New Real Techniques Bold Metal Collection.

Well it's been a while since RT brought out something as new and exciting as this. While I loved my Sam's Picks collection in November, I have to admit I started to feel as though RT were just changing the names and handle colours of brushes we have seen before. 

Last week, there was a bit of a buzz in the blogosphere from our friends in America who gave us a heads up on the latest release from RT. And this time, it's all new and all exciting. 

You can sign up to the waiting list on the Boots website (I've already done this. As soon as it was announced...I'm over keen) and apparently these are rumoured to be available around the end of January. I'm yet to find a concrete source on the release date so don't quote me.

I've also heard  that these will be limited and ultra exclusive. And pricy unfortunately. Some people are saying £25 per brush. This may be being confused with the American dollar prices, but still is confusing. 

Over in the states, 

Salsatapatia0126 on Instagram posted this when she spotted the brushes available in an American drug store. 

Also this, 

 

The flat contour brush up close. I think this is easily going to be the most popular. It looks like a nifty little alternative to the Nars 'ITA' brush that no one can ever get hold of as it's permanently out of stock. 

Also worry noting is that while in packaging, the handles look like they end in a point, this is apparantly just the effect of the packaging and not the brush design. 

Need. Need. Need. 

Naked on the Run

Sooooo this was in my Christmas wishlist, and I bought it for myself while Christmas shopping because I'm selfish and needed it. 

Urban Decay Naked on the Run palette. 

£37 in Debenhams. 

I didn't realise this was so cheap to be honest. I thought it was around £50!

I'm actually not a huge fan of the packaging. Which is unlike me. 

I am a fan of how useful this palette is in terms of being a multi-use product. 

Inside it has five eyeshadows, all very neutral, workable shades that can be used for a natural eye, a smoky eye or a party look which I think is really useful. 

It also has a bronzer, and it's a great shade for me, because I don't tend to use bronzer, and this may be converting me. It's a very soft and gentle shade which suits me far better. 

The little highlighter is also great, and is very creamy in texture given that it's a powder. 

The blush may be my favourite. It's such a pretty colour and I was genuinely really surprised by how complimentary this colour was on my skin tone. I must be terrible at picking blushers, because this is the second one I've gotten recently that I've thought would be awful on me and I've really suited. I'm now branching out in blusher shades and am eagerly awaiting my first Tarte Amazonian clay blush arrival which I think may be very similar to this. 

It also has three more cult classic products from Urban Decay. The 24/7 eyeliner kohl pencil, a Naked lipgloss and a mascara. 

Eyeliner isn't something I wear regularly, but now that I've found I suit it better without colour or shadow on my eyes, I'm trying it more. Lipgloss, I also don't usually wear but after falling in love with Orgasm from Nars, this one may be another new try for me. 

Perversion mascara is a product I've been desperate to try. Mostly because I love makeup products with slightly suggestive or naughty names. Because I'm a bit cheeky like that! 

When I opened it, I was dissapointed as I'm not a fan of the old traditional mascara wands with bristles. However, this does work for me quite well. I envisioned it being very full on and it's not. It seperates my lashes really well, and gives them a lot of natural looking length. The only thing I don't like about this is that it struggles to reach the tiny lashes from my inner corners. My lashes here are very blonde and I like a mascara that catches them easily which this doesnt really. 

Overall, this is a useful palette. While it's a little big to call 'transportable' it's still a good buy for weekends away and things. Rather than carrying a full naked eye palette (which I'm terrified of doing because I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they end up smashed and crumbled to death) or mac quad along with contour kits, mascaras and lip products, you could get away with this, a base and a couple of core brushes. 

Also, it encouraged me to get a new Debenhams beauty card which I've needed for a while. I got a lot of points in store due to a few deals they had on. I think I spent around £130 so got lots for that and also got a £5 giftcard and £10 worth of points for spending £80 on YSL products. Happy happy days! 

I also asked the Urban Decay girl for some advice because I recently purchased their Naked skin illuminating beauty balm. When I opened this I was horrified as the product looks like a cakey, bright orange paste. However she assures me that it's not going to apply like that and that the formula sort of disappears and melts into your skin and moulds to your own skin tone. I'm yet to try it so only time will tell I guess!!! If anyone has experience of this product I'd love to hear about it. 

Kirstie 

Xxxx

Bonding with the Bestie

This evenings post begins with a little change. My face gets a bit boring really, and I'm not its greatest fan, so this evening, I used my best friend and flatmate, the fabulous Miss Chelsie, as a model.

Also, the Naked 1 palette is so well suited to her that she had the perfect face for showing off a make up look with it.

Chelsie and I have very different face shapes. Her least favourite thing about her face is that its always been fairly round. Personally, I think she has a lovely face with very pretty features and a great profile, but she never listens to me.

This means she insists on the old contouring, which I'm really not a fan of, and therefore am not particularly good at.

Despite this, we thought we would share my attempt. If nothing else, it will be amusing for you.

Sooooo.... to begin with, Chelsie is having a bit of a breakout at the moment, much like myself, so I started with my usual Collection concealer base, using a a brush to apply the product from my hand, to avoid any cross-contamination of bacteria.

Dat face tho. 

Chelsie's current foundation is in the same shade as my own Mac Studio Fix Fluid. The shade is NW15, but actually, since she's had some skin changes, she should probably be using an NC from Mac.

NW (Neutral Warm) Mac shades are best for balancing out blue tones from dark circles or veins on the face. Whereas the NC (Neutral Cool) shades are intended to camouflage red tones, and Chelsie currently has a lot of red in her face from breakouts.

However, NW is what we had, so we worked with that, using a Real Techniques Face Expert brush and a Beauty Blender to create a base, also using the Sleek Camoflauge and Conceal palette for under eye and to mask some of the redness.

Then came our first attempt at my round-face contour, which, as you can see, failed miserably.

Basically, when contouring, you want to shadow out the parts of the face that you want to push backwards, and highlight the parts you wish to bring forwards. Instead, I just seemed to be almost framing the parts of Chelsie's face she doesn't like. Also, we used a liquid contour, which is much harder. The product dries quickly, so by the time I'd found and drawn in these abysmal contours, they'd dried to her face and couldn't be blended.

Before trying again, in true Chelsie style, she had a little dance....

She had a little snack....

And we tried again.

Now, this is by no means a great example of round-face contouring. But its getting there.

This time, rather than chance it with a liquid contour, we stuck to powders. I used the Sleek bronzer from this duo, and the highlighter from the Benefit contour box, which I got from my friend T and have used to death. The bronzer in this little box is far too shimmery for contouring, which is best done with a matte bronzer like our Sleek option.

I used the Real Techniques contour brush to apply the contour and highlight shades to Chelsie's face, then a Beauty Blender to pad it out, and a So Eco stippling brush to blend it into her base.

I keep trying to get along with stippling brushes, and never seem to stick with them too long. However, this one is larger than most, and the bristles are much much softer than any others I've tried, yet blend in products even more efficiently.

We then used the Sleek blush in the shade 'Flushed', which is genuinely the most beautiful winter shade I've ever seen. Weirdly, if I looked at this in a counter, I'd think it would be better suited to Chelsie's darker colouring, but it didn't show up quite as well as it did on my own skin.

A product I find useful if you find that you use brushes for more than one purpose, is the Elf Daily Brush Cleanser.

This is a really useful little spray. This Real Techniques contour brush also doubles as the brush I use for blush, and rather than do a deep clean on it, I can give it a quick spritz with this cleaner, a swipe down with a muslin cloth and it will take off enough of the previous product to make it usable again, without soaking the bristles so that they need to dry out. Really helps keep your brushes fresh in-between washes.

This is my beautiful little boy Winston. He heard all the hilarity from our tragic contouring failure, and wanted to join in. He also has a round face, and would love to have Kim Kardashian cheekbones.

Next, we began Chelsie's eyes using this primer from Superdrug's B range. I'm actually not a great fan of this range, but Chelsie quite likes them, so it was an opportunity to use this primer which is mostly going to waste in my collection.

'

The base shade on Chelsie's eyes is Sin from Naked 1. In the crease we used Toasted, blended with Darkhorse.

I've been waiting for a chance to try out the Mac Fluidline eye liner gel for a while now, as its just been sitting in my drawers unused. I know this gets mixed reviews, but having tried this tonight, I am definitely glad I bought it. Its one of the smoothest gel liners I've ever tried, and it applied seamlessly with the Mac 208 brush.

Chelsie has far better brows than me, but I filled them in just slightly using the shade 'Brun' from my Mac palette, and the Real Techniques liner brush from the Sam's Picks set.

I used a set of quite fine strip lashes for Chelsie's eyes. She has a terrible habit of applying and then pulling out individual semi-permanent lashes, but pulls out half of her own lashes with them. Which is a vicious cycle, as then you have to keep applying falsies again.

These cute owl tweezers were bought just for decoration as they were £1 for a set of two from Primark and I didn't expect they'd be any good. However, they honestly work just as well as any others I've had. They are PERFECT for false eyelash application, because the owls have these little pointed ears which are ideal as little points for pressing the strip onto the lash line.

After a touch of Benetint on the lips, I set the look with the Smashbox Photo Finishing powder, and the Real Techniques blush brush, which I far prefer to use for powder because the thing is huge and far to big for just my cheeks.

So there you have it. I may not be the worlds greatest contour artist. But I have a patient, hilarious and beautiful best friend who I am lucky enough to have lived with for over a year now. We have been through far more together than a Contour Crisis and we have soldiered on, having only gotten stronger and happier.

If she does steal any more of my Pepsi Max, or leave any further clumps of her hair on my bedroom floor though...I may be posting about how to bury flatmates in back- gardens.

Kirstie

xxxxxx