My amazing US haul

Hello! I'm back! In case you didn't guess from my post a week or so ago, I was in Orlando with my family. We did loads of fun stuff, Disney's Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon Water Park, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Sea World, Aquatica... and some shopping! There are some amazing outlets in Orlando as well as the massive Florida mall, so I ended up buying a LOT of stuff. I was also interested in checking out some drugstore brands we don't get in the UK like Physicians Formula, and finally managed to buy myself the lovely Revlon lipgloss I'd been eyeing up for weeks - for much less as well! I know I went a bit crazy. I haven't actually added up how much I've spent, but you can tell it was a lot.

My entire beauty haul

However, I did find some amazing buys, including 3 Mac Volcanic Ash Exfoliators (there were actually a lot more in one of the CCOs, but I couldn't really pick up more), the Tom Ford Black Orchid set, and there was an excellent freebie offer at Lancome with 6 free samples and a gorgeous make up bag, so I couldn't resist.

Details will follow shortly. For now, here are some more pictures of my haul. Let me know if there are any particular brands or products you'd like me to show you in details.

Beauty Blog Link Love Saturday 23/04/2011

See some before and after photos in My Lips But Better's review of the new Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua foundation.


Queen of Turquoise reviews lipstick with polka dot packaging!


Sarah from Iheartcosmetics finds the best bikini wax in London town, at Strip.


Have you encountered the awesomeness that is Sugarpill Cosmetics yet? If not, then you're in luck, because Krasey Beauty has the scoop on the line!


Were the Cucumber Wipes a 'yes'? Find out over at Jeweled Thumb.


Find out why Urban Decay Good Karma Brushes remind Makeup Morsels of Martin Luther and his 95 Theses.


Daily Polish shows off a gorgeous blackened blue nail polish you can buy for a steal by drugstore brand Sleek.


Retrodiva knows it's spring when she suffers from her first sunburn of the season. Find out her tricks for treating it and preventing peeling.


Phyrra debuts Geek Chic Cosmetics new collection, N7 and gives you a sneak peek of an upcoming collection, Mana Screwed!


AOYV suggests five must have coral blushes to try this season.


Creamy pink lippies go head to head in The Lip Print's Pink Month featuring Lime Crime, MAC, Maybelline and more!


Remember those really expensive Rock and Republic blushes? Musicalhouses has found a cheap dupe of Rock and Republic's Kinky blush!


Whether you're a beauty blogger or just a product lover, you *need* to check out theNotice's first tips for beauty bloggers photography post!


K at Beautifully Addicted To feels the Pinch with Topshop blushers.




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Audrey Dao is giving away $400 worth of NuMe hair styling products, including a hair straightener valued at $300!


What would you choose with a $50 Gift Card from Apothica? Enter to win at Prime Beauty!

Swatching My Stash Part 3: Foundations

As you know I am trying to shop my stash more since I realised how much make up I really own, although to be honest, I have just bought a ton while on holiday, so much for that. But in any case I thought I'd show you my foundation stash which is actually rather small compared to my whole stash of make up. I have 7 foundations, plus one I own in a darker shade which I'm hoping will suit me more in the summer as it's too dark at the moment.


First up is a foundation that isn't actually a foundation, although it is called foundation. I would actually call it "what was I thinking?" because in all honesty, I have no idea why I bought it in the first place. It is Max Factor Sheer Radiane Sheer Shimmer Foundation in 110 Shimmering Natural. It is basically a very shimmery highlighter that noone in their right mind should use on their whole face. Annoyingly though the pump dispenses way too much in one go, so you either put it all on your face (don't!) or wash it off your hands which is basically very wasteful. To my surprise the bottle is nearly half empty, although I have no idea when I actually used up half of this as it really is hideous. It's an okay highlighter, but there are much better ones. Mark out of 10: 1. Would I repurchase it? Not on your nelly!

See what other foundations I own and which one's my favourite after the jump!

Guess where I am?!

Sorry, I know it's been a slow month here on Pleasureflush and the reason for it is that I'm currently on holiday, and the week(s) before our holiday was taken up with preparing for it. Posting should return to normal in May (including a few make up related holiday posts), but for now, I'll leave you with a picture and a game: guess where I am! (Okay okay, I know it's not that difficult, but take a guess anyway!)

Too Faced Romantic Eye Palette Review and Swatches

Every so often I see a product that catches my eye, usually because of its pretty packaging (or a pretty product itself like the new Mac Quite Cute mineralize blushes) and I have to have it. That's what happened when I first saw images of Too Faced's newest palette: Romantic Eye. I like Too Faced eyeshadows as they are usually good quality and they often come in pretty and/or cute packaging (remember last winter's Enchanted Glamourland palette?).

And here it is. I just love the packaging with the flowers. I was of course also keen to see what was inside the palette. It contains 9 eyeshadows in 3 groups, 3 of them are larger (1.9 g or 2 g each depending on whether you look on the back of the outer box or the palette - weird) and 6 are smaller (0.9 g or 1 g again depending on where you look). In total you get 11.4 g or 11.7 g of eyeshadows for £26. The eyeshadows are grouped in 3 groups, based on the type of looks you can create with them: Day, Classic or Fashion.


The Day look includes neutrals/browns, the Classic look includes pinks and purples and the Fashion look (my favourite) includes metallic greenish gold, metallic brown and satin light cream highlighter. You also get 3 cards that show you how to apply the shadows for each look. Of course you can wear whichever shadows you want in whatever combination and with other Too Faced or non Too Faced eyeshadows, but I guess it's a nice touch and it certainly helps with finding coordinating colours.

All in all I think it's a nice little palette especially if you like more neutral looks, although there is colour in there too, but for more subtle, softer looks.

See more pictures and swatches after the jump!

WOW! 100,000 hits!

Yesterday Pleasureflush had its 100,000th hit since I started the blog back in June 2009. I can hardly believe it, just amazing to think my blog has been visited 100,000 times within less than 2 years! I also have over 230 followers which is again incredible.  It's taken me a while to get into blogging properly, in fact I took 8 months off due to lack of time in 2009/2010, but since my little boy started school I've had a lot more time to myself and my blog. I still wish I had more time, but since I'm a mum of 3 young children, I've got to be realistic, I have to do housework and look after my children, so it's not going to happen yet.

Anyway, I'd just like to thank you all for taking time to read what I have to say and I hope you find my posts useful. I always welcome your comments, it makes writing a blog much more fun knowing there are people out there reading it!

Finally here are the 5 most popular posts since my blog began:

No 1. I'm excited about... Mac Quite Cute Collection

No 2. Christian Dior 5 Colour Eyeshadow Review

No 3. Christian Dior Spring 2011 Make Up Collection

No 4. Guerlain Meteorites Summer 2010 Edition

No 5. Stereo Rose Old Versus New Comparision Pictures
Have you got a favourite?

My Mac Quite Cute haul and swatches

As you know, I'd been very excited about Mac's Quite Cute collection and finally I am able to show you what I bought from it. I was mainly interested in the seriously cute mineralize blushes and the pastel coloured eyeshadow quad, but I also ended up with 2 lipsticks: Candy Yum Yum, a bright neon pink and Play Time and subtle pinky purple shade. 

I am not writing a review on these products mainly because I haven't actually used them other than Candy Yum Yum lipstick (which is awesome, stays on really well and looks amazing - no wonder it sold out in a couple of days). But I did do 2 sets of swatches, one in natural daylight with no swatchs and one in direct sunlight. Hope you find them useful. Let me know what you got (if anything) from this collection!

See more pictures and swatches after the jump!

Swatching My Stash Part 2: Lipsticks - Guerlain Kiss Kiss Lipsticks

Last week I swatched my Rouge G de Guerlain lipsticks, and this week I've got the rest of my Guerlain lipsticks named Kiss Kiss, including several finishes like Kiss Kiss Strass, Maxi Shine, Extreme, Baby, Stick Gloss and the regular Kiss Kiss line. I have reviewed a couple of these lipsticks before here and here, take a look if you're interested. For now, here are the swatches.

My box of Guerlain lipsticks

My box of other high end lipsticks

See loads of swatches after the jump!

Beauty Blog Link Love Saturday 09/04/2011

The Lip Print gets the Smooth Infusion treament thanks to Aveda and Oscar Oscar salons.

The Pink Sith invites you to marvel at the Givenchy Prisme Yeux Quatour in Candide Garden, which is a nice departure from tired old Spring pastels.

Over at The Glamorous Gleam, Mz. More introduces a dupe for MAC's Ripe Peach blush: Sleek's Life's a Peach!

Got a craving for something sweet? well, Krasey Beauty has swatches and a full look into the MAC Cosmetics Quite Cute collection!

LaaLaa may not have been wearing makeup so much as of late but that doesn’t mean her brushes have been neglected. Take a look on Dolce Vanity how she deep cleanses her brushes.

Tracy@Beauty Reflections got to try the new Sebastian Color Ignite Line and it whipped her hair into condition!

My Lips But Better put OPI Black Shatter to the test under various conditions - see the results!

L from Beautifully Addicted To re-discovers a favourite foundation in Bourjois 10hr Sleep Effect.

Jellyminx shares a super simple Nail Art tutorial.

Kimberly from KimmieKarmaLove learns to tutorial on soft green and purple eyes.

Are you having problems with your foundation? Check out Spiced Beauty's HDsecret.

Alyson at The Gloss Menagerie has some Inglot AMC lipgloss swatches to share with you!

At Music and Makeup Jo can't stop raving about a £1.50 Accessorize eye dust bargain and features it in this face of the day.

Spring is here, so Mariella at Musing on Beauty reunites with her fake tan and reviews Clarins Delectable Self Tanning Mousse.

Daily Polish has teamed up with a top London salon to give away a FREE Minx or Shellac Manicure or Pedicure! Enter now!

theNotice is giving away two rather surprising products that'll get your skin summer-ready in no time flat. Find out what they are!

GOSH Long Lasting Lip Marker Review

GOSH is among the many companies that have come out withlip markers over the last year and finally I have decided to take a look for myself what the fuss is about. I like GOSH, especially their brushes and eyepencils, so I thought I'd try out one of their lip markers. Plus they were on special at Superdrug (doubley as there was a 3 for 2 offer and these were reduced from £6.49 to £4.99), so I tested the 4 colours they had available and picked Berry, a beautiful raspberry shade.

True to its name, not only it's a lovely raspberry shade but has the most gorgeous raspberry scent as well (although I think the scent is the same with all the other shades too). The product is easy to apply, doesn't bleed or smudge once it's on my lips, and it isn't drying like some other lipstains I have tried. It's not especially moisturising, but it's definitely not drying. The staying power is okay if you don't eat, but I did find that it disappeared from my lips after eating my lunch. It did leave a slight stain behind around the edges of my lips, but not enough to call it long lasting. Funnily, when I swatched it on my hands in Superdrug, you could see the lines for hours, even after washing my hands several times. That is why I didn't do a hand swatch for this post, I did swatch it on paper and included two lipswatches though, so hope that's okay. I did love it with Mac Liquid Lurex dazzle lipstick on top, the multicolour shimmer looked gorgeous on top of it (unfortunately my picture doesn't do justice to it), also any shimmery lipgloss would jazz it up nicely.

See more pictures and swatches after the jump!

Finished! The March edition

I had quite a successful month as I managed to finish 7 products. First up is Avon Shimmer Swirls Face Illuminator. I actually finished 2 of these as I had one upstairs and one downstairs with not much left in either. This has long been discontinued, but I wouldn't repurchase anyway because it's not that good. There was a time when I thought it was great and bought tons of it, but back then I didn't even wear foundation just used this, however, this isn't even a good base, let alone good illuminator. Doesn't blend very well and ends up quite patchy, plus it's quite drying on my skin. I have since managed to flog my remaining stock on eBay, I was surprised how many people still wanted them and they soldat quite a good price. Originally I think they cost £10, I sold mine for £5-6 which isn't too bad. 

This is what they looked like when full(ish):

Find out what else I managed to finish after the jump!

Do you crackle?

I was probably the only person in the blogosphere that wasn't at all excited about Barry M's black crackle top coat when it first came out, and the subsequent versions by different brands, but I have finally given in and bought my first crackle top coat: Nail Xtras Crackle Top Coat by 17 (Boots's own brand). I still don't like the black top coat, but I thought I'd try out this metallic light gold version and see for myself what the fuss is all about.

To be perfectly honest, I'm still not that keen. I don't know why, when my 6 and 9-year-old daughters think my nails look really cool, I just don't see it. I have now tried it with 3 different nail polishes and have found one combo that I quite like, but I don't think I will be buying it in any other colour. Actually there aren't any other colours of the 17 version, but I believe that Models Own are coming out with their own range pretty soon, and so are some other brands. Back to this one though, formulawise it is a pretty nice nail polish, just the right consistency, applies nicely and cracks very quickly. You will see from the pictures below that the patterns are very fascinating. It costs £3.99 for 10 ml and is available Boots. 

See more pictures and find out which one was my favourite combo after the jump!

Mac Quite Cute collection is now available on debenhams.com!

Mac's new collection Quite Cute is now available to buy from Debenhams! You get free delivery on all purchases plus 10% off if you buy 2 or more beauty products. No code necessary!

Collection details can be found here!