swatches

This tag is associated with 2 posts

Face of Australia (FoA) mini haul!

Posted by sarah@abeautifulstory ⋅ February 21, 2012 ⋅ 2 Comments

Well peeps I thought I might be able to handle 3 blog posts in one evening (as I have a lot I want to write about! :)) but I think 2 is my limit LOL (overambitious me huh?!).

Back onto the topic of beauty…. 🙂

As of Thursday last week a local discount department store (Big W) slashed $3 AUD off of ALL of Face of Australia‘s products that they stock… I think tomorrow may be the last day of this sale. (If you’re wondering “hey why didn’t Sarah tell me about this?!” I did – on my Twitter and Facebook accounts for the blog – visit my Contact page to find the details for these if you haven’t signed up already! 😉 ).

To date I’ve found Face of Australia‘s stuff to be very good and good value for money; I’ve already reviewed their primer here and have also tried and loved their liquid eyeliner (first bought it a couple of years ago and when needing to repurchase keep going back to it!). So when I saw this sale come up I thought I’d treat myself (not that I need much convincing to go shopping!)…. 🙂

Here is what I bought….

I got all of the above for UNDER AUD $12 (ohhh yeah I was excited about this! :)).

The Nail Polish Remover: acetone free is a good product. I’ve used this one before in the past and particularly like the soft vanilla fragrance it leaves on your nails, rather than that harsh chemically odour you get with most other nail polish removers on the market. I’d give this one the following Beautiful Rating: quality 5/5, value 5/5 (hell it was <$1 how can one go wrong?! :))

The Lip Quench SPF 30+ moisturising lipstick is a real treat. I’ve seen that many other bloggers are talking about the Lychee Crush shade but that doesn’t suit my skin tone, so I picked out a nude shade instead (Nude Satin). Applies well and I love the fact it’s SPF 30+, but staying power is not great. I’m also not particularly fond of the frangrance but I love the colour! On the 3 occasions I’ve worn it so far I’ve had to reapply it many many times throughout the working day or evening out. The Nude Lip Definer pencil I bought to go with it performs fairly well but is quite a dry formula. I would buy the Lip Quench again ($5.84 AUD usually $8.84 AUD at my local Big W) but not the lip liner ($3.something AUD usually $6.??). Lip Quench – Beautiful Rating – quality 4/5 (love the SPF and the colour), value 4/5. Lip Definer – quality 3/5, value 3/5 – found this product pretty average.

Some swatches of the lippie etc…

natural lighting & no flash - top the liner, bottom lipstick

liner + lippie, natural light no flash (hmm didn't line my bottom lip well here!)

natural light, flash

I then went back the next day (LOL huh?!) to pick up some more of the lipstick in Malibu Barbie (how awesome is that name for a lippie?! :)) and Power Surge. Sorry guys took these two pics in a hurry but they give you a good idea of how lovely and bright these two are (both pics with flash, taken at night):

L: Malibu Barbie. R: Power Surge

top lip: MB, bottom: PS

I would give these two shades the same rating as I did the Nude Satin. 🙂 Of the three I think Malibu Barbie is my favourite, which is interesting as usually bright pinks are not my preferred lipstick colour!

***

Oops…Can’t believe I forgot to mention this earlier! I was lucky to have the opportunity to catch up with other Adelaide based beauty bloggers on Saturday. 🙂 We had dinner at Wasai which is a pretty nice Japanese restaurant, however the service wasn’t so good! (Even delivery of our bill was slow…)

Fellow blogging attendees included:

Stacey of Add to Cart
Sakura of Sweet Days of Girly
Kitty of Miss Kitty Charms
Indigo Kir Royale
Steph (aka Jen) from Jeneara
Cally from Australian Beauty

… and last but not least a special mention to Celeste of Becoming Beautiful who had organised the event but unfortunately couldn’t make it in the end due to illness!

Nice to see everyone on Saturday and look forward to the next meet up! 🙂

Gettin’ lippy with Prestige.

Posted by sarah@abeautifulstory ⋅ February 7, 2012 ⋅ 3 Comments

Good evening everyone! Any Aussie visitors watching “My Kitchen Rules”? I don’t know if this TV show exists overseas, but it’s a reality show in which teams of people (pairs) compete to see who has the best cooking skills. In the past I haven’t found it very interesting but I’m hooked on this season, due to the personalities of the contestants! LOL! (In a nutshell, some are quite nasty to each other and then the nasty people’s cooking usually turns out to be bad!) If interested here’s a clip from the show… featuring the contestants from my home town LOL! (I got a bit worried after seeing these contestants because when I say “yeah” my voice sounds just like that of “Princess”!! Maybe we just have similar accents, coming from the same town. ;-))

The wedding on Sunday was lovely. I will blog about it later this week! 🙂

***

I’m not a huge lipstick wearer. When I’m going out somewhere special or for a special occasion, I’ll wear it, but usually I am a lip gloss/lip balm girl! However, I’ve started wearing lipstick more often since I’ve discovered the following products from Prestige Cosmetics. I love Prestige’s Skin Loving Minerals loose mineral powder (which I haven’t reviewed yet, but I guess I should! It’s great! :)) and I received both of these products as promotional gifts when buying the powder on two different occasions. So here are my thoughts…

Prestige Lightshine Sheer Gloss Liner in Calla (GL-01)

yup this one's got a bit of wear... have been using it ~6 months! :-0

Price and Where can I get it? I got it as a bonus product at Priceline… but I can’t see it being in stock on Prestige‘s Aussie website (http://www.prestigecosmetics.com.au/). 😦 So I can’t tell you what the exact RRP is. However their other lip pencils are retailing for $12.50 AUD.

This lip pencil is excellent. 🙂 Long wearing, long lasting (stays on for a full work day, as long as you reapply your lipstick as needed), and does not dry my lips out. It also has a nice fragrance… which kind of reminds me of vanilla but not quite. It’s interesting that it is called a “sheer” liner as the colour is quite strong on the lips, at least in my opinion!

Swatches of the liner + what it looks like on are to follow, as I swatched alongside the lipstick!

Beautiful rating: quality 5/5, value 5/5….so good but why is it no longer in stock?! *cries*

*

Prestige Classic Lipstick in Sophia (PL-20A)

Price: $4.95 AUD

Where can I get it? Priceline, selected Kmarts, and some chemists.

I love the colour of this lipstick, and Prestige has released 27 (yup, 27!!) different colours in this range. On their website they claim that the lipstick is “moisture enriched” and “long wearing”… I’d agree with the first point but unfortunately not the second. When wearing this one I have to reapply it repeatedly throughout the day or evening.

Having said that, as the lippie is inexpensive getting through it quickly is less of a big deal to me.The lipstick also has that nice vanilla-like-but-not-quite-vanilla fragrance (I just smelt the lipstick again haha 🙂 maybe it also has a hint of caramel?).

Packaging is good. Sturdy cylindrical design, no problems with scratching or breaking of the case or in being able to twist the lipstick up or down.

Beautiful rating: quality 3/5, value 4/5 (as it doesn’t do what it promises but it is quite cheap!)

Swatches!!!! (See captions under each photo which point out if you are looking at liner, lipstick or both! 🙂 The lipstick is actually the one that appears in my picture on the ABOUT : AUTHOR tab of the blog!)