Red Carpet is Hard Work

Imagine a cute little bottle of red nail polish, tiny enough to fit into the tiniest of handbag, ready to whip out at any occasions, on the go, packed with a vibrant punch of colour to give you red carpet glam nails in one coat. Well, if this is what you're after, you might want to give Max Factor Red Carpet Glam nail polish a miss. The colour is undeniably cute, its orangey red shade is a breath of fresh air from all the blue toned red nail polishes I own and its application was easy.





But there is one problem: it's sheer, extremely sheer and you would need extreme amounts of patience to achieve full opacity wearing it on its own. I cheated and applied too coats of this over my trusty nude polish and I got the result I wanted.











You can still have fun with this polish and still apply it on the go, and make the most of its ultra portable size but to enjoy it, you'll have to remember to pack your favourite opaque-in-one-coat nude polish. Who said that red carpet glamour was going to be achieved in an instant anyway?





what: Max Factor Nail Polish in colour 'Red Carpet Glam'
how much: £3.99
where: Superdrug, Boots and everywhere really
disclaimer: this polish was offered for review purposes

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Flipping Beautiful!

As if Fire Fantasy was not exciting enough, Mac Factor has expanded their  Colour Effect range with a line of new lipsticks called 'Flipsticks'. Colour  Effect Flipsticks are double ended lipsticks: One end features a rich and  creamy colour, the other a lighter lipstick shade.






You can wear each colour alone, blended together, one on each lip, or apply  the lighter/brighter shade just to the centre of your lip to give a highlight  effect to your lip.








Max Factor says:
To add a new dimension to lip colour, you can sweep one shade over your upper  lip and "flip it" to apply the second shade to your lower lip. Another way to customise lip colour is by outlining lips in one colour, then  "flip it" and apply the second shade to the centre, giving a graphic texturised lip.


I don't think I will ever wear the upper lip with one colour and the lower lip  with the other colour but I absolutely love the 'highlight' effect with the  brighter/lighter in the centre of the lips or 'graffiti' effect as Max Factor  calls it. The model wears Gipsy Red all over the lips and then flipped the  lipstick over and dabbed the gold colour in the centre area of the lips.

Let's have a look at some swatches, shall we? From what I can gather from the  website, there are 6 (double) shades available. My local Superdrug is only  storing 5 shades and I missing 'Salsa Red'.




Bloomy and Swingy leave me indifferent but Folky, Boreal amd Gipsy are to die  for! I don't know if I could pull off gipsy with my yellow teeth but I totally  understand why they chose that shade on the promotion picture. It is simply stunning and most of all, so much fun and has so much more depth than just a lipstick with a bit of gloss on.








The Flipsticks are sold exclusively in Superdrug and are on special offer at  the moment. Buy them before by 10th April and you get them at £2 off: £6.49 instead  of £8.49

Will you be flipping it?

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Tiggress Trio from Max Factor

Back in September, when Boots was doing an amazing 3 for 2 offer for a whole month, this little trio eyeshadow from Max Factor ended up in my basket. This is tiggress eyeshadow trio, which can be used dry or wet.

I need to confess I have never used an eyeshadow wet, I am scared of ruining it. I was hoping this would be the perfect opportunity to pop my 'wet eyeshadow cherry' but I just can't do it. I am scared I won't be able to blend the wet texture once on my eyes.

So what does it perform applied dry? It's ok. Definitely nothing to shout home about. The yellow is a nice shade but overall I was hoping the whole trio would deliver more pigmentation. I want my eyeshadow to have more punch, and sadly this screams more 'pussy cat' than 'tiggress'.


Before I fall asleep writing this review, a little picture on how it applies on the eyes.

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Max Factor Max Colour Effects Dip-in Eye Shadows Party Lime, Ibiza Sunset and Moody Blue

Once upon a time still, I saw these little 'dip -in shadow' wands from Max Faxtor at Boots. I probably resisted about 10 seconds and I just had to have them.





I can't say I have been using the green and the blue very much but I have been using the gold one (Ibiza Sunset} constantly, and whenever I am going away, I always like to carry around with me: It's part of the ingredients of an evening going out look I like to do when I am in a rush, which I feel could go pretty much with anything. (see my Golden Rush look here ).  







One of my favourite things about this dip in shadow is the amount of shadow it dispenses everytime you dip in the applicator: perfect amount every time and very minimal fall out.




This is very handy, as I like to apply my eyelashes first and sometimes I forget to tap away the excess of a traditional eyeshadow off the brush. I also love its packaging and I find it takes very little room in my makeup bag. Looking at the swatches again now, I am not quite sure why I bought the green (party lime) to be honest as the colour looks a bit flat.





The shadows exists in a variety of 8 colours and they retail at £5.99 each at Boots. There is a 3 for 2 mix and match offer at the moment on them as well. Next, I fancy getting the  silver shade, to use a highlighter in the inner tear duct with the handy applicator. Nearly pay day ...

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Max Factor – Cloudy Blue: NOTD

I saw an array of 12 cute mini bottles of Max Factor nail polishes this week end  at Boots (one day, I’m going to count how many blogposts of mine don’t start with this sentence) and I couldn’t resist and I just had to buy one. Originally, I wanted to grab 4 of them, but I thought I’d be sensible, try one, see if I like the formula and maybe get some more. The tiny cute bottles are very affordable and they retail at £3.49.  I’d say they would be perfect for travelling.


I decided to get the Cloudy Blue (shade 18) which promised to be a lovely dark midnight blue with a delicate lighter blue shimmer. I won’t beat around the bush, I was disappointed by this polish. The shimmer was too delicate and in most lighting situations, it felt more like a creme midnight blue verging to black, with not enough shimmer for me. Most of all, it’s the application which I found problematic. 





I am very much a beginner at applying nail polish and this is not a nail polish for beginners. I found the formula a bit too watery and thin for my liking and the first coat was  a right mess. On top of that, I felt a bit stressed out when I was applying  it: the formula dried so fast, you really don’t have much time to muck about that’s for sure.





You’ll see the shimmer more apparent under strong camera flash, but don’t be fooled, as during the day this polish is really dark. I can see this shade and all the others appealing for more skilled nail polishers (the bottles are VERY cute) but it’s not for me. I didn’t feel confident when I was wearing it, I could see that the result application was very uneven and it was bugging me and I didn’t feel pretty in it and it stayed on for about half an day. I wonder how the other shades are like. Have you got any?
 

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