Concealer! Concea! Conc!

See what I did there? No? Never mind..

I've done it.

I've finally done it.

No no, I haven't spotted and photographed Big Foot or found a cure for the common cold.  I've done something far better..

A concealer that actually works for me!

The story is simple.  My eye went manky..I went shopping for a new makeup remover and happened to come across a Clearance stand in my local Boots.

I picked up a concealer which matched..as well as I could match it with one eye.

Bought the baby home, tried it on my good eye and it worked.

As the days went on and my eye went back to its usual self, I started using the concealer more and more and realised that it was love.

It matched my skin colour perfectly, didn't settle in lines, was easy to apply with fingers and lasted ages.

You know what I'm going to say now..it has been discontinued but I have bought backups in bulk from ebay so I'm happy. However, the odd thing is this..I can get a good High Street foundation match from Bourjois but their concealers are too light..yet Rimmel foundations are too light for me but their concealer was spot on.

I'm still a concealer noob so if you have any tips re. how to apply it properly and to make it last a bit longer on the eye area, tell me!

Rimmel: The Reply

Remember the post I did asking why Rimmel London had more products out in other countries than they did in the UK?

Well, I emailed them and this is the reply I got..

Thank you for your enquiry regarding Rimmel products.
 
Unfortunately all the products that you mention are only available in the US and 

there are no current plans to launch them in the UK.
 
We will pass your comments on to our Marketing Department who are responsible for 

the discontinuation and introduction of all the products in our range.
 
While we regret that we are unable to be of any further assistance to you with 

regard to this particular request, we do want to thank you once again for 

taking the time to contact us and for your interest in our products.

Personally, I think that's a bit silly.  Why market a brand as Rimmel London, with the tagline "Get the London look" when half the products that you are selling can't even be used by the women/girls in London to get the look?

I got this reply from Coty who make Rimmel and after many questions on Twitter, I was informed that Rimmel have their HQ in Wimbledon.  I couldn't find an email address so I think I may have to write to them and find out.

If Rimmel don't want to sell the products in the UK, I think they should stop using the tagline of "Get the London look" when we clearly can't achieve it as we don't have these products at our disposal.

Also, I'm sure that Rimmel wasn't always called Rimmel London, I swear that's only a recent thing?

What are your opinions on this?

I thought the brand was called Rimmel LONDON?

I was on the Rimmel website last night having a nose to see what shades they did in eyeshadows and I came across this:

I'd never seen this in the shops before and I was wondering why..then I realised that I was on the US Rimmel website.  In my defence, the website is the same but you just choose which country you want to view and it shows you products that are available in that specific country.

I decided to have a nose around the rest of the website and I found these items (that once again, I have NEVER seen in the UK).

 I don't understand this at all, am I being naive? The brand is called Rimmel London and yet they have a wealth of products which aren't sold in the UK but are readily available in America.

I thought that maybe these were new products that we would be getting in due time but when I checked the "new products" section of the US Rimmel site, they were advertising the Max Volume Flash mascara which is something we've had here for quite some time.

Would you lot try these products if they were released on the UK market? Or, have they been released and I've just not seen them? 

Review: Rimmel Stay Glossy Lipgloss

I won this gloss in a Rimmel giveaway.  Rimmel are really really good for giveaways of new products, if you sign up to their newsletter you get an email when they have a new product release and when they have a giveaway open.  Plus, they give away a fair amount, they gave away 3000 of these lipglosses which is super generous.
I've been using the gloss since the day I got it and below is my review..

Rimmel say "Style. Shape. Shine. Stay Glossy delivers on all three with a fantastic new formula and applicator combo, custom-designed for fabulously luscious lips that last, and last, and last. New Stay Glossy Lipgloss features advanced Shine Extend™ technology for up to six hours of fabulously polished perfection. Its lip-loving formula pampers lips with a caring complex of cotton and silk for increased lips moisturisation. The innovative Soft Extend™ applicator is designed for ultimate speed and accuracy, defining your dream lips in a flash."

The colour I got was Captivate Me (340).  The swatch on the website isn't the best but the colour match to my lips is great.  The colour is a dusky kinda pink and it has small flecks of glitter in it.


So, did it hold up to these claims?
It was indeed shiny and glossy and it was surprisingly good at keeping my lips soft and moisturised.  I sound like such a fat pig here but hey..I don't know if it stays on for six hours without coming off because I don't go 6 hours without eating but I will say that until I ate, it stayed on VERY well.

The main thing I loved about this gloss was the applicator, all companies making glosses should abandon that dodgy doe foot applicator (I'm not picking on this company, they had the best pic to illustrate my point) and start using this Soft Extend™ applicator because it works like a charm.

I've also found a way of making the applicator BETTER.  On visit to TGI's to celebrate my brother's birthday, I slipped the gloss into my pocket. My thighs must be hotter than the pits of hell because when I took the gloss out, the bottle was a bit warm.  The Soft Extend™ applicator had softened and application was the best I'd ever had. It bends just as you apply a little pressure but holds enough composure to coat your lips properly.  Plus, you don't get any wastage like you do with the doe feet. You can totally control how much gloss you want to put on.

The picture-y bit:

I really like the packaging on this, Rimmel have made it look bling but not tacky. The picture represents a true swatch of what the colour looks like.  I really liked the shiny part of the applicator..

See how lovely and sleek that looks?

The shade:

Tis a good thing I took this before I went to TGI's because it's all but rubbed off now..

The excellent applicator:

I tried my best to photograph the applicator so you could see it wasn't a doe foot but this is the best it came out. It's like a doe foot but the end is flat and you can flex it as you wish. It's a revelation in lipgloss application I tells ya and the pocket warming method only makes application more effortless.  Take my word for it, it's the bees kneees. I've been to Boots and have taken the tester out of the tube and you can see the trailblazing shape.

Look how gorgeous it is!

This is how the glitter appears under flashy conditions:

Purchase?
I'd buy this in a flash. The colour is lovely, it lasts, it is shiny and glossy and best of all the applicator is a stroke of genius.  I feel that I should say this about Rimmel because I feel they're missing a trick.  Their colour range works brilliantly on women of colour, I've bought glosses from them before and they've actually shown up on my lips whereas some high end brands have fallen flat on their faces. Maybe if Rimmel got a coloured model in their ads, they would increase their customer basis a bit.. The gloss is also cheap, it retails for £5.99 but is currently on sale in Boots for £4.49.

Vintage is so in these days, daaaahling

I'm still on my never ending quest to trim down my stash but it's not going as well as I had hoped. As my top drawer of goods gets smaller, my bottom drawer of spares gets fuller and fuller.


Observe:


For those of you who say "it doesn't look that bad", the photo is deceptive as the cleansing wipes are piled up four high, I have six bottles of that shampoo, two bottles of the Botanics hair spray and there are many more items under the stuff on the left but I don't feel bad because this is stuff I actually like and will use. My hoarding days are well behind me.
I was reading this post the other day by my fellow Middlesex girl (woo woo) Marcia and it got me thinking (it doesn’t take much). Whenever someone in the blogosphere buys something new, they blog about it. With this in mind, I decided to show off “my” oldest makeup. Older makeup, like the oldest child doesn’t always get the recognition it deserves so I feel it about time it did!

This makeup dates back to 1980 (when my darling mum got married). This leads me on to my next point, how comes stuff which is this old still works and doesn't make me react yet I buy things which cause me to react a few months down the line? It's experiences like these which make me think that some beauty mags don't know what they're on about.

The goods:


Top to bottom:

• The bitchin'est greeny blue pencil ever, it's avocado in name but comes out much nicer. I think the closest dupe would be a UD liner.
• Rimmel gold pencil, my dupe for the Benefit Gilded pencil
• Almay duo with pink and blue eye shadow
• Almay blusher/bronzer in a goldeny shade

I have never ever ever been able to find a green pencil which matches this colour exactly. It looks like a standard blue here but IRL it’s a lovely amazon-like green.
I was looking to buy the gold pencil that Benefit sell when I found the golden pencil, which, I only found out yesterday was by Rimmel. This pencil is the softest mofo in all the land, glides on a treat, easy to blend if needs be and doesn't gloop! Looks like Rimmel had the pencil formula down back then..
The Almay duo is my profile pic here, on Specktra and on Twitter, I took it back in the day when I hadn't even heard of macro. The colours in it are Godsend, especially for Indian weddings/functions. The two colours go well together so you can just take this palette with you and make up a million looks.
Moving on to my OWN range..The quest to finish all products has gone as far as lipbalm and I am proud to say that my stash has been trimmed down from 10 to two and that I've bought balms in between and have finished all those off as well (please, hold your applause).

I present my oldest piece of "makeup": Superdrug's Tropical LipBalm in Strawberry Delight:



This tub is circa 1997, I was in year 9 at school which would indeed make me 25. God, that makes me feel so old. The fact that I still have it and that I have so much left of it makes me feel even worse..I'm nowhere near touching pan with it! I've been using it over the past few days and sadly it dries my lips out so it may be for the chuck. It moisturises intensely during the day but when I wake up in the morning my lips are drier than they were when I put it on.
If you’ve stuck it out this long, firstly, congrats and secondly, you might as well answer these questions. So, if I could have a minute of your time sir/madam: what is the oldest item of makeup you lovely people own? Do you stick to the rules and chuck things away when the beauty mags suggest? I personally think that throwing mascara away every three months is a bit overly keen, I wear mascara every single day and even then my tubs don't finish. If a mascara causes me to react then it goes in the bin ASAP but as long as it does the job, I keep it.