MAC Duo Palette

My mums friend kindly picked me up a MAC palette while she was in Miami recently, the price difference in the palettes over there is insane! I think it came to approx £7 for the inserts and the palette, which is mad because it costs over £30 in the UK to buy! Absolute madness. 
Anyhoo, I'm hoping to pick up a few colours soon. This obviously isn't going to get filled up over night but I think it will be a nice wee (expensive) project for me. 
I'd love to know what colours you recommend. I'm already looking at Sketch, Cranberry, All That Glitters and Woodwinked. :) 

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Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette

Okay, so I know I said that the Naked 3 didn't interest me and that I wasn't going to buy it. But after seeing the absolutely stunning girls at Urban Decay using it, right in front of me, I knew that I had to have it! Luckily I restrained myself from getting it on the day, because not even a week later Cohorted had it on their site and I was lucky enough to snap one up. I really do mean snap - I got it for half price, so all in all I paid £18.50 for it. BARGAIN! I really couldn't contain my excitement, I think I must have told almost everyone I knew that I got one - even the girls that paid full price the week before, sorry.
When it arrived, I practically ripped it out of its packaging, mentally telling myself to be careful so I could take pretty pictures of it for le blog. 

The colours really are stunning. How could I ever not have wanted to buy this? Lets face it, everything about this palette is beautiful. From the colours to the packaging. All. Absolutely. Stunning. I've tried playing around with it and I still love the colours, but I have to say only a set few look good on my face.
The pinker toned ones I am slightly struggling to use, but I still have 7 other colours that I absolutely adore. I've reserved strange specifically for my brow bone, and Limit for my lid. Dust is a really pretty shimmery colour that I think works really well in the inner corner - c'est magnifique. Nooner is really the only one I absolutely can't get to work for me, I just kind of look like I've been smacked in the face. Not a great look, I think you'll agree.
I really do love this palette - like really love - but I'm just not 100% sure how much love it will get from me. It might be one of those palettes that only gets played with my friends or only taken out once in a blue moon.

What are your thoughts on this palette? 

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Australis Get The Look Pretty Pastels Palette | Review

Australis was a brand that I had wanted to try but obviously my not living in the sunny land of Australia made that a little difficult. I was however very lucking in being paired up with the lovely Maddi during a Halloween swap organised by Jasmine last year.  I wasn't really familiar with all of Australis's products, only ever having had seen a few of their products on various YouTube channels and blogs, so everything I got was unfamiliar to me and unexpected. I love doing swaps - you get the opportunity to try products that otherwise you would maybe never have heard of before or just never been able to get your hands on. I love trying things I've not seen before, in a store or on a blog. 

One of the items Maddi kindly sent me was the Australis Get The Look Pretty Pastels palette. This palette is pretty darn cool, its basically everything you could need to make your face look pretty. Pressed powder, bronzer, blush and 3 eye shadows. All housed in a lovely sleek black palette with Australis written in big pink writing. The palette also has a lovely big mirror the entire size of the palette. So its perfect for if your on the go and need to apply a little makeup. The only things you would need to take along with you is a mascara, a couple of brushes and a lip stick. I think this would be perfect if you were wanting to travel light make-up wise. 

It took me a long time to get around to using this, but now that I have I actually really quite like using it. There are 3 rather pretty eyeshadows, a neutral beige colour, a taupe colour and a shimmery black. 

 I found the shadows to be quite powdery, and a little bit crumbly. Without a primer I did notice, on my oily lids, that the colour didn't seem to last very long and it did crease quite a bit. With a primer though, the colour stays pigmented and lasts a lot longer. Meaning with a primer I really like these colours. 

The bronzer and blusher are actually really pretty, the bronzer does have a slight shimmer to it - I think it looks a little bit goldy? I probably wouldn't use this for contouring but I would be more than happy dusting this over my face to add a bit of a healthy glow to it - I need to be careful though since I'm very pale. The blush colour is perfect for everyday wear, you can see from the picture it is incredibly light and is a lovely pink shade. The blush looks really natural and gives a nice pink glow, the bronzer like I said is less of a contour colour and much more of a lovely gold all over face duster type of thing. Very lovely. I've not yet used the powder, but I'm sure I'll get round to it eventually. 
Overall though I really like this little all in one palette. Sorry if your not from Australia or aren't visiting soon as I think you might have a hard time getting your hands on this. 

★

Clinique Neutral Territory Palette

I first saw this palette on Suzie from Hello October and as soon as I read her post I knew for a fact that I wanted this palette. I didn't want to order it online since I wanted to see it in person before committing to buying it. So like any other sane normal person, as soon as I got an email to let me know it was in sale in stores I went out with the intent of buying it. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted it, I took literally no convincing.
My palette collection is now slowly growing (In August I had no palettes what so ever), its still a small collection but its growing, and this is a happy addition to the collection. Recent palette launches have left me feeling a bit left out, the Naked 3 palette really didn't catch my eye and neither did the Smashbox Full Exposure. So I was really happy that this was so pretty and so perfect. Its a beautiful set of neutrals, the colours as well are quite different from the other palettes I own, so its not like I've wasted money.

The packaging is beautiful - the mirrored packaging is so stunning. It will need a good wipe every so often though to get the grub and finger marks off it. Its small and compact - so would be perfect for travelling.

Colours from L-R:Sugar Cane, Light shade of Diamonds and Pearls, Light shade of neutral territory, light shade of Day into Date, Brown shade of Polar Blue Quad, Hazy, Black Honey and Dark brown shade of Morning Java Quad

The mirror inside the palette is huge, I think its possibly the biggest palette mirror I have? Inside you get 8 lovely neutrals, a white that could be used for highlighting, a couple of light beige colours that could be used as a base, a pink toned, a couple of light browns, a gorgeous redish colour and a dark brown with hints of purple. Black Honey is possibly my favourite colour from the palette, its the type of colour I've been wanting to buy for ages and for now that urge to own a red coloured shadow is filled.
The little brush in the palette could have been a billion times better, its a double ended brush with one side being a little sponge applicator and the other side being a little brush. The palette comes in at £32, and I personally would liked to have seen a better brush, or even the same brush with out the cheap sponge applicator.
I'm not going to tell you to run out and buy this - although I do think your palette and eye shadow collection would be better with it - since £32 is a fair bit of money. If you're looking to treat yourself to something nice or have a little extra money left at the end of the month, you really should seriously consider buying this baby. You really won't regret buying it.

★

Stila In The Light Palette Review

 For awhile now I've been wanting to try something a little different with my make-up, the only way I could think of was to add eye shadow in. I'm not a huge eye shadow wearer and if I do wear it, the it is usually just one colour. Nothing fancy. After seeing this appear on quite a few blogs - quite awhile ago - I decided I'd put it on my little wish list of things.
For my birthday my cousins were kind enough to buy me this, I was really happy when I saw it even a little surprised. I love the natural eye looks that some people do, and now I have a lovely little palette to try re-create them myself. I think recently they redesigned the packaging, since now there is a huuuge mirror built in.

The palette contains 10 colours, I would say that half are matte and the other half shimmer. Being a shadow novice, I'm most likely to stick with the matte colours and for now the lighter colours. I will eventually branch out and try a look with shimmers and the darker colours. The palette also comes with a Smudge Stick in the colour "Damsel". I've never owned a brown eye liner  but I think this will be lovely for those more natural days, when I still want a bit of liner. 

Pigmentation of these shadows is amazing, the pictures really don't do them justice. The last a long time on the eye, and would last even longer if you used a primer first. Some of the matte colours aren't nearly as pigmented as the shimmery ones but I'm not too fussed. The Smudge Stick, now that is just amazing. It glides on, and boy o boy does it last. It has phenomenal lasting power, so much so that its a little tricky to remove. Its a very dark brown, so if your not usually a fan of brown eye liner you'll probably get on quite well with this.  

The palette also came with a little look book. I love things like this, anything that tells me how and where to put the shadow is a massive plus in my books. It gives you 6 different looks to create yourself, ones that are extremely wearable on a daily basis to those that you may only wear when going out. 
Te palette has a lot of pretty colours, my 3 favourites (just by how they look) are "Kitten", "Luster" and "Night Sky". They look really pretty, but I don't think they would go together very well. 

I'm currently waiting on some Real Techniques eye brushes to be delivered, as soon as they arrive the fun shall begin. I'm going to have quite a bit of fun creating looks with this palette. 

Have you tried this palette? Or are you wanting to try it?

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