June 2015 Wish List | KMC Beauty

by Kelly, May 30, 2015
During May I have been trying to put myself on a no spend, for the most part I have succeeded, definitely in terms of make-up i've done pretty well, so for the month of June I have created a wishlist of my top 5 items I am dying to get my hands on.

1. Urban Decay Afterglow Blush - Fetish
Urban Decay have released a new line of blushers this Spring and I really want to try them! In particular the shade 'Fetish' looks up my alley, described as a 'medium pink nude' i'm just in the market for a blush to give me a light wash of colour on my cheeks for Summer. The range has 12 shades in total.

2. Urban Decay Naked Skin Weightless Complete Coverage Concealer
Sticking with the theme of Urban Decay can you say longest name for a concealer ever? Although it has a ridiculously long name this concealer is being massively hyped up in the beauty community and I am actually running out of my Maybelline Eraser Eye Concealer (known in the US as the Age Rewind concealer) and although it is a good concealer it doesn't really have that wow factor for me so i'm thinking of trying the Urban Decay one out for a change, the only thing stopping me is that I have no idea which shade to get, after watching people use it on YouTube I think I am best suited to the shade 'Light Warm'.
If anybody has this concealer and has fair skin but uses it as a brightening concealer I would love to known which shade you found suited you best.
Find it here.

3. Charlotte Tilbury - The Supermodel Videobox Make-up Set
Okay so this product is just a fantasy purchase if i'm honest, I have absolutely no intention of purchasing this for myself but it's on my wishlist anyways as I would love to have this make-up set! I don't actually own anything from Charlotte Tilbury and i've never tried any of her products but this set caught my eye on Selfridges website, containing a total of 7 of her products
This item is exclusive to Selfridges, find it here.

4. MAC Paint Pot - Soft Ochre
In desperate need of an eyeshadow base, struggling with my eyeshadow to get an even blend, I think an eyeshadow base such as this cult favourite may solve my problem.
Find online here

5. Make Up For Ever - Step 1 Skin Equalizer
As memory serves me and primers don't have a great history, tried the Porefessional by Benefit, just made my skin feel slippy and the Maybelline Baby Skin didn't help my oily skin situation what so ever. So Debenhams have recently started selling Make Up For Ever in the UK, however out of all the primers typically the one I want they don't have it yet. So I tootled along to Sephora, they have the mattifying primer that I wanted to try, add to basket, get to checkout and it says 'This item can not be shipped to your location' annoying. Although I regularly use Shipitto (I did an entire blog post on this company here) it's not really worth using for just one item. So basically not sure how I am going to get my hands on this primer but I really do want to try it so bad!
If your in the states then enjoy this link I have kindly provided for you here.
And if your in the UK and you don't have oily skin you can basically choose from every other single primer in the range except from the mattifying one here.
Update 04/06/2015 - Debenhams now have the mattifying primer! find it here!

What's on your Wish List for June?

Sigma F80 vs Nanshy F01 | KMC Beauty

by Kelly, May 21, 2015
Today I have something a little different on my blog, a comparison between two very similar brushes on the market and my opinion on both.
I have had my Sigma F80 to apply my foundation for a long time now, I would have to say over two years, although I switch between brushes and my Beauty Blender I always come back to this brush. I saw the Nanshy brushes on Instagram at the end of 2014 and thought they looked incredibly similar to Sigma brushes and had an affordable price point. As I already had the F80 in my brush collection I bought the F01 for my Mum as a Christmas present because she was looking for a new foundation brush. The other day I was doing my brush cleaning and she asked me if I would clean her F01 for her while I was doing my own, it was only then it dawned on me that I should do a comparison post and test them out against each other and see who comes out on top.


Appearance
Visually they both look incredibly similar, the Sigma brush just being a little bit shorter in length, in width the F01 is slightly wider and the ferrules that the bristles sit in on both brushes are the exact same length. They both have a flat top kabuki brush and are both made with synthetic bristles that are extremely soft on the skin. In addition to this, both brushes are also densely packed enabling easy foundation application.

Durability
As I mentioned I have had my F80 for over two years now, the F01 has only been in use for just over 5 months, so to compare them on durability is difficult. I will say both brushes are slowly losing bristles, nothing noticeable that effects application of my foundation but they are falling out here and there, this I would expect of a 2 year old brush but not a 5 month old one. The ferrule on my F80 that sits between my bristles and my handle is loose, although it does not pull apart I can twist my handle right round as the glue is no longer holding it in place, on my F01 everything is still intact and well held together.


Application
The only way I use both brushes is for foundation application, I dot the foundation on my face with my finger first then use the brush to buff it out evenly, both brushes do the job perfectly, leaving no lines or patches on the skin.

Cleaning
To clean my brushes I always use my Blendercleanser, I can bring both brushes back to looking brand new after cleaning and the only bristles I lose during cleaning are the ones that were already loose.

Price
Depending on your budget price point is always an important factor, from what I can see Nanshy are a brand exclusive to the UK currently and their F01 retails at £9.95 which I think is reasonable.
Sigma on the other hand are becoming a well known brand and are quickly expanding their merchandise to make them widely available, unfortunately when a brand starts to become more well known their product becomes more expensive. If you choose to buy direct from their website in the US they do offer UK shipping however you should factor in the cost of shipping.
F80 Chrome ferrule - $24 (about £15)
F80 Copper ferrule - $28 (about £18)
Every UK retailer I looked at were selling the F80 for £18.95 (for the basic Chrome ferrule) Amazon seemed like the best deal offering free UK delivery.

I found it really difficult to pair these brushes off against one another, they are both a lot alike and also cruelty free. In terms of appearance Sigma offer either a Chrome or a Copper ferruled F80 whereas Nanshy offer the black or white handled F01 although from what I can see they only currently have the white handled F01 in stock and the black handled one is only available in a set, whether it is available to buy on it's own I do not know.
I really don't think buying either of these brushes would be a mistake, if your on a budget then try out the Nanshy F01 I think you will be impressed, and if your willing to spend a little more then the Sigma F80 is also worth a try.

Find the Sigma F80 (here) and (here)
Find the Nanshy F01 (here)




This post is going up later than scheduled as I dropped my DSLR camera and broke my lens, I decided to buy a new lens altogether and i'm currently trying out the 50mm f/1.8 (here) but I don't think it's the kind of lens i'm looking for specifically for product photography for my blog. The above photo was taken on my old lens and all the below photos are taken on my new one, let me know which you think is better or if I need to try a totally different lens altogether i'd love to know which one I should get.
With all that being said I picked up a fair few bits from the new Wash & Dry collection by MAC, I don't normally buy this much in one go but I had put aside some pennies to spend so I spoilt myself a little bit!


I'm not reviewing any of these items on the blog today as I haven't got round to trying them all, i'm just sharing what I picked up and including swatches.
Starting off with lipsticks, the Wash & Dry collection had a total of four shades, Créme D'Nude (cremesheen), Tumble Dry (lustre), Morange (amplified crème) and Steam Heat (satin). It's nice that they mixed up the finishes with the range not using all the same type of finish the way they did with the Cinderella collection. If you didn't get your hands on any of the lipsticks from this collection the good news is that Créme D'Nude and Morange are permanent shades, although you won't have the Wash & Dry packaging you will save yourself £2.


I've paired together the highlighter and the blush, purely because I didn't want to stretch this blog post out with a tone of pictures.

High-Light Powder - Freshen Up
I found this to be a very unusual product, firstly to look at it is rather strange the actual surface of it where it has all these indentations isn't typical of MAC highlighters. Then the colour isn't what I would class as a "normal highlighter" either, if you like a warm toned highlight then you just might like this, bare in mind I did layer this up on my swatch to show the maximum colour payoff and when all the shades are swirled together you get a nice peach shade with tiny little flecks of shimmer, not chunky at all. I have to be honest I bought this out of curiosity it looked extremely interesting and I am intrigued to try it out, if used with a light hand it may work nicely i'm just not sure on the peach colour working as a highlight.

Powder Blush - Hipness
Onto blush, I only actually own one other blush from MAC so I added a second to my collection. There was two shades available in the Wash & Dry collection but I decided on 'Hipness' as the other shade didn't look like my kinda colour. Pinks are always up my alley, this is quite a rosey pink, very pigmented it only took one swatch in the above photo, in the pan it glistens a little bit with tiny gold shimmers but once swatched none of these shimmers transfer which I quite like, I don't particularly like shimmer in my blush, or my bronzer for that matter. Leave the shimmer for the highlighters only.


Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow - Permanent Press
I'll be the first to admit, I have too many eyeshadows as it is, and if i'm honest I regret picking up this trio, all three shades are very similar to existing shades I already have in my collection by other brands. I will be sure to try and get my use out of this mini trio though as it is handy for throwing in my make-up bag and travelling with.
Top to bottom the shades are said to be a "white beige", "calm brown-bronze" and a "black with gold pearl". The top two shades definitely have more of a metallic finish whereas the bottom shade is a lot less shimmery.

To finish I think this is a great collection, packed full of new and existing products to suit everyones taste, as always M.A.C nailed it on the head with the packaging, it really is a lovely design and very spring appropriate.

If you missed out there is still some bits left in the collection on MACDebenhams and House Of Fraser. Of course all of these are subject to availability and while stocks last.

Did you pick up anything in the collection? Let me know.



I love doing lip swatch posts, they are my favourite kind of post to create and today I have three new lip products to share with you.
L.A. Girl is not a brand I have ever tried before, I have heard about them but over here in the UK they aren't really that big. It wasn't until I saw the beautiful JadeyWadey180 on Instagram wearing one of these glosses that I knew I needed to try them!
I picked up three shades to try, the line has 16 shades in total, some of them are very daring and bold but I sticked to what I class as "safe" shades or at least that's what I thought, one of them isn't that safe at all but i'll get into that in a minute.


Firstly i'd like to mention that I am sorry that the lighting varies in these swatches, they are not edited in any way other than adding the text however I am working with natural lighting so sometimes this effects my photos and thus my skin looks a different shade in some photos compared with others. However I do feel that the actual colours on the lips are very true to how they appear in person, just thought I would put that out there as a little disclaimer incase any of you were wondering.


The packaging of these glosses is nice, pretty simple but having it clear so you can see the actual colour of your product is nice.
You get a total of 0.17oz of product in each tube which if your like me I only work in milliliters and it equates just shy of 5mls, in a gloss I feel this is adequate as I would personally struggle to use that much product at a quick rate.

Dreamy
This was the shade I saw on Instagram and immediately I knew I wanted to try it for myself, 100% impressed with this colour, I think I would describe this shade as a 'Warm Toned Nude' it definitely pulls some pink undertones ever so slightly on my lips but mostly warm brown that comes through.
Application was so easy, one layer gave me my desired opacity however if you want to build it up to make it a little darker you can do that also, it doesn't go patchy on the lips.

Bazaar
I will say this colour looked nothing like the photo's I saw online before buying it looked a lot more orange toned, but when I received it and tried it it's clearly more of a crimson pink kinda shade. Not that I was disappointed I still love this colour on the lips it's beautiful, especially for Spring/Summer. Again application was a dream and the pigmentation was fantastic I couldn't fault it.

Iconic
Unfortunately this was the shade I was the most disappointed with, firstly the colour looks absolutely nothing like the picture I saw online prior to purchase (see that photo here) and it all went downhill from there really, barbie doll pinks are definitely not my kinda of shade, never pulled them off and never will quite frankly. Application was difficult, one layer was not enough to give me an opaque finish and once I started building up the colour to try and get an opaque finish it was all sticking in places and becoming quite patchy, i'm actually rather proud that I even managed to get a swatch of this colour because it was a bit of a nightmare. On top of that this particular shade definitely took the longest to dry, when I blotted my lips together to try and even out the colour it just felt like I had put pritt stick across my lips and they literally "peeled" apart due to the stickiness. Once the colour had dried it didn't look all that nice on the lips, maybe this is because I don't like these kinds of colours anyway but the finish didn't look that great and I am super disappointed in this colour. Again the photo I saw online was very misleading and I wouldn't advise anyone to pick up this shade.


Considering they class this range as a 'glosses' all three shades I own don't feel like a gloss at all, their actual formula is a lot more watery and not "gloopy" like most glosses I have tried, not so watery that they are runny just not thick enough to be a gloss in my eyes. I found none of them bled on the lips and they all stood the test of time lasting me the best part 8 hours, I had eaten and drank during this time and by the end of the day I just found that they had slightly faded towards the centre of my lips, I had not touched up at all. All of these glosses dry to a matte finish and have a handy dofus applicator.

From what I have tried I would definitely say that the L.A. Girl Matte Pigment Glosses are worth trying! Just stay clear of Iconic, I am super happy with the other two shades I got from this range.
Find online (here) and (here)




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