Let's Talk... Eyeshadow Palettes!~

Welcome to a new segment of my blog! For the life of me I’ve been struggling to maintain this thing and figured doing ‘Let’s Talk’ posts will help push me to write about stuff without necessarily needing to go pestering poor Ama for shoots or spending money for hauls!

So this is gonna be like a review-not-review where I basically talk about products I have…? Not really sure what else to say, but maybe it’ll inform you a little bit more about me, my spending habits, and maybe even give you ideas of stuff you might potentially like? Anywho…

Anyone who knows me well will know that lately I have been extra obsessed with eyeshadow palettes. Currently -and rather sadly- I only own a few, but I definitely have my eye on more, so watch this space I guess!?!*

For now, though, we’ll just talk about the ones I do have and I’ll give a little run down on value, quality, etc., and some swatches, so yeah, like I said, kind of like a review-but-not-review.

I’ll start with the cheaper palettes first; here we have Makeup Revolution’s ‘Iconic 3’ palette:

Makeup Revolution Redemption Palette (in Iconic 3) - £4 - available from TAM Beauty or Superdrug

Apparently this is a dupe for Urban Decay’s Naked 3 palette, but what do I know? Visually, I guess you could say they are pretty similar, but I’ve never tried Urban Decay eyeshadows beyond swatching, so meh, guess you gotta go find out yourself? Regardless, this palette is a steal at £4 and the quality is pretty amazing for such a low price! Definitely one of my favourite colour selections with its pinks and browns, very romantic!

Also from Makeup Revolution, I have the ‘Give Them Nightmares’ palette:

Makeup Revolution Salvation Palette (in Give Them Nightmares) - £6 (currently on sale for £4!) - available from TAM Beauty

Value-for-money-wise, the Salvation palettes appear to be on top; a lot of shades for very little money. However, the quality does stumble and vary a little because of that, though not in an overly disappointing way. Most shimmers are amazingly pigmented, most mattes are a little sheer and there can be a fair bit of fallout, but like I said, price-wise, it’s all good. And as for this palette in particular, the colour selection is just soooo me and soooo Halloween! So awesome!!

Next up, we have a palette from Sleek:

Sleek Makeup i-Divine Eyeshadow Palette (in Bad Girl) - £8.99 - available from Sleek or Boots

This is the ‘Bad Girl’ palette and just like with the previous palette, the colour selection for this is just on point! Very, very me, or at least how I like to see myself, but that’s neither here nor there! Sleek eyeshadows, as far as I know from endless swatching, are some of the better quality eyeshadows available from the ‘drugstore’ and it’s definitely a brand I see myself buying more from in the future.** This palette definitely does it's brand justice with the colours all being super pigmented and easy to blend. The only ‘eh’ I’d have to say, is that the amount of shimmer is insaaaane and it goes everywhere, though maybe that’s not really a bad thing…? Still LOVING it though!!

Now for my newest palette, which is the ‘Northern Lights’ palette from Cargo:

Cargo Cosmetics Eyeshadow Palette (in Northern Lights) - £35 - (no longer available)

This palette, I had to buy off Depop, as it’s actually from their 2014 holiday collection. However, I love the theme of this palette and upon finding it at a bargain price, just had to have it! The colour selection is not really one I’d normally go for, but there are definitely some colours I’m glad to now have within my reach. Despite the higher pricing, I don’t really feel like this blows my mind with how much better it is than my cheaper palettes, because really, it’s okay, but not phenomenal. I dunno, maybe I just need to play around with it more? We’ll see…

And lastly, my precious baby, my Tartelette In Bloom palette!

Tarte Tartelette In Bloom (Tartelette 2) palette - £35.40 - available from QVC

I mentioned this in my recent beauty haul post, and now that I have actually played around with it a bit can happily report that this thing is LIFE. It is the perfect everyday palette for me and I am just sooooo chuffed that this wasn’t a waste of money! Definitely worth the price; the quality is great and the colours are wonderful for so many different looks and skin tones… and did I mention it smells great too?!? I love this so much! <3

So those are all my palettes (so far, ehem…); I don’t know what it is about eyeshadow palettes, but I just can’t stop wanting more! I’m becoming somewhat an addict, I think… oh dear!

Hope you enjoyed reading my first ‘Let’s Talk’ post (sorry it was a little wordy!) and I hope you’ll be looking forward to future ones!

Philippa. x

*zoeva palettes! lusting after them, will definitely be adding them to the collection soon! and the kat von d ones! particularly metal/matte and innerstellar, such beautiful shades! so much want!!

**i know they’re hard to find now, at least in-stores, but check out sleek’s ‘goodnight sweetheart’ palette! that thing is soooo gorgeous!!

Jewellery haul + Make-up review~

Right, with the internet as my witness, I solemnly vow to not spend any more money unnecessarily. Honestly, I think I have a real problem; I'm turning into whatsherface from 'Confessions of a Shopaholic'!  But my craziness aside, time to reveal the stuff!

I have, since FOREVER, loved rings, and I know that there's already a post a while back showing a bunch of rings that I bought, but let's just ignore that for now...

I bought all of these from various eBay stores, all based in China, so had to wait approximately a month before I got all of them. I think they were all 99p, but I'm not sure... something like that. Out of all of them, I'd have to say the eternity symbol one is my favourite, because it feels to most well made. The 'free' ring on the far right is close second, as it fits really well and has a nicer tone than the other one so yeah. Nothing's tarnished or made my fingers go green yet, so as far as I'm concerned, so far so good!

I'm a little ashamed of this purchase, as it just proves that I can't escape the power of trends. Perhaps not so much this season, but quite recently jewelled cat ears had become quite a thing, probably thanks to people like Pixie Lott. I resisted for ages but then couldn't help myself and bought one off eBay. I mean, it was only £1-£2, so not much damage finance-wise. As it was coming to me from overseas, there was an obvious risk of damage along the way, and true enough, it arrived with an ear snapped off. Thankfully though, at no extra charge I was sent another, which thankfully arrived in one piece, so yay!  Despite what some might think, though it was bought from some random Chinese eBay store, the quality is not far behind that of Topshop or any other UK high street brand, so I'm quite pleased with myself. That's a good £6-ish I saved!

Now the make-up!

(left to right: 'Rimmel Lasting Finish by Kate' in shade 04, 'Sleek True Colour' in Mulberry sheen, 'Sleek True Colour' in Vamp matte)

Last time it was eyeliners and mascaras and now it's lipsticks. Oh deary me, what next. I'm kind of annoyed as my skin tone greatly limits which shades suit me. My mother is fairer than me and she can pull of quite a variety, ranging from beige to brown to bright red to dark red. So not fair. So for the past year roughly, I have been on an epic quest to find the perfect lipstick for me at an affordable price. Sadly, I failed, so had to turn to 'real' brands for the answer. Actually, I lie, I found nice shades, but the quality was so bad that it always smudged onto my teeth or didn't spread nicely and basically looked like I just got a paintbrush and smeared some colour onto my lips. Badly. but then what did i expect from £2 lipsticks

ANYWAY, moving on, let's start with the cheaper one. I got the 'Sleek True Colour Lipstick' in two different shades: Mulberry (sheen) and Vamp (matte), both at £4.99. The quality of these lipsticks is really good and the colour lasts for practically the whole day. While I don't have a preference between the two, combining them makes a really lovely in-between colour that's not too sheen-y or too matte, which is, to me, just right. The variety of shades for this lipstick is huge and, as one of the cheaper options out there, is definitely worth a go. The 'Rimmel Lasting Finish by Kate' lipstick, though not much more expensive at £5.49, felt a tad too pricey to me (i think it's all psychological), but I'd been wanting to try it out for a while so decided as a last splash to just go for it. I got shade number 04 and am very happy with it. It's a little lighter than the Sleek Mulberry lipstick, but is almost matte, so saves the hassle of having to combine lipsticks for the effect. Overall I'd say that though the variety is less than what Sleek has to offer, the Rimmel lipsticks are absolutely lovely and are true to their name (i.e. long lasting), so also worth a go.

And so ends another blog post. Hopefully I'll be able to stick to my earlier vow and the posts for the rest of the year will not be featuring any more hauls. My poor pocket can only take so much!

-Philippa. x
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PS.: too much writing? if so, let me know with a comment so i know to fix that!

PPS.: i would have annotated the swatch images like last time with the eyeliners, but i have super limited internet so couldn't get on to the manipulation site. sad times.
PPPS.: haha! was too lazy to proof-read and just spotted a note i forgot to take out! it's fixed now, (though i'm sure many already spotted it) but silly me... xD