Poundland make up - punching above its price tag (if it had one) - Part 2

Part 2 - eyeshadows and mascara

In the last post on my latest great discovery of Poundland 'everything for a quid' make up, I said I would come back and update it with the results of my eyeshadow testing. Then I remembered I had also bought a mascara there as well (doh!!), so I figured that my verdict on two products might merit a post of its own.

Eyeshadows

So yes, I have tested both eyeshadows now, on consecutive days, and having tried them on skin can give a more accurate description of their colour. The brown one, Mocha 8, isn't like any of the shades in the original NAKED palette when actually applied. Yes, it comes up quite bronze in tone, and reminds me very much of a MAC pot I used to own called Sable.

Despite appearances, I am not reviewing the phone

It is not too metallic-looking to be age-inappropriate (a worrying topic to which I plan to devote a whole post sometime!), and unlike the blusher, does not suffer so dramatically from the fall-out problem, though there is still a bit, if I am honest. That is my only quibble really - it's a good colour, stays put on my lids without primer (an adjunct to eyeshadow of which I am but dimly aware), and did I say it only cost a quid? Yes indeedy! Inquiring minds may also be wondering whatever happened to Mochas 1-7, but I am afraid I have no information on that.

Yes, that is an upside down map of the Czech Republic

So that was the brown eyeshadow, and then I tried the mauve one, Vintage Rose 6. I have long been on a quest to find a pink eyeshadow that might complement my hazel eyes without making me look like a hungover hamster, and so far I have only managed to find a good choice in mauve - MAC Shale. In the pan I thought the two looked quite similar, but on skin the difference is more marked. For Vintage Rose 6 comes up a very vivid pinky colour on my skin, veering to magenta(!), and looking like a hungover hamster would have been a distinct improvement. No, I looked much more like I've been in a fight, and not come off very well. I couldn't bear the sight of myself and promptly slapped some NAKED Dark Horse over the top - a darkish browny taupe I wouldn't normally wear on its own, as it is a bit too dark for my small, shallowly set eyes. Applied on top of this violent pinky mauve, however, I believe I created a new colour that - though I say it myself - was very sophisticated and could perhaps be mistaken for one of those wonderfully subtle shades from Dior or Chanel. I still looked like I'd been in a fight, mind, but in a sort of cool Goth kind of a way. I preferred the effect to Shale on its own in fact, because of the sheen factor again. I might also mention that the Vintage Rose 6 did not have much fall out, so maybe it is the luck of the draw there and YMMV too.

Mascara

I also bought a mascara, as I say. Turns out it is the black volumising one, NOT the red lengthening one, though the choice was purely arbitrary on my part. From reading other reviews on the Net, it seems I picked the better of the two, and I must say I am beyond delighted with the mascara - I feel as strongly about it as the lipsticks in fact. I have tried dozens of mascaras in my time, and many of them - even high end brands like Chanel and Clarins - can be annoyingly clumpy right from the off. Then one brand I had been very pleased with until recently was Benefit 'They're Real!', precisedly because it didn't do that claggy thing, but lifted and separated the eyelashes in a startlingly natural and impressive way. I have been disappointed with my latest Benefit purchase - possibly a dodgy batch, I don't know - because it is as clumpy as the worst of the rest, and I may have to chuck it.

Enter Poundland mascara, which pretty much does what the Benefit one does - there isn't a whole lot of product on the wand when you take it out - a bit like a mascara you have owned for a while, say! - but it delivers just the right amount with zero mess and good separation and lengthening of lashes. Even if the whole thing ends up not lasting very long - because they haven't put much actual mascara in it in the first place - I would happily rebuy on a frequent basis, which is, after all, what we are encouraged to do for hygiene reasons, not that I have historically paid a blind bit of attention to that.

So in summary, I am a big convert to selected lippies and the Plump Up the volume mascara, and am moderately impressed with the eyeshadows. I might investigate the other shades too, as I picked those two out very quickly. My further reading on the Net has confirmed that the foundation and liquid eyeliner are also highly thought of - this range got the thumbs up from testers at both Vogue and Cosmopolitan(!), as I mentioned in the comments to my last post.

Also well worth a look is this photo of two (non-identical) twins of a certain age, one of whom is made up with Poundland cosmetics valued at £10 the lot, while the other is sporting £400's worth of high end slap! For copyright reasons, I shall just post a link to the whole article rather than the photo itself. Now I can actually tell which is which, but the difference is not worth £390, that's for sure. Think how many hero serums etc I could buy with what I'd saved...;)

Me, attempting to show off the mascara while looking like a loon

Poundland make up - punching above its price tag (if it had one)

Part 1: blusher and lipstick

Well, yet again I find myself diverted from the post I intended to write, and compelled instead to report without delay on my latest beauty product find - Make Up Gallery from Poundland. This beyond bargainous cosmetics collection - where every item is an absolute steal at just a pound (obviously) - was reviewed in The Times ages ago, and for months I walked around with the torn out page from the supplement at the bottom of my shopping bag, to remind me to check the range out when I was next in town. I suspect I have actually been into Poundland a few times since, but was doubtless distracted by pyramids of Toblerones or PG Tips, because I never made it to the beauty aisle. But last Saturday - having been consumed recently by the hunt to find a replacement for my sadly discontinued Holy Grail blusher, NARS Penny Lane - I decided to pop in and check out the blusher range at the very least.

Well, colour me impressed. Not just by the blushers, which offered a couple in quite tasteful shades, but by the lipsticks in particular. I did buy a blusher in fact - Soft Blush 1 - which is not a million miles off my much lamented NARS, albeit powder rather than my preferred cream. Even in the absence of tester pans I thought to myself: 'For a quid, how bad can it be?' Okay, at that price you might wonder if it has been tested on migrant tulip pickers in Spalding (I jest!), or made from not very finely milled aggregates or arrestingly vivid pigments, but I was pleasantly surprised when I got it home. My only quibble - and it probably would stop me buying a Poundland blusher again - is the 'fall out' (as I believe it is technically known in the beauty biz), of which you get a goodly amount as soon as you take brush to pan. So yes, messy, but otherwise classy in its colour / effect.

I also bought a lipstick in 04, Choca Mocha. I have a few things to say about the lipsticks: firstly, how nice not to be cheated out of the 'u' in a Poundland makeup item - unlike a L'Oreal Color Riche lipstick, for example. Also, you could buy the entire lippy range in Poundland for pretty much the same price as a single shade from a high street brand such as L'Oreal. Then I have to say that the names of the shades bear absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to their actual colour: Choc Mocha is a pinky-nude that comes up quite dark with what I read as a hint of red? (which took me aback, though maybe that is just how it reacts with my quite strong natural lip colour).

Anyway, I was so excited about my purchases that I photographed them in the car park behind the shops, so eager was I to tell my friend Rachael (a former make up artist) about my mini-haul.

And today I went back and bought two eyeshadows, which I have yet to try, and another lipstick - No 3, Naked Brown - which is a bright, cheery pink, also on my lips! Brown...er, hello??? They come in a case with a completely see through cover, so that is good at least for verifying what colour the blessed thing really is. ;)

No, it's not 'all about the pout', or not in my world

And I might also mention that some of the shades are very bright and garish indeed, but the fact that there were even these two in a more restrained colourway was most encouraging. (NB They are both more subtle looking shades than you might think from the photo.) And what I like best of all is that the feel of these Poundland lipsticks is incredibly hydrating and creamy - in a blind test I think you would mistake them for a brand costing twenty times as much. I was very, very impressed with the feel of them on application.

04 Choca Mocha on left, 03 Naked Brown on right(!!)

One thing to watch for is that the lipsticks twist up, but don't retract beyond a certain point, which means you need to replace the cap with care, as a fair bit of the bullet protrudes above the rim of the case. It's good for hand-to-eye coordination, mind, so I am not complaining.

The eyeshadows I scored today are in a browny taupe (Mocha 8 - they like their coffee imagery!) and a pinky mauve (Vintage Rose 6). In the pan, the former sits somewhere between Toast and Hustle in the original NAKED palette from Urban Decay, while the other is like a pinkier version of my MAC pot in Shale. I will try them this week and update this post with my verdict, but I wanted to get the word out about the lipsticks first!

And I must also add that no one at Poundland is paying me to write this review - and even if they did, it would only be a quid.

In other news, they have four packs of Topic bars on offer at the moment! Topics are very much the endangered species of the confectionery world, so if you are a fan, I would urge you to pick up a pack while the going is good. And maybe a lipstick with that?

There were other make up products which were also favourably reviewed in The Times, but because I chucked the article I can't rightly recall - it may have been the BB cream, I think - or the powder. Oh, and the concealer stick gets extra points for a fun name (Hide 'n' Chic).