BRUSH SET REVIEW

Hello again!

Makeup is basically like painting your face, so surely a good set of brushes is vital to painting the best picture possible? You wouldn't paint art with some really cheap, hard and scratchy brushes so don't paint your face with them either! 

I bought this coastal scents 22 piece set a while ago from Amazon for £35 and I am so happy with it. At just over a pound a brush and a lovely black case...it's already a very good buy. 

Secondly, cleaning your brushes is essential to applying your make up. This MAC £10 brush cleaning lotion is £10 and an excellent cleaner. It does the job perfectly, and I personally don't know of any better brush cleaners.

The kit looks professional and smart. I think it was designed to be similar to the MAC brushes, as they are black with long handles. From left to right it has face, contouring, concelaer, blending, eyeshadow, eyeshadow contouring, eye liner, lip and smudging brushes. Everything a beginner needs!

In the next two pictures i've shown my favourite brushes. Firstly, a huge foundation buffer and a duo fibre contouring brush, which I use everyday. 

For those of you still using a so called, 'foundation brush' (a small and thin one), you need to step up  gear! The bigger the brush the better for applying foundation, as it buffs the streaks out and leaves you with no lines, creases and marks like a standard foundation brush does. The best brush i have come across for applying foundation, is the mac duo fibre brush. The larger size. If you have the budget, this is the best foundation brush of all time. 

Secondly, the brush on the right is a duo fibre brush I use for contouring. Contouring needs to be done with a small and delicate brush like this, otherwise you end up looking like you've been dipped in fake tan. This brush is perfect as it lightly picks up your contour powder and dusts under the cheekbones really well. 

So from left to right in this picture,

- A tiny contour brush for use on the nose/under the chin/for dark colours that can't be applied with a large brush

- the perfect eye shadow brush for adding a darker colour to your crease. This is probably my favourite eye brush of all time 

- A small concealer brush for getting in all the nooks and crannies of your face

- A tiny angled eye liner brush which i use with the gel liner pot mentioned before or dark eye shadow under the eye. I haven't seen many this small!

Overall, i would certainly recommend this brush set for those wanting to expand their kit, or for those needing a good value set of brushes. Yes you do get what you pay for, these are not high end brushes like MAC- but, i'd like to add, if you were to but a 22 piece brush set from MAC, at £20 a brush, you're looking at £400!! So unless you're willing to pay that, this is certainly worth a purchase. 

morgan alice 

x 

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A DRUGSTORE GEM

Hello fellow makeup lovers, i'm going to share with you my latest beauty gem!! 

For those of you who like to wear a black line on the top of your upper lashline (and those of you who don't as it makes your eyelashes appear thicker and you NEED to start doing this), this Maybelline New York Gel Liner is something you have to add to your makeup. Its £7.99 in superdrug, and comes with a cute little brush. It serves its purpose, but using a small angled brush is definitely easier, better and more accurate. The brush pictures is the smallest angled brush from my coastal scents set, which I will do my next post about. 

http://www.superdrug.com/maybelline/maybelline-eye-studio-gel-liner-black/invt/249975  

For years I have been using just black eyeshadow applied on a wet angled brush, as I hated the unnatural and uneven look eye liner pens gave. That was until I descovered gel liner pots. At first I brought the classic MAC and Bobbi Brown gel pots, which were great, but this Maybelline pot is a serious rival, and at over 1/3 of the price (gasp), you cannot go wrong. 

It glides on perfectly, and actually stays on longer than the high end MAC and Bobbi Brown one. Seriously, this gel does not budge. Here are some swatches of it on my hand, the bottom picture is after I scrubbed with all my might and as you can see, it has hardly budged. 

As you can see, it can be applied with all different widths, and seriously stays put. 

Lastly, here are some photos of it on me,  it's not completely straight...I was in a rush this morning!

So there is my little beauty review and tip for the day. If you like gel liners, you must buy this as it is ammmmaaaaazing value for money. 

morgan alice 

x

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HOLY GRAIL MAC LIPSTICK

On this mundane thursday i thought i would brighten up all of our days by sharing with you my favourite EVER #MAC lipstick.

Tough call I know...but this one exceeds all others because of its natural colour, moisturising texture and the beautiful everyday look it creates. 

It's called PEACHBLOSSOM and if you don't already have this I recommend you go and purchase it, whatever skin tone you are. It is also, of course, a Cremsheen. 

m x 

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NATURAL SKINCARE PRODUCTS

I heard about this 'natural' fad a few years ago and was immediately intrigued. Basically natural products are things which don't have all the chemicals, parabens and harmful substances in that the majority of high street brands do. 

Yes they may be expensive, but they are sooo much better for you! You can almost immediately feel them working wonders on you. 

Next time you go to put on a deodorant/cream/oil or even soap, look at the list of ingredients and see all the harmful chemicals the manufacturers put in it to lengthen its shelf life, make it cheaper to produce and make it do things that natural products can't do. 

I found this little gem of a stall at a Colchester vintage fair, the woman was lovely and her products were completely hand made and natural 

http://honeybeenaturalbeauty.co.uk/

The first thing I bought is this citrus body scrub and exfoliater. I was at the time using the citrus sanctuary one from boots which was £11 and had a lot more rubbish in. This one was only £10!! (gasp) and was natural...could I go wrong?

As you can see, its a very generous size portion, it smells amazing and you can even see the bits of honey on the top. It contains honey, essential oils and sugar. 

Honeybees soaps and scrubs I would definitely recommend to those wanting to try out natural products. They even have their own bees! So even the honey isn't shop bought. 

They have loads more creams, oils, soaps, candles and lots more...all for a good price. 

p.s the only thing I will not go 'natural' for is make up- yes there are natural makeup products if you're interested but I prefer all the high street brands. 

Morgan 

x

twitter.com/bodkinshmorgs 

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EYESHADOWS: A BEAUTY MUST

Welcome to my beauty reviews. I thought i'd start this blog with my favourite beauty item of ALL time...eyeshadows. 

From a young age i've always used my friend's urban decay palettes as i'm a bit of a magpie and the bright pretty colours drew me in. Since I first started earning money I have always had an UD palette on my to buy list and the collection has grown...

My favourite all time UD colour is 'sin' found in their original naked palette. These amazing eyeshadows are £14 each which does seem a little pricey, which is why their palettes are such good value. In a naked palette you get 12 eye shadows all for £37! But trust me on the sin....

I've just started my own 'build your own' UD palette with space for 4 eye shadows- and sin was always going to be my first choice. 

As you can see it is already well used! Now although UD has always been my top eye shadow choice...I have recently unveiled a slight obsession with mac eyeshadows. For various reasons 

1) They are cheaper- £12 a colour

2) at £10 you can buy the colours in little magnetic discs which slot in to a 15 piece build your own palette 

3)the amazing varieties of colours

4) they have matte as well as shimmer, and UD only seem to do sparkly and shimmery colours

5) they are so pigmented, and so apply really easily

6) blend amazingly

7) stay on all day and don't crease as much as UD ones, which seem to need a prep underneath

Here are some photos of my favourite 3 mac eyeshadow colours at the moment 

Cranberry, Shroom and naked lunch. Naked lunch is my all time favourite mac colour and looks amazing spread all over your eye lid! Shroom is a close second which looks best under the brow. 

And lastly- my biggest eye shadow tip. 

BLEND!!!

Blending gives your eyes that gorgeous natural look, and is an essential stage in doing your eyes. This is my favourite blending brush- from urban decay. 

Hope you enjoyed my first post, I thought I would take you through my favourite natural every day colours to start, keep posted and i will do a tutorial and some brighter colours posts. 

Morgan Alice

x