The Revolution will be Blogevised

Yeah yeah, I'll name my posts what I want okay?!

Leah did a great post about a new make up brand called 'Revolution', and I knew I had to try it. Like Leah I love MUA makeup, so the thought that this sister brand (or however you'd describe it!) would be equally cheap but with a more diverse range of colours was very exciting!

The first things that caught my eye were the highlighting powders. I LOVE highlighters, not because I want to attempt any kind of shaping or (the new trend for painting your imaginary face on as if your a Madame Tussauds wax work) contouring, but because I don't like to have a matte face. I don't use normal powder, I use highlighters all over to set my foundation and give me a dewy look. Aren't these attractive?! What a lovely shape!

I use MUA 'undress your skin' as my everyday powder and I love it, but I have been wanting something a little less pink. I ordered the golden highlighter straight away, and then ummed and ahhhed about the peach one for a while.... It's very similar to the MUA highlighter, but I decided to try it anyway.... at £3 a pop I didn't have much to loose!

I like the colour and texture of both of these very much. The peach is still pink in tone, but I think it is a tiny bit more peachy and a little bit more subtle than the MUA version. It's my new daily powder! The gold is quite intense (It'll be good for eyeshadow) and the colour is delicious. I'll swap over to this powder when my skin starts to darken over summer and I want golden brown tones rather than pink. Over all I really like these powders, I highly recommend them!

The scandalous lipstick collection consists of 5 intense colours. I went for the orange one (called 'Vice') and at £1 a pop they're a decent lipstick. Unsurprisingly they're similar to the £1 MUA lipsticks - quite creamy with a medium/high coverage that isn't too shiny. This is actually a proper orange colour. If you've been searching for a true orange then this is worth a try, you need two layers for perfect coverage and the colour is lovely!

I was really excited about the #happy lips Amazing Care collection. I like intense colours, but I don't want my lips to dry out or feel like they are covered in sand! I love coloured balms, so I thought I'd be on safe ground with these. Firstly the boxes made my heat sing because they are rose gold. I won't tell you again how much I love anything that is rose gold, but they looked lovely, and the lipstick packaging is lovely too. They look impressive with the colour through the centre and the argon oil conditioning balm as an outer layer, and only £3 each.

Lets talk about the colours. Obviously I had to try the red.... that's my bread and butter, but I wanted to be able to show you some swatches so I also got love a hug (silly name!) and love pink. I knew electric love and nude would be too pale on my dark lips, so these seemed sensible to me. The red is a good old fashioned shade, the pink is a nice fuchsia pink, and 'a hug' (see doesn't work does it?!) is a sort of coral tinted rosy pink. They're all very nice, very wearable colours. You get a good pop of colour but obviously they're not particularly intense. As you can see they go on quite glossy. I'd say they are somewhere between creamy and greasy at first, then they start to feel like a balm over time, and my lips felt nice throughout the day.

There are a few problems with these though.... I don't like the taste for one thing. I guess it's the argan oil, it just tastes a bit gross, but it's only noticeable if you really lick your lips. The main issue I have though is that the colour in the core wears down much quicker than the outer layer, and within the space of a day I was already having to apply a lot of pressure to get the colour on my lips rather than just the argan oil balm. I think I will actually have to slice off the top layer after a few days wear. I'd say that this was quite a major design flaw. I think these would be a much better product if the core was much larger and the glossy balm was just a thin layer, otherwise in the long run you'd be better just getting one of the millions of moisturising coloured balms / tints available from other brands, because you get the same kind of coverage and gloss, but you don't have to apply the wand at strange angels to get the colour on your lips!

Over all I have to say that Revolution are off to a pretty good start and I feel sure that I'll shop with them again, particularly if I can actually test things out in Superdrug (the joy!). The highlighting powders really are lovely, and you'd pay a lot more for this kind of product from other make up brands, Mac charge £22 for theirs! I'd love to see how the purple toned powder (called 'pink' lights) looks when on the skin - I avoid purple at all costs, but I think it would look amazing on darker skin-tones! Being on a budget at the moment stopped me from going overboard, but I think the eye foils and bronzers look awesome, as does the Kajal. I'd really like to try out their 'the one foundation', but I've sworn never to buy foundation online again because the shades are never right, that's something I will certainly need to test out in store.... next month maybe!

£68-£18.95 = £49.05 left to spend!

Wardrobe Weekly

Here are the outfits I've been wearing recently! I've decided to put the size of all my clothes with the picture 'cause I find it helpful to know sizes when I read other fatshion blogs!

Monday

Cardi 20 - Primark

Dress 22  - Crazy Clearence

Flip Flops - Ipanema

Tuesday

 Jacket 22 - M&S Per Una (lining removed)

Top 20 - Primark

Skirt 18 - Primark

Bag - Dorothy Perkins (super old!)

Wednesday

 Top 24 - Asos Curve

Trousers 24 - Simply Be

Shoes - Primark

 I was excited about these Simply Be trousers, but they turned out to be a disaster :(. They're soft fabric, very thin, with a bit of stretch and they looked lovely when I tried them on. This is how they should look....

 

 This is how much the thigh / knees had stretched out over just a few hours. They were MASSIVE by the end of the day.... 

 ....more disturbingly the delicate fabric was already ripping along the seams. Not happy with this, they cost £32! Returned.... the hunt for decent black summer trousers continues!

Thursday

 Dress 2XL - H&M plus

Leggings XL - H&M

Shoes - United Nude

Friday

 Dress 20 - Anna Scholz for Simply Be

Flip Flops - Ipanema

 I have this odd impulse to wear loads of make up when I feel really ill. I went overboard on Friday and couldn't wait to get home and take all my eye liner off!

Saturday

 As you may know, on Saturday I too pictures for my first ever official review... Simply Be gave me this beautiful Anna Scholz dress, so I started the day rather dressed up!

 Dress 24 - Anna Scholz for Simply Be

Shoes - Ecco

 Later that day, despite saying that I was not going to go grocery shopping in the rain, I HAD to go grocery shopping in the rain. BOO!

Hot! You know what, I wasn't excited about this dress when I first got it.... I kept it because it was super cheap and I thought it would come in handy for lazy days. When I put it on on Saturday I LOVED it! Funny how things go, I guess I like it better with my hair up. In my brain this sort of outfit has become my 'Mrs bebe' outfits!

 Denim jacket 22 - New Look Inspire (only dark version now available)

Dress 20 - Asos Curve

Leggings 22 - New Look Inspire

Wellies - Primark (with the tops cut off!)

Sunday

Didn't get dressed!

Bank Holiday Monday

Here is another dress that I wasn't crazy about when I first got it. Now I've found the ideal belt however I'm a huge fan. It is proper Neon in real life. 

 This is possibly too bright for some peoples liking (my boyfriend included!) but I love insanely bright clothing!

 Having pockets is always fun! We had planned to go to a museum today, but our trains were so fucked that we both agreed that it wasn't worth the hassle :(

 I felt my Parrot earrings would make this outfit even more lurid!

 I have some make up that matches the colour sin the dress almost perfectly. It's so hard to get a picture of the colours sadly. The lipstick is Revlon just bitten kissable balm stain (love this range!) in 'Lovesick', a perfect purple pink that matches the lace inserts.

 The nail varnish is NEON! It takes 3 coats but is my absolute favourite nail varnish. It's by Beauty UK salon professional, no84 'girl gone wild'

'Neon Sights' Dress 24 (in their sizes, but its more like a uk 24 than a US one!) - Modcloth

Earrings - Primark

Flip Flops - Ipanema

 

Top 3XL - Forever 21+

Trousers 20 - Tesco

Sadly ended up in my slobbing around the house clothes because I didn't want to mess up my lovely party dress while I cooked lunch and did the washing. I'll take the dress out for a spin soon!

MUA makeup haul

I don't normally do beauty posts, but sometimes I want to rave about new products so here goes!

I think I have a few things from MUA. Nothing of note, maybe a nail varnish or two. Recently though I bought a lip balm and blusher that I have fallen head over heals with. So much so that I went back in for more yesterday! Here is what I got..........

You may have seen the power pout tinted lip balm I was raving about on twitter, but I'm really impressed with the quality of these £3 balms. 

As you can see, I have many coloured balms (this is just one drawer, I have another with smaller ones from Burt's bees etc!), I've been wearing them for over 10 years (Lancome Juicy Crayons started me off really!) so I feel like I know what I'm talking about here. Most make up companies make their own versions now, and I pretty much try every variety. I recently lost my favourite red balm (chit chat 'Firey Red' from Poundland would you believe?!) and I miss it terribly, I just can't find a deep red that compares :(. Anyway, back to the review!

Above is 'crazy in love'. The colour pay off is very good considering they're balms, and after my sad discovery that my new Bourjois coral crayon (basically an identical product but more than twice the price may I add) tastes like antiseptic I'm even more joyous about these. I'll probably end up with every colour variation of them as I collect products like this, which is why I have WAY more than any sane person could actually use! The texture is good (not greasy, not sticky, just balmy!) and there is a very subtle minty smell / taste - it goes away really quickly if that sort of thing bothers you!. It's also easy to apply, and you can build the colours in layers.

I've got the nude balm 'Rendezvous' on above. MUA have succeeded in producing a berry colour and a nude that I can pull off, quite an achievement as I look bloody awful in any lipsticks that have even the slightest hint of red or brown! The nail varnish is MUA 'pistachio ice cream', it comes in a little bottle and only cost £1. I really wanted a pastel mint green and this one is lovely. I'm so bad at putting nail varnish on, so this is 3 coats, but anyone who is better at application would probably only need 2 coats!

Now then. I love the blushers below, but there is something super cringe-worthy about them.... they are MUA's makeup collaboration with One Direction (the boy band who make Take That sound like the Beatles) so they are covered in hideous slogans from the bands dreadful songs. Of course this doesn't change the fact that the product is excellent.

I've tried many blushers, and generally I get on much better with ones that come in stick-form. powders with brushes are fiddly, and I had so many accidents and spills with benetint that I just stopped wearing it! For ages I've been wearing Eyeko fatbalms, but as they're designed for lip & cheek they're a bit sticky. I love them (great for holidays & handbags and come in great shades) but they've been discontinued and besides, I could never get an orange shade. Step in MUA & 1D! 

The creamy (not at all sticky) texture means it goes on and blends really well. the colour is pretty intense so you don't need much if you want it subtle, but if you want mega rosy cheeks then you could easily do it with these!

The first blush I got from this range was the orange / coral one called 'coral cutie'. It is perfect. The colour is lovely, in fact I knew I'd have to go back for the others as soon as I tried it! It's so hard to photograph makeup, but I had coral cutie on yesterday and in the picture above. I'll use this one with orange / coral and terracotta lipsticks, as well as reds with an orange tone.

I hope you can see the diffence in shade / tone. Rose Riot will be the colour I'll use for an everyday rosy cheek when I'm lipstickless or if I want to wear red lippy of pretty much any tone aswell as pinks with an orange / red tone. It probably goes without saying that I'll wear Pink Explosion with bright pink lipsticks.... it has a slightly purple tone which will match perfectly with neon pinks. I'm chuffed about that as I seem to have accumulated more dresses with purple toned pink accents since I got rid of my fire-red hair!

You can't get the One direction range from MUA online for some reason but all MUA products are available in Superdrug stores and superdrug online.

Again, not a sponsored post, I'm just so impressed with the quality and colour pay-off from these relatively cheap make up products. I'm officially a MUA fan now!