Saturday 31 October 2015

FREEDOM WEEK #3 - FREEDOM MAKEUP LONDON PRO 12 AUDACIOUS MATTES PALETTE

Good morning :) Happy weekend to you all.  Part 3 of the week long extravaganza that is my week with Freedom is here. Make yourself a cup of tea/coffee, we may be here for a while :)


Today I'd like to speak to you about my favourite little palette from Freedom London. Nars lookalike, Pro 12 Audacious Mattes Palette. As you all must know by now, I collect matte eyeshadow palettes. Not only do I think that matte eye makeup is MY THANG, but also because it just looks better on me. I'm not so proud owner of sad eyes and matte eyeshadows look 100 times better on :)

Packaging: 

12 shadows enclosed in rather cheap plastic with clear lid. Will this survive travelling with? For the first few month maybe but I would suggest depotting to a Z-palette or other. Eyeshadows are placed and branded with a famous way Nars eyeshadows are "formed".

Formula:

Quite incredible feel when first swatched. Formula is almost creamy in touch, shades are pigmented, although some better than others. The top row shades are very similar with a slight different undertones to them. They go on well on a lid, blend beautifully with a little fallout experienced only from the last dark grey shade. All shades swatch great, second row being full of transition shades. Some shades may dissapear a little when blended but altogether this palette is now my go to for transition, in crease shades, because of the ease of blending and creamy formula. Amazing !!

Colour range:

Pro 12 Audacious Mattes Palette is a definition of matte neutral palette with all the shades similar, borderline neutral with a little warmth and cool tones mixed in to create a perfect daytime palette or a transition shades palette.


Top row - matte highlight shades from light neutral, through cool and warmish light beige. Great as a setting powder for eyeshadow primer and to open up an eye in the inner corner :) 1st and 3rd shade are almost identical and I honestly see only a microscopic different in an undertone.


Middle row - light to medium beige/brown and taupe. 1st & last shade little warmer and 2nd and 3rd light to medium taupe. Great to use as a transit colours, in the crease of above it to open up a look a little. They all blend and swatch great, nice pigmentation. I haven't experienced any fallout.


Bottom row - in general you will find here shades that can be used to deepen the crease, all over the lid for a matte smoked effect or in outer corner to add dimension. I experienced a little fallout with 4th shade. Again pigmentation and blending is excellent. Can't fault them. I really like the last shade as we don't always need a black.

I am giving this palette a great score of 4* out of five for being a perfect transition colours compilation. All the shades blend amazing, have a good to great pigmentation and it's a perfect add on to any collection. It's so important to own at least one all matte, neutral palette to be able to create a range of daytime to evening looks. These days palettes are lacking transition shades sometimes and with a great quality at an amazing price, look no further than Freedom Makeup London Pro 12 Audacious Mattes Palette :) 

Let me know what your thoughts are at this little gem :) And if you're looking to add this on to your collection, click here to buy for £4.00 only. Freedom is now widely available in larger Superdrug stores, have you checked it the counter came to yours yet? Let me and others know in the comments below :) Both website and Superdrug now offer 3 for 2 across all makeup, so if there ever was a time to shop - it is now :)

Thank you for reading.
Love,

Dorota x

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Thursday 29 October 2015

FREEDOM WEEK #2 - ALL YOU NEED IS... Pro HD Brow Palette in Fair Medium review with swatches

Hello my beauties and welcome to second post in my Freedom Week series. This week I'm bringing you affordable professional makeup from Freedom Makeup London :) I have to say Freedom has stepped up their game big time and came up with so many amazing new products !!! I had to have them all ;)

Brows are still very IN. Remember the good old times of over plucking and non existent brow game? Yes, me too. Thankfully it is now over. As little as year ago, it was pretty impossible to get an affordable, yet good product to step up your brow game. We had Anastasia Beverly Hills, then MAC and Inglot but these don't come cheap. The product I'm talking about today is a dupe of very famous brow book by ABH. If you haven't got £90.00 to spare - keep on reading :)




When I first saw Freedom releasing their new brow products I got super excited. I worried a little that, when it arrives, it won't be as good, as I hoped it to be, because I only spent £10.00 !! I'm pleased to confirm I was wrong. The main reason it's so hard to get a great brow product at drugstore price range are the tone of the colours. I am naturally blonde and my own brows have ashy undertones. A lot of products on the market is very warm toned, which unfortunately doesn't look very natural.I was super pleased to discover that within Pro HD Brow Palette I found only cool toned or neutral toned shades. There are few shades that appear warmer, but none are really warm.

Packaging:

Palette comes in sturdy, strengthened cardboard packaging. I like the matte black finish with simple white letters. It looks very professional and more expensive than it actually is. Inside you will find a large mirror (always a YAY from me), 6 double pots of powder brow product, one powder and one cream brow bone highlight, as well as a brush and brow stencils. I personally don't like using stencils but I may gift them to someone. Brush isn't great, it's way to wide to be able to do anything with.

Formula:

Brow powders have a lovely, almost creamy feeling to them. Pigmentation is great but not too intense, which makes it perfect for a brow product. You can see from the swatches below that colours swatch lovely. I used a brush from the palette to swatch them for you. I find that application is great, powders blend easily as well.
Powder highlighter is a light pinky shade with a satin to sheen finish. For me that's a no go. I like my brow bone matte. This can make a good highlighter though. As with brow powders and even more so, the powder formula is almost creamy to touch and blends beautifully. 
Cream highlight is my fave here. It's a light matte beige, blends beautifully. It's a cream, but not too creamy and makes application super easy. Perfect to enhance the brow bone!! 

Colours:



You get 12 brow powder shades in the palette starting from the lightest browns and taupes and finishing with medium browns and taupes. You will find that tones are either very cool, going through semi cool and neutral. It's a great palette for any blondes and up to medium brown hair. It will also work for someone with light orange/red hair. I know some people believe they need to warm up the colour of their brows, when dying your hair red, but I don't practice that. I find cool tones to be far more natural looking and would never go warm tone.  I had a little play and swatched them all for you above. Please excuse the visible glitter, I was testing some glittery creams before and didn't manage to get it all out. Shades are of course all matte :) 

To sum up I am super happy with my Pro HD Brow Palette in Fair Medium. It's a great choice for both enthusiasts, as well as professionals. I find that, if set with brow gel, these will last all day (and night) no problem. Colours are great and cool toned. Palette itself is built amazingly, it's very light and the packaging is actually very pro looking. If you are new to the whole brow game, stencils will help to guide you along the way and I find that with powders there's a less risk of messing things up. I would highly recommend buying a good angled brush. My favourites are Zoeva and Wilko. And if you already know what you're doing, these powders will help you fill in your brows in a little time due to the very good formula. I found that it's as easy to create little hair like lines as well as blend it all. Great palette altogether and I will rate this 4 out of 5*. It's losing a star for a bad brush and a shimmery powder highlight. Some may like it, I am not that person :)

So what do you think ladies? Are you tempted to buy, or maybe you already have it? Let me know what you think in the comments below :) You can buy it here and Freedom is now having 3 for 2 sale across all makeup as well :)

Thank you for reading.
Love,

Dorota x

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Tuesday 27 October 2015

FREEDOM WEEK #1 - Cream contouring using Freedom Makeup Pro Cream Strobe Palette with Brush

Good morning ladies :) Today's the day and I'm starting my Week with Freedom Makeup. I recently received some new & exciting products and decided I'll be bringing you this week's 4 posts about them :) 

If you don't know it already Freedom Makeup London is a new company of affordable, professional makeup brought to us by the geniuses behind Makeup Revolution. I own few bits from them already and have done few posts which I will link here (post 1, post 2, post 3). Recently we were blessed with quite a few new launches, that I just had to try. First being cream contouring palette :)



Freedom Makeup Pro Cream Strobe Palette with Brush (RPR £10.00 - buy here) is as the name suggest a cream contour kit that comes with a contouring brush. Packaging is as with any MUR or Freedom palettes black, shiny plastic with a mirror inside. Plastic is a little on a cheaper side of things, but nevertheless black packaging looks ok and it's actually quite light, making it not a bad travelling companion :) Inside you will find 6 creamy shades, 3 for matte highlighting/strobing and 3 for bronzing/contour.

Highlight/conceal/strobe:


We get two cream foundation like shades with one being light beige with pink undertones and second light banana shade, the last shade in the top row is a larger pan with a little satin finish to it, meant for highlighting. This is one of my fave shades from the palette. I'm extremely pale and for me to find a shade that's actually paler than my natural is an amazing accomplishment. I always have a problem with cream strobing as I already use the lightest foundation shade and it's difficult to find something even lighter to bring attention to the high points of my face. Well, not anymore. All the shades are nice and creamy and need to be set with a little powder. I highly recommend translucent powder to do so. I also really like a first shade as it can be used to conceal the dark underage circles. Due to it's creamy formula you will need to set it and I would even recommend baking it. All shades are very natural and easy to blend.

Bronzing/contour:


As with highlight shades, we also get 3 bronzing shades to play with starting with light bronzing, through dark, neutral contour and finish g with medium bronzing shade. I'm not 100% sure what I expected these shades to be but my first reaction was noooooo. Let me explain. Being a ghostly pale, I cannot use warm toned bronzers as they look yellow/orange on me, which just doesn't look natural at all ! I have used the palette few times now and my opinion changed a lot. I now use a combination of light and medium bronzing shades to bronze up my complexion a little bit and use a contour shade for chiseled cheekbones. I them set it all with a cool toned contour bronzer and they last well on my dry skin throughout the day. Dark contour shade is the only neutral tone shade in the trio so if you are looking for cool tone shades you will not fin them in this palette. I still think the formula is excellent as it blends easily and lasts well, given it's set with a powder over it.

Contour brush:


I think it's an excellent idea to add the contour brush to the palette and sell it as a set a many people don't own specific contour brush. This brush is short and sturdy, making it a great and comfortable choice for a face brush in general. Shape and bristle density is good and makes application of product quite easy. However blending isn't as easy. I'm not sure why that is as the brush isn't too dense and that should help with blending. The minus for me is the way the bristles are cut in my brush. You can see from the pictures I've taken, the cut is far from perfect. This may be just an unlucky batch as I've seen few more reviews of these palettes and the brushes look well cut there. I'm a little disappointed with this brush in general.


To sum it up. I think I prefer the highlighting shades to the bronzing shades in this palette, especially the nearly white highlight shade (shade 3 in the palette, right top row). I find formula really good, blendable and lasting well on a dry skin, combination and oily will need to set it with a good powder. I find it works best for me, if I set bronzing shades with cool toned product as they are a little too warm for my liking. I like the packaging, especially when it comes to how light the palette is, great for traveling. What do you think ladies? Is it something you are lusting after? I want to know what your thoughts are so as usual, let me know in the comments :)

Thank you for reading & I'll see you Thursday with part 2 of our Week with Freedom :)
Love,



Dorota x

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Saturday 24 October 2015

New in: Sleek Solstice takes strobing to a new level


Hello my beauties :) It's the weekend again. Who's here planning to catch up on their beauty sleep? Tell me it's not just me? I have a girls night in today so although we're not going out it'll probably be a long one :) I'm excited so I plan on napping throughout the day to save energy for later. I was thinking long and hard on what look to go for tonight. Girls night are best to showcase your skill so I decided I'm going to be a little lazy yet fabulous and I'll just strobe the hell out of my face !!! That's right :) Strobing has been on everyone's lips for few month now. As you probably already know I love me some highlighter and I adore glowing skin so it's just my thang ;)




From left: Ecliptic, Hemisphere, Subsolar, Equinox (daylight, no flash)
When a new highlighting palette arrived at my doorstep few weeks ago I rejoiced. I am a total bore when it comes to highlight, I always end up wearing Mary-Lou Manizer. I just bloody love it !! Yet when I saw the sleek (get it??? lol) gold packaging, I behaved like any self respecting beauty addict with my eyes wide and lips forming to whisper YOU'RE MY PRECIOUS :) Sleek Highlighting Palette in Solstice is a stunner. As with any Sleek palettes inside you'll find a mirror and a brush. Ok - that brush, just throw it out. It's rubbish, bristles are so hard and scratchy and it will not blend the highlighter on your skin. Just throw it out, don't forget to think of me, as I just saved you some trouble :)

Back to the palette itself. 4 large pans with all the highlighter goodness you'll ever need. Different tones will work better for different people but in my opinion all can be used to create an amazing PRO STROBE LOOK :). I also love the names as each shade is somewhat representing the general theme of the palette. Stunning :)

Ecliptic is a top left shade in the palette. It's the only cream highlight you'll ever need. Trust me :) It's an amazing champagne highlight that blend to perfection. No nasty glitter just a full on glow.

Hemisphere is the top right shade. It's baked lilac/silver highlight. It's the one that's most visible on the skin. It will give you the wow effect you need. Just be gentle as a light hand is needed with this one :)

Subsolar is the left bottom shade, it looks a little yellow in the pot but it blends out to a lovely beige highlight. It's powder but when swatched it feels almost creamy. Such a lovely daily shade. This one isn't as out there as Hemisphere.

Equinox is the right bottom shade in the palette. It's another baked highlight but this time the tone is warmer. It's a gorgeous peach and my favourite of them all. Don't get me wrong I love them all for different things but I like some warmth to my highlighter.

What do you think? I'm in love with this little palette and have been using it non stop. I am probably visible from outer space as the shades are a pleasure to work with as well as being total stunners. 

If strobing is your thang, don't miss this one out. Available now Sleek website for £10.00.

Thank you for reading.
Love,

Dorota x

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Tuesday 20 October 2015

New in: Tanya Burr Peachy Glow Cheek Palette review

Hello my beauties :) How's your week been so far? I'm recovering from the second offset of the most ridiculous cold. I lost my voice for few days but I'm finally on the mend. Autumn is really upon us, world outside looking all grey and depressing. So I come to you with a bit of sunshine, better yet it's healthy and won't break the bank.




I picked up this little trio recently browsing online on Superdrug site. I thought to myself, I really want to try one of Tanya Burr's new products. I didn't want any eyeshadow or the nail polish and I don't wear lipgloss or fake lashes, so I was most interested in her "contour palette". Why quotes you ask? It's a lovely cheek palette, contour it is not. 

Packaging: I have to admit, I love it. There's an obvious hint at ABH or Zoeva, as this is made of a strengthened cardboard. I love rose gold and this looks super adorable. Great addition to any collection. It's also quite light so makes a good travelling companion, weight wise anyway. What I'm not so sure about is the actual size as you could certainly make it thinner and smaller, like Sleek trio perhaps? Inside you'll find a mirror, which is always a plus. The palette is super cute and aims perfectly at the type of market Tanya attracts. Inside you will find a bronzer, a blush and a highlighter surrounded by beautiful rose gold and pink accents :)

Formula: I've known better formulas. Nevertheless products are creamy to touch, only a little chalky when swatched. They aren't super pigmented, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. They're easily buildable and you get a less chance of giving yourself a horror when applied with heavy hand. 

Bronzer, Beach Bronze is is a lovely warm yet still neutral tone. It's not too orange but also not cool toned. It's also satin finish with some glitter particles to it. This is where I have a problem with it. Tanya has been a beauty blogger for years and to advertise this as a possible contour palette is a little white lie. You can warm up your complexion in no time and it's lovely for that. Glitter is not really visible on the skin, giving it a satin like finish. I say it again, contour it is not.

Blush, Apricot Flush, is a lovely light coral pink shade. It's also a satin finish with a bit of tiny glitter mixed in. It gives your cheeks a nice flush of colour and its pigmentation is medium. I like the colour a lot, as it's perfect everyday blush in my opinion. It doesn't stay on all day and you will need to top it up during a day.

The little icing on a cake is the highlighter :) Champagne Shimmer is just a gorgeous, sparkly golden champagne shade. It's perfect for an everyday highlight as it just glides on effortlessly and it's a pleasure to blend. It's not as pigmented as my love, Mary-Lou, but as I mentioned somewhere above, that's not a bad thing. If you're only just starting with a highlighter, this one is perfect for you. It gives enough glow but not too much, unless of course you build it up.

From left: Beach Bronze, Apricot Flush, Champagne Shimmer


I'll give this palette 3 out of 5*. It's losing 2 stars for being too big, packaging wise - it could be made thinner and for satin finish bronzer, especially given the time collection has launched. Whilst I don't have a problem with satin bronzer in summer, not so much for it in the A/W season.  It's most definitely a palette which will suit the pale skinned as I don't think these shades would suit or even show on darker skin tones. I still find it oh so cute, merely due to it's packaging, as I love Rose Gold :)

You can buy it here.

Let me know what you think ladies? I'm not overly excited, I have to say, but it's a good enough little palette and priced at £8.00 it's definitely worth looking at. Given the product itself,  I would recommend choosing either Sleek or Makeup Revolution to this. They offer a matte bronzer and maybe they're not as cool toned as a proper contour shades could be, they're most definitely a better choice that this one, in my opinion :)

Thank you for reading.
Love,

Dorota x

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Sunday 18 October 2015

New in: ONE PALETTE YOU NEED THIS AUTUMN -> Makeup Revolution New-trals vs Neutrals Palette

Hello my pretties :) Apologies for a little delay in publishing this post. My Blogger went mental and decided to test my patience yet again :) Neverthless it is here !!! 




Makeup Revolution has outdone themselves again coming up with a palette that's so perfect for autumn months, it made me tear up a little, when I finally got my hands on it :) New-trals vs Neutrals gives out everything in the name alone. New-trals are bold, warm, red undertoned shades, whereas neutrals give you a bit more stability. These are the colours you know, ones that make you play safe :) I think a perfect palette is made, when you find yourself reaching for something other than safe canon. One making you get out of your comfort zone. This is exactly what you get here.

I found myself drawn to it as it presented me with an opportunity to update my collection with a simply beautiful palette full of warm toned shadows. For all the blue/green/grey eyed girl - this palette will make your eyes pop :) 

Formula is great, shadows are creamy and easy to work with. There's a slight fallout from few shades and there are couple of shades that I find too neon to be able to play with for daytime makeup. I have found few new shades that I was lacking in my whole collection and for that I am greateful.

I'm glad Makeup Revolution decided to continue on Iconic Pro palettes trend and use the matte black packaging. It feels modern and more expensive. As always it comes with a mirror and a brush that's not terrible lol ;) Ok, it is not Zoeva or Sigma but there's a decent, small blending brush on one end. For someone who's just starting up, it's ok to learn the trade on. I would still recommend better quality brushes as they're easier to work with, if you have at least one, great quality blending brush :)
When I saw the packaging I hoped that the shadow placement would be the same as in Iconic Pro with mattes on top and shimmers in the bottom row. Unfortunately not. It's a shame because warm top shades scream with the need to be matte :)

I swatched all the shades for you below so let's just compare them all, shall we?


From left: Bias, Neutral, Personal, Vogue
From left: Trend, New-tral, Tone, Custom
From left: Cool, Style, Partial, Mode
From left: Adapt, Buff, Suit, Strong
Bias - semi matte light beige, perfect to set your primer with and to matte highlight, pigmentation needs building up.
Neutral - light mauve matte, great transition shade, in the crease or for you makeup, no makeup days.
Personal - peachy pink with gold shimmer through it, looks a little rose gold like on the lid, pigmentation needs a build up, can go on patchy.
Vogue - coral with gold shimmer satin, this one is quite neon and I'm not sure if I like that.
Trend - warm dark brown matte, great pigmentation.
New-tral - berry with little purple satin finish, again superb pigmentation.
Tone - burgundy brown matte, good pigmentation proving that darker shades have an amazing pigmentation, whereas lighter lack it just a bit.
Custom - Dark cooler toned brown, pigmentation is ok but needs building up if used to darker outer corners.

Cool - matte light beige again, just a tone different to Bias, again pigmentation isn't great.
Style - light pink shimmer, good pigmentation but you may experience fall out, great for application with a dampen brush
Partial - dusty rose foil finish shimmer, pigmentation is insane. It's such a beautiful shade
Mode - copper foil finish shimmer, again superb pigmentation and a beautiful shade.
Adapt - medium taupe matte, great transition colour, needs an extra layer to build the colour
Buff - dark taupe, slightly warm with satin to pearl finish, good pigmentation
Suit - cool toned satin dark taupe, nicely pigmented
Strong - duo chrome like finish, matte black with burgundy purple particles. Good pigmentation.

As you can see you can create a variety of looks from daytime to evening smoky. Playtime is unlimited here as you can mix the shades to create unique, photo shoot worthy looks or just a plain daytime. Go for neutral eye or finish in style with red smoky eye. It's all up to you. 

With a good primer these shadows will last all day or night without fading too much (I recommend Urban Decay primer). Don't forget that mattes here are more of a semi matte finish. If that's not what you're looking for, you may be disappointed. In my opinion it's a great all round palette I can see it transferring, shade wise to summer looks as well but it's most definitely an autumn palette. Shades here reminded me of fallen leaves and I tried to incorporate this in the theme of today's post. I hope you like my take on autumn and Makeup Revolution New-Trals vs Neutrals.

I want to know what you think? Is it worth the hype or did you envision it a little different? Let me know in the comments below if you'll be buying new palette from MUR or is that a miss for you?

You can buy New-trals vs Neutrals here for £6.99

Thank you for reading,
Love

Dorota x

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Saturday 17 October 2015

Classy daytime to evening look using only Smashbox Shape Matters palette.

Hello ladies. Weekend's finally here :) I had busy week so I'm looking forward to a little break :) What's your plans for the weekend? 

As you know, I am now obsessed with my newest purchase of Smashbox Shape Matters palette. Since I've got it there isn't a day that I'm not reaching for it. I created a very classical daytime to nighttime look for you using the palette. I made sure my full face is done by the use of this palette only. I love the end result and I hope you'll love it too.




Face:
As per usual I prepped by base using Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue in Opal and added Collection Lasting Perfection concealer in 01 under eyes and to add a little coverage around the nose. I set the base using a matte highlight shade from the Smashbox palette.

To contour I used a Contour shade from the palette and a little Bronze to warm up my complexion. Both shades blended beautifully giving me the most natural look. I added a little highlight on the high points of my face. It's such a gorgeous shade, second favourite to my all time love Mary-Lou.

Just to finish off I added a little Matte Blush from Makeup Revolution and set it all with Urban Decay Setting Spray.

Eyes:
I have to admit, I had a lot of fun playing with the eyeshadow shades. I used Vanilla as an all over the lid shade and to set the primer with (standard UD anti-aging Primer Potion). I used Totally Nude as my transition shade just above my crease (if you're lucky enough not to battle with sad eyes, use it in your crease). I then started to darken the outer corner. I used Aubergine and blended it out few times until I was happy with the final colour. I then used Posh, which is a beautiful rose gold shade on the middle of the lid blending it out to the outer corner to provide nice transition of colour. I went back with Totally Nude to blend out any edges. I then applied Champagne in the inner corner mixing it outwards to transition into Posh. I used the brush included in the set for blending. I have to be honest, it's not the softest brush I have ever used but it does the job. I repeated the steps at the bottom lid. 

I wanted to try using the darkest shades wet so my eyeliner today is a mixture of Aubergine and Blackout. I applied it using a Wilko Angled Brush as I don't think you can use the brush included in the set for a precise line. Shadows worked beautifully when used both wet and dry.

I finished the look by applying two coats of Clinique High Impact Mascara.






Brows:
I used wax first (OMG I LOVE THE WAX IN THIS PALETTE SO MUCH) and brushed by brow hair. I then applied a light brow powder shade to the front of my brows very lightly and then building intensity in the top of my arch. I used darker brow powder shade lightly to line the arch below.

Lips:
I kept my lips simple using a new Essence Liquid Lipstick in 05.

I hope you like the finished look. I think it's a perfect daytime look but it can also look nice in the evenings if you perhaps add a statement lip. Let me know what you think in the comments below :)

Thank you for reading.
Love,

Dorota x

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Sunday 11 October 2015

New in: SMASHBOX #SHAPEMATTERS PALLETE review with swatches. Is it worth the hype?

Happy Sunday my lovelies :) I'm happily recovering from a smashing night out so I may be a little slow on a social media front today lol. I hope you're having an amazing weekend so far. Mine was pretty busy but I spent a great night out with the ladies celebrating my besties birthday :) Managed to get in to hairdressers too, so if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you know I am rocking the blonde hair now :)





When I first saw the new Smashbox palette I was quick to decide, I need it in my life. I've seen their contouring trio and always wanted one, but the price tag scared me a little. So when I saw that Boots released this incredible palette at half price (£30.00), I know there will never be a better time to buy it. Standard RPR is £60.00.

#SHAPEMATTERS PALETTE is a great collection of contour shades for your brows, face as well as your eyes. It comes in good quality black matte plastic packaging with shiny black logo. When you open it up, you get a huge mirror, making it a great choice for travelling. You also get a double-ended brush. One side is for application and blending and the other for brows/eyeliner. I like the blending brush better than the angled one as it's a little too big for me to use for eyeliner. You need it thinner in my opinion to get the precision needed for eyeliner or brow product application. It will work great for smudging out eyeliner though.

Starting with brows you get 3 pots: one being a brow wax which has some serious staying power and two brow powders. Both shades are very neutral, neither is warm or cool. I find the light shade (Taupe) works for me just about but I wish it was more cool toned as my own brows are.Second shade (Soft Brown) would suit someone with a tad darker hair than mine. Nevertheless it's a great trio and I absolutely love the brow wax. It's a hit !!!

From left: Taupe, Soft Brown
From left Glow, Highlight (matte), Bronze, Contour
From left: Contour, Bronze, Highlight and Glow
Moving on to face contour. Here's where the magic happens :) You get one bronzer shade called Bronze which is still quite light and works beautifully to warm up my complexion. Second is a cool toned contour (Contour)
I AM IN LOVE with it. It blends beautifully and only a tiniest amount is needed to fully contour your cheeks, nose etc. I would highly recommend a light hand here as the shades are pretty well pigmented. They blend well though so no worries here. You also get two highlight shades: one matte (Highlight) and one shimmer (Glow). I used the matte to set my under eye concealer and it worked great. Shimmer highlight is just beautiful champagne colour and it stayed on pretty well during the day. After 12 hours of wear my concealer did not crease, my contour and highlight were visible. Why didn't I try this sooner?????

Moving on to the eyeshadows. You get 9 eyeshadows in the palette, 3 of which you can use both wet and dry as an eyeliner. 6 mattes and 3 shimmers are all well pigmented. I managed to get both day and evening look out of them. It's still pretty neutral palette so great to see so many matte shades :)
I found all of them to have intense pigmentation. They are all very bendable, even the darkest shades. I used darkest mattes wet as an eyeliner and they stayed on for 12 hours !!! I was in shock !!
I watched them all for you here:

From left: Champagne, Totally Nude, Vanilla
From left: Platinum, Posh, Stripped
From left: Blackout, Aubergine, Sumatra
Vanilla - light beige matte. Perfect to set your primer with and to contour underneath the brow.
Totally Nude - medium beige matte. Great as a transition colour in the crease.
Champagne - warm champagne shimmer. Great for inner corner accent or in the middle of the lid to add more definition.
Stripped - light neutral brown matte. Another great transition shade.
Posh - rose gold shimmer. Beautiful for accenting or all over the lid. 
Platinum - light antique gold shimmer (cool toned). Another gorgeous all over the lid shade. Just beautiful.
Sumatra - dark brown matte. Great for contouring the lid or as an eyeliner. Use wet/dry.
Aubergine - dark plum matte. Again great for contouring the lid and outer corners or as an eyeliner. You can use it wet and dry.
Blackout - black matte. Same as above, works beautifully wet as an eyeliner.

I can't find any big faults with this palette. It's a great travel palette. Yes, it's rather big but you can honestly do a full face makeup using this palette alone. If I could change one thing, it would be to have more cool toned brow shades. They still work for me, but I know it would work even better being cool toned and not neutral :)

As I got this on Boots promo offer I think it's an amazing value for money. Would I pay standard RPR? I probably wouldn't purchase it straight away online. I would have to swatch it first in store. I think the quality is amazing and it's definitely worth it. 

My favourites from the palette are most definitely contour shade and a shimmer highlight. They work so beautifully on someone so pale as me :) I also love matte eyeshadows. I don't think they are as good as Zoeva mattes though, but that's just my opinion. I am in awe of eyeliner shades. I couldn't believe how long they stayed on and having them for 12 hours, the intensity was still there, maybe lost it a bit but not much.

What do you think my beauties? Are you in love with this palette and wishing Boots will put it on offer again, or maybe not? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below. 

You can buy it here for £60.00.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and I'll see you here again on Tuesday with a brand new post :)

Thank you for reading.
Love,

Dorota x

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