Wednesday 8 February 2012

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

Sunday 5 February 2012

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





Wednesday 1 February 2012

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


Wednesday 25 January 2012

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


Tuesday 24 January 2012

Chanel Perfection Lumiere Review

I know I've absent for a while, it was my birthday at the weekend, and I'm also on a currently on a course this week, (which is proving very helpful and I shall report on that later). So my free time has been very limited. I will be posting about my birthday and sharing some of the fab things I got super soon :)

But for now I just had to blog about this new product....

I'm sure many of you are aware of Chanel's newest foundation to launch, Perfection Lumiere. This replaced one of beauty's most loved foundations, Pro Lumiere. It will also be replacing matte lumiere, which whilst I don't own, I do know is also a very popular and well loved choice.
Pro Lumiere was one of my most loved foundations, it gave a beautiful natural dewy finish, but also provided a good coverage for flawless skin, it's been a makeup artists favourite for years, which is why it took by surprise to hear that it was being discontinued. Due to this, I had such high hopes for the new foundation, I've always got on so well with chanel foundations and I've never been let down by them, until now, sadly.



Thankfully I didn't dive right in a purchase a full bottle, because it has a very hefty price tag of £36. Any cosmetic product with this kind of price, even by my standards, really has to be something very special. I can definitely justify the price when it comes to my beloved pro lumiere and vita lumiere aqua, however i found this new addition to the line very disappointing.

I took a sample of shade 30, this my shade in the other chanel foundations (however in this particular range I found it a little bit more orange). I was super exited to try it out, but when applied, it made my skin look so flat! I'm lucky and usually have very good skin, however after applying this foundation it reminded me of those bad school days when I was younger and no idea what I was doing with makeup, it looked caked on, seemed to highlight imperfections I didn't even know existed, and made me look like I was desperately trying to cover up bad skin, when really, underneath the very thin layer, my skin was in fact very decent!

I think the reason for this is that the foundation is VERY matte. I'm not a massive fan of matt foundations to begin with anyway, if you are then you may get on with this product, but trust me when I say it really is very matte. I prefer a foundation to look like real skin, and skin this matte just doesn't exist. If I had to describe how this foundation looked on my skin, if you imagine using poster paints at school and remember how they looked when they had dried on paper, it wasn't far of that... on my skin.

Another problem I have with this foundation is that it contains spf 10 with titanium dioxide being the active ingredient, so I wouldn't particularly advise using this foundation if you're going to be around any flash photography.

This foundation does have a very strong floral/fruity scent as well, personally, I love this, as I like a nice smelling foundation, some foundations, for example mac studio fix fluid smell pretty foul. However some people I understand do not get on very well with strong scented face products.

My biggest issue is really this...
Why replace Pro and Matte Lumiere, two well respected, good performing, loved products, for this foundation? I could understand if it was a product that was a 'better updated version of' pro and matte lumiere, but this is completely different! Right on the other end of the scale! 
It seems silly to replace such a great foundation with a such a different formula.

There are however some good points, I won't totally bash this foundation.
It would be great for really oily skin.
Because of its heavy matte formula, which is thin in consistency but full of coverage, it makes it great for those who have trouble with oily skin.
Also like I mentioned the coverage is very decent, definitely medium to full.

I really didn't want to have a bash at chanel, adore the brand and have never had an issue with any of the products before, but this one disappointed me SO much! Especially since it's been really hyped and has replaced one of my favourite foundations.

I really do hope Chanel realise their mistake as I would presume most of their customers would easily prefer having pro lumiere back in the line other than this very poor product, any day!

As I said, this is just my opinion, you may love this foundation! I do urge you all to go and try a sample first though, try it on yourself at home and see if its for you, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it for dry/combination skin. I have normal skin and still found this made my skin look like the sahara crying out for a drink!. 

Have you tried this foundation yet? What are you views? Are you upset about Pro lumiere being discontinued? 

Lots of love,
Gemma.
-x

Thursday 19 January 2012

A sweet makeup experiment...

As most of you are aware, as well as being a beauty and fashion addict, I'm also a freelance makeup artist with some experience in commercial styling as well. Its was about 6 months ago that I decided to put my heart and soul into freelance and try and make it my career. A lot of hard work and effort has gone into building up my portfolio, making contacts and improving my skills. But I feel that in these past months I have personally achieved quite a lot. Whilst it's still an ever growing project to make this into a fulltime career, I am getting the first pieces of my jigsaw in place!

I do quite a lot of shoots but I don't post many of them on here, however today I had a shoot with two local photography students who had found my work on the internet and got in touch. These girls really are fabulous, their skills are beyond the majority of any college students and it turned out to be possibly my favourite shoot of all time.

We did various looks but this is my favourite, and the funnest to do. I'd always wanted to do a kitsch shoot in the style of mac's quite cute/sugar sweet collection promos. Lots of glitter and sprinkles later... these are some of the pictures. Just to note, these are not the finished photo's simply some snaps from the day I thought you might want to have a nose at :)











Hope you like :)
Lots of love,
Gemma.
-x