Boots No. 7's 75th!

While we're still on Boots - I thought I'd move over to their makeup collection No. 7. This month Boots No. 7 makeup celebrates its 75th anniversary of providing women with excellent and affordable makeup and skincare on the British high street.

In celebration of their seven decades, Lisa Eldridge, Creative Director and celebrity makeup artist created seven different looks capturing each decade's beauty trend. The images are gorgeous and Lisa's makeup looks are beautiful, I could sit and gawp at them for hours.

You may have already seen some of them on the web adverts or in-store, but you can find the full collection on Lisa Eldridge's website.

I find them so inspiring, I'll definitely be trying my hand at re-creating some of them, they look so much fun to do.

Happy Birthday No. 7! Keep your eyes peeled for my review of their Dream Lash mascara, coming soon...

Photograph copyright of Ben Hassett, makeup by Lisa Eldridge

Topshop Makeup Launches!

If you haven't already heard, or read the hype in magazines and newspapers the UK over, last Tuesday Topshop's new and very own makeup range launched across the nation! The range has been under development for a long while up at Topshop HQ and the products are reportedly manufactured by those who make Lancome makeup.

The collection currently contains: skin tint, lip polish, lip balms, glazes and glosses, lipsticks, glitter, eye shadows, mascaras, eye liners, crayons and kohls, nail polish, bronzer and blush and more! However the full range is only available in their flagship store Oxford Circus, London and online. Your local Topshop however will be selling the lip balms, a limited number of lip glosses and nail varnishes.

The colour selection of nail varnishes so far is incredible. There are all sorts of gorgeous shades on offer and quite frankly I want practically every single one! There's a gorgeous cream yellow shade called 'Bee's Knees' and a beautiful nude colour called 'Big Smoke', plus a lovely grey shade 'Cloud' similar to that paraded on the catwalks for S/S 2010. They even have their very own mint/jade shade ('Gone Fishing') which has been a popular colour since last Spring/Summer's catwalk season.

The packaging is quite simple and understated but very cute with the branding being black and white spots and stripes. I'm quite fond of it including the logo/font which looks as if it's been hand-written - I guess harking back to the fact that makeup is an art form in itself and is often about painting and drawing upon a canvas!

The prices are also nice and affordable starting at £4 and working up to £10 - great for all pockets I think. Perhaps a bit pricier than the average drug store brand of makeup but more affordable than some counters. The proof now as to whether the prices are worthy or not is in the testing - I'm curious as to what the formulations are like and whether or not they're up to scratch.

The only sad factor is that the launch in all other stores apart from Oxford Circus has been a bit lack-lustre and you'll need to have a good look out for it when you go in or you could be forgiven for missing the tiny stand altogether. However the more you show your support and the more you try, the more of the range local stores will begin to stock so get down to your local Topshop and check out the goodies!

I'll be trying out and reviewing the collection on here in the coming weeks so keep checking back for my thoughts. I'm starting tomorrow with a Nails of the Day (NOTD) showcasing one of my favourite nail polishes from the range...

All of the makeup as I said is also available on www.topshop.com so if you want to check out the full collection but are nowhere near London then log on now. You'll also find their website-exclusive SS10 Trend collection and handy video tutorials on how to create some of the latest and hottest looks!

Image from the Topshop Blog

Miss K Co Makeup

Hey y'all!

OK for my second and final haul from my Vitality Show visit I'll be reviewing Miss K Co Makeup's Contour brush, Glitter Eyeliner in Blue, Bronze powder in Terra Cotta Blonde Bake and their eyeshadow pot in Green. This haul costed me a bargainous £12 on special offer.

I'd never heard of Miss K Co before so these guys came as a total surprise. Having visited their website since the show I think they must be fairly new as the site's pretty much under construction and sadly none of the products have been added to the site yet so you can't buy online right now. Because of this I can't give you a standard price list of what these products would cost you ordinarily. And I can't tell you where to find their products in the shops as there's no mention of this yet. I will keep checking the website though and if there are any updates I'll let you know!

When at the show however the flamboyant ladies brandishing their brushes kept jumping at us to try their stuff out so I thought why not! I wasn't so keen at their enthusiasm to use the same brush on every person's face so readily but hopefully I haven't contracted an eye infection that's incubating LOL! (It still horrifies me that hygiene still has no place in these events and at some counters, I wig out a little when I see them double dip and happily take the same brush to a thousand faces! However this is another story...)

Contour Brush

This brush has quite a long handle for easy control and the hair is quite soft - I'm not sure if the brush is natural or synthetic hair as there's no info available yet but I assume from the appearance it's synthetic. It's not quite as fluffy or as full-bodied as the MAC Contour Brush (168) but because it's soft on the skin I prefer it to the MAC 168 as that has the potential to be a bit scratchy from time to time. I haven't seen how well Miss K Co's Contour brush would fair being washed yet (as some of the cheaper brushes on the market shed like mad when being cleaned, reducing their life span) but hopefully I won't have any troubles with that.

Glitter Eyeliner in Blue

This glitte eyeliner is quite watery - i.e. there's more gel than glitter pieces unlike glitter eyeliners from high-end brands where I find the brush comes out smothered in glitter lol! At the prices offered though, you can't really expect them to be in the same high-end category.

The blue however is very dazzling, it's a midnight blue and I'd say a great addition to an outfit for nights on the town, or even dressing yourself up for dinner because the blue isn't too bright or offensive. :-)

Bronzer in Terracotta Blonde Bake

This bronzing powder comes in a cake form and as the lady on the counter demonstrated, it has many purposes other than a bronzer:

1. You can use it to gently bronze the key areas where the sun would naturally hit your face, forehead, cheek bones, chin, nose or even the decollete!

2. You can use it as an overall dusting to give you a little glow - gently swirl your powder brush once round the cake and then dust lightly over the face to give yourself a little sparkle for an evening out (or to fake that "Yeah-I've-just-been-abroad" look when really you only went to Skegness!) Please note: don't go heavy-handed with this stuff or you'll end up looking like your face needs a much-needed wash rather than a sparkly fresh diva!

3. Or if you take an eyeshading brush to the cake you can layer up some nice pinky colour to your eyelids. The lady at the counter tried this on me but I wasn't too taken. I have blue eyes, fair skin and reddish hair so I don't think it complimented my features, but if you don't go too heavy or you can afford a reddy-pink wash over your eyelids then go for it! I think if I try this again with a combination of other colours though, this might work for me so I'll have an experiment.

There really is a lot of flexibility with this little number and a little goes a long way. It's also a mineral bronzer meaning that it's kind to the skin and colour impact is great. Unfortunately though having tried this myself for contouring my cheeks I'm not overly sure - the shade is rather red and I don't feel I need that shade of colour for my complexion. I think however I may have taken a little too much on the brush the first time I tried it, so I think a little-by-little approach is advisable, go easy with it and you can always build on the colour as you go! I'm going to keep giving it a chance and see how I go with it.

Eyeshadow in Green

This came in quite a large shaker pot of loose light grassy green eyeshadow. I chose this colour as I love greens and this shade would compliment my hair colour. It's possibly the best green I've ever bought. I think it's also a very flexible shade as on it's own with a little kohl pencil it makes a very pretty look for work or a day out in the sun! Built up with stronger, darker colours it could transform into a wild-child look in moments!

I find I have to use a lot of this to get the desired strength in colour but once I'm there, it's a really nice shade that I know I'll get plenty of use out of in the future. As I'm not sure what the eyeshadows normally retail at it's hard to say if I'd buy again as I don't know the range of colours on offer and I think that would be the deciding factor. I wouldn't really be prepared to pay anything more than £5-6 for this eyeshadow - anything more would be put me off because you have to use so much to get it to show up!

Overall I think Miss K Co, from what I have seen of their collection, have a nice range of products to offer - it's just a shame that you can't get hold of more info on them right now. However I would suggest going to the website and getting in touch with Kathy, as she may be able to send you a catalogue for more details.

Go to www.misskco.com to get in touch!

Image Sources

Image courtesy of http://www.indiamart.com