The Lipstick Conundrum

If I have two beauty obsessions, they have to be nail art and lipstick. The former has already been fairly well-documented here on my little blog, but my love for lipsticks has perhaps been sitting in second place up until now.

The thing about lipstick is this: I have an addiction. I can't help it. I need to enter lipstick rehab or something because it is definitely a bit of an issue. 

Every now and then I dip into my box of rarely-used or 'special occasions only' make-up and upon hunting out an eyeliner sharpener in there recently I realised I have far too many unloved lippies sitting untouched. Sometimes it's an online order that despite hours of googling swatches just doesn't live up to the expected shade, sometimes it's just a case of ''why on earth did I buy that?" and sometimes it's purely a case of falling out of love with a product or even disliking it in the first place. 

So the question is should I get rid of them or hang onto them until I can justify binning them? There's a part of me that is convinced I'll instantly want to wear it the second it's gone, but perhaps that would only happen because it had gone. Who knows?

Do you hoard any beauty products like I do? Are you also a lipstick lover? Confess all and let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading,

Rachel x

Twitter: rachelizabethxo

Personal blog: estoy mejor sin ti

Instagram: iRachey

Email: rachel.soshedances@gmail.com
Tumblr: lookintothestorm.tumblr.com
YouTube: soshedancesxo

Feeling Blue?

Blue and green lips seem to have been gaining a bit more coverage recently. Illamasqua have their forest green lipstick and slightly lighter lipgloss, and if I'm not mistaken Mac have a blue lip tint coming out soon too. If you are that way inclined and don't mind spending £4.99, Sleek offer a blue with their OCC Lip Tar dupes - the Pout Paints. 

These are nothing new, they've been on sale for a good while now, but they've always been on my mental list of 'products I'd quite like to try/things to consider'. Also on that list at the moment is having my ears pierced, but that's a whole other post. 

Anyway, I spent half of yesterday afternoon shopping (haul coming up tonight on my channel) and the other half sitting on my bedroom floor having a good play around with these lip paints. I'll be sharing the other shades I created in the future, but today we're sticking with blue...

So, from L to R we have dark blue, pastel blue and medium blue. I genuinely think there could be something in the dark blue - if you can picture it, I think it could potentially work well in the autumn, perhaps with a full fringe, heavy eyeliner and a check shirt?  I mixed this shade by using blue and a tiny bit of red. The pastel blue is, well, interesting... obviously I would never leave my house wearing this as a lip shade (and probably never as an eye shade either) but if you're daring enough you might fancy giving it a try. This would maybe work on a dark skin tone, but it definitely doesn't work on me! If you're interested, I mixed blue and lots of white to create this shade. Finally we have medium blue. I'm still undecided on this one. I Instagrammed a photo I took wearing it this morning and I think it kind of works on me, but you know... it's blue...

While ever there are people shying away from blues or greens for the lips, the trend is never going to take off. That's pretty much a fact. You never know, I might be brave one of these days and leave the house wearing a blue lip. I'll be sure to let you all know if I muster that courage.

What do you think? Would you be brave enough to stray from the norm and wear a blue or green lip? Let me know in the comments below, I'd love to hear from you on this! :)

Thanks for reading,

Rachel xo

Twitter: rachelizabethxo

Personal blog: estoy mejor sin ti

Instagram: iRachey

Email: rachel.soshedances@gmail.com
Tumblr: lookintothestorm.tumblr.com
YouTube: soshedancesxo

Celestial

Those of you with a keen eye for new releases might have already figured out what today's post is about purely by the title, but if you're not quite up to speed on recent releases then you might be excited to hear that Rimmel have released a new line of lip products.

All hail the Apocalips! I'm actually quite wary of hyped releases such as this, as usually the products don't really live up to expectation. The colours in this line are, admittedly, gorgeous, although only the colour I'm showing you today appealed to me personally. The remaining shades, such as Big Bang or Stellar, are perfect for those who love to wear a bright, bold lip. I picked up Celestial while I had some time to kill in the train station last week and am pleased to say that it does indeed live up to expectation.

Of the lip products I already own, I'd compare the formula and consistency of this product to my NYX lip creams. Celestial is a vibrant, springtime pink that stays on the lips for a very decent amount of time and won't need to be reapplied every hour or so. The only downside to this product is the smell, which really does not appeal to me at all. Thankfully, it disappears once on the lips and it doesn't hang around for long at all.

As a student who often spends all day in university without chance to reapply make-up, I have to say I was very impressed with this product. I also think it will be very versatile and can be used to create a number of looks. 

Here's what it looks like overall ^ What do you think? Have you tried any of the Apocalips products? Do you think you would now? Let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading,

Rachel x

Twitter: rachelizabethxo

Personal blog: estoy mejor sin ti

Instagram: iRachey

Email: rachelelizabeth.xo@googlemail.com

Treat Yourself...

Hola everybody :) In the past few weeks, I've had my first four university exams. When I was finally freed on Thursday 17th, I decided to treat myself. After a not-so-pleasant experience ordering from  Mac online (which I'll discuss in a future post when my order finally arrives...) which resulted in a lipstick being refunded, I decided to find something to replace it...

After walking around the Mac counter in Harvey Nichols for a while and swatching almost everything I looked at, I decided on Syrup. Seen as I already have slightly-darker-than-average lips, Syrup is like a slightly more pink nude on me, which is exactly what I was hoping it would be.

In the swatch above, I had a tiny amount of gloss over the top but by the time this photo was taken it had pretty much faded away. The colour you see above is fairly true to how it looks on the lips. 

And here's what it looks like from more of a distance... I wore it out to a family party last night and while the colour did stay all night, I did find that my lips felt a little dry so I reapplied a few times. With the exception of this, so far I really like this lipstick and feel that I will definitely get more use out of it than any of the more typical nudes I own by Mac (aka Hue and Creme Cup, which are lovely but quite hard to work with). 

What do you think? Do you own Syrup? What's your favourite Mac lipstick? Let me know in the comments :)

Thanks for reading,

Rachel x

Twitter: rachelizabethxo

Personal blog: estoy mejor sin ti

Instagram: iRachey

Email: rachelelizabeth.xo@googlemail.com

Perfection in a tube?

Today I'm going to talk about a product that has definitely already done the rounds on blogs and YT channels, but as usual I'm totally behind with the times and have only recently decided to see if the hype is justified. Being a lip product lover, I can only be talking about the Clarins 'Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector'.

Mine is shade 1 'Rose Shimmer' and I bought it for £16.00 from Debenhams. Firstly, this product smells divine... It really reminds me of the Korres 'Jasmine' lip butter scent which I love. Secondly, the colour payoff is surprisingly good. For a nude lipgloss, I expected the pigmentation to be fairly lacking, but as you will see from my swatches it is definitely pleasing. 

These swatches are taken in different light. The first is taken without flash in dim light, and the second is also without flash but in daylight. My lips are naturally slightly darker than most nude lip colours can suit, but because this product isn't fully pigmented I feel I can pull it off well and it feels lovely on the lips.

Have you tried any of these? I know the coral coloured one is also popular. If you have, let me know in the comments :)

Thanks for reading,

Rachel x

Twitter: rachelizabethxo

Personal blog: estoy mejor sin ti

Instagram: iRachey

Email: rachelelizabeth.xo@googlemail.com