Fushia Make Up: The Pro Collection

Back before Christmas I attended a lovely Christmas blogger dinner hosted by Lisa from PinkSugar. We were spoiled with goodie bags from lots of generous companies and one of them was Fuschia. In their goodie bag we got a *pro palette and also some lip products, but what really grabbed my attention was the palette. I'll be honest and say that it took me a few days to try this out, I was in no hurry as I had read some awful reviews of this brand. I had previously got a sample size lip gloss to try and although I adored the shade, it didn't apply well and smelled horrible. I thought this would apply across board for all of their make up.

But I couldn't have been more wrong when it came to their eye shadows and blushes. This massive magnetized palette holds 9 blushes and 12 eye shadows. Hand over my heart when I say this - I use every single shade here, especially the crazy red, orange and the matte purples. Playing it safe, I normally only have dark browns, greys and other neutral colours in my collection. This palette however has brought me over to the dark side and I now utterly love wearing a bright pop of colour now. The shadows themselves are highly pigmented which was a great surprise. Theres a lovely mixture of mattes, shimmers and glittery goodness. The very same goes for the blushes and what I can only assume is some sort of contour - the almost black one at the bottom of the palette that I've still not used. Its a bit of a intimidating colour to use!

Not having a clue about Fuschia, I went onto their site to see what the craic was. There they give you the chance to create your own palettes starting from a single (€8.50) up to a five pan (€25) of the 60 different eye shadows they have on offer. Blushes come in single pots, but I'm sure if you wanted something similar to the pro palette above, you could fill it with lots of different depotted blushes or shadows. Each blush is €16.50 and there seems to be 10 shades available.

Not having ever had products like these before, I really like how each shadow and blush has their own number, name and ingredients list on the bottom. I've seen similar things with MAC (again, a brand I've never once tried and think is a tad overrated!) but this is all new to me and a great novelty. Although I doubt I'd fork out for a full palette, if and when any of these little pots get used up, I wouldn't hesitate to fork out the €8.50 to get a replacement or to try out a new shade - the idea of 60 different ones has me a bit giddy. 

Then again, there are times when I go on a mad one and get spendy with make up. I know last year Fuschia had a stand at the Pro Beauty show and I hope they have one again this year as I might be passing by for a 'quick' look. (read: hour long poking, swatching and demanding they take all my money.) I had a quick go of the lip lipstick and glosses that I got in the goodie bag too and it was a total different texture and smell to the other older ones I had tried. This makes me wonder if a new formula was introduced because I enjoyed using them a lot more. 

Some things Fuschia offers are totally mad prices for what they are, but as far as the eye shadows go, I couldn't fault them and would fork out in future no bother.

*I did not pay for this item, it was a PR gift.  Please see my disclaimer here. 

December Favourites

December was Christmas and that means good skin for applying lots of glitter and sparkle to. It was the month of much food, sending over 50 Christmas cards,baking and drinking a lot of alcohol. Dragging Christmas trees through doors and loosing cats to them for a full month, its been great! I took part in a blogger secret santa which was hosted by the wonderful TotalMakeUpAddict. I got so many lovely things from my secret santa but I didn't end up doing a post showing what I got unfortunately. However I am so grateful and will put up a quick Instagram snap of the haul to show anyone thats interested!

One of the lovely things that I've been using all month is the Revolution eye shadow palette. It has the most gorgeous shades, with a mixture of shimmers and mattes. I love the light champagnes and pinks, but I also love the golds and browns. Its the perfect palette to bring you from day to night and all the shimmers for party season! (not that it will stop me from wearing them all year round.)

Another thing that I am forever in love with, but especially this month has been my matte dark red Inglot lipstick. Red lips are the automatic thing to happen when it starts getting cold and Christmas is only around the corner. I have a full blog post about this lipstick and a matching lip gloss over here.

Not a new one to me, but I'm not sure if I've talked about it on the blog before. Lushes Mask of Magnaminty is the only face mask in their line that you don't need to keep in the fridge or use up within tow weeks. Its over €10 so I hadn't picked it up in a few months, but I couldn't help giving myself a little early present. This is full of minty peppermint and fights all those face uglies - spots. I put this all over my face and also once or twice on my arms, as I have had breakouts there too. The day after using it I always find a massive difference in my skin and my spots seem to particularly reduce on my arms. One that I would totally recommend picking up if you are looking for something from Lush that isn't bath related.

I've started a serious long term relationship with Sleek over the past few months. December hasn't been any different, with my contour kit that I've talked about in previous favourites posts (but its just too damn amazing not to talk about again and again) and my new blush in the shade antique. Its the perfect amount of shimmer and on the slightly darker side for the cold season. I'm not a fan of coral or bright pinks up I'm starting to come round to the lighter colours. In the mean time, this has been on my face all day, everyday. I've collected quite an amount of Sleek blushers, so I might do a separate post on them.

Boots own brand nose pore strips are my all time favourite guilty pleasures. You get 6 strips in the box and each one is a delight to use. Wet your your nose and apply the strip, leave it on to dry for a few minutes and then.. Rip it off! Lovely clean pores. See? Total dirty guilty pleasure.

A slightly different favourite is Bewleys Christmas chai tea. I'm so sad that that its only limited edition as I'm utterly in love with the drink. It was something stupid like €4, but I'm already looking forward to next year when they hopefully bring them back. Mmmm.

Lastly is the *Ameliorate body lotion. Its just so lovely on the skin, I use it on my arms most days and it sinks in beautifully without leaving oily residue or being too heavy. Its really expensive and I doubt very much that I'll buy it myself, but its just fab. 

*I did not pay for this item, it was a PR gift.  Please see my disclaimer here. 

New Max Factor Excess Shimmer Shadows And Eye Liners

Whatever is in the water over at Max Factor, its doing them serious good. They are coming out with new products every few weeks its seems, with a full nail varnish line, a foundation and now 2 more added to the ever growing list. Might I first introduce their new *Max Factor excess shimmer eye shadows. Oh mammy now these are something I can really talk at length about, would you just look at them! Six shimmer gel based, cream-like, dark to light pots that dreams are made from. 

The first thing I noticed with these little pots was how well they were sealed. At times you can pick up a product in the shop and you wouldn't be sure if its been opened as there is no protective seal or plastic, so this was a plus for me. I'm getting more obsessive about hand sanitizer and hygiene in general as I get older and make up is a big one. The pots themselves aren't much to look at with plain black lids, but flip them over and you get to see whatever lovely shade you have picked inside the glass. The only thing that bothered me with some of these was the lids tend to loosen and can come off, which is a pain if you popped one in your makeup bag. But a plus is that despite them being glass, they don't weigh down your overall makeup bag. So as you can imagine I'm carting them around (carefully) with me everywhere!

The six shades are all beautiful in their own right with Crystal being a light pearly white - which is amazing on the inner eye and under the brow as highlighters. Next in the light side is Pearl which is still giving me a hard time to work with, I tend to use this near the waterline or the inner corners on my eye and build colours over it. Something like the lovely Pink Opal, its a colour I would never ever normally use as I am too fond of my darks, but wow does this pink shimmer really work wonders for my green eyeballs! 

Although the three lighters shades are lovely, the three darker shades in this collection are my utter love. A Copper that is so subtle you could wear it on its own as a natural look. Then my favourite of the lot, Bronze. I have a feeling this eye shadow will have every last bit dug out from the base and be overused. Lastly a bold black in Onyx that makes the most perfect smoky eye. 

I need to sit down after describing all those shades, they are just too much for me to handle. 

A few things to note when using these eye shadows. For all gel/cream based shadows, its always best to use a base of primer and then a regular powder in a close shade to your base gel/cream shadow. This helps them to stay longer and not slide into the crease of your eye. Thats never a good look. I personally don't think they last the 12 hours that Max Factor say they do, but they last most of the day, with just a little topping up needed if your going out later that night.

 Another thing is that these eye shadows build amazingly, like just wow. With a brush or with your fingers, they are so feckin' easy to work with and blend together really well. A big thumbs up to the lovely people in Max Factor for getting it spot on with these. You can pick them up in Boots right now for €9.99 - but theres a 3 for 2 offer on, so you will be able to get three! (If not more. Enabler? Me! Never.) 

Next is the *Max Factor excess intensity longwear eyeliners. There are already six of these in shops now, but these three colours are going to be released in January to compliment the new shimmer eye shadows. These three are violet, jade and cobalt that twist up to release the eyeliner. I'm a big fan of the strong blue liner over black liner to give the eye a major pop, but I'm a little ifie with the other two colours. I'm certainly not brave enough to go out and about with these striking colours just yet, but around the house I look pretty damn fancy - if I do say so myself.

These are smooth and easy to apply, but I think they could be almost too soft as they snap off easily if you twist them up even a little too far. They also tend to move a bit more then other eyeliners I have tried. But pared with a good primer and I think they stay much longer, without budging. They are definitely not smudge/water proof like Max Factor claims, nor are they near 12 hour long lasting, but they do still work well. I think there particularly handy because you never need to sharpen them - but that could just be the lazy in me talking.  For €8.99 with the three for two offer in Boots at the moment, you can try out the other shades while you wait for these ones to be released in January. 

Do any shades call out to you?

*I did not pay for this item, it was a PR gift.  Please see my disclaimer here.