Stila In The Light Palette

Now then, you're probably thinking 'where the heck have you been it's been ages' etc etc. In response to that little voice in your head, I've been on a bit of a blogging break and I took some unplanned time off to rest and recuperate. It feels great to be back though. During the short period of time I've been away it was my birthday and for my birthday I was very kindly treated to the Stila In The Light Eyeshadow Palette *drools*. It is quite possibly the most beautiful palette I've ever seen and after a whole year of lusting after it, I finally got it. I know I know, I'm insanely late onto the bandwagon, so late in fact I think the bandwagon may have left and is now potentially on the moon.

As with most Stila products, the packaging is very minimalistic. It's constructed of (very) sturdy cardboard and is held closed by a strong magnet which is great as I find that some eyeshadow palettes have very weak magnets holding them shut which then results in eyeshadow getting everywhere, Barry M I'm pointing the finger at you. Inside there is a large mirror and a little quote by Sarah Lucero which I think is a lovely touch. It's not everyday your eyeshadow palette has a cute little quote inside. It also comes with a little book filled with eye looks you can create with the shadows in this palette.

I did a bad thing and used this palette before photographing it, ooops.

The Stila In The Light Palette features 10, 0.49oz (in non number terms, that is quite big) eyeshadows that you can use wet or dry. Very unlike the Urban Decay Palettes that focus on either warm or cool toned eyeshadows, this palette provides the best of both worlds. If you didn't start singing the Hannah Montana song there you're lying. Another upside to this palette is that there are 3 different finishes, frost, glitter and matte. What more could you want? Or need?

L-R; Bare, Kitten, Bliss, Sunset, Sandstone.

L-R; Bubbly, Gilded Gold, Luster, Night Sky, Ebony.

As I'm sure you can see from the above swatches, all the eyeshadows in this palette are insanely pigmented. I cannot fault a single shade. If you wish, you can intensify the colour pay-off even more by using the shadows wet. The eyeshadows are buttery, soft, and they blend like an absolute dream. I did find there to be a minuscule amount of product fallout when I applied the glitter shadows to my eyes but it was nothing major and nothing that a cotton bud or two can't fix. On my rather oily eyelids, without a primer these eyeshadows last a good 5-6 hours before they begin to crease but with a primer I can get a good 8 hours wear out of them. 

The palette also comes with a full sized Smudge Stick Waterproof Eye Liner in Damsel, a deep, matte brown shade. The eyeliner is retractable so there is no need to have to scrabble about in your makeup drawers for a sharpener every time you need to use it, which I think is great. It smudges out very easily and once it sets, it sets and it's there to stay until you wash it off. I can get a good 8 hours wear out of this on my top lashline and around 5 hours on my waterline. I have insanely watery eyes so this is very very impressive for me. I'm usually lucky to get an hours wear out of eyeliners, any other watery eyed girls out there find this too? 

This is hands down one of the nicest palettes I have ever come across and now that I have this, I don't feel the need to buy any of the Urban Decay Naked palettes at all. Yes I really just said that. It's perfect for every occasion; work/school, parties, meals, basically just everything. The pigmentation gets a good old 5 stars from me and I genuinely could not recommend this palette any more if I tried. This palette is only £25 and considering the eyeliner is worth £19 on it's own, this is a palette that you can't say no too. It's available from Feel Unique, Stila (obviously) and Asos. 

I will be back to my usual posting times as of today so I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you all on Wednesday.

Mini MUA Haul

I may have accidentally on purpose gone shopping in Superdrug yesterday, but I was good and I controlled the urge to buy everything I saw *pats back*.

I only picked up 3 things which is pretty good for me *gives self another pat on the back*. 

The first thing I picked up, after 7 months of waiting for it to be restocked in my local Superdrug, was the Heaven and Earth Palette. 

I have spent so long trying to track down this palette. Whenever I've gone into one of the two stores near me or online, it's always been out of stock *cries* but I FINALLY got it *cheers*!

If you're a neutral palette lover then this palette is for you. All shades are shimmery and you can create really nice daytime and nightime looks with this palette. I'm so glad I've finally got it! I'll put up a full review with swatches very soon!

As with all MUA palettes, this one came with one of the pointless sponge applicators, but I just bin these so I'm not going to complain too much! For £4 this palette is an absolute steal and the 7 months of searching was definitely worth it! 

The next item probably won't come as any surprise to anyone who's been reading my blog for a while. I have a weird obsession with berry lipsticks, I now have 3 in almost the same shade, why? 

And the lipstick I'm talking about is the MUA matte lipstick in 'Wild Berry'. In the tube this looks very similar to my beloved Kate Moss lipstick in '107'. But when on the lips it's a more sheer version of it, which is good because it means I can wear berry tinted lips to school (yaaaay!).

If you want to see this on my lips, I'll be putting up a post on Wednesday with this on my lips so keep your eyes peeled for that.  I wasn't expecting great pigmentation because it was only £1 but I'm actually quite impressed! An added bonus with this lipstick is that, like all MUA lipsticks, it comes with a little pot of product at the bottom which is both handy and cute.

The final thing I got was actually free because there was a deal that if you spent £6 or more on MUA makeup then you get a free ColourBlast eye crayon. I got the free crayon because my granny also bought a lipstick.

The colour I chose was 'Unfaithful' which is a grey with silver shimmer running through it. I chose it because I don't really own any greyish eyeshadows and thought I'd step out of my comfort zone a bit. 

This would make a great base colour for a smokey eye and I'm looking forward to using it but if it isn't as good as I hope it is, I won't be too bothered because it was free after all!

That is all for my mini haul (I should be a poet), I'm now away out for a Sunday carvery with my family! I hope you've all had a great weekend!

Also just before I sign off, could you all please go and fill in this quick survey, it would be really fab!

GFC | Bloglovin | Twitter