Beauty | Sleek Makeup Blush by 3 in Pink Lemonade

Howdy!

Sleek Makeup is one of my favourite makeup brands. I love their pigmented products at pocket-friendly prices, their cruelty free status and their wide range of colours to suit almost all skin tones.

I find their blush products particularly good. A single blush is £4.49, but it's far more cost-effective to get a Blush By 3, three full sized blushers in a mirrored palette for just £10. They're available in 7 colourways on the website currently, and they're brilliant.

This blush palette is called Pink Lemonade, and has 2 powder blushes and a cream blush in the middle.

Now, there's some argument about the individual blush names on various different beauty blogs. Looking at the palette from underneath but facing up the shades read Pink Mint, Macaroon, Icing Sugar, which some blogs list L-R. But if you turn it over to look at it they read Icing Sugar, Macaroon, Pink Mint and some other bloggers have that order L-R. There's no clarification to be found on the website as the individual blush shades are named differently to in the palettes (I'm not even sure if all the colours in the Blush by 3's are available singly - some might be limited edition.) Bloody hell, whoever said makeup was simple?! I guess it doesn't matter, but to save confusion I'm going with on the left/the first shade - a gorgeous pink powder blush with fine sparkle. In the middle we have Macaroon, a gorgeous pink cream blush, and the third shade is a ruddy coral powder blush. My favourite of the three is the first colour, which makes me feel like I'm a 5 year old obsessed with princesses again.

Out of focus shot so you can see the sparkle in the first shade

The third shade looks a little daunting in the pan but it's actually quite lovely on - I'm wearing it here. (I'm also wearing green shades from the Sleek Original eyeshadow palette which I talked about recently.)

You can buy Sleek on their website, in selected Superdrug stores and on Superdrug.com. 

What are your favourite makeup brands?

Thanks for reading,
Leah xoxo

Beauty | Sleek Original eyeshadow palette

Hello honey buns.

I need more makeup like the ocean needs more liquid, but I recently spent some points on Cohorted that I won last year at Plus North. I had £30 to spend so I bought a bunch of Sleek goodies.

I've got quite a few Sleek eyeshadow palettes, but I didn't have the Sleek Makeup Original eyeshadow palette.

If you haven't heard of Sleek, they're a cruelty free company and are one of my favourites as they sell make up for all skin tones, from very pale to very dark. (I like to spend my money when I can with companies who value the custom of dark skinned women. Illamasqua and Sleek are a couple of brands I admire because they have foundation/concealer for just about everyone.) Their products are always good quality and reasonable in price. Their 12 pan palettes are £7.99. I really like their blushes and lipsticks too. They're along the same lines as MUA and Makeup Revolution when it comes to quality, and since MUA and Makeup Revolution are a lot cheaper, I'd imagine Sleek are losing custom. Sleek used to be a real beauty blogger fave, but I don't hear so much about them now.

I like most of the shades apart from the blues. I have a love/hate relationship with blue eyeshadow because it's incredibly easy for me to look tacky wearing it.

Longevity is pretty good with a primer, and the most pigmented shades will last most of the day on me without too much creasing. There is a little fall out on application, but not too bad - nothing a quick flick of a wet wipe can't fix. I always put my foundation on after eyeshadow for this reason.

I never thought I'd say this as I've always been a sparkle fan, but I'm really drawn to matte eyeshadow of late. Because I'm getting older my lids are getting crepey, and shimmer shadow makes it more noticeable. I've made a compromise: I wear shimmery shadow on my upper lids, but blend it out towards my brow bone with neutral matte shadow to stop me looking like the singer from Twisted Sister. ;) Using matte shadow above the crease also stops the shimmer shadow getting transferred to my upper lids. Because I have hooded eyes that can sometimes be a problem. Matte shadow has less glide so keeps everything in its place. I might also try using a light dusting of translucent face powder on my sparkly shadows to tone them down a bit. That's preferable to giving up allll of my eyeshadows. Ha.

Has the way you do your makeup changed as you've gotten older?

Thanks for reading,
Leah xoxo

Sleek Vintage Romance look #1 Berry all over

Hiya loves!

I'm enjoying my new Sleek palette a lot and here's the first look I did with it.

Shine on you crazy diamond

I used Pretty in Paris as an inner corner highlight, Honeymoon in Hollywood all over the lid and Love in London in the outer corners.

Excuse the un-plucked brows.

Mascara - Soap & Glory's Thick & Fast (full review coming soon.)
Lips - Vivo matte lipstick (over gloss) in Deepest Plum (it's not on the website at the moment.)

You're going to see some different photos from this set in the next couple of days as I show you some photos taken without ELF's HD finishing powder, and then with it so you can see the difference. I'll give you the full run down of what I used on my face (blush, foundation etc.) then as you'll be seeing more of my fizzog!

Are you feeling berry on the eyes and the lips or is it too much for you?

I'm not quite sure myself yet! Thanks for reading, as ever! :)

Sleek Vintage Romance palette

Hiya!

As soon as I saw swatches of Sleek's latest palette I did a loud squee.

If you've been reading a while, you might know I'm a major Sleek fan. On the whole I find their palettes to be excellent value, with a good choice and variety of shades, and usually the pigment is excellent.

It comes in the usual sleek packaging. Sleek....sleek....see what I did there? Yeah, I'll shut up now.

It's a quite 'samey' palette at first glance. It is and it isn't - there are a few taupe shades in the top row, which have enough variation between them to make them worthy inclusions, but the two berry pinks is one too many in my opinion as there's not much difference between them. Overall it's a good palette and I look forward to taking these shades for a spin, as I don't have many berry shades in my possession.

TOP ROW - PRETTY IN PARIS, MEET IN MADRID, COURT IN CANNES, LUST IN LA, ROMANCE IN ROME, PROPOSE IN PRAGUE.

BOTTOM ROW - A VOW IN VENICE, MARRY IN MONTE CARLO, HONEYMOON IN HOLLYWOOD, BLISS IN BARCELONA, FOREVER IN FLORENCE, LOVE IN LONDON.

TOP ROW - PRETTY IN PARIS, MEET IN MADRID, COURT IN CANNES, LUST IN LA, ROMANCE IN ROME, PROPOSE IN PRAGUE.

BOTTOM ROW - A VOW IN VENICE, MARRY IN MONTE CARLO, HONEYMOON IN HOLLYWOOD, BLISS IN BARCELONA, FOREVER IN FLORENCE, LOVE IN LONDON.

(N.B. I don't know why I do this. I HATE describing colours. These are just my humble, colour-uneducated take.)

PRETTY IN PARIS - a very shiny silver which I'll use as a highlight in my inner corners to avoid the 'tin foil eyelids' look
MEET IN MADRID - a pretty golden brown
COURT IN CANNES - taupe
LUST IN LA - slightly darker taupe
ROMANCE IN ROME - blackened blue with fine silver glitter - slightly gritty/poorly pigmented
PROPOSE IN PRAGUE - matte reddish brown

A VOW IN VENICE - berry pink
MARRY IN MONTE CARLO - berry-ish dusky pink
HONEYMOON IN HOLLYWOOD - metallic berry with silver glitter
BLISS IN BARCELONA - blueish purple
FOREVER IN FLORENCE - blackened purple with silver glitter
LOVE IN LONDON - not too intense black with silver glitter

I'll have a couple of looks up with this palette in the next few days.

Have you tried anything by Sleek? I know they can be a little hard to get hold of out of the UK.

Thanks for reading!

Sleek Au Naturel palette EOTD

Hiya!

Here is a look I did from the Sleek MakeUP Au Naturel palette (click to see swatches.)

I used Nougat, Taupe, Conker and Regal.

Conker and Regal are very similar colours, but Conker is shimmery and Regal is matte. They make a great duo to use in conjunction with one another. I used Conker on the main part of my lid and Regal blended up towards my brow, because very shimmery shadows on my upper lids highlights my slightly scraggy eye area. I used Nougat under my brows and Taupe in the inner corner of my eye above the tear duct area.

There's no full face shots because on this day I had a lot of redness on my face. I get a burning red rash occasionally which is common in people with Fibromyalgia. It refuses to be concealed - it virtually glows. Ha!

I'm going to do an all matte look from this palette soon.

Thank you for looking.

Sleek MakeUP Au Naturel Palette swatches

Hiya lovelies.

When Sleek had a 20% off code recently I bought a couple of things, including this palette. Regular readers will know I'm a massive Sleek fan, and for me this palette doesn't disappoint.

Sunlight

Flash

The shades are:
Top row: Nougat, Nubuck, Cappuccino, Honeycomb, Toast, Taupe.
Bottom row: Conker, Moss, Bark, Mineral Earth, Regal, Noir.

As you can see the top row of shades are all pretty muted mattes, except Taupe, which is a bloody gorgeous shimmer. I hadn't seen any colours like Cappuccino, Honeycomb and Toast before so I'm pleased to have those colours in my collection now. The bottom row is what gets me excited though, all those gorgeous dark shades. As someone who has the first Urban Decay Naked palette and both the MUA knock off errr...tribute Naked palettes I was wondering 'Do I really need another neutral palette?' The answer is yes. Yes I did. Sleek are fantastic at doing shades you really can't get anywhere else (at least not cheaply) which is why I will come back to them time and time again.

The great thing about Sleek mattes is they're creamy, not draggy. Obviously you don't get the immediate 'wow' factor you do with a shimmer or glitter shade, but there are some occasions where glitter is not appropriate. Sometimes I like to pretend to be a lay-dee, and muted matte shades help the illusion....until I open my mouth! :)

There's 10% off Sleek orders on the Sleek website until Sunday evening 11.59pm GMT.

Thanks for reading.

Sleek MakeUP blush by 3 in 'Lace' swatches

Hello lovelies!

A few years ago I never wore blusher at all, but now I'm obsessed. Regular readers of the blog should know by now that I love Sleek, and I have a blush palette with 3 coral toned blushes to show you.

L-R Crochet, Guipure, Chantilly.

This is a gorgeous blush palette for coral lovers like myself and make quite a saving, as the blushes retail at £4.49 each individually. There are 5 permanent colour ways available in blush by 3, with an extra limited edition which no doubt be sold out soon.

Are you a blusher person? What do you think of these?

I will have you some on-face swatches soon.

Thanks for reading!

New Sleek True Colour lipsticks swatched

Hello all!

This week is Sleek Week on my blog.

Monday was the Lip4 lipstick palette in Mardi Gras.
Tuesday was the i-Divine eyeshadow palette Ultra Matte v2 Darks.
Wednesday was the Acid eyeshadow palette

Today I have 4 of the newest Sleek lipstick colours to show you. My friend Lisa very kindly bought me these for my birthday.

The colours are:
Russian Roulette - a deep brickish red
Exxxaggerate - a purple with almost invisible silver glitter
Loved Up - a true hot pink
Tangerine Scream - an in your face orange

Formula wise, all of them except Exxxaggerate are really smooth and gorgeous. The formula for Exxxaggerate is a tiny bit draggy and hard to reach opacity with. This echoes the purple in the Lip4 I reviewed on Monday. I have about 8 lipsticks from Sleek now and I really rate them. They're super pigmented, not drying and last quite a long time. My stand out shade amongst these four are Russian Roulette and Tangerine Scream, which is unbelievably loud in the flesh! Expect some looks coming up soon with these on my face!

These lipsticks are £4.99 each from the Sleek MakeUP website and Superdrug stores. 

Have you ever tried a lipstick by Sleek? Do any of these take your fancy?

Thanks for reading!

Sleek Acid eyeshadow palette swatches, review & EOTD

Hiya lovelies,

This week is Sleek MakeUP week on the blog as I collate 2 Sleek orders I've made and also a birthday gift from a friend and bring you swatches and reviews.

Lip4 lipstick palette in Mardi Gras.
i-Divine eyeshadow palette Ultra Matte v2 Darks.

Today I have the Sleek MakeUP Acid i-Divine eyeshadow palette to show you.

Please click on photos to see larger images.

The Acid palette is a couple of years old so has no shade names and the familiar old 'waffle' stamped in each pan.

The stand out shades for me are the 4 neons in the centre of the palette - the neon yellow, orange, pink and green, although the blues and grey are pretty lush too.

I was impressed with just how loud these shades are. They are actually a little brighter than they appear here as due to the hour of day, I had to use flash and it's subdued the brightness somewhat. Hubby said I looked like a funky peacock with this make up look. I used neon pink, green and yellow, and white just under my brows. The white is a little weedy but the other shades I used apply easily and blend well. This is a look I love and will be sure to repeat. Neons are SO right now so I'm really happy to be able to reflect that in my make up. I'm surprised just how wearable these shades are. It's another winner for me!

Do you like neons? Have you tried neon make up?

Thanks for reading!