My MAC Lipstick Collection

Hello dolls, sorry for the lack of posts/ comments!
Today I am bringing you my MAC lipstick collection. I've posted my lipstick collection (back then, anyway) sorted out by colours, so I do have some of these in there but I wanted to group my MAC ones all together and do a generalized review.

MAC has to be one of my favourite brands for lipsticks, because I can really notice the quality compared to cheaper brands. The biggest differences are the pigmentation, how they apply & how long wearing they are. I find some of the brighter/ deeper ones stain my lips so much that I still have a tinge on my lips when I wake up in the morning.

The packaging is quite simple with the usual black, bullet shaped tubes, but I like how the Viva Glam ones stand out with pink instead of silver on the inside. I also love the standard vanilla smell that all MAC lipsticks have.

MAC lipsticks have come in 9 finishes: Matte, Satin, Frost, Cremesheen, Cremesheen Pearl, Lustre, Amplified, Amplified Pearl, Glaze. Wow that's a lot more than what I thought there was until I looked it up. For a great in-depth description of each finish, this blog describes them better than what I could ever do.

Hue

A light nude pink, Hue is perfect for when you don't want a full on nude look.The glaze finish is the most natural out of them all, providing a subtle colour but also lasts the least amount of time, which is ok because it is easy to reapply.

Creme D' Nude

A nude peach colour in a very moisturizing & creamy formula which makes it only last around the 2 hour mark, but is also easy to reapply. It has a decent amount of coverage but is still fairly natural.
Myth

A pink-beige nude which I find way too creamy & have to smooth it out with my fingers after applying it from the tube, but it is perfect for a blanked out lip look. You can tell from the skin swatch how much comes off from a light application. Is anyone else's the same? From what I've read it is one of the more drying shades but it is not like that on me at all.

Angel

One of the most perfect pink nude lipsticks I own, I do not find this as frosty as what everyone else claims it to be. I can see why this is a cult classic!

Please Me

A matte muted pink lip colour which is more forgiving than some mattes which will dry out your lips completely & tug on application, which this does not. One of my favourite muted lip colours of all time!

Snob

A satiny-matte finish that is a cool toned lilac-pink, a bit less dramatic than Saint Germain, which makes it a wearable barbie-pink and is non-drying!

Crossswires

A gorgeous coral-orange that I thought never really tried when I received it from the lovely Amalia in a blog sale, but started wearing later and really appreciated the colour. It is perfect for spring & day time & has a lovely sheen thanks to the formula!

Viva GLam Nicki

The first MAC lipstick I had ever bought by myself, that i had to go back & buy as a gift for a friend because I loved it that much! This can pull off different colours on different people, on my friend it looks fuchsia somehow but on me, a vibrant, almost neon coral-pink. DAYMN! Such a nice formula, it applies nicely & lasts a long time.

Impassioned

The first MAC Lipstick I had ever lusted over, is finally no longer a lust! This beautiful amplified finish makes the warm watermelon pink colour stand out & makes it a long wearing, moisturizing lip colour.

Girl About Town

A fuchsia berry colour that I could assume would look awesome on any skin tone & colour. Another amplified finish that leaves your lips glossy & moisturized.

Candy Yum Yum

So glad I ended up buying this at the last minute! A gorgeous **bright** candy pink colour that will be sure to make you stand out. It is matte so it lasts for ages and is slightly drying but I find it very forgiving to wear.

Morange

A super bright, neon orange lip colour that applies exactly the same as Impassioned & is extremely pigmented with just one swipe. This is lovely to wear with minimal makeup or a brown smoky eye.

Ruby Woo

A classic blue-based red lipstick which has become a cult favourite, Ruby Woo is super matte which also means it is one of the most drying lipsticks I own and tugs on your lips when applying, but also lasts throughout pretty much anything & even when it wears off, your lips are so stained that you almost only need lipgloss to freshen it up.

Rebel

An almost impossible colour for me to wear, mainly because I find it way too creamy (just like Myth- I think I got both dud shades from a flash sale website!) I can't get this to apply evenly, so I have to stain it on. It looks a lot more scary in the tube but when applied is a deep plum-berry. I have no idea why it doesn't work on me because everybody else loves it!

 Edit: Just realized that I forgot to include the arm swatches!

L-R: Hue, Creme D' Nude, Myth, Angel, Snob, Please Me, Crosswires

L-R: Viva Glam Nicki, Morange, Candy Yum Yum, Impassioned, Girl About Town, Ruby Woo, Rebel

So that is my MAC Lipstick collection. I am very happy with it and think I have a nice selection of brights & nudes. My favourite colours, if I had to pick any, would be Angel, Please Me, Viva Glam Nicki, Impassioned, Morange & Ruby Woo, although I do love them all.

Let me know what your favourite MAC lipsticks are, or your favourite brand for lipsticks!
xx

First Impressions of The Balm | Blush & Concealer mini review

After so long of hearing about The Balm through the YouTube & Blogging communities I finally have my hands on a couple of their products.... and I am so glad I didn't go overboard with their sale on Ozsale in April because I'm sure I will finally be able to look at the products in person soon.

 Ozsale didn't have the hugest range of colours for every product, I think they only had 2 for blushes so I had to decide between Cabana Boy & Down Boy I think it was... I choose Cabana Boy because I didn't think I had anything too similar to it already.

I really like it, and I've worn it a fair few times already because I think it is quite a universal colour, a pretty mauve-pink colour with shimmer.

I've also been wanting to try different concealers, mainly something that I can also use to highlight underneath my eyes. I chose the Time Balm concealer in the colour Light. Unfortunately at the moment it basically matches my foundation colour anyway so there is only a slight highlight but if I get more tanned I'm sure it will stand out more. I also like this concealer for covering pimples & scarring. It has good coverage & I like to use it with my Real Techniques Deluxe Crease Brush. It is  not essentially creamy so you have to work it into your skin fast before it sets.

This is my FOTD using Cabana Boy as my blush and the Time Balm concealer under my eyes, I hope you can see how good the coverage is. I'm also wearing on the eyes Nyx Caviar & Bubbles palette, Sugarpill's Hysteric under my eyes & Bite Beauty's High Pigment Lip Pencil in Pomegranate.
 
What products have you tried & like from The Balm? The next thing on my list is the Mary Lou-Manizer because it looks like a stunning highlighter!

xx

Bite Beauty Cosmetics// Lip Products Review & Swatches

Bite Beauty is a brand that is featured fairly frequently on Ozsale, and while I was on my "spending ban", which is now a lot more stricter since it is a bit more closer to my big holiday, I saw it on there and thought I would try something from a new brand.

Description from their website-
"Bite Beauty is an all-natural lip care company operating out of downtown Toronto. Our mission is to create lipstick that is high performance and healthy enough to eat for women everywhere."
Bite Beauty is entirely focused on lip products, with their Luminous Cream Lipstick, High Pigment Pencils, Cinnamon Lip Oil, Pastille Matte Crèmes, Lush Lip Tints & more, so I would imagine they would be focused on creating high quality products.

The two products I bought were the Luminous Creme lipstick in the colour Rhone & a High Pigment Pencil in Pomegranate. They have a high end feel with the rubber-textured packaging reminiscent of NARS. The High Pigment Pencil especially reminds me of the Velvet lip pencils, although I haven't tried or seen them in person.

I've used these a couple of times as you can see the bullets aren't as precise as they would have been.

Luminous Creme Lipstick
"These unbelievably smooth lipsticks deliver lush, long-lasting colour and moisture-rich coverage in an incredibly inviting palette of 13 alluring shades ranging from modern nudes to provocative plums. Organic fruit butters create a creamy texture that conditions and nourishes lips with every use, while antioxidant-rich Resveratrol fights free radicals and helps reduce the appearance of lines. Each lipstick contains the amount of resveratrol found in five glasses of red wine. Bite Beauty create their products with food grade ingredients for beauty that’s better for you. They are free from parabens, sulfates, synthetic dyes, petrochemicals or phthalates."
Borrowed from Kleinsperfumery

You would be able to see from these two lip products that I have been in the mood for red/ burgundy lips recently. This is, as the name suggests a very creamy & pigmented lip colour that applies very smoothly & is fairly long lasting.
Their signature B is carved into the bullet and the end of the packaging has a curved lipstick-wand shape, making it look different & interesting compared to other brands as well as the gray rubber. The only way to know the colour from the outside from the label on the bottom.
Rhone is a darker wine colour, and typically I had to have something almost identical to it, Kate by Rimmel in 09 as you will see in comparison swatches. Looking back at the different colours, I'd love to try a vibrant purple!

FOTD with UD Naked 1 eyes, Nyx Peach blush & Bite Beauty Luminous Creme Lipstick in Rhone

 High Pigment Pencil in Pomegranate
This pencil is basically a lipstick but in a wind-able pencil form with the colour shown at the end of the stick so you can see easily which colour you've picked up.
The colour looks like a brighter red in the tube but turns out to be very blue based on the lips, it is a lot more similar to Rhone than what I thought it would be, but not as glossy.
In the lip swatch below I have applied it over the top of lip balm that I really should have blotted before. I found that it lasted well until I had something to eat, and then it disappeared almost immediately, leaving only a little bit of a stain behind. Obviously if you take the right steps such as blotting lip balm beforehand, lining with a pencil and then using a lip brush (the head is small but not defined enough for a precise lip line), and even setting lightly with a powder, it should last bit more decently.

Eyes from UD Naked 1 palette, cheeks are L.A Girl Nectar, Bite Beauty High Pigment Pencil Pomegranate

 Comparisons
 As I mentioned above, almost every time I order something online, when I get it I know I have a similar colour straight away.

 L-R: Kate by Rimmel in 09,Bite Beauty Rhone, Bite Beauty Pomegranate, Maybelline Are You Red-Dy, Nyx Amsterdam

 Kate 09 is slightly darker but a very similar colour to Rhone, Are You Red-Dy has more orange tones and Amsterdam has a similar blue tone to Pomegranate.
 
Both the Luminious Creme Lipstick & High Pigment Pencil's retail for AU$36.95 online from Kleinsperfumery, The Iconic & also from Sephora(and instore) if you are in the US for US$24 but I bought mine on sale for $21 so if you are a lip junkie wanting to try a new brand I'd recommend to wait until a sale pops up.

Overall these lip products are pretty good but not a necessity to have in your collection, but if you want to try a different brand the Bite Beauty range has different types of lip products that may suit you.

No Affiliation with any of the websites mentioned, except for an invitation link to Ozsale. All products bought with my own money & are my own opinion.

Lip Inventory 2: Reds

I've done the pinks here and now it's my red lipsticks collection turn. I always used to be scared of wearing red lips out but now I've gotten used to it, depending on what I'm wearing on the rest of my face. Please to dear god tell me you can see the differences & finishes in these lipsticks, I know some are very similar, though. & again please ignore the messy application, as you probably know red lipstick is hard to wear without applying lip liner & using a brush first.

 L-R Nyx Round Lipstick in Eros, Avon Color Rich Mega Impact in Really Rosy, Maybelline Color Sensational in Are You Red-dy, Revlon Matte Lipstick in 005 Strawberry Suede, Innoxa Ultra Lips in Hot Chilli, Australis Moisture Intense in Saigon, BYS Matte Lipstick in Tango, Nyx Soft Matte Lip cream in Amsterdam

This is a stunning orange-y red colour that I haven't really used too many times, until this recent look here although I did mix it with another colour.

This is a sheer,glossy blue-red that I'm sure intensifies with a lip liner underneath. I haven't really used this one either except in the first few pictures here but it is a nice day-time red.

The prettiest blue-based red! Definitely one I would recommend, you can see it here, also here but I think I must have added a warmer gloss on top.

 A nice warm toned matte lipstick. I wore it with a lipgloss over the top here

This is one I've put away and forgotten about after one little incident where let's say I had a few too many drinks and applied it almost all over my face =/ so I haven't used it in a FOTD but it's a gorgeous blue-based red.

Hopefully you can tell this lovely blue-based red is matte, I did use it in a FOTD but I didn't post it, damn lol. Which I might soon.

 Maybe it was because I was wearing a gloss underneath this anyway that it turned out super glossy looking, it has a little bit but not that much. And it definitely is moisturizing. Another nice blue-based lippy that when I bought I decided I didn't like it, but now that I have tried it again I will actually wear it!

Unfortunately it looks much warmer than what it actually is.. maybe it's my screen? But this usually looks like a really nice deep, blue-based red. And it is actually matte, why does nothing look matte on me on close up swatches!? Awesome long-wearing power, too. I've used it here (look at that matte bluey-red goodness), mainly here, along with Are You Red-Dy.

My faves out of the lot would have to be..
Nyx Eros, Maybelline Are You Red-Dy, BYS Tango & Nyx Amsterdam. Although I do like the other ones, these are the ones I go to.
If there was another red I'd really have to get, it'd be either MAC Russian Red or Ruby Woo but I'd have to try them on :)

What are your favourite red lipsticks?
x