It’s no secret that I have been loving glossy finishes as of late, so instead of rambling about it, let’s get straight to the snap review.
This was a birthday gift from my friend AT earlier in the year, swiped from my wishlist. I had tried the regular Butter Gloss in Praline, and it was great for a practically-clear gloss with minimal colour. I love layering it on top of nude lipsticks. But as you all know, my true love of glossies lies with really pigmented lacquers and stuff, so the intense version was on my radar.
The NYX Intense Butter Gloss costs £6.00 in the UK and is available at counters in Boots and Debenhams, and online at FeelUnique.
When I first swatched it on my hand it seemed a bit too dark and too cool-brown like Maybelline’s Brown Sugar. It ended up being a super nice shade on my lips, though – a slight warm pinkiness to it. A bit deep, but a great everyday shade.
It’s quite lightweight but you can still feel it on your lips because of the texture. Of course, being a gloss I don’t expect it to last at all but it will survive at least four hours without eating and with small sips of water during my work shifts. It does bleed more noticeably which is understandable as there is more pigment. But overall it actually doesn’t bleed that much. A lip liner is all that’s needed if that’s an issue. The pigment doesn’t settle into lip creases either and, as expected, it’s quite forgiving on flaky lips although those are still noticeable.
Yes, it’s a little sticky and my hair flies into it when I’m darting between shops with my siblings. But it doesn’t all adhere to my hair at once which is a little plus, I guess?
I’ve been wearing this an awful lot. Out of all the choices in my rotation this month, this one has been the most worn so far. I’ve just been loving the fact that I can wear this all day and have my lips still be plush and lovely by the evening. My mom, just before the aforementioned shopping, even made a comment on how glossy and nice they looked (so much so that she wanted to bite them, which I acknowledge is weird but I took it as a compliment so…). BASICALLY. I love this stuff.
I might not buy it in any other shade, though. This is literally the only shade that appeals to me in a gloss, as it would be the most forgiving. Bolder colours in a glossy finish are intimidating to me, especially the thought of them bleeding or wearing much more obviously.
Overall, this is a winner for me. I can imagine myself re-buying this a lot and it fulfils my need for a pigmented gloss perfectly.
Yes, I’m back at the mascaras again and hoping to find my dream one. Today, it’s Eyeko’s Sport Waterproof ‘Catch & Curl’ Mascara.
Some details from the outer packaging:
The original tube mascara
Created in London
Made in South Korea
Against animal testing
From the Eyeko Website:
“Make perfect lashes your goal with our ace brush to grab and catch every lash teamed with our winning fibre-enhanced, waterproof formula. Create dramatic lashes plumped to perfection that will see you through your morning workout and beyond.
WithSport Waterproof Mascara, you benefit from award-winning Korean technology creating a high-performance waterproof formula that promises no running, smudging, crumbling or flaking whether you’re hitting the gym or at the beach; caught in a downpour or sweating it out. And it’s all 100% cruelty free.
100% Waterproof Thixotropical gel formulation repels water
Unique brush with curved edge to lift lashes and flat back to volumise
Fibre-enhanced conditioning formula with Collagen & 11 different fruit extracts
Contains fibres suitable for sensitive peepers
With all of these claims, I was really excited to try out this mascara!
Eyeko’s Sport Waterproof Mascara is normally in a compact 8ml tube that can be stuffed in a pocket or bag without difficulty. It normally retails for £19 for an 8ml tube.
However, I have the 4ml tube which I picked up for only £6.99 at TK Maxx, which normally costs £10.00 on Beauty Bay.
The brush is curved and with bristles. I thought the brush was quite large, but due to the curves I was still able to reach all my lashes without an issue. I could either use the curve facing inwards to get as many lashes as possible or use the curve facing outwards to aim more specifically for certain areas that needed more.
The bristles are a little dense so I found that it didn’t pack product on well, although it also meant that the lashes never looked clumpy or overdone. However, a lot of product accumulated at the end of the brush which is visible from the photo, and this had to be wiped away before I could do my lashes more precisely.
Overall, the effect on my lashes was quite natural and subtle. I found that due to the dense brush, I had to really push on my lashes to get product onto them and sometimes it meant that I ended up with product on my eyelid or underneath my eyes. What I did like was that even without a primer, this mascara holds a curl really well. I liked to use it when I wanted a natural look with a curl that’d last all day.
Damn the sudden weather changes in Birmingham! Sigh.
As usual, I’m not sure if I’d buy this again because I am always wanting to try something new – but this gets a solid thumbs up from me for now.
Oh, but in the end, I’m not sure about how a tube-shaped packaging benefits a mascara. I guess you could squeeze it to get more product onto the brush which helps with drier formulas. Let me know what you think if you’ve tried more tube mascaras!
I am slightly behind on my reading schedule of a book per month. A lot of the books I have are actually quite bulky or read slowly and with university studies and work, and the hectic week before Easter, March was almost completely devoid of reading.
I’d been making my way through the books in this post – books that I’ve started but were on pause. All my books sat on the spare desk until Derp came home for the holidays and Twerp refused to give his room back again, so he’s living with me and needed the spare desk. I moved my entire TBR pile back to a corner of my desk where it’s three books away from reaching the G-Dragon poster on the wall… again.
In the re-shuffle, A Thousand Pieces of You ended up right at the bottom of a 17-book reading pile because I didn’t think I would get around to finishing it. So when I suddenly felt like finishing it last week, I almost didn’t bother trying to move it from under the pile. On the other hand, it’d been bothering me that I’d only read half, and I needed my March book…
As I am sure I have mentioned eons ago, this was a birthday gift from my friend Nicole, picked from my wishlist and mostly on the list because of its delectable, breathtaking cover. I thought I knew not to judge a book by its cover but I’ve noticed – in the years since not having my school library and buying my own books – that a great cover really makes me scream ‘take my money!’ But alas, the proverb had to ring true sooner or later, and it certainly did for this.
Or rather, my eyes must have skipped over the romance in the description of the book. That would have made me run in the opposite direction.
My main opinion is that this was utterly and totally ‘meh’. The idea of jumping into alternate universes is super promising and seeing as it’s a romantic sci-fi YA, the story… wasn’t that surprising, if that makes sense? It was quite predictable, and I felt there was so much left to explore that I was a little unsatisfied at the end. It’s full of tropes and stuff that made me go urgh (it’s been a while since I read about a love triangle!) but that my younger self might have absolutely loved. Then again, Twerp has also read the book – she’s the same age of the ‘younger self’ I’m referring to and she doesn’t like the book much either. Maybe it’s just us!
Anyway, once I set my mind to it, this was a speedy read, not too complex, and I finished it in two days. We shall see how long it survives on my bookshelf, too… I’ve already started my April book as well so hopefully, I’ll stay on track now.
Over the last half a year, I have been really into nude lipstick shades. It used to be the bane of my life as I loved noticeable lipstick shades – I’d wear a red to Asda! But then I discovered shades that were just about noticeable but also really great choices for everyday wear. Namely, the medium-toned nudes.
Over the last few months, you might have seen me mention Velvet Teddy numerous times. For ages, I wondered whether it was the right shade for me and tried out a bunch of dupes and honestly, it works perfectly fine on my skintone. However, with my personal taste, I concluded that it’s just a tad too light. I always needed a darker liner to make them truly match my taste.
Then I remembered that Velvet Teddy came into the spotlight paired with the darker lip liner, Whirl. Not a mind-blowing realisation, sure, but it made me feel a bit better not loving the shade by itself as it was clearly not just me. Where possible, I’d rather use a lipstick by itself at the moment without all the primer, liner and topcoat stuff that is tacked on top these days. I do still love a good liner! But I love a lipstick that performs brilliantly by itself even more.
(I have totally been a lip brush convert, though, thanks to Lisa Eldridge. Who was I without one??)
Anyway, I wanted to show you all some shades that I would put in that Velvet Teddy category of nudes for me – passable, but sort of boring. Nudes that always need that extra something to make me feel amazing.
I accumulated a few more nudes like this, and I wanted to do another comparison post, but I felt that it was a bit pointless without having the real Velvet Teddy on hand to swatch. Thankfully, Q let me borrow hers! *Sobs* I’m so grateful.
Wet N Wild Bare It All
Maybelline Clay Crush
Oh, you surely know about these already. I wrote a comparison post here comparing the two. The shades are almost identical with Clay Crush having a VERY SLIGHT peachier tone to it, but on the lips this difference is unnoticeable. I haven’t included full lip swatches for this post as I am already quite happy with the current ones on the previous post, so do check them out there.
Maybelline Unreal – this shade leans on the cool side, but lacks the very slight pink/mauve that Bare It All has, making it look almost greyish on my skintone. It’s a lovely lacquer that wears comfortably.
Collection Caramel – This is my least favourite of the bunch. It is only £2.99, but I also found it drying and generally not as nice as the others, which is a shame.
In this arm swatch, I included swatches of two nude shades I actually enjoy. They are there to demonstrate how deep I prefer my nudes to be, at a minimum. As I may have mentioned, Soft Spoken is literally perfect for my taste resulting in it getting a lot of wear before getting into lipstick rotations. I’d put NYX’s Intense Butter Gloss in Chocolate Crepe in as a ‘perfect’ nude as well although that’s not included here.
The takeaway from this post is hopefully, for me to stop lusting after lip shades that I know aren’t ones that I love, if that makes sense! While I love the nude trend now that ultimately hit the stage due to this lipstick, nude is a different thing for everyone. All too often, I fall for hype and community love although less so recently, and most persistently with Velvet Teddy.
Do you have a hype-induced lipstick that you just can’t love?
I’m back with a lip lacquer review. Yes, they’re still my jam. No, this doesn’t tick all my boxes, but it comes pretty close.
The Maybelline Vivid Hot Lip Lacquer retails for £6.99 in local beauty stores and is available in all sorts of shades from nudes to deep vamps. As I’ve been really into nudes as of late it was perfectly reasonable for me to pick Unreal.
The doe foot is fairly large and wide, with a dip in the middle to hold more product. It depends on how much you like the colour, and how much you want to apply. It picks up enough for a high gloss finish but for a swipe over lip liner which I do, it can be a little much as I like a bit of the liner colour to peep through underneath and so opt for a thinner layer.
This shade, Unreal, is slightly cool toned and when I first wore it, it was almost greyish.
As this is a little bland of a colour for my taste, I like to layer with a deeper lip liner for a lovely full nude lip. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a deeper nude shade, so I hope they expand the range because otherwise, I do like this. It wears well, not bleeding after three hours although this is helped along even further with a lip liner. Of course, it transfers onto everything, and it’s a little sticky. I tend not to pick bright colours in lacquers for this reason.
Overall, I would totally buy this if they had a deeper nude, but this particular shade I won’t repurchase again.
I hope you’ve all had a nice Easter. Spring has properly landed (or at least, this is as much as we are gonna get in the UK) and we are a quarter of the way into the year already, so it’s time for me to sum up my media consumption of the last few months in a handy blog post.
I thought that I should begin to include blogs and social media, perhaps. I have been wanting to do this for a while, but not sure where for now. I think it will be its own separate quarterly segment featuring small bloggers and influencers.
Here though, I’ll include my favourite ‘bigger’ YouTube channels, so to speak, because these days even channels with a moderate following can get buried so I hope that, as usual, reading this will help you discover something new.
Anime
Made in Abyss – A really cutely styled fantasy revolving around a seemingly bottomless pit called the Abyss. Well… it has surprisingly dark elements at times but that was kind of refreshing actually.
Spice and Wolf – with a medieval setting and an economically driven plot, Spice and Wolf was a surprising hit with me. The plot revolves around currency changes, of all things, which is not my strong point so I did have to get a friend to explain bits to me. Otherwise, there is a healthy splash of fantastical elements and overall, I really enjoyed this as something fresh and new.
Gurenn Lagann – We watched the movie at the anime society, which summed up the first half of the main televised series. I eventually got around to watching a bit of the anime myself as I really enjoyed the movie. It’s about humans fighting to live on Earth’s surface, using giant mechas, which didn’t sound like my kind of thing but was hugely enjoyable nevertheless. I actually enjoyed the movie more so far- whilst there were missing elements from the series skipped throughout, I much preferred the movie’s pace and I’m finding those parts of the series a little boring.
Films:
The only movie worth being in this section is Black Panther, to be honest. I’m not one to watch films in the cinema twice, usually, but to say this was fantastic would be a real understatement. I also watched The Greatest Showman and whilst I enjoyed it, it was missing that something to truly wow me.
Youtube:
I admit I don’t watch a lot of bloggertube, so to speak. I usually just stick to my favourite casual channels and watch whatever pops up on my recs, which often isn’t much.
Lisa Eldridge – With the rise of the ‘Insta glam’ makeup style I’ve really been craving more natural looks and overall simpler makeup. If you just want to learn the ins and outs of simple makeup, Lisa is the lady to go to. She has done magazine editorials, works for Lancome as Creative Director and also features other professional artists in the industry on her channel. Even from the most simple look, you can learn so much to apply to your own makeup.
Matilda – I am really enjoying Matilda’s video style which is completely her voice, over the products she mentions on a whiteboard – quite minimal! She does reviews of makeup and lip balms, and her videos are really short and sweet – a great appeal when I don’t want to sit through a twenty-minute video because I’d rather watch anime.
Music
As usual, here is a playlist containing all the songs in this Editorial! They’re all Korean. I did my best to sum up my favourite new listens of the last season although this doesn’t include the long phases of songs on repeat throughout.
I actually heard of Uhm Jung Hwa through her brother and niece being on Return of Superman. No way is she in her 50s. Excuse me while I google her skincare routine.
I’m still obsessed with LOONA, who have been so consistent in building up their Loonaverse with great music. I’m still left wondering – if all of this is only pre-debut stuff how blown away will I be by their official debut? My favourite member so far is Jinsoul with Chuu and Yves tied a close second and Kim Lip and ViVi tied for third!
These two songs have dominated the Korean charts over the last few months, so of course they’ve been played a lot! BOOM BOOM is fully elevated thanks to JooE in their live performances.
I admit I was quite skeptical of Ikon myself but this more chilled hip hop infused direction is probably their most popular style in Korea so it was a perfect choice to re-establish themselves after a long tour abroad.
Ko Ko Bop took more than half a year to properly grow on me and I completely slept on Rollin, but these two songs have had their moments on repeat whilst I did university assignments.
This wouldn’t normally be my usual song style of choice (I tend to favour anything with a teen crush or not-cute concept) but I’ve slowly been getting into it. It was the performance of this song that truly got me, though. I love the point dances and how well dramatic the choreography is, especially Cheng Xiao’s chorus parts, the star point of Exy’s rap and the bridge/refrain. I know Secret is a popular favourite of their songs but I think I like this more.
Starry Night isn’t Mamamoo’s best, in my opinion, so I actually included it because the video is stunning and I love rewatching it. Got7’s Look, on the other hand, was okay at first but the dance really grew on me and the song soon after. One Shot, Two Shot is just plain catchy.
My music list changes so often throughout the months and even as I type, there are new releases from Olivia Hye of LOONA as well as WINNER (have you all SEEN Yoon’s hair, I died).
Check out some of my other music posts from the last few months:
Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful Easter weekend.
As far as eyebrows go, I’m quite happy with mine. Thank goodness bold brows are ‘in’ at the moment because as I might have mentioned, mine have previously been compared to Rock Lee from Naruto although they aren’t that bad on camera if I am wearing makeup. If I am wearing a full face though, my eyebrows can look a bit bare. Again, it’s not a major issue as I have a full fringe which covers most of my brows.
All in all, there isn’t much of a reason for me to be trying brow products but I really want to try out the Glossier Boy Brow and wanted to at least be sure that a brow gel type product was what I wanted first. I heard surprisingly positive reviews for this Essence brow product so I went and bought it to try.
Essence Make Me Brow Eyebrow Gel Mascara costs only £2.50. I KNOW. If your local Wilko stocks this it might be worth your pocket change but unfortunately, mine does not. Wilko does offer free collections from their stores, though, so that is how I got my hands on this to try. A bit strange, to pop in just to pick up a £2.50 order, but oh well.
I have the shade 02 Browny Brows. It comes in a very small 3.8ml/0.12 fl.oz tube which is quite simple in design. Let me emphasise – the tube is probably the size of the average finger. Not mine, though – I have small hands that people insist on wanting to compare theirs to. Anyway, I always think products are smaller than I expected when I see them in person, it’s so strange.
The applicator is simply a short spoolie with very short bristles. I haven’t found it to pick up too much product.
I found this brow mascara to be great for my type of brows that don’t need much help. If you want an extra gel after you finish using a pencil, this may also be ideal. It is not incredibly pigmented as you can see from the swatches below but it fills in my brows quite subtly and doesn’t fix them too firmly – they feel a little stiffer and that’s about it… Honestly, I’m quite sure no-one would notice the difference but I like this subtle change.
They also last surprisingly well, keeping their hold all day despite be being oily and sweaty and when I say all day, I mean 9 hour days at uni. My brows do feel noticeably softer by the end but I can still feel that the product is there.
Overall, I think this gel is definitely worth a try for its tiny price tag. It’s best used on brows that are already fairly full unless you want to use it as an accompaniment to your favourite pencil.
