Wednesday 23 January 2013

Barry M Lip Liner In Number 7

Recently I have been really liking wearing a red lip when doing my makeup, this is something I realised I liked around the end of September when going to my nephews christening, I was wearing a burgundy coloured top and Cole suggested I try one of her dark red lipsticks, I was a little reluctant at first but once I tried it I was in love, the day after I dug out my Russian Red lipstick by MAC and have worn it a lot ever since, I have also bought a couple of the Kate Moss by Rimmel lipsticks in red shades too since then and I received the gorgeous Dark Side lipstick by MAC for Christmas, I had wanted this lipstick since using Coles dark red lipstick at the christening, I actually used Media by MAC for the christening but there seemed little point in having the same colour as Cole as we often use each others lipsticks.

I was so thrilled when I received Dark Side at Christmas and have worn it quite a lot since, it is a gorgeous blackcurrant colour and looks lovely with a neutral eye look, I am in love. I like to wear a lip liner with red lipsticks as I find the colour often bleeds. I have Cherry lip pencil by MAC and use that with my Russian Red and also my 107 lipstick by Kate Moss for Rimmel but it is the wrong shade for my beloved Dark Side so I had decided that the next time Cole was going shopping I would ask her to pick me up a MAC lip liner to go with Dark Side.

As you know I have my own Youtube channel and also love to watch other peoples videos, I especially like to watch Pixiwoo and love that they use some cheaper products in their videos from time to time. I was recently watching one of their make up tutorials and Nic was using a Barry M lip liner in a bright pink shade but the colour payoff looked good and it made me re think buying a MAC lip liner. I mentioned to Cole that the Barry M lip liners looked good and looked on their website and saw they had quite a good colour range for a fantastic price of £2.99 which is amazing compared to MAC's price of £11.50. Cole was going shopping a few days later and when she came home she surprised me with a Barry M lip liner in number 7 the perfect shade for Dark Side, she is such a sweetie and often brings me little treats home when she's been shopping to cheer me up bless her.

I decided I would try the lip liner out the next day and I wasn't disappointed, it went on smoothly and didn't pull or drag at my lips and was a brilliant match for Dark Side, I was really impressed with it. I used it all over my lip and then applied the lipstick over the top. The staying power of the liner was really good. I do find that Dark Side doesn't have the same staying power as Russian Red so I didn't expect my lip combination to last as long as Cherry and Russian Red, but it did last for a good few hours, and when the lipstick wore away I was left with the lovely blackcurrant colour of the lip liner which lasted another hour or so.



Barry M Lip Liner In Number 7 


A Swatch of the Barry M Lip Liner 


MAC Dark Side Lipstick and Barry M Lip Liner In Number 7 
A Really Lovely Combination 


Swatched Side by Side
Dark Side at the top Barry M Lip Liner in Number 7 underneath it 


As you can see from the photographs they really are a great match and I was so impressed at the quality of the lip liner for such a brilliant price, the Barry M lip liner is a lot smaller in comparison to a MAC lip liner but it is almost a third of the price, I do think that the MAC lip liners are better quality with better colour payoff but that isn't to say I wouldn't buy more of the Barry M lip liners because I definitely would. They have a great range of colours and are a great price too and for something I don't use on a daily basis I think they are brilliant.

You can buy the Barry M lip liners here www.barrym.com

Have you tried the Barry M lip liners? What did you think of them? Would you like to try them? 

Thank you for reading, much love 

Zoe x
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Saturday 19 January 2013

New Hair Products Mini Haul

I have been meaning to start looking after my hair properly for months now and have researched lots of shampoos and other hair products, it has been a slow process but I finally decided on the products I was going to purchase and try.

I have coloured hair, I am very lucky that my sister is a hairdresser and cuts and colours my hair every 5 weeks, I have my hair coloured with tint, it isn't bleached. I have one blonde colour all over and then three to four darker blonde colours in lots of thin strands to break up the blonde a bit, I am naturally blonde but with age my hair has turned a rather murky blonde, that is the best way of describing it, so I have it coloured to brighten it up and I'm afraid to say more recently to cover the dreaded grey! My hair is oily, since having my youngest daughter I have suffered with oily hair that needs to be washed daily, other wise it looks really greasy.

I bought three products in my little hair haul, two shampoos and a hair oil,  I bought the Paul Mitchell Two Clarifying shampoo, The Tigi Dumb Blonde shampoo and the Wella Luxe Oil. I have been using another shampoo for my oiliness, the Phyto Photocedrat Shampoo which I have blogged about previously and really love, but I wasn't too keen on the smell and it is rather expensive at £11.50 a bottle, one bottle was lasting me around a month but it is pricey, but a really good shampoo. So I decided to research some other shampoos for oily hair and found that the clarifying shampoos which are sold primarily for people who use a lot of styling products in their hair, are also great for people with oily hair, but I had to be careful as my hair is coloured and I didn't want to strip the colour out. The Paul Mitchell Two shampoo has great reviews online and was £6.65 for a 300ml bottle, so much cheaper than the Phyto shampoo and I had a 15% off code for Look Fantastic so it made it £5.70 and the Tigi Dumb Blonde shampoo also had great reviews online and was only £7.40 with the discount for a 250ml bottle, the Wella Luxe oil was £16.91 with the discount applied it retails at around £25.99 but is on offer on Look Fantastic for £19.89 and the moment so I did really well price wise, especially for the Luxe oil.

I haven't tried the products yet, (my sister has used the Wella Luxe oil on my hair a couple of times when she has cut and coloured it) I have smelled them all and they all smell lovely, I have a thing about smells, I am sure it is something to do with the medication I am on, but some smells I really can't tolerate and sometimes I'm ok with a smell for a while but then I just 'go off' it and can't use that product anymore and this had started to happen with the Phyto shampoo which is a shame as it's a great product. So how a product smells is really important to me, the Paul Mitchell shampoo smells lemony and fresh, the Tigi shampoo smells fruity but sweet at the same time and the Wella Luxe oil smells sweet, a bit like vanilla and marshmallows, they all smell lovely and I can't wait to use them all and let you know my thoughts. My sister uses the Luxe oil and they use it at the salon where she works, so I have used that a couple of times, it smells lovely and the smell lasts for a few hours, and it left my hair so soft and also really shiny which is rare for my blonde hair, it didn't make it greasy which I was very surprised about and overall my hair felt lovely, so I have high hopes for the oil.

I will come back in a couple of weeks to let you know how I am going with the products and if they have made any difference to my hair, especially the Paul Mitchell shampoo, I am very interested to see if it works as well as the Phyto shampoo. I am going to use the Paul Mitchell shampoo once or twice a week depending how I need to use it and the Tigi for every other time I wash my hair, and I will use the oil every time I wash my hair before I blow dry it.



Paul Mitchell Two Clarifying Shampoo 



Tigi Bed Head Dumb Blonde Shampoo 


Wella Luxe Oil



All the products I purchased in my mini hair haul 


Like I said I will update you in a couple of weeks and let you know how I am going with the products, if the reviews are anything to go by they should be good and my hair should be starting to look much better by then and less greasy, which would be amazing. Have you tried any of these products? Did they work for you? Do you have any recommendations for my oily but colour treated hair? 

Look Fantastic www.lookfantastic.com 


Thank you for reading, much love

Zoe x
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Sunday 6 January 2013

Laura Mercier Metallic Creme Colour in Alloy

If you saw my 'What I got for Christmas' video over on my You tube channel you most likely saw that I was very lucky and received one of the Laura Mercier Metallic Creme Eye Colours in 'Alloy'. It is a beautiful product and I have to say I am in love!

The best way I can describe the colour is a taupe/brown with a teeny tiny hint of silver that sounds a bit strange I'm sorry, I'm not the best at describing colours as you will probably have guessed by now, I will let the swatch photograph I am going to insert later in the post speak for itself.

I was so excited to receive this product as I had wanted it for a long long time, Cole has it and I had tried hers and loved it, it is so easy to apply and looks lovely, I wore it on one of my video's recently and I got lots of compliments on my make up, and all I wore was this and mascara, so simple but so effective at the same time. I apply mine by putting a small amount on the back of my hand and then using either my ring finger or a flat eye shadow brush, I use the MAC 239, I apply it to my eyelid and then I blend out the edges using my MAC 217 brush, I then run the 239 under my lower lash line using what's left on the brush. I apply mascara and I'm done, as a well know meerkat would say, simples!

The colour is beautiful, it doesn't crease at all and has amazing colour pay off and staying power, I applied mine at 9 o'clock in the morning and it still looked as good at 2 o'clock the next morning when I took it off, I cannot recommend this product enough, it is absolutely beautiful and so quick and easy, and you only need a tiny amount meaning it will last you a very long time. It can be worn alone or as a base for other eye shadows, it is waterproof and non greasy, and above all it is amazing.









The Laura Mericer Metallic Creme Eye Colour retails between £16.50 and £18.50 and comes in 5 different colours here in the UK,

Alloy - Taupe/Brown with silver

Burnished Copper - A Brown/Red with shimmer

Gold - A beautiful true Gold

Platinum - A lovely Champagne colour

Rose Gold - A Pinky/Gold shimmery colour

Although they are quite an expensive product I feel they are definitely worth the money as you hardly need to apply any product at all and the colour payoff and staying power is amazing, and it is such an easy product to wear and easy to apply. I would love to try some of the other colours, Rose Gold is beautiful but I'm not sure it would suit me, in fact I'd love them all and can see me making a cheeky online purchase soon, but sssshhhh don't tell anyone, if you would like to make a cheeky online purchase too you can find the Creme Eye Colours online.

Have you tried the Laura Mericer Metallic Creme Eye Colours? Do you like them? Which is your favourite?

Thank you for reading, much love

Zoe x




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