Flashback Beauty Friday 96: BeneFit Glamourette

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Last week I shared a now discontinued product by Australian brand, SugarBaby (Glamour Puss), if you missed that. I'm hoping to blog every day in the run up to Christmas with special 'Holiday' launches past and present, as I did last year. I realised I have absolutely loads of limited edition Christmas releases, so can definitely manage another year of it, so that will replace our Friday posts during December. Today, I have one of my most treasured makeup items, something that makes me feel very nostalgic as I wanted this so badly.

Flashback Beauty Friday 54: Lunar New Year Special 2

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Throughout January I'm sharing some of my limited edition makeup items from past Lunar New Year collections for Flashback Beauty Friday. As I said last week, most beauty brands these days do something to celebrate and over the past few years, I've really loved these collections. Last week, I chose the marbled Givenchy lipstick and today I have the MAC release from last year.

Beauty Advent Calendars 2021: Paul & Joe and Barry M Part 3 (Final)

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I have the final part of my beauty advent calendars of 2021 for you. You can find the first part here and my previous post here. 

Festive Beauty: Day 19

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I'm going to continue my Festive Beauty posts until the end of the month seeing as I intended to do 24 (until Christmas), but missed some last week. My last post was the Laneige skincare set from their 2021 Dream Land Collection and today I have an old MAC holiday launch. I think I told you about these photos previously, that I took them, then later that day thought the packaging seemed familiar in lipstick form (I'd only photographed glosses). I quickly found the lipstick and had to retake them to include that! Group shots of anything will be the death of me! My Irregular Choice Festive Footwear will be up later and I have my final advent calendar reveals too, which I'll hopefully get up here tomorrow.

Flashback Beauty Friday 32: YSL Opium Powder Palette

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Flashback Beauty Friday is a weekly look back at discontinued or limited edition beauty products and their packaging. Last week I chose a bronzing compact by Pout and today I have a beautiful, limited edition piece from YSL.

Flashback Beauty Friday 31: Pout Bronzer Duo

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Last week I shared some old limited edition No7 summer palettes for Flashback Beauty Friday and this week I have an item from now defunct boutique brand, Pout. I wrote more about the actual brand in an older post here on their eyeshadows.

Comparison Swatches: Clarins Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector

Seeing as I now own five of the six shades available, I thought it was a good time to compare and swatch all my Clarins Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector balms. I've raved about these time and time again on the blog (no wonder it's an award winning balm), so you can imagine I was thrilled to see three new shades launch this year. This is what Clarins have to say about them:
A softly textured lip gel with a deliciously sweet scent. Lips are left looking soft, smooth, shiny and plump. Sheer, but has enough colour to wear alone or to complement your favourite lip shade.
I completely agree with the Clarins description, it's a soothing, ultra smooth and glossy texture which feels nourishing and indulgent on the lips without being sticky. The shine makes lips look and feel plump and I either wear it alone or over a lipstick. The sweet scent and taste is really soooo yummy and probably the main reason I fell in love with these. I try and keep one wherever I go i.e. one at the computer, one in my handbag, one in my room. The colours I started with were quite sheer, but I'm finding some pack quite the punch now. All shades are called 'x shimmer' which would lead you to believe they are glittery, but actually the shimmer in most is only noticeable when magnified (like in the swatches below) and when there's a big blob of gloss rather than smoothed out (as it would be on the lips). In saying that, again I find the newer shades slightly more shimmery than the original line-up. It's subtle, so don't buy into these thinking you're getting a super sparkly balm is what I'm saying.
So the five shades I have are:
01 Rose Shimmer
02 Apricot Shimmer
03 Nude Shimmer
04 Petal Shimmer
06 Rosewood Shimmer
As you can tell from the outer tube (rather nifty), the colours are all quite neutral and there's nothing too bright or dark. I'm not sure if Clarins will ever expand into those types of shades, but I feel the product is more about the texture than the colour. It's not supposed to be a coloured lipgloss per se.  You squeeze the tube and the gloss pours out through a flocked, slanted doe-foot applicator.  I usually just apply a small blob to my fingertip and apply to the lips (as it's not sticky), but you could apply directly from the tube if you so wish (I just don't like the applicator getting too messy).  
Like I said in another post, I really am a beauty brands dream customer, because my obsession with these started with a mini tube of Nude Shimmer which I received in an online GWP.  I loved it so much that I promptly used it up (unheard of for a lip product for me). This led me to buy the full size version and also trying another colour and here I am with five shades now! Onto the swatches now and I've taken them with and without the flash.  The shimmer is more noticeable with the flash.   
01 Rose is a warm pink and I struggle to see the shimmer in this one. I've kept it at the computer and it's almost finished now, so I'll be buying a replacement soon.  02 Apricot is well named and there's a pink flash to the shimmer in this one (which probably isn't noticeable on the lips).  I just got this one, so haven't had the chance to use it yet.  03 Nude was my favourite, it's a slightly milky, tan nude.  I find the shimmer in this one hard to find, although you can see slight pink toned pieces when very magnified.  When it's smoothed out, you can't see any.  04 Petal is a new shade and it's a milkier, paler pink than Rose.  Despite it's baby colour, it's pretty pigmented in my swatches and you can see the shimmer particles in the light.  06 Rosewood, is another new shade, a rosy, warm brown and you can definitely see the shimmer in this one.  There's gold flecks which are visible even without being magnified. It's very pigmented.       
I would highly recommend these balms even if you don't wear makeup.  I'm sure you'll become addicted to the scent and finish and luxurious feel on the lips, just like me.  They are priced at £17 each (£13.60 at Escentual) and the one shade I don't have is 05 Candy Shimmer which is a more vibrant coral.  I'm still undecided if it's for me or not.  I also just placed an order online at Clarins, as they are finishing their sale soon (I've avoided it thus far) and I qualified for 4 free travel sized products of my choice along with the standard 3 free samples and free postage.  So I'll have yet another little beauty haul for you soon.  Have you tried these balms before, do you like them?

Compact Powders Storage

Last week I was hunting for more things to sell on eBay and in my usual fashion, got distracted (although technically it was for a good deed) and managed to find storage for my overspill of blush and highlighting powders.

I got this black sparkly Lancome vanity case last year and I realise as I'm writing this that I've still never actually shown you what was inside and the rest of the haul that went with it! I do still have the photos somewhere and will eventually get round to posting them! Anyway, I grabbed all my extra powders (I already have a shallow drawer with my blushes and a deep one with more blush and highlighters-which was getting too full to close). I also had some newer, homeless Lancome and MAC powders and amazingly, the entire overspill (and a good chunk of the 'deep drawer') fitted perfectly into this case, with the exception of two compacts which sit on top, but I'm mega excited at the neat little rows! Everything just slotted in perfectly.

I thought you may like a closer look...

The first row is all MAC, mainly Beauty Powders (I'm a sucker for a pretty compact if you can't already tell).

The next row are some of my MAC powder blushes.

I discovered 'Stark Naked' which is completely untouched and looks absolutely beautiful (a soft dusky pink with gold shimmer); so I'm definitely going to be trying this out next week.

The third row includes my 'too stunning to touch' LE Lancome blush/highlighters, Pout Shimmer Swirls and some No7 LE highlighters and blush.

Then the last row is a bit of a mix; with Too Faced 'Brightening Blush', The Balm-Hot Mama, one of my Pout Rouge compacts (Apricot Totty), a couple of my Playboy 'First Blush', Soap & Glory 'Glow All Out', Dainty Doll 'Blush & Contour' (Bloom), MAC/Hello Kitty 'Tippy' and some more LE No7 highlighters.

My only problem now is I don't actually have a place to put the box!  It's currently residing on the floor in my 'The Shoe Girl Dairies' foot-shot spot, so I've been moving it daily!  On a plus, I'm definitely getting more used to the new Photobucket editing system.  I managed this lot quite quickly and that included using text which I haven't used in any images since the change.  You can't choose a font size which is a bit annoying if you want the same-size lettering in every picture; it's just guess work, dragging the box to the size you wish.  After editing my first two images and wondering why there were so few fonts to choose from, I discovered actually there's tonnes and probably would've used something else had I know that!

My Makeup Stash and Storage

*This is a marathon post, but hopefully you'll enjoy it. I hope to provide more detailed images over time. Although some of these pictures were taken quite quickly, it still took ages to edit and put together so please do not steal them*
Ok, I promised stash pictures and have been meaning to do this for a long time, even before I started this blog. I've been a member of MUA for years and always figured at some point I would photograph my collection. However I've just been overwhelmed by the sheer size. Where do you start?

Years ago, when I was at University, I used to pretty much work out of a vanity case (a leaving pressie from the chemist I worked when I was at school). It went everywhere with me. My foundation, concealer, blusher, eyeliners, mascaras, brushes etc were all contained in there. When I think of it now, I can't understand quite how I managed that! Lip products (99% lipstick rather than gloss) were housed in a huge hat box. I used to get loads of freebies from work (old and new testers) and must have had around 200 lipsticks at that point (mainly Lancome, Clarins, Bourjois and Kanebo). When I moved back home (after Uni), my makeup addiction spiralled and I grew more and more frustrated at my makeup storage.

I like everything to be kept together and in some sort of order (you need it, when you have so much stuff). I had most things in makeup bags, but it was difficult remembering where and which one they were in. I bought these drawer units which are pretty ugly, but a complete godsend (although now, I do even have overflow from them). There is 3 shallow drawers and 3 deep in each tower. I sit in front of one (with a mirror on top) to do my makeup every day.

This tower contains (from top to bottom)

• blusher
• highlighters
• lipsticks/lipliners
• wand lipgloss/cream eyeshadow
• pink/red nail polish
• foundation/bronzer/concealer/base stuff

You've seen the foundation and nail polish drawers but here are pics of the others. Please click to see more detail. This is the majority of the blushers, however there are maybe another 20 bought recently that don't fit in. I once counted them thinking I had around 20-30 total, it turned out to be more than 80 (oops). Any palette blusher (i.e. Too Faced Quickie Chronicles) are obviously kept in a seperate drawer (more on them soon), this is purely single blushers.
Highlighters, some of the bigger puff type ones don't fit in or I have some compacts seperately and I must admit I haven't been using highlighter as much since my skin started playing up (which is a shame as I love sparkle and shine!).
Lipsticks, this is purely what I've bought in the past few years (not the aforementioned testers!). I had to put my Lancome CF seperately and I have a big Bobbypin case with L'Oreal, Bourjois and Rimmel lipsticks. I've also shown you before, my Soap & Glory case with MAC lipsticks (but I have overflow from that too!)
Wand lipgloss, I keep my MAC seperately and my Lancome CF, No7 and Pout lipglosses are in a clear makeup bag within the drawer (which you can see to the left of the picture). You kinda need that as this is a deep drawer and it can be difficult to find the lipgloss you need. You can also see a Pop makeup bag at the front with cream eyeshadows in it, which I use for an eye base.
My other tower is in a seperate part of my room. I tend to sit on my bed to apply my eyeshadow and just take out whichever drawer I need. The tower is as follows from top to bottom,

• pinks/nudes/golds/odd eyeshadow
• purple eyeshadows
• greens/turquoise eyeshadows
• squeezy tube lipgloss, jewellery lipgloss, lip stains etc
• backups/new things/odd things
• other nail polish (green, blue grey, purple etc)
• I have a huge BeneFit Bathina box on top of this unit with blue eyeshadows in it and

a Dior makeup bag with my silver/grey/black eyeshadows.

Now you may be looking at these images thinking my collection isn't actually that big. However, you'd be surprised at just how much these drawers hold, they are very deceiving. I've taken this tube lipgloss drawer as an example. I emptied out all the lipglosses, which take up 2 thirds of the capacity. I counted more than 120 tubes...but it really doesn't look like that until you lay them out, does it? Click pics to supersize.
I have loads of eye pencils and liquid eyeliner, some of which are kept within the corresponding eyeshadow boxes (pictured above). Off the top of my head I know my L'oreal Superliner and black pencils I use every day are on top of my other MU tower. My UD liquid eyeliners and glitter eyeliners from NYX are kept in various places. My Collection 2000 loose powder eyeshadows are all kept together on top of the BeneFit box. Also my mascaras are kept in a bag next to the unit I work from.
As I mentioned before I have another storage system for my palettes. I have a deep drawer unit, twice the width of these ones (which I bought for holding fabric and craft stuff), I have given over one drawer solely to palettes. It weighs a ton and is bursting full of amazing goodies. I'm a little lazy about using palettes though and tend to use my single blusher/eyeshadow/lip things more often. I haven't taken a pic of this drawer yet, but would like to and show you in some detail the palettes inside as there are some real gems.

This isn't everything. I still have recent hauls, most of which you've seen on this blog, that I haven't yet found room for. It's always a work in progress and I know these drawers aren't the prettiest way to store makeup, but they are practical (wipe clean) and do store almost (!) all my makeup.