MUA Cover & Conceal/Pro-Base Conceal & Brighten Kit Review + Swatches

I was wondering what I could write about, and realised that I had some pictures in my blog folder (yes, I have a blog folder, how organised am I!?) that I took a while ago back when I had purchased some products from MUA. This was back when these products were brand-spanking-new, mind, but now that I have had them for a while and know what they are like, I thought that I could put the pictures to good use and give you a little review of them as well!

Finally, a blog post where I actually know how these products work and my thoughts about them! I usually give you guys first impressions posts, annoyingly enough.

So a while back I purchased the newest concealers that MUA had to offer, which included the Cover & Conceal wands in the shades Fair and Natural, and the Pro-Base Conceal & Brighten Kit in Porcelain - Beige. At the time I purchased these, I was in need of new concealers that I hoped would actually work well for me, because a good concealer is one of those things that I have a hard time finding, so of course I was hoping that MUA had created something that could work for my under eye circles and any blemishes that I may want to banish.

Did they work for me? Well... yes and no, I guess. To be honest, I get more use out of the concealer wands, as expected, but I had hoped that I would love the Pro-Base kit a little more, if I am honest with you.

L-R: Cover& Conceal in Fair, Natural and Pro-Base Conceal & Brighten shades

I actually picked up the concealer wands with the original intention that I would mix them together and use them as a foundation rather than concealers, however I have used the Cover & Conceal wands for both my foundation and concealer numerous times. Mixed with my SPF15 moisturiser, they create a nice and natural layer of foundation that manages to cover some of my redness, though not all. If anything, they act more like a tinted moisturiser when mixed together, but I don't mind; I prefer a tinted moisturiser as opposed to a full coverage foundation.

As concealers though, they suck pretty bad. Pardon my French, if you will.

The consistency and coverage is actually about the same as the Natural Collection wand concealers, which is pretty much non-existent in my opinion; the formula is moisturising enough, but the product itself barely covers anything and just sinks into the skin. I have more luck coverage wise by keeping the concealers as foundations when I mix them together, but on their own I see no improvement in how my dark under eye circles look, or even when covering blemishes, which is truly a shame, however I actually expected it... my first thoughts when I purchased these were along the lines of 'My Lord, I hope these aren't the same as the Natural Collection concealer wands'. Luckily enough, I prefer these as a foundation option, but I will stick to Collection 2000's 16 hour wear concealer for coverage purposes!

But in all honesty, I don't think that these are too bad, and for £1.50 a tube you can not complain at all! In fact, despite the negativity towards the concealers themselves, I do like them a lot, but for foundation purposes mostly. Other than that, they do not work well as concealers. At least for me, that is.

Next up is the Pro-Base Conceal & Brighten Kit. My oh my, did I have a battle with myself when I was purchasing this... I had to tell myself to either get this kit or the Pro-Base Complexion Kit, and finally decided on this one because, hey they are practically the same, except the yellow concealer is a foundation in the other kit. Of course I did tell myself that if this one worked well for me, I would return for the Complexion Kit... I doubt I will return for it, though, because really, who needs two products which are practically the same minus one concealer and plus a foundation?

The kit itself, to me, is pretty big, with nice sized pans of product; in it you get two concealers, one peach toned and the other yellow, and a rose coloured highlighter, which I have found a few other uses for actually, and each product does what it needs to do: conceals and highlights.

The products within the kit itself are very creamy and nicely pigmented; the concealers actually conceal like they are meant to, and I have found that the peach toned concealer works well for my under eye circles, and the yellow for my redness. The highlighter is pretty nice as well, giving off a natural glow to the cheeks that is subtle but effective.

When it comes to this kit, I have one big issue with it that I have with a lot of concealers: It looks cakey and extremely dry once applied over my dark under eye circles. Despite this though, I have used this product numerous times (sadly with the same result once applied) and take it to college with me because I do like it, and find that whilst it does not work under my eyes, it does quite well on blemishes and spots that I may want to conceal. The yellow also works great for any red area's around my nose that I may want to hide, so it does have other uses that works for my problematic skin. Sadly, it does tend to dry out as the day wears on and leave lovely little patches of flaky skin where the concealer was sitting. Oh dear.

The highlighter, though, has become an item which I find is multi-purposeful; after leaving late one day for college the few things that I happened to grab were my concealer kit, my transparent foundation, a lipstick and mascara, so whilst I was travelling to college (by car) I was also applying my make-up (I was not driving, thank goodness...) and decided that that day I wanted to put eyeshadow on. Sadly I did not have eyeshadow on my person at that point, but instead used the highlighter and the transparent face powder as substitutes instead. I also used it as a highlighter for my browbone and cheekbones, but it did a nice job of making me look more awake than I really was! I have also tried doubling it up as a lipgloss too, and whilst a tad lighter than what I wold usually wear on my lips, it works pretty effectively if you have moisturising lip balm underneath the highlighter.

It's a pretty nice product, the Pro-Base Conceal & Brighten Kit, and whilst it didn't work for me like I wanted it to (i.e working for my terrible under eye circles without looking cakey, boo hoo!) I did find it useful in other ways. It's a nice little product, one which has various uses, and for £3.50 this is a bargain item to have in your make-up stash! If you have yet to try it, and you are a person who can wear cream concealers under your eyes, I say try this one out. It's easy to carry around, has a good amount of pigmentation, and the highlighter can work for you in a multitude of ways (or at least it can for me!).

The concealers that I have purchased are all good in their own ways, and I do like both the Cover & Conceal wands and the Pro-Base Conceal & Brighten Kit, but would I purchase again? The Concealer wands definitely, they are useful for my foundation routine that I currently like, but the Conceal and Brighten Kit? I don't know... I would need to really fall in love with it to repurchase it.

Until next time, Lovelies~

MUA Undress Your Skin Illuminating Foundation Swatch + First Look

So... guess who finally gave in and bought something new?

Hello there again lovelies, I have another post for you all to do with a certain foundation that was recently released! Of course judging from the title and picture, you know exactly what I am talking about!

MUA recently released their newest foundation to add to their ever-growing range, the Undress Your Skin Illuminating Foundation, which is also a part of their newest line, the Undress Your Skin range. There are a few things within the range such as a face primer, concealer and a highlighter, however this is currently the only product that I picked up... unless you count the Undress Me Too eyeshadow palette, that is.

I decided to pick up this foundation when I saw that Superdrug had it on offer for £3, however I never intended to buy this; I was quite happy with my current foundation routine, and I was not willing to pay the full £5 for it, however cheap that may make me sound. Of course the offer of £3 for the foundation dragged me in, and I also wanted to see what it was like (pretty contradicting to what I said about being happy with my current routine)... so I bought it, and when I got home I decided to play around with a bit to see how well it fared with me.

First things first; I think that the product packaging is a little funny, but I like how squidgy the tube itself is. It looks quite thin, and when you squeeze it it does not feel full at all, which I guess can be a bit of a turn-off from the product (a reason why I did not buy it straight away, actually). Also, the cap; It is not sealed. I have said before that this puts me off of buying a product because you do not know if anyone has played around with it. Luckily, the silver seal where the product comes out was still in place, so the one I bought had not been tampered with.

But in all seriousness, please MUA, start sealing the caps on everything! I get incredibly paranoid about these sorts of things!

Now onto the product itself; the foundation (I picked up the shade Porcelain) is quite runny, and when I say runny I mean that it is extremely runny. I accidentally left the tube, uncapped, laying on my counter and a minute later there is a puddle of foundation growing there. Oh dear. Not that being runny is a problem, but I am used to leaving my foundation tubes sitting there when I am applying foundation, and none of my products have ever done that. Oh well, my own fault! Just a warning for those who tend to forget these things like putting caps back on!

I actually quite like the runny consistency of the product; it is easy to apply and a little actually goes a long way I have found, which can be a bit of a problem if you put too much of the product on the back of your hand, and honestly I do prefer to use only a little. If you use too much of this, it starts to look cakey and even flakey. Ooh, I rhymed! But seriously, using too much made me look horribly cakey and I felt quite suffocated by the amount I had used. Luckily I like wearing a light layer of foundation, or I would hate this product!

Another problem, other than looking cakey, that I found with this product is that if you do not use a primer or moisturiser with it, it might look bad; even if you moisturise like there is no tomorrow. I have normal to dry skin, but once my moisturiser is applied most foundations look okay on me without a primer; this one does not. There were quite a few patches that looked dry and flakey and just all around bad, so I had to take it off. It was not until this morning that I decided to try it again, but with a moisturiser and then a primer. I have found that using a primer is the most effective way of using this foundation; it looks beautiful after that. It also goes on a lot better, too.

MY FACE!!! ARRRRGH!!!

I decided to take a picture for you all to scream at; I think that the foundation did a really good job at evening out my skin tone and even hiding a lot of my natural redness; I was happy with the finish as well, a lot more pleased than I was when I used it last night, and thought that I looked a lot healthier and well-rested in all.

All in all, I think that this is a pretty nice product; I hate that I have to use a primer with it, because I usually don't wear primers, but I'll get over that in time because I like the finish it gives me. It has a nice amount of coverage too, one which is build-able (as I have found out), but for someone who has dry skin probably not advisable, and covers redness quite well in my opinion. The only downside to the product is that, without a primer, it has a terrible finish and can look cakey if you put too much on. I also don't like that there are only three shades in the entire range from MUA, because it limits a lot of people from buying it; even me. Porcelain, whilst a pretty good match for most light people, is a tad lighter than my natural skin tone, but not too light that it is noticeable (thank goodness). Other than that, I quite like the product now that I know what to do when applying it.

Also, random little note: I like to apply this with a foundation brush. I have used my fingers too, but it looks incredibly streaky and uneven that way for me.

So... what are your thoughts on this product if you have it already? Is it pleasing you or has it become a disappointment? Let me know!

MUA: Undress Me Too Palette Review + Swatches

A while back, a day or two after the Undress Me range had been released by MUA, I headed to my local Superdrug with my friend to see if the collection had been stocked, only to find that only a foundation and highlighter from the range were there. Not what I wanted to see (it took a week for the whole range to be stocked, actually, which annoyed me) but my friend, who wanted the new Undress Me Too palette like I did decided to ask one of the store assistants if the new range was out, and low-and-behold, it was... It was just hidden in a drawer. Sadly, the palette that we both desired was not there, so I opted to try and look for the Heaven and Earth palette instead, or even the first Undressed palette.

Luckily enough, thanks to what my friend calls my Make-Up sniffing skills, I found the Undress Me Too palette - in fact I found two of them - behind some of the Undressed palettes. Luck or what!? Of course my friend was also ecstatic, and we both bought a palette each.

I have now had this palette for a while, and it is one of the few MUA palettes (actually, one of the few palettes I own in general) that I own; I own three, the Glamour Days palette, The Artiste Collection and now Undress Me Too. Of course, after having read so many great reviews concerning this palette, I was excited to try it out.

I need to learn to not buy into the Hype of things.

Behold my terrible swatch skills!

When I first used the palette, I was amazingly disappointed by the pigmentation of some of these eyeshadows, especially with the colours in Naked and Reveal, the two shades that I had been most looking forward to; the pigmentation is extremely weak, or at least weak for MUA's standards, but for £4 I can not complain much... but I was still disappointed, because MUA have amazing eyeshadows so I sort of expected these to be a little more pigmented than they were...

I have a feeling that my own skin tone does not help that some of these colours do not look too pigmented on me, but I have found that when I apply them some of the shades just fade into each other and make no difference. The first time I used Undress Me Too, I played around with my two favourite colours; Naked, Shy and Reveal, only for Shy and Reveal to basically look the same. To say I was disappointed is an understatement; I did not want those colours to basically blend together so well that they looked the same.

Now despite all my complaints, I do not think that this is a bad palette, I just find that it did not exceed the expectations I held thanks to the positive reviews it had or the hype behind it. I do like it, and I use the shades Naked, Lavish, Tranquil, Wink and Corrupt quite a lot; Corrupt is reserved for eyeliner purposes mostly, but the others serve as great day-to-day eyeshadows for a simple and easy look. When I use Naked though, I tend to use a sponge tip applicator because using a regular brush makes the eyeshadow look sheer, and the sponge tip applicator gives great application and brings out the colour to its true intensity.

It's a nice palette I think, but it really did fail to impress me like I expected it would; I know I will be a part of that minority who are not totally overwhelmed with this product, but it really did not live up to the hype or the standard of quality that I had hoped for or expected from MUA. If I had the chance to repurchase this again, I probably would not. It's not amazing, but for the price, it's decent.

But this is MUA, and when it comes to MUA I can not complain much. The brand is cheap and you get some top notch products for a killer price. This sadly is not one of them, though.

MUA Undress Me Too Palette - £4 from your local Superdrug or online

Haul or Nuthin': MUA 3-in-1 Contour Pens + Single Eye Shadow

I am not very good at keeping up with these blog posts, am I Lovelies?

So I actually decided to venture outside today and check my local Superdrug for MUA goodies, with the original intention to hopefully buy something from the Undress Me range that has recently come out. Sadly that did not happen, however I did pick up three things that I have either wanted for a while, or wanted to try out recently.

The three things that I did happen to pick up are from the older and original lines that MUA have produced, and they are the 3-in-1 Contour pens in Smoked Plum and Sage, and a single eyeshadow in Shade 8. Now I actually went into Superdrug with the intention of purchasing the 3-in-1 Contour Pen in Smoked Plum, but I was also planning on buying a foundation and a new eye primer from the newer ranges from MUA, however because some of the products do not have seals on them (an issue that is frequent with the cosmetics brand Collection) I had to pass; I do not want to buy something that could have been played around with, and considering the little amount of stock that was left of the Undress Me range, I did not want to risk the few product that may or may not have been tampered with.

I am a bit of a freak, yes, but that is how I am.

I was also planning on picking up a new eye primer; sadly my Superdrug does not seem to stock it (or MUA are planning to pull the primer's plug, who knows?) and the one that was available was from the new line, however there was no seal. Not gonna risk it for a biscuit, thanks.

But yes, I decided to purchase two of the 3-in-1 Contour pens. I picked up Smoked Plum because it is purple, and purple does quite well with me, but the surprise when I bought these two was that I actually liked the colour Sage enough to buy it. I love the colour green, in fact it is one of my favourite colours, however it is also my eye colour; Green does not suit me either, however this is a kind of grayish green colour, and I really wanted to try it out.

In terms of colour payoff, I am pretty happy with what I have got; for £1.50 I can not complain, but both colours are very pretty once you swatch them. I plan to use these both as eyeliners or bases for my eyeshadows because they are not as dark as I thought or hoped they would be, but really, I am not complaining!

My dreaded eye

I decided to try out Sage to see how it would fare on my eyes, actually, and I was pretty impressed; it goes on smoothly, however I did need to build it up a bit for a nicer colour payoff, and it is pretty easy to use. What impressed me the most, though, was that it did not transfer onto my eyelid at all during the short amount of time I wore it, which was about 2-3 hours. I have very oily lids, so I was sure that it would transfer pretty quickly and crease or fade within 30 minutes to an hour (the normal amount of time for cream shadows or liners for me) and considering I did not wear a primer either, I was amazed that it stayed as it was. Hopefully this will last all day, but so far I am indeed impressed!

I also had a play around with both contour pens later on once I had removed my liner and used them as bases, and both seem to work well as basic cream shadows... I still need to play around with them a little more though before I can say much more, but the 3-in-1 Contour Pens are easy to use, nice as eyeliners and seem to work as a good base so far!

Finally, I bought a single eyeshadow in Shade 8. I have actually wanted to buy this shade for a while now, however never seemed to because new collections from various brands kept coming out, so I tended to overlook it, however I managed to finally pick it up and have a little play around with it when I got home, too.

Now I actually do not have a lot of the MUA solo eyeshadows; in fact I now have a total of four, but that's because I generally don't use a lot of colourful eyeshadows, that and some of the colours just do not appeal to me. However I like this colour; it's a nice teal colour, and one I have admired from afar. Why I have admired it from afar, I do not know, because MUA's single eyeshadows are only £1 - I am not exactly killing my bank here! However, there are so many pretty things, and I overlook other things that I have wanted for a while, as I have said.

Anyway, this is a really pretty colour, and also: It is highly pigmented. I kind of forget that these solo eyeshadows are nicely pigmented, to the point that I was actually surprised that colour showed up on my eyelid when I applied it with my flat brush; that's how terribly pigmented the Undress Me Too palette is to me... it makes me think that all MUA eyeshadows need to have a massive amount of build-up before I get a decent amount of colour on my lids.

Tangent done, I really like this colour - it's pretty, and extremely pigmented as I have already said. I've really been liking blue eyeshadows recently, so I hope to include this in a look soon enough! It's too pretty to not use!

And that is pretty much it! It's a small Haul, I know, but I really did not expect to come back with much anyway, just a few things such as one of the contour pens and possibly a new foundation and eye primer. Of course that did not go to plan, and I ended up with a few different things, but I am happy with my purchases; is that not what counts, lovely readers?

Until next time. Toodles!