September 2019 - Fashionicide // Fashion, Makeup and Beauty

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Reviews, swatches & makeup look | Lime Crime Venus Immortalis | Gifted

Lime Crime Venus Palette Immortalis Review Makeup look Hail Unveil Ash

Lime Crime are seemingly never too far away from controversy. But whether you love them, or you hate them, it's pretty hard to deny that in this oversaturated makeup market, they at least offer something a little different from the norm.

Their Venus palettes in particular, have been incredibly popular, and for good reason too. The shadows are butter soft, whilst the pigmentation is just unbelievable. I actually own most of the Venus palettes, and now that I think about it, I'm a little surprised that I've never reviewed any of them before.

But LookFantastic recently got in touch to ask if I'd like to give the latest incarnation of the Venus palettes a try - Immortalis - and now I can finally put that right. As the name might suggest, it's a pretty dark, cool-toned gothic palette, which is definitely a little different to what I'd go for. Typically, I'm all over anything that's brighter and bolder, but there are times where I enjoy gothing it up, so I figured this palette may help me achieve that.

The packaging is in the same vein as the other Venus palettes, but of course, is a little darker themed to reflect the contents inside. As always though, there is a nice mirror on the inside of the lid. The palette contains eight eyeshadows, that are a mixture of mattes, shimmers and foils, giving you the ability to mix up the textures around the eye.

The shades are as follows:

Lime Crime Venus Immortalis Swatch Unseen Moth Marble Echo

Left to right: Unseen (matte), Echo (foil), Moth (shimmer), Marble (translucent shimmer)

Lime Crime Venus Immortalis Swatch Unveil Ash Hail Cameo

Left to right: Unveil (matte), Ash (matte), Hail (foil), Cameo (matte)

I'm gonna be honest though, upon first glance, I was a little underwhelmed. Whilst the colours do look pretty, I already own similar shades either in various other palettes or through singles, so nothing really jumped out at me, except perhaps Ash, as this was the one shade that differed from my current collection. Even then, I wasn't entirely convinced that this grey shade would even show up on my skin without packing it on heavy.

Lime Crime Venus Palette Immortalis Review

Oh, how wrong I was! I used it on the crease to blend the edges of Unveil, which I applied to my entire lid, and was pleasantly surprised by the result. For the inner corner, I thought I'd roll with one of the foils, so mixed Hail with a tiny little bit of Inglot's Duraline, to create a liquid foil, and applied it with a pencil brush. I found that this combination applied ridiculously smoothly, and allowed for precision application.

Lime Crime Venus Immortalis Review Makeup look Hail Unveil Ash

Ultimately, the palette turned out pretty much how I expected: buttery smooth and pigmented af. I like that there's a nice blend of foils, shimmers and mattes, but I do not like Unveil. I was really, really disappointed, as I'd seen some swatches online, and expected it to be a deep burgundy shade, but in my experience, it just turned out to be a dark, blackish brown with the tiniest hint of that burgundy.

Lime Crime Venus Palette Immortalis Makeup look Hail Unveil Ash

Would I repurchase? Personally, probably not, as I already own so many similar shades, and I only tend to buy makeup that genuinely excites me or offers something new. So whilst the formula is pretty much perfection, the tones just aren't my thing. If you like the look of the swatches above though, then go for it, with Lime Crime you know the quality is going to be worth it.

If the Immortalis palette is your thing, you can purchase it from Lookfantastic here with 20% discount, just use the code LIMA (non-affiliated link!)

Sunday, September 15, 2019

H&M's Rose Absolute: Oud-y Luxury fragrance that won't break the bank

H&M Rose Absolute Oud EDP Perfume Review

Truly, the worst has actually happened. I'm not talking about Brexit, or Climate change, because we all know the worst is definitely still to come on both of those fronts. Nope, the worst so far is that Primark have finally stopped selling their inimitable imitation of Jo Malone's outrageously expensive florally oud fragrance, which they named Rose Oud.

My local store in Manchester's had a bit of a makeover too, and they've brought in all manner of other substandard replacements too, which has left me a bit displeased about the whole episode, and needing a bloody replacement.

Naturally I went to Selfridges, or rather, I wandered through the perfume bit on the way to their overpriced K-Beauty bit, and found a few extravagant fragrances priced at £495 for 100ml. I mean, it smelt nice and all, but if you think that a can of coke is 330ml, you're paying £495 for a third of a can of coke. Sure, it will last longer, smell a hell of a lot nicer, won't eat away at your liver or give you diabetes like coke might (unless you drink the perfume, wouldn't recommend). But £495. Can you justify that?

Imagine having a perfume so expensive it could literally buy a semi-dangerous second hand car with the same money. How often would you spritz yourself with that, and by the time you get around to spritzing yourself with it, has it lost some of the lustre that attracted you to it in the first place? Still talking about the perfume here, not the car.

Well anyway, not finding my day-to-day replacement on these flawless, backlit glass shelves, so I headed off to H&M instead, because I'd heard good things about their range of fragrances. Not quite as cheap as Primark, nowhere near as expensive as some of the brands in Selfridges, a happy medium if you will.

There really are a lot to choose from, so you'll have fun spritzing yourself with the testers, but because H&M aren't quite posh enough to have those card tester things, you will end up smelling like a strange concoction of fruits and flowers. The first thing to note about the H&M scents, is that you can barely detect the scent of alcohol, which is always the number one problem with cheap perfumes. I tried pretty much all of them too, and was reasonably impressed with the overall quality, although most were a little bit too florally for my taste.

I actually settled on Rose Absolute, which ironically doesn't smell overbearingly floral at all. In fact, it has strong notes of incense, with woody tones, almost a bit oud-like, and subtle, muted rose tones thrown in to the mix. The perfect replacement for my trusty Rose Oud from Primark!

The H&M range does follow a recent high street trend actually, in that they're making a real effort with fragrance now. Perhaps they've finally realised there's a huge gap in the market between Primark's £2 fragrances and medium high-end £60 fragrances like Chloe. This is a space usually filled with crap like Britney Spears, Beyonce or Justin Bieber, that ends up at Quality Save after 6 months because nobody wanted it at £20 (and still don't at £4.99 either). So now that the likes of Zara and H&M are really starting to make that effort, we might just get a whole new market of great daily wear scents.

For example, Rose Absolute smells far more expensive than it actually is, which makes it perfect for every day use. I often get compliments whilst wearing it, and when I tell people that I got it from H&M, they are shook. Whilst wearing dark, woody scents during the day isn't everyone's cup of tea, I just can't get enough of it, and if you, like me, loved Primark's Rose Oud, and are still in mourning, your near-empty Rose Oud bottles will totally understand if you decide to move on to a newer model.

H&M Rose Absolute can be purchased online or in-store in 50ml bottles for £20.

Sunday, September 01, 2019

REVIEWS: Lululun Pink Moisture Balance Sheet Masks

Lululun Pink Moisture Balance Sheet Masks Packaging Review

You could ask 100 people the first thing they think of when someone says Korean or Japanese skincare, and I reckon a good 90 of them would say the same thing: sheet masks.

Over the years, we've all witnessed the rise of the sheet mask. We're now at the point where you can find imported sheet masks by the likes of Tony Moly in Boots for £5 each (yes, five pounds), and where western brands have started to create their own.

I'll be honest though, whilst I may follow the 10 step Korean skincare routine, I don't actually use sheet masks that often. Why? Well, simply put, I just forget, and I also find a clay mask once a week is usually enough. Despite that, I am partial to a good sheet mask.

The plump, dewy, hydrated sensations you get after using a sheet mask is almost unbeatable, but you really start to question how much that feeling is actually worth. I mean would you willingly pay £5 per time, or even £2? Personally, I just can't justify that, and I think it puts the humble sheet mask out of reach of so many. But it doesn't need to be that way.

Whilst wandering the beauty stores of Tokyo in 2016, I noticed that sheet masks were sold in bulk, and at a reasonable price. What do I mean by 'bulk' though, am I talking 5 or 10 sheets? Nope. I'm talking 20, 30, 40. So of course, I stocked up a little, purchasing a few packs from the likes of Kose and Hada Labo, but my favourite is LuluLun, who actually specialise in sheet masks!

LuluLun's packs are colour coded based on skin types and skin concerns, but at the time, I had literally no clue what I was doing, everything on the pack was Japanese, and my free trial of a kanji conversion camera app was spent trying to work out what the buttons on the washing machine at our Airbnb meant, so I just picked up a few different colours and ran with it.

When I got back home to Manchester, I did a bit of reading about LuluLun, and found that they're quite popular in Japan. I also found that the pink version is for moisture balance, which seemed quite basic. Upon looking at the pack, I could see that it had some notable ingredients - Glycerin, for hydrating the skin, appears second on the list, with Niacinamide, renowned for brightening, reducing fine lines, improving enlarged pores as well as Hyaluronic Acid.

Lululun Pink Moisture Balance Sheet Masks Review

A single box contains 42 sheet masks, and according to LuluLun, each box contains the equivalent of four bottles of serum! Obviously, we don't want the sheet masks to dry out, so you have to take a bit of care when taking an individual mask out. First, you peel the label from the top of the pack. Beneath that, there's plastic covering that sits on top of the sheet masks to lock the moisture in. So when you pull out a mask, you need to place the plastic back on top. Also, pro tip, the serum settles at the bottom of the pack, so you may want to store it upside down to ensure the mask at the top is nice and moist.

When you purchase a single mask, it's usually dripping in essence, but with the LuluLun masks that isn't quite the case. That being said, it has just the right amount of moisture to give you that fresh sheet mask glow. LuluLun class this particular sheet mask as a daily, which you leave on for 10-15 minutes, and can be used day and night, to replace your skincare routine.

I tend to use the product in the evenings, after I've cleansed and patted my skin dry. The fitting is standard, and fits my face pretty well. I'd typically leave it on for 15-20 minutes, and the product doesn't tingle throughout that time. Once peeled off, my skin feels immediately plumper, softer, hydrated and has that gorgeous glassy-looking sheen, which is exactly what I expect from a sheet mask.

As I mentioned at the start of the post, I don't sheet mask all too often, so it did take me quite some time to finish off the pack of 42. Once I did run out, I looked online to repurchase, and found that eBay was the cheapest place to buy, with a box of 42 masks selling for about £20, shipped from Japan - that's less than 50p per mask.

Would I repurchase? Absolutely, and I already have! I would highly recommend LuluLun's Pink Moisture Balance sheet masks, partly because of the price point but mostly because they do everything that you'd expect a sheet mask to do.

"An oasis of colour, in a sea of nudes."

Reviews, swatches & makeup look | Lime Crime Venus Immortalis | Gifted

H&M's Rose Absolute: Oud-y Luxury fragrance that won't break the bank

REVIEWS: Lululun Pink Moisture Balance Sheet Masks