I have never tried mac but know there is allot of hype around it. You are right about benefit products, they are SO expensive but look nice. My sister bought the badgal mascara and it was very clumpy and thick. Made my eyelashes look like spiders
I like boots natural collection which is very cheap and i like rimmel and loreal. Some of loreals make-up i dont like but their matte morphose foundation is probably the best i've ever tried.
I find Boots No 7 stuff rather lame, their cosmetics are not that competitively priced considering that most of the time they really are quite wishy washy in terms of color (for my south asian skin tone)
I think Revlon do some lovely stuff and the consistancy and pigmentation of it's eye shadows and foundations is quite good, the rest of the chemist/supermarket brands are great if your pale skinned but not so great if your dark olive/tanned.
Barry M, myface are good if you want good range of colours to suit various skin types. I wear rimmel polish (mostly on toes so I don't want to spend a fortune - so it does the job )
I like Shu Uemura for their range of colours, general quality and lack of slavish devotion to trends, meaning that you can keep buying the same thing for ages.
I also like Benefit products, and have found their customer service to be excellent. However, they lose points for discontinuing my favourite purple mascara.
I've not been that impressed with Urban Decay - their stuff doesn't tend to "stay on", although the colours are great.
Recently bought Bourjois volume glamour mascara which was a mistake. It sticks to the brush too much and would clump if used straight away so needed to get the excess off before applying very annoying. Back to Maxfactor I think.
The brands I always stick to seem to be Rimmel for cover stick, No7 for eyeshadow, Maybelline for mascara, and Barry M for nail varnish. I've found that while Rimmel and No7 win at cover stick and eyeshadow, they both suck for nail varnish - I had some of the Rimmel 60 second stuff and I kept noticing pink marks on my bath and sink, while No7 just comes off really quickly. Barry M lasts so much longer and the colours are lovely.
Moisturizer: Embryolisse Lait-Creme Concentre.
Primer: Beverley Knight Primer or Laura Mercier.
Eye primer: MAC Paint Pots, Smashbox Shadow Insurance & Urban Decay Primer Potion.
There's such a mix of stuff price wise.
Foundations
Clinique Superbalanced Make-Up
Chanel Pro Lumiere
Chanel Mat Lumiere.
Chanel Vita Lumiere.
MAC Face & Body
Make-Up Forever HD Foundation or Face&Body
Yaby Liquid & Cream Foundations.
PM me for info on where to buy MakeUpForever/Yaby products in the UK if you want to know.
Concealers
Eve pearl concealers. (salmon)
Yaby concealers
Laura Mercier concealer.
MAC moisture concealer.
Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer.
Kryolan.
Tinted Moisturizers
Laura Mercier.
Pixi Tint & Conceal. £20 odd and comes with a matching concealer, as the name suggests
Eyeshadows
MAC Eyeshadows.
Sleek Eyeshadow palettes (£5 for 12, highly pigmented and easily blendible shades).
BarryM Dazzle Dusts.
E.L.F Eye Transformer.
Bobbi Brown eyeshadows.
Eyeliners
BarryM Eye Kohls
MAC Eye pencils.
Clinique Gel Liner.
Bobbi Brown Longwear Gel Liner. (avoid the MAC gel liner!)
Blushers/Highlighters
BarryM Blushers.
MAC Blushers.
ELF blushers are nice in the right shade.
Sleek Make-Up blushers.
MakeUp Forever HD Blushers
La Femme Blushers. - amazing.
Graftobian Cream Blush
No7 Skin Illuminator - amazing..doesn't look glittery.
Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick - lasts forever and is amazing - worth the price.
Lips.
Ben nye lipgloss wheel
Kryolan lipgloss wheel
Eve pearl lipglosses
MAC dazzleglass
Graftobian lipgloss palette
Kryolan lip glistener.
Bronzers/Contour Powders
Illamasqua Blusher in Rumour.
Benefit Hoola Bronzer
MAC Blusher in Harmony.
Setting powders
Kett Loose Powder.
Chanel Powder
Laura Mercier powder
Brushes
MAC 239 & 217 Brushes. Application & blending.
Academy of Freelance Make-Up 24 Brush set - £100 but theyre good quality...if you add the price up for individual MAC brushes for instance, it's a massive bargain.
ELF Studio Powder Brush.
I actually really like Benefit. I keep buying their eyeliner and the bad gal mascara has always been my favourite I find most other brands tend to clump or run too easily...
Best brands- MAC, Chanel, Barry M (dazzle dust eyeshadows)
Worst- Rimmel, some Benefit products -- bad for the overrated price (e.g. 'High Beam', 'Cha Cha Tint' enhancers)
I'm a big fan of Clinique for foundations, powder, lipglosses and sticks and their stick blusher is great for a natural glow.
They aren't very "exciting" but I like the soft natural look for day time so it suits me fine. The soap and glory under eye concealer is very good as well.
For evenings I usually jazz it up with a bright eyeliner, Gosh do a good selection and are very good - they do dry out quickly though.
My favorite make up at the moment is Mally from QVC. I think it's a great range if you really enjoy your make up, you like to play with it and like to look polished rather than wacky but without being boring (if that makes any sense). She's a make up artist (apparently to Beyonce) and she develops the range herself. There are loads of how to videos on her web site too.
I also like the Balance and Brighten powder foundation by Laura Geller from QVC but haven't got on with any of her other stuff though.
I haven't really bought anything in the shops for ages now. The advantage with QVC is that you can send it back after 30 days if you try it and don't like it. All it costs you is the postage. And no, I do not have shares in them
Personally I prefer the more expensive make up. I do think you get what you pay for. That said, if you like to try something different every week, then there probably isn't much point in paying top dollar.
I have recently started buying ELF products (the studio range) and I must say I am impressed. My make up draw is a mixture of everything though, Avon, ELF, No7 and Clinique. I use Loreal Volume Million Lashes mascara and I swear by it, after many years of searching for a decent mascara - I found it
Worst I would say is Maybeline (brings me out in spots)
For foundations I never use budget/drugstore brands. I tend to stick with Benefit or Mac.
I always stick with Maybelline or Max Factor for Mascara as I don't feel more expensive mascaras are better, infact they are worse! I've tried Bad Gal, too clumpy and thick, it was more like a paste. I've also tried Mac Plush Lash and that was on par with a watery mascara you'd get in one of those horrid cheap christmas make up sets.
No 7 do a lovely pale pink lipstick which I always go back for and Barry M do an amazing hot pink lip gloss I always keep returning to. No 7 and L'Oreal I find are the wishy washy brands that tend to make my skin look all dusty.
So best for me is Mac, Benefit, Barry M and Smashbox.
Worst: L'Oreal, Collection 2000, Boots Natural Collection and Revlon. Also Miss Sporty and other generic crap like that.
My favourites are Dr Hauschka cos most of them have rose oil in the base, which doesn't clash with the skincare products I use, and also have a lot of Max Factor. Don't really have a least favourite, as I tend to stick with the same old brands...
Also recently discovered an Australian brand, Bloom, which I like as it has sun protection in some of the products (I have vitiligo and my skin has no pigment so needs protection) and uses minerals and essential oils a lot, too.
I'm a big fan of Bobbi Brown both Make-up and Skin Care, when I was a bit younger I loved Urban Decay as the colours for their eye shadows were different. I like Chanel and Bare Escentials is good. I find things like Boots No17 and Rimmel a bit hit and miss so I just tend to get nail varnish from them
After all the hype surrounding MAC I decided to try their stuff a couple of years ago but I couldn't get on with it. I have rosacea on my nose and cheeks and their face primer used to really irritate it (I have super sensitive skin so I can't blame MAC for that one). I used their Studio Fix liquid foundation set with their powder and I'd had a flawfless complexion to begin with but after 9 hours at work it would look quite "speckly" - like the foundation and powder had broken up a bit and made this speckley effect on my skin rather than the smoothness I'd had in the morning. I now use Estee Lauder Double Wear Camoflague Foundation and it is AMAZING. I have a perfect, flawfless complexion all day. I set it with Rimmel Stay Matte Foundation in Translucent which I've always found to be fantastic and take away shine.
I use Barry M nail polish because their colour range is fantastic, but they do chip by the end of the day.
Collection 2000 is awful, as well as L'Oreal. I've always found Benefit to be more about the packaging than the quality of their products. I used their concealer for a while, called Boing or something, and it was like using polyfiller and after a while you the creases in my skin under my eyes would break it up, making the problem more obvious!
the worst brand has to be clinique in my opinion. ive tried the primer and the foundation and they both just made my skin feel all dry and flaky:( never going to back to clinique!
Comments
I like boots natural collection which is very cheap and i like rimmel and loreal. Some of loreals make-up i dont like but their matte morphose foundation is probably the best i've ever tried.
I think Revlon do some lovely stuff and the consistancy and pigmentation of it's eye shadows and foundations is quite good, the rest of the chemist/supermarket brands are great if your pale skinned but not so great if your dark olive/tanned.
Barry M, myface are good if you want good range of colours to suit various skin types. I wear rimmel polish (mostly on toes so I don't want to spend a fortune - so it does the job )
I also like Benefit products, and have found their customer service to be excellent. However, they lose points for discontinuing my favourite purple mascara.
I've not been that impressed with Urban Decay - their stuff doesn't tend to "stay on", although the colours are great.
Nice colour, too, the brown is quite dark and seems to say put.
Do you mean Too Faced? I have that.
Worst- Rimmel, some Benefit products -- bad for the overrated price (e.g. 'High Beam', 'Cha Cha Tint' enhancers)
They aren't very "exciting" but I like the soft natural look for day time so it suits me fine. The soap and glory under eye concealer is very good as well.
For evenings I usually jazz it up with a bright eyeliner, Gosh do a good selection and are very good - they do dry out quickly though.
I also like the Balance and Brighten powder foundation by Laura Geller from QVC but haven't got on with any of her other stuff though.
I haven't really bought anything in the shops for ages now. The advantage with QVC is that you can send it back after 30 days if you try it and don't like it. All it costs you is the postage. And no, I do not have shares in them
Personally I prefer the more expensive make up. I do think you get what you pay for. That said, if you like to try something different every week, then there probably isn't much point in paying top dollar.
Worst I would say is Maybeline (brings me out in spots)
I always stick with Maybelline or Max Factor for Mascara as I don't feel more expensive mascaras are better, infact they are worse! I've tried Bad Gal, too clumpy and thick, it was more like a paste. I've also tried Mac Plush Lash and that was on par with a watery mascara you'd get in one of those horrid cheap christmas make up sets.
No 7 do a lovely pale pink lipstick which I always go back for and Barry M do an amazing hot pink lip gloss I always keep returning to. No 7 and L'Oreal I find are the wishy washy brands that tend to make my skin look all dusty.
So best for me is Mac, Benefit, Barry M and Smashbox.
Worst: L'Oreal, Collection 2000, Boots Natural Collection and Revlon. Also Miss Sporty and other generic crap like that.
Also recently discovered an Australian brand, Bloom, which I like as it has sun protection in some of the products (I have vitiligo and my skin has no pigment so needs protection) and uses minerals and essential oils a lot, too.
I use Barry M nail polish because their colour range is fantastic, but they do chip by the end of the day.
Collection 2000 is awful, as well as L'Oreal. I've always found Benefit to be more about the packaging than the quality of their products. I used their concealer for a while, called Boing or something, and it was like using polyfiller and after a while you the creases in my skin under my eyes would break it up, making the problem more obvious!
the worst brand has to be clinique in my opinion. ive tried the primer and the foundation and they both just made my skin feel all dry and flaky:( never going to back to clinique!