March Favourites and a huge FLOP! ('16)

This month has been a roller coaster!  I've had oily skin, dry skin, sensitive skin, I've gone bare skinned with just my eyebrows filled in, then I started the 100 Days of Makeup challenge...  I've tried what's felt like a tonne of new products!  Some I ended up loving to bits and others left me like... Wtf even is this?  So these are my favourites (and one total flop) from March ^_^

MAC Studio Fix Powder Plus Foundation (€31.50)

Love, love, love this stuff, especially applied over a regular liquid foundation with a stippling brush.

It looks good, it feels good, and I feel fancy when I'm wearing it... What more can you ask for?  XD 

(Even on "no makeup, makeup days", a little bit of this applied to moisturised skin - or over something like Botanics Radiance Balm - with a kabuki brush, and you're good to go!)

MAC Brush Cleanser (€15.50)

Where has this been all my makeup wearing life?!?!  No point going into too much detail because I already wrote about my brush cleaning routine, but I love this for spot cleaning my brushes between washes.  I wouldn't rely on this alone for a deep cleanse, but for day-to-day use it's a total game changer.  

Urban Decay NAKED 2 palette (€47.00)  

Left-Right: Foxy, Half Baked, Bootycall, Chopper, Tease, Snakebite 

Left-Right:  Suspect, Pistol, Verve, YDK, Busted, Blackout

When my husband bought me this palette for Christmas in 2014 I was so excited and loved it so much that I used it pretty much everyday for 6 months.  I don't know how I'd forgotten about this, but I'm obsessing over it again!  You get so many looks out of this palette, daytime, nighttime, subtle, dramatic... It's so versatile!  

Stila Magnificent Metals Foil Finish Eye Shadow (€44.00)

Let me start by saying that I did not go out and spend €44.00 on a single eyeshadow - I found mine in TKMaxx for €5.99!

I've honestly been trying to find ways to get to use this shadow everyday.  I haven't tried anything else like it so, I can't think of anything to compare it to.  Do I think it's worth nearly 50 odd quid?  Probably shhnot!  But if you can find it on offer or if you happen to stumble across them in the likes of TKMaxx, I'd say buy one of each colour (because I'm raging I didn't)...

Urban Decay Matte Revolution Lipstick €19.00 & 24/7 Lip Liner €18.50

Left to right: Blackmail liner/lipstick, Stark Naked lipstick

I know these photos are absolute poo, but it's like 1 in the morning so... moving on!

Don't ask me why it's taken me so long to try an Urban Decay lipstick, I have no clue.

Now I look back at the last few months and ask myself "How much better would I have looked that one day if I had had this lipstick then?".  Regret consumes me.  No surprise, I love them.  In my eyes Urban Decay can do no wrong!  I'm planning on picking up another couple of the lipsticks and lipliners and then take actual decent photos and write up my thoughts on them properly then ^^  But so far: L O V E. 

Biore Deep Pore Charcoal Cleanser 200ml €6.99

I was actually really impressed with this face wash.  While theres nothing really "special" about it, my skin definitely feels cleaner after using this than it does after other washes, and I really like the smell and feeling of it on the skin, it feels minty, but doesn't sting or dry your face out or anything.  Two thumbs up from me anyway!

Lady Green Brume Exquise 150ml €15.95

FLOP!  Ah lads, this stuff is just wrong.  Hate the smell, hate the feeling, stings my eyelids and lips, and the way it sprays, ugh!  Instead of a spritz or a mist it's like a slap in the face with a wet fish.  It just saturates your face and no matter how far back I hold it I feel like my hair and clothes end up wet and gross too.  I'm not going to finish the bottle, there's about half left and frankly, I wouldn't insult anybody by passing it on to them, so in the bin it'll go!

So there ya go!

Let me know if any of these happen to be your favourites too (or if you hate them?)! ;P

Shiv

How I Sanitise My Brushes

Many a time online I'll see someone talking about how they clean their brushes and more often than not it consists of shampooing them with baby shampoo, fairy washing up liquid or a mixture of shampoo and olive oil, and that's it.

Brushes may look clean to the eye after shampooing, but they're not actually sanitised, are they? 

What difference does it make if I'm not a professional and I'm only using my brushes on myself though?

Well, if you ever get styes in your eye, cold cores or breakouts, it will make a difference, because you're not getting rid of all those germs and bacteria that build up in your brushes, particularly if you use your brushes multiple times before deep cleaning them.  

So, all that said, I'm just going to how you how I like to clean my own brushes :)

Things I use:

MAC Brush Cleanser 

Johnsons Baby Shampoo

Isopropyl Alcohol 70%

"Brushegg"

(not really necessary but makes the shampooing sooo much easier and it'll only set you back by about €1.30 + free p+p on eBay)

Spot Cleaning

I'd tried a couple of brush cleansers before my MAC one, but the difference is so extraordinary, that I'm not even bother going into details of other ones.  This cleanser really does do a great job of cleaning even dark eyeshadow off of white brushes with little to no effort.

A common complaint about this product is the amount of product wasted due to the dispenser, so I fill up a little spray bottle with the product and work from that instead of from the original bottle.  Just spray one or two spritzes onto a folded kitchen towel and then swirl the brush in it until you're pleased that it's clean enough.  It really doesn't get easier than that, does it?

Method:

This is with just one spritz and about 3-5 seconds of rubbing.  

If I wasn't going to deep clean after I would just repeat that process again.

For eyeshadow brushes I'll do that maybe three times between deep cleaning, and for all others (face, eyeliner and lip brushes) I'll only spot clean once between deep cleanses. 

Brushes before a few spritzes of the MAC brush cleanser 

And after 

As you can see, the MAC brush cleanser does a great job of cleaning/sanitising your brushes between uses.  

Deep Cleaning!

For deep cleaning I would normally go ahead and spot clean anyway, just to get the bulk of the product out first and make the shampooing easier and faster.  Then I just pump some shampoo on my brush egg, wet the bristles of the brush and work it into the bristles to create a lather.  For darker pigments and foundation brushes you might want to repeat the shampooing process until the suds stay white and the water runs clear.

When I'm done with all my brushes I like to squeeze excess water out with a kitchen towel.

It's important to reshape all of your brushes while they're still wet, but particularly brushes like these, as skipping this step will affect how crisp and precise a line you'll be able to create with them. 

There are different ways you can dry your brushes such as hanging them upside down, rolling a towel and having them at a slight angle, bristles down, to avoid water soaking up into the glue and loosening the bristles, but the way I've been enjoying drying mine is by placing them on a windowsill with the bristles facing out off of the edge.  I find it great if you have a radiator under the window as they're far away enough that they don't get hot, but the heat drastically speeds up drying time.  

Once I have my brushes positioned the way I want them, I spray them with isopropyl alcohol 70% to ensure that all my brushes are sanitised properly. 

 It's important not to use a higher percentage though, as it evaporates too quickly to actually sanitise the brushes.

Deep cleaning Beauty Blenders

These are a little more time consuming to clean.  I find it best to have a couple of these on the go as I prefer to wash them after every single use to avoid product buildup and spreading bacteria and gunk on my face!

First I spray a kitchen towel with my MAC brush cleanser and then press the sponge onto it to get as much of the product out as possible.

Then I put it in a bowl with a couple of squirts of baby shampoo, fill it up with warm/hot water, squeeze the sponge a couple of times in the water so that it soaks it all up and creates some suds, then let it sit for about half an hour after which time I'll take it out, and rub it in shampoo in the palm of my hand until the suds stay white and the water runs clear.

To actually sanitise the sponge I give it a 30 second blast of heat in the microwave. 

To do this I put a little water in a bowl (about 1 inch of water), put the sponge in it and just microwave it for 30 seconds.  

The sponge will be very hot, so let it sit for 5 minutes before squeezing it out.

So that's pretty much it.

You don't need the Brushegg, but I find it super handy, faster than using the palm of my hand and I feel like the soap penetrates the bristles easier and faster with it, and like I said, it's super inexpensive.

Hope this was useful!  

Happy washing! 

MAC vs NYX: Is this a TRUE dupe?

Hey!  Just wanted to write a quick post on these two powder foundations because I'd seen so many blog posts and YouTube videos comparing the two that I just had to pick them both up and compare them myself.

Of course I'm talking about the MAC Studio Fix powder foundation compared to the NYX Stay Matte But Not Flat powder foundation.

Firstly, the shade;  I couldn't find an exact match for the MAC NC15, but 04 Creamy Natural seemed to be the closest colour match for me, so that's the one I picked up.

Now before I go on, I want to point out something else.  The price.

MAC studio fix retails at €31.50 for 15g, whereas NYX Stay Matte Put Not Flat retails at €14.00 for 7.5g... So, in my opinion, claims that this is a dupe for MAC for half the price are a a bit misleading due to the fact that you only get half the amount of product too.

Moving on!

The formula:

MAC Studio Fix is very mattifying and looks smooth on the skin, when applied with a stippling brush in buffing motions it makes the skin looked almost airbrushed.  It also doesn't accentuate dry patches as much as it could, being a powder foundation, or as much as the Urban Decay Naked Skin powder foundation does.

The name itself "Stay Matte But Not Flat" already gives you a an idea of the finish.  It's not even close to being as matte as its MAC counterpart.  It will mattify your skin if applied over a liquid foundation, but it definitely requires more touch ups throughout the day if you prefer a matte finish.  

Apart from that, I think you can see for yourself the difference between the textures of the products themselves.  This one doesn't feel too different one the finger, but when applied to the face with a sponge/brush it looks quite powdery compared to the MAC one and requires more work to get a good even coverage with, particularly when used as alone as opposed to over a liquid foundation. 

Left: MAC Studio Fix NC15/ Right: NYX Stay Matte But Not Flat 04 Creamy Natural

The packaging is probably a big part of what makes this a dupe.  They both come with a mirror, and the compacts lift up to reveal a sponge underneath for application or touch ups.

So to summarise:

MAC Studio Fix is €31.50 for 15g and looks and feels smooth and flawless on the skin and stays very matte for hours.

NYX Stay Matte But Not Flat is €14.00 for 7.5g and requires more work to get looking smooth rather than powdery, and looks quite dewy after a couple of hours.  

Do I think this is a true dupe?  The simple answer is no.

I feel like there are too many differences in the formulas for this to be rightfully called a dupe!  

Don't get me wrong, the NYX one is grand for everyday wear or if you're in a rush to get out the door, but apart from the packaging, I can't see any other similarities, and it works out very little cheaper than its MAC counterpart in the long run. 

Have you tried these two products?  Do you think they're comparable or do you prefer one over the other?  Let me know :)

xx