Category: Make up

Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Foundation by Fenty Beauty

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For those of you that don’t know, Fenty Beauty is Rihanna’s own cosmetics range and they have recently dropped at Boots! Available online and in selected stores. Fortunately for me, Cardiff was one of them.

My sister had raved about the Fenty Beauty Flyliner, but I’m so loyal to the Kat Von D Beauty Tattoo Liner that I had never got around to trying it. Also, my mum didn’t rate it, and we all know mother knows best!

After a little light internet research on the best foundations for oily skin, the Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Foundation came out on top from most websites and reviews so I thought I’d take the plunge!

The box packaging

There are SO many different shades to choose from which I think is a good sign from a company. It means they’ve put a lot of effort in and acknowledge that people are different! There’s even a shade finder online which, based on my answers, was entirely accurate.

I personally wouldn’t buy foundation without trying it on. I’ve been bitten before and I’ve learnt from my mistakes. (That’s a subtle note to all the companies that don’t have stands in the usual department stores around the UK!).

  • Bottle packaging
  • Standard pump

My shade was 230 (FOR LIGHT TO MEDIUM SKIN WITH NEUTRAL UNDERTONES – as described on their website), which is the shade that came out on the shade finder on the website, but I also spent 5 minutes in Boots applying it to my face to make sure! I also tried 235 which was more of a golden colour, too warm for me.

I applied the foundation on top of my Revolution Mattify primer, which I wrote about last month at this link. I used my Kat Von D #10 Lock-It Edge Foundation brush to apply it by applying the product straight onto my face and rubbing it in with the brush. I finished it off with the Kat Von D Lock-It Setting Mist as always.

  • 7am, just after application
  • 5pm, after 10 hours wear

Fenty Beauty are cruelty free, but are not completely vegan. They have some vegan products which they list on their website, which includes their Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Foundation.

Honestly, I was so impressed with this foundation. After a full days wear, I wasn’t completely shine free but I wasn’t anywhere as shiny as I’d usually be, and coverage was still full and not cakey! I highly recommend it. I’ve used other brands in the past such as Estee Lauder’s Double Wear and Kat Von D’s Lock It Foundation and this is by far the best I’ve ever used. The shade match is perfect and it doesn’t even feel like I’m wearing foundation at all.

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The Cruelty Free Beauty Box Deluxe: 1st Edition [June 2019]

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I’m so excited to write this post! I used to subscribe to The Cruelty Free Beauty Box before I had too many and couldn’t use enough of the products before the next one arrived. It all got a bit overwhelming so I regrettably cancelled my subscription (I’m still making my way through some of the old products!)

When I cancelled, they contacted me to find out why and asked for my feedback. I let them know that the make up colours weren’t suited to me, the products were often too similar, and that I would prefer to have a box every other month instead of every month. To resolve the colours, they amended my account to change my make up preferences so the next time I subscribed I’d get different colours.

A few months later, they were offering new boxes, sent every other month with more options. It was as if all my prayers had been answered! In reality, the team listened to customer feedback and made those changes. I subscribed to the Deluxe Beauty Box pretty much as soon as I could! This version of the box includes Lifestyle and Snacks which I didn’t even know I wanted but now it is, I want it! The monthly price is a tad expensive at £39.95, but as this blog post will describe, I think it’s worth every penny.

So, let’s start with the very First Edition of this box! It arrived on Wednesday just gone, in a nice big cardboard box and had some serious weight to it. I was so excited! The classic stamp was on the box, and stickers made of sugar can were used to keep the box closed during delivery.

Inside, the leaflet on top describes all the products inside, and also includes a description of the changes that the new boxes include! To summarise, the packaging is more eco-friendly now with things being recyclable, compostable and bio-degradable. Additionally, that specific piece of paper is seed paper which you can grow! I think I’ll give the growth a go and see what turns out.

Product List

  • Bumi Face Polish in Juniperberry, Saga, Hemp & Volcanic Ash (15ml) – RRP £9
  • PHB Ethical Beauty Bio Gel ‘Skin Brightener (Full size) – RRP £25
  • Articka Nourishing Hair Oil (10ml) – RRP £4.95
  • Sknfed Espresso Body Butter Bar (60g) – RRP £7.95
  • Love Byrd Hippy Dippy Facial Serum (Full size) – RRP £18
  • Bain and Savon Peony Salt Scrub Foot Bar (Full size) – RRP £1.50
  • Phase Zero Lip Gloss in Dark Burgundy (Full size) – RRP £12
  • A handmade Turkish towel – RRP £14.95
  • Soffle’s Pitta Chips in Rosemary & Thyme – RRP £1
  • Ananda’s Round Up’s Wagon Wheel – RRP £3

As you can see from the image of the haul above, the box comes with so many goodies. As it only arrived a few days ago, I haven’t been able to make use of everything yet, but I will be soon! And totalling the RRP values of each item comes to just under £95!

The beauty products smell amazing, and the snacks look great. All of the products seem like great quality, and the smaller sized products are perfect for travelling and keeping in your handbag.

I’ve seen Ananda’s at vegan events before but I’d never tried them before. I tucked straight into the wagon wheel and it really hit the spot! Thank you Ananda Foods!

My favourite product has to be the towel! I know it’s not a beauty product, but it’s beautiful and I can’t wait to take it on holiday to use at the beach.

I am absolutely thrilled with this box and I highly recommend those who are interested in subscribing to take a look at what The Cruelty Free Beauty Box has to offer. This box won’t be perfect for everyone, but there’ll be a subscription more suitable for you!

And let’s importantly not forget that everything in these boxes are vegan and cruelty free!

Revolution Beauty: Mattify and Pore Blur primers

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I recently came to end of my trusty KVD primer so I decided to mix it up and go for a more accessible high-street brand. It didn’t take long to find Revolution Beauty as they are everywhere! In fact, I even managed to get their products on ASOS.

Revolution Beauty are PETA Cruelty-Free approved and have an extensive vegan range of products. There has been some speculation over the PETA Cruelty-Free stamping due to some controversy over the brand, Wet ‘n’ Wild. Read about it here on the Ethical Elephant.

Moving on…

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts before, I have very oily skin and as a secondary point, the pores on my nose are very prominent. I decided to purchase 2 primers, Mattify and Pore Blur. At £6 each, they were a bargain. Additional bonus points for ASOS having 20% off at the time too.

I thought the Mattify and Pore Blur would be the best options for my skin but they have a huge range of different primers, found here, so I recommend doing some research.

I used Mattify first and was really impressed. The product reminded me a lot of the bareMinerals primer which is much pricier. It comes out clear and has a silicon based style texture. It applies well across the face but doesn’t absorb as well as other primers I’ve used. The only other comment I feel I should make here is that I had to use more product than I first thought as it didn’t spread as far as I’d hoped.

I then used Pore Blur the next day and had a very similar experience. Pore Blur has a slight tint to it but not enough to be heavily noticeable across the skin so I still need to apply foundation on top.

  • Mattify and Pore Blur side by side
  • Blended in

Both had great staying power and really lived up to their names. The Pore Blur primer did a great job of covering up my pores and my skin didn’t feel clogged up. The Mattify primer really, really did keep my skin matte all day. I was so impressed with it and I highly recommend it for those with oily skin. And at those prices, you really can’t go wrong.

As much as I love Kat Von D beauty, I’m definitely going to be making room for these 2 Revolution Beauty primers in my permanent collection!

The Flat Lay Co. Make Up Bag

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Have you always struggled to find a cosmetics case that carried everything you needed in a small compact bag that will fit into suitcases and back packs?

I was the same. I have bought so many cosmetics cases in so many different shapes and sizes in an attempt to travel with my cosmetics more efficiently and in a more compact manner.

Thankfully for the glorious internet, I saw adverts and photos of what I can only describe as the amazing Flat Lay Co. Make Up Bag. I purchased one with high hopes from Amazon and I was not disappointed.

The concept of the bag is exactly as described. When opened up fully, the cosmetics case lays out flat. The main selling point of this is that when you’re travelling around the world, you simply lay your case flat to open up and pull the drawstring to close it up again. Essentially, there is no real need to take things ‘out’ of the case, meaning you never leave anything behind! A concept that I really love.

Not only this, there are also pockets and bands all over it for your bits and bobs and brushes. Pockets are featured on the outside of the bag, and also 1 on the inside of the bag. There are 8 bands for your brushes and other cosmetics. I usually squeeze a mascara or a lipgloss in there.

For the regular travellers out there, I really recommend The Flat Lay Co make up bag. You can put plenty of cosmetics in there and it does fold up well and keeps everything together. And the bonus of not needing to take things ‘out’ of the bag means that you shouldn’t ever leave anything in your AirBnb or hotel.

Vegan Love eyeshadow palette by KVD Beauty

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As you may be very well aware by now, I am a huge fan of the Kat Von D Beauty range.

The limited edition Vegan Love eyeshadow palette is, of course, completely vegan and cruelty free. It’s full with 10 extremely vivid shimmer colours which catch the eye. As a bonus, 20% of the cost of the palette goes to the non-profit organisation ‘Mercy for Animals‘.

I haven’t yet used the palette on my eyes or face, but I’ve swatched it for you to trial the colours and show them to you guys on my skin tone.

From Top to Bottom: Mercy, Empathy, Equality, Sanctuary, Earthling, Liberation, Species, Sentient, Activist, Compassion

The only downside to this product that I can see is that some of the colour remains on the skin. I’ve simply swatched the product using my fingers, as suggested by the label, and I’ve been left with a green and red finger. I’m not sure what this would be like if left on the face!

  • Equality and Empathy
  • Sentient

The aside, my favourite colours in the palette are Empathy, Equality and Sentient. I’m generally a fan of more neutral colours but I’m sure I’ll find occasions to wear the more intense ones!

I really love this palette. The colours are amazing and the shimmer is surprisingly balanced (I thought it’d be a lot more glittery as opposed to shimmery). It’s bright and beautiful, and most importantly, vegan!

The Lipstick Chronicles: Beauty Bakerie

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Time for the second chapter of the Lipstick Chronicles. If you missed the first one, you can find it here.

I found out about Beauty Bakerie from my sister, @vgnnatalie. They were a new, cult brand at the time that were renowned for producing a long lasting lip product, their Lip Whip. Not only was the product ground breaking for how well it stayed, it came in a wide range of colours which meant everyone could find a shade for them and whatever mood you were in.

I own 3 shades: Take Me For Pomegranate, Gingersnap and Versailles.

Beauty Bakerie are a fully vegan brand and they are completely committed to being cruelty free! Details can be found on this post on their blog.

Here are selfies I’ve taken in Gingersnap and Versailles so you have a better idea of what they look like on.

  • Versailles
  • Gingersnap

I haven’t bought a Lip Whip for a while now but I do recommend them. Their staying power is second to none, and arguably much better than the KVD Beauty Everlasting Lipstick.

The colour range is amazing and the price point is appealing to all. I bought mine on ASOS at the time but I don’t think ASOS sell Beauty Bakerie anymore. They also had a nude and a metallic range which looks amazing but I’ve never tried. I don’t think I’ll find an occasion for a metallic lip colour as I’m fairly boring!

The Lipstick Chronicles: Kat Von D Beauty

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I had originally planned for this blog post to be 1 long post about my entire lipstick collection. However, as I was drafting it, I realised how much lipstick I really owned and it made for a lengthy post which I wanted to avoid.

So this is the first of The Lipstick Chronicles! Starting with my favoured brand Kat Von D Beauty.

From the Kat Von D Beauty collection, I own both the Everlasting Liquid Lipstick and the Studded Kiss Creme Lipstick in various colours. As well as these, I also own various Everlasting Lip Liner in various colours.

What’s great about the range is lipstick and liner colours match directly, but you can also find other colours that will match due to the extensive colour range!

Currently, I own 3 Everlasting Liquid Lipstick colours:

  • Vampira
  • Lolita
  • Santa Sangre

Above are the swatches of the lipsticks and the liners that I use together.

Lolita is my every day colour and it is gorgeous. It’s great for all skin tones and I highly recommend it. The everlasting liquid lipsticks have incredible staying power. When wearing it on a normal work day, it will last the whole day which will include at least 1 cup of coffee, numerous glasses of water, lunch and other snacks throughout the day.

The downside to it’s excellent staying power is that it can be a struggle to take off at the end of the day, so I use The Body Shop Camomile Eye and Lip Make Up Remover which is really great and pulls everything off.

Below are some of the other KVD Beauty lipsticks that I own and occasionally use:

  • Studded Kiss Creme in Cathedral
  • Studded Kiss Creme in Lovecraft
  • Everlasting Glimmer Veil in Dazzle
  • Everlasting Liquid Lipstick Kitten Mini in Ruthless
Limited edition mini shade of the Everlasting Liquid Lipstick in Ruthless

The Kitten Mini in Ruthless is a gorgeous berry shade (swatched below) which I believe is limited edition so get them while you can!

The above lipsticks are great but I wouldn’t rate them compared to the Everlasting Liquid Lipsticks. The colours are nice but they don’t last as well. The glimmer veil is great and works on it’s own as well as on top of another colour.

Additional swatches of the above can be found below. I’ve also included a selfie of me wearing the Everlasting Liquid Lipstick in Santa Sangre, on top of the Everlasting Lip Liner in Outlaw.

  • Santa Sangre Selfie

I’ve hyperlinked the main products and a few of the individuals where the colour can’t be selected.

Thanks for reading this post. I hope you’ve learnt a bit and found some info that you may or may not have been looking for.

My Daily Make-Up Routine

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So, I’ve been blogging to you guys for a few weeks now so I’m ready to share more selfies with you and my daily vegan and cruelty free make up routine (lucky you!).

To give you a quick overview of my general skin and colouring, I’m Chinese with fairly neutral undertones (cooler, rather than warmer if I had to choose one or the other). Naturally, I think my skin tone is quite uneven. I have combination/oily skin, with a particularly oily T-zone, like so oily! Most colours suit me but in general I stick to nude colour tones, unless its a special occasion.

  • Make up free
  • Freshly applied make up under the lights of my dressing room
  • My every day look, in natural light

I’ve tried to pick a range of photos so I can show off the products that I use. On average, it takes me about 15 – 20 minutes to put my make up on in the morning. I’ll leave it to you to judge whether that’s a long time or not!

At this point, I’d also like to warn you that I am a heavy Kat Von D Beauty user. I know she’s been under scrutiny recently due to her personal choices, but this post is not to debate that. The products are vegan and excellent quality.

Starting with my face…

  1. On a clean face, I start with Kat Von D Lock-It Hydrating Primer. This might seem counter intuitive on oily skin, but I much prefer it to silicone based primers as it’s so much more absorbent.
  2. Using the KVD no 20 brush, I apply KVD Lock-It Powder Foundation in Medium 145 (For those interested, I wore Light 48 in the old formula).
  3. With the Hourglass Ambient Light Unlocked Palette, I use the KVD no 2 brush to apply Golden Bronze Light across the bottom of my cheek muscle as a light contour.
  4. I also use the Body Shop Contouring Brush to apply the same colour vertically on the sides of my nose.
  5. Then using a generic blusher brush that I got from Superdrug, I apply Nude Glow across the my cheeks, up towards my eyes.
  6. Finally from this palette, using the Real Techniques Contour Brush, I apply Champagne Strobe Light on the tops of my cheeks (underneath the eye) and straight down the middle of my nose to highlight those areas.

Moving onto my eyes…

  1. Using a Real Techniques Eyeshadow Brush, I apply e.l.f Baked Eyeshadow in Toasted across my eye lids, to just over where the crease is.
  2. To open my eyes up, I use KVD Lash Liner on my upper eye lids waterline.
  3. Currently, I’m using BareMinerals Lashtopia mascara which is lovely.

The final steps…

  1. As we all know, eyebrows can completely change the look of someones face. I use the KVD Signature Brow Precision Pencil in Dark Brown.
  2. I will also apply Hurraw Lip Balm on my lips, which is more of a necessity during winter compared to the rest of the year. I own many of them in a range of flavours.
  3. And to finish off, I use the KVD Lock-It Make Up Setting Mist to make my make up last all day.

I hope this post wasn’t too long and gave you a good play by play of my make up routine! It does seem like quite a lot of products, but everything is simple and quick to apply. I could cut out some steps to save time, but would I look as glorious without it?!

Bonus! My go-to blog for vegan and cruelty free beauty is Cruelty Free Kitty. It’s kept up to date and has so much information so I highly recommend it for any new vegans looking to convert their beauty bags to vegan.

Thanks for reading!

Kat Von D: Go Big Or Go Home Mascara

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So the moment I’ve been waiting for has finally arrived… Kat Von D Beauty have released a vegan and cruelty free mascara! Released in the UK on Monday (and due to be released tomorrow everywhere else!), I ordered Go Big Or Go Home online at Debenhams and it arrived a few days later.

Naturally, I had to do an impromptu blog post to let you guys know how it is.

I absolutely love Kat Von D Beauty (you’ll learn this soon enough about me through more of my blog posts!). I couldn’t wait to open the delivery when it arrived. It came in the usual beautifully designed packaging and I couldn’t wait to try it.

The mascara tube itself is quite big, and the brush on the wand is long. It didn’t clump my eyelashes together and was easy to apply. I’ve always found it quite difficult to find a mascara wand that doesn’t always brush across my eyelid as my eyes do bulge a bit.

GBOGH applied to my left eye, nothing applied on the right

At £20, it is quite expensive for a mascara, but the price point is in line with other high end cosmetics brands such as Tarte Cosmetics or Urban Decay which aren’t completely vegan.

Today, I got a full days wear with a completed eye look and I’m pleased with it’s longevity. It lasted all day with absolutely no smudging, and it’s not even a waterproof formula!

All day wear: Lash Liner, Tattoo Liner, Shade and Light Eyeshadow in Rust and of course, the new Go Big Or Go Home mascara.

I’m a big fan and I really love the finished look with all products applied. Admittedly, I wouldn’t normally wear so much on for a day at work, but I’m so pleased that KVD Beauty have at long last come out with a mascara to sit alongside the other amazing eye products they provide. It looks great with their Tattoo Liner and produces a great, bold, impactful look.

The Pip Box: Cruelty Free International Kit

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I absolutely love a beauty box. It’s a great way to expose yourself to new cosmetics and new brands, and with veganism on the rise the choice of cruelty free and vegan beauty boxes is wide and varied.

This Pip x CFI one off box by The Pip Box was an off the cuff purchase at £40. I’ve noticed that they occasionally run promo codes for this box so it’s worth looking for a code first. It’s filled with plenty of goodies which I’ll try and walk you through now! It’s free delivery within the UK as well.

And just to emphasise, I have not been sent this box to review. I bought this box myself and everything I write is my own opinion.

As you can see from the box above, there were plenty of items sent through which include: Lacura shower gel, iGlow lash serum, The Natural Deodorant Co balm and so many more. I’ve had the box for a few weeks now and I still haven’t used all of it, but what I have has been great.

The iGlow lash serum has been showing improvement in my lashes in quite a short space of time so I have high hopes over the next few weeks! My lashes do appear to be a bit thicker and slightly longer.

I haven’t used the PS.. Amber Passion eyeshadow palette yet but the colours look fantastic. This brand is available in Primark and I believe the range is completely cruelty free. I’ve heard mixed reviews about the products, but generally the eyeshadows seem to be quite good.

I’ve used plenty of Urban Veda samples before from other beauty boxes I’ve subscribed to and the facial wash in this box was just as lovely as their other products.

My personal favourite is The Natural Deodorant Co balm. Just a reminder to users out there, these products are not anti-perspirants, they are deodorants. Fortunately for me, I am an incredibly inactive person so perspiration is not an issue for me. It’s so easy to use and smells lovely. I’ll definitely be buying it after I finish this one.

If you’d like to purchase this box, click here which will take you to the website.