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!  

May Favourites

I haven't done a favourites post in a few months - naughty me! I don't know where the time has gone ... and, I won't bore you with my excuses! Straight into it, these are my most-used and most-loved products of the moment.

1. RMS Beauty Raw Coconut Cream. It took me a while to fall in love, but now I look forward to cleansing with it every night. It melts immediately on contact with your skin and it removes everything. I use it as my second cleanse after removing my makeup with Bioderma first.  I love anything related to coconuts - this smells fantastic and leaves my skin ultra-soft. You do need to make sure you wash it all off completely with a flannel and warm water to avoid breakouts. 

2. Eye pencils to achieve a little flick. Black eyeliner, particularly liquid or gel liner doesn't look good on me which means I have missed out a little on the feline flick trend but lately I have been giving myself a flick with an eye pencil. I tend to go for a dark brown or dark grey and find it gives a nice little line without looking as harsh as liquid liner can. Another bonus is that if you wobble, make a mistake and can't face starting over, you can always blend it in for a more smokey eye look.

My top 3 eyeliners, from top, Estee Lauder's Blackened Cocoa, Marc Jacobs Ro-cocoa and Chantecaille's Hematite

3. Nude Stix Lip + Cheek Pencil in Mystic. This is a newbie and has gone straight into my daily makeup mix. A full revisited review on this brand is coming soon, so all I will say is that this creamy lip crayon is the answer to my no-makeup-makeup prayers right now. Big love.

4. Sage Roll-on Perfume Oil in Diamond. This range was introduced to me by My Showcase* and is simply delightful. My birthstone is diamond and this blend of essential oils such as sandalwood, musk and amber is so appealing. The packaging is also beautiful and ideal for travel.

* I am a Stylist working for My Showcase. You can read more about my involvement here.

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.

Revlon Colour Burst Matte & Laquer Balms

Welcome to Revlon Kissable Balm Stains version 2.0. Regular readers of my blog will already know how much I love the originals. The colours Honey and Crush are my particular favourites. Suffering from constant dry lips, I have never been a huge fan of matte lip products but in the spirit of keeping with the times (and the fact that my lips are now in good shape thanks to my By Terry Baume de Rose), I wanted to give them a try.

The Boots 3 for 2 deal gets me every time ....

I went for the colours Elusive, a soft pink and Striking which is an orange-based red. Of the two, I actually prefer Striking as it works well to give a bit of a kick to my usual Winter uniform of black and grey clothing. Elusive will come into it's own in Spring I think.

Top: Striking,  Bottom: Elusive

They all have the zingy mint feel that the original balm stains have. It reminds me of Blistex. 

Boots released these with a 3 for 2 deal so I also purchased the Laquer Balm in the colour Demure. I don't need this but it was basically free. Enough said. The colour of the Laquer Balms is very sheer and better suited to the warmer months for me. 

I don't feel that they have the same staying power of the Kissable Balm Stains which is a shame. If you like drawing your lipstick on using a crayon format, then you will enjoy using these. Priced at only £7.99 here they are a good budget alternative to other products out there but I must say that I do prefer the formula of the Kissable Balm Stains over the Matte and Lacquer versions.

My Favourite Things - October

I thought I would share a few of my favourite makeup  and beauty things that I have discovered throughout the month of October. 

MUA Matte Palette. MUA just keep delivering with these amazingly well priced palettes. It features 10 matt shades which was exactly  what I need as my eyeshadow collection was weighing far too heavily on the shimmery side. Seriously, it is only £4.00 pounds here and the quality is great. You can't go wrong! They ship internationally too.

Aromatherapy Associates De-Stress Muscle Gel. This stuff is dreamy. Rubbed on after a night time bath, it encourages an extra deep sleep. I got this inside the Liberty Beauty Bag a while back and it has been a great discovery. The full size of this product is currently on sale for £17.60 here, with free international shipping. I am also a massive fan of the Aromatherapy Bath Oils .. check them out, they are amazing! 

Karla Cosmetics Face Charts. Created by the amazingly talented Karla Powell, I had been searching for something like this for a long time. Having previously been using MAC face charts I had stolen off the web (i'm sorry MAC) and printed on copy paper, the paper quality on these ones is lovely. Karla is also currently holding a competition - the creator of the best face chart will be assisting Karla on one of her upcoming shoots. I am working on my entry right now! You can buy these here for £11.00.

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Crush is the perfect berry stain for my lips right now. More details here. 

Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette. This is still my current favourite luxe splurge. I have been using it on myself and on photo shoots and i'm loving it. More detailed review here. 

I can't wait to see what favourites November throws up for me.