Make-up Madness - My MUA Collection

Recently on their Facebook and Twitter profiles, Make Up Academy (MUA) have been sharing pictures of fans' enormous MUA make-up collections. I felt a little left out, so I thought I'd share my fairly sizeable collection with you and tell you about some of my favourite products...

It's not huge but still quite a lot of make-up there! It's just so easy to get carried away when you're ordering from MUA's website because everything is so cheap. But with MUA, cheap does NOT mean bad. Not at all, I love MUA make-up, it's affordable and the quality is just amazing. With that in mind, here are my top products from MUA's range:

1. Lipstick in shades 3 and 12 - MUA's lipsticks are a little slice of heaven! For £1 you get a lipstick that is moisturising and creamy, with a great range of colours. I have 6, but my favourites are shades 3 and 12, seen below with shade 3 on the left and 12 on the right:

Aren't they pretty! Shade 3 is a warm deep pink and 12 is a light pinky nude with a little sparkle through it. Great colours, reasonably long-wearing, LOVE!

2. Eyeshadow palettes Glamour Days and Going for Gold - I love MUA eyeshadows, they last really well and come in a fantastic range of colours. My two favourites are Glamour Days, which is perfect for injecting a little bit of colour and shimmer to your daily make-up, and Going for Gold, a limited edition palette of shimmering metallics designed especially for the London 2012 Olympics. Glamour Days is pictured on the left and Going for Gold on the right: 

3. Professional Eye Primer - This stuff is MAGIC! My first eye-primer, and I don't think I'll get another, because this is just amazing. I once came in drunk from a night out, passed out on the sofa straight away, then woke up to discover my eye make-up HAD NOT SHIFTED OR CREASED. Incredible durability! (Although I would not advise getting so drunk you forget to remove your make-up. Bad Christina...)

4. Lovehearts Lip Balm - this is my go-to lip balm. It's perfect during the day because it leaves my lips soft and nourished, whilst also injecting a little colour into them, I have the shade Hot Lips, which gives my lips a rosy sheen, swatched below :)

5. Intense Colour Eyeliner Pencil - I would highly recommend this if you're new to using eyeliners. Only £1 each, they come in a great range of colours, are really soft-textured making them easy to apply to both the waterline, along the lower lashline AND the upper lashline, and if you make a mistake, they're easy to remove too. But also long-lasting, which makes for one awesome eyeliner I have one in royal blue, forest green and brown, all swatched below:

Out of all MUA's amazing product, there's only one that I'm not keen on, and that is their BB cream. Mainly because it's not really a BB cream, more of a middle ground between a medium coverage foundation and a tinted moisturiser. It's ok for days when I'm heading into work, or entertaining at home, but it doesn't last very long, not enough coverage for me, and it doesn't do a lot for my oily skin sadly. A lot of folk have raved about it on blogs, but it's just not for me! It's literally one blip in a collection of make-up that I love!

So go on folks, if you haven't tried MUA before then do it NOW! Seriously, go now, they always have great offers, and at the moment if you spend £8 you get a free 24 shade eyeshadow palette. BARGAIN! As well as their webstore they are also on Facebook and Twitter so get them on their too for updates on offers and new products. You will NOT regret it I promise :)

Christina xo

The Mascara Maven

Yeah...

I said a while ago that I wouldn't get drawn into the world of beauty blogging. However, the more make-up I buy, the more I wanna talk about it. Normally, most folks would chat to their gal pals about make-up and their preferences, but I live at least 60 miles away from the rest of my close friends, which makes chatting and playing with make-up a bit tricky! So I figured I'd try blogging about it for a while and see how I go...

The first thing I've noticed is that I have rather a lot of mascara, 12 to be precise (I know that some more seasoned beauty bloggers might think "Is that all?" but it feels like a lot). One of my favourite things about my face is that I have naturally longish lashes, so I like to make a feature of them. So here they all are, in order of price:

L-R: MUA eXtreme Volume Mascara in Brown/Black (£2)
Collection Extreme Coloured Lengthening Mascara in Blue(£2.99)
17 Peep Show in Brown/Black (£4 on offer)
17 Photo Flawless in Black/Copper (£5.99)
No.7 Exceptional Definition in Brown/Black (£7.50 with £5 Voucher)
Max Factor False Lash Effect in Brown/Black (£7.99 with £3 voucher)
L'Oreal False Lash Telescopic in Brown/Black (£10.99)
Benefit They're Real in Black (£11.50 with £7 Debenhams gift card)
Beautee/Relian Mascara in black (with fibres) (around £20 at a Girls Day Out show)

And the samples at the bottom: Max Factor Masterpiece in Black, MAC Zoom Lashes in Black and Lancome Hypnose Drama in Black.

My go-to mascara is usually the Max Factor False Lash effect, but recently I've been trying to use more of my mascaras and I've found a few that work pretty well. The MUA mascara is bargainous at £2 but my only issue with it is that it doesn't put a lot of mascara onto the lashes, but it does create a fair bit of volume, so I tend to use this in conjunction with something else to build up the lashes.
The Beautee/Relian Mascara was something I picked up at a Girls Day out (kinda like a beauty, fashion, chocolate, booze paradise for women) and it's lasted me at least 18 months, which is pretty impressive. You basically paint on the "transplanting gel", i.e. the mascara, then paint on the fibres, then repeat if necessary. It really does give you a false-lash look, with very little fibre fallout. AWESOME!

I have no real major dislikes with any of these TBH. The only let-down I have is the Benefit. They're Real is apparently the No.1 mascara in the U.K., if not the World and it's supposed to give you these amazing falsie-like lashes. Well I may have been applying it wrong, but my lashes ended up looking like Clump-Central. Not cool considering it's normally £18.50. However, I have found that if I use it over another mascara, it does add some good length. 

What mascaras do you guys use? If you want to know my thoughts on any of the other mascaras, just comment and let me know :) Generally let me know what you think of this post, it's my first proper beauty post and I like to get feedback!

Christina xo