Is LA Colors Jewel Tone a dupe for Models Own Disco Mix?

Disco Mix is probably one of my favourite glitter polishes of all time.  It is nearly always on my toes and it seldom chips.  As a result of this, I am nearly half way through my bottle.  I was planning on buying it again when Models Own had their sale this year but one thing lead to another and I forgot.

Regular readers know that a trip to Westfield with me is never complete without me having a good old staredown with the LA Colors stand in Beauty Base.  On my last trip there, I found Jewel Tone.  This polish immediately caught my eye as it looked very similar to Models Own Disco Mix.

In their bottles, they look similar, the only difference I see is that Disco Mix has more pink in it than Jewel Tone does.  The density with which the glitter is packed in is also something that becomes obvious. I find that you can get total nail covereage with two coats when using Disco Mix but with Jewel Tone, you need about three or four.

2true Cover 'n' Conceal concealer: UDPP on a budget

This has featured on a lot of my EOTD posts recently and I have had some people ask my why I'm using it instead of UDPP or my Jemma Kidd primer.

The short answer is because it's brilliant.

You'd be right to wonder why someone of my skintone would buy something which was clearly not going to match.

Well, my mum wanted a new concealer so she picked up this and the liquid version.  Her skin is far lighter than mine.  Her third item was a nail polish which we were also impressed with.

Anyway, my mum liked the liquid one more so this one was sitting there unloved and I decided to liberate it.

I thought I'd try out the old "concealer as an eyeshadow base/primer" adage and this held up very well.

It looks yellow when I put it on my lids, I know there is no way in hell it will match the colour on my lids but after blending it out a bit, it's perfect base shade.

You need to let it dry properly as it can be a bit sticky if you don't.  You also get a bit of tack if you put too much on but it's easy to estimate how much you need.

I'm not impressed with it being called "dark" though, I can't think of a single brown or black girl who could use this (successfully) as a concealer.

This really delivers as a primer as it keeps my eyeshadow on all day long and doesn't get in the way of blending at all.  I found that UDPP sometimes made my shadow look chalky and would change the colour but this doesn't do that.

I can't figure out what the single best thing about this is, how little you need or how cheap it is.

It cost me a bit less than £2 and Superdrug have always had it in stock whenever I've been in.

I'd fully recommend this to anyone who is looking for a cheaper version of UDPP as it really works for me, it lasts an age (both usage wise and on the lids) and it's cheap.

I've been using mine pretty much non stop and it only looks like I've used it once or twice.

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.

Review: Hauling, hauling, hauling..swatching swatching swatching

I've got the Rawhide theme tune stuck in my head thanks to hearing it on Eastenders and the Simpsons twice in as many weeks.

This is the second of the three entries I will be making this weekend/tonight if I get that bored but I may not even have time for this one as I'm going to see The Shining in 5 minutes :)

Anyway, this has been quite a haulage of a beauty week for me as I have bought not one, not two, not three, not four but FIVE items of makeup within the space of two days.

I've bought three Urban Decay shadows from a lovely Specktra-ette (http://www.specktra.net/) and two Prestige mascaras (the ones which form the review that preceded this post. This post focuses mainly on the UD shadows and is like a semi review/swatch of them :)

Here's the haul in its entirety:

Foxy:

Chopper:

Illegal:

Swatch:
L-R: Illegal, Chopper, Foxy.
This is exactly how the colours look in real life.

Illegal is a rosey colour apparently but to me it looks more like chocolate milk and it matches my lids perfectly and I will be using it every day. It looks a bit patchy compared to Chopper but that's because the ring finger is the weakest (which is why we use it for applying TE) but the colour is just as creamy as the other two.

Chopper is SUPER shimmery but there is great gold colour behind it, I wouldn't wear it everyday as it is a bit OTT for that but it's perfect for nights out. Also, to you desi ladies who know how hard it is to find a shadow to match those gorgeous yet pesky desi outfits, GET THIS as it matches perfectly. Nice and glimmery IRL and applies a charm, that's a light swatch and look at the colour pay off.

Foxy has not really been used by me yet and TBH I'm struggling to see where I'd use it, I think I might use it as a highlighter by really buffing it out or take a tight eyeliner brush to it and use it as an eyebright as it is very similar to Benefit's EyeBright pencil.

Repurchase?
Yes, yes and yes again. In conclusion, the eyeshadows are some of the softest I have ever used and would SO buy them again for the following reasons:

• great colour pay off
• very very soft
• WOC friendly
• a little goes a long way
  

Review: Clearasil Stayclear Pore Cleansing Pads and Boots Time Delay Cleansing Balm

Helloooooooooo

Boots have recently opened up a new store near where my parents live and as I am visiting them this week I've been going shopping with my mum quite a bit. This Boots is just a "chemist" Boots but it has a small section of makeup etc..so I call it a travel Boots. It has two racks of clearance stuff and recently I have bought the following from there:

• Boots Time Delay Cleansing Balm x 3
• Clearasil exfoliator pads x 2

My mum has also bought some shampoo from there and I'm quite liking the fact that they have this constant clearance section as I get to pick up bargains. The guy who worked there said that they would keep the clearance section until they found out what kinda products people in the local area bought and then just order those in.

Anyway, this post is about the Clearasil exfoliator pads and the Time Delay balm which are both heavenly!

Both products:
I know you can't really see the name of the Boots product so I'll tell you what it's called, it's Boots Daily Radiance Balm.

Clearasil
I used to use Clearasil when I was younger and had horrible spots and it has always been good to me. Bitter experience has taught me that when you see something on clearance grab as many of them as you can because you can always return them. Anyway, my skin has been really really greasy recently despite me having trying to take a lot of oil out and so I thought I'd give these pads a try.

They come in a tub and are quite "watery" and have little bumps in them which is the exfoliating part of the deal. There are 65 pads per tub and each tub retails at about £3.50 but I got mine on clearance for 97p. Anyway, I used one pad last night and they were really really good, the bumps exfoliated and made my skin soft and the watery part cleaned my skin. I am so glad I bought these as they are one of the first things like this that actually clean my skin and don't dry it out totally.

Repurchase?
Definitely.
I'd recommend these to anyone with skin which tends to grease up during the summer and people who occassionally have spot outbreaks. I didn't think that a product aimed at teenagers would work so well on my skin but I'm totally amazed at how good it has been :)

Boots Time Delay
This is apparently a dupe of a Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish but I've also heard it's a copy of an Eve Lom product. As my only foray into higher end face care was Clinique, I can't be sure which of the two claims is correct.

This product is a waxy kinda balm, kinda like vaseline. The product comes with two muslin cloths and what you do is put the balm on your face, leave it for a few minutes, soak the muslin cloth in warm water and press it over your face so as to take the balm off. Then you wash the rest of the balm off and clean the cloth, soak it in cold water (I actually wrote wet water first..) and then apply it to your face.

The first time I used this it made my skin really really dry so I thought I wouldn't use it ever again. Come the next day I put my moisturiser on as per usual and then got on the baking tube. Got off at the other side to apply my Stay Matte powder and saw that my skin was looking well moisturised and not greasy at all which was great but I've had cleansers in the past which have duped me like this so I didn't use it again and went on the tube the next day, lovely skin again.

Since then I have been using it once a week and it gives me lovely skin all week which is great, SUPER cost effective at the price I paid and I don't have to use it every day!

Repurchase?
Oh hell yes, it's my HG cleanser at the moment and I don't think (well I hope) that Boots aren't discontinuing it as I have seen it in full price at larger Boots.