Sparkled Beauty

No, I didn't get to go to Europe but am lucky to have a big enabler that hunts stuff down for me where she lives and where she travels. You probably remember Marie from Mon Coin a Moua through my France swap last year. She is in a blog hiatus for a while now but we still keep in touch. She always offers to pick me up some stuff and send them over.

This first batch of stuff, she got from London a while back but couldn't send them to me because of the Canada Post strike.

I tried to be good and didn't ask her to get too much. There wasn't any LE Sleek palettes around at the time, so nothing for me there.

I got a beautyuk eyeshadow palette #2 and some MUA (Makeup Academy) £1 range: lipstick #7 and eyeshadows #2, #7, #12 and #14, all Pearl finish. It's silly with all numbers as names, but nothing I can do there lol.

And then, nail polish. Prices are for reference only, I'm shocked sometimes of how little these cost compared to the quality
- H&M Hunt Me Down - I couldn't find this shade at my store here, €3.50
- P2 Crackling top coat in Golden Rush, €1.75. This completes my main colour range for crackles
- Essence Colour & Go in Where is the Party? - duochrome goodness, €1.25, and a Nail Art magnet, €1.79, to work the few magnetic nail polish I have. We'll see if it works.

- Kiko #237 Rosso Glitter Sparkle Touch, #278 Viola Orchidea Microglitter, #255 Viola Microglitter and #231 Multicolour Paillettes Sparkle Touch, €2.50 each. Only numbers on the bottles but there are names on their website. I have always wanted to try Kiko, they aren't easy to get a hold of.

Catrice has been coming out with fabulous LE collections lately and I'm absolutely in love with how they look and even their names.
- From the Papagena collection: Tigerlily Crystal Clear Gloss Stick, €3.99. Same concept as the Maybelline Pop sticks
- Out of Space collection: Beam Me Scotty! nail polish €2.49, Supernova Skywalker and Back To Pandora baked eyeshadows, €3.49 each. There'll be more nail polish and eyeshadows from this collection coming my way, I wanted to collect them all
- Glamourama collection: Drama, Baby! and En Vogue Absolute Eye Colours, on clearance for €1.50 each, woo hoo! These 2 shades show up on camera brighter than IRL. Can't wait to do more smoky eyes with them.

The box she sent the stuff in was packed to the rim. See what she sneaked in as extras for me:
- Essence You Rock! collection: Cut Off the Beige, Love, Peace and Purple, Kings of Mints and Speed of Light Blue
- Essence Sun Club in BBC Splash Refresh.

How cute are those tiny little bottles (7ml)? They are slightly bigger than the Colour & Go line (5ml) but are still babies next to the Sun Club (11ml). Love the colours she picked for me, especially Love, Peace and Purple with the duochrome sheen.

Then there's more.
- Catrice Absolute Eye Colour palette in The Season's Must Have
- P2 Kiwi Cuticle Peeling
- P2 Me, Myself and I nail sticker
- Essence Blossoms Etc. eye pencils in I Like and Bloom-a-Loom
- Essence You Rock! lip stain in Your Pink is on Fire
- P2 Home Sweet Home Everlasting eye primer in Little Darling, and
- P2 Happy Blooming eyeshadow in Cheerful Lilac.

Besides cute names, the packaging is adorable too. Can I have these brands here, please? All of them? I'm clueless of what to try first, can't decide. What do you want to see first?

So... August is my birthday month, and I like to think it's fun to "celebrate" the whole month instead of just one day. So I'll make an effort to blog everyday this month, to be a good blogger and all, lol. Will see how that works out. Ok, back to the topic.

I bet you all have heard of (or purchased from) Illamasqua by now. There have been countless reviews on the web about products of this UK brand, and most were positive. I like the idea of a new brand that is comparable to MAC and that has a good marketing sense to promote their products to Sephora . With the newly opened Sephora in NY, the brand has made a grand entrance to the US market. Needless to say, makeup lovers are all over Illamasqua powder/ cream blushes ($23), pigments ($24), liquid metals ($24), nail polishes ($14), etc. The price range is not really within my reach, but I'm fine with not shopping this brand, just like I'm fine with not shopping MAC (I'm weird huh?). But it's still an exciment to the makeup world, as maybe it's time for MAC to share the throne with someone else.

Sleek is another makeup brand from the UK that I recently discovered. Its iDivine shadow palettes) have been a hit in the blogger world. I personally don't own any, as so far it is UK-exclusive, but judging by people's raves over them, I'm curious to try. The company is working on an online-shop website so that people outside UK could put in their orders, which is exciting. The price is about £4.49 which isn't bad. The website only features 3 palettes (Original, Chaos and Storm and the new Curious palette (in the picture) coming out this August, but I have read about a few more (Acid, Safari, Jewels, etc.). Lots of them are LE, but I really hope Sleek will have more than 4 different palettes online. I love shadows, especially with drugstore price, so this might be something I could afford. And it's from the UK, probably my first experience ever buying anything from there :-)

Barry M is another brand on the affordable side. Their most famous products are the Dazzle Dusts (£4.50) - in the picture, and nail paints (£2.95), but there are a lot more on the website. The good thing is they do ship internationally, but I can't tell what the shipping cost is like, as customers are asked to contact the company for a quote. With the exchange rate, the prices would come out a bit higher than I would normally pay for my mineral pigments or nail polishes. Also, the colours aren't LE, so I'm not in a rush to order.

Another brand which isn't popular outside UK yet: Collection 2000. I was intriqued seeing this brand popping up in a few blog posts. The Dazzle Me! Eye Dusts are said to be a "rip-off" of Barry M Dazzle Dusts, as they are only at half of the price in bigger pots with a few similar shades. And the quality is good, no complains. And then, there are the Hot Looks nail polishes (featured in the pic in the most famous shade "Dynasty"), around £1.80 each. They are said to be comparable to Barry M polishes as well. Are you confused with too many alternatives yet?

Unfortunately, there is no option to buy directly from the company website. They point visitors to boots.com or superdrug.com, and these 2 sites certainly do not deliver outside UK. So the only solution, if you want some Collection 2000, would be asking a UK friend for a shopping favour, or find a swap :-)

Lastly, beautyuk, another less popular brand. How gorgeous is this eyeshadow collection palette? I spent quite some time on the website looking at their products, liked the shades and the price point. They have single shadows (£1.99), quads (£3.49), lots of nail shades (£1.79) as well, but I am only interested in the palettes for now. 4 options to choose from: Pastels, Brights, Glitters and Neutrals, £3.49 each. Not available online, though, only at Superdrug. Just imagine if one day I go to the UK, my first stop would probably be Superdrug, lol.

At least I'm glad to have full access to Rimmel, Boots No7 and Gosh from drugstores around here. Well, Gosh is a Denmark brand, not UK, but you know what I mean - brands from that part of the world that isn't always accessible. If I miss a brand that you like from there, let me know and I'll add it to the post.

EDIT TO ADD:
B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful, a sister brand of Lush, is known for its vegan cosmetic line and its super cute packaging. Can you guess what's in that "jewelled hinged pot"? It's their Lip Cream in Bitten (£9.30), with a 24K gold leaf for look. Their Pressed Shadows are very cool too, a little to the expensive side (£8.30) though. Refills are available, so you can continue using their cute packaging one shadow at a time. Imagine you have a little army of these babies, they could be great decorations to your vanity and you don't have to worry about organizing them in a drawer.

The thing is they haven't been expanding very much, only have 3 stores in the UK so far. They for sure ship within UK, Japan and Austria but ask that customers from any other country contacting them for shipping availability. In short, I'm not sure they ship to Canada.

Eyeko is another fun brand to try out. Their manga-styled packaging is eye catching, and so is their "free shipping world wide on all orders" policy. Who doesn't love that?

Their most popular product is probably the 3-in-1 Cream (£6 or $9), and its tinted version too. It is said to work as a moisturizer, a highlighter and an eye cream at the same time. Most bloggers said they mostly use the cream for highlighting, as it adds a nice glow above your cheek bone and emphasizes your blush.

Their little bottles of nail polishe are cute too. Check out the swatches at Scrangie if you are interested.

Note: Make sure to click on the little $ sign on the side bar to see the price in $, as the default is in £ and the exchange rate they use does change over time.

Photo credit: illamasqua.com, sleekmakeup.com, barrym.com, collection2000.co.uk, beautyuk.org., bnevertoobusytobebeautiful.com and eyeko.com