Nude Stix Revisited

A few weeks back I posted about the prize I won on Instagram via Space NK (which you can read about here). In brief, I was a little disappointed when I received my prize as I really wanted to give these products a good try and felt what was sent to me wasn't the best representation of the brand. Amazingly, my review was picked up by the Nude Stix team and they reached out to me to offer to give me another chance to try the full range this time. Lucky - yes I know!

I submitted a little wish list of items, and a week later they were Fedex'd to my door. So lucky! This time around I was well impressed. 

The lip and cheek crayon is delicious. The colour I was sent is Mystic, to borrow the tagline, it is the perfect 'nude but better' shade for my lips. It is moisturising, easy to apply and has gone straight into my handbag. 

The concealer sticks are creamy in consistency and pleasingly chunky. I am 38 and have lots of broken capillaries on my skin which need coverage. For me personally, I would have to be having a very good skin day to be able to pull these off without adding some foundation. They work well to conceal in addition to my foundation, but i'm not brave enough to wear only these alone. 

These are extremely soft and you need to be very careful when putting the lids back on to avoid gouging the sides of the pencil. I learnt this the hard way! The shade Light 1 works well in the inner corner of my eye's where I have darkness and Light 2 is a good shade for other areas of my face.

The magnetic eye pencils are dreamy. These were what I was really hoping to try from the moment I saw the range. I was sent 'Angel' and 'Twilight' and they are buttery soft and blend like a charm. I started with an eye-primer underneath as I have a hard time getting eye products to stay crease-free on my lids, but once these were applied on top they did stay put which is rare in an eye crayon. 

The Eye Pencils come with a sponge on their end which makes smudging out and creating a smokey eye on the go extremely simple and fuss free. They are lovely as a pure eye pencil but seem a little flat in comparison to their magnetic cousins.

My top picks are the Magnetic Eye Colours for their rich colour pay-off and their non-creasing formula and the Lip and Cheek Pencils for their amazing colour range (8 in total). 

Nude Stix are available exclusively through Space NK here in the UK. All the pencils cost £24.00 and all except the eye pencils come with their own sharpener. This time around I can certainly say that I will be adding to my collection!  

Nude Stix ... first thoughts

I was lucky enough to win a competition on Instagram with Space NK and was sent some Nude Stix, a new range of fuss-free natural makeup in stick form which they are launching this month. I was excited. Damn excited. You all know of my love for anything in crayon form, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on these and to start drawing on my face.

I was a teeny bit disappointed when I opened the package. I don't want to sound ungrateful as i'm lucky to get sent anything, but I had really hoped my booty would include one of the lip crayons and one of the concealer crayons. Sadly this was not the case. Enclosed in a very lovely matte black tin was a golden eye crayon (yay), a pretty average looking black mascara (yawn) and one of their special crayon sharpeners (yay - I think). I'm just wondering why they would choose to send out mascara's to all the prize winners when it's not one of their clever, inventive products?

Anywhoo, disappointment aside it was nice to see some tips and suggestions inside the box. The eye crayon is a beautiful gold shade and lovely and creamy in consistency. It probably is not the correct shade for me to wear as an eye-shadow alone but it would work nicely as a highlight in the inner corner of my eye. The mascara seems fine but nothing amazing and definitely a disappointing inclusion in the prize selection.

The eye pencil in Golden which is £24.00 

Is it enough to entice me to go out and spend money on other products in the range? I am not sure.  They have some fierce competition in the eye crayon stakes with the likes of the Charlotte Tilbury range who's shadow sticks I lovingly caressed last Friday in Selfridges. And let's not forget about Wild About Beauty who have one of the loveliest colour palettes I have seen in a while.

The full range ca be viewed here and is available for pre-order now with dispatch to take place later in the month.

Pencil + Crayon love

Oh how I love a chubby pencil or crayon when it comes to makeup. There is something so effortless in the application! I was so excited a couple of years ago when Clinique re-released their Chubby Sticks, and in my eyes they remain my pick of the crayon lipsticks out there.

As I mentioned earlier this week, I am now working with My Showcase and one of the brands I have been introduced to through them is Wild About Beauty. Everything about this range appeals to me - the colours are so wearable and there really isn't one product they make that i'm not coveting. Two stand-out items for me are the double ended Lip Pencil Duo £14.50, and Eyeshadow Pencil Duo £14.50. I have been 'testing' my testers of these two so much that i'm going to have to invest in another set for personal use!

Wild About Beauty Lip Pencil Duo in Mia and Eyeshadow Pencil Duo in Charlie

If you love a product that you can throw in your handbag with absolutely no mess and fuss, then you should check these out. If you suffer from oily eyelids then I would suggest using an eye-primer underneath the eyeshadow pencil to avoid creasing.

There are more of these products coming with the launch of Nude Stix through Space NK happening later this month. These also look ridiculously wearable and i'm lucky enough to have won a sample through a competition that Space NK were running on Instagram so watch this space for a review to come soon.