Review | Lipstick Lock by Rimmel London | Beauty Brags

Lipstick Lock by Rimmel London - £4,99
from Boots.

Hi again! As you can tell, I'm getting through quite a lot of blog posts recently which are about products I bought a few months ago, so thanks for bearing with me!

I bought this product on Valentines weekend as my boyfriend kindly took me on a shopping spree with his credit card, and naturally my first stop was Boots! I didn't intend to buy this product but figured I would give it a try as getting my lipstick to last all night is always something I've had an issue with. If you want to give it a further look, it can be found on the Boots website as well as from other retailers.

From Boots, the product is priced at £4.99 which isn't exactly expensive for what it promises. It's advertised as having a transparent application and helps lipstick last longer.

However, I didn't find the product particularly useful, unfortunately. My version is slightly different in appearance from the one on the Boots website and so some of these issues may have been rectified, but I'm really not sure on that.

Firstly, the smell is horrendous. It essentially smells like nail polish remover but a little stronger so my first reaction was not to put this anywhere near my mouth which is really off-putting! When you do eventually put it on your lips, it can be applied using a little brush that is attached to the lid of the product, as you can see in the photo above, The brush really tickles your lips but as its not exactly a big area to cover, it's bearable, just not exactly a comfortable experience.

Secondly, when you use the brush and apply it over the lipstick you have already applied, residue from the lipstick sticks to the brush. So essentially when you put it back in, the residue will contaminate the rest of the liquid so next time you use it, you're not getting a clean brush and it could affect the colour of your lipstick (if it's different from the last one you used). I just found that really annoying quite frankly as it means washing the brush straight after every use which isn't ideal when you just want to apply and go, or even apply on the go.

And lastly, I just didn't feel that it made my lipstick last longer at all. Which means that if it did work at all, it wasn't for a noticeable period of time - definitely not long enough to make up for the smell or inconvenience of the application.

Overall, I was really disappointed in this product and was just really glad it wasn't more expensive and I only wasted a few pounds on it.

Have you tried Lipstick Lock by Rimmel London? What did you think?

Let me know!

Review | Rimmel London Wake Me Up Foundation | Beauty Brags

Rimmel London Wake Me Up
Foundation - £8.99 at Superdrug

This is the last foundation in my search for the perfect perfume before I will finally post what foundation I define as "perfect" and now use on a daily basis. So - spoiler alert - I have found that foundation and - another spoiler alert - although I do love this foundation, it's not my ultimately perfect foundation.

I used this product for just over a year after my favourite foundation could no longer be found in stores in my home country of Scotland and assumedly has been discontinued (sadface). It is a liquid foundation and I would recommend applying this product with your fingers as when the product first comes out of the bottle, it is pretty cold and foundation is best applied when warm so leaving it to settle on your fingers for a few moments heats the liquid up and makes it easier to apply and blends into your skin a lot better - goodbye orange faces!

The product boasts an anti-fatigue element and this could not be truer. I received so many compliments about not looking tired and looking quite fresh (even at work after a night out!) and I always recommended this product as the sole cause for this. I honestly do not know how it does it, but my face always looked fresher after applying which was a relief for my pasty white skin, especially in winter in Scotland! You can actually see how much I used the product from the quality of the bottle in the picture - faded and almost empty! It also lasts for ages and I only had to buy two of these bottles in the amount of time I had it which I was really impressed with - and in all honestly, I probably only had to buy the other bottle because I often apply foundation in the morning and then again in the evening if I'm going well, anywhere, really!

All in all, if you're looking for something that gives you a beautiful healthy glow and covers up your dark circles and skin impurities then this is the product for you! The only fault I could possibly have with this product is the fact that because it is a liquid foundation, getting the right amount out of the bottle can be a little tricky as one pump is not enough but two is too much so you're often left with a lot of excess foundation on your hands (literally!). Also the fact that if you do not allow the liquid foundation to warm up in your hands, you might struggle to get the product to blend properly with your skin, leaving you with orange marks around the side of your face but I think that can be said, in my experience, for any liquid foundation!

There is a range of tones available from ivory to natural beige (which actually looks quite dark!). The shade I have been using is soft beige which seems a tad light for what I would usually go for but is actually a perfect match so if you are buying online, I would recommend looking at the photos of the tones before purchasing and going by that instead of the description. Obviously if you are buying in-store, I would really recommend trying the product before purchasing! You can see a range of the tones from Superdrug here.

At the moment, the product is £8.99 at Superdrug but is included in a special 3 for 2 offer on the store website, but I am unsure if this applies to products in store as well. As always, the product is offered in most other stores which stock make-up and beauty products but I am unsure on the prices of these - a simple google price comparison site should fix that! I've included a photo of how the product looks out of the bottle and once again, I really hope that this has been informative and I would highly recommend this product.

Keep a look out for a post on my all-time favourite foundation - coming soon! This foundation ranked a close #2 in my search!

Review | Rimmel London's Glam' Eyes Professional Liquid Eyeliner | Beauty Brags

Glam Eyes Professional Liquid
Eyeliner by Rimmel London
RRP - £5.29

Okay, so I'll admit that this is not the best photo I could have posted but I wanted to assure everyone that I actually have the product and have used it (as you can see from the faded writing on the bottle) so I've used a photo I've taken of the product I actually used instead of just a generic photo I could have got off the company website. Although, admittedly, that picture would have looked a lot prettier but oh well.

I randomly picked up this product a few months ago when I got a bit fed up of the pencil eyeliner I'd been using and fancied a different effect. The only experience I'd had of liquid eyeliner before this was from when I was about 14-15 and going through an extreme emo-phase ... and that hadn't exactly went well, as you can imagine. The only thing I could recall from it was how thick it was and that it had actually hurt a bit once applied.

My quick application!

This one was a pretty different experience and I can't say I'm disappointed with the results! The application of the eyeliner is quick and easy due to thin and flexible brush. The liquid itself doesn't clump which means there are no big clumps of liquid on a dried out brush (as long as you shake it before use, as with any other product). The brush actually has a thin tip and gets thicker as the brush goes up towards the lid which means you can simply turn sideways for a thicker application. I prefer to go for a thinner look to open my eyes, a picture of which I've included in this post. It's not the perfect application but it shows just what you can achieve in just a  few seconds for a photo opportunity!

I did find, however, as I had before, that the product sometimes stings when you first apply it and although it subsides after around a minute or so (approximately), it's not exactly the most comfortable experience. I can only assume that this is just an unfortunate side effect of liquid eyeliner, in general.

Overall, I cannot fault this product and it's by far the easier liquid eyeliner I've come across. Perfect for anyone just beginning to apply eyeliner, especially liquid, and extremely long lasting!

                          Whats your favourite eyeliner?

Review | Rimmel London BB Cream | Beauty Brags

Rimmel London BB Cream 9-in-1
£6.99 from ASOS

I accidentally ordered this product online as a present for my mum before realizing that she had actually asked for the No.7 BB Cream, not Rimmel London. Oops. So naturally, I took it for myself! Luckily we're more or less the same skin tone and so not much damage was done, thankfully.

The product promises quite a lot, the packaging boasting "skin perfecting super makeup" and I can't exactly say it lives up to that...it's really not much more than another marketing hype. However, that doesn't mean that the product itself is bad or average. In fact, I would rate this product at just above average, although nothing spectacular.

The shade I bought was light - there was only two you could choose from; light or medium. Usually I would have went for medium, but given the lack of other alternative and the fact I am Scottish (with pale white skin in comparison to the rest of the world, unfortunately!), I went for the light shade, figuring that the medium tone would be more suited to people with tanned skin. I wasn't impressed with the lack of option!

The product itself has an SPF 25 which is normal for a BB cream, but impressive and incredibly useful. The texture feels like a normal liquid foundation would do, but slightly creamier and not as runny. It was slightly disappointing that you would need a fair bit of the product to have completely even coverage of the facial area as it didn't seem too willing to spread far when applied. The coverage was decent, but not flawless. Pimples, spots and red blotches were still visible on the skin after application, even if slightly covered up, reducing the redness of all, but still making it seen to the naked eye. I also felt my pores were slightly blocked with it, but then perhaps I was applying a bit too much in desperation to cover all my flaws (which are fairly extensive, hence the foundation/bb cream search!). It did, however, feel light and natural on my skin.

Overall, it's not perfect and definitely not "skin perfecting", but it is ideal for a sunny day when you don't want to be covered in foundation and concealer, but don't exactly want to let the world see the full extent of your dark circles!

Have you tried Rimmel London's BB Cream? What did you think of it?

Review | Hide The Blemish Conceal by Rimmel London | Beauty Brags

Rimmel London Hide the
Blemish Concealer

Recently I've been focusing on reviewing products which I've been trying out in the past few weeks, so I figured it was about time I showed you guys one which I've been using loyally for years.

I've been using Hide the Blemish Concealer by Rimmel London for at least the past two years and found that, especially for my dark circles, it works miracles. Sure, nothing is perfect and I still occasionally look a tad tired if I haven't had a perfect nights sleep, but for me, this product helps to cover the damage I've done to my eyes over the years which seems to be practically irreversible.

The creamy texture of the product helps for an even coverage and easy application - all you have to do is apply and then rub and dab until fully covered, with your fingers or with a makeup brush if you prefer. I tend to use my fingers, basically because I feel I can see what I'm doing better than I would with a brush in front of my face, but everyone has their preferences and with a product as good as this, I wouldn't expect it would  matter much.

Boots - £3.99 or on 3 for 2
offer (sometimes!)
ASOS - £3.00

As shown to the left, the product comes in the form of a stick, somewhat comparable to that of a lipstick and can be applied exactly like a lipstick - except on your dark circles, blemishes and red patches, not your lips! I feel that this makes it easy to apply as it simply glides over the skin without tearing or pulling. In comparison to some products which I've tried over the years, such as No.7's concealer by Boots, I find that the texture of this one is far from chalky or sticky to apply, which is perfect for my skin type. Occasionally, I have found that without dabbing the product after blending, my skin tends to look a tad shiny on where I've applied it, but it's really nothing that can't be fixed easily.

Application of the product on my skin
Tone: natural beige.

For the application of the product, and indeed any concealer that I've come across, I tend to find that drawing a triangle under the eye (with the base of the triangle being directly under the bottom lashes and the tip of it being around halfway down your cheek, or slightly above) and then blending the product from the cheek upwards works wonders for a perfectly even coverage. When it comes to covering blemishes (the products name-sake!), I would recommend applying the product firstly on to your fingers and then directly on to the blemish to avoid cross-contamination. If you use the actual concealer stick once to directly cover the spot, there's a chance that the bacteria could transfer to the concealer and then on to your face when you use it again later! I've included a photo to the right of this paragraph to show what the product looks like when applied directly on to skin. The tone I use is natural beige and I find it a perfect match. Other tones include soft honey, ivory, golden beige and sand.

Priced at just £3.99 from Boots, this product is definitely worth a try and available from most retailers I've been to. For those avid bargain hunters, ASOS are currently selling this product for £3, which is the cheapest price I've seen it at! Occasionally, Boots will have it on their 3 for 2 offer, so watch out and stock up!

Have you tried Hide the Blemish Concealer by Rimmel London? Or perhaps you know of a better concealer? Let me know!