Monday 24 June 2013

My First Foray Into Lush Make Up

I have to be honest and say that this post is long overdue. Last month as you know I, had the pleasure of attending the North East Lush Blogger Event, at the event we were given a generous goodies bag and we were also given a discount against any purchases made on the night, I bought one of my skin care staples and a couple of items from their make up range.

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I've been a huge fan of Lush ever since their Cosmetics To Go days (find out more about Cosmetics To Go here), so it was fascinating to watch the recent documentary with Peter Jones from Dragons Den, which features Lush founders and creators Mark and Mo Constantine (you can watch it on iplayer if you didn't see it). Cosmetics To Go ultimately folded but I have a lot of fond memories of the brand and their funky catalogues and packaging, including eyeshadows in wedges so you could build your own palette, and the most fabulous fuzzy peach tasting bronze lipgloss. 

When Lush emerged I thought it would only be a matter of time before their started producing a make up range but it took a bit longer then I and every other Lush fanatic out there thought. A amazingly packaged sister line B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful included beautifully packaged make up, but after a while they disappeared too. The simplest option I guess would have been for Lush to integrate their make up line into their stores but ever the innovator, they developed something completely new.


Emotional Brilliance is a range of lip colours  and eye colours, and liners that were developed by long time Lush employee Rowena Bird, and Harley Street behavioural therapist Lady Helen Kennedy.  With a therapist's involvement as you can probably tell this is no ordinary make up range, you pick the shades that appeal and find out what they reveal about your state of mind and state of being. Whether your a believe in it or not, it definitely adds a bit of interest to buying make up.At the recent Lush event I had the opportunity to have a proper look at the Emotional Range, and I had the opportunity to pick my three colours. The colour reading was scarily accurate and whilst I wanted all of the colours that I picked I was good and only got one - a lip colour in the shade Glamourous.


Like all of rest of the products in the Emotional Range it is suitable for vegans. The liquid lips colours contains lots of skin softening ingredients including organic jojoba oil, candelilla wax and rose wax. They come packaged in a clear glass dropper bottle, with a black dropper style lid. When you unscrew the lid though instead of a dropper you have a wand and a slanted sponge applicator typical of what your would find in a gloss or a liquid lipstick.


I guess we should talk about the colour now, it's hard to really ignore isn't it , Glamorous is a very bright almost neon, bubblegum pink. At first glance you would think that this would be the last colour in the world that I would go for but I found it strangely enticing .


It's bright I'm not going to deny that but for me it just works, it's a great summer colour and it will be even nicer with a tan. The product has a really smooth consistency and it's super pigmented, I'm not a fan of the smell or taste, but I can live with that It is easy to apply too much but take it slowly, and instead of applying it really thickly you could just apply a small amount for a sheer colour, or use it with a balm or maybe something I'm going to show you later to create a more wearable, less dramatic look. I've given you the full on finish here - It's probably a little bit brighter than it's appearing in the close up lip shot.


The product has a really good wear time on me, and although the initial shine fades it does leave a sort of stain on the lips.


Another reasons that I bought this product was because I love the multi purpose nature of it. Yes it's designed for the lips, but like the majority of other lip products out there is also makes a fab cream cheek colour.


Obviously you wouldn't wear full on bubblegum pink on the cheeks but quickly blend it out and you get a lovely pink flush.


I read some differing views about the Emotional Brilliance range if I'm honest but I've been pretty impressed with this - these retail at £14.50 for 5g of product which is quite steep but a little really does go a long way. To find out more about my shade Glamorous click here, and click here for the opportunity to pick out your 3 shades and to give the range a try xx

Whilst she was demoing the Emotional Brilliance shades the lovely Lush assistant also tried another couple of products out on me from their Colour Essentials range. This basically comprises of various skin tints which you can wear on their own as a foundation or mix with moisturiser to make your own customer blended tinted moisturiser, as well as special effect products, loose powders and a mascara.


The two products that she tried on me were Charisma a bronzing skin tint, and Feeling Younger. The minute I saw Feeling Younger I knew it was for me.


Packaged in a small glass jar Feeling Younger is another one of those multi use products.With a cream / mousse like texture , this contains Almond  Oil and Cocoa Butter, it also contains a touch of orange pigment and titanium dioxide which gives it an iridescent white look in the pot.


It designed to work as a reflector on the skin giving it a more youthful glow and you can certainly see the amazing effect that it gives here when it blended out.



There are loads of different ways to use this product, including mixing it with your foundation, and using a tiny touch as an eye brightener, but since I'm such a highlighter junkie I intend to use this mainly on my cheek bones -  you can just see the effect here x


and also on my brow bone or even all over the eye lid for a really natural eye look with just a touch of shimmer in certain lights - I'm sorry this pic isn't great this is really hard to capture but I can assure you that it looks amazing in real life, and it really brightens the eye area.



The reason why I bought this though was to mix it with the Glamorous lip colour. It transforms it from a bright bubblegum pink, to an iridescent frosted gold / pink.


Gorgeous don't you think? the only problem is that I can't make the combination work on the lips - the two products mix together really easily but when I apply it to my lips it just looks horrible and clings to all my dry bits. I haven't given up on this method yet, I'm going to try it layered over another lipstick maybe or over a vat of lip balm - the colour is so pretty I will make it work!

I'm really loving Feeling Younger at the moment, It's a really useful highlighter and brightener to have in your kit, it isn't cheap at £12 for a 20g pot but you need so little that it should last for ages. You can find out more about it here x

I've really enjoyed my little foray into Lush's make up line, the products aren't cheap but their quirky and the quality seems really good, and most of them are vegan - what more could you want x I have a few more bits of Lush colour to review so keep checking back to find out more x Have you tried any of the Lush make up products? let me know in the comments x

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