I have always been curious about Natasha Denona products but everything I liked the look of was always way out of my price range. Then this spring she released mini blush and highlighter duo's and I got very excited and immediately purchased one. I did try it out straight away when I first bought it and I wasn't impressed but I thought I would give it another go and see if I could work with it and like it.

Here I swatched the highlighter 3 times and the blush 6 times (it was more difficult to get the blush to actually show up on the skin). The highlighter is pretty, if slightly too sheer for my personal taste, but its a very flattering tone and doesn't emphasise any texture. The blush when finger swatched is quite pretty and I suppose you could say its buildable but I don't want to have to apply over six layers to make a blush show up on the skin, and I happen to like blushes that aren't too pigmented.

So in the picture to the left (above where I swatched using my finger) I swatched both the blush and the highlighter using 2 brushes; the Zoeva 127 blush brush and the Real Techniques setting brush. If you are straining your eyes to see the brush swatches, don't worry so was I. There is some sheen from the highlighter, but the blush just disappeared. In the picture to the right you can see how much I tried to pick up on the brush so believe me I tried to make it look good.

Left: Before applying ND Blush and Glow mini Right: After applying ND Blush and Glow mini

For my base I used the products I know and trust, the Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation in 51 Light Vanilla, Rimmel Stay Matte Powder in Transparent, and Benefit Hoola Bronzer. So they million dollar question is, where is the blush? I swear I have applied it but here it looks like I just applied a little highlighter.

So my final thoughts on this product are that I don't really like it. Blush and highlighter are my two favourite steps in my makeup routine and it didn't live up to what I wanted it to be. I do like the highlighter, especially if you like a more natural looking glow on the skin but the blush just annoyed me.

This mini duo retails for £16.00 and is available on Cultbeauty, Feelunique and Selfridges.

I had heard great things about the L'Oreal Lash Paradise mascara. Some people even said it reminded them of one of my favourites; the Lancôme Hypnose. I decided to give it a go and do a wear test and here is what I found.

So straight away I noticed how massive this mascara wand was and this made me a bit worried as I typically like something a little bit smaller and skinnier so that I can be precise when applying. I have stabbed my eyes with huge mascara wands in the past and it was not pleasant. I also saw that this wand picks up a lot of product which could potentially make the application a bit clumpy. Usually I remove some of the excess product from the brush but I didn't this time so that I could see how it normally would apply.

Left: Bare lashes Right: One coat of L'Oreal Lash Paradise

I put on this mascara at just before 10am after my usual makeup routine (mascara is usually my last step). I found that it was lengthening, if a bit clumpy. I could have brushed out my lashes with a disposable mascara wand but again I wanted to see how just applying it would last on my lashes. I did also notice that my lashes dropped their curl ever so slightly but it wasn't enough to make me feel like I needed to re-curl them after applying the mascara.

Due to the larger wand size I did accidentally get some mascara onto my eyelid but it was easily removed afterwards. Overall I was pretty satisfied with how it looked, so I went on about my day.

Left: Directly after applying Right: After 11 hours of wear

I did check up on my mascara during the day and I didn't notice any flaking off or my lashes dropping down further and losing their curl so I was pretty happy with how it looked in general.

After 11 hours (9pm) I decided to check up on how the mascara was doing before removing my makeup. Sorry for the bad lighting and quality in the last photo, its pretty difficult to get a good picture with artificial lighting. Overall, the mascara looked very similar to how it looked when first applying it. The curl had dropped ever so slightly but I only really noticed it when comparing it to the pictures I had taken earlier in the day. There was no flaking or transferring anywhere on my face.

I think this mascara was what I expected the Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara was going to be. This one is far better and also cheaper so I would definitely urge you to go for this one if you are trying to decide between the two.

My final conclusion is that I like this mascara. While it isn't my favourite due to it being a bit more clumpy than I would like, I could wipe off some of the product and get the look I personally enjoy. I will definitely continue using it until I need a new mascara, I might go back to my Maybelline Lash Sensational but I'm willing to give the L'Oreal Lash Paradise a longer trial.

This mascara retails for £11.99 in the Boots and Superdrug.

So I have had a few single shadows floating around for a couple months now and I wanted to give them a proper home- so I decided to finally buy an empty magnetic palette. (This also gave me an excuse to buy some more single shadows, I'm not going to lie.)

I have liked the look of this Nabla palette for quite a while and I decided to buy it from BeautyBay.com. When I was looking on the website I also saw some of the Anastasia Beverly Hills single eyeshadows were on offer so I picked up some of them too. As of writing this, there is still a lot of shades that are discounted so if you've had your eye on some shades, run don't walk!

So far I have 7 shadows in my palette, 2 from Urban Decay and 5 from Anastasia Beverly Hills. As I bought most of these at different times I didn't really have a colour scheme in mind , but turns out being more interested in neutrals worked out for me because I'm really happy with how these shadows look together! Also I find it kind of funny that I accidentally started replicating the colour scheme of Huda Beauty's Desert Dusk palette, I didn't notice it until I actually started swatching the shadows.

Left to right: ABH Stone, ABH Birkin, ABH Brick, ABH Rosette, UD Solstice, UD Midnight Rodeo, ABH Metal

I'm already itching to fill this palette with more shadows but I am going to try and space it out so that I can treat myself occasionally. I am probably going to add some dusty pinks, deep burgundy's, cool browns and maybe (definitely) another duo-chrome or too.

Thanks for reading!