Showing posts with label couture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label couture. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 April 2013

Dainty Doll Lipsticks - Couture, Saucy Sailor & It's My Party


After my numerous haul posts featuring Dainty Doll products, I am finally getting around to reviewing them! Today's post is reviewing three shades of the lipstick.


As I have commented before, I am a big fan of the Dainty Doll packaging. I think real effort was made to create something new and distinctive, and it's also a little retro which I like.



The lipstick tubes are made from a matte black metal which looks fantastic - very high end. The lids clip on securely, the lipstick feels safe in the tube and they feel nice in your hand. The three shades I went for were 001 Couture, 002 Saucy Sailor and 003 It's My Party.



Top > bottom 001 Couture, 002 Saucy Sailor, 003 It's My Party.

As you can see, these lipsticks are highly pigmented - the colour just jumps out at you! I was so pleased with these when I swatched them on my hand for the first time. Couture is a deep vampy vintage red shade which I'm not sure I will get all that much wear from to be honest. Saucy Sailor is an in-your-face blue toned red that I think will suit most skin tones (and most importantly for Dainty Doll, looks awesome on a pale skinned gal like me!). It's My Party is much pinker in real life than it's showing in the photo - a really bright, neon pink. I don't think I would wear any of these shades during the day but they would be real show-stoppers on a night.


Here is Saucy Sailor on my lips. Here comes my first criticism! When I tried to apply this lipstick on the lips I found it really really dragged. The formula is so waxy that when putting it on the lips directly it's tricky to get an even coverage and not leave any gaps. I would definitely recommend applying this with a lip brush for this reason, and in general it's a good idea to use a brush for bright colours anyway. Once on the lip I really liked the look, however (second criticism imminent!) after only about 45 minutes of wear the product started to seriously dry my lips out. I have dry lips generally, and so I always apply a thin layer of balm under any lipstick but even with that protection in place, after 2 hours of wear my lips were so dry they were almost painful! I had to wipe this off and apply an emergency layer of Nuxe Reve de Miel to try and fix them! The It's My Party formula is marginally less drying, but it's still not very moisturising and I can't wear it for very long without needing to apply a heavy coat of lip balm.

The third and final criticism is the longevity. Even if your lips can stand the dryness, the lipstick does transfer onto cups and glasses, and starts to partly fade after about an hour. The outside of the lip doesn't fade and the lipstick there does stay put, doesn't smudge and lasts well, but the middle fades really fast. The high impact shades I've tried means I have to touch up every 45 minutes or so, perhaps even more often if eating and drinking lots over that period.

So overall I'm sadly disappointed by these lipsticks. I had high hopes for them given the high price - these retail for £12.50 ordinarily, and there are a number of rave reviews in the blogosphere. I bought mine from Fragrance Direct for £1.99 each (link) so I'm not as annoyed as I would be had I spent over 6 times that amount on each one.

Have you tried these lipsticks? How did they work out for you?
xx


Sunday, 10 March 2013

Collective Beauty Haul - TK Maxx & Superdrug

Well I'm going to have to say it. I am officially off my spending ban. Not in a 'yay I managed not to spend anything for 100 days!' way, but in a 'I am a total failure and couldn't do it' way. Woe is me. I have been spending little bits here and there for a few weeks now and have decided I have to stop kidding myself I'm still on my spending ban. Instead I'm hoping to do a month's spending ban in April.. we'll see how that goes. Anyway, a week or so ago I popped into TK Maxx and Superdrug   & picked up some bargain beauty buys...


First up, Superdrug. As a huge Barry M fan I had been itching to try out the new textured nail polishes since they first made an appearance on the blogosphere a couple of weeks ago. I picked up Atlantic Road.


I also picked up the Gelly Hi Shine polish from Barry M in shade Green Berry, which looks perfect for Spring!



And my final purchase was a GOSH lipstick in shade Exotic. I have never tried anything from GOSH before and this was a total impulse purchase, made primarily because they had £2 off these lipsticks in Superdrug!

The Barry M polishes are two for £6 (Gelly HERE and textured HERE) and the GOSH lipstick is £4.49 down from £6.49 HERE.


Next - TK Maxx. I don't have much luck when I usually call into my local TK Maxx, so when I was in Putney a couple of weeks ago I headed into their branch to see if I could find any beauty bargains. The first thing that caught my eye was this Andrea Fullerton glitter nail set.



At only £3.99 and with such gorgeous colours I thought it was worth picking up to try. I think these glitters will look beautiful as an accent nail look.


I then spotted this pack of 3 items from the Dainty Doll range for a ridiculous £4.99! I have always wanted to try this range as I have very pale skin and find it intriguing that another fair skinned girlie (Nicola Roberts of Girls Aloud fame) decided to make her own brand specifically to cater for people like me!


These items are usually quite expensive when sold at full RRP in places like Boots, so I was chuffed to bits to get an eyeshadow base, a blush and a lipstick for £4.99!


The packaging is beautiful and makes me really excited to try out the products themselves. I got a lipstick in shade 001 Couture, an eyeshadow base in Frankie's Girl and a blush in 003 Money Talks.

Stay tuned for full reviews of all products!

Have you snapped up any beauty bargains recently? What did you get?
xx