Tuesday 30 September 2014

Obsession 2015

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Just a very quick little update post. You may have noticed my flashy new blog button on the sidebar ---> to let you know that I'm attending Obsession 2015!


Being a Brisbane based blogger, events are few and far between so I'm very excited to be attending this event specifically for Brisbane based beauty bloggers. Let me know if you're going too as I'd love to meet some more Brisbane ladies.

Dani xo
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Sunday 28 September 2014

Shanghai Suzy Spring/Summer Collection

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If you have access to any form of social media, then you should be overly familiar with this new collection by Shanghai Suzy because it’s been all over Instagram! I simply couldn’t resist bulking up my measly collection of Shanghai Suzy lipsticks with this new collection, the shades are right up my alley. When this new collection released, there was a special where you could buy the entire collection of eight Spring/Summer lipsticks for $65 which equates to about $8 a lipstick. Alternatively, you can buy them separately for $12.95 each. 

The Brand – Shanghai Suzy

Shanghai Suzy was founded by Joanna Wheaton who was tired of forking out for overpriced lipsticks that she rarely used so she went and created her own brand! The brand is a little different in that each collection is limited edition but certain shades have proven to be so popular that they’ve had to make more. Shanghai Suzy is actually named after a friend of Joanna’s and not the founder herself and each of the lipsticks is named after a friend. There are two different types of lipstick formulas, nourish (glossy) and matte and both are gorgeous! The lipsticks are also cruelty-free and contain no animal products, so they are suitable for vegans too. 


The Lipsticks


There are eight lipsticks in the Spring/Summer collection and I did buy all of them, but found one was not my shade and passed it on to my mum. I’ve included it here in the descriptions but haven’t swatched it. PS - The lipsticks all smell like Hubba Bubba and it’s amazing!



Miss Leah Baby Cocoa– This is a shade that I totally would not have gone for as I prefer brights over nudes but as soon as I tried it on, I was in love. It’s a slightly pink toned nude and it works perfectly for me. Miss Leah is one of the nourish finishes and it seems to work really well with the nude colour.



Miss Olivia Apricot– I’m not wild about Miss Olivia but it’s still a really beautiful shade. It’s kind of a peachy/light coral shade and I’m still not sure if it suits me. Again, it has a nourish finish and I think it would be good if you wanted to get into coral shades without going for something too bold.



Miss Bree Pink Blush– Miss Bree is a sweet little soft pink shade that is definitely growing on me. It has a matte finish but the Shanghai Suzy matte finishes are not super matte and won’t leave you with cracked lips. 



Miss Christina Neon Guava – How could I resist a shade called Neon Guava? This shade is right up my alley, it’s a vibrant warm pink, again in the matte finish. I think this will end up being one of my favourite summer shades.




Miss Mia Foxy Hibiscus – This shade is a pink based red and I don’t think I have anything similar in my collection, which is great! I tend to go for reds that are very red, this leans a bit more towards pink but I still think it’s a very wearable shade. 


Miss Courtney Electric Flamingo – Again, another name that I just love! Miss Courtney is a cooler, brighter pink than Miss Christina and it’s another shade that I can see being a favourite. Its’s described as a “dusty fuchsia” which is pretty spot on. It’s quite similar to MAC’s Candy Yum Yum but maybe a tiny bit lighter. 
 


Miss Ally Amethyst– Miss Ally is one of the standout shades of the collection to me. It’s a crazy bright purple that’s like MAC’s Heroine but brighter. I have already worn it twice since purchasing and sometimes, I just like to open it up to stare at it, it’s that gorgeous!


Miss Nicole Burgundy Brown (not pictured) – This shade was the one I passed on to my mum because it’s a shade that I would never wear. It is gorgeous, a deep chocolately brown, but it’s not for me and I know my mum loves brown lipsticks so it’s definitely in good hands with her. 

Swatches (from bottom to top) Miss Leah Baby Cocoa, Miss Olivia Apricot, Miss Bree Pink Blush, Miss Christina Neon Guava, Miss Mia Foxy Hibiscus, Miss Courtney Electric Flamingo, Miss Ally Amethyst.
That rounds up the 2014/2015 Spring/Summer Collection from Shanghai Suzy. I think they are a great brand, they just feel a bit different and I love the idea of limited edition season releases. The lipsticks themselves are gorgeous, well-packaged and both the nourish and matte formulas are beautiful. I’m in love with the collection and I’m already looking forward to the Autumn/Winter collection!


Dani xo
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Friday 26 September 2014

IMATS Haul

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In a very original move, I've filmed an IMATS Haul (note the heavy sarcasm here)! 


I spent about half the video discussing all the things I didn't like about IMATS before getting on to he actual products so it's quite a chatty (not to mention long-winded) video but I hope you like it regardless!


And pretty please subscribe to my YouTube channel, I'm getting pretty close to 100 subscribers, which I know seems piddly compared to most but you've got to start somewhere right?

Dani xo
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Thursday 18 September 2014

Winging It: A Guide to Eyeliner

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There are many things with makeup that I cannot do, for example, I have never been able to apply false lashes without looking like a drag queen who got ready in the dark. However, I have been blessed with one beauty talent and that is being able to apply winged liner! That’s not to say that I don’t occasionally end up with the dreaded panda eyes BUT by and large, I end up with some pretty good flicks! So today, I’m going to share some of my knowledge of eyeliners, along with some tips and tricks that might be able to help you out. Once again, I’m not claiming to be an expert makeup artist (quite the opposite!) but if just one person finds my tips helpful then I’m happy!

Types of Eyeliner

There are three main types of eyeliner that you need to know about. They can be used to create slightly different looks and they all have their own positives and negatives.

1. Pencil– Pencil liner is probably the best type for beginners, because they’re easy to use and control. The downside is that you don’t get as precise a line as you would get with liquid or gel. You also have to keep them nice and sharp for the best line, unless you are going for a smudgy look. I like to use pencil liners for a more subtle daytime look OR for a smokey eye because they are the easiest to blend. They also come in a rainbow of colours and are probably the most easily accessible type of liner, as every cosmetic company makes them! Pencil liners are also great for the lower lash line, it’s not as messy and less likely to run/get into your eyes. Anyone who has ever gotten liquid liner in their eye can attest that it’s like the pain of a thousand burning suns…or maybe stepping on a lego.


My favourite pencil liners at the moment are the Klara H20 Proof Eyeliner in Black ($18.00) and the Models Prefer Kohl Pencil in Matte Black ($8.99). The Klara one also includes a smudger for creating smokey looks.

The Klara H2O Proof Liner is more like a traditional pencil and the Models Prefer Kohl Pencil has a creamier texture

2. Liquid– Liquid liners can be very intimidating and most people find them hard to master. Once you do manage to master them, you can create very dramatic looks with a super crisp line. They do require a steady hand as most are quick dry and trying to repair a mistake with liquid liner can be a pain in the butt! Thankfully, there are a few types of liquid liner, like the Maybelline Master Precise, with a handy felt tip (just like a marker pen) to help with control. I recommend a lot of practice with pencil liner before moving on up to liquid. I’ve also assembled some handy hints a bit further down for when you feel brave enough to tussle with liquid liner!


My top recommendations for liquid liners are the Face of Australia Liquid Liner in Black ($8.95), Boe Beauty Liquid Liner in Black ($2.00) and Maybelline Master Precise Liquid Eyeliner in Black ($13.95), which is especially good for beginners.

Swatches (L-R) Face of Australia Liquid Liner, Maybelline Master Precise and Boe Beauty Liquid Liner
3. Gel– I do love a good gel liner! They usually come in a little pot and have to be applied with an angled or fine tipped brush. Like liquid liners, you do need a steady hand BUT they do dry a bit slower which makes it a bit easier to fix up boo-boos AND makes gel liner great for creating smokey looks too. I love how easily gel liners glide on (good ones anyway!) and I love the overall effect they create. They aren’t quite as convenient as a pencil liner, given you have to have the pot with its screw on lid AND the correct brush/brushes to create your look but they are my personal preference. Benefit have also recently come out with their new Push-Up Gel Liner which is a gel liner in a pen form, making it much easier to use. You can check out my full review here.


My very favourite gel liner is the Maybelline EyeStudio Lasting Drama Gel Pot Liner in Blackest Black ($16.95). It has a super creamy formula that just glides on and doesn’t dry out in the pot, which is a problem I’ve found with a lot of gel liners. Benefit’s They’re Real Push-Up Gel Liner ($35.00) is also a new favourite, although a lot of people seem to hate it, I’m a definite fan.
Swatches of the Push Up Liner (L) and Maybelline EyeStudio Gel Liner (R)
Handy Tips

1. Do the flicks first, as there is a much better chance of getting them to look even!

2. Don’t try and draw the whole line on at once. After drawing on your flicks, start from the inner corner of your eye and work outwards in small lines.

3. Continue with small, fine lines until you reach the outer corner. It’s much easier to have a fine, well drawn line that you can thicken up afterwards than starting with a thick line and trying to rub it off.

4. Join up the line across your eyelid and the flick. Again, use thin strokes and build up to your desired “flicky-ness”.

5. Voila! Perfect wing!
Always make sure you do your eyeliner in a well-lit area where you can get nice and close to the mirror. Nothing worse than heading out for the night and then realising when you head to the bathroom that you have, in fact, created a look worthy of a drag queen (nothing against, drag queens, I think they are fabulous but they do have a very dramatic look!). Also, keep some cotton buds soaked in makeup remover handy in case you make a mistake. It’s very easy to just clean up little mistakes as you go.

If you’ve finished reading this, you should be an absolute pro with all types of liners, right? Ok well, maybe a bit more practice is required, but I would love to see some pictures of all of your fabulous flicks and lovely liner looks. Do you have any extra tips for working with eyeliner?

Stay beautiful!

Dani xx
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Sunday 14 September 2014

Clinique Chubby Stick Shadow Tint for Eyes

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I am the first to admit that a few years back, I pretty much used Clinique exclusively. Their 3-Step skin care kit completely transformed my skin and I think they are the brand that really pushed me into wanting to know more about cosmetics and skin care. While they have been seen as the posh, slightly snobby, older lady type of brand, they have worked hard to tap into the younger generations too. They are pretty forthcoming with their free samples and do a lot of great gift-with-purchase options too and have even been known to do a mascara swap occasionally. These days, I don’t worship at the temple of Clinique with such fervour, but I am a big fan of a certain handful of their products, the Chubby Stick Shadow Tint for Eyes being one.

Chubby Stick Shadow Tints in Fuller Fudge (top) and Lots O' Latte (bottom)

The Brand – Clinique

Clinique has been around FO EVER....ok, only since 1968 but that’s quite a long time! They were founded by the Estée Lauder Group are a very medically focused brand. I say that because everything they use is dermatologically tested through very stringent allergy tests. I often find the ladies at the Clinique counter just a little scary what with their clinical lab coats and occasionally overdone makeup. In the past, I have often felt that the counter staff look down their nose at me or couldn’t be bothered serving me because I don’t fit the wealthy, older lady stereotype HOWEVER, on all my visits to Clinique in the past year, I have been greeted by young, friendly counter staff with perfect makeup who are only too happy to help out. Underneath the intimidating lab coats, they are (mostly) very personable and happy to help fit you for some of their lovely products. I have had the odd encounter with a snooty lady who looked down her nose at me the whole time and I ended up walking out with nothing BUT that’s a story for another day!

The Product – Chubby Stick Shadow Tints for Eyes in Fuller Fudge & Lots O’ Latte ($35.00 each)

The Chubby Stick was originally a lip colour range but has quickly grown to include the Shadow Tints for Eyes too (Clinique have also released a chubby cheek stick recently). Essentially, it’s a retractable, crayon-style creamy eye shadow. Both the lip and eye versions come in very chic packaging in silver, with the product colour on the tube. There are currently 12 Shadow Tints in the range and I was lucky enough to get Fuller Fudge and Lot O’ Latte for Christmas. These are beautifully pigmented, super creamy, easy to blend and are really long wearing too. Pretty awesome! Both Fuller Fudge and Lots O’ Latte have a nice shimmer to them, but I can’t say if that applies to the entire range of Shadow Tints.


Using the product

These literally couldn’t be easier to use, you just add a swipe directly to your eyelids and blend as desired. They are designed to be able to build and layer colours to achieve your perfect eye look. My favourite look with these two colours is a beautiful (and ridiculously simple) brown smokey eye, using Lots O’ Latte to fill in the lid and Fuller Fudge in the crease then blending. It can be done in a matter of minutes, because you can apply the colours directly to your eye with no brushes.

Swatches of Fuller Fudge (bottom), Lots O' Latte (top) and a blend of the two in the centre
Overall Score

The Good
Creamy and well pigmented
Dead easy to use
 Chic packaging
The Bad
Pricey
May or may not have to deal with scary coated Clinique ladies!

KaBOOM! Cosmetics gives Clinique Chubby Stick Shadow Tints for Eyes:
Pricey? Yes! Worth it? Totally! I really like these, I think they are so simple to use, great for beginners or just ladies on a time limit. I think they would also be really handy for travel as they are very economic size-wise and you only really need two to create a pretty banging eye look. I’d love to know if you’ve tried the Chubby Stick range at all, they are one of my favourite Clinique offerings!

Stay beautiful!
Dani xx
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Thursday 11 September 2014

Random Beauty Tag

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Greetings lovely readers/viewers!


Today's post is.....the Random Beauty Tag. I was tagged by the lovely Mel from Melissa Bubbles to do this tag which has been floating around for quite some time. It's more of a chatty video so sit back, relax and enjoy the chatter! You can find the video on my YouTube channel.

Let me know what other videos you'd like to see on KaBOOM! Cosmetics in future.

Stay beautiful!

Dani xx
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Sunday 7 September 2014

LonVitalité C8 Collagen Crystal Eye Mask

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Am I the only one who was baffled to hear that there are masks SPECIFICALLY for your eyes? I mean, I was all over face masks, but it never dawned on me that you could just target your eyes! So I was a bit bamboozled (but intrigued) when this eye mask from LonVitalité showed up in a subscription box many moons ago. I was very keen to try them out because a) I had never even heard of, let alone seen an eye mask before and b) I’ve got me some mega dark circles under my eyes!

The Brand – LonVitalité

LonVitalité are a fairly new player in the beauty industry, having only entered the game in 2009. They are a Queensland based company (yay!) who have their products formulated in Germany. The LonVitalité name has been slowly creeping into the mainstream and this year, they were voted Beauty Heaven’s Best New Face Mask of 2014 with their C4 Coconut Milk Face Mask. There are a number of Australian stockists, including both Bellabox and Lust Have It but you can also buy directly from the LonVitalité website (it looks like they ship worldwide too!). I was also lucky enough to meet Rochelle, the owner of LonVitalité at a blogger event in Melbourne recently. She’s a wonderful lady and there are going to be some very exciting developments and new products from LonVitalité in the future so watch this space!

The Product – C8 Collagen Crystal Eye Mask ($28.00 for a pack of 6)

The C8 Collagen Eye Masks come in individual sealed packs of 2. The packaging has a little blurb on in all about the masks and their ingredients. Because I received these in an individual packet in a subscription box, there were no actual instructions on the packet and I lost the little beauty card that came with them in the subscription box. Thankfully, they are pretty simple to work out and if I can figure it out, I’m sure the rest of you will do alright!  They’re made of a quite thin, squishy gel and they are slippery little suckers so be careful. I like the convenient individual packaging, these would be great to take away on a relaxing weekend.


Using the product

As I said before, despite the lack of instructions, I managed to figure these out pretty easily. You just need to tear open the individual packet and apply just underneath your eyes. I didn’t have an exact time frame to leave them on for so I just had a nice relaxing bath and removed them when I was done. A good tip during summer is to pop them in the fridge before use so you get a nice cooling, de-puffing effect too. They felt really nice on my skin and my under eye area seemed more plump and much softer after using these. They didn’t really help with the dark circles (I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m just a dark-under-eye-bags kind of person) but they made my eye area feel so much better.


Overall Score

The Good
Convenient packaging
Improve the overall feel of eye area
Feel nice to use
 Easily available
The Bad
Didn’t do anything for my dark circles
 






KaBOOM! Cosmetics gives the LonVitalité C8 Collagen Crystal Eye Mask:

 
All up, a very nice little product, I definitely wouldn’t mind keeping a stash of these in my bathroom! If they’d banished my dark circles, they would have been perfect but they scored so highly otherwise that I’m willing to forgive them. Have you tried the C8 Collagen Eye Masks yet?

Stay beautiful!

Dani xx

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Thursday 4 September 2014

Benefit Big Easy Multi-Balancing Complexion Perfector

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My love for Benefit has been growing slowly but surely over the past few months. I’ve tried a lot of their eye products and colour products but I hadn’t yet tried any of their foundations or bases. I figured that I had more than enough foundations BUT I was in the market for a new BB cream. One of the lovely ladies at the Benefit counter gave me a sample of Big Easy to try and I was impressed enough to go back and buy the full size version. Now I’m not sure what happened between the sample and the full size but sadly, Big Easy does not live up to its name.



The Brand – Benefit

By now, everyone probably knows the story behind Benefit and how it was founded by twin sisters Jean & Jane Ford in 1976. Benefit have always struck me as a fun brand, I like the effort they put into their product names and awesome packaging. Their boxed blushes and bronzers are some of my favourites. They’ve also recently hit up the market with their new Push-Up Liner, which has strongly divided bloggers into love and hate camps (you can read my review here).

The Product – Big Easy Multi-Balancing Complexion Perfector($55.00 for 30ml)

Like the Push-Up Liner, Big Easy is another recent addition to Benefit’s product line. It’s marketed as a “multi-balancing complexion perfector” but if you’re like me, you probably read that and thought, a what now? It’s meant to be “better than BB Cream” but if I were to class it as anything, it would be a BB Cream.  It is oil free, non-greasy and also has an SPF of 30 which is pretty impressive for a base product, most are in the range of 15 to 20. Unfortunately, it is quite pricey AND it only comes in 6 shades, I ended up getting #04 Medium which is pretty perfect for my skin tone.


Using the product

One of the things I loved about Big Easy was the finish. While the product comes out liquid, the finish is very matte, almost powdery which is an absolute dream for oily skinned gals. I found that it looked really nice on (at first) and made me look like I just happened to have really amazing, even-toned, glowing skin. Sounds like a dream right? Well, that’s where it all went wrong. While I do have oily skin, I get the occasional dry patch and Big Easy was an absolute NIGHTMARE with dry patches. No matter how well I moisturised or how well I applied it, it just clung to every single piece of dry flaky skin and make me look like an extra in a horror movie, Night of the Living Flake or something. I also found that it tended to separate through the day and I ended up with it very obviously sitting on top of my skin in the areas around my nose and forehead. I wanted to love this, I really did but I just ended up looking horrible and I couldn’t stand having my dry patches look so obvious. I’m pretty sad that I ended up spending $55 on this and not being able to use it. I’m hoping once summer comes around, it might work better for me and if you have super oily skin, I think it would be a dream to use but sadly for me, this is going into the dud pile (for now).

Big Easy looks lovely and creamy BUT the powder finish means dry patches really stand out

Overall Score 
 
The Good
Nice matte/powder finish
Good at controlling oil
Gives a nice, even complexion on initial application
The Bad
Expensive for a BB Cream
Clings to dry patches
Separates throughout the day






KaBOOM! Cosmetics gives Benefit Big Easy Multi-Balancing Complexion Perfector:
It really breaks my heart to give this such a low score but it really didn’t work for me at all. It’s the first time that I’ve been unimpressed by a Benefit product so I guess there’s always a silver lining. Have you tried Big Easy yet?

Stay beautiful!



Dani xx
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