Make Up Atelier Paris - Waterproof Liquid Foundation Review

If you've been following my blog for a while you may have come across a review I done for the Make Up Atelier Paris Waterproof Gel Foundation.
(http://broonylou.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/make-up-atelier-paris-waterproof-gel.html)

I was so impressed by the foundation that I've decided to try out and review their new Waterproof Liquid Foundation and luckily if you head over to the website (http://www.makeupatelierparis.co.uk/) you can buy samples for a mere £0.75!

My relationship with this brand was built entirely from the one product but after spending some time looking through the products there's actually so many different things I want to buy and I'm really impressed with how they deal with their customers.

The only problem I have is that I can never find many reviews of the products online before I decide to buy them so I'm kind of going in blind here. The benefit of that however is that it gives me a chance to take it upon myself to provide everyone else with good reviews of their products.

So here's what the company has to say about this new foundation:

Our long lasting water resistant makeup, available in a sample jar for the purpose of colour matching to your skintone. The foundation settles on the skin to a near matte finish and is almost full coverage.

First of all the sample I ordered arrived after only a few days which was great because when I order make up I get so keen for it to arrive and I hate when it takes weeks to come through the door. I think these only took 2 or 3 days to get to me and as you can see the company gave me a tester in the colour I wanted and another tester a shade darker just in case.

I love the initiative of a company to do this. If you buy a tester in the wrong shade it can be easy to just give up and move onto something else, especially when the brand can only be bought online and you have to spend days waiting on it arriving so they try and stop this from happening by providing a second option to ensure that you find what colour matches you and ensure you buy the full sized product.

Now, onto the foundation itself. I used the lighter shade of the two testers they gave me, colour FLW2B and the shade actually matched me really well. I'm really pale and therefore tend to just go for the lightest colour offered in any foundation range/brand and this seemed as close to my natural skin colour as possible on the site.

My skin before. As you can see I have a few red spots and blemishes at the moment but nothing too crazy.

And my skin after!

As you can see the foundation has really good coverage which is consistent with the old gel foundation I had from them before and is extremely matte looking. These photos are just of the foundation on my face, no powder so you can see that there is very little shine to it.

I really like this foundation, there isn't any smell to it and in contrast to the gel foundation it feels much less cakey on the skin. I've applied this with a brush and then used a beauty blender over it to give a nice even finish and I'm happy with how it sits on my skin. It provides a really good base for the rest of my make up and after wearing it for a few hours I found it to hold up really well.

I would suggest this to anyone wanting to try out Make Up Atelier. The gel foundation was something I was dying to have because I was sick of getting shiny skin after a few hours of applying make up and this is a much more ...daily foundation in that it does the same thing without the thickness that the gel had. The gel was a nightmare to remove due to its thickness and this is much easier as well so you don't have to fight with it at the end of every day.

This is how the product appears on the website. It's packaging is nice, I've always liked being able to see the shade and most importantly it comes with a pump so you're not going to end up using more than you need and having to somehow spread the foundation all down your neck to try and stop it looking cakey (I've committed this sin before and I speak from experience.) I also like the silver around the top of the tube but the clear top puts me off, I manage to break to many of these and hate seeing all the foundation smeared around the pump after a few uses. I wish this was silver to like the Urban Decay foundation bottles you can get.

Price wise this foundation comes in at a very affordable £22 which is great considering that the gel is now priced at £28 so it's worth the price for a well-performing product that you can wear daily both to worth or a night out. To put it into perspective the NARS brightening concealer is £22 and you're getting way more product with this.

On payday I'll definitely be placing the order for mine and what's even better is that the cost of postage for the samples can be redeemed and taken off the price of a full bottle so you don't lose out on any money due to testing the product first. It's little things like that which make me really like Make Up Atelier Paris as a whole, they are really considerate towards the customer.  

Payday Pickings!

Ah Payday!

As a typical 22 year old female I am guilty of living payday like a queen and spending the following 30 days in complete squalor but I think everybody my age feels that when the wages come in they really deserve a little splurge on themselves and as of late I have not splurged. 

So last payday I was going through to Hamilton for a night out and was with my friend Melissa when she decided to go to Superdrug and get her eyebrows tinted for the occasion. 

Naturally whilst she was doing that I ended up browsing and came back laden down with a whole load of stuff but for this post I'm going to focus predominantly on what I got from Make Up Revolution.  

Personally I love Make Up Revolution, I know there's a lot of debate about the number of products they produce that are similar to those by other brands, for example they have their own version of the too faced chocolate palette, but for the price I really like the quality of what you're getting.

I know there are many people out there who seem to almost...frown upon really cheap make up but I see no reason why I cant spend £19 on a high end concealer and then £8 on a whole palette of concealers as long as they do the job and I feel great about myself wearing them.

So I got a few things for myself, some MUA, some Rimmel but the Make Up Revolution products definitely made up the bulk of my purchase so lets concentrate on that. 

I got the blush palette seen in the photo above at Christmas time but had to get another, both of these palettes were £8 in total and I'll admit right away that I freaking LOVE the packaging. It's very sleek and thin which is what I want from my products really because I like to store them all upright and this makes it so much easier. 

The concealer palette is creamy and quite thick, my only gripe is that I wish the colour range was a tad more diverse, I like to have a darker colour to aid in cream contouring but overall for £8 this is an awesome product. 

Same goes for the blush palette, I love that it has some matte shades and some more shinier shades along with a highlight colour. Again for the price you pay it's £1 a blush/concealer which is awesome, I can't complain. 

I also picked up the Benefit Roller Lash Mascara which debuted in my store the day before Payday, it felt good to be one of the early birds buying a new product for once. The review of this product is also in my MARCH posts so go and check that out. This mascara was my biggest purchase of the day and is a great product. 

Now I am a huge eye product fan. In my make up stand the mascara and eyeliner box is the second most jam packed after lipstick and recently I had been loving this Maybeline felt tip liner that could draw really thin lines and then be dragged to make thicker and this liner is similar. 

At either end is a thick felt tip and a thin felt tip and oh my gosh it's my new go-to! Don't be fooled, the eyeliner is very durable and also pigmented. It also goes on like an absolute dream and from now on it will probably be one of my staples. One advantage this has over the Maybeline is that the felt tips are finer whereas the other had a very boxy shape. 

Highlighters weren't products I reached for very often but this one is so pretty. 

Being a girl with a greasy complexion I like most of my face products to be in powder form if possible to help fight shininess and so this is a fantastic product. 

It's very pigmented and very highlighting. My Urban Decay highlighters are probably just a little bit more reflective but again for the price it is a fantastic product.

Finally the matte bronzer, You can't tell from the picture but this is quite a big product which is brilliant for getting your bronzing brush into (I hate it with Hoola when you try and get the brush in and it's bending off the side because the packaging is tiny.) 

Again, this product is a powder and so is great for my skin and I have no complaints about it. If applied properly you get this stunning glow, it's more brown in tone instead of some of the horrible orange bronzers you can come across from the cheaper drug store brands. 

I don't know if I'll stay loyal to the bronzer from this brand purely because with things like bronzers/finishing powders they're so cheap and there's so many you can have access to that I like to have loads of different ones but for now this is what I'm applying in the morning and I really like the bronze glow it gives me. 

After trying all of these products I was starting to wonder why people weren't going mental for the brand. The packaging isn't what I would refer to as cheap or anything either and the only products I would really not buy as the eyeshadow palettes because I don't like the colour combinations and love my Urban Decay Naked palettes. 

I'm not sure if it is because people are so loyal to the higher end brands that they avoid these because they are at some points blatantly copying other brands but I see no reason why they can't try to create more affordable dupes that are more accessible to the mass market.

Judging purely off what I bought this day I will 100% be buying from this brand again, especially the bronzers and blushes it has to offer. I also haven't tried any lip products or mascaras from the brand so next time these will be at the top of my list. 

Debenhams Press Show - Day 1 Prep

One of the benefits of being a visual merchandiser for Debenhams is that there is plenty of opportunities open to you and I was lucky enough to get a chance to participate in the setting up of the North Regions Press Show for SS 15.

Now what our Press Show is is an opportunity to showcase all of our designers and core collections for this season and we invite store managers, bloggers and some head office staff, press etc to come along and have a look at what the stores across the UK will be offering over the coming season. 

So this year the North Region Press Show was held in Glasgows Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) and it was stunning!! I had to get up super early to get from Livingston through to Glasgow but the journey is only just under an hour and Glasgow is one of those places I get a buzz from visiting because it's so rare for me to end up through there, especially on a weekday. 

The photo above is the scene I walked into when I arrived at GOMA, it's one of those venues where you spend the first hour just admiring the ceiling and then you eventually crash back to reality when you have to start actually working and unloading the vans. If you ever get the chance, pay a visit to it because the space and height is pretty amazing as well as the architecture itself. 

The start of the day was like any occasion where you're out with new people, really quiet and people were unsure where everyone was from. I was also 10 minutes late to the gallery after being betrayed by my Google maps compas on my phone so everyone was sat in the corner waiting on the lighting guys arriving and i was the late person but once we got started and everyone was working together I met some fantastic people from the Scottish stores and by the end of the two days I had some nice new friends!

Day one of prepping for the show was just sorting out the layout and unwrapping everything that had been delivered from stores across the region and assembling our designer rails, lots of heavy listing and whatnot really for the first few hours, at least until we had everything out of the rain and into the building. 

Our team for day one was made up mostly of visual supervisors and assistants so it was great to work with others in the company who do the same daily role as myself. I've been with the visual team for 10 months now and it's great when you get to go out and spend time meeting some of the others in the country, I think with visual as well there's a real sense of comradery when we all get together. 

I was lucky enough to be paired with the lovely Kayleigh who is the Dundee visual supervisor and we got to set up and dress the designer rail area and we also got to dress two accessories areas that you won't see in this post but will be in a later one when I discuss part 2 of the event. 

We actually done a huge amount of work during the first day of prep and managed to get all of our mannequins into position and started to dress them for the show the following evening before going home for the day.

Below are a few photos of the day and I'll try to explain where everything is placed so you get an idea of how the layout is and the sheer size of the room.

So if you were walking into the venue the photo above is of the left hand side wall where we wee building out designer rails for people to browse and at the end is a mannequin wearing a selection of clothing from those rails. Each rail is set up for each of the designer/core brands we were showcasing. 

A view of the designer walls after they were built and layout was finalised, you can see the graphics up on the wall representing each collection. 

Behind that white wall is the entrance to the venue so the rails are to the right in this photo. What you can see here is the bottom of the runway for our catwalk show and that faces this substantial mannequin army here that will be dressed in occasion wear. 

This is the same white wall you see in the above photo but the opposite side so this is what you see when you first enter the venue. This was later flanked by two occasion wear graphics on either side. 

Dressed occasion wear mannequins (this was altered slightly the following day) 

Occasion wear mannequins at the venue entrance. 

Occasion wear with the two flanking graphics 

Our designers rails and mannequins after dressing, these were altered slightly the following day and some more stock was added to the rails. 

The view of the catwalk when you walk around the wall into the venue 

Another view of the occasion wear mannequins after dressing 

The goody bags that were gifted to visitors of the press show.

I should point out at this point that the stuff in the goody bags was actually amazing, I was really quite jealous of everyone who got one!! 

So that was the end of the day one prep, once you see the photos you can get an idea of how the room started to come together and all the hard work that went into making the room looking really premium and easy to walk around and look at. 

Later this week I'll post day 2 of the press show prep which really stepped up in the 5 or so hours we had left to spend on it and I will also be writing about being able to attend the event and what went down so stay tuned for that one! 

Mascara Review - Benefit Roller Lash

Woo! Another mascara review! Yes my addiction to all things lash lengthening is still as rife as ever so it's just as well Benefit have decided to grace their counters with a new mascara for me to own!

Now I'll admit when I heard that they were bringing out a new mascara I was totally confused. 'They're Real!' was a huge success. I don't know a single beauty guru on YouTube who didn't review the mascara and it is a personal favourite for myself as well. 

First thing you'll notice about the mascara is the packaging. It's not as sleek looking as 'They're Real!' but it is a really pretty looking canister. The top (I believe) is meant to look like a hair roller to fit in with their campaign describing the mascara as a means of getting flirty, fluttering and curled lashes without the need for actual eyelash curlers themselves. 

Personally I like the packaging, whilst it is slightly bulkier on the lid than 'They're Real' it's easy to hold and apply mascara with plus it totally fits in with Benefit's aesthetic. Most of the products they produce have a quirky theme running through them to help marketing.

I hadn't tried a sample of this before buying it so I had no idea what to expect but the first thing I noticed with this product is that the formula inside the tube feels quite thick. After you apply the mascara you start to understand why this is. The wand curls your lashes and the formula holds the lash at that angle, creating the "no need for an eyelash curler" look. 

Below are photos of my eye before and after applying the mascara so I'll let you judge for yourself! 

Apologies for my eye being slightly red but you get the idea!

I actually love this mascara and probably more than 'They're Real' if I'm being honest with you, if you look at the outer part of my eye in both pictures you can see that the lashes are definitely more curled. I've used this mascara everyday since I got it and I don't find that it can smudge onto my upper eyelid like 'They're Real!' sometimes does and whilst I find it a little hard to get off, it's easier to remove than 'They're Real' as well. Although you can of course use the Benefit 'They're Real' remover and save yourself having any problems removing either of the mascaras.

Overall this is a fantastic addition to the Benefit mascara range. Whilst I was confused at first about why Benefit had decided to add another mascara to their range when their existing products were doing so well it's now clear that this is a product that can stand on it's own and works in a completely different way.

Gonna be hard to top this mascara!!