Review

I mentioned in this post that I'd picked up Rimmel's Brow This Way as a cheaper alternative, as I couldn't bring myself to take the plunge and pay £17.50 for Benefit's Gimme Brow. I also mentioned that I'd picked up the shade medium blonde which, as you can see, my hair clearly isn't. Over the past week I've been using it almost everyday both alone and on top Faint from the Naked Basics Palette. Whilst I can't compare it directly or indicate how much of a dupe it actually is of Gimme Brow, I can tell you what I think:

Shade: I personally think anyone with medium blonde hair would find this to be too dark, however it definitely does have warm undertones which wouldn't make it suitable for all brunettes either; luckily, it's pretty much a perfect match for me but the colours available definitely don't cater for everyone. Whilst I find it looks lovely and natural actually on the hairs, if it splodges onto the skin in sparser areas the colour does tend to look a bit funny so, especially when I was first using it, I often had to go back in with a cotton bud to clean up. 3/5

Application: Definitely becomes easier with practice! I'd never used a product anything like this so faced with the overloading of the brush as often happens with new things, I didn't find it the easiest. It also tends to unavoidably highlight any stray hairs and whilst this is perfectly fine for a natural looking brow, if you want to achieve something a bit more defined it works better if applied over a powder. 4/5

Wear: The colour neither changed nor budged. I found no problem with the wear at all even when faced with sweat or rain. It doesn't smudge if you scratch your eyebrow or something during the day, yet is still easy to remove in the evening. 5/5

(Pictured, is without any other products on the brows, although I would add that mine are naturally quite dark and dense.)

Overall, taking into account shade, application and wear, I'd give it a S.A.W. score of  12/15 (that's so appeasing that that rhymes!), but with it only costing £3.99 it's definitely worth a try! It will be interesting though to see how long it lasts before it dries up in the tube, or whether I finish it before it does.

Have you tried either Brow This Way or Gimme Brow? What did you think?

Lara xo

P.S. I recently joined Twitter and I'd love it if you could follow me on there. You can find me @LaraM_W - thank you!

Budget Beauty Buys

Superdrug Haul

I popped into town today having heard that both a foundation and powder had been added to Collection's hyped Lasting Perfection range (not sure how behind I am on the news of that one though!) I, along with the majority of the beauty community, absolutely love the concealer, not just for its quality but more importantly for its shade; I have the colour 1 Fair and it's one of the few drugstore concealers that's light enough to actually offer some highlight under my eyes rather than an orange toned shadowy effect. I had high expectations that the shades would be similar in the other products but after swatching the foundations in Superdrug I barely found a difference between shades 1-4 and would categorise them all as for more medium skin tones. However, having come with £10 in  my pocket and prepared to treat myself I couldn't resist picking up a couple of bargains.

Both products are from Rimmel which I would consider now one of the higher priced drugstore makeup brands. I usually associate Collection, MUA, Makeup Revolution etc with bargain products as Rimmel, Revlon and L'Oreal are definitely pushing it now with one item sometimes reaching around the £10 mark. However both Brow This Way and the Exaggerate Waterproof Eyeliner were reduced from £3.99 to £2.99. On top of that there was a buy 1 get 1 half price across the whole Rimmel range meaning as opposed to paying £7.98, the total instead came to £4.50 which I was pretty chuffed about!

I picked up Brow This Way in the colour medium blonde (called mid brown on the website), however I did find the choices hard to pick between. Whilst I have brown hair, the shades are clear, blonde, medium blonde and dark brown so I did feel there was a perhaps slight gap in the middle as the dark brown was verging on black. I wanted to try it out as a cheaper alternative to Benefit's Gimme Brow and plan on doing a full review once I've used it for a while.

My other purchase was fairly standard; simply a black pencil liner. However, I haven't properly tried using one since old dance show days when I'd had very little practice with makeup and thought the more I looked like a panda the better as it meant I would at least show up on stage (I think I've been put off ever since.) The Rimmel Exaggerate Eyeliner is a retractable pencil design with a built in smudger and sharpener; certainly a bit more advanced that the basic pencil style I used to drop accidentally and manage to break all the way through. Hopefully I'll get on with it but even I don't I'm not particularly worried since it didn't exactly break the bank!

Overall, what started in disappointment all turned out to be pretty good and there's nothing like the excitement of new makeup in your stash! Have you picked up any bargains lately?

Lara xo

Free Samples

My Favourite Freebie Sites

Who doesn't love free stuff? Especially when there's minimal effort involved. And beauty samples are especially handy to have both for smaller travel options or to avoid spending money on a product you turn out not to like. There are lots of websites out there offering links to freebies, however my favourite and the ones I regularly check are Free Samples UK and Magic Freebies UK. 

Both websites are very similar both in design and links they have available, I just prefer to check both as sometimes an offer will only be advertised on one. Products aren't just limited to beauty either, for example I've received free mini recipe books before. However, my favourite freebies are perfume sample vials which are great for handbags or if you're particular bout scents like me and foundation/BB cream testers so you get a better idea of the shade. Both also advertise competitions where either one considerably larger prize can be won or when there's a limited number of full-size products. I check the sites as well to find out what magazine freebies are available that month.

Now by no means is there a regular stream of great free sample offers and it tends to go in waves as to when companies are pushing new products, but both sites are updated daily or can be browsed by category. I've personally signed up to receive an email each day letting me know what's available and then just pick and choose as I want. 

For very little time and effort I definitely think it's worth checking these sites as why miss out on the opportunity to sample something free. It also keeps at bay the desire to try new products without causing any damage to your savings!

Have you used these or any other freebie sites before?

Lara xo