NYX Jumbo Pencils Review

For Christmas 2011, I asked for a few beauty items that had been floating around my favourites on my browser for a while. These included some NYX Jumbo Pencils.

I'd seen them mentioned by numerous beauty bloggers and Youtubers for AGES. So when I stumbled across THIS eBay seller, I knew I had to get my hands on them. All pencils arrived bubble wrapped (my Auntie just wrapped them up as they came, in case you were wondering how I know this!) with that annoying cellophane wrap around each one.

It cost £14.00 roughly (after exchange rate) for purchase AND shipping. This is compared to $4.50 per pencil plus shipping from the NYX website itself. I'm not sure if you can get them cheaper anywhere else but to me, after this comparison, this seemed pretty reasonable.

The colours I chose were (from bottom up):
Milk (604) - a gorgeous white colour
Gold (612) - quite a coppery kind of gold
Pots & Pans (603) - a typical silver colour
Dark Brown (602) - a dark brown that actually looks quite black in the stick
Black Bean (601) - black (surprisingly lol!)
French Fries (609) - sort of like a dark brown with a hint of gold colour

I have been using these since Christmas and think it's safe to say - I'm in love. They are such gorgeous colours and work so well as a base colour for almost ANY eyeshadow look that I've been skipping the primer a lot of the time. Milk (the white) works well at accentuating any colour that you want to really stand out as a lid colour and also comes in handy as a highlight for the inner corner. I've also found that the black is really useful for darkening any colour you want on the outer corner. By applying a little and smudging it out before placing eyeshadow on top, it deepens the colour and creates a much better smokey eye.

Review: Sleek - The Original i-Divine Palette

In the past couple of months Sleek Cosmetics seem to have dramatically increased in popularity amongst the blogging/youtube community. I have seen endless reviews of the latest palettes - several of which seemed to be released in quick succession of one another - and the amazing pout paints I have yet to try. Instead of reviewing one of these in line with others, I decided to look back at an old favourite of mine. 


I received The Original i-Divine palette (No. 594) for Christmas last year and fell in love with it instantly. 

Without flash

With flash

It can be purchased in Superdrug - although not all apparently, only one store in my city stock Sleek - or from Sleek Makeup for £6.49.


This was my second palette from Sleek and by far my favourite of the lot. It tends to be my go to palette and the one that is in the make up bag I use regularly and take with me almost everywhere. 


I'm not the type to wear neutral make up on a daily basis, preferring to mix up relatively neutral colours with a little bit of colour, making this palette perfect for me. There is good balance of the type of colours I'm looking for. 


All sleek eyeshadows are mineral based and prize themselves on being highly pigmented and velvet smooth. The majority of palettes contain a mixture of both shimmery and matte colours. 

Top row without flash

Top row with flash

The top row contains a mix of bright coloured shimmery eyeshadows and one matte black eyeshadow.  As you can see, the black is not a very pigmented shade, it took me 3 swipes to achieve this level of pigmentation in my swatch. I also find that it is not as smooth a formula as the others. The dark blue shade was also not very pigmented and again it took 3 swipes to achieve this swatch. The rest however are brilliantly smooth, velvet textured, highly pigmented eyeshadows. All of these swatches - as well as the ones from the bottom row - were achieved with one swipe from the pan. 

Bottom row with flash

Bottom row without flash (sorry for bad lighting)

My favourite combination to create using this palette has to be: 

• the very light yellow (first on the left, bottom row) in the inner corner
• light green (last on the right, top row) across the lid
• bronze (third from the right, bottom row) in the outer corner and blended out into the crease 

Then I normally put a little bit of each on the bottom lash line in the same position. 

I wish I had taken a picture of this the last time I did it but unfortunately, I don't think about these things at the time! 

Disclaimer: This palette WAS a gift given to me, however it was from a family member and I have in no way been compensated for the use/review of the product.

Review: E.L.F. Studio Matte Lip Colour

What better thing to do at 9pm on a cold, dreary English evening than review your latest favourite make up product? 

This is my first review of anything on my blog so please be gentle with me! I'm still practising :).

Recently ELF did a 50% off sale and not one to pass up an opportunity this amazing, I decided to place a substantially large order. I got quite a few products but I think by far this is my favourite out the lot. It's a product that I think is quite new to the Studio range and one that caught my eye straight away. 

If you have not heard of ELF, they are an online only (unless you live in the USA in which case I think their products can be purchased from somewhere like Walgreens or CVS or something.) based cosmetics company selling a wide variety of cosmetics for between £1 and £20 - although the majority of their products are either £1.50 or £3.50. Their products are generally quite brilliant quality and I have only ever had one fault with a product I have purchased from them.

Back to the review:

I've never been a keen lipstick wearer. I wear glasses that have a dark frame and have a very pale complexion, so I tend to find that a lot of the time when I apply something to my lips it looks really strange. This may all just be in my head but I don't know. I feel like I'm missing out on owning so many pretty lipsticks because of this so I'm attempting to ease myself into wearing them more often.

I chose this product as my first lip colour for two reasons:

1. It's a matte lip product. The product will sit nicer on my lips and the lack of shine will ensure that not much attention is drawn to them. I wanted my first foray into lip products to be a subtle change. 

2. The colour. It's what you might refer to as a "my lips but better" kind of shade. So again, it's going to be a subtle transition into wearing lip colour. 

Image courtesy of www.eyeslipsface.co.uk

This particular product is taken from the Studio line and is priced at £3.50. There are a few other colours available on their website: LINK

Here are some swatches I took:

Taken with my iPhone without flash

Taken with my iPhone with flash.

The flash on my phone makes the colour appear very different to what it actually is like in real life. The top picture clearly shows what I mean about the "my lips but better" shade. It barely even looks like I have anything on my lips - some might say this is disappointing but I love it! 

The product itself has a really creamy consistency and glides onto the lips easily. It also has a lot of pigmentation and provides a good coverage of colour. You get a lot of product for your money too and don't need to use a lot on your lips for it to look good.

My only issue would be that the actual pencil of product has a fair bit of room to wobble around inside the tube. This means that when you're applying it to your lips it's quite easy to press up against the top of the tube causing it to make a dent in the product and make the tube messy.

I would definitely recommend this product to anybody looking for something like it and am looking forward to trying out some of the other colours they have!