MUA - Testing New Products!

All stock images (credit to MUA & Superdrug)

Hi guys! Today I'm going to be talking about 3 different products, all of which are from the brand: MUA! This is a brand I've loved for a long time, and their quality just keeps getting better and better!

The products I'm going to talk about are:

Burning Embers eyeshadow palette; available here and here (£8)

Ultra-Fine Translucent Loose Setting Powder; available here and here (£4)

Highlighting Powder in Pearlescent Sheen; available here and here (£3)

All of these products are cruelty free, which is amazing!

I'll start off by talking about the Translucent Loose Powder:

This powder is really great in the sense that it's actually a white powder, rather than just being a really pale peach colour like most "translucent" powders are. This is a really new product from MUA, it's only recently been released, and I was so excited as soon as I saw it, I bought it immediately.

However, I find this powder to be a little bit strange.

To start off, it has a very bizarre smell, I can't describe the scent, it's almost a plastic/rubber scent, very artificial, and not in the way makeup usually smells... It's a very strong smell, but luckily, it doesn't linger on the face, so if you endure those initial moments of repulsion, you'll be stellar.

Secondly, the texture of this powder is very weird. It doesn't feel soft and smooth like most loose powders, instead it forms a layer that you can clearly feel, almost like a dusty feeling but also not. It's really difficult to describe, but this texture seems to also make it really difficult to get onto a brush or sponge, it seems to repel brushes of any shape and size, so putting it onto your face is a bit of a fight to really force it onto the brush. I'm really not sure why this is, I've never experienced it with any of my other loose powders.

That being said, once this powder is on your face, it feels very lightweight, it is entirely translucent, and it does a really good job of locking your makeup in place and also minimizing the appearance of pores and imperfections. It gives your skin a really beautiful finish, it's not cakey at all, and it looks very natural. It's actually really good at its job, it's just a shame it's quite difficult to work with. MUA also has this same powder in a pressed form, so perhaps that would be easier to work with, but I always use loose powders so I find it really confusing that I've struggled with this one.

Over-all, I'll give this powder...

4/5 brushes!

The next product I'll be talking about is the Highlighting Powder:

This is a beautiful iridescent highlight that reflects between white, gold, blue and lilac! For only £3, the MUA highlighters are incredible, and this one is no different. I'm absolutely in love with it, the camera doesn't pick up how iridescent this highlighter actually is, which is a shame (it made the lighting turn blue, for some reason.) I would absolutely recommend this highlighter to anyone who loves anything and everything iridescent. It's stunning, the reflects are so pretty and unique, and it's such a lightweight formula, it's easy to apply, it blends like a dream... I honestly can't fault these highlighters at all!

Over-all, I'll give this highlighter...

5/5 brushes!

The final product I'll be talking about is the Burning Embers eyeshadow palette:

First of all, can you see those swatches? I honestly think the swatches speak for themselves. They're gorgeous. I was completely blown away whilst I was swatching this palette, the pigmentation is unbelievable, and for only £8 for 25 highly pigmented shades, that is amazing value for such great quality. I've wanted to get my hands on this palette for a really long time now, it came out just before Christmas if I remember right, but it was sold out constantly, so I knew it was going to be good, but I didn't realise just how beautiful the shades in this palette were going to be!

I'm in love with red-toned shadows at the moment, they're what I wear every single day, so I can't wait to use these on my eyes. MUA has really exceeded expectations with this palette, and I would absolutely recommend this!

The packaging is a little bit simple, but that's MUA's style, it's also how they keep the prices down without affecting the quality of the product, so I'm not bothered about the packaging. I love the arrangement of the colours in this palette, they compliment each-other so well. And the back of the palette shows the names of the shadows. That's right, for maybe the first time in MUA palette history, the shadows have names! I couldn't believe it! And they're nice names, too! I thought that just made the palette seem so much more professional.

I would give this palette...

5/5 brushes!

Thank you all for reading this, I hope it helps you!

I'll see you guys next time!

Girls With Attitude (GWA) - 'Enchanting' Eyeshadow Palette - REVIEW & Swatches!

 Offical stock image (credit to GWA)

Hi guys! Today I'll be talking about the new 'Enchanting' Palette from UK brand: G.W.A. (Girls With Attittude)! This palette contains 12 shades, and retails for £9.99, which I think is pretty good value for money.
The official description for this palette is:

GWA Enchanting Eyeshadow Palette features 12 ultra pigmented matte, metallic and shimmer shadows with rose, gold, cranberry and cocoa hues to craft warm, romantic looks. With a smooth and silky texture for seamless blending, you can mix and match the shades to create your own unique look, for daytime or night time.

 The emphasis for this palette is that it's highly pigmented and easily blend-able, so the performance of these shadows will be the main focus of this review.

But firstly, I want to speak a little bit about the packaging. In terms of appearance, this palette slightly resembles the Naked palettes by Urban Decay, for a fraction of the cost. The outer packaging is a soft pink metallic case, with elastic to secure the palette shut when not in use. It features a full-size mirror, which I thought was a nice touch, and it also contains a brush/applicator, although I would actually advise against using the brush end of this, due to it being very brittle and a little bit sharp.

Next, let's move on to the actual range of shades within the palette. In the description, it states "rose, gold, cranberry and cocoa hues", which I would agree with, to an extent. In my opinion, the stock image presents a lot of the shadows as being quite pink-toned, however, in reality, they're very pale and almost white. The first two shades are almost identical in colour, and the three matte 'cocoa' shades are also extremely similar. The 'cranberry' shade is a beautiful colour, it's extremely metallic and I'm in love with it, however, it appears a lot darker in the stock image. I do like the colours in this palette, but I feel like there could be more variation, especially as far as the brown tones are concerned.

Now, I'll be speaking about the performance of these shadows and providing you all with swatches!
I've swatches these shades in the order that they appear in the palette.

I'll agree with the 'ultra pigmented' statement made by GWA for some of the shadows, but definitely not all of them. For example, the lightest shade in the palette doesn't show up at all in swatches, I even layered it 4 times, and you still can't see it. The second matte cocoa shade isn't very pigmented and is also quite patchy. But the rest of the shades, particularly the metallic shades, I thought were very pigmented and smooth to apply.

In the swatches, I found that the cranberry colour appeared very red, almost like a metallic brick red, which I found strange, as it appears the same as in the palette when applied onto the eyes.

In terms of applying these on the eyes, I found that the best method to use in order to get the best pigmentation was to use fluffy eyeshadow brushes, crease brushes and blending brushes for the matte shades, and then use the sponge applicator that came with the palette to apply the metallic shades, as I found this really helped them to keep their shine.

This palette reminds me a lot of the BH Cosmetics 'Shaanxo' collaboration palette (which I own and love to pieces) in terms of the shades, however, the BH Cosmetics palette is also really affordable, and I'd have to recommend the formula of those over these shadows. I don't think this is a bad palette, and the shades are certainly workable, however, for me, £9.99 is a lot to spend on an okay eyeshadow palette when there are palettes from Makeup Revolution and MUA for around £4 that I am absolutely in love with.

I really wanted to like this palette, and I don't exactly hate it, but it definitely didn't grow on me in the way that I was hoping it would, and the pigmentation of the matte shades really disappointed me. I wouldn't really recommend this palette. It has some nice shades, but they're not very unique, and I think you can find very similar shades in palette for a lot less money with better formulation.  

Over-all, I would give this palette...

2/5 brushes!

Although there are some nice shades in this palette, there isn't enough variety and the matte shades aren't pigmented enough to warrant the £9.99 price tag. Sleek palettes cost the same amount of money, and in my opinion, they are far superior. I've given this palette a 2/5 rating because there are some redeeming features, such as the packaging and the metallic shades, however, I couldn't rate it any higher than that because the formula of these really lets this palette down.

Thank you all for reading! I'll see you guys next time!

Makeup Obsession - Re-fillable Palette (& Eyeshadow!) REVIEW & Swatches!

Official stock images (credit to TAM Beauty & Boots)

Hi guys! Today I'm going to be talking about the re-fillable palettes from Makeup Obsession!

For those of you who don't know, Makeup Obsession is another brand under TAM Beauty (the creators of Freedom & Makeup Revolution!) They're known for producing high quality products for extremely affordable prices and these palettes are no exception!

These are empty palettes that you can fill with eyeshadow, highlight, lipstick, contour and blush. These palettes are specifically designed to only hold Makeup Obsession pans, so you won't be able to use these to store pans from other brands unfortunately, but I think this is also a nice unique touch, and the Makeup Obsession products are such high quality that you'd be missing out if you didn't pick some up!

The only place that sells these is Boots, and since they're only being stocked in certain Boots stores, you're probably going to have more luck ordering them online from the Boots website (click here)!

The empty palettes start at £4 for the medium palettes which can hold 6 pans, but the price can vary for these depending on which colour/finish you opt for. The large palettes (holding 12 pans) are £5 which is incredible value! I opted for the medium palette in White Obsession for my first palette!

These palettes contain a full-size mirror which I love, because it makes these palettes great for travelling! Also, the pans are easy to remove from the palette, so you can change what products you keep in there whenever you want!

Of course, buying the empty palette alone wouldn't have been very useful for this review, so I picked up 6 eyeshadows as well! And can I just say, I am so impressed with the quality of these!

The shadows retail for £2 each, and are the cheapest item to fill the palette with (blush, contour & highlight all retail for £3 each!)

 With flash

Without flash

Back of the palette

The top row consists of: Burnt (matte), Starstruck (shimmer) & Rare (shimmer).

The bottom row is: Copper (matte), Mink (matte) & Cinnamon (matte).

As you can see, the back of the palette has holes in it, through which you can see the names of the shadows inside. This is really useful if you're going to be doing tutorials, etc. And these holes also allow you to remove the pans from the palette when you need to replace them, you simply give a firm push onto the bottom of the pan through the hole and the pan will gently pop out of the palette!

I was very fortunate in that my local Boots happens to be one of the rare stores that actually stock the palettes and the pans, so I was able to swatch all of the different shades before purchasing. However, originally I'd had all of these colours in my basket on the Boots website anyway, as I didn't expect to find them in store! I love the idea of a "palette pick'N'mix", and I was able to create my dream copper-y Autumn/Winter palette! As you can see, I favoured matte shades here, but the two shimmer shades that I did buy were absolutely stunning!

I can't wait to go back and pick up some more products to create different palettes!

The great thing about these shadows (aside from their amazing price) is that they each come in an individual plastic container, so when you decide to take these out of the palette and replace them, you don't risk the shadows getting damaged through just being exposed to the elements!

And now, for the swatches!

 With flash

Without flash

As you can see from the swatches, these eyeshadows are really pigmented! Not only are they pigmented, they have a really smooth formula that is comparable to the ColourPop SuperShock Shadows! It's very soft and buttery, and the eyeshadow pans themselves feel like they're made of velvet! If someone hadn't heard of this brand before, they might think these were high end! The quality is definitely there, and I really can't wait to get more of these!

In total, with the 6 shadows and palette added together, this cost me £16 which is definitely more on the expensive side from TAM Beauty, but considering that this palette is really sturdy, looks beautiful and is re-fillable, plus the quality of the shadows, I think £16 is a very reasonable price!

Over-all, I would highly recommend these! I can't get over the quality of the eyeshadows, I can't wait to try their highlighters and blush colours! I might even give their lipstick colours a go after having such an amazing experience with these!

I would give this palette/these eyeshadows...

5/5 brushes!

That concludes this review! I really hope you guys found this useful!

Are you going to pick some of these up? Have you tried any of the other shades? Let me know!