Haul and 1st Impressions- Boots, Collection 2000, MUA and W7

Ah, bargain shopping and the wonder that is the Boots No7 vouchers! I went to see Mr Popper’s Penguin’s yesterday and went for a wander around the shops afterwards. Of course I couldn’t resist dropping into Boots- the hypnotic allure of £5 off vouchers cannot be denied. Also, my local TJ Hughes is closing down so I picked up some W7 makeup, one of my favourite budget brands.

Thanks to vouchers and special offers I spent the grand total of… £7.67! So what did I buy?

Forgive the terrible picture but for some reason I can’t get this to photograph properly. I’ve used No7 Hot Cloth Cleanser for years and love it. It takes away all my makeup and balances both the oily and dry parts of my combination skin. This is usually £9 but I only spent £4 thanks to my Boots voucher.

Good matte eye shadows are hard to find on the high-street, so when I read a recommendation from Makeupsavvy about Boots Natural Collection Milk Chocolate eye shadow I had to check it out. First impressions are that I love it. It’s a cool toned mid-brown, my favourite shade for above the crease. It’s got a strong undercurrent of pink, so may not be the right shade for warmer toned girls but I really recommend it for everyone else. It reminds me a lot of MAC’s Malt eye shadow. It’s fairly well pigmented and easy to blend based on hand swatching. It’s available from Boots for £1.79.

Collection 2000 was on offer at Boots so I picked up Shimmer and Shades blush in Blushalicious. It was recommended by Jellyminxthinks so I decided to pick it up. Based on hand swatching, I’m not too impressed by this so far. It is extremely unpigmented and I can barely see a difference between the shades. I shall give it a full trial and report back on this. Some blushes swatch horribly but work wonderfully over foundation. It’s available from Boots and Superdrug for £4.19.

Based on a lot of love from the beauty blog community I picked up Collection 2000’s Lasting Perfection concealer. These are perfect for fair skin. I picked up shade 2 (Light) which is a perfect match for my summer skintone. I’m used to being too pale for most drugstore concealers and foundations so it came as quite a surprise that Fair was too pale for me. I wouldn’t bother looking at these if you have darker skin. But for me, so far, so impressed! It’s pigmented, creamy and seems long-lasting. This is also £4.19.

The final Collection 2000 item I bought was the Smokey Eyes Palette. The packaging is horrible. I hate cardboard packaging and the design is ugly. The shadows are ok though. You get a selection of 8 matte, shimmery and glittery shadows in light, medium and dark tones in basic shades of grey and browns. You also get a cream brightener. I’ll post a full review of this when I have chance for a play. This is also £4.19 from Boots. I paid for these and the Natural Collection Eyeshadow with a voucher from doing surveys so it only cost me 17p of my own money.

I also popped into Superdrug to see if they had the new MUA eyeshadows and got distracted by MUA nail varnish in shade 7. In the bottle it looks a very shimmery purpled bronze and I’m hoping I’ll get a lot of wear my newest £1 polish in the autumn.

Sadly, my local TJ Hughes is closing down. My nearest shopping area (Kidderminster) is, to be frank, dying on its arse. The closing of TJ Hughes will mean yet another large empty store. It’s very depressing. However, this is not a political blog, ranting about the state of the economy so let me show you what I bought.

The Cheek of It blushes by W7 may look like juvenile crap but are fantastic. Pink Champagne is a proper Barbie pink. Pink Sands is a coral pink. Both are well pigmented and the hand swatches have lasted for several hours. They are almost totally matte, with just a tiny amount of shimmer. They are quite large so aren’t particularly handbag friendly but I’m definitely going to try and pick up a few more shades of these when I can. W7 really need to get their backsides in gear and set up a proper website as I’m probably going to have to buy these on Ebay now that TJ Hughes is closing.

My final purchases were four W7 Mega Matte Lips. I bought Wine, Red, Rose and Coral. You can also buy a nude shade but as it looked like mud I decided to pass. These are amaaaaaaaaaazing. Highly pigmented, last for ages on the lips and a creamy matte opaque shade. The packaging may look like lipgloss but it is definately a lipstick. They are W7’s copy of NYX Soft Matte Lip Creams (which I love also). Like most matte lipsticks, these are a little drying on the lips but not as bad as products like Max Factor Lipfinity and Revlon Colorstay Lipsticks. They take a while to settle on the lips and they have a lot of silicon slip for 5 minutes until dried. There is no flavour and no annoying scents. I wish W7 made more shades because I would buy them all. I’m going to do a full swatch post and review of these eventually, so keep an eye out if these interest you.

The combination of the two blushes and four lip products cost me a grand total of £2.50 thanks to TJHughes closing down sale. As previously mentioned, access to W7 on the high-street is sporadic so I recommend looking online for these, with prices starting at £1.99.

So that’s it! A happy shopping experience and a funny film about penguins!