Combined Makeup Sale Haul

Hey guys! 

Here is my first proper post of the year! Today I am bringing to you a makeup haul. 

Just before christmas we had two back to back makeup sales so I thought instead of bombarding you guys with a bunch of hauls all at once, I combined them into a big haul.

First up, I got got both these at the same makeup sale. The top one is w7 In The Nude and is a dupe for Urban Decay Naked 3.  The bottom one is w7 In The Mood which is an all matte palette. Both these palettes are amazing and super pigmented. I definitely recommend picking these up if you can. I have swatch posts of other w7 palettes if you would like to check those out!

The blush and bronzer palette I got from the second makeup sale (the same one as the w7 palettes) and the foundations I picked up from the first one. The blush and bronzer palette is by a brand called Profusion. It comes with 4 blushes, two bronzers and two highlights. They are all incredible pigmented and amazing and the only thing I fault this palette on is how powdery they are. The two foundations I haven't used much. I picked up Loreal Magic Nude Liquid Powder Foundation in Buff. I wanted a new foundation in a shade that matched when I was tan and this sounded interesting. I've used it once and didn't like it. It applied patchy and was basically non existant on my skin. I do want to give it another go though. The second foundation I picked up was Revlon Colourstay Aqua Mineral Foundation. I haven't really used this just because I'm not too sure how to actually use a mineral foundation. If you have any tips on how to use this, let me know!

The eyelashes and mascara I grabbed from the second makeup sale, and the eyeshadows from the first. Theres not too much I can say about the eyelashes as I haven't used them yet. I'm still learning how to apply eyelashes. The mascara is w7's Absolute Lashes which is a dupe for Benefit's They're Real mascara. I love it. It makes my eyelashes super black and long, and I haven't experienced any clumping with it. The three eyeshadows are Maybelline Colour Tattoo Pigments. I had no idea these existed until I saw these. I picked Downtown Brown, Breaking Bronze and Buff & Tuff. These are such nice eyeshadows. They blend super well and go on so smooth.

The w7 Brow Parlour and LA Girl Powder I picked up from the second makeup sale whereas the two City Colour products I grabbed from the first one. The w7 Brow Parlour has revolutionised how I do my brows. I used to use the Elf Brow Kit, but this has just blown my mind. It comes with a wax, highlight, blonde and brunette powder as well as a brush/spooly and tweezers. My brows have never been more on point. I use this with the City Colour Bold Brow Gel. It was clear but since it goes on my brows it now has a tint to it. The other City Colour product is a dark spot corrector. This looks amazing underneath a brightening concealer. It is a orange based concealer so it cancels out the blue under my eyes. The last thing is the LA Girl Pro Powder. This is a translucent powder I picked up to try out baking. So far so good!

Lastly, my favourite products. Lippies! These all came from the same makeup sale I believe. Firstly we have three Rimmel Lip Lacquers. Aurora, Nova and Galaxy. All of them are just super pigmented lip glosses basically and they're awesome.  I also grabbed two Yes To Carrots tinted lip balms, although in my opinion they're not very tinted at all. They do moisturise well though. The one actual lipstick I grabbed was a Revlon one. It's colour is Hot Cocoa and is a warm brown colour. I'm totally digging the brown lips trend, I'm just too scared to try it out myself. Lastly, I grabbed a lip gloss. This is Maybelline Colour Sensational Lip Gloss in Luxe Lilac. Theres not much to say about this, its just your standard every day lipgloss.

I hope you guys liked this new idea of pairing up Youtube videos with a blog post.

Let me know what you think about it.

Here is the video for this blog post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCU2nTt9G0o

Shannen xx

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Instagram: _shannenlorraine

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ModelCo Lipstick Swatches and Review

Not too long ago I got gifted three ModelCo lipsticks. They are the Party Proof Matte Lipsticks. I have got three colours. Disco Fever, Peony and Red Velvet.
Disco Fever is an orange, but quite muted. It also leans a bit more peach than actual true orange.
Peony is a red, but again quite muted. It is also not a true red, being more pink based.
Lastly, we have Red Velvet. This colour is a true red, although a bit darker than most. It's hanging in between neutral red and blue based red.

All of these colours are beautiful and last really well on the lips. The only thing I have to say about them is that they're not matte like stated. Instead I would call them more of a satin finish, maybe even a demi-matte. They still have a bit of shine to them, like you will see in the pictures below. The packaging is well done too. It's nice and simple, with the name of the product on the front. The font is also in the colour of the lipstick, so you don't even have to open the tube to know what colour it is. Another great thing about the packaging is that no matter what way you store it, you're going to know what colour it is because there is a label on the bottom, but the top is see through as well. It's really great. Even though they're not actually matte, they're awesome and they smell great.

 Shannen xx

YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCjNKymrFCLKvcEZ4rqupZQw

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Matte Lip Creams; Swatches and Comparisons

At the moment, in the makeup world, there has been an insurgence of lip creams, glosses and stains. These are really good if you want a bright opaque colour, but don't like to reapply every hour or so. They are a great way to finish off any outfit, by either making it a stand out point, or matching it to an aspect of your outfit.

I have 3 Australis Velour Lips and 2 Lime Crime Velvetines that I am going to swatch and compare for you today. In my personal opinion, Velour Lips are a cheaper alternative to Velvetines, as they retail for about $15 whereas Velvetines are about $30.

Both brands are great if you are trying to abstain from purchasing cruel products, as they are both against animal testing. I'm not sure if either brand is completely vegan, but at least they are one step closer to being vegan.

I'm going to swatch Lime Crime first, as I only have 2. I also find that Velvetines are a much thinner formula than Australis. With every swatch, I'm going to include a photo with flash, and without so that you can get a better idea of what the colours look like.

The first colour is Utopia. It is a bright purple colour with pink, or warm, undertones. This formula is quite thin and I find two coats is perfect.

With Flash

Without Flash

The next colour is Wicked. Wicked is a dark, vampy red. This is thicker in formula than Utopia and only requires one good coat.

With Flash

Without Flash

The first Australis colour is called Rio'D. It's a very bright, even neon, orange. I find that the formula for these are very thick, and can be quite drying.

No Flash

With Flash

Second is called Ma-Li-Boo. This colour is a very bright pink. Its quite a true pink in my opinion, as I can't see it swaying towards warmer or cooler tones.

With Flash

Without Flash

Lastly, we have Ny-Cee. This is a real 50s pin-up kind of red. A lighter version to Lime Crime's Wicked. It's definitely blue based rather than orange.

With Flash

Without Flash

I hope this post helped you out with the different matte lip products you can get. This is just comparing two different brands, but there are countless more out there on the market. If you liked this post, let me know and I can see what other lip swatches and comparisons I can do.

Shannen xx
Photos taken on a Canon 600D
18-55mm lens used
PicMonkey.com used to edit photos

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Birthday Lookbook and Swatches

Welcome to my first LookBook! For those of you who don't know what a LookBook is, it's basically a compilation of outfits that all come under a certain theme. Like sometimes you'll see a black and white LookBook, where all the clothes are black or white. Or maybe you'll see seasonal ones for summer, winter, spring or autumn. But in this case, my LookBook is a compilation of outfits put together from clothes I bought while in Wellington shopping for my birthday.

In the first picture I am wearing a t-shirt dress I got from ValleyGirl. I paired it with black socks and a taupe pair of ankle boots I got from Dotti. I wore my hair down and straight just to make it a bit more casual. Also it was a semi warm day so I skipped on tights and just threw on a black cardigan. 

In the middle picture, I'm wearing the dress I picked up form Mirrou. This day was colder so I wore the boots I got from Glassons, a pair of tights I picked up at the same time and my camp jacket from JayJays. I also threw on a cream scarf just to lighten up the dark tones a bit. To add a bit of a girly touch, I clipped my hair back in a half up half down style.

In the last picture, I wore this outfit out to my birthday dinner. The t-shirt dress I got from ValleyGirl along with the first one. I wore tights that I grabbed from Equip as part of a 3 for $10 deal and I just chucked on my creepers to add a bit of an edge. With my hair I just clipped back my fringe. I threw on a black cardigan as it was night and cold outside.

From my second half of my trip, I picked up a lot of make up. I've swatched here what I think is worthy of showing off the colours. In other words I didn't bother to show my foundation and concealer as you wouldn't be able to see them anyways.

Lime Crime Velvetine's go on like a lip gloss and dry matte. There is no need for a lip liner (or so the packaging says). I found this amazing to wear all day. I didn't need to reapply once, even after eating and drinking. It stuck on hard. Which also made it a bit hard to get off, but they do say on the packaging to use a certain type of makeup remover. I got the shade "Wicked" which is a very dark vampy red. Beautiful!

MAC's lipsticks in "Candy Yum Yum" and "Heroine" were eye catchers for me. They're bright, vibrant, last a long time and are matte also. And my god, do MAC lipsticks smell amazing. They smell like a vanilla cake batter or cookie dough. It's incredible. Heroine isn't showing up as true to colour. It's a much more pale, but vibrant purple. Candy Yum Yum is a bright true pink.

Nars blush in "Orgasm" is used by almost everyone. A lot of the gurus I watch on YouTube have it and rave about it. So I decided to give it a shot. And it's amazing. I don't even bother using a highlighter anymore when I use this. Its the perfect peach and its so shimmery (which I love) that it replaces my ELF facial whip. The colour is perfect for pale skin like I have. It's not too much but it still stands out in a subtle way.

Shannen xx

All photos taken on a Canon 600D

18-55mm lens used

Photos edited on fotor.com

My go to make up look

Pretty much every day you will see me rocking the same eye makeup. This same look, I wear about 99.4% of the time. It is the ever classic winged eyeliner. I don't remember when I started wearing it, or even how I got into it, but it happened and it's become the classic Shannen make up look.

My routine in doing my makeup hasn't altered too much since high school either. The only thing that's changed is the products I use. At the moment i use a mixture of Collection's BB cream or CoverGiri's Clean Sensitive liquid foundation. Sometimes, if I want a bit more coverage I'll use Collection's Cover and Go foundation as it's a much thicker formula than CoverGirl. I then use ELF's concealer and highlighter duo to conceal under my eyes. I don't tend to conceal any blemishes unless they're really red and obvious looking. I'll then use my CoverGirl Clean Sensitive powder to set it all. Once I've set my makeup I do my highlighter and blush. I use ELF blush in Tickled Pink and ELF facial whip in lilac petal. At this point I mentally prepare myself for doing my eyeliner. You have to do this as eyeliner can smell your fear. I either use BYS liquid eyeliner or ELF cream eyeliner. Personally, I find cream/gel eyeliners easier to use but I occasionally leave it in the bathroom and I can't be bothered getting it in the morning so I will use my liquid eyeliner instead (LAZY). Once both my eyes are sufficiently symmetrical I apply my mascara (Collection, the purple one, I can't remember what it's called. Something like 5 in one or something). And voila, my makeup is done. It takes about 10 minutes for me to do my entire face of makeup. 

I use this everyday because I find it easy, it goes with whatever outfit in wearing that day and I can easily glam it up even further by chucking a lipstick on. Which I do most days anyways. The lipstick I use on a most regular basis is Collection Sweet Tart. 

I own a lot of the brand Collection, I know. But Shaaanxo did a tutorial using it and I fell in love. You can buy it at Countdown. 

Shannen xx

All photos taken on a Canon 600D

18-55mm lens used

Photos edited on fotor.com

Lipstick Collection!

Now I know that my collection of 15 lipsticks isn't a very large collection, but it is my favourite type of makeup, so I tend to buy more lipstick than anything else. I always thought that reds were my favourite colour of lipstick, but now that I've gone through all of my colours, I can now see that I seem to gravitate towards oranges. I honestly would never have picked up on that ever. 

I feel that lipstick really completes my look. Whether I have minimal make up or I've gone all out an have my winged eyeliner done too. Even if I'm having a low self esteem day, putting lipstick on makes my day a little bit brighter and bearable. 

Lipstick adds a little bit of fun to any look, and makes you stand out just that little bit more. Because I have blue hair, any colour will go, but when I had pink hair, I found it much harder to wear lipstick because pinks were out of the question in my opinion, otherwise I would be overloading on the pink. Reds were also out as I felt it was too much from one colour family. So while I had pink hair, I didn't wear lipstick much, and I felt like I wasn't putting any effort into how I looked. Once I went back to natural hair, my love for lipstick grew even more and that was when my collection really grew. I could rock any colour I wanted and it wouldn't clash with my hair. It didn't help that my beloved loves it when I wear lipstick, so I bought more so I had a greater variety to pick from and not just a couple to alternate between.

The furtherest left picture, going down, I have Jordana Cherry, Lush A Million Kisses, Revlon Colourstay Ultimate Top Tomatoe and a random freebie that my friend gave me.

The middle left picture I have, going down, BYS Duo in Kiss Me Coral, Collection Passionfruit, Collection Mango Tango, Nutrimetics Flame and Australis Velourlips Rio'd.

Middle right I have, Collection Sweet Tart, BYS I Don't Pink So and BYS Flirty Fuchsia.

Lastly, on the very right I've got, BYS Baby Doll, BYS Cranberry Red and Australis ColourInject Grunge.

Hope you enjoyed!

Shannen xx

All photos taken on a Canon 600D

18-55mm lens used

Photos edited on fotor.com

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