Kat Copies: NARS Pure Matte Lipstick in Bangkok v. Lacura Soft Rose

NARS Bangkok, Lacura Soft Rose

Remember last month when I reviewed the 'made for my lips' gorgeous NARS Pure Matte lipstick in Bangkok but lamented the £18.50 price tag?  Well, I've found a budget friendly dupe!  Behold Lacura Beauty's lipstick in 108 Soft Rose found at Aldi supermarket for a grand total of £1.99!

It comes in a sleek pewter bullet which gives a satisfying 'click' shut.  I first spotted this lippy when I was in Aldi in Manchester last August but they were all sold out with only the tester left.  My friend Angel (highheelsandlipgloss.com) took a trip to the Hounslow store recently and kindly picked this up for me.

In the tubes the lippies look pretty similar...

NARS Bangkok, Lacura Soft Rose

Swatched with flash on you can see that Soft Rose is a lot glossier, because of course Bangkok has a matte finish.

With flash: NARS Bangkok, Lacura Soft Rose

You can really see how similar they are without flash...

Without flash: NARS Bangkok, Lacura Soft Rose

I prefer the texture of Soft Rose as Bangkok needs lipbalm under or over or it just feels far too dry.  Bangkok is also slightly dark for me while Soft Rose is the perfect 'my lips but better shade' and a bit of size-enhancing shine on my small lips is always welcome!  Despite the lush texture of Lacura's lippy, it is pretty long lasting.

Lacura Soft Rose

NARS Bangkok

Lacura Soft Rose

Lacura Soft Rose comes in pretty substantial, hygienic packaging.

The only drawback is Aldi stores can be quite few and far between, especially in London.  But the Lacura range has lots of gems worth checking out so if you're near an Aldi at all you should get down there!

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Review: £2.39 Lacura Foundation from ALDI Supermarket

I've been using this foundation for almost two years so I think it's high time for a review!  The best bit it? It's £2.39!  The worst bit? It's sold at ALDI supermarket, which isn't very accessible for some.  

I use the shade called 'Transparent'.  The name's a bit misleading, but as you can see from the blob below, it's a pretty good match for my pale skin.  Now it's not the lightest 'cheap' foundation you can get - Max Factor do some very pale ones, but it's fine for me.

As you can see, it's very creamy and gives relatively full coverage, even over my freckles.

No flash

With flash

Pros:

• It promises "perfect coverage and natural shine protection" and it pretty much delivers on this.
• Price: for what it is, the price is truly unbelievable.  I reach for this far more than my many other expensive foundations, like MAC Studio Fix.  £2.39 is even below your standard 'drugstore' foundation price point.  You can't beat it on value for money.
• Texture: it contains aloe vera and shea butter and therefore feels quite moisturising.  It's very creamy and a little goes a long way - I've been using this tube on and off for nearly a year.  However, the formulation is best for oily skin as it is a little drying once set.
• Coverage: medium to full and very buildable but it feels light on.  You need to be careful not to leave a tidemark as it does set, so it's a good idea to bring it down onto your neck.  It's not as heavy as Collection 2000 Lasting Finish, which is my favourite budget full coverage foundation.  You would still want to use a concealer for undereye circles or blemishes.
• Application: I prefer to apply it with my hands as it's easier to blend when melted by the warmth of my fingers, but it also applies well with a traditional foundation brush or a duo fibre.  It is builable as I've mentioned, but it does 'set' after a while.  You don't need to use a primer with it.
• Colour: personally, the shade is pretty much bang on for my fair freckly skin, especially in the summer.
• Packaging: Unlike more expensive drugstore foundations it comes in a box so you can be sure it's not been tampered with.  The container is a nice hygienic squeezy tube which contains 30mls - the standard amount.  Being in a tube, the product hasn't oxidised and has lasted me ages.
• Finish: although it does feel quite dry after it sets, my skin actually looks dewy, not oily.  The finish is one of my favourite things about it. 
• Durability: it lasts for a good 6 -8 hours which is enough for me for a night out or work.

Lacura also produce a pressed powder in 'Transparent' which is excellent and again, only £2.39.

Cons:

• Shade range: the shade range is quite narrow, I think there may only be about 3, but it's so inexpensive it's worth a try, and if it's too dark you can always mix it with your moisturiser to make a tint.
• Scent: Although it says it contains no perfumes I do detect a faint, but not unpleasant scent.
• No SPF: for me this isn't too much of a drawback, as I use a specific SPF cream every day before applying my make up anyway.
• Availability: living in central London, it's a mission for me to get to Aldi.  My nearest one is near the end of the northbound Jubilee line, but I mostly stock up on my travels - to Ireland and Manchester...oh the glamour!

How it looks on...cue some grumpy looks!

As you can see, even when using a flash, it leaves my skin dewy rather than greasy looking and provides just the right amount of coverage which still lets a few of my freckles show through.

If you still need convincing, check out its reviews on MakeupAlley where it gets an impressive 4.5/5.

Beauty Discount Shopping Spree Up Norf!

I was in Blackpool and Manchester over the weekend with himself for our 2 year anniversary - oh the glamour! I didn't leave an inch of space in my suitcase as I had no intention of shopping. At all. Let's just say the case has now gone to the great luggage rack in the sky and I ended up 'acessorizing' my return journey with a glamourous Tesco bag, or two. Yes, the scabby, noisy plastic kind.

Can I just say I am IN LOVE with T J Hughes! Sadly the closest one to me is in Watford - hours away since I don't drive, dahling.  I've since discovered it sells online, but the P&P charges are a bit steep.  I also hit up Aldi in Manchester for their Lacura range.  Shopping outside of London is great because things don't sell out within a matter of seconds like they do in the Big Smoke.

I found some great boots, jewellery and the satchel I've been hunting FOR AGES in Primani.  Post to come!

Okay first up, my T J Hughes finds.  Only one of these, the boxed contour powder, was impulse, the rest are all things I've wanted for a while.

£2.99

This W7 'Double Act' boxed powder is a nearly-as-good-as dupe for Benefit's 10 - one of my wishlist items. It was sealed so I bought it on a wing and a prayer (only £2.99! - over £20 less than '10') and am pleasantly surprised! The pink highlight is great and the bronzer is quite good but not as pigmented as '10's.  The brush is much better - well softer - than Benefit box powder brushes.  The packaging is very similar but the design on the box isn't as cute as 10.  So far it's doing much better than Primark's rip off version.  I'll give this a good go and then decide whether the one swipe = cheekbones approach works before I splash out on the real thing!

£10

This Escada perfume is the purchase I'm most over-joyed about.  A mini version featured in my May Favourites as I finished the bottle and was very sad that it was no longer for sale - it seems as though all Escada perfumes are released for a limited period only, and only the crappy ones hang around on sale in Debenhams and Beauty Base.  Can you imagine the state I was in when I saw 30mls of this Eau de Parfam for £10 in T J Hughes?! Load me up! (I got two - I would have got more but I have stacks of perfume and it goes off after a while anyway).  When I'd originally spotted it at Heathrow airport it was selling for £36, so a great bargain.  The scent is difficult to describe but to me it is a sweet but strong feminine '80s' scent - it reminds me of Saturday afternoons with my mum in Barkers on Kensington High Street sniffing our way around the perfume counters.  Ah, memories :) 

£6 for shampoo, £8 for conditioner

I've wanted to get this Bed Head Brunette Goddess shampoo and conditioner since I tried it at my friend Nat's house over two years ago.  It also makes my hair beautifully soft.  Sadly the shampoo suffered a small spillage over my St. Moriz finds.  Okay, I know I'm a redhead, but the shampoo is a very light colour (the bottle is ginger! Ha!) and I think it will work for me well long term to add shine.  But the best bit of all is the smell - it's like a vanilla biscuit shower gel I used for a while.    I'll let you know how my hair reacts after a month or so.

£2.99 each or 2 for £5

I got my last batch of St. Moriz mousse from Amazon Marketplace, but T J Hughes had the Instant Self Tanning Mist and Shimmering Bronzing Body Souffle.  I'm saving the spray mist for when I got on holiday (I have cream carpets) and it will be interesting to see what the souffle does to boost my tan - I'm hoping that it will be moisturising as St. Moriz mousse is extremely drying to my skin.  Can't beat it for colour and streak-less-ness though.  It' s a staple of my monthly favourites throughout summer!

In Manchester I spotted Aldi, which sells the Lacura range - a great bargain beauty and skincare line.  I own most of the stuff, so I picked up a few recent additions to the range.  Sadly they only had a tester left of their lipstick in shade '108' which looks like my exact lip colour and would be perfect.  The shelf-stacking monkey I asked for help wouldn't even look out the back for me! I don't think he got the significance of this lipstick! I should have asked a woman!

Face masks (4) £2.99, lipgloss and eyeshadow £1.99 each

I haven't had a chance to try the face masks yet but I will take a couple on hols with me where I'll have more time for a pampering session.  They're supposed to work on blackheads.  I resisted the Lacura eyeshadows for ages as I have about 632, but I really liked the brown and they're excellently pigmented and soft.  The lipgloss also looked right up my street colourwise, and I was right.  The consistency and scent are also lovely.  I've been wearing it an hour so far and it hasn't budged.  Let me know if you want me to do an overview of Lacura products (the good: pressed powder, the bad: mascara, etc).  One very interesting Lacura skincare product I use occassionly is 'WrinkleStop' which contains SYN-AKE - apparently an artificial version of snake venom which is supposed to have a 'botox' effect on wrinkles overtime.  I plan to use it 30 days straight to see if I notice any difference to the fine lines around my eyes.

Eyeshadow packaging, sleek but this one's difficult to open

I love the mirror in the lid - take heed, MAC

Shade 807 - Amythyst

Shade 200 - Coral

And of course the best thing I got was my Hello Kitty, won by himself after only putting £1 in the grabby machine! Woo!  

Have you ever seen so much GLEE?

Where do you go for the best beauty bargains?

May Favourites: Long Lasting Gems

May Favourites

I've been very busy at work this month so I haven't had much time to play around with different looks in the morning and have been sticking with a few firm favourites to get the job done.  I'm ashamed to say that last week I put my make up on during the bus ride to work, twice.  The downside has been low-key eye-liner application (pencil only) but one upside is that both times my bus literally flew to work and only got held up at one of the 4,536 traffic lights on my journey.  The universe always give you the opposite of what you want!  Anyway, I digress.

1. Miss Dior Cherie: I have too many perfumes, they're going off quicker than I can use them up before they go bad, so I get a lot of satisfaction from finishing a bottle.  My friend Rachel got me this for my birthday a couple of years back and most girls will be familiar with this scent by now.  The bottle is adorable and one I'll keep on my dressing table.  Before I got this perfume I used the copy of it - Katie Price's Stunning and no one could tell the difference.  More recently Next has released a dupe of it called 'Diamonds' and the packaging of it is more KP than Dior.  I'll do a comparison of them soon.

2. Escada EDP: It's been a bumper month for finishing up perfumes, but I'm very sad about the end of my lovely little Escada.  I carry this around in my bag to reapply during the day and lingers much longer than Miss Dior Cherie.  I have weird Teflon skin to which no perfume will stick! Escada perfumes are limited edition so I wish I'd bought the larger version of this when I saw it in the airport two years ago. It's quite a mature scent one of those late 1980s/90s feminine but strong numbers in the same vein as Givenchy's Amaridge.

3. Clinique City Block Sheer SPF 25: This is my second tube and is one of those products I will always have around.  The sun came out to play a good bit during May so I dug this tube out.  It's essentially a tinted moisturiser with sun block.  I like the idea of a tinted moisturiser as sometimes I don't want to wear thick, heavy foundation, but most that I've tried, like Benefit's You Rebel in Light make me a comic orange colour.  The Clinique one is just light enough for me and I can get away with wearing powder over the top as it evens out my skin tone and disguises mild redness.  It sinks into the skin quickly which is excellent as it is SPF 25.  I need to wear sun block everyday, but some products are so greasy any make up you apply over them slides down your face by elevensies.  I'll give a more in depth review of this product in my sun block overview.

4. Revlon ColourStay Ultimate Lipcolour in Prized Peach: Until I discovered the joys of long lasting lip colour I neglected my lips.  I would spend ages making up my eyes and applying loads of gossamer thin layers of face products, but my lips would be lucky if they got a swipe of lip balm.  This is despite having a drawer full of every type of lip product you can imagine! I don't have the patience to reapply lip gloss ten times a day, so this Revlon lipstick, which has the consistency of a gloss is great, it last a good couple of hours at least.  It is supposed to last longer than that, but of course the advertising spiel is never realistic.  I like that even though it's a bolder colour than I normally wear it doesn't make my lips look smaller than they are, which I find happens with darker lipsticks.  It is quite drying on the lips, but my lips tend to get dry anyway as I'm not an obsessive lip glosser.  I just put a moisturising lip balm on first, pat off any residue which would interfere with the ColourStay's adhesive properties and my lips are done.

5. Lacura Foundation in 10 Transparent: This featured in my last FOTD and really deserves it's own review.  It costs around £3 and is my favourite foundation.  The colour, scent, consistency, coverage and staying power are leagues better than other pricier foundations.  I wish I lived closer to an Aldi!

6. MUA eye shadows in Shades 1, 11 and 12: These too featured in my last FOTD and since I've been keeping my make up simple this month, they create the perfect 'work' eye.  They are very durable, especially if I use a concealer or eye shadow primer on my lid first.  They're only £1 each and far more pigmented than most MAC eyeshadows.  They're more comparible to Urban Decay shadows and these three are all pearlised.  However, I swatched a few matte ones in Superdrug and the quality was not as good.  

7. MAC Technakohl Liner in Graphblack: Despite owning enough eye liner to draw around the world twice I added this to my collection at Christmas after hearing tales of it's amazing staying power, especially on the waterline.  I'm all about durable products and so far this hasn't disappointed.  It's a true black and lasts longer than most eye liners, although my Revlon ColourStay is very good as well and is in identical packaging.  However, eye liners last for ages so I didn't mind forking out more for the MAC one.

8.  i.d Bare Minerals SPF 15 Foundation in Fairly Light: This also popped up in my last FOTD.  I keep resolving to finish up all my liquid foundations and then only use mineral for everyday and keep one liquid product for special occasions.  Somehow I think I'll always have a box of foundations! I'm just too curious when a new shiny products gets realised with promises of giving you perfect skin!  I do like using mineral powder foundation on it's own as I have oily skin and it's easier to match to my skin and avoid the dreaded orange tide mark, but if I don't use it with a pollyfila-type primer, like L'Oreal Studio Secrets Smoothing Resurfacing Primer it emphasises my pores too much.  This month however I just put a light dusting over it over liquid foundation to set and stay put in the warmer weather.

9. Nails Inc. polish in Picadilly Circus: I got this nail polish ages ago with Glamour magazine and it's one of my favourites.  It's an unusual deep mauve-y dark pink which finishes shiny.  Plus you only need one coat and it doesn't chip as quickly as drugstore polishes.  I tend to wear this on my toes as I hate the look of dark chipped colour on my fingernails. 

10. Nails Inc. polish in London: I got this nail polish with the Diet Coke offer (click link to go to review) earlier this month and have been wearing it on my fingernails most of the time since.  It needs two coats to look it's best and finish off with a coat of clear to gloss it up and prevent chipping.

Don't forget to comment below and tell me what long lasting gems you've discovered!

FOTD: My Stupid O'Clock Look

Forgive my slightly tired/fed up expression...I had to get up much earlier than normal today...TFI Friday!  I didn't have much time to get ready so only used the basics - a mix of high and budget products, I'm not a make up snob!

I'd just blow dried my hair - damn errant flyaway hairs!

What I used

Moisturiser: Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturising Gel.  It's an okay moisturiser but not worth over £20.


Cosmetics: 
1. Lacura Beauty Foundation in Shade 10 - Transparent.  It's from Aldi, it's the cheapest foundation I own.  I love it the most! Upcoming review.
2. Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Ultimate Wear Concealer in Fair 1.  This is also the cheapest concealer I own - and I love it the most! It covers dark circles fabulously and is very creamy.  My Mac Studio Fix can be very drying.
3. i.d Bare Minerals SPF 15 Foundation in Fairly Light.  I sometimes use this as my foundation alone and layer it on thick and buff in with a kabuki.  But I used it as a finishing powder today.  Unusually for a powder, it makes you glowy.
4. MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Light Flush.  I got this as part of the PinkzaPoppin set over Christmas.  It's a good bronzer for my pale skin, not too pigmented or orange.  I gently contoured my cheekbones with it.
5. MAC Mineralize Blush in Dainty.  Again it was part of the PinkzaPoppin set.  It's such a pretty colour but sometimes I feel it's a bit too coral and iridescent for me.  I could have applied it with a heavier hand today as you can't really see it in the photo.
6. ELF Eyebrow Kit in Light.  ELF is one of my favourite budget lines.  I use this with a small eyeshadow brush rather than the one supplied and shape my brows with a clean mascara wand.  I used to use a pencil but this kit is a lot better and reminds me of Benefit's Brow Zings.
7. MUA eyeshadows from Superdrug's new £1 range.  Review to come!
All over lid - Shade 1 - a wonderful pale gold highlight colour - FAVOURITE PRODUCT USED.
Crease: Shade 11 - pretty pretty mid brown, a bit like MAC's Sable.
To darken crease further: Shade 12 - a very multifaceted colour - browny/charcoal with a slight teal sheen.  Beautiful. 
8. Revlon ColourStay Eyeliner in Brown.  I used this on my waterline.  It doesn't irritate and lasts well.
9. Revlon ColourStay Liquid Liner in Black Brown.  Very easy to do a cat's eye with this.  The colour stays!
10. Shu Uemura eyelash curlers.  I don't rate these at all but use them given how expensive they were.  It's all hype. My H and M £2 pair are leagues better.  
11. L'Oreal Extra-Volume Collagene Mascara.  This one's a bit sloppy and doesn't help curled lashes.  Thickens and lengthens decently.  No clumps!
12. No7 High Shine Lipgloss in Shine.  This was one of those freebies you get when you spend a certain amount with No7.  It's the first lipgloss I've seen with an SPF (15).  Pretty, pigmented colour and quite thick, which I like.  Not keen on the tiny brush though. 


Perfume: Dior Hypnotic Posion - my all time favourite.  More of a 'night' perfume, but I wear it anytime. 7am? Bring it on!


What's your favourite go-to everyday product?