Top 5 MAC Products

Hi Everyone!

This is the first in a new series of posts featuring my top 5 products from various beauty brands. This post focuses on my favourite cosmetics brand, MAC so let's get started!

1. Eyeshadows: This was a no brainer for me! I think that MAC produce the best eyeshadows hands down. They offer a huge range of colours and finishes to help you create your desired look. My favourite shadows have to be Woodwinked, Mulch, Brule, Swish and Sketch.

2. Lipsticks: Again, I feel that MAC make better lipsticks than any other brand due to their huge range of colours and finishes. My top picks would be Barcelona Red, Bombshell, Please Me, Plumful and Milan Mode.

3. Brushes: I think that MAC brushes are amazing! They are top quality and really do the work for you. I think that the Sigma brushes are pretty close in quality and slightly more affordable. The MAC brushes are expensive but I see them as an investment and if you wash and take care of them they last for ages! My top brushes would be the 109, 219, 227, 239 and 242.

4. Paint Pots: I use paint pots as eyeshadow bases used over primers to bring out the colour of the shadows. I usually use my fingers to apply them or you could use a synthetic brush such as the MAC 242 brush. My top paint pot picks would be Painerly, Rubenesque and Fresco Rose.

5. Mineralize Skin Finish Natural: I change my foundation brands all of the time but my face powder stays constant! I think that MAC's Mineralize Skin Finish Natural is the best face powder that I have ever used. It can be used alone or to set your foundation.

As MAC is my very favourite cosmetics brand, I found it really, really difficult to only pick 5 items to add to this list! I could of easily doubled the list! I chose these 5 items as they are the products that I reach for the most on a daily basis.

Check back soon for my next top 5 list coming very soon!

Maz x

Gingerbread Men, Women & Children!

Hi Everyone!

My best friend recently asked me to bake her some gingerbread men so, as you can see, I made her an entire gingerbread community! I have never made them before but the method is quite straight forward if a little messy! They are so tasty and not too hard or strong flavoured. I got the recepe from an ancient cookbook of my mum's!

INGREDIENTS:

350G (12oz) Plain Flour

5ml (1tsp) Bicarbonate of Soda

10ml (2tsp) Ground Ginger

110g (4oz) Hard Block Butter

175g (6oz) Soft Light Brown Sugar

1 Egg, Beaten

60ml (4 tbsp) Golden Syrup

Icing Sugar and Smarties to decorate

METHOD:

1. Pre heat the oven to 190C/ 375F/ Gas Mark 5. Grease or line 2 baking trays.

2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a large bowl.

3. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs then stir in the sugar and make a well in the centre.

4. In a seperate bowl beat the egg with the golden syrup together.

5. Poor the syrup mixture into the flour and make a firm dough, kneed the dough until it is smooth.

6. Roll the dough out until it is around 5mm thick and use your cutters to cut out the shapes. You don't have to make gingerbread men, you could do hearts, stars or ordinary round biscuits!

7. Transfer them onto the baking trays and bake for approximately 12 minutes or until golden brown.

8. Remove them from the oven and allow to cool on the baking tray for a couple of minutes before transferring them onto a wire rack to dry thoroughly.

9. When cool decorate them.

As I said these taste amazing so give them a try!

Maz x

Butter London Teddy Girl Nail Polish - Review & Swatch

Hi Everyone!

Today I decided to apply Teddy Girl by Butter London to my nails. This is the first of their nail polish's that I have tried and I love the colour. Its is a fully opaque milky-pink shade. I used OPI's Nail Envy as my base and then applied 2 coats of Teddy Girl to my nails. The polish was opaque after one coat but a little patchy. The polish looks great after 2 coats. The brush is short and has a rounded tip, I found this quite tricky and difficult to apply compared to OPI's brushes. The lacquer consistency is quite thick but it dried quickly.

For fun I decided to apply 1 coat of OPI's I Lily Love You glitter polish from the new Nice Stems collection to my ring fingers and thumbs. I then applied a coat of Seche Vite Top Coat to each nail.

I love both of these polishes so much. Teddy Girl remind me of a pinker version of OPI's Sweetheart and a lot like a strawberry milkshake! I Lily Love You is also gorgeous.
 I purchased the Butter nail polish from  Look Fantastic for £12 and you can also get it from Amazon here: butter LONDON 3 Free Nail Lacquer Teddy Girl

Overall I would give Teddy Girl 4 out of 5 stars.
Maz x

Sigma Beauty Flare Eyeshadow Palette

Hi Everyone!

This eye shadow palette is amazing and I am so happy to share it with you all! It is the Sigma Flare Eye Shadow palette which is one of the 3 new palettes that Sigma released both here in the UK and in the US just over a week ago. The palette consits of 8 eyeshadows plus a double ended brush. The palette is made from very strong cardboard and has a sleeve over the actual palette. It has a magnetic, snap shut lid, with a mirror on the inside, similar to the Urban Decay Naked palette packaging. The 8 shadows are all a decent size and there is a compartment below them to store the brush.

Here are the swatches of the 8 shadows shown on NW20 skin:

(L to R) Crush, Oversee, Define, Publicize, Resist, Gossip, Allure, Beware

Crush: Crush is a medium-dark warm, chocolate brown shade with excellent colour pay off which would make an excellent crease colour when creating a brown smokey eye.

Oversee: This is a beautiful aqua green colour that would look amazing smudged along the lower lashline when wearing a neutral lid for that extra pop of colour.

Define: Define is a pretty mint green colour that would look great paired with Oversee.

Publicize: Publicize is a flesh toned colour which would make a great highlight shade and would also be great to use with the E40 brush that is included with the palette to blend out any harsh lines.

Resist: This shade is similar to Crush but has a slightly more plumy tone and a frostier finish.

Gossip: Gossip reminds me of Sketch from MAC, it makes and amazing crease colour when using a brown or purple lid colour.

Allure: This is my favourite colour from the palette, is a beautiful, vibrant purple colour.

Beware: Beware is a pale creamy-pink shade which would make a great inner corner highlight colour when paired with Allure and would also be great as a brow highlight.

As I have previously mentioned the palette also comes with a double ended eyeshadow brush. Each of the 3 new palettes from Sigma comes with a different brush. This palette comes with, in my opinion, the best of the 3 brushes. It has the E55 which is an amazing stiff shader brush which is perfect for packing on colour and the E40 blending brush which is one of my favourite brushes from Sigma, it is great for applying a sheer wash of colour all over the lid, for blending out any harsh lines and for applying highlight colour to your brow bone. The brush is much better quality then the ones that you usually find in eyeshadow palettes.

Overall I have to say that this palette is amazing. The shadows are superb quality, they apply to the skin silky smooth and blend excellently. They all have great colour pay off and stay on all day (I always apply an eyeshadow primer before my shadows). The brush is a great addition to the palette too. I highly recommend this palette especially if you have brown eyes as the purple and green shades will really make your eye colour pop!

I purchased my palette from Cocktail Cosmetics for £29.95. You can also purchase it in the US from the official Sigma website by clicking here

Please check out my review of the Sigma Bare Palette by clicking here!

For more pictures of the palette please click on the video below.

Maz x

Chanel Paradoxal - Review & Swatch

Hi Everyone!

This week's nails of the week is Paradoxal by Chanel. I fancied a change from my usual bright summer polishes so I thought that I would give this cult polish a try. This is such a unique colour that has to be seen in real life to truly be appreciated. The application was smooth and easy and the brush is much thinner than an OPI brush, quite similar to an Essie brush, which, I find, makes it much easier to apply. The polish was totally opaque after 2 coats.

I would describe the polish as highly pigmented grey/ taupe/ violet which sounds a little crazy but it is so unique, sophisticated and beautiful. Indoors you mainly see the taupe/ grey colour but outside you can really pick up the violet sparkle.

As this polish is by Chanel it is very expensive (£17.50 in the UK). I think it is worth splashing out on as it is such an unusual colour, I have researched and no other brand has made a close dupe as yet.
You can get it from Amazon here:Chanel Le Vernis Paradoxal 509 LIMITED EDITION FALL 2010

I will give this 4 and a half stars out of 5.

Maz x

P.S.Apologies once again for the sloppy painting, I was in a rush!