Christmas Makeover special

Hello, and merry, merry christmas.

Happy holidays, seasons greetings, spare a thought for the cow, goats and chickens that are not going to see the New Year. I decided to grab a willing model and plaster her face. Meet Kachy:

Face prep: Embroylisse Lait-creme concentrate, Vichy Thermale Purete, The Body Shop Vitamin E toner, Aquaphor

Brands used: Black Opal cream stick foundation, Estee Lauder Sugar Honey lipstick, MAC blush, NYX lipgloss, Bobbi Brown eyeshadows, Face Atelier eyepencil, Maybelline Colossal Volume mascara, Nixie cream blush.

Sorry for the poor picture quality. I do hope you like this, and feel free to rock this for the holidays.

Merry Christmas.

Will the Real Slim Shady please stand up (Part 2)

Hey Chicas, how are you?

So, we've kinda established the fact that it's pretty hard to figure out what's real and what's fake. However, all hope is not lost (dramatic music should be played whilst reading this blog post btw). I put heads together with a lot of clever people and we came up with some guidelines, titled:

HOW NOT TO BUY FAKE MAKEUP

Step 1: Check the price. We are Nigerians, ladies and gentlemen,  we love money. So if we buy something to sell, we want to make a profit. If a pressed powder costs N2,500 to import into the country, there's no way an average Nigerian will sell it for N900 in the market. For the price to be that MUCH lower that actual sale price, it's either of 2 things: the powder is defective/expired, or it's fake. No matter how much the seller bought it on sale or wholesale, shipping and overheads MUST be added to the price, abi?

Step 2: Check how your product looks like. Take a look at the picture below, the upper one is real MAC (lip-pencil in Currant) and the lower one is fake MAC (no name, has a number).

Original products usually have embossed or engraved lettering on them (the logo is either raised on the surface or scratched in, either way you can FEEL it when you touch it), fake products usually just have the name of the product written on it, (and the lettering on the fake will be peeling). No company will wake up and change its logo. Even the package of the Iman I posted, the original had a computer bar on the back of the pack, the fake had nothing on it. If the logo looks different, walk away.

Step 3: Check the name. MAC names its products: Lady Danger, Ruby Woo, Woodwinked, Raizin. So if you see a product with a MAC logo and no name, it's probably fake. Same with Sleek, all their collections have names, a quick Google search will tell you if what you have in your hand was made by the company, if you can't find it online, it doesn't exist.

These are your best steps in avoiding fakes. In my next and final post on this subject, I'll talk about the feel of fake products and places I trust to shop. So keep reading and feel free to share this post with your friends.

Till next time!

Line Like You Mean It

Hello there, back with another blog post title from a band I really like, The Killers.

Eyeliner is an amazing product and it's probably the first piece of makeup everyone steals from their Mummy's handbag as a child. But some out there can be super-annoying: hard, don't release colour well, don't have a smooth texture, expensive for what you're getting, blah blah...

I mean, seriously, Life is tough already. My eyeliner shouldn't be.

I've tried out a few brands, and decided to put all my black eyeliners to the test of long-lasting longevity. I wanted to know, which would last through a crying session of "OMG, Bez Idakula the singer is engaged, I thought I'd meet him one day and we'd get married and have natural-haired babies who play guitar and paint watercolours, mah life izzz overrrrrr"

MAC pencil in Smoulder, Rimmel eyeliner pencil, Face Atelier Powder pencil, Zaron Khol Kajal, MAC waterproof pencil in Engraved, Bobbi Brown gel liner, MUFE Aqua black cream liner

Swatches of all the liner

And swatches of all the liners after I washed my hand with soap and water lightly

I'm not going to make a decision or tell you what I think, I just wanted to show you how they acted under circumstances like water (a sweaty bride or client on a hot day or just any gal with oily skin, take note).

So, as per eyeliner, what's in Your wallet?

Editor's note: We at Naijapretty and Noredia Mua wish Bez congratulations and a happy married life.