MAC Temperature Rising - Ripe For Love Blush

If you read yesterday's post, you'll know I'm quite smitten with MAC's current Summer collection. As well as the Bare My Soul quad, I also picked up Ripe for Love blush.

Ripe for Love is a pretty midtone peach with a satin finish. It has medium pigmentation and a smooth formulation that blends well.

It's not a particularly exciting shade but it's beautiful for summer and very flattering on a tanned skintone. I imagine it would play very nicely with bronzers and it pairs perfectly with Bare My Soul on the eyes.

Ripe for Love has the same soft touch bronze packaging as the rest of the collection which I like but is liable to get scratched up easily which is disappointing. I don't like battered looking makeup!

So if you're on the market for a peachy blush that will carry you all the way through summer, grab Ripe for Love while it's still around.

MAC Temperature Rising - Bare My Soul Quad

When it comes to seasonal cosmetic collections, Summer and Christmas releases always grab my attention.

I'm not much of a bronzer fan, but the bronzey eye makeup and coral lips that are so often seen in Summer collections really speak to me.

MAC and their almost constant limited edition collections don't call to me the way they used - I was definitely a MAC groupie in the past! But as they've become pricier and pricier over the years, I found my love waning.

That said, this years Summer MAC collection is sultry, smoky and very sexy. Being the green eyeshadow nutcase that I am, I knew Bare My Soul Quad would be mine.

(I'll review the blush very soon)

Packaged in a limited-edition soft-touch bronze compact the four shades are: Romantico (taupe), Bare My Soul (gold), Summer Indulgence (chocolate brown) and When In Rio (green duochrome). All shades are shimmery and very pigmented. I've never purchased a MAC quad before and I have to say Bare My Soul is a wonderful introduction to them.

(Blurry image included on purpose! Check out the glow)

Each eyeshadow is silky smooth and blends beautifully. All four shades work harmoniously together but there is only one relatively unique colour - When In Rio. Described by MAC as 'deep green with copper pearl', this shade has a subtle duochrome that results in a pretty glow. Many reviewers think WIR is very similar to MAC Club and while I can see the resemblance, I still think WIR is far more unique. Club is a blue with a red base on my skintone, whereas WIR is very definitely green with no red tones.

I really like this palette and at just under £10 for each eyeshadow, it's not the worst value ever.

Has anything from MAC's latest collections caught your eye?

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Beauty UK Lipstick 10 Passion - Bright Lips!

Last summer was the first time I started to love bright lip colours. Prior to that, I was all about subtle and sheer shades. Of course, the fact that I didn't wear brights didn't stop me from falling in love with them when I swatched them!

So I convinced myself I needed a bright pink and a true bright red in my life, but wasn't prepared to shell out a lot of money because I wasn't sure how much I'd really wear them.

Enter Beauty UK, a brand on the cheaper side of the scale that's sold in Superdrug. Lipsticks are £3.49 and on offer quite often, so pretty bargainous.

I picked up Passion #10, which is a bright, almost neon pink on my skintone.

I find the lipstick very comfortable to wear - it's not drying at all on my lips and has a satin finish. It's very pigmented and leaves a reddish stain behind.

One thing I really dislike is the mint flavour/scent of the lipstick. At first it's fine, but the longer I keep the lipstick on it becomes a very cloying, sickly minty scent. I find it bearable but I'm not particularly sensitive to scent in my makeup (for example, I'm fine with the Estee Lauder and YSL lip products that many people find unbearable.) so I'm probably not the best guide for this kind of issue.

Here are the swatches, all taken in different lighting conditions:

Finally I have a (awkward!) lip swatch to show you. I topped the lipstick with clear gloss in this picture.

What do you think of the bright lipstick trend? Is it something you enjoy or are interested in? It's funny, because I'm absolutely fine with intense eye looks even during the day! Yet bright lips are definitely out of my comfort zone. That said, I'm looking forward to trying new shades this year.

bareMinerals The Next Big Thing READY Eyeshadow Quad

After seeing a beautiful eyeshadow look on Temptalia, here, I just had to get my hands on The Next Big Thing eyeshadow palette by bareMinerals. I already knew I would love the formula due to owning this stunner from bareMinerals a couple of Christmases ago.

The Next Big Thing has a combination of shades that is unusual for me. A frosted pale yellow sparkle (Rising Star); a semi bright creamy coral (Smash Hit); a warm, slightly browned gold sparkle (Hoopla); and a very deep, dark matt aubergine shade (Ensemble).

Rising Star is a sparkly golden yellow on the pale side, which is slightly sheer but can easily be built up.

Smash Hit, the coral is a beautiful creamy matte with good pigmentation in one swipe. It's a great mix of orange and pink, resulting in a pretty coral that I find very flattering on my warm skintone.

Hoopla is another sparkly metallic shade, a slightly bronzey gold which again is medium pigmentation but can be built up.

Ensemble is a matt aubergine, very dark and leans on the brown side. I find this shade difficult to work with as it's a little difficult to blend in my opinion.

The palette compact is a pale metallic blue plastic with a big mirror included. Personally I find the high shine blue to be on the tacky side and it is easily smeared, which is irritating! You also get a double sponge tip applicator in the palette, which is what I used to swatch the shades but I wouldn't use it to apply to my eyes. bareMinerals include a little guide for applying the eyeshadows to create certain looks for day and night, which is handy. The palette has 5g of shadow for the price of £29, which isn't horrendous but I think £25 would be a fairer price.

Overall, I'm pleased with the palette and love the colour combination. I find bareMinerals READY eyeshadows to be of decent quality but I didn't feel this palette matched up to the beauty of the other READY palette I have - the eyeshadows just aren't quite as smooth or blendable. That said, I'm glad I have The Next Big Thing and find the shades are fantastic on my warm skintone. It's a great palette for Spring and Summer.