MORPHE 35W PALETTE (SWATCHES AND REVIEW)!

I recently mentioned the MORPHE 35W palette in my latest blog post (What I got for my Birthday: Makeup Product Reviews!) where I basically said how great a value I thought this palette was for the amount and quality of shades you get in it! This palette can be purchased for £15.95 on BEAUTYBAY and it includes 35 warm-toned eyeshadow shades - all of which are wonderfully pigmented!

In this short post I'll swatch each column of colours (in the order shown to the left) and point out my favourites in bold, enjoy!

Swatches of shades 1-5.

Swatches of shades 6-10.

1. White/Cream base shade

2. Shimmery cream-brown 

3. Light coral orange

4. Warm brown with orange undertones

5. Shimmery mid-brown - absolutely beautiful colour, the pigment of this one is amazing and it feels so creamy when you swatch it.

6. Beige base shade

7. Champagne gold

8. Lighter coral orange

9. Another shimmery mid-brown with red/purple undertones - less shimmery than number 5 with a warmer undertone.

10. Matte mid-brown

Swatches of shades 16-20.

Swatches of shades 11-15

11. Orange-beige base shade

12. Matte light brown

13. slightly shimmery barbie-pink

14. Deep brown with a slight sheen

15. Deep purple-brown - beautiful matte colour, love the warm purple undertones to this one.

16. Very light, shimmery pink

17. True, deep orange

18. Purple with specs of gold shimmer/glitter

19. Another shimmery brown with red undertones - I think it's becoming obvious that I am definitely a person who likes shimmery browns.

20. Dark charcoal brown

Swatches of shades 21-25

Swatches of shades 26-30

21. Light orangey-brown base shade

22. Shimmery barbie-pink (much lighter and more shimmery than 13.

23. Gold-orange shimmery shade (looks more brown-orange in the palette)

24. Light, shimmery grey-brown

25. Deep brown-purple 

26. Light, shimmery orange-beige.

27. Mid-brown

28. Shimmery red-purple - Beautiful shade, has more of a red undertone than the other purples in the palette.

29. Dark purple

30. Glittery black - considering I don't go out much I don't know when I'll use this but the glitter in this is beautiful (it has shown up at all on the swatch).

Swatches of shades 31-35.

31. Light, shimmery champagne base shade - Very subtle, pretty shade (I love the champagne, shimmery colour.)
32. A very shimmery, true-orange
33. A light grey-blue - I'm really unsure as to why this colour is in the palette as it is meant to be a 'warm' shade palette (hence the 'W' in 35W). However, it's still a lovely shade, I just tend to use warmer shades.
34. Bright purple with a slight shimmer.
35. Matte black.

I'm really impressed with this palette and there's not really one colour I don't like; there are a few that I probably won't use as much as others but they're still all beautiful shades.
The texture of these is also very creamy and you don't need a lot of the darker/shimmery colours at all for a good colour pay-off. 
For £15.95, this palette is honestly great value for money! Especially for those of you who tend to go out a lot as there are endless possible combinations in this.
I'd be really excited to try another of the MORPHE palettes and plenty more can be found on the BEAUTYBAY website!


I hope you enjoyed this shorter post, thank you for reading!

Holly Amber X

WHAT I GOT FOR MY BIRTHDAY - MAKEUP PRODUCT REVIEWS!

Hi everybody! Im now officially 19 - my last teenage year which is a scary thought. Usually, I can't justify spending £30/40.00 on one makeup product so I thought my birthday would be a perfect time to receive things I've been wanting for a while.

ANASTASIA BEVERLY HILLS
Contour Kit.

Top Left to bottom right:
Vanilla, Banana, Sand,
Java, Fawn and Havana.

The first thing I received (I know I'm very late jumping onto this bandwagon) was the ANASTASIA BEVERLY HILLS Powder Contour Kit which is £39.00 on the CULTBEAUTY website. I got mine in light/medium as I'm really pale right now and I like my counter to look quite natural. You get six different shades (3 are bronzier shades, 3 are lighter shades) which are all removable. I think I'll get a lot of use out of most of these! However, the highlighting shade "sand" isn't as good as some of my other highlighters so I probably won't use this one as much. I'm really impressed with the other shades though, they're all lovely colours for contouring with and are very pigmented - a little goes a long way with the bronzier shades! You can also purchase individual shades from the website now if you were to run out of one.

MAKEUP REVOLUTION
blush palette.

The second thing I received was the MAKEUP REVOLUTION Blush Palette in "Golden Sugar" which is £6.00 on the SUPERDRUG website.

Shades from bottom left to bottom
right, then top left to top right.

I am so impressed with this! For starters though, most of the shades in this palette are, in my opinion, much more like highlighters rather than blushers which is completely fine for me - I get much more excited about highlighters than blushers.

The pigmentation of these shades is amazing, especially for the price you pay! I absolutely love the first shade which is a very white, champagne shade but be very careful with how much of this you use - I dipped my brush in this twice yesterday and I looked like I'd be dipped in a bath of it. 

A couple of the shades have a little bit of glitter in which some people may not like in a highlighter but I can look past that for these shades with how beautiful they are!

BENEFIT Roller Lash.

The next product I received was the BENEFIT Roller Lash Mascara which can be purchased for £19.50 - bloody expensive for a mascara if you ask me (hence why I didn't purchase it myself). However, I do understand why so many people love this mascara. It gives your lashes so much length and curl and the packaging is absolutely beautiful (I'm a big fan of BENEFIT makeup packaging). 

I don't usually like rubber brushes like this one but its quite easy to use - it claims to "hook and roll" meaning it separates, lifts and curls each individual eyelash and I can see the difference from my usual Fairy Lashes mascara by JELLY PONG PONG (which is also a very good mascara, just less volumising).

Im not sure if I will re-purchase this when I run out of the product because of the price but we'll see how much my love grows for it until that time comes.

Natural Matte palette by TOO FACED.

The next palette I received I am so in love with - the TOO FACED Natural Matte palette which can be purchased for £27.00 from the TOO FACED website (or £32.00 from the DEBENHAMS website).

Top to bottom: Heaven, Cashmere Bunny,
Sexspresso, Lace Teddy, Strapless, Risque,
 Nude, Honey Butter and Chocolate Cookie

The palette comes with a "how-to-glamour-guide" which contains instructions for three different looks the palette is made for creating (a 'day' look, a 'classic' look and a 'fashion' look). This would be really good for someone wanting to buy a palette which they can achieve different looks from - the shades can be combined in so many different ways for both day and night. 

The shades themselves are beautiful - my personal favourites are "honey butter", "chocolate cookie" and "strapless" and all of the shades are so easy to blend. I definitely think this palette is worth the money as I'll be getting so much use of out it. I will admit it was slightly smaller than I had expected but the packaging and product is beautiful nonetheless. 

MORPHE Palette - 35W.

Another palette I received was the MORPHE 35W palette which contains 35 shades and can be purchased for £15.95 on the BEAUTYBAY website. 

All of these shades are quite warm colours - there is a combination of matte, satin and shimmery shades which are all really pretty and pigmented. In the picture to the right I picked out a couple of my favourite colours to swatch but they are all really impressive and the palette as a whole is a great price considering how many shades you get. There are many more MOPRHE palettes I'd suggest you look through before choosing one to buy as it was a very hard choice for me!

NYX Liquid Suede
Lipsticks.

The last makeup product I received was the NYX Liquid Suede Lipsticks (which are essentially matte liquid lipsticks). I got mine in the shades "Soft Spoken" and "Vintage" and these can be purchased on the BOOTS website for £6.50 each. 

The packaging of these is very pretty! I also love the applicator which is slightly slanted, making the product easier to apply. I am extremely surprised and impressed with the formula of these - they dry down to matte quite quickly and I wore "Soft Spoken" yesterday for about 7 hours and it wore really well (considering I was eating and drinking a lot, I only reapplied twice). With any matte lipstick I'd advise you to exfoliate and moisturise your lips beforehand as they can be quite drying but these lipsticks didn't dry out my lips too much and didn't sink into every tiny line on my lips as I find most matte lipsticks do. I'd suggest using a lip liner with the darker colours as they are slightly harder to apply - I'm definitely going to purchase some of the lighter shades!

 Thank you very much for reading! I was so excited to try these out to review and share with you all as I know spending money on makeup is risky business when you're not sure if its worth it! I hope this was helpful and a big thank you to my parents, boyfriend and friends for buying me such lovely presents and giving me a lovely birthday as always.

Holly Amber X

 

MY FIRST BIRCHBOX REVIEW! (FEBRUARY BIRCHBOX)

I was super excited to receive my first BIRCHBOX!

The box itself was lovely! I loved the design and that the quote "Shine bright like a diamond" was printed in shiny, silver colour. 

Inside the box was an information booklet which contained information about the products and a small bag with the products inside. (The bag could probably be reused for holding shower gels, shampoos etc. - I think it'd be great to take travel-sized samples away with you on holidays). 

The BIRCHBOX subscription service is a £10.00 monthly payment and you receive 5 products in each box (you can also pay for a 6-month/12-month subscription where you can save money). You can read more about BIRCHBOX here and browse their website.

DOUX ME Face mask and Exfoliating
Scrub - £18.00.

The first product I came to in the box was a sample-sized version of the DOUX ME Comforting Face Mask & Exfoliator which retails for £18.00 on the BIRCHBOX website. First of all, I've not heard of this brand before but I really like the sound it from doing a little research - they're environment-focussed and try to use natural, organic ingredients (listing them all clearly in a way that anyone can understand). 
It contains ingredients such apricot oil, cammomile and marshmallow extracts (can't say I've heard of a product containing marshmallow before). It can either be applied as a mask by using a thin layer which you wash off after 7-10 minutes or as an exfoliating scrub by applying in circular motions.

NUMBER 4 Prep and Protect Spray - £20.00.

I've not tried it on my face yet but on the back of my hand the exfoliation doesn't seem to harsh and it left my skin feeling smooth and soft! It doesn't have much of a scent which is better than a bad scent - I'm very much looking forward to trying this out.

The second product in the box was a sample-sized NUMBER 4 Lumiere d'hiver Super Comb Prep & Protect spray which retails for £20.00 on the BIRCHBOX website. You apply this to towel-dried hair by spraying and then combing through before styling as normal. It claims to strengthen and repair hair strands as well as detangling and taming flyaways.
Although this is a sample-sized product I think it's quite a generous size and I'll get quite a few uses out of it! 

SPECTRUM COLLECTIONS Tapered Powder
Brush - £7.99

The next product I got in the box is one of my two favourites -  A SPECTRUM COLLECTIONS Tapered Powder Brush which was (obviously) full-size and retails for £7.99 on the BIRCHBOX website. 
First of all - how BEAUTIFUL is this brush!? It's extremely soft (I can't stop feeling it at the moment!) and I love the design of these - definitely my favourite brush design I've seen (apart from the REAL TECHNIQUES Bold Metals collection) with it's pale pink handle and ombre blue to purple bristles.
The tapered end means you can be really precise with the brush and I'm really happy to receive this as I haven't got a smaller powder brush. Make-up brushes are definitely one of my favourite things to receive - very impressed with this product!

COHINE Hand & Body Lotion - £19.00.

The next product was a sample-sized COCHINE Water Hyacinth & Lime Blossom Hand & Body Lotion which retails for £19.00 on the BIRCHBOX website. The packaging for this product is really nice as it feels like you're using a luxury brand product; you also get quite a lot of product for a sample-size (I'll be using my sample as a hand cream). The scent is also really nice - quite subtle with a hint of lime. I like receiving hand/body creams in sample sizes as I very rarely get through a full-sized version of this type of product anyway! This was a nice little addition to the box.

The second of my favourite products (and final one) in the box was a full-sized, LOC (Love Of Colour) One and Done Shadow Stick in the shade "Champagne Problems" which retails for £8.00 on the BIRCHBOX website. 
Each subscribers got to choose between two different shades - I chose "Champagne Problems" as it was definitely my favourite type of shade, a champagne-gold with silvery undertones. The other shade was "Perfect Cents" which I believe was more of an orangey-gold (it looked like a lovely colour, just not what I usually go for). 

I am extremely impressed with this product! It has such a creamy formula which is so easy to blend out and I think they definitely need to produce more shades of this! It claims that it is waterproof and that it can last up to 11 hours without creasing - I haven't tested it for that long yet but I've had it on my wrist for nearly 2 hours now and it hasn't changed one bit from when I applied it.

I'd love to try out more shades from this product and other products from the LOC brand as I'm so impressed with this.

Overall I am so pleased with my first box from BIRCHBOX - there isn't one product that I'm not looking forward to trying out or that I disliked. I love that they supplied a range of brands, to try out some of which I'd never heard before, and their sample sizes were generous! I also like the fact that the two best products (in my opinion) were the full-sized products in the box. I am extremely excited to receive next month's box now and I urge you to check out their website and subscription service!

If you are at all interested in signing up for a monthly subscription (which you are able to cancel at any time), I'd really appreciate it if you did so through my personal link!
Thank you for reading,

Holly Amber X

Note: Today I reached 5000 views on my blog which made me so happy - thank you to every single person who takes 2 minutes out of their day to read a post, I appreciate it so much, it's so encouraging! I was always so nervous about starting something like this until I took the leap and had a bit of faith in myself - 5000 may not seem a lot to some people but to me it represents a lot of time and effort on my half and love and encouragement from your half :)

"And suddenly you just know its time to start something new & trust the magic of beginnings"

MY LAST GLOSSYBOX? (FEBRUARY GLOSSYBOX REVIEW)!

After the disappointment of my previous GLOSSYBOX, I was wary to receive my February edition - I hate being disappointed. However, I was optimistic that the January edition just wasn't for me; it didn't mean it was a bad subscription service.

This month's GLOSSYBOX was better than the last, but I'll explain my thoughts about my subscription to GLOSSYBOX as a whole towards the end. 

The box itself was, as always, beautifully designed and I've kept all of my boxes each month which I use to store my make-up or skin care products - they're really sturdy and I've saw people use them for many different things!

The first product in the box was an MUA PowerPout Glaze in the shade "Spellbound" (each subscriber got the chance to pick which shade they wanted). These can be purchased for £3.50 on the MUA website (or most drugstores) and they come in 6 different shades. MUA is definitely not my favourite brand for any type of lip products - I do like their highlights and eyeshadow palettes though. 

Unsurprisingly, I didn't particularly like this product (but it was not as bad as I had expected). The colour itself I don't like even though I had watched lip swatches before choosing my colour - it's a very sheer, shiny red colour which seems to rest on top of the lips. However, the consistency is only slightly tacky which I was happy about although I'm not sure how long it would last on the lips. 

The next product in the box was a set of slanted tweezers from the Vintage Cosmetics Company which can be purchased on their website for £8.00 - although I absolutely love the design of these (they have the cutest floral pattern), I already have about 4 pairs of tweezers. Definitely not a wasted product though, I just didn't necessarily need these.

The third product in the box was a Wilkinson Sword Intuition Sensitive Care shaver which can be purchased on the Superdrug website for £6.49. Again, this is not necessarily something I needed and I much prefer receiving makeup/hair products from GLOSSYBOX. I can't say I know a lot about razors but it states that it is good for sensitive skin as it moisturises as you shave and so requires no type of shaving foam/gel etc. It also states that it contains vitamin E and aloe vera. 

The next product in this month's box was a Nicka K 24-hour waterproof eyeliner in the shade "NYA41 - Dark Brown". I was especially pleased with receiving this as I was in search of a dark brown eyeliner. It comes with a wind-up eyeliner pencil on the one side and a small smudging sponge on the other end and the product itself is so creamy and pigmented! I would definitely recommend this eyeliner but I can only find it on the Nicka K (American) website for $5.99. However, if you can get your hands on this product you won't be disappointed at all, especially for the price you pay! 

The last product I received in the box was a NAOBAY (natural and organic) protective, volumising hair mask. I'm really excited to use this - I absolutely love the scent (although I'd be terrible at describing it). 

"This mask contains natural triglycerides that add density and volume to hair. It also features organically grown Shea Butter and Argan oil. Formulated for all hair types"

I was surprised at the size of this product also, will definitely get a couple of uses out of this. On the information sheet it states that it can be purchased form the NAOBAY website for £10.64 but I haven't been able to find this link myself.

Overall, the products in the box this month totalled to just over £30.00 and I wasn't over the moon with all of them. After receiving my box this month I made the decision to cancel my subscription with GLOSSYBOX for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I just haven't enjoyed the products I've received as much in my last couple of boxes - I understand that you can't expect to love every single product you receive but I feel as if the products do not match up to the first few ones I received. I think this can be seen in my reviews as well since I subscribed up 6 months ago. 

Also, each month the total retail price of all of the items in the box has slowly declined and I have started to receive cheaper products from brands I don't necessarily like (such as MUA, Essence etc). It is all a matter of opinion and I know many people who still love GLOSSYBOX and their customer service is brilliant - I just don't feel as excited as I previously was when waiting for my box each month and, although I may re-subscribe in the future, right now I've made the decision to try a different subscription service...

BIRCHBOX! 

So, in the next couple of days I'll be receiving my first monthly birch box and I will be sure to review and give my first impression.

Thank you as always for reading!

Holly Amber X