the type I like, and I love the idea of the winged brush.

I wish I bought more MAC lipsticks overseas, but there weren't any that stuck out as something I needed. Until I got home and decided I need more light pinks. Saint Germain seems like the perfect pink to fill the (rather small) void in my lipstick collection, it just sucks that they're so much more expensive in Australia! I might need to look up some dupes!

Lastly, as you saw in my previous post, I've fallen in love with Nars blushes. A trip to Mecca is in order I think, but I've had a look online and Gilda really stuck out to me. I love orange toned blushes, peaches and corals are my favourite.