Lookin' Sharp in SLEEK - Some Love from the UK!

A friend went on a trip to the UK to meet up with some of her friends and she asked if there was anything I would like from there and frankly, who could resist this offer? So I asked her to pick up a few items from Sleek which is a brand that I was interested in for some time already.

Sleek Makeup originated in the UK and is found in drugstores such as Superdrug. This brand can also be purchased in the US through its online store as well as drugstores. Their mission statement is "a colour cosmetics brand dedicated to providing a comprehensive make-up range for all women, especially those that are often under-represented by mainstream brands."

I really like that they care for ladies that are under-represented by mainstream brands because it sounds like my story and I am sure, for a lot of other ladies out there who were not born fair skinned. Back in the 80's when I was getting into makeup, the colors offered by most brands were limited. It got better for the likes of me who tried hard to find colors that were suitable or complemented my skin. Some of my friends who had darker skintones had a tougher time and most resorted to not bothering with makeup at all!

Enough rambling!

Thanks to ANR, here's what she got me:-

• Two eye shadow palettes - the 'Oh So Special' and 'Storm' palettes 
• Blush in 'Flushed'
• Contour Kit in 'Medium'
• Pout Polish in 'Perfect Plum'

Here is the I-Divine 'Storm' Palette and if you love neutrals, then you will love this palette. This palette offers plenty of opportunity to create smoky looks as well as office appropriate looks if the smoky thing won't cut it in your office! There are 9 metallic shimmer shadows in here as well as three matte colors to create lots of interesting looks. I not such a big fan of shimmers but I find that plenty of blending helps to ensure that my eyes don't look like disco balls before I leave the house! I have used about three colors from this palette and I must say that they are truly pigmented and applied smoothly. So be very careful when you pick the colors up with your brush - go easy and build up the color.

This is the 'Oh So Special' palette and this one came witha plastic insert with the names of the shadows. So easy when you want to reference them in reviews. I have not dipped my brushes into these yet but when I look at the palette I see so many possiblities. I like that it has some warm shades thrown in bacause it can add a little subtle warmth to some eye looks. This palette has 7 matte shades and 5 metallics.

Like:-

• Sleek black case, classic and not cheap looking.
• Very pigmented shadows - which is a tall order for a drugstore brand
• Blendable texture
• lovely selection of colors
• At GBP 6.49 = MYR 31, it is very cheap

Dislike:-

• The design embossed on each shadow
• I noticed a slight fallout with the black shadow in my Storm palette
• The fact that it is not sold in our drugstores!

Sleeks blushes also were something I was keen to try and I picked Flushed which is a deep berry color and I must apologise that my mobile phone camera was unable to pick up the color accurately. It looks intimidatingly dark when you look at it but does not apply that way. It gives my cheeks a lovely flushed look which I like and because of that, I have been reaching for this quite often. A good way to keep strong colors soft and not too overpowering is to ensure that you ligtly tap the product with your brush and keep applying in layers until you are happy rather than squashing your brush and swirling it vigorously to get the color....unless you are a clown and need the pop of color.

This cost GBP4.29 and works out to about RM20! For 8grm of product, I think its a steal!!



Something I specifically wanted to try was the contour kit and I chose the color medium. Used to sculpt and define the face, this kit is quite something!

  

I used the darker shade  under the cheekbones once and I must say that doing so adds a subtle lift to the cheeks which is better than plastic surgery! However, an expert hand is needed in blending this in so there are no harsh lines and because I am in a rush every morning, I do not incorporate this step into my routine. BUT the highlight shade is something else! It adds a very nice glow on the tops of the cheeks and I have also incorporated this as my brow highligher and I use it at the inner corners of my eyes to add a pop of shimmer and to give me a brighter look overall. The color is very subtle and close to my skin shade so its the perfect shade for me. I must confess that I have thoughts of purchasing this online so I can sleep better knowing there is a backup of this lovely shade in my drawer somewhere!

The retail price is around RM31.

Here is the pout polish which functions as a tinted lip conditioner. I used this once on my bare lips and it came off quite lovely and shiny and made me feel like I had a 'bee stung' look. This is in "Perfect Plum" and its a MLBB color on me. Love!
Costs around RM20 and it comes in a 10grm screw top pot.

My first impressions of the items I got were positive. Although I have not really gotten into the two eyeshadow palettes yet, I know that the shades are one's that I will be coming back to again and again.  I will show you some swatches of these soon and will post up looks that I created as well.   

Inglot's AMC Liquid Blush

Wow! I am still buzzing from how much I am enjoying all the products I purchased from Inglot! I have been brave and used some of the bright colors in my Freedom System Palette - if you read my past post here, you would know that I picked out a few bold colors namely:- 362 (bright pink), 331 (medium green), 370 (bright yellow),371 (bright blue),372 (green with slight blue undertone), 441 (purple). I would love to put up some of the looks I have done hopefully in a future post - I am not diligent enough sometimes to take pictures of every look I do but I will make more of an effort so I can show you how these beautiful colors look on my skin.

Another item I purchased which I am quite in love with is the AMC blush in the auspicious number of 88! The lovely deep berry shade caught my eye and I knew it would work well on deeper skin tones. I have never tried a liquid blush before and was quite looking forward to the challenge of applying this. Besides for 15ml's of this at RM62 - I thought it was a steal! Not only that, the blush is very, very pigmented (as with their eye shadows) and a tiny amount goes a very long way. The other thing I love about it is the fact that it comes in a pump bottle which if pumped gently, will give you the smallest amount necessary to do both cheeks. Also, its hygienic because the pump means your fingers never come into contact with the product.

Being a novice at using liquid blushers.....I tried the pump cautiously the first time and dispensed way too much but using pump dispensers is a 'feel' thing right - you need to get a feel of how much pressure to assert on the pump and test it a few times before you get it right. Thats why in the picture below you see two blobs of the blush on the back of my hand. I just spent a few good seconds looking at the color and admiring it.

Here I rubbed the color in a circular motion to test how it would turn out and I was amazed at the incredicly pigmented color. I was afraid of it when I saw this as I thought, it was way too dark for me but I perservered and as you can see from the picture further below.

In the picture on your left, I continued to buff the color and it became quite sheer but I continued to buff the edges and gently work it in.....what you see on the right is the color that I felt really happy with (very very slight difference)!

Subsequently, I used this on my cheeks one morning and again used my fingers. This time I used much less than the first time and put a few dots of it on either side of my cheek. I then tapped on the color to disperse it all over the cheek bones to diffuse the color. This time, it came out very sheer and lighter than what you saw on the back of my hand. Overall, I loved it and noted that the color did not fade the whole day. I did use a light buffing of powder to 'set' the color in place.

At the price of RM 62, if you used a teeny tiny amount.....this product could last forever!! I saw many other colors when I was at the store and sadly I did not have enough time to swatch all the colors......but if you have any of the other colors, do share your thoughts on it.

Smashbox: Reign Fall Collection Blusher

Although this is quite an 'old' collection by cosmetic junkies' standards, I purchased the one thing that caught my eye from this collection several months ago - the blusher. I have moved on from mostly dusky pinks to peachy toned blushers recently and this was one that I knew I had to have for several reasons.....the regal looking box and the smart leather packaging!

The leather packaging was to me something that I don't often see and it was way too cute to pass up.

The best part of this blusher is that it is divided into several 'bricks' of matte and shimmer. So a swirl of your blush brush will give you a little bit of both. And if you so prefer, you can just use either shimmer or matte on it's own. How cool is that!

I took a swatch of both the textures mixed together as you can see below.

It's a really sweet shade which works for my NC45 skintone...so if you are about my shade or even a little darker, why not give this a try? I got this for less than RM60 so it's a good buy for those of you who are considering going from your safe pink shades of blusher to a more peachy toned one.

Lakme Blusher in Rose

I was in Brickfields the other day and popped into a costume jewellery shop. The reason I walked in was because I spied some Lakme products there. I have not seen the full range of Lakme cosmetics in KL (correct me if I am wrong here) but I have read some reviews and skulked around their website several times to know that they have some smashing stuff. 

Sadly the shop only carried ONE shade of blusher and several bottles of black liquid liner. Shame really as there is a whole lot more on the website  http://www.lakmeindia.com/index.asp. I purchased the Pure Radiance Blusher in Rose.

I liked the shade which I think really suits dusky Indian skin. Ladies with olive, dusky and darker tones don't really have it that good here in Malaysia. Most brands carry colors that complement lighter skin colors and thus leaving a really large group of women at a place where they have to make do. I am one of them. I have dusky skin with yellow undertones and many a time (years ago) when I used to shop for foundations, I was told right out by SA's of department store brands that they do not have colors to suit me! And I am on the fairer side of the spectrum mind you. Imagine my sisters with darker skin tones?

Avon, a brand that was big in the 80's had shades which came close to fairer dusky skins but I don't see any brand until this day that specifically targets ladies with darker skin tones. I have seen cosmetic lines for women of African descent in the US such as Covergirl Queen Collection. Is there a line similar to this for Asian women of darker skins?

Back to the blusher! This is what it looks like out of the packaging. It is a lovely cool shade of pink however, when you look at it closely, it is not that finely milled. But for the price of RM19.90 I believe it is good value for money. The brush, as with most blush brushes, is a not the correct size to add color evenly on your cheeks and this one is a little on the coarse side.

  

I have swatched the color here for you to see. This is several rubs of the product as one swipe did not truly reflect the shade.

I loved the color and it did give my skin a little radiance as the color enhanced my skintone.

Orgel Light Blusher No. 4 in Rose

This is a review of one item from my Etude House haul and please forgive me, I am so crap at taking good photo's.

I fell in love with this blusher the moment I set my eyes on it. This is because I loved how the colors looked together and plus, it is shimmery. Now I am not a great fan of shimmer because as you all know, I feel that if it is not applied properly it can look a little odd on Indian skin. That was my feeling with the Majolica Majorca eye shadow which I loved the look of and then when it went on my eyes, the shimmer was too much. Perhaps I need to give that another try and blend like crazy.

I had seen varieties of this around but never really got up close and personal enough to purchase one. The packaging is so very beautiful too. It took a while for me to try this on because I did not want to defile it by using the blush however, I could not resist when I looked at it one morning and the shimmer winked back at me as if to beckon me to use it! So I thought I would give it a try as I was going very easy on my make up that day – light foundation, cover on the under eye shadows, liner on the top lids and lots of mascara with a lashing of lipstick. The blush did not disappoint and added some much needed shimmer on an otherwise plain face.

The colors go from a dark maroon to a light cream as you can see from the swatches above and are a dream going on. My first attempt had me using my Loving minerals angled blush brush to swipe the entire pan and the color came off as rather too light. So I had shimmery cheeks but little color. On my second attempt, I decided to swipe more of the maroon and pink edge of the palette and this gave me a great color pay off – just the right amount of color and shimmer. I tried it again another day and this time concentrated the darker colors on my cheeks first and then added the lighter side at the higher end of my cheekbones to highlight. It was delicious to look at and this made me happy the whole day.
Best of all, the SA explained that each brick of color can be used on the eyes as eye shadow too and this opened up a whole flood of possibilities in mixing and matching. How cool it is that in these trying economic times for one item to do double duty as a blush as well as eye shadow! A truly amazing deal for RM59.90!

I love make-up once it has had time to settle and after an hour or two, when you look in the mirror, it seems to look better than when you first put it on in the morning. Oxidization and the mixing of the colors with your natural oils do wonders for the face.
Have any of you stumbled on this beauty? Do tell…….