Review: Sleek iDivine Palette in Storm

Hello!

So I went shopping week ago and finally went into a Superdrug that stocked Sleek make-up. I know that Sleek is a favourite in the beauty blogging world and it always looks so nice. I've looked on the Sleek website before and thought a lot of the stuff was really nice but just didn't want to spend money on items that I hadn't ever been able see/swatch to know the quality. I know this seem hypocritical as I happily ordered from ELF but I'd seen a few products before and frankly, spending £1.50 on a product isn't so much of a risk (if that makes any sense at all?!) Anyway, the stand that I went to was pretty empty (it was about 3pm on a Saturday after all!) so I couldn't have a proper look which was a shame. However there were a few eyeshadow palettes left so I had a little play about and decided to pick up the Storm palette and the Acid palette (more on that later!)

So today I'm reviewing the Storm palette which is a 12 shadow palette with fairly neutral colours.

First up, I've gotta say I love the packaging. I basically brought this so I didn't have to bring my Naked palette on trips/when I stay over at people's houses (I'm really worried that it's going to break for some reason) I like this packaging because it's compact but sturdy....also quick sleek (do you see what I did there??)

Inside the palette are 12 colours with 3 matte colours and the rest have a nice shimmer to them.

From top left: (as they come out in the swatches - this picture makes them look different to how they actually look in the palette for some reason!)

1 - Shimmery Brown

2 - Shimmery Taupe

3 - Matte Taupe

4 - Shimmer Gold

5 - Shimmery Pink

6 - Shimmery Pinky Bronze

From bottom left:

7 - Shimmery Dark Brown

8 - Shimmery Silver

9 - Shimmery Moss Green

10 - Shimmery Navy

11 - Matte Brown

12 - Matte Black

 I really like this mix of colours as they are good for both day time and night time looks. Always handy to have a palette that has everything in it! The applicator is a standard double ended wand which I was a little bummed out about but actually it's REALLY good for precision and makes the shadows really pigmented on the eyelid.

Swatches - same as above in the palette.

These are literally with just one stroke with my finger. SO pigmented!! Can you see what I mean by this being a pretty god fix for the Naked palette? I did some comparison swatches and they are pretty similar but at the same time quite different in undertones (some of the Naked palette light shadows have pinky undertones to them whereas these ones have more yellow undertones) I really can't decide on which one is my favourite! I love the gold colour and the red/brown colour on the top far right. I also love how pigmented the matte black is. Perfect for smoky eyes!! The navy colours are beautiful too (although you can't really see them properly in this picture can you? I fail at swatches because my elbow bends at a weird angle!)

So I decided to do two quick looks with a few of the colours. For this brown smoky eye (for everyday use) I used (from the list above) number 2 on the whole lid, number 1 in the corner and crease and number 7 just in the corner. (Apologies for the dark circles/dodgy eyebrows...i wasn't wearing any make-up due to having time off work! Also no mascara to complete the look....shame on me!)

A closed eye shot so you can see the pigmentation better. This is with a pretty quick sweep of my eyeshadow brush. I think if I really did it properly that it would be even better (well...I know it would be because I wore this look to work on Tuesday....I just forgot to photograph it!)

This one was done using shade 4 and shade 10. I really love the fact that there is a navy in this set! I have a really lovely navy dress and every time I've done smokey eyes with it they always look too intense and I end up taking it all off an just going for a brown look (like above)

I swept the gold all over the lid and then followed with the navy in the corner and bended it over the crease a little. I also used my angled eyeliner brush to try using the navy eyeshadow as a powder liner and I'm really impressed with how it turned out. I think I'd like to try it on a day out so I could test the actual wear time of it but I like the idea of being able to use these as powder liners too. I'm really pleased with how this came out actually. I can definitely see me wearing this when I next wear my navy dress!

The brushes I used were:

ELF Eyeshadow brush (for blending)

ELF Eyeliner Brush (for the start of the navy eyeliner)

ELF Angled Eyeliner Brush (for the navy eyeliner flick)

Sleek Eyeshadow Applicator Sponge (included in the palette - pictured in first picture. I really can't stress how good these are for an intense swish of colour and for precise application in the corner of your eye - you'll see this more when I review the Acid palette soon!)

So there you have it, the Sleek iDivine Storm palette. This was £6.49 in Superdrug and I'm really glad I picked it up. I did have a little regret to start of with thinking "did I really need to buy yet another neutral eyeshadow palette??" but the answer is yes! It's going to be so handy for travel and I really love all the colours in it. There isn't a single colour that I wouldn't use and they are really pigmented, so for £6.49 I'm really pleased with this purchase! I also like the fact that Sleek are cruelty free and a lot of their products are suitable for vegans (full list of non-suitable products can be found in their FAQ list here) always a bonus in my book!

What do you guys think? DO any of you have the Storm palette or can you recommend other ones? Any other Sleek products products I should try out? (I've got my eye on their contouring kit...looks pretty good!)

Until next time,

xoxo

Epic Haul Post!!

Hello!

So I've been meaning to do a little haul post since I got paid (finally) and decided to treat myself to a few things but I've been super busy being horrendously ill and then having training and have therefore just been really bad at blogging. Once I started this post I realised just how many things  have "treated myself" to and was going to split this post into two or three parts....but frankly I knew that I would be so crap at remembering to do the second or third part that I've just put it all in this one post. This does mean however that this post is incredibly photo heavy (36 in total!!) I'll try to keep it short and sweet on the descriptions as I intend to do reviews of most of these anyway but if you read my blog normally then you'll know that I am not good at keeping my waffling to a minimum! Right I'll stop with the pre-waffle and get on with the epic post... (WARNING: This really is an EPIC post. Don't say you weren't warned ok?)

This was my first proper treat. I was going out for a friend's birthday straight from work and although I'd brought some eyelashes with me, they were ones that I'd worn many times before and I just really fancied some new ones. I'd seen these on a few blogs and was looking for a more dramatic pair of lashes so I decided to just go for it. These are pretty much the same sort of price as regular Eylure lashes and I find that they are a brand that works for me. Apologies for the empty box...I didn't have the foresight to take the picture before I put the lashes on and afterwards, well....they don't exactly go back into the box very well....

Ignoring the bad fringe day I was having here...these are the lashes on. (Also ignore the bad eyeliner job on my top lash line....)

You can see what I mean by the fact that they are pretty dramatic! Granted I haven't applied these particularly well here (the day after the night out you see...) but I was fairly impressed with how they looked.

Katy Perry Lashes in Cool Kitty - £5.95 (available in 3 other styles)

Haircut - £28 (Although I also gave my lovely mum a little treat and paid for hers too.)

So my very first proper pay day treat.....HAIRCUT!!! I always get it cut a little shorter than I like it so that I get more time between cuts. I'm pretty happy with how the fringe is this time and it was SO nice to not have an annoying tuft behind my ears/on my neck. No one needs an almost mullet. Also I won't lie....it's weird to post a picture on here and not have any lip colour on! (Also no foundation so you can see the lovely dark circles under my eyes!)

First up....a Peppermint Mocha for stamina. I do quite like the little stencils they have for the chocolate dust on top. Cheers me up on bad days!

Boots Cotton Wool Pads - £1.69 each (these were on buy one get one half price though)

Staple in my make-up case. I keep little stashes of these in various places in my room as I always seem to lose the actual packs!

Quick question...does anyone know if getting things like this from poundland is worth it? I like these ones because they seem to be good quality but £1.69 seems ridiculous to pay really...

Double Sided Mirror from the 99p Store - 99p

I actually ended up buying a different mirror from Wilkinson's as this one was a tad too small for everyday. This came in very handy when I went away for training though!

Natural Collection Passionfruit Body Spray - £2.00

Natural Collection Passionfruit Bath Essence - £3.00 (I think...I can't find it on the Boots website)

These were on 3 for 2, which is still on at the moment I think.

These were a completely unnecessary purchase now I look back on it. My mum wanted another Ice Musk spray because she really likes the scent for everyday (so she doesn't have to use her expensive perfumes) and this stuff was 3 for 2....so I picked up these two for some reason. I really like the Passionfruit body spray as a room spray actually but I do use as a refreshing body spray on days off if I'm not heading anywhere and just fancy a bit of something nice on (....so I don't have to use my expensive perfume - clearly my mother's daughter! Haha!) so, although I still have half a bottle of my other one (and an almost full mango one too) I picked this up anyway. Nothing quite like grabbing a spare whilst it's on offer I guess. The bubble bath was just a little treat. It's passionfruit again and my Soap and Glory one is running out so why not grab a new bubble bath for the days when I decide to have a nice long soak in the bath!

Natural Collection Blusher in Pink Cloud - £1.99

I got this because I wanted to grab a blusher that was a slightly lighter pink tone. All my blushers are either coral or quite dark pink so this seemed like a good pick and at such a cheap price I was happy to try it.

Here's a swatched of the blusher. It's REALLY pigmented so I have to make sure that I'm really light handed with this, but the consistency is really nice. It's a very fine powder and is really velvety to the touch. For £1.99 I'm really pleased with this!

Schwarzkopf Live Salon Style in Dark Brown - On offer at £2.99 (usually £5.99)

This is my favourite hair dye at the moment. I haven't actually used this yet as my parents had a new bathroom put in about 6 months ago and I'm under strict instructions not to dye my hair in there in case it stains the tiles! So I've gotta wait until I can go to a friends house who won't mind me dying my hair at theirs!

MUA Mosaic Blush - £2.50

This is beautiful and I'll do a full review on it soon!

Revlon Scented Nail Polish in Pineapple Fizz - £6.49

Revlon Scented Nail Polish in Grapefruit Fizz - £6.49

GOSH Vitamin Booster - £2.00 (On sale)

This is the Revlon colours with one coat on. The GOSH one is on my ring finger and as you can see it's a clear polish that is apparently meant to restore some goodness to your nails. Again, looking back on it I didn't really need this at all. I have the original OPI nail envy at the moment and therefore I really didn't need this...but I saw the word sale and got excited! Such a perfect consumer. Ah well, it'll come in useful when my OPI on runs out.

Two coats.

Three coats! I did try these with a base colour underneath and they do look amazing on top of corresponding colours. I really like the sparkle in these and the scents are pretty intense too! I LOVE the pineapple one - it smells divine!

MUA Love Hearts Nail Varnish in U ROK - £2.00

MUA Mosaic Bronzer in Sunkissed Glow (Shade 2) - £2.50

MUA Mosaic Bronzer in Natural Glow (Shade 1) - £2.50

Superdrug currently have an offer of 3 for 2 on all cosmetics.

Here's all the Mosaic compacts open for you t be able to see the prettiness for yourselves!

(Natural Glow, Sunkissed Glow and Blush)

Aloe Skin Essentials Mini Set - £10 (although this set is on 25% off at the moment making it £7.50....then I got 10% off with my Love Your Body card....and then I got £5 off for my birthday treat (which expired a while back but they honoured it anyway which was really nice of them!) so it actually came to £1.75! BARGAIN!!)

My skin is really sensitive at the moment (have you seen the "herpes hand"?!) and despite trying and then wanting the Clarins HydraQuench cream, I simply can't justify spending £27 on one face cream! Anyway, this was a little bargain set containing: Day Cream (15ml), Night Cream (15ml), Facial Cleanser (60ml) and Toner (60ml) I'm going to use this for a few weeks and see how it goes.

Models Own Beetlejuice Collection in Purple Blue

Models Own Hedkandi Collection in Ibiza Mix

Both £5 but was on offer of 2 for £8 in Boots.

Swatch of the Models Own polishes - Purple Blue as a base and Ibiza Mix on top. Ibiza Mix looks really nice on top of lighter colours but I'm not so sure on top of darker colours. I definitely think that I shouldn't have put it on top of a Beetlejuice colour as they are so pretty alone and multi-tonal anyway...but I was impatient and wanted to try both colours out!

Barry M Nail Paint in Teal

Barry M Nail Paint in Black Multi Glitter

Barry M Nail Paint in Denim

All £2.99 but currently on 3 for 2 in Superdrug.

So I'm really terrible with nail polish and Barry M had a little "New" section on their stand in my local Superdrug....so I picked up 3 of the colours! I saw a swatch of the Black Multi Glitter on someones blog (I can't remember whose unfortunately!) so when I saw it on the stand I literally just brought it on impulse. Why not right?? I mean it has tiny pieces of rainbow glitter in it!

Swatches from Left to Right: (sorry about the mess...I didn't do a clean up so late at night!)

MUA Love Hearts in U ROK

Barry M Nail Paint in Black Multi Glitter

Barry M Nail Paint in Denim

Barry M Nail Paint in Teal

I'm going to point out that I brought the MUA polish and 2 bronzers with the 3 Barry M Nail Paints together and they came to £10.98 (with the 3 for 2 discount) But I had 837 points on my card....so I took off £8.00 and ended up paying only £2.98 for the lot. Absolute BARGAIN!!

Sleek iDivine Palette in Storm - £6.49

I went shopping with my friends in a different town last Saturday and popped into the Superdrug there to see what they did that my local one doesn't.....I ended up being a kid in a candy store! Swatching galore!! After swatching the Sleek stuff I ended up wanting their highly pigmented palettes but the stand was quite bare so I only got 2 of them on the 3 for 2 offer.

The Storm Palette is a fairly neutral palette but will be handier for travel as I don't like transporting my Naked Palette around in case it shatters! Full review coming soon!

Sleek iDivine Palette in Acid - £6.49 (free on the 3 for 2 offer with the other palette and the BB Cream)

This is the first one that I swatched and fell in love with. The colours are AMAZING!

See what I mean?? Look at those neon colours! Again, full review coming soon.

Maybelline Dream Fresh BB Cream in Light - £7.99

I picked this up after advising a friend about BB creams after she said she didn't like foundation but needed something a little heavier than moisturiser. I liked this one so much I decided to get one too! This picture is without flash.

Picture with flash (here you can see the return of the "herpes hand" after training and putting certain products on my hand. Boo!!)

Next up...Primark purchases! I don't usually go to Primark as I have to travel to go to one and it's an effort for me (plus I'm lazy) Anyway, first stop...the make-up bit!

Rimmel Glam Eyes HD Eyeshadow Palette in Black Cab - £2.00 (It says "was £5.90" on the sticker but in Boots (when I have a sneaky look at this every time) these are £6.99 each!)

Rimmel Lasting Finish in 239 Your Majesty - £2.00

Rimmel Lasting Finish in 500 Disco Ball - £2.00

Both the polishes are re-purchases of favourite colours that are running out. May as well say 99p on each one right? 

Superman Beach Towel - £7.00.

My most expensive purchase in Primark! I'm a pretty big Superman Fan so when one of my friends pointed this out to me I knew I was going to spend £7 on something I didn't need.

Superman Wash Mitt - £1.00

Another nerdy purchase from Primark!

Foot Consolers (2 pack) - £1.30

I brought these to help cushion the balls of my feet at work. I think I'll invest in some proper ones soon though as my heels need some rest too!

Seamless Footies (2 pack) - £1.30

Handy for work so I don't have to keep wearing tights all the time.

Primark Pants - £1.70 each (4 pairs = £6.80)

I really like Primark boys style pants for work as they are super comfy. I did buy some bright blue ones too but I was wearing them so no pictures of those (I really wanted to show you guys because they made me laugh by having a tiny pocket on the front of them! One of my friends suggested putting a lipgloss in there! Haha!) The lacy pants are for days when I'm feeling sexy (Ahahahaha!!) It's actually surprisingly difficult to find plain black lacy pants these days and when you have a nice lacy black bra without matching pants, it's kind of annoying! So I stocked up with 2 more pairs this time!

Luxury Gloss Stockings - £2.00

Glossy Hole Tights (from Ann Summers) - £10.00

These stockings are AMAZING and so cheap at £2 for a pair! This is my third set from Primark and I don't actually need these (seeing a trend here?!) because I've not put a hold in any of the pairs I've had from Primark (I think the added Lycra helps!) But these are so good and cheap that I figured an extra pair wouldn't hurt. The tights are from Ann Summers and look beautiful on. I'll most likely wear tan tights underneath because a) my legs are SUPER pale and b) I'm not completely comfortable going out with bare legs showing at all yet. I did get another pair of tights and something else from Ann Summers (nothing like that!) but I know that Mr 'Who Knows?' sometimes sees this and if he gets his bum in gear and sorts something out...well...I don't want to ruin the surprise you know?? (It's super awesome though and I'm not going to lie though...it makes me super feel hot when I'm wearing it even though I look NOTHING like the tall, slim model on the box! Haha! Hope that didn't creep too many of you out!)

And last but not least.....a well deserved cocktail at the end of the shopping trip! They were buy one get one free too (happy hour indeed!) so I may have ended up a little tipsy before out meal even arrived at the table! Haha!

So there is my overwhelmingly epic haul post. I hope none of you died reading this and that you enjoyed it (even if you did only look at the pictures!) If there's anything in particular you'd like me to review please let me know and I'll try to get round to it! So what do you think? Any good (or bad) purchases that caught your eye?

Don't forget that I've got a giveaway and a blog sale going on at the moment so feel to check them out!

Until next time,

xoxo

Review: Benefit Sun Beam

Hello!

So I need to apologise for not posting in about a week and a half....first up I was busy with work and friend's birthdays and then  became horribly ill. It started on Sunday (hence no Sunday Roundup) but I thought maybe I was just feeling under the weather from the night before (meal out for friends birthday....where there was a free bottle of Champagne on offer....uh oh!) However it turned into severe swollen glands, which ended up with me being sent home from work and having to call in sick the next day (I feel that I should point out that I NEVER call in sick just because I never feel like I'm really sick enough you know? I once went into work after falling over in the shower and hitting my head really hard on the bath. Cue standing on tills feeling tired and woozy and my manager having to take me to the office and make sure I didn't fall asleep until I could get picked up! What a tit I was to go in right?? Also an idiot for falling over in the shower in the first place. Anyway, you get the idea...) However, my glands were so swollen that I wasn't able to talk much without being in an intense amount of pain and every time I had to swallow I made a face that customers most certainly would be put off by! Haha! I'm feeling a bit better now (no more hot and cold sweats for me! Yay...) but my left side is still pretty painful and it's causing the most annoying earache too. I love being ill.... Anyway, I don't have work at all this weekend so hopefully I'll be fine for my training next week.

So the point of this post is to give you a review of the new liquid bronze highlighter that Benefit are coming out with on the 21st of May (although some stores may have it by the 19th and we've been told to put it out then if we can!) Basically my manager Lizzie, went on some training on Tuesday and got a freebie of this for me and kindly gave it to me before she sent me home on Wednesday. Sometimes the perks of my job are quite nice! I had a little swatching session and took these photos....and then promptly fell asleep for a 3 hour nap (the perks of being ill!) So....on with the review! (apologies for the quality of the photos compared to normal, I decided to use my phone rather than my actual camera. Hopefully they won't be too bad!)

The packaging is pretty similar to that of Moon Beam, just with a palm tree in the background rather than a crescent moon. You can see that it's the same size bottle as High Beam, Moon Beam, Benetint, Cha Cha Tint and Posietint - 13ml.....so if you're a Benefit addict, it'll look nice with all your other bottles ;)

Here is a lovely shot of the side of the box....I'm not 100% sure why I thought you guys might like to see this but apparently ill/sleepy me is thorough!

So like most of their products, Benefit have included a little guide as to how to use this. I do find that we get a lot of first time make-up buyers buy things on our counter and I do think these little "how to" guides can be very helpful for them. I know that even now I'll sometimes get a product in a beauty box and think "what the heck is this for?!" so I think it's a nice little edition. I always think that the size of some of the boxes are a bit ridiculous for our products. I know I get a bit disappointed buying a product and finding out that half of the box is just air really, but I guess it depends if you're a "keep the box" kind of gal. Some products I do and some I don't but I always think these bottles look tiny compared to the box! I've also noticed that since Benetint, none of the bottles are clear. It's a bit of guess work to know how much you've got left! Pro tip: always shake these bottles before use. If they are left in warm places they can separate and a good shake should make it the right consistency again (our counter is under a ridiculous number of lights! We constantly have to change our Porefessional testers due to them warming up too much. Very annoying!)

So like all the other bottle products, this one looks like nail varnish again! I know some people hate this and when I'm on counter I will ALWAYS use one of our foundation brushes to put the bottle products on someones face. It's easier for me and more hygienic too (I don't have to use my fingers to blend this way.) You can use the brush provided and blend with your fingers if you wish but I found my fingers were quite shimmery after doing that myself, also I just prefer the overall look of blending with a bigger brush as I feel it gives a nicer coverage and look. (You can also tell that I've been ill as you can see my bare nails in the background! Shocking!) You can also mix this with your moisturiser or foundation for a nice dewy look as well apparently but I haven't tried this so I can't be sure what the result is.

So this is a quick straight from the bottle swatch. You can see (maybe?? Man this camera is bad compared to my usual one!) that it doesn't have the same pinky tone as Moon Beam and is more golden instead. It's quite thick so a little bit really does go a long way. It's a lot like High Brow Glow in terms of colour so I think those two products will go really nicely together and will be a big hit for Summer (if it comes back again...)

So this is after the swatch has been blended out slightly. You can see that it's a little darker than my natural skin tone but having tried it on my face (no pictures of that because I looked like death....plus my neck was swollen on one side....not cool!) I really didn't notice a huge amount of difference with it on just by itself. I do think that it would work as a really nice highlighter if you were wearing another bronzer already (like Hoola or Dallas) and it looked quite nice on my brow bone too. I like the fact that this is almost a liquid version of High Brow Glow as that really is one of my favourite products, but this is also fairly similar to Watt's Up too and I think I will always prefer that to Sun Beam simply for the fact that I find stick highlighters easier to use rather than liquid ones personally. I won't actually be keeping this because I know my sister loves bronzer (she has a darker complexion than me so bronzer always looks nice on her!) so as she's giving me a blow up bed to sleep on next week when I'm on training next week, she's getting this little freebie as a thank you! (Along with a harsh contender for a Crash Bandicoot evening!)

So what do you guys think? Yay or Nay on this new Benefit product? Any other products you would put this with to make the most of it?

Sun Beam is out nationwide on the 21st (possibly sooner if we get the stock in!) but is available on the website now for £18.50.

Until next time,

xoxo

Product is a free sample as one of the perks of my job. However all reviews and swatches are 100% honest despite this.