MAX Factor False Lash Effect Waterproof Mascara

This is, apparently, Covergirls Lash Blast in black packaging. Same formula, same tube, same big rubberised wand. It is one of YouTube’s most loved mascaras so my expectations were high.

The wand is large but not so big that I can’t use it on my piggy little eyes. It has lots and lots of short, rubber bristles which are fairly densely packed. This means that it combs through all my lashes leaving them nicely defined and clump free. Here are my naked lashes:


And with one coat:


I like! This is one of the very few mascaras that I can build up with two or three layers too. Normally that leaves me with one big clump of eyelashes however this works wonderfully. It’s a deep inky black and when they say waterproof they really mean it. This won’t come off in the shower even, it takes a heavy duty eye makeup remover to get it to budge. I find that as with most waterproof mascaras this holds a curl much better than none waterproof mascaras do.

At £7.99 it’s very reasonably priced, especially if you get it on a buy two get one free offer like I did. I fully expect that I will be buying another when this one runs out. On a random note how thick are full are my naked lashes looking?! I’ve almost been using my L’Oreal Lash Renewal Serum for 3 months now so it’s nearly time for the review. I think I love that product too! X

*I bought this myself*

Sample Sunday – Max Factor Second Skin Foundation

Yes it’s the return of Sample Sunday. I’m going to take a couple of weeks break from my Project 7 Day Palette and get rid of a couple more items from my sample box whilst I’m at it. For anyone who doesn’t remember my Sample Sunday posts the point of them is to try a sample and decide on the basis of it whether I would purchase a full sized product or not. That is after all the purpose of samples! 

This costs £12.99 for a bottle and the main selling point is that it is supposed to look like your skin with ‘undetectable coverage’ and ‘unique multi tonal pigments’. The formula is fairly liquid and blends well. I tried the shade 70 Natural which is much too dark for and incredibly pink. The coverage is medium buildable.

The finish is very glowy which doesn’t suit me at all. Within 45 minutes my oily nose was like an oil slick. This is definitely better suited to drier skin types. According to the Boots website there are only 5 shades to choose from which frankly is just stupid.  How people are supposed to find a match in that shade range I don’t know. Between the finish and the colour range this foundation is a no for me x

August Go To Products

This is kind of a favourites post (my first actually)only not really. These are the products that have taken a beating in the last month. Not necessarily my favourites but the ones that I’ve been reaching for over everything else. This was kinda tough as I’m still doing my project ‘use everything you’ve got at least once’ so I’ve been wearing totally different looks every day. Nonetheless I’ve found a few products have been plucked from the drawers by default when I wasn’t sure what else to wear.

Max Factor False Lash Effect mascara in waterproof: I love this and will be doing a full review soon. I’ve been picking this up as it is actually the only waterproof mascara I currently own. With the remnants of my hay fever lingering and a pretty stressful month causing a few mini breakdowns the waterproof er... ness has been invaluable.

MAC Mineralize Skin Finish in By Candlelight: glowy but never glittery, this is just more suited to day time than many of my other highlighters so it gets used more!

No7 Blush in Honey: It’s a neutral dirty peach that when used lightly looks incredibly natural on me. I tap the flat side of a blush brush on it then bounce it off my cheeks for a barely there flush. Love it!

MAC Eyeshadow in Blanc Type: It doesn’t matter what eye look I’m wearing I use this every day. It’s a matte cream shade that despite being well pigmented does not show up on my pale skin. I use it daily to blend out the edges of my eyeshadow and to correct mistakes. I have a really small lid space so it’s easy for me to over apply shadow making this little eraser invaluable.

UDPP in Sin: I’m a shimmer kind of girl when it comes to shadows. An eye primer that adds more shimmer? Yes please!

MAC Lipstick in Viva Glam Cyndi: I need a backup of this and I can’t wait for the matching lip glass to come out either. It’s my favourite wearable red. I wear this every weekend with a really simple eye and winged liner. In fact this and UDPP Sin with winged liner is about as quick and easy as makeup gets.

Collection 2000 Concealer: I have way too many concealers and they need using up sooner rather than. This is first on my list. It’s actually pretty effective though it doesn’t cover quite as well as I would like. If you try and layer it it does gets cakey but a thin layer will last you all day. The tube seems never ending though... I thought it would be done my now but it just keeps on going! I wish the packaging was see through so I knew how much was left.

Would you like to see more of these kinds of posts? What have you been reaching for throughout August? Let me know in the Comments! Xx

*Everything up there was bought by me with actual money apart from the UDPP Sin which was bought with Boots points*

TTFN (Would I repurchase)

For those of you not familiar with dear Tigger TTFN means ta ta for now! I thought it might be fun to do a semi regular feature of things I have actually managed to use up (partly as an incentive to actually finish things before moving onto the next fad) and ask myself whether I would spend my pennies on it again. Some of these things I have already posted about however sometimes my opinion has changed by the time I get to the bottom of a bottle.

First up we have a very empty bottle of Johnson’s 24 hour moisture extra-rich body lotion bought from Boots for the princely sum of £2.75. It promises to “turn 1 minutes of moisturising into 24 hours of softness”. I have extremely dry skin on my legs and so I do get through a fair amount of body lotion. Personally I thought this was ok, nothing special, just ok. It is not fragrance free so may not be suitable to sensitive skins however I find the fresh soapy scent to be quite pleasant. It smells clean but it is a little strong. It does tend to sit on my skin a little rather than being absorbed straight away and whilst it certainly helped my skin there wasn’t a drastic deep down change. In short it stopped it being too scaly but it didn’t provide deep down intensive moisturisation for me.

Would I repurchase? Probably if I saw it on sale because I like the scent but I’m still hunting for something a little richer for my scaly pasty legs.

Next we have the Max Factor concealer pen which I have reviewed previously. My feelings haven’t really changed on this. I like the packaging and the formula but it just doesn’t give enough coverage for my uber dark circles. I won’t be repurchasing for that reason. If you don’t have terrible dark circles you could do a lot worse but it isn’t for me.

We’ve all been there. Staggering in after a long hard days work/ propping up the bar. You know you should take off your makeup but you’re just so tired... I do not recommend using face wipes to remove your makeup on a regular basis however in those situations anything is better than nothing. For this reason I always keep a pack of makeup remover wipes in my bedside table so I never have an excuse to not take off my makeup. Here we have an empty packet of Johnson’s 3 in 1 facial cleansing wipes which claim to cleanse, tone and remove makeup (including waterproof mascara). Again these were only a couple of pounds and they have the same pleasant soapy clean scent as the body lotion. They are nice and moist (ooh er) and do a fairly decent job of taking off my makeup. They do make a start on waterproof mascara however generally it doesn’t get it all off without some serious rubbing. I have never found them to sting my eyes. I probably would repurchase these as I don’t use them often enough to justify paying for some really good wipes (I’d rather spend that money on proper removers that I use pretty much every day) and these do the trick in a pinch.

Then we have that little sample of the Body Shop Vitamin E Moisture cream (yes I will repurchase actually, It’s great for the scarring on my neck), ½ of the Nail Dr duo (the Rock on Hardener. I used it all up but it got really thick and hard to work with after only 3 weeks. Not impressed and won’t repurchase). And finally the Soap & Glory fab pore facial peel. Those of you who watched my YT video will know that despite loving this product I can’t use it again as I had a nasty allergic reaction to it. Needless to say I won’t be buying it again, much as I would love to be able to.


Please do let me know if you think this feature is useful. I personally often find that the real measure of a product is when you get to the bottom of it and either rush out to replace it of throw it with a sigh of relief at finally being rid of it. Of the products here only 2 (the Body Shop Vit E cream and the Johnson’s wipes) have been added to by ‘to buy’ list.
TTFN! xx

A comparison of some black pencil liners

I have a lot of liners, so many that I actually forgot to include a couple in here but never mind. I’m one of those people who feels naked without liner on my water line and that is all I ever use pencil liners for. I like gel or liquid for my upper lash line so I couldn’t tell you how these perform for that. I swatched them all on bare skin, left them for a few minutes to set then swiped at them to see how well they stayed put. Here are our contenders and their results. 

MAX Factor Kohl Pencil £4.99 – Nicely pigmented and holds up reasonably well on the swipe test. For the price you could do a lot worse. 

WetnWild Colour Icon Pencil (no idea how much this costs) – I got this with a palette that the lovely Tracy from Beauty Reflections kindly sent to me. It’s a lovely liner with flecks of glitter that really pop. Pigmentation is fab and lasting power is reasonable. Thanks Tracy!

Benefit BAD Gal black £14.30 – Overpriced and more grey than black. This is one of my least favourite black liners. Thankfully I got it free in a magazine rather than paying for it. It doesn’t last long on the water line either. 

Urban Decay 24/7 liner in Zero £13 – Fantastic deep black liner and the swipe test show that this has much more staying power than the other contenders. 

MAC Feline Kohl Power £13 – On a par with the Urban Decay in terms of pigmentation but much more prone to smudging and it has a tendency to run. I like this as a base for a dark smokey eye or when I want deliberately smudge my liner. This is ltd edition but it comes out quite frequently. 

Neils Yard Eye liner – I got this free in a magazine too and I remember the RRP for it being something ridiculous like over £15. It’s just awful. You can barely see it on my skin. Frankly I’m tempted to throw it away.

My personal favourite is the Urban Decay although Feline definitely has it’s uses. The MAC Factor holds its own against the pricier alternatives though and I do get a lot of use out of it. If you have access to WetnWild (you lucky things you) it’s a good bet but for goodness sakes please don’t buy the Benefit one. It’s just not worth it! X

*All bought by me unless otherwise stated*

Max Factor Masterpiece Mascara

I’ll preface this my saying that by the time I got round to photographing this the tube was a couple of months old so it looks a little clumpy in the pics. It was not clumpy at all when new. Also this is a sample tube, the full sized does look different. The wand is a rubber bristled affair and is smaller and thinner than the MAC Factor False Lash Effect mascara making it a little easier to apply if like me you have teeny tiny eyes. 

This is a bit like a toned down day time version of false lash effect. You still get an inky black colour but slightly less volume and length. I find it gives great definition to my densely packed lashes and I’ve experienced no flaking or smudging even though this isn’t a water proof mascara (the mess on my lids was from me not taking the makeup I was wearing off properly, not sue the this mascara). The price of high street mascaras seems to be rocketing at the moment and this seems a little pricey for what it is at £8.99 so if you want to try it do wait for Max Factor to go on offer. 

Is it an amazing mascara? No but it’s perfectly ok. I’ve almost finished the little tube as it makes a great work day mascara. I probably won’t repurchase though as it doesn’t doing anything spectacular and there are cheaper mascaras out there that achieve similar results. 

*I received this as part of a gift with purchase*