From chic to cheap, my under £5 challenge!

As a makeup artist, I am always looking to use the best possible products to give my clients the luxury service they are paying for. This often means shelling out on the highest priced products which make us feel like feel like we are getting something special and of higher quality than typical high street/drugstore brands.

Though my kit consists of a range of products, all of which are high end. In my own personal kit I have varying brands and some of my favourite products are those that don't cost the earth. This is what's made me go on a bit of a challenge, step out of my comfort zone and chose a product a week under £5 to trial and review!

Even at drugstore prices, to find a good product under £5 isn't easy! The high street prices are rising and the gap between high street and high end makeup is in fact, closing in rapidly.



The first item for my challenge inspired my whole idea for this little project. Whilst in boots having a gander I came across the miss sporty stand, a brand I used to purchase from as a young teen. I remember using one of their foundations on a holiday to Florida and though I had no idea what I was doing then, I remember liking it! So I spotted their anti blemish foundation for £3.50. Now typically I do have very good skin and rarely get any bad blemishes however of course every so often the little buggars will appear and working as a makeup artist and part time model I feel it's my duty to keep my skin as clear and smooth as possible.

Therefore this could be a total disaster if it doesn't work out!

However after having a feel of the foundation in store I took a punt as it looked like it could be quite nice.

I will be trialling this foundation at the toughest place this afternoon, then gym! I don't like to wear much if at all any makeup at the gym, but I do like to put a bit of light foundation on to look more awake! Obviously I will also trial this product on a normal day, however it will be put through its paces this afternoon and we'll see if a £3.50 foundation can rival a production 10 times it's price!


Would you like to join me on this challenge?

Let me know if there are any £5 or under products that you're loving right now.

Plain and simple, quick glowy summer skin!

Hello everyone!

Whilst on a photoshoot last week, the first look of the day was for swimsuit images to be sent to castings, therefore my model needed very simple barely there makeup so that clients can see her natural look.

It was super quick and easy to do and uses very minimal products so I thought it would make a great summer makeup look for when you don't want too much on but want to look polished, so thought I would share with you what I did and what I used!

So as you can see Dani already has beautiful skin so my job was made very easy!

I primed the skin using mac strobe cream to give the skin a luminous glow and followed using Avon ideal flawless foundation buffed in with mac 188 brush. [i will probably do a separate review on this foundation because I absolutely love it and is the main foundation I use in my working kit]. This foundation is great on photoshoots because it gives coverage and is buildable whilst still looking natural and almost like a second skin which is great on camera.

On the cheeks I used another Avon gem which I have fallen in love with recently, just placed under the cheekbones, Avon illuminating face pearls, the shade of these when swirled together I think could be compared to Nars Orgasm blush, only slightly more subtle. It gives a very pretty natural and glowy flush to the cheeks which is perfect for what I was going for!

Then used mac cream colour base in hush to highlight the cheek bones, bridge of the nose, cuspids bow and under the brows. This is another favourite product of mine and I find works well on pretty much all skin tones. It can also be used on the eyes and lips so makes for a great versatile product!

On the eyes I swept the shade bootycall from the urban decay naked 2 palette all over the lid top just open up and brighten the eyes, then used mac wedge with a small pencil brush just in the crease for a little bit of depth then used a fluffy blending brush and blended everything out. I also used wedge to fill in the brows, nothing to much as I didn't want them to be over powering. I then used mac teddy eye kohl along the water line and the tiniest bit of wedge eyeshadow in the outer bottom of the eye. Finished with a light coat of mascara (can't remember which mascara I used).

To finish the look I used a light pink lipstick/gloss from one of my pixi lip palettes!

Et voila. A super quick and easy glowy look for summer that takes minimal effort and very few products but looks gorgeous!

Do you have a quick and easy summer go to routine when you want something simple? Let me know!

Love from gem :) x

Guess who's back, back again...

Well hello!

As I can recall, it's been an awfully long time... Let me explain quick.
As I'm sure most of you know I am a freelance makeup artist, over the past year I've been trying to build it  up to be my official business and well since the start of this year it is exactly that.
It's still early days for a business however I'm extremely proud of what it's becoming and the feedback I'm gaining. I also model part time now.

The blog shall now continue as it always was! Only I shall be putting in occasional pieces about work that I've been doing if I think it may be interesting to you.

I have a few planned pieces I know I want to write, but don't worry there will be plenty of reviews, out fit of the days, quirky finds as well as hints and tips I learn whilst on shoots!

So I hope you haven't all forgotten about me completely, but feel free to check out my Facebook page and website to see what I have been up to :). (Website can be viewed only on a pc or laptop, mobile site is under construction).

Facebook.com/dollyrogermakeup
Www.Dolly-roger.com

Lots of love!
X

GIVEAWAY WINNER!

So the giveaway is now closed and we have a winner...

Congrats to Tammy from union-apparel.blogspot.com !

I used random.org to generate the winner, the more entries you had, the more numbers you got against your name.

So congrats to you Tammy! I have sent you an email, and can't wait to send you your prizes :]!

Lots of love,

Gemma.

-x

IMATS Part 1 : Haul

As you may know, I have been excited for IMATS for aggggges now. And yesterday was amazing, so inspiring, and has got my creative juices flowing.

Now to talk about this all in one go would be far to big a post, so I'm splitting in two, this post is all about the goodies I got! The next post will be all about the seminars/who I met/things going on/pictures from the day.

I was very luck to meet some of my favourite artists, but anyway, on to the goodies!

I spent an absolute fortune, but got some amazing deals.

The first place I headed was crown brush, simply because I've heard how busy it gets at their counter and all the pushing and shoving, I arrived shorted after the opening time of half 8, so I was there while it was nice and calm and avoided queues. I picked up all eye brushes because I have a fair range of face brushes, but wanted to add to my collection of eye tools, so I got the thinest liner brush they had, a crease brush [virtual the same as my mac crease brush but less dense], an angled liner brush which like to use for eyebrows, the next brush I thought was really interesting, its quite dense and round but angled, kid of like a tiny flat top brush but angled, I then got 2 tapered crease brushes a smaller slightly denser one for more tight blending, and a fluffier sparser one for more soft focus type blending. I also got some disposable mascara wands as I was running out, and a brush cleaner spray for spot cleaning. The brush cleaner was £6, the wands were £3 and the brushes were all between £2 and £3.

The next place I went was to Makeup For Ever. I didn't buy these both at the same time however, I got the foundation first simply because i bought it from new york 2 years ago and it become my favourite foundation, so when I ran out I was gutted. I know they run out of certain shades really quick at imats so I grabbed my shade fast! I then had a look at the stand, and the flash palette caught my eye, I had wanted it for a long time but the high price [nearly £70] was what put me off, the trade show price was £44.50, so whilst still pretty hefty, I thought it was a really good deal, so I thought about it, then went back later on to get it, and I'm so pleased I did :]. The foundation trade show price was £18, a whole tenner off the retail price of its UK distributor! 

I also EEEEEEPPPPPP, got my Mac Pro card! Finally! 

Mac as usual were not offering discount only the usual pro discount to procard holders. This in mind I thought I could make use of the same discount whenever I fancied so I only picked up one thing, fix plus. Simply because I had ran out of mine and made my own version of it, but I missed my fix plus. Its just so handy for setting foundation, I especially like it over mineral and matte foundations as it keeps the  finish of the makeup, yet adds a very natural glow. I also like to spray it on my brushes because using pigments and mineral products. With my pro discount I got this for £8.

I then went to illmasqua, but because of the amount of things I got from there, and the incredible bargains, I'll leave them till last.

 Heres a couple of boring things, a mixing palette and a stippling/texture sponge. I got the sponge for free, it was near the end of the day and the man said he'd seen me there since the morning and i told him i was just so fascinated by everything around me, and went to buy it, and just said 'put it in your bag' bless him!! 

I thought sleek were offering some pretty shoddy deals I must say, palettes were £6 which if I'm right is a mere 50p from its usual prices, blushes were 4 for price of 3, it all seemed a bit 'meh' apart from the pigments which I thought was a proper bargain! 10 for £10! There were 2 sets, this is the brighter one of the two and the most unique and when i swatched them seemed to have the better pay off. Really pleased with these!

Wow, well these were a crazy bargain! I noticed a sign that said 5 for £6 looked in the box and it was foundations by Fero! Not a brand I've used before but I am familiar with. I asked if anything was wrong with them and he simply said that they are changing the packaging and selling the ones with current packaging off! I tested them and they seemed really nice so I got a range of colours, I didn't get 2 many incase I didn't get on as well as I hoped with them, but instead got 2 extra shades of the medium and fair shade, because these are the most commonly used colours in my kit. I personally love the packaging and don't think they should be changing it, a nice tube with a pump dispenser on the end, I love it, its functional! I got 2 cream colours as well, and some latex free sponges. 

I only picked up one thing from Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics, because although good prices, they weren't 'wow grab as much as you can prices', so I got the black lip tar. I have the full collection of sleek pout paints and get on really well with them, but annoyingly they don't have a black! Which is really essential with those kind of products for darkening colours! Which is why I knew I wanted the black lip tar, they were selling for £7 each or 3 for £20. 

I then got 2 glitters from Wolfe, both holographic, obviously one more than the other, the smaller holographic particles in the gold didn't pick up when taking the photo. I thought these were a steal at £2.50 each! They are just like the MUFE ones which were selling including discount at around £8-10. The lady pointed out to me that they are made in the same factory, so are basically the same stuff... just packaged with different names!

So these bags are filled with all my illasmqua goodies from IMATS! 

The deals were CRAZY so I picked up LOADS.

They were selling there medium pencils for £2 each!!!! So I got one of everything they had! Plus another extra one for my friend, and another extra one of these colours for my give away ;].

They are safe to use on eyes, lips, everywhere!

I got 2 blushes, the pink one is cream and the red is powder, both £5 each! They are both gorgeous the pink is very light and sheer, gives a cute glow on the cheeks, the red is super pigmented, will get gorgeous contouring for fashion photographer and it can also be sheered out for a light rosy glow.

I got 2 of the light liquid foundations, these were £7.5o or you could get the entire 14 shade collection for £75 which I was going to get, but i rarely use a light coverage foundation in my kit, I usually opt for a medium, especially as I deal with a lot of photography. They also had 8 cream foundations, same price or the whole lot of them for £45, which i was going to get as well, buttttt I prefer liquid foundations, and I found a couple of the shades a little odd and very different from their neighbour shades meaning mixing and I didn't overly fancy mixing cream foundations, so I gave it a pass, I still don't know if I should have got it, but when I went back for a second look they had sold out anyway! I got 2 shades in the light foundation a fair and medium shade because I will personally get use out of them, but if I do want a light coverage for a job, these will suit most light to medium skin tones, and I have other light coverage foundations I like to use on deeper skin. Being a light coverage, it you don't always need an 'exact' match because being sheer it appears to adapt to your skin tone, which is how most of these companies claiming their skin adapts to your own colour, go about their way! If you've noticed, products that claim this are all light in coverage, so of course its going to 'adapt' to your own skin! And the white ones with little beads in, only have one colour in the beads! It doesn't magically change to your own personally colour, its just a sheerer wash of colour that suits a majority of tones! So products that say this and do a light medium and dark shade, they're basically this kind of thing, it's just cleaver marketing, sorry i'm rambling now!

I then got both of the body illuminating oils for £7.50 each. These look FAB on 

the skin for photography.

Now if I was writing how this should be, I'd be saying that I got all the liquid metals there, sadly one of the products was labelled wrong and I ended up with a pigment, it's lovely so I don't really mind, but I really did want the other shade, which was a like a white gold colour, a mix between silver and gold, and I'll try and pick it up sometime soon.  I was very sad to here however, that solstice, the first gold liquid metal they launched, has been discontinued, this is because the pigment used to make it has run out! Boo =[ Apparently its like gold dust now [excuse the pun] so i'll use mine lightly now, as it was a big essential in my kit and I used it loads! However this new version, applies a lot smoother but I did love solstice....

Here are the products swatched. They were £5 each.

The last things I got were an intense lipgloss is a glittery silver, perfect for shoots, the lady also said you could mix it with other lipsticks and glosses to add shimmer to it, I've demo'd that here by mixing a tiny dot with some pink pout pant!

I then got a navy lipstick, I know what you're all thinking, omg is she mad, silver gloss and blue lipstick! Remember I am a makeup artist and these colours can come in very handy for shoots!

I lastly got a gorgeous pink nail polish for my friend, it has a beautiful pearlescent sheen when it catches the light, as I tried to capture in the photo.

So thats it I think!

I spend a small fortune but got some great products!

Illamasqua by far did the best deals, I mean, they were crazy! Over half price, for example, the foundations are meant to be £21 each, pencils £13, blushes £15, metals about £15, CRAZY!

Did you go to imats, if you went, what did you pick up?

Lots of love,

Gemma.

-x

Busy Makeup Bee!

Super sorry for the lack of posts recently!

I've been involved in a lot more shoots lately, so had my hands full with that.

I do have lots of posts for you soon!

I have the glossybox and carmine january review, as well as my Secret Valentine from beauty box swaps, and lots of others!

But just thought I'd post a few pictures from some shoots this week =].

Hope you like!

Lots of love,

Gemma.

-x

My Birthday and the goodies!

So may have noticed it was my birthday recently.

I turned 20 on sunday :) Though I refuse to call myself twenty, and say that I'm 'twenteen'.

On saturday night I went out with a group of my closest friends dressed as wheres wally.

I was actually the only girl there, was none of my girlfriends could go, so it turned out to be a bit of 'lads night' haha! But a high percentage of my friends are male, and often the best fun is when I'm out with them because we can just be totally silly and well 'wallys' ;).

I also got some amazing presents so would like to share with you some of those, and a couple of pictures from the night.

Firstly, the presents, because I know you're all nosey like me, and like to know what gifts people get!

I was very lucky and got lots of perfume this year!

The perfumes I got were, Dolce and Gabbana 'Rose the one', the original 'the one' is one of my favourite perfumes and I have always wanted to try the rose version. I also got Juicy Couture 'couture couture', Marc Jacobs 'Lola', Vera Wang 'Princess' and Vera Wang 'Love struck'. All of these perfumes are ones I have wanted so I was thrilled with them all!.

Some beauty items I got were the body shop cranberry joy body scrub (everyone who knows me knows that I LOVE cranberry), Liz Earle facial exfoliator, 2 more illamasqua cream eye shadows, mac polish, more illamasqua eyelashes, YSL aqua liner (which is in a pale green shade and AMAZING!). I also got a bit more mac and illamasqua but don't have them to hand.

Being the comedy fan I am I also got 2 new stand up DVDs :).

I then got this amazing little thing, a jelly belly toasted marshmallow scented reed diffuser! Cannot wait to use this!

Now, I didn't get ALL of these necklaces for my birthday, I got the hooks for christmas, a couple I bought last year but 80% of them I got for my birthday after picking them out from the accessorise sale.

I also got a few other bits, and my granny is buying me my IMATS weekend ticket, my best friend is booking me in for a new tattoo, YAY :). So I've been more than spoilt!

Anyway here's a few snaps from my wally night :).

I hope the guys don't mind their pictures on here, I just won't tell them ;)

Louis (far left) is the evil yellow wally, incase you were wondering,

anyway, I had a fab birthday weekend :)

Hope your all very well!

Lots of love,

Gemma.

-x