With all of the things going on in the world, I thought I would keep this post pretty light-hearted and just discuss some things that I think are really pretty. This is a wishlist of things that have caught my eye recently, some of these things I probably won't buy as they're very expensive but that doesn't mean I can't daydream about them.

Photo taken from Beauty Bay

Starting off with the Dose of Colors Desi X Katy Friendcation palette. This palette has been out for a little while now and I'm pretty sure its limited edition too, but when I first saw it I wasn't that interested. However right now I think I'm going through an 'interesting warm green' phase where any palette I see that is mainly neutrals with pops of nice greens I'm sold (you'll see this theme throughout the rest of this post).

This colour story is no exception as it has a nice mix of neutral shades with a couple pops of colour. I think I would get a fair amount of use with this palette, as I'm drawn to 8/10 of the shades (I'm not a big fan of blue eyeshadow on myself) and I really like the Dose of Colors formula.

I was planning on picking this up soon but due to all the uncertainty I think I'll leave it for a couple of months. I already own a fair few eyeshadows so I think this will be something I will leave for now and hopefully when things settle down I can pick it up. This probably isn't a bad thing as I like to wait with a lot of my makeup purchases, I find that sometimes certain products don't stay on my wishlist for more than a month so I don't like making bigger purchases on a whim.

Photo taken from Sigma

So as you may know if you read my latest brush post, I really love Sigma brushes (I love being able to get them in a set as it's usually a good deal). Sigma's quality is amazing, plus they're vegan and cruelty free. So when I saw that Sigma had a brush collaboration with Jordan Liberty I GASPED. Jordan is an incredible artist who also posts Youtube content, if you haven't already definitely check him out. Anyway I digress, this set looks incredible. However, it retails for $249. I briefly considered purchasing this about a month ago and now with all the issues going on in the world, I am so glad I didn't invest in it so I could be smarter with my money. So this is something I probably won't pick up, although if money wasn't an issue I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Photo taken from Cult Beauty

The Natasha Denona Gold palette is something that I really don't need but it has so many shades that I love the look of. I love the colour story and I particularly like the interesting gold-green shades and the balance of the everyday neutral browns, it's so wearable. I wish I could swatch this palette so that I could see whether or not to justify spending £111 on it. It's an insane amount of money to spend on eyeshadow and I know I don't need it but again the magpie part of my brain wants to collect the shiny things.

Photo taken from Cult Beauty

I have really been enjoying using the Charlotte Tillbury Hollywood Flawless Filter, so I have been wanting to try more from the range. I want to give cream contouring a go and this Contour Wand looks like it would be pretty easy to use. This product has great marketing images where it's applied on a model and I'm really drawn in. This ins't too expensive, it retails for 29 which is pretty affordable compared to some things on this list. I would like to try this out but I'll probably wait a little bit to see if it stays on my wishlist.

Photos taken from Clionadh Cosmetics

Of course I will take any opportunity to talk about Clionadh Cosmetics. I literally have a pre-order for April and I'm still sat here planning my next order already. I really like the colour story of the Woodlands bundle, I really should have just ordered the whole Woodlands bundle as I think I'll end up with 75% of it. I ordered 3 shades so far but now I want to buy another 7, I haven't tried any mattes from Clionadh yet but I definitely want to try them out.

I also really like the look of Shroom too, I love a neutral shadow with an interesting shift to add some interest but still be wearable, Clionadh has some gorgeous shades. There's also one shade in the Stained Glass Collection I wish I would have added to my preorder, Royalty, I saw a swatch of it and it is quite honestly one of the most beautiful shadows I've ever seen in my life.

Thanks for reading and stay safe!

I remember a couple of years ago I watched a vlog by Nic Chapman from Pixiwoo and she mentioned how she has started using soap in her brows to hold them in place. At the time my brows were in woeful shape and I don't think I'd figured out yet how awful they looked. Anyway I have been noticing that this trend has started coming back slowly, I recently watched a Linda Hallberg video where she used this technique and I thought I'd give it a try.

So I have tried this trick a handful of times now, usually when I'm not wearing makeup/ when I have 'no makeup-makeup' and it actually holds in place reasonably well. I typically use the Maybelline Brow Drama brow gel on an everyday basis and it usually keeps my brows in place without feeling too crunchy. Soap brows actually feel quite similar to my brow gel, although think it's slightly more prone to move about a little bit than brow gel.

To dot this technique you need a bar of soap, a spoolie and a little bit of water. I'm not sure where this bar of soap is from (my sister gave it to me when I moved in to my flat) and the spoolie is from Amazon. I was too lazy to get up to run my spoolie under some tap water so I sprayed my spoolie with Mac Fix and it worked just fine. I then rub the spoolie back and forth a little bit to get some product on the spoolie. Now, it may seem obvious but make sure the soap is wet, as if it's too dry you'll get white flakes of soap in your brows. The same thing happens if you apply too much, so just be aware of that! As a final step I used a bit of brow pencil on the tail of my brow and a tiny bit of concealer to clean and shape the outside of my brows to make the edges sharper.

Before and after of applying soap in my brows

I could see myself not repurchasing the Maybelline brow gel for a little while, I do have a whole bar of soap that gives me the look I want. However, I'm not quite sure how to use the soap with my brow powder. I've seen some people use brow pomades with soap so I might give that a go (as I have uneven brows so I'd like something to make them look a bit more like sisters and not distant cousins). I think if you know you're not going to get your brows wet this is cheap and easy to get your brows to stay in place!

Overall, I think this is a great way to set your brows! I think I'll definitely be using this technique in the future as its really simple and natural looking.

Thanks for reading and stay safe!

Clionadh Cosmetics restocked on January 21st and I was prepared and ready with a list of shades I wanted to order, however I'm guessing I was one of very many who had the same idea. I eventually managed to get through checkout with most of what I wanted to order and my order arrived about a week ago, so I thought I'd share some swatches and what they look like when applied on the eyes.

Also a heads up! There were two shades in particular I missed out on, I was however able to preorder them for April (along with some other Clionadh shadows not in the SGC) so keep an eye out for that post! Also if there are any shades you would like swatch comparisons of please let me know! I tried my best to compare the ones I found to be the most similar but if there are any others feel free to let me know!

I am really happy with all the shades I received! They are all gorgeous colours with amazing colour shifts to them, the shadow quality is impeccable as ever. I bought Blaze and Gleam knowing I would use them together, I knew I wanted a peachy-pink inner corner highlight shade and it seemed only right to get another eyeshadow to go with it. I wasn't intending on using Carving and Fluoresce together but after playing around with them for a couple of days it seems like they actually work together.

Wearing Carving on the lid with a little bit of Chandelier on the inner corner

Wearing Fluoresce on the lid and inner corner

Wearing Blaze on the lid and Gleam on the inner corner

Wearing Gleam on the lid and inner corner

For these looks I used some mattes from ABH Modern Renaissance, as I figured a lot of you reading already own it/will have similar shades in your collection, so you could see how these Clionadh shades look together with some basic mattes. Again, its very hard to capture the colour shift on the eye but in real life you can almost always see a duochrome at least!

These three shades are similar tonally but different in depth. When I watched Hannah Louise Poston's videos on the Clionadh Stained Glass Collection, she said that you don't need all of them because they are all so similar, but for me they all serve different purposes. I tend to reach for more neutral shades usually so these are very wearable and I get use out them at different points, depending on how much depth I want out of a look. I think her advice is great though, for most people have 2 of these shades is probably enough, unless you're crazy like me.

On the website I thought these two shades were very similar in colour and I wanted to get a less glittery version of Glow so that I could play around with texture but not sacrifice the multichromeness. The colours are less similar than I expected, Fluoresce leans a lot more green-pink whereas Glow is more blue-lilac. The textures are also very different, Fluoresce feels smoother than Glow, they are different formulas so it does make sense. I'm not mad about it though, now I have even more variety in my collection!

Overall I am really happy with my collection of Stained Glass shadows from Clionadh. I will definitely be ordering more in the future but I'll hold off until I have a list of a couple more shades (so far Shard, Royalty as well as some singles from the Woodlands collection).

Thanks for reading!

Links to more swatches and eye looks:

https://nouw.com/lissiewallin/clionadh-stained-glass-collection-part-2--36757459

https://nouw.com/lissiewallin/clionadh-cosmetics-stained-glass-collect-36666489