Budget foundation part 3 and Drag Wednesday!

So I kinda forgot to post last week about the latest foundation, I've been so distracted lately that I keep writing posts and forgetting to actually publish them, so here it is.

The third cheapy foundation I tried was from W7. The High Definition Camera Ready foundation. Now, I got this in B&M but I lost my receipt so I can't give the accurate price but I do know that it was under £3!

So there's no information about this foundation on W7s website so I assume it's either a discontinued line or a special promotion that they've chosen not to become a regular line. There's nothing on the bottle to suggest what the foundation is supposed to "do" ie wear time, coverage etc.

It comes in a pump bottle which is great because the other W7 foundation I bought to try (more about that tomorrow) comes in a glass bottle which you have to shake to get the foundation to actually come out and I really hate foundations in glass bottles. My pet hate when it comes to foundation!!

The consistency was quite creamy, not too runny (I loathe runny foundation) and not too thick. It applies evenly (I used my RT face brush to buff it in) and the colour 'Buff' was a pretty good match to my skin tone. It got slightly darker as it dried but I blended it right down on to my neck so if there was any noticeable difference in comparison to my skin tone, it wasn't visible.

As from the name of the foundation, it is supposedly "high definition" and "camera ready" but there's no further information as to what that entails. The foundation has pretty good coverage and there's nothing on the bottle to suggest that it has an SPF, which doesn't really go well with flash photography.

It's definitely worth the price and it's a foundation I would go back to again but it would be nice to access some more information on the product before buying again. I'll give it a 4/5 because the wear time was pretty good, I had it on for a good 8 hours and it didn't really show any signs of wear, maybe a little fading here and there but nothing noticeable unless you're being overly critical like I was!

Moving on to Drag Wednesday!! Since starting to trim my eyebrows after plucking or waxing, there's been a huge difference in the ease of covering my brows. Before, the amount of Pritt Stick I was having to use to get them glued down was a bit ridiculous and it took a hell of a long time but this time around it was so much easier. After gluing and powdering them, I decided to use the Primark foundation that I had mentioned before to go over the top of them and they were gone! It's probably the best coverage I've had so far eyebrow-wise since starting to do drag make-up on myself.

I decided to not use a runway look from the show this week and instead make it up as I went along. I saw a picture during the week of a sort of outlined starburst eyeliner during the week and I wanted to try something like that except huge and filled in instead of just the outline. I used the KIKO gel eyeliner and my Wilko eyeliner brush (as always) to map it out and fill it in with a large wing that joined up with the star burst at the inner corner of my eye. I was really impressed with how good it looked to be honest. I used my Make-Up Revolution 'Give them Nightmares' palette along with a cheapy palette that I don't know the brand name of (oops) to do a sort of gold and purple look. Unfortunately the purple in the MUR palette didn't show up too well on the area where my brow was covered but I actually managed to forget to prime my eyes before I actually started putting eyeshadow on them so I might have to try it again with primer underneath!!

Lips were another story altogether. I used the LA Girl Matte Gloss in Blackcurrant as it's a beautiful dark purple and I thought it would compliment the eyes well.  Which it did, but I had to use literally 4 or 5 coats of it to get a fully opaque lip. Now, I'm not going to blame the lipstick. The skin on the lips is pretty different to the skin covering the rest of your face and lipstick is for your lips. So overdrawing them to such a degree meant I was going over the skin below my nose and below my lower lip and it did need a hell of a lot of lipstick to totally cover that up.

I used my old faithful lashes, cheap and cheerful Primark ones and managed to get the eyelash glue everywhere, so that was fucking great. But it actually worked out pretty good in the end. My contouring looked so much better using my cheapy contour palette along with the Morphe blush palette. Usually in photos, my contour doesn't show up at all so I was pretty impressed.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to film a skincare review on the Boots Witch Hazel and Tea Tree jelly skincare products but that all depends on if we can actually get a hold of them in store! Failing that, it'll be discussing the eyeshadow palettes (that I've yet to try) from Primark! So hopefully that'll turn out better than the last video I filmed. Which was horrendous. Will also be talking on here about the final installment of budget foundations and a little bit about body confidence!

x M x

Jeffree Star and Budget Foundations!

Now I've recovered from my complete meltdown over my parcel coming, I feel that I might be composed enough, MIGHT be, to post this....

MY MOTHERFUCKING JEFFREE STAR'S CAME! Scorpio and Gemini were released last weekend on Jeffree's site but the site I order from in the UK didn't receive them in until during the week. I sat refreshing the page for hours and finally they went live. Unfortunately, Gemini wasn't up there so I ordered Scorpio and Dominatrix. They are everything!!

One thing I will say is these photos do not do the shades justice at all. They are much darker in real  life in the natural light. The Dominatrix shade is such a rich chocolate brown and Scorpio, I cannot even begin to describe the colour of it. It's grey but it's purple and it really is so much darker than it looks in the severe light of my bathroom where I took the photo.

I don't have confirmation but I THINK the formulation might have changed slightly because the new shade seems to be even creamier and silky than before. I'm totally beside myself over them. I can't even. I can't. My Zoeve En Taupe palette will be here tomorrow and I can't wait to try it along with the Scorpio. I think they're going to compliment each other really well.

I'm also running a test of budget (ie cheap lol) foundations to see if they really compare at all to mid-range foundations. I always use No7's Beautifully Matte foundation in the shade Calico (£14.50). It's my holy grail. I really love a full coverage foundation and I spend a lot of my time touching my face (don't ask me why, I'm a total freak) so I like something that will stay put through all my constant fingering (let's not lower the tone pmsl!).

This afternoon I bought a selection of low cost foundations, all supposed full coverage to test out and see if they were worth a look.

The first I've tried out is Primark's stick foundation. Now, I used to always use Max Factor's Pan Stick (I paid £6.99 for it in Boots) but stopped when I found out that they weren't cruelty free. The Primark one is £2.00 and doesn't come in very many shades from what I saw. My local Primark isn't particularly big so the larger stores might carry more variety when it comes to shades. The photos above where I'm showing the lipstick shades is where I'm wearing the Primark foundation.

There's a fair amount of product for the price first of all, there's a faint scent to it but it's nothing over powering or unpleasant. I bought the ivory shade which was the palest one I could see there. I'm quite yellow toned and it fit me perfectly. The colour match was perfect which is a rarity as I seem to find myself in between shades a lot of the time and either having to mix shades together or adjust with powder or bronzer/blush so was pleasantly surprised.

I primed my face with Nivea Post Shave balm and I applied it as I usually do with stick foundation and just run it over my face a few times and blended it in. I used one of the cheapy oval brushes from eBay and it was so rich and creamy, it just slid right over my skin and blended right in. I used my usual setting powder (MUA Matte Perfect Loose Powder) along with a brush to set it and went over the apples of my cheeks with blush. At first glance, it was perfect. I was really taken aback by how flawless it was. The coverage is amazing and like I said previously, it blends so unbelievably well considering the price. HOWEVER an hour later, it looks a bit cakey around my nose. I'm used to that with stick foundation as the Pan Stik did the same so it might just be my skin type that's the problem. My nose gets a bit oily throughout the day and I just went over it with the brush and it evened itself out again. My only let down is, it seems to take a hell of a lot of powder to set it as it's so creamy. I swiped my finger across my lip when taking off the Scorpio to switch shades and managed to wipe off some of the foundation above my lip. It was still soft to the point it would rub off by hand. I'm going to try it again with different setting powder and squirt some setting spray on there too to see if it makes a difference.

Overall, I'm really impressed. Going to give it a 4.5/5, only losing the half mark over the cakeiness around the nose but it might drop depending on wear time so watch this space.

It's something I would contemplate using again if I can find a way to work with the texture of it once set It'll be perfect for drag looks as I'm not typically in drag make-up for an extended period of time out of the house so cheap and cheerful for that. I am really surprised that it was so good if I'm being completely honest. I'm not a make-up snob by any means but I highly doubted that such a cheap foundation from a store that predominantly sells clothing as opposed to toiletries and cosmetics. I'm going to see how long it holds for and then update (with a photo) of how it held up over the hours. It'll be about 5 hours I'll have been wearing it when I wash off so should give a good indication of staying power.

Tomorrow I'm going to be testing out Essence's 16 hour foundation and reviewing the Zoeva En Taupe palette! Now I'm off to stare at myself in the mirror while alternating between lipsticks until I get sick of my reflection. As if that'll ever happen lol!

x M x