love vulcanella…

Loving…. Face Of Australia Mineral Therapy Illuminator in Angel Fire (NARS ORGASM DUPE ALERT!!)

January 24th, 2012

Anita (love vulcanella)

I’ve pretty much said everything in the title of this post!

I love this product, it’s by Face of Australia and it’s a total dupe for the NARS Orgasm Illuminator!

This is a limited edition product, so if your looking to pick it up.. get thee to store now!

When I first swatched this in Priceline I ummm’ed and ahhh’ed over it, would I really use a highlighter that’s pigmented and not really a traditional highlighter colour? Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it and imagined how I would use it, now I can’t see myself without it (and i’m tempted to go buy the rest of the colours).

The consistancy of the product is quite thin, but it is very pigmented and easy to blend into the skin. You do have to be careful though because you may get a bit of product overload come out (see swatches below for a great example!).

The colour though, wowza! If you’re a fan of NARS Orgasm get this! It is an absolutely gorgeous peachy pink with a fine gold shimmer. I think it’s one of those colours that universally suits all skin tones.

I find the best way to wear it is more as an enhancement on my blush, so i’ll put on my blush and then dot a bit of the Illuminator on the top points of my blush and blend in. I have no idea if this is what you’re meant to do but it works for me.

Let’s see this bad boy (or girl) in action. This is a photo I took in the car on NYE my first outing with the Illuminator on. Yeah I like heavy blush

Details!!!

There are 4 colours in this range, and as said earlier they are limited edition! You can pick them up for RRP $14.95AUD from all the usual Face of Australia stockists.

Here is a recent FOTD using the Mineral Therapy Illuminator

Products Used -

Foundation – Illamasqua Skin Base in 07 & Boujois Healthy Mix in 02

Eyes – Naked Palette (Sin on eyelid, Virgin on brow bone, Buck in crease, Half Baked in the middle of the eyelid, Creep in the outer corner), Face of Australia Liquid Eyeliner, Maybelline Colossal Volume Mascara)

Cheeks – NYX Glow & Face of Australia Mineral Therapy Illuminator in Angel Fire

Lips – Revlon Carnation

Product was purchased by me at P to the riceline

Revlon Moon Drops Lipstick in Blase Apricot & Lilac Champagne – Rare Find!

January 18th, 2012

Anita (love vulcanella)

I found these lipsticks hanging about in a discount beauty store (Cosmo Cosmetics, i’ll put where they are at the end of this post). They only cost me $7.00 each!

The Revlon Moon Drops lipsticks aren’t readily available in Australia but they seem to be available in the US, so if you can get your hands on them, lucky you!

The lipsticks themselves are moisturising and long lasting, the pink colour especially lasted ages on me even to the point it kind of stained my lips.

The one thing I don’t like is the smell, they smell a bit “older lady” to me, it’s a small thing but I thought i’d better mention it.

The 2 colours I got were brights from the range…surprise surprise! It seemed my local Cosmo Cosmetics had quite a good range of colours as well so I may go back and get a few more!

The colours I picked up were Blase Apricot & Lilac Champagne

You can find Cosmo Cosmetics at these locations (I’m not entirely sure if they all sell the same products though, sorry!)

Also, I’m just getting these locations from google so if the stores are no longer there… oops! I do know for sure the Parramatta and Merrylands stores are open

Cosmo Cosmetics – Parramatta

256 Church Street

Parramatta NSW
(02)9633 1522

Cosmo Cosmetics – Merrylands

Stockland Mall, Merrylands

Cosmo Cosmetics – Hornsby

Pacific Hwy
Hornsby NSW
(02) 9482 4988

Cosmo Cosmetics – Sydney City

Met Centre, George Street

Sydney

So so so wrong…Kelly Osbourne!

January 17th, 2012

Anita (love vulcanella)

This is an unusual type post for me but I just saw these pictures of Kelly Osbourne from the Art Of Elysium’s Gala and had to share them with you.

Poor Kelly Osbourne…

This is all kinds of wrong, from the foundation to the hair and even the dress is not flattering! Girl has worked hard for her current figure and this dress just completely drowns her.

I cannot get over the foundation though, perhaps its the lighting/flash but you’d think these celebrity makeup artists would have that down pat (assuming she had a makeup artist and didn’t do this to herself). She’s a pale girl why try and make her look so tan. Perhaps if she was her normal colour the grey hair may work a bit better for her?

Images taken from The Superficial

Link Love & Random Shizz!

January 17th, 2012

Anita (love vulcanella)

I haven’t done a Link Love post in eons… actually I think my last one was way back in January 2011..A YEAR AGO!! I typically did them on Fridays and was actually planning to get this up on Friday but hey I had social commitments

The good news is i’m fully caught up in my google reader so have managed to put together a little list of blog posts i’ve enjoyed over the past couple of weeks!

Enjoy!!

This is a bit of an upsetting one but one of my favourite bloggy gals Jacie from You’ve Got Nail is shutting up shop for awhile, she is an amazing asset to the Australian blogging community and it’ll be sad not seeing her updates every week but she works so hard and sometimes taking a break is for the best. However give her some love as she is keeping the blog open so we still have access to all her wonderful and witty posts.

Jess from All I Want Is Everything has a NARS blush collection so drool worthy it makes me want to go on a major NARS shopping spree! She has kindly swatched her collecti0n so go have a squizz, don’t blame me though if you end up buying a few. Check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Kimmi from The Plastic Diaries has made us a list of 11 Online Beauty Stores we need to check out! Are your pockets burning yet?

Tine from Beautyholics Anonymous lets everyone know what it’s like being a beauty blogger, it ain’t all champagne and lipsticks

Jen from The Nail Polish Project & my fellow Pro Nail Supply shopper does an amazing lightning bolt tape manicure, I love the colours she’s used!

Tegan from Tegania’s Thoughts rocks some awesome Lime Crime lipsticks, I think the red is her colour, do you agree?

Chelle from Cosmetic Cupcake is awesome… full stop! Check out this amazing lace manicure she did, I reckon this would be awesome to rock at a Burlesque club!

Sarah from Dempeaux shows us how to do wing eyeliner, I’ve been practicing and I think I ALMOST have it down pat thanks to this tutorial!

Now for some photos etc I’ve been liking all around the place (all photos have been snatched from either my tumblr or pinterest)

A couple of songs i’m loving right now -

And lastly… something I’m lusting after, I want a rose gold watch!

Product Review – Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector AKA Garniers BB Cream

January 11th, 2012

Anita (love vulcanella)

It seems Australia is catching onto the BB cream bandwagon, and i’m kinda glad because I don’t think I would have ever tried them out otherwise. I was lucky when I picked this product up in Priceline it was a cheap introductory price of around $10, not that the full price is too hard on the pockets but I sometimes like to save a bit especially if i’m just trying out a product. I got it in the Light colour as well.

Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector makes a lot of claims…

Discover the BB Cream secret – a new generation of skincare that combines the best of skincare with the benefits of make-up in one application! New Miracle Skin Perfector has a lightweight formula with vitamin C and mineral pigments to deliver long-lasting hydrating care with SPF15 UV filters and a light touch of make-up for instantly visible, radiant results. Quickly & perfectly it unifies, corrects, brightens, moisturises & protects! – from the Garnier website

Initially when I tried this product, i’ll be honest I hated it! I even had that dread that I was going to have to write a bad review about it, then I decided to give it another go in a different way. Okay so as a everyday cream/foundation type thing this product does not work for me as it gives me NO coverage whatsoever not even a tiny bit. How does it shine? As a primer!! Yep, put this baby on underneath your foundation and see your skin glow, especially perfect for my fellow dry skin girls out there. So thankfully this one isn’t going to see the inside of my bin.

See…no coverage

Would you like to buy it? Well it’s available at all the usual Garnier stockists for a RRP $13.95AUD

Essence Hauling! Eyeshadows – Disco Diva, Party All Night & Taupe of the Pops

January 10th, 2012

Anita (love vulcanella)

Essence is a fairly new brand the Australian market and luckily for us it’s one of those brands that has come out here and not been overly marked up beyond the point of purchasing. It’s still nice and cheap so when you need a quick beauty fix, it’s a great place to start! They are stocked in Target locations in Australia (not 100% if all Targets stock them but the ones i’ve been to have all had it).

I picked up a few things to try out and so far i’m pretty impressed, so much so I want to go and try some more of their products.

Let’s start with eyeshadows, I kind of stayed in my comfort zone with 2 neutrals and I picked one brighter colour since it’s my aim to add more brighter eye looks to my makeup routine.

As for size, they are 2.5g and the pan is pretty much the size of a Stila pan which comes in at 2.6g.

As far as quality goes, these are pretty good! The colour payoff is great and they are super smooth, however I do think Disco Diva is a bit of a harder shadow to work with when I used it I needed to pack it onto my brush a bit more then the other colours.

The wear is also good, however I always use an eyeshadow primer (Urban Decay Primer Potion) but the colours didn’t crease on me at all.

Best part? They cost $3.25each! That’s cheaper then a Latte!

Okay are you ready for my pop of colour? Here is a look I did using Disco Diva!

Eye Breakdown -

Lid – Virgin (Urban Decay Naked Palette)

Crease & Blended out above crease – Essence Disco Diva

Lashline – Purple from Stila Creme Bouquet Palette

Lower Lashline – As above with Essence Disco Diva smudged on top

Outer Corner – Creep (Urban Decay Naked Palette)

Browbone – Virgin (Urban Decay Naked Palette)

Manicure Monday – It’s Festival Season!! Feat. Picture Polish Festival Flakie

January 9th, 2012

Anita (love vulcanella)

Don’t you love when January hits it generally means all the great Music Festivals are starting, well this nail polish besides being called Festival is perfect for those summer days seeing music you love all the while admiring your gorgeous nails in the sunlight (am I the only one that does that with glitters & flakies?)

Festival by Picture Polish is there foray into flakie polishes, when I saw Festival a multi coloured flakie in my inbox and a pre-order was available I was all over it.

I’ve only just had a chance to get it on my nails after receiving it a few weeks ago and decided to do a swatcheroo with a few different base polishes to see which handles it the best. So in true festival tradition…

The support acts -

: China Glaze – Shocking Pink, China Glaze – For Audrey, Illamasqua – Boosh, OPI – Skull & Glossbones

I must apologize for my crap-tacular swatching you are about to see, The clouds were looming and it was about to storm but i’d already painted up my hands so had to take the picture… Seriously go Here, Here and Here for better swatches of this polish then mine.

Here is the headliner!

I only have 1 other flakie (Nubar 2010) in my collection to compare this to but I found the colour was amazing especially over black there are so many different facets of colour, so this will definitely be one to go over my darker polishes. The actual flakies were quite spaced out so I had to do 2 coats and the formula is quite thick so this can become quite a time consumer especially when it comes to drying time. Even with my beloved Seche Vite on top it took ages to dry. I do love the effect though and look forward to wearing it more!

You can purchase Festival from the Picture Polish website for $11.90AUD and there are also 2 other flakies in the collection and I believe more to come!

I also recommend signing up to the Picture Polish mailing list as you get advised of new colours coming out (like I did with this one) and they also do free shipping deals sometimes!

This product was purchased by moi!