Inner-corner highlights

I remember the first time I inner-corner highlighted...it was a sparkling moment (hehe). Ok so why bother adding that highlight into the inner corner you ask? Well it helps your whole face look a little brighter, your eyes look bigger and it somehow pulls together the whole eyeshadow look. Of course you don’t always want a shimmery colour in your inner corner, but I think when makeup is neutral and matte, you need a bit of suttin suttin to liven it all up! Especially in the winter time when lighting is gloomy, weather is cold and everything just feels a bit blurgh.

This paired with a nude liner in the waterline will transform your sleepy eyes into bright, sparkling beauties. I’m going to run you through a few of my favourites with links so you can check them out yourselves.

Apologies for the lack of photos in this post, it’s just that frustrating time of the year where photos don’t look right.

MUA Eye Shadow - Shade 1 Pearl: Starting off with the cheapest, this beautifully buttery soft eyeshadow is a stunning bright cross between gold, yellow and pearl. A little of this added into the inner corner and just under the start of the lower-lashline adds light and detracts attention from any under-eye baggage that might be going on! Also with a heft 2g of the stuff for only a quid you won’t be running out any time soon, or will you be denting the purse.

CK Eyeshadow - Tangelo | Link:  Another very budget-friendly option is one of my favourite single eyeshadows of all time, the shade Tangelo. It’s a little less pigmented and less golden than Pearl and so I opt for this on work days or when I’ve not made much of an effort with my makeup, but I just want a little brightening in the eye area. I also love using this all over the lid, which makes its convenient to swish into the inner-corner while I’m at it too. yay 2-in-1

Rimmel Scandaleyes Eye Shadow Stick - 002 Bulletproof Beige | Link: The best way to describe the colour of this is as a ‘light copper’. Light enough to use in the inner-corner anyways! I love the fact that it’s super creamy and the chunkiness of the pencil makes it easy to dab on to the inner-corners where I need it! I normally use this as a base for when I am doing party makeup and need it to last, however it works great alone too as a much more subtle brightener.

The Balm Mary-Lou Manizer | Link: Could a highlighter post ever be complete without this beauty? Of course not! When you want a killer cheek highlight, this is the gal for you, and she works equally well in the inner-corner too. The most creamy, buttery, highly pigmented powder you will ever find in your life, with a golden/pearl like undertone. This one is ONLY an inner-corner highlight for special occasions, because it’s a little too gorgeous to be rocking at uni!

Stila Eyeshadow - Kitten | Link: If Mary-Lou is a little too golden for you, opt for Kitten when you want a intensely pigmented highlighter shade for your inner-corner! Bloggers have raved about this shade and it’s a real beauty - a mix of pink and silver. Personally my favourite shimmery shade from the In the light palette is Bubbly and it would look gorgeous on deeper complexions.

What are your favourite shades to add some sparkle to the inner-corner?

Thank-you for reading ♥

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Inner-corner highlights

I remember the first time I inner-corner highlighted...it was a sparkling moment (hehe). Ok so why bother adding that highlight into the inner corner you ask? Well it helps your whole face look a little brighter, your eyes look bigger and it somehow pulls together the whole eyeshadow look. Of course you don’t always want a shimmery colour in your inner corner, but I think when makeup is neutral and matte, you need a bit of suttin suttin to liven it all up! Especially in the winter time when lighting is gloomy, weather is cold and everything just feels a bit blurgh.

Review | Rimmel Scandaleyes Shadow Paints in Rich Russet & Golden Bronze

Hello! I’ve had a lovely first week off of uni, and have managed to PLAN the rest of the posts for December! *gives self a round of applause* but after this week I need to crack on with Uni reading and assignments and try to get me head around it all again.

Moving onto these two, we have a newish product from one of my favourite high-street brands ever – Rimmel can do little wrong in my eyes. I first saw these on a couple of blogs and was quite intrigued, but I only got round to picking them up during one of ASOS’s sales. By the way, just a heads up it’s worth keeping an eye out for ASOS’s random beauty sales, sometimes they spotlight on a certain brand and you can pick up some awesome stuff for like 30% off! (yes I lose my self-control)

Rimmel describe these as ‘long wearing eyeshadows’ and so far there are 5 shades available (A silver, gold, bronze, purple and a grey colour) costing you £4.99 each. They all have a metallic finish, but this is easy to sheer out with your finger or a brush. At first glance you could mistake them for being lip-glosses, but I personally love the packaging because they’re easy to store away!

The applicator is a doe-foot style but elongated and its super easy to apply on all eye shapes. If you have smaller lids, it’ll put the product exactly where you need it!

Creamy in formula and rich in pigment, Rimmel have made these foolproof to use. They do dry pretty quickly, so once I’ve swiped them onto my lids I like to blend them in with my fingers and then usually add a slightly darker eyeshadow to the crease and I’m good to go! When applied they feel pretty wet and thick, but at the same time oddly cooling (which I enjoy in the morning!) The amount of pigment you get in one second is phenomenal, and I have to say a refreshing change to using powder eyeshadows, which do take some patience.

I can’t say I’ll be picking up the other shades anytime soon, possibly the darker grey shade as that looks quite versatile, but Rich Russet  and Golden Bronze both seemed like perfectly wearable colours and they really have met my expectations.

Starting with my favourite shade Rich Russet its a beautiful taupe colour with a metallic finish and brown undertones. I love how this colour will compliment almost all eye colours, and it’s such an easy one to pop on the lids, add a bit of mascara/liner and you’re good to go! Who doesn’t love those ‘only-got-five-minutes-to-get-ready-so-I'll-grab-this-real-quick’ kinda products?! When I was swatching this on the back of my hand, it dawned on me that this is strikingly similar to Maybelline's colour tattoo in ‘on-and-on-bronze’ (reviewed here) and I decided to do a mini test on my hand and keep both swatches on side-by-side whilst washing my face and cleansing etc. and they both held on for an impressive amount of time! The colour tattoo did last that little bit longer a few hours later, but that's because it claims to last for 24hours, whereas these shadow paints give a realistic claim of 8 hours which they manage perfectly. Similarly to it’s half-sister on-and-on-bronze this shade also manages to create a effortless basic smoky eye, looking slightly darker in the crease and I have to say I have LOVED popping this on and being able to sheer it out enough so that it is suitable for work but still a little more interesting than a basic shadow.

Moving onto Golden Bronze, this colour is also very beautiful, a much nicer gold than Maybelline's ‘eternal gold’ (also reviewed) as it has warmer undertones thus is more wearable. I’ve been playing around with this shade for the last two days and I’ve found it works beautifully as a base if you apply the other eyeshadows within a few minutes of putting this on. Due to it’s consistency and how it dries, if you leave this to set and come back to doing your eyeshadows later on chances are you’ll have to spend a lot more time blending, so yes these do work as bases but you gotta be quick to blend! On my IG I’ve posted some pictures of one eye with just this all over the lid and a slightly darker colour in the crease, and the other eye with shadow ontop (so using golden bronze as a base). The picture quality is rubbish but I THINK it’s just about noticeable and you can see the difference!

As you can see, the more you blend out Rich Russet the more the brown colour comes through which I love. They dry fast and last for hours upon end, and following in the footsteps of the much loved colour tattoo, I think this little number from Rimmel is just as good! I’d love to see some new shades in 2014, like a richer brown shade and a champagne would be just wonderful. They’re the lazy girl’s bestfriend, taking a mere few seconds to apply and giving you a unique blend of colour on the lid – beautiful! And best of all the lasting power of these means 2 big thumbs up from me ^_^

Final Verdict:

Product rating: 8.5

Pros: Very pigmented, can be used sheer or full on, saves a lot of time, easy to use when short of time, lasts all day, adds dimension to any eye look, feels cooling on the lids and is pretty much foolproof!

Cons: Can be tricky to work with if you don’t blend straightaway, not enough shades (yet)

Repurchase? When they bring the new shades out (I hope) I shall be heading straight to boots!

 

Have you tried the shadow paints yet? What do you think of them? :)

Review | Rimmel Scandaleyes Shadow Paints in Rich Russet & Golden Bronze

Hello! I’ve had a lovely first week off of uni, and have managed to PLAN the rest of the posts for December! *gives self a round of applause* but after this week I need to crack on with Uni reading and assignments and try to get me head around it all again.

Review | Fashionista Eyeshadows #3 Chocolate Dream, Bliss, Berry Brown, and Brave

I won’t even talk about how long I’ve had these on my ‘to-blog list’ (which by the way is a list longer than my arm!) So today I' m going to be reviewing the next four shades of shadows from my Fashionista collection, and I hope this post is useful to anyone looking to buy them! To check out the first post where I go into lots of detail about prices, places to buy etc.; click HERE and for the second batch of swatches click HERE

So from the four that I’ll be talking about today, brave is the only matte shade (or as close to a matte as fashionista will venture) and I should point out that my camera kindly made chocolate dream appear silver..it’s far more brown! 

These swatches above were done with only one swipe, and as you can see they packed a punch! I have however used two swipes for the below swatches because you can see the colour a little clearer, but I honestly have no complaints with pigmentation from any of these.

Starting with the two browns from this quad I need to first point out how wrong they've got with the names of both the browns- the darkest brown is no where near a chocolate colour, more like a deep grey with a hint of brown. It's not quite as pigmented as some of the others but this works to my advantage when creating a smoky eye for example as it's easier to blend and build up. It's a nice colour to add to my neutrals palette but I'm not blown away by this one as you can still see little silver speckles in the shadow and it's a shade you could probably find in another palette. Overall i rate this a 3/5 it does it's job well, but it's not stunning. However it will be a shade that I'll end up using quite a lot I can imagine so no regrets for blindly picking this one! (Though I was slightly hoping for a rich matte chocolate colour ._.)

Next up is my favourite of this group berry brown. I swatches this on my arm and couldn't stop admiring it, honestly it's stunning but again the name is very misleading (ain't no berry here yo!) it is best described as a deeper copper shade, with some of the softest and creamiest formulation I have come across. You only need one swipe for stunning pigmentation and it's the kind of shade that would complement brown, green and blue eyes a real shade that everyone should own and one of my most favourite shadows from my fashionista collection. The subtle yet gorgeous gold undertone looks soo very pretty and its definitely one that I'll be introducing to my daily makeup! I rate this one 5/5 in terms of colour, pigmentation, ease of blending and versatility!

Bliss which is shade 27 is by far my least favourite shade. It's a frosty pink which in all honesty will get little use from me. As mentioned several times the little squares they give for swatches are extremely hard to judge by, and I'd have left this one is seeing them in store, however if you're looking for a shimmery  pink shade then this is the one for you! The more you build it up the more pink comes through but I still find due to its silver under/overtones that it's a tough one to get a lot of use out of and ultimately that's what everyone wants from their makeup so I'd have to score this for me personally a 1.5 (no complaints on the formula at all I have I add and it's one of the creamier ones- think urban decay quality)

And finally we have brave a name which they have actually got right because it is a the brightest mattest pink eyeshadow I own! Not quite as creamy as the others but this is completely expected as it's the most mattest shade I own from the fashionista range and I'm impressed! I wish there was some distinction on the site between the mattes, shimmer and pearlescent shades as I'd love to get my mits on more of the mattes but alas no such luck... Anyways it is a stunning pink shade, which I feel is comparable to higher end brands because of its pigmentation, without a primer or a base this goes on so bright and although I won't get a ton of use out of such a bright colour I don't regret picking this up because it could be mighty useful in the future (think Asian wedding and bright bright colours) I rate this a 3.5/5

bottom line is: to any girl out there who applies eyeshadow ever, you’re missing out big time if you don’t go ahead and make yourself on of these palettes, the price and QUALITY is phenomenal for drugstore!! The shadows are £1.65 each and the palettes are super affordable too – do check out my first two fashionista posts for more colours and a fuller overview :)

Review | Fashionista Eyeshadows #3 Chocolate Dream, Bliss, Berry Brown, and Brave

I won’t even talk about how long I’ve had these on my ‘to-blog list’ (which by the way is a list longer than my arm!) So today I' m going to be reviewing the next four shades of shadows from my Fashionista collection, and I hope this post is useful to anyone looking to buy them! To check out the first post where I go into lots of detail about prices, places to buy etc.; click HERE and for the second batch of swatches click HERE

Review | MUA – 'Ever After' Matte Palette

Hello lovelies!

I’ve been meaning to post this review for a while, but I’ve been so disorganised with taking photos and what with the clocks going back and less sunlight I need to start planning ahead more! Not complaining about the cooler weather though - sweater weather is better weather tehe

Anyways, this is another one of MUA’s fantastic palettes available at ridiculously affordable prices – costing you a mere £4. It consists of 10 shades, all of which are matte which is very rare in most palettes, but I’m pretty sure it’s the only one of it’s kind in the drugstore world (bar one or two of the Sleek ones). I was verrrrrry excited when I got the e-mail about it’s launch and as they had another promo on, I bought myself this palette and a second for the giveaway! (keep your eyes peeled for the next few days).

So packaging wise, instead of having round circular pots you have larger squares, but other than that it is the standard plastic packaging with a clear lid so you can see all the shades. You get 1g of each shade, and it is mainly a neutrals palette with a dusky pink and a ‘foggy’ blue included aswell. It actually looks pretty similar to the ‘undressed’ palette but of course with no shimmer to it.

I find the shades to be soft and easy to apply. One slight disappointment is that the top row is a little less pigmented than the bottom row, as you can see from the swatches -  it seemed nothing I could do would make the shades appear on my arm! On my eye however the top shades work perfectly as bases, I especially love unwrap as a under the brow highlight (who wants sparkly under brow highlight for a work/uni look?? not me!)

I adore fade because a decent matte brown as the transition  colour is essential in pulling any eye makeup look together, but from experience I find matte browns to be either too pigmented meaning it takes too long to blend when in a rush, or very very faint. This shade seems to hit the nail right on the head and I’m loving it.

Did I even swatch FADE?? I think I forgot silly me ._. sorry for the bad lighting here!

Please don't let the top swatches fool you, on my lids they show up fine (perhaps its because I use a decent base/primer?) and if they showed up on my lids as they are in the swatches (i.e if they didn't show up at all!) I wouldn't be impressed at all with this palette!

The swatches do all the talking as far as the bottom row is concerned, they’re all outstanding in pigmentation (I only swiped once or twice with the bottom row) and help to create subtle smoky eye, or just add more definition in the crease. I love using darker shadows lightly under the lash line because I find black liner on the bottom to be too full-on for day-to-day but by using shadows it softens the look.

All in all I really do think this is a palette every girl should have in her collection, simply because soo many palettes out there lack some decent matte shades and this has around four browns alone and lots of lovely neutral shades – for only four quid! I like to keep this palette beside the one i’m currently using and I find it great for adding that extra bit of detail. Or a super simple look with one of the lighter shades washed over the lid, a smidgen of one of the browns in the crease and some liner and I’m good to go!

You can purchase this from superdrug, via the superdrug website or of course the MUA website (HERE)

Do you like mattes on the lids?

Review | MUA – 'Ever After' Matte Palette

Hello lovelies!

I’ve been meaning to post this review for a while, but I’ve been so disorganised with taking photos and what with the clocks going back and less sunlight I need to start planning ahead more! Not complaining about the cooler weather though - sweater weather is better weather tehe

Review | Calvin Klein Tempting Glance Intense Eyeshadows–Tangelo and Vanilla Cream

Hello beauties! I want to talk today about this eye shadow range by Calvin Klein, I first got ‘tangelo’ in a gift set with the bronzers mentioned in my previous favourites, and I loved it so much I picked up ‘vanilla cream’ from Fragrance direct. Now generally I am a palette kinda girl, mainly Sleek because they are boss with drugstore everything in all honesty, but I love my customisable fashionista ones and a few others…you get my drift. I find palettes are more versatile, travel friendly and better value for money. BUT when trying Tangelo, I was so impressed with how soft the shadow is, the pigmentation and the fact that I started using it every single day, the temptation to add another one to my stash became too much.

Lets talk about the packaging – summed up in one word, it is functional. Just clear plastic in a rectangular shape. They’re easy to store away (circular pots can be a right pain sometimes!). If I had paid more for these I’d expect them to be a little more prettier to the eye, but they do the job and make it easy to select the right shade, so little complaints from me :)

There is a huge range of colours available from Fragrance direct but of course as always the issue is the lack of online swatches available, so picking up vanilla cream I expected something slightly different and ended up getting quite a generic colour (something you DEFO want to avoid with single shadows, they’re only good if you get colours not similar to ones in palettes you already own y’know?)

Tangelo (on the left) is a beautiful neutral/orange colour with a slight sparkle about it. It looks ever so pretty all over the lid with just a little eyeliner and some mascara, some how it really add a little something to the eyes. It looks pretty average above, so I will definitely post some instagram photos later this week, but essentially it’s a perfect day/night shade. It blends beautifully and lasts all day. These are available from Fragrance direct (link) for £1.99. It says the RRP price is £13.50 and i'm guessing this is because CK used to do high end makeup? Either way it's fantastic quality, their bronzers are my favourite - so i'm not complaining! I’m not going to start collecting these, but they truly are beautiful single shadows and with 2.6g (that’s more product than you get with a bourjois blush!) they’re more than worth it. However I wouldn’t recommend vanilla cream, simply because the swatches speak for themselves! its probably the most generic shade I've come across unfortunately.

So to sum off:

Pros: –

• soft blendable texture
• lovely pigmentation
• large amount of product in the pan
• Tangelo looks stunning on any occasion ^.^

Cons:

• ONLINE SWATCHES ARE DISMAL

Have you tried any of the Calvin Klein range??

Review | Calvin Klein Tempting Glance Intense Eyeshadows–Tangelo and Vanilla Cream

Review | Fashionista eyeshadows #2 [Nude Glimmer, Private Fitting, Sweet Kiss and Radiant]

Hello lovlies!

I have finally got round to swatching part 2 of my fashionista series. Part one (which you can check out here) was a h-i-t with the most viewed post on my whole blog! proving that numerous attempts at taking pictures of swatches in 50 different light settings were all worth it because people found it useful – yay ^.^

I won’t be uber repetitive in this post so if you want to read about Fashionista, MUA, prices etc; then HERE ya go. I must say I was less enthusiastic about this bunch than the first (maybe because generally the colours of lighter/sheer and have different finishes) But after playing around with them for a few days I’m still loving fashionista and I’m convinced that with the amount of product (2.5g) you get these babies will last me ages – yaaaay -

left-right: Private Fitting, Nude Glamour, Radiant and Sweet Kiss

Starting with Nude Glimmer it’s a shade that reminds me a little of The Balms highlighter (Mary-Lou) which I absolutely adore and will never need another highlighter ever (or perhaps I should blame that product for my adoration of the art of highlighting??)

It is a ‘go-to’ highlighting shade’ with a hint of gold in it, which I find compliments medium skin tones in such a wonderful way. It the sheerest of the four, the perfect highlighter shade for inner corner and the brow bone. Although a matte highlight looks gorgeous for under the brow, this has just the right amount of shimmer in it to give the whole eye look a boost, whilst not making the brow bone area the centre of attention like some other sparkly shades.

Had the swatches been anywhere near good online, I probably wouldn't have picked this shade up, because in all honesty its very very dupable. I do like that it has a touch of gold about it and probably the best part about it is it’s versatility. Other than that Nude Glimmer isn’t anything too spectacular, just a safe highlighting/inner-corner shade. Overall rating :3.5/5

The first thing I think of when trying to describe Private Fitting is GLITTER GLITTER GLITTER. It literally is one of the most glittery eyeshadows I’ve come across. In the pictures I’ve already posted you can see a lot of white streaks throughout it and when sweeping your finger/brush through the shadow this really comes through. I found that the only way to use this colour to it’s full effectiveness is with a base (especially the Maybelline colour tattoo in Eternal Gold) Because it is so crazy glittery, it’s not the best shade to base an eye look around, but it looks gorgeous added onto a flatter (more matte) look. Due to it’s glitteryness I might as well add there is a ton of fallout, so tapping that brush before applying is essential! It also looks amazing with the colour tattoo in ‘on and on’ bronze (picture on my instagram if you’re interested ^_^) Overall rating: 3/5

Sweet Kiss is very similar to NG (much to my disappointment) however it is more silver toned. It has a slight hint of pink which the camera has not picked up. Again a lovely highlighter shade, I’d rather have NG on my cheekbones than this though, but it would also work perfectly fine as an all over face highlighter too. It is slightly more sheer than the above which gives it a pretty sheen-ish look (not over the top in-ya-face y’know?). I’m afraid I don’t have a head to say about this, I would have loved for this to be matte but, it is what it is and if you have a similar shade I probably would advise against getting it. Overall rating: 3

Radiant is the most beautiful shadow of the bunch. Its a double take shadow, essentially it is a baked shadow which is also limited edition. The two colours complement each other perfectly, purple and rustic/bronzy gold. The purple addition is only minor when swatched however, and it makes a gorgeous gold colour, especially for brown eyes! I prefer this shade to ‘exclusive collection’ and it’s safe to say from these four, this colour is my favourite. There are very small speckles of glitter in this shade too,  not as noticeable as private fitting, a lot more subtle than Private Fitting. It looks beautiful in the crease, adding some subtle glamour and I can imagine it would make an amazing base for a smoky eye (especially with a wet brush). Overall rating: 4

Again a bunch of glittery/shimmery shades (no mattes in my swatches thusfar!) Although I am a little disappointed at the similarity of SK and NG they’re both very versatile and I’m sure at least one of them will come in handy if I’m making a palette for travelling. Used with a base these shadows appears a lot more vivid and of course last longer. If you want further details on these shadows then do visit part one (linked above) as this was mainly just for swatches ^_^

What are you experiences with Fashionista shadows?

Review | Fashionista eyeshadows #2 [Nude Glimmer, Private Fitting, Sweet Kiss and Radiant]

Hello lovlies!

I have finally got round to swatching part 2 of my fashionista series. Part one (which you can check out here) was a h-i-t with the most viewed post on my whole blog! proving that numerous attempts at taking pictures of swatches in 50 different light settings were all worth it because people found it useful – yay ^.^

Review | Fashionista eyeshadows #1 [earth star, exclusive collection, gold rush, subtle glamour]

Let the eyeshadow swatching begin! If you read this post you’ll know I was pretty impressed with Fashionista eyeshadows. For a high-street brand they’ve packed a punch with these shadows in a very generous amount (2.5g)

The first four I’ll start with are earth star, exclusive collection, gold rush and subtle glamour.

I popped these in my online basket with no idea what to expect from the shades, (and we all know a lot of websites stick the most random colours as the swatches!) Thankfully I wasn’t the least bit disappointed with what I did pick out. These four are all shimmery/have a sheen and can be built up with ease.

I’ll start by talking about the shadows and then moving onto swatches of the colours. There are two different ‘categories’ of shadows the DOUBLE TAKE BAKED EYESHADOW and the standard eyeshadow. I don’t have a big experience of baked products (e.l.f is as good as it gets in my collection so far) but I’m thoroughly impressed so far. They have the most beautiful colours swirled together, as you can see from exclusive collection there's bits of white in there which is perfect for inner corner highlighting, whereas parts of the other shades in the pan could  be used for all over the lid/transition shade/crease colour. So the baked eyeshadows are firstly very versatile. When I opened them up, I nervously swiped my finger across them hoping the pigmentation would be adequate and was shocked to find my finger in an opaque layer of gorgeous colour – pigmented? YES YES YES. Honestly I was overjoyed, I payed £1.65 and got 2.5g of eyeshadow that not only is in the ‘a little goes a long way’ category but also will last for ages ^_^

The only disadvantage of the double take it that it is noticeably more ‘messy’ so to speak, in comparison to the normal shadows, which stayed firmly put in their pans. The DTE (especially exclusive collection) had flecks here and there around it. Not a major problem, but probably better to do eye makeup before base makeup when applying these. The idea of the double take range is they change the shades with the seasons, so they are essentially limited edition.

The normal eyeshadow range has pigmentation just as rich as the double take ones, and these shades are in their permanent collection. They have a subtle but ever so gorgeous sheen to them.  I’d describe the texture of the shadows as smooth and creamy. They do remind me a little bit of the Urban Decay shadows – always a good thing right? Meaning they’re extremely blendable and easy to work with.

left – right: exclusive collection, earth star, subtle glamour and gold rush

How utterly beautiful are these shadows???

  

Exclusive Collection is a beautiful copper shade with small specks of gold running through it(or silver if you swipe your brush through the white areas). This is also the shade that has the most distinctive colours running through it, copper, dark brown, white and yellow. Used alone or blended together they make a beautiful shade. I find it brings out brown eyes really nicely, but I can imagine it would make blue eyes pop.

Gold Rush is a d brown colour with a slight hint of khaki. It has no noticeable glitter particles as in exclusive collection. This shade is perfect for in the crease to add a little bit of definition and shimmer. Despite the name being gold rush, there isn’t much gold too it, however it would accompany a gold shadow (or even exclusive collection) perfectly and if you were to just use these two shadows on your eyelids, it would look divine.

Note- I ALWAYS wear eyeshadows with a base, either the NYX MILK or concealer which intensifies the colour, and makes it even more vibrant. (these swatches are just on skin)

Subtle Glamour is a cold toned grey with a hint of brown, essentially a mushroomish shade. I have loved using this instead of eyeliner on the water line as its dark enough to add definition and depth, but not as harsh or over-bearing as black kohl can look when lining the eyes. I think this colour would work well with a warm and a cold smoky eye and as you can see from the swatch above in the sunlight has a silver tone look about it. I don’t normally go for colder neutrals as I have warm eyes, but again it is very versatile so hopefully will be used as often as the others.

Earth Star is the warmest and indeed brownest shade I own. I love pairing this up with a lighter colour in the outer corner for a soft daytime look, or even using this as a transition colour as it’s not too dark or light. It has the same subtle sheen that all the shadows have and again not any glitter particles which the baked double take shadows have, but that is what makes this more suitable for blending out as well as a base colour.

One of the best things about these palettes are the huuuuuuge mirror! Great for travelling ^_^

You can purchase all the shadows from here currently at £1.65 each, usually £4 and you can get all of the above (four shadows/blushers/bronzers and a palette) for a fantastic seven pounds.

I hope you found this useful, deciding how to swatch them was a challenge and a half, but I’m getting there slowly haha

Iqra x

To see PART 2 (four more swatches!) click here