Pink Haired Princess

I'm trying to get back into beauty blogging again. My old features such as Monster High Monday , the Lipstick Challenge and Beloved Beauty Bits , fizzled out when I was unable to wear makeup and keep up my beauty regime. Poor ' Too Pretty To Swatch ' died before it even began! I contemplated resurrecting it, but the thought of 'ruining' these items purely to swatch for the blog then relegate back to their box, kinda defeated the purpose of the whole thing. The point was to see beyond the pretty surface and hopefully find new favourites that I could integrate into my regular makeup routine, not a one-time use thing. Even wearing makeup once a month would be more than I'm capable of right now, so I'm trying to work around that to see if there is something more 'manageable' I could continue doing on a regular basis. Of course, I also don't buy nearly as much makeup as I used to, because I don't see the point when I'm not wearing it, b...

Look at me being all regular with the swatch requests! Tej had commented on an old Rimmel lipstick swatch post of mine. She loved one of the lipsticks, which is now discontinued and wondered if I knew of any alternatives. None immediately came to mind, given that the colour isn't particularly unique within my lipsticks i.e. I own a lot of browns and nudes, so if a request comes in for anything else, it's very easy to locate the few that could be similar. That said, it doesn't mean I own a vast amount of perfect dupes for this, it means there's a lot of lipsticks to go through! I actually had no idea where to start so just had to methodically go through my lipstick drawers, picking out (hopefully) those that haven't been discontinued yet. I didn't attempt to look through my MAC tray because the majority of those are limited edition shades anyway and after finding many LE and/or discontinued shades last time , I didn't think it was very helpful. I for...

I love when you get in touch with requests for beauty posts or further help regarding something I've already posted, especially when it's something I can easily locate and re-photograph. I got one such email recently from Romy, asking for advice regarding NYX Round Lipsticks . Seeing as my NYX lippie posts always prove quite popular, I thought I'd take some new photos and updated swatches and post them here for everyone to see. Romy was particularly interested in brown lipsticks (so that's what I've concentrated on today) and I have to say this is what NYX really excel at. There are plenty of options and I own many of them. In my opinion these are not 'nude' colours, at least not for someone as pale as me (I'd recommend 617 Summer Love, a pinky beige for pale skinned gals). I think pale, light, possibly even medium olive complexions will find these too dark to be a true nude. I've bought some in the past and been disappointed at them not bei...

This week I decided to go all-out with MHM, in my most daring yet. I tackled a glitter mono brow, one leopard print eye and completely lilac lips. Oh yeah! Monster High released a DVD to coincide with the Ghouls Rule range and as the characters attend a Halloween party in it, the clothes, hair and makeup is a little more wild than usual. Clawdeen Wolf gets a makeover with long lilac hair and shaved leopard print sides, with crazy makeup to boot. I'd just written my review of the new L'Oreal eyeliners when I realised I could use them to their full potential on a Monster High Monday as mad as this one. I found the Blackbuster marker pen one was the easiest to use and you can read my full review of the liners here , where I've used them more conventionally. If you look closely at Clawdeens eye makeup, you'll notice there's actually two different shades of green around the eye. On the 'plain' eye she has a dusky green up to the brow and under the ...

The final installment of the dark lipstick swatches, you'll find part 1 here and part 2 here . These are probably some of the darkest of the bunch. In all of these posts, I've tried to take photos of the lipsticks in a light that you can see roughly what colour they are, but if I were to show you an image like the one below, you can see just how dark they really are. Versace Hydrating Lipstick in V2010-C (discontinued I think), very pigmented, opaque, plum purple. Pout Two Timer (discontinued) this is a lighter, brighter purple with pink undertones and a shimmery metallic quality. Urban Decay Vinyl , looks dark purple in the tube, but is actually quite sheer with rosy tan undertones and sporadic shimmer. I hate the scent of UD lipsticks, it's liquorice and stinks! What's worse is if you lick your lips, never, ever do that, it's disgusting! Playboy Stiletto Lipstick 61 Exposed , this particular lipstick is supposed to be sheer, it's a browny wine shade. MeMeM...

As I mentioned earlier in the week, Topshop Desert lipstick reminded me very much of Revlon Nude Attitude. I grabbed another couple of similar shades and here are the comparison swatches. NYX Round Lipstick in 588 Orange Soda; has a different finish with slight sheen, colour is more orange. Revlon Matte in 001 Nude Attitude; this has a pink glaze to it and if it weren't for that they would be very similar (the swatch of this colour is not accurate, it looks more yellow, but in real life it wasn't and had the pink sheen), same matte, velvety texture and finish. Rimmel Moisture Renew in 700 Nude Delight; this looks more brown in the tube and it is slightly more brown than Desert when swatched, however it's very similar. Again though it has a slight sheen to it whereas the other is matte.

I'm still not liking my hair. It's not quite the same hatred I had for it yesterday though. The changes to my makeup are so exciting, I love getting to wear things that I couldn't before, especially darkish brown lippies which I've always been a fan of. Today, I really wanted NYX Rea lippie to be the focal point and I just added some white eyeshadow, lots of eyeliner and beautiful Fleurry blush by MAC. I got lots of my parcels yesterday evening. The Dorothy Perkins dress is a little tight around the bust and quite big everywhere else (story of my life) but really pretty. The pearl cardi is flimsier than I expected, but fits well. The Barbie vest from Miss Selfridge actually fitted me, ridiculous as I have huge boobs and it's only a size 16, yet the size 20 DP dress was tight?! The Florence+Fred Luella style dress is okish, doesn't really 'do' anything for me, but I'm still keeping it. Think it will look better with a cardi. The other floral one (size...

A mammoth task taking photos of all of these lipsticks and swatching them, it's actually quite difficult to capture 20+ tubes and get them all in focus and the colour of each one spot-on. I can't say I've totally mastered it, but you definitely get the idea! I've swatched in 3 batches otherwise you would only get a teeny sample of colour. I've tried to group together by colour, but please note the order from the still images to the swatch images are different-so check the colour numbers written on them. NYX are some of my favourite lipsticks, bargain price, fantastic quality and great range of colours. In the UK we do have to pay slightly more for them, but they are still cheaper than most d/s brands. I think NYX do heavy nude, beige brown shades best-as you can see I've picked up quite a few! There are lots of different finishes, some have shimmer, some are metallic, sometimes the two are combined. There's also satin (has sheen but no shimmer, usually sligh...