The Year that was: 2012 Round up!

Ah, posting after a long time! Feels good. ^_^ This post had to go up, it was all the things this year has been for me makeup wise!

It's a big mash up of things but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

First of all let me wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Sweety wants to wish you too! Sweety was Spartacus/ Handsome the turtle but ever since we found out out he would rather be a she, she's Sweety now! XD

Okay, now lets start with the year that was! 

For me 2012 was all about the Corals, Oranges and Peaches! The whole spectrum! Check out:

Gold and Coral makeup tutorial

Gold and Coral Nails- NYX and KKCenterHk glitters

Coral Eyeshadow- Inglot Matte 366

Coral/ Orange lipsticks:

Faces French Rose Moisture Rich Lipstick

Reel Sexy Lipstick

Sleek Coral Reef and NYX Femme

There are so many more that I haven't even reviewed! I mean look at that heap in the picture. Lol! But that's what 2013 is for right?

2012 was the year of the London Olympics and the first time I won a giveaway, this one was by Sleek Makeup to win their 2012 collection!

Here's the eyeshadow palette that was called Glory.

I used a lot of Korean makeup this year! And loved all of it. I still have some from my last haul to try.

What I tried so far:

Etude House Fresh Cherry Lip tint

Etude House Bright Fit Precious Minerals BB cream

Etude House Sweet Eye Cupcake eyeshadow

BRTC Gold Caviar BB cream

The Year I did Something for a Good Cause

I used my makeup to show the world what women go through in India. This was for a one minute movie by Sophia College girls for Population First- Laadli

Now for my 2012 Favourite Products!

I loved a lot of eye makeup products this year but these were just amazing! A cut above the rest.

Yanqina's pen eyeliner gave me so much precision, Faces Eye Magic Transforming gel was a perfect primer! Coastal Scents 88 palette gave me a world of colour to experiment with initially and the Maybelline Color Tattoos made awesome bases for my eye looks. 

I have created quite a collection of lip makeup but some products just blew me away! Colorbar's Velvet Matte lipsticks come in such an array of colours and are so affordable! 

2012 was the year I picked up my first MAC lipstick, that was Viva Glam Nicki... Now I have 4 of them! They're just amazing! See Sheer being my fave and Viva Glam 1 my newest addition, yesterday! 

And last but not the least the Fresh Cherry Lip Tint by Etude House is the perfect product for when you don't want lipstick but still want colour!

There were some nail paints I used consistently in 2012 and they were mostly NYX polishes. My absolute favourite go to polish being NYX Surf. I wore it with polka dots and glitter polish and all kinds of other ways! I wore NYX Hot Coral a lot too, my fave was this look with gold sequins. ^_^
I finally found flakie polishes in NYX, this is Pink Avenue!
My fave red polish was Ulta 3's Pepper Pot, perfect for my skin. NYX Multi Glitter was my fave glitter polish especially over pastels and whites with Innisfree's Libra taking over that spot as soon as I tried it on another favourite, Miss Claire's hot pink!

And those were my favourite products of the year 2012! Hope you liked it, be sure that I will bring you more awesome reviews and tutorials in the coming year!
I'm sorry this post seems a bit rushed... It is. >.<
Anyway, Happy New Year all! Enjoy and be safe! See you next year.
♥

Manicure Monday: Blingtastic Sequined Nails with Review

Hey everyone! Here's a little change from my makeup challenge, I decided to do my nails with a little effort yesterday, I've been doing them lazily for a while now since I had such a huge workload to deal with!
So I thought I would try this awesome glitter that was sent to me by KKCenterHk.

KKCenterHk, is a great stroe where you get everything beauty related under the sun for very reasonable prices :)
The glitter I received is a beautiful gold colour, this is the actual product name and link:  N.NAIL 1.5mm Bright Glitter- B0208.
The jar is $5.54 for 10 g and will seriously last me a life time! The glitter is 1.5mm in size and just the right size to be used on nails. The glitter is good quality and I like that it's a bit thick so it doesn't fly around when opened. The size is pretty uniform too!

I plan to use this glitter for eye makeup too! Lets see how that goes. :)

Now here's my manicure!

flash

w/out flash

detail

 I used NYX's Hot Coral and while it was still wet, set the glitter in there with a toothpick. Then added top coat!  I liked how it turned out! I obviously have a thing for coral and gold, I'm sure some of you remember this tutorial. :D

Anyway, I hoped you liked this Manicure Monday! Make sure to check out KKCenterHk! 

Use the code: beautyandthecheap and get 10% off your purchase!

*Valid till 31st Jan 2013

*Product was sent to me for review.

NYX Femme and Sleek Coral Reef: A Dupetastic Lipstick Review!

I know a lot of you know my love for the colour coral. I have numerous clothes, nail polishes, blushes, lipsticks and even an eye shadow in the colour. I'm so smitten with it, I get mesmerised by just the word "coral" and buy whatever makeup product that bears it.

Left: NYX Femme Right: Sleek Coral Reef

NYX Femme and Coral Reef from Sleek Makeup's True Colour line were the same. I bought Femme after looking at countless beautiful swatches online and I bought Coral Reef after reading the name! LOL! Sounds stupid I know! But it was worth it.
I got Femme from Stylecraze.com, and I got Coral Reef from a blog sale. When I got Coral Reef I realised that Femme might be a dupe for it! Today I finally got the chance to swatch the two and *dingdingding* THEY ARE! :D

Lets do a comparision shall we?

Colour and texture:
Both colours are a hot coral colour but Femme is a little more to the orange side while Coral Reef has a little bit of a neonish quality and also leans towards pink. If you wear them though, you wont even know the difference!
Coral reef's texture is ever so slightly smoother than Femme's. It also goes on more opaque in the first swipe as compared to Femme. Both tend to settle in the lines though. :/

With flash: Femme and Coral Reef (note the neon)

W/out flash

Size/ Packaging:
Femme comes in the usual NYX round lipstick tube, whereas Coral Reef comes in a small tube which is rubberized. It's cute but a fingerprint magnet! The amount of product in the round lipstick in 4gm and Sleek has 3.5gm. It's a small difference, I was expecting Coral Reef to be a mini lipstick, looking at the size!

Smell: Femme has a typical lipsticky smell, kinda soapy. No biggie! But Coral Reef OMG! I can't even begin to say how bad the smell is! It's like medication!
The dog below is the best example of the face I make every time I smell it. EVERY TIME! (He isn't my dog btw! Just a doggie from le Google..)

Since I can't photograph a smell.. Doggie explains it well.

Price and availability:

Sleek's Truecolour lipsticks sell for 6$ plus a hefty shipping charge to India and can only be found at Sleek's website, as far as I know. NYX can be found in stores here but colours are limited. On Indian sites you can get them for around 300 INR and from sites abroad for around 2$ plus shipping.

Femme on the left, CR on the right. I wouldn't mind going out like this!

Overall: 

I think Coral Reef is an amazing colour but I probably will not buy again unless I finish both of these lipsticks. Plus I would have to wait for our stupid currency to go up a bit. I'm not paying 55 INR to the dollar, thanks! Femme I am likelier to buy again just because it is relatively more easy to find.

So, if you've been lemming on Coral Reef for a while, definitely try looking for Femme, they're almost the same. :)

Tell me what dupetastic lipsticks you know of too! I would love to know a little more about how to save a buck here and there! :)

What's In My Mail: Blogsale Goodies!

Okay, before you ask NO, I haven't broken my "Buying Makeup Ban", which btw is now on Day 5! Yay me!

Sweet and Bitter was having a blog sale, she was moving to a different city and wanted to get rid of some stuff, so I helped her out. Hehehe.. This was my first time purchasing in a blog sale. and we had a few glitches with the processing and sending (stupid Bharat Bandh..) but I got my stuff yesterday! :D

I got NYX's One Night in Morocco palette and a Sleek True Colour lipstick in Coral Reef from her. :)

I did a few swatches of the palette today and I like the texture of it! I wish they wouldn't have put lipgloss(?) on the bottom drawer though, blush would have made so much more sense!
I'm not going to be using the lipglosses at all! I'll probably just depot them, I've had previous palettes grow fungus on the lipglosses. DO NOT WANT!

Sorry for the over exposed pics, my camera comes back (with my sister) today!

The Coral Reef lipstick is my first Sleek lippie! I love the colour, but I think NYX Femme is very similar. Haven't swatched it yet so I don't know, I speak from just looking at the bullet. I'll let you know more about that in a later post.
So, that was what was in my mail! What's in your mail today? Have you ever bought stuff in a blog sale before?

MAKEUP BUYING BAN STATUS: 5 days down

FOTD and tutorial: Neutral Gold Eyes and Coral Lips

Entering all these eye makeup competitions made me realise something, i.e. I hardly ever do any neutral tutorials, which you girls can actually follow and wear.. Oh well, I guess I'll start now. :)
I love golds and corals, this is a very wearable look, for even everyday, especially in summer. You can also jazz it up a bit for formal events. :) It's very easy!

Final look with flash 

Step 1: Take a shimmery gold colour and pat it on to the center of your lid.

Step 2: Use a bronze/ copper shade on the outer corner and blend it into the gold.

Step 3: On the lower side of the outer corner apply a darker brown shadow and blend.

Step 4: Blend in a taupe colour into the crease.

Step 5: Smudge a black pencil on the outer corner of the lower lid and then use the gold on the lower lid like shown.

Step 6: Smudge some more black onto the outer corners, also line the outer corner of the lower lash line.  Make it look subtle and not harsh.

Step 7: Curl your lashes and add a good amount of mascara, your everyday gold eye makeup is done!

Products used:

• Some Korean gold eyeshadow, I can't understand what it says!
• Maybelline Chai Latte (review here)
• Colossal Kajal and Colossal Volum' mascara
• Colorbar Peachy Rose blush
• NYX round lipstick in Femme 

The finished look in natural light:

I love this lipstick!

Eyes closed

LOL! My blush never shows up on camera!
Anyway, would you wear this look as an everyday look? What do you like pairing with gold and coral in your makeup?
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I feel so weird doing such a normal look! I'll get over it. Hehe..

MAKEUP BUYING BAN STATUS: 3 days down. I can do this!

Lipstick Review: Faces Moisture Rich 07“French Rose”

These last few months I’ve been looking for two things:  A really good TV connection deal and the perfect orange/ coral lipstick. Well, sadly my TV woes continue so this is obviously about the lipstick.  This is my first ever review! Hope you like it and it helps!

 The lipstick I’m going to be reviewing today is called French Rose and it is from the Moisture Rich collection by Faces Cosmetics. This was my first time trying this brand and I gotta tell ya, I’m glad I did!

 I wasn’t able to swatch this before buying it because I bought it online on urbantouch.com (I’ll be doing a review about the site soon.) This colour just drew me in and before I knew it, I was hitting the  “ORDER NOW” button. Price: Rs. 330. Not bad eh?

The packaging of the lipstick I find nice aesthetically but a bit bulky when using. It has a square lid and base and the base is transparent to show you the colour inside.

See, how pretty?!

 This colour is a pinky orange with no shimmer, just crème like, just like I like it! The colour is very VERY pigmented! The first time I swatched it I was just like:  O_o ,”OMG! This colour is way too bright and I’m never going to use it! With the bright hair and lips, I’mma look like a clown” *cries* 

 

No flash (L) Flash (R)

But for some reason  I just couldn’t give up on it, I loved it too much. (The images do no justice to the brightness of this colour, but bear with me)

I tried applying it directly on my lips…. FAIL!

imagine it 2 times brighter!

With gloss…  Still no!

I'm not a gloss fan! 

And then it struck me to use a brush and blot! WIN WIN WIN!!! I can wear the colour like that!  *commences happy dance*

Blotted and reapplied lightly

And that was it! This colour would be treasured forever! Or at least till they stop making it anymore….

Pros:

•          Amaah-zing colour pay-off!
•          Transparent base helps identify colour
•          Very fashionable unique colour, most brands don’t have these for Indian markets.
•          Great for medium-fair skin like mine if worn correctly.
•          Lasts for  3-4 hours, transfers when eating etc
•          CHEAP

Cons:

•          Teeth may look yellow on some people
•          Faces isn’t a brand I see very often in stores, so hard to find.
•          Rest of the make up has to be seriously toned down, like in my case hair colour and eyeliner.. I love my eyeliner! :<
•          Sets into fine lines but not noticeable
•  

That’s it! I say this colour is perfect for girls who love the drama of orange! If this colour is not your cup of iced tea, get some of their other awesome shades, like First Lady, Fiery Orange (which is really pink -__-) or Neon Dahlia! All great colours! ^_^

Rating: 4/5 Will buy again!