I now have swatches of the Urban Decay Pulp Fiction collection – they’re every bit as good as I hoped they’d be. Pulp Fiction aside, it’s a fabulous capsule collection that I really hope they’ll do more of. It’s great when brands launch new products but when they come in a massive swathe it can be quite daunting, so a tightly edited collection gives us a chance to really focus on the products properly.

As usual, it’s one swipe with the brush – I don’t usually build up colours but these are all the pigment, smoothness and buildability that you’d expect from Urban Decay. Amazing textures that went on like a dream – there is just nothing not to like here. The Urban Decay Pulp Fiction palette – if you removed the Pulp Fiction references – would stand entirely on its own two feet as a brilliant, nude based, smokey eye palette. At £17.50 I think it’s a steal. Shades from bottom to top are: Righteous, Tyranny, Vengeance, Furious and Anger.

For lips, the Mrs Mia Wallace lipstick is a danger-red – a lot of depth to this red that’s coming out rather pink on the swatch – if you love a dramatic lip, it’s this. The lipstick is £15 and the liner £13.

This is literally one swipe – no going back and forth – so you can see it’s a lot of colour all at once. Not sure I’m brave enough for it but oh my, I really wish I was!

Gunmetal Glitter Liner has well defined colours – it’s not just a hotchpotch of glittery bits – and it’s made up of black and a very twinkly silver/gunmetal. It’s £14.

As you can see in the backdrop of the nail colour, there’s a card that gives you guidance on how to create the Mia look – Mrs Mia Wallace Nail Color, £10, is that deep rouge noir shade with a cut of gold shimmer – I don’t think it has as much black as Rouge Noir and even just swatching it on paper, it took three layers to get a very full depth, which it needs. It’s the only piece of the collection that I don’t think really stands out in context; it’s a gorgeous, glossy shade, but it’s likely that you probably already have a version of it in your nail stash.

The collection launches on 1st September.

The post Urban Decay Pulp Fiction Swatches appeared first on British Beauty Blogger.

Continue reading →

After my raving review of Benefit’s Gimme Brow, many people very kindly suggested alternatives for me to try, or requested comparisons with similar products. I’ve been quite busy (!) but have managed to test out Maybelline’s Brow Drama and compare it.

I ordered the Brow Drama Sculpting Brow Mascara from FeelUnique; £4.99, three shades (I went for the palest) and free delivery. You can’t complain about that. (Though I did have some kind of promo code for the delivery, I think it’s usually £10 minimum.) Maybelline’s Brow Mascara promises to give brows a “sleek and structured look” and yes, I think that it does add a hint of colour and it certainly helps to keep naughty hairs in place. Regardez-vous the photos below. Before:

(Fair-coloured brows, little bit messy perhaps, but to be absolutely honest I have no problems with them as they are. Yes a bit of grooming is always nice, but most days I simply can’t be bothered. Anyway…)

After! Can you see a lot of difference? A little more defined, maybe, and a hint darker? Look, there’s nothing wrong with this brow mascara whatsoever, but Gimme Brow it ain’t. For those who have singled this one out as a kind of dupe, I hate to let you down but it’s not. The Gimme Brow adds volume to each hair so that sparse bits are filled in and everything looks a bit more thick and fullsome: Brow Drama is a tinted brow gel. A nice one, but – as I said – it doesn’t have the same dramatic results, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Left eye (as you look at the screen) done, right eye natural. Now I know I’m doing a weird kind of expression, so ignore that and focus on the depth and thickness of the brow itself. Quite an amazing difference, don’t you think? There’s not actually any real comparison or competition here, because the products are almost entirely different. Like comparing a plumping, scarlet red lip gloss with a slick of lip balm. The Brow Drama grooms and holds very well (especially nice at £4.99) but for me, Benefit’s Gimme Brow reigns supreme. Please do suggest more alternatives and I’ll work my way through!

You can find Maybelline Brow Drama here – £4.99 and Benefit’s Gimme Brow here, £18.50.

The post Maybelline Brow Drama vs Benefit Gimme Brow appeared first on A Model Recommends.

Continue reading →

Not having been particularly enamoured with any of the previous “Daisy” fragrances from Marc Jacobs (love the bottles, always found the scents to be a bit “young”, which I suppose is probably bang-on for the target market) I surprised myself by really liking the new one, Daisy Dream Forever. It’s warm and comforting, rich and fruity. I want to say chocolatey, but a quick glance at the fragrance notes and there’s nothing remotely chocolatey about it!

Now this is very weird: without reading any kind of blurb about this fragrance, just looking at the bottle, which reminds me of dark winter nights, cosy pyjamas and – weirdly – bonfire night, my mind told me that this was a warm and sweet perfume. It reminded me a lot of Angel – that same edible, slightly oriental kind of scent. But Angel mixes up its fruity florals with warm and spicy base notes – vanilla, amber, tonka bean, chocolate – whereas Daisy Dream Forever has nothing of the sort. It has blackberry, pear, grapefruit; it has jasmine and fresh lychee. Where the hell I get chocolate from I have no idea!

It’s a prime example, I suppose, of how your nose can be led by your mind – I took in the colours of the bottle and the name Dreams and formed my own scent conclusions before I had even properly sampled the scent. And now I can’t seem to go backwards, because no matter what you tell me about the official fragrance notes, I still think that this is warm and chocolatey – it makes me want to put on my star pyjamas and drink cocoa in bed.

Read more fragrance reviews…

Whatever; I think that it’s lovely. Rich and softly woody, like a big cashmere blanket. It’s not the most grown-up fragrance out there, but it has a certain warmth that I think will make it irresistible to many people who wouldn’t usually go for the other Marc Jacobs Daisy incarnations. It feels like a winter scent, to me, and I can imagine that it will do incredibly well this Christmas.

Marc Jacobs Daisy Dream Forever is £59 for the 50ml Eau de Parfum, or £50.15 at Escentual.com

Continue reading →