Travellers Dilemma: Inglot Freedom System Situation

Hello All! As you most likely know by now, in under 10 days, I'll be leaving to go study in the US for a year, so I'm nearly ready to start sorting through everything and figure out what I want to take with me. For a while now, I've had two Inglot 5 pan freedom system palettes, but they haven't been full - I have seven shades, as little-by-little I've been adding shades.

I have two different sets of colours, that eventually, would have led to a grey, smokey palette, along with a neutral brown/taupe palette. However, as I only have 7 eyeshadows, and am not willing to go out and buy more right before I head out to the Land of Cheap Makeup, I had a dilemma - what shades should I choose to make up a palette that would work?

Review: Maybelline DreamMatte Powder

For ultra fine, natural, matte perfection

So I caved - I bought the Maybelline Dream Matte Powder. This is a cult favorite on youtube, with many of my favorite bloggers claiming to love this as a setting powder. Unfortunately, in Australia, we only have two shades available, but I picked one up which seemed to be a close match, and dove in from there.

Review and Swatches: Essence Haul Items

So a couple of days ago, I did a haul of some recent purchases of mine, and amongst them were a few Essence products I picked up in target. These products are really good quality as well as reasonably priced, so I will definitely be buying more!

Anyway, onto the reviews of these products.

Review and Swatches: Australis Paparazzi Perfect High Definition Eye Shadow in 'Totally Busted'

A while ago, I filled out a survey for Australis regarding ideas for new cosmetics, and as 'compensation' I recieved a Paparazzi Perfect High Definition Eyeshadow in Totally Busted. The new, or should I say, more recent Australis collection, the Paparazzi Perfect range in total, is actually pretty impressive, with a great variety of high quality products.

Review and Swatches: Physician's Formula Shimmer Strips Custom Eye Enhancing Gel CreamLiner

Three custom shades provide a glamorous look to define and enhance your eye color. Unique gel c cream formula glindes-on effortlessly and smoothly while providing the definition of a liquid eyeliner..

A week or so ago Priceline were having a sale on all Physician's Formula products - 50% off to be exact. I heard this was because they're redoing the look of all the product, and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to snatch up one of the gel eyeliners stacks everyone in the beauty community raves about.

Mini Polish Haul

I was in a local department store, Big W, just recently looking at the amazing book sale, when I passed the checkout and saw a bucket of NYC nail polish. This bucket full of colours would attract anyone, but what drew me in was the price tag of $2 each! With summer coming up, I thought a few bright colours would be welcome into my collection.

Review and Swatches: NYX Round Lipsticks - First ever NYX products!

Any beauty blogger, reader, watcher or enthusiast who has seen American beauty videos will know of the brand NYX. NYX is a drugstore brand with great quality products at amazing prices, and sadly predominately available in America. I grew greatly jealous over time of the products people had, so finally, I set out to buy some. I found a seller on eBay who offered a bulk deal of 6 at an extremely reasonable price and set off. When they finally came in the mail, I was ecstatic! 

Let me tell you, from what I have seen, these lipstick do not disappoint. The light fruity smell, smooth consistency and amazing variety of colours can do nothing but invite people in to want the whole collection!

5 Lip Products to get you through the Holiday Season

No matter how you choose to spend your holidays, one thing for certain is that it is a truly hectic time for everyone. Parties, events, shopping, holiday's and catchups - you name it, you'll most likely do it. In this time, you'll probably try to rush through your routine, and with these five lip products you'll have enough variety for a multitude of looks.

If I were going away for the holiday season, whether I lived in a country going through summer or winter, these would be the 5 lip products I would pack!

All Time Favorite Red Lipstick

Revlon Colorburst Lipstick in 090 True Red

Last year, I had a multitude of parties I had to attend, and it was during these, that I learnt the allure of the red lip. Being someone who wore a lot of black and no colour, I was intrigued when I first found my mother's Dior lipstick, and after the first wear, I fell in love. It was a new way to add a bit of spark and sultry-ness to an outfit without being too 'slutty'. The red lip soon became my 'thing' within our group.

At my birthday last year, I received a gift box from some girlfriends, and this little baby was hidden inside it, and since then I have never looked back.

Review: Maybelline Master Liner

New Maybelline waterproof Master Liner Cream Pencil.

Bolder, Smoother, Unlike any other.

The new Maybelline Master Liner is a waterproof, wind up cream liner that claims to have a creamy soft glide and intense colour, whilst being smudge-proof and waterproof.

Review and Swatches: BYS Blush in Coral

This blush was another prize I won from Hannah's 100 follower giveaway. This was another prize I was particularly excited to win, because Coral is a blush that is somewhat raved about in the Aussie beauty blogging community, and I now know why.

Review: Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector (BB Cream)

When I won Hannah's 100 follower giveaway, one of the things I was most excited to try was the Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector, or Australia's first drugstore version of a BB Cream. BB creams have been all the rage in the beauty community lately, and the reviews I heard about this product were mixed, so I was excited to finally try it for myself.

Holiday Nail Polish Haul Part 1: China Glaze

From left to right: Holly-day, Glittering Garland, Twinkle Lights, Snow Globe

I've never used a China Glaze polish before, but after hearing so many great things about the brand in general, I've been wanting to give them a shot for a while. When I saw the China Glaze Let It Snow 2011 Holiday Collection, I knew I had to make these the beginning of my collection! There are so many beautiful shades that just scream 'Christmas' (or holiday season in general) to me, so I had to limit myself to four, but there are two more I'm debating about getting.

Review: Rimmel Soft Kohl Kajal Eye Liner Pencil in 'Royal Blue'

As you all know, I am slightly scared of colourful eyeshadow. I am a strictly neutral eye girl. However, Priceline are having another 20% off sale on Rimmel cosmetics, and when I saw this range of eyeliners for $6.80AU, I couldn't resist picking this up. I already have the Jet Black eyeliner that I love (it's much more soft and creamy then a regular pencil, although the staying power isn't fantastic) so I thought that this would be a good way to slowly venture into colours.

Australis Paparazzi Perfect High Definition Blush in 'Flash It'

Perfectly blended, multicoloured blush allows you to customise and create the exact shade you are desperate for! Formulated with light reflecting and balancing photochromatic pigments so that you look just as hot in photos as you do in the mirror! The pore-invisible technology blurs pores, fine lines and other imperfections leaving a perfectly flawless and glowing finish. Enriched with jojoba and grape seed oil to lock in skin moisture.

I don't know about you, but to me, Australis was just another brand in Priceline which I skipped over. Until recently, I didn't own anything from Australis, but that is slowly changing! With the recent makeover Australis had, not only did packaging become more sleek and high-end looking, there was also the release of the new Paparazzi Perfect range, featuring a new selection of cosmetics aimed at making you look as good in photos as you do in person. Let me tell you, so far, the products do not disappoint!

Sleek 'Storm' Palette: Review and Swatches

My Sleek Palette arrived today, and I was sooooooooo excited that it had finally come! For those of you who don't know, Sleek is a UK 'high street' brand of makeup with fairly cheap prices (compared to Australian standards). Nearly every blogger I've seen has some form of Sleek product and raves about them all, so I thought I'd take the plunge and get a eyeshadow palette.

Now the first thing I noticed about the product is that both the box that it came in, as well as the palette casing itself, live up to the name of the brand - They're both in very sleek and classy thin, matte black packages with (almost embossed) shiny lettering. The palette itself is fairly compact, being not much bigger than an iPhone, with 12 pots, each 2cm in diameter.

Palette compared to an iPhone 4

Now the colours on the Storm, which I've yet to test the staying power of as this palette just arrived today, are extremely pigmented! The most pigmented, I would have to say, is the black. There are 3 matte eyeshadows (third on the top row, and last two on bottom row) in a colour similar to that of a waffle (ice cream) cone, a coffee colour, and a black. The rest of the colours are shimmery, but not glittery, which for me is a big plus!

Top row - a variety of soft browns(1,3,4),  a champagne(2) and a rose(5) and burgundy(6)

Bottom row - dark browns (1,5), a grey blue (2), dark green (3), sapphire (4) and black(6)

Sorry about the quality of the second row. The colours are pretty similar, but it suddenly got darker so the shimmer wasn't as pronounced.

The only issue I have with this palette is that many of the colours are really similar to colours I already have on the naked palette. Looking back, I should have gotten the original palette, as it has a bit more of a variety of colours that I don't already have, but the good priced eBay seller I found didn't have that one. Apart from that, I'm really happy with this set, and I think it will be good for making a different kind of smokey eye.

My two favorites definitely have to be the rose and the sapphire! This palette was highly impressive and I am certainly going to try buy another.

Do you have any 'drugstore' or cheaper palettes that you are highly impressed with?

Love Gianna

xx

e.l.f Essentials Beauty Encyclopedia - Review and Swatches

This is the perfect gift for yourself or for a friend. Add this trendy Little Book of Beauty as a reference guide to your collection.
This all-in-one compact includes the must-have makeup essentials:
12 eye shadow shades
1 eyeliner
1 eye shadow applicator 

If you follow bloggers or watch YouTubers from overseas, you'll have heard of this brand called e.l.f. From what I heard, it was a cheap, drugstore brand with relatively good-quality cosmetics. When I found out they had an Australian store, I was so excited to browse their products!

Let me tell you, the website did not disappoint! They have a great variety of really cheap products, compared to products we would find in Australia. Their 3 ranges have a vast variety of single products ranged from $1.99 - $9.99, with sets of products for as cheap as $15.

I had a look at their new products, and found this beauty book, with 12 eyeshadows at an introduction offer of only $3.99! I've been wanting to try some e.l.f products, and i thought for this price, this would be the ultimate product to begin with.

I chose the smokey eye set, which has a variety of matte and shimmery colours, which are super pigmented and also very smooth! It almost feels like a creamy product. The set also comes with this little instruction page, which is really handy for beginners, or people like myself, trying to venture out and try new things.

The dark colours, let me tell you, are just wow. One really light swipe gives you a super dark and pigmented colour,  that I was really impressed with! I took two swipes to get the same effect with the lighter colours, but thats basically a given with lighter shade.

(top row - matte white, shimmery dark grey, matte black, shimmery silver)

(middle row - shimmery off white, near-matte muted grey green, shimmery champagne, shimmery latte)

(bottom row - shimmery pale gold, shimmery orange gold, shimmery dark brown, shimmery bronze, accompanying eyeliner)

These colours give incredible payoff, and the black was definitely the most pigmented (I've heard reviews saying this rivals MAC's Carbon). The one downfall I had with this set is that the third colour in the second row is slightly crumbly, but apart from that, this set has no faults! Even the eyeliner that comes with this set is smooth. Not the most amazing thing ever, but certainly great for someone looking out to try eyeliners.

Overall, I am super impressed with this e.l.f set, and will definitely be repurchasing from the site, especially after hearing so many great things about a variety of products!

Being in Victoria, the the palette arrived 2 days after I ordered it! It is a flat rate of $5.80 for shipping, but there is free shipping for orders over $30, which I feel is extremely reasonable, and not at all hard to total given the range!

This palette has now gone up to $9.99, but I certainly feel it is worth it, whether you are a beginner looking into some basic colours, or broadening your general/smokey collection! I already have a naked palette, but I definitely think this will certainly be rivaling the use of that.

e.l.f Cosmetics have great prices for their products, and at the moment are having a month of 50% off one product per day, so it is definitely worth checking out!

Have you tried any e.l.f products? Which ones would you recommend?

Love Gianna

xx