Will the Real Slim Shady please stand up? Part One

I walked into a store in Adeniran Ogunsanya mall and asked for their cosmetic products. They showed me some MAC stuff, priced at N2,500 and upwards. I laughed and removed myself from the shop without making a purchase.

All the MAC they had was fake.

Welcome to buying fake cosmetics world. It is has become exhausting trying to find makeup that isn't fake: I've bought fake MAC, fake Iman, fake Mary Kay, it has become ridiculous. The fakes are so well-done you ca't spot the difference, in particular Mary Kay and Iman. Here are images to prove my point:

Left or right, which do you think is fake? Can you tell?

 

Here they are from the front.

In both pictures, the one on the right is original, the other is fake. It is easy to be deceived, unless you know what to look out for.

I'm not trying to be a snob, there's nothing wrong with affordable cosmetics. But I like knowing what ingredients are in the products I'm using on my face, and my clients' faces. I've seen fake cosmetics burn the skin (nasty stuff). And if I'm gonna pay for stuff, I'd like to know what I'm buying is the real deal, the real McCoy, the real Slim Shady. And I'm out of metaphors with that sentence.

In my next post, I will talk about how you can identify real from fake.

Back from outer space, Conceal the evidence

Hello, my lovies, so sorry I've been missing. I was working on sooo much, but now it's catch-up time, and a new post. Today, we're going to talk about concealers.

Meet Milani Secret Cover Concealer:

These pots of concealer pack a wallop, I like their texture and I think they hold up well under the Lagos hot sun. You have to be careful how you prep under them, but I can safely recommend them. I used them on this shoot:

 Face: Black Opal stick foundation, MUFE HD powder, Zaron Pressed Powder
Lips: MAC lipstick in Jist and L'oreal Juicy tube lipgloss in clear; 2nd picture is a Revlon lipstick (maybe Sandalwood?)
Blush: La Femme blush palette

Their price is pretty good, from N900 to about N1,500. So Milani Secret Cover concealer gets my BIG PLUS SIGN.

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. 

Brushes, Brushes, Brushes. Part Deux

Hello everyone.

We continue our look at brushes, and today, we look at foundation brushes.

So, as you can see, these all have different shapes and materials. I sound like a school teacher, abi?

What I want us to focus on is the shape. The white haired one (shu Uemura) is gorgeous for blending, but too small to go over the entire face (unless I have all the time in the world and feel like exercising my wrists); the flat shaped, regular looking ones (like the Smashbox brush, red handle and the Bobbi Brown, yellow handle) do a decent job, but they're placement brushes, not blenders. A lot of people will shoot me for this, but I' not a huge fan of the MAC 187 (the duo-fibre one), in fact I only just learnt how to use it end of last year. It does blend well, and has multiple uses.The Adesign has that amazing pointed shape to get into tiny corners around the face, but it's quite thick and I keep it for cream foundation.

So who's my bestest brush? Why, the Real Techniques Core brush (orange handle).

I use it to blend (and it does that beautifully) and gosh, does this lay powder nicely as well. Just right. If this brush was a dude, he would be described as husband material, no cheating no pimples lives in 1004. #Gbam.

This is just my opinion, and I have seen one of my Oga at the top use her fingers to create perfection with foundation (her name is B....sshusssshhh don't tell her!), but for us who don't have her levels of experience, we can start from here.

Daz all.

Lips like Liquid

Seriously, I've gotta stop naming my posts so weirdly.
Lipsticks have always been a staple of any woman's makeup bag. As the years rolled by, however, women wanted something lighter and not so matte. Enter lipglosses. Again, after some decades, women wanted (yeah we're a fickle bunch who don't really know what we want) something that acted like a lipgloss, but was as pigmented as a lipstick.

Enter Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics (OCC)'s liptars.

Those babies pack a wallop and are amazing. However, a new challenger came to town (with a british accent).

Enter Sleek's Pout Paints.

Since both these products are available in Nigeria,  I decided to do a short comparison of both, to help you make an informed decision (or heck, just confuse you further, lol) as to which to buy.

OCC liptars
  • are very pigmented
  • are not cheap (price point is upwards of N3, 000
  • last for a long time, a little goes a long way and more than a dot of product will bleed everywhere (run       off your lips)
  • stains the lips after it wears off
  • you get more product in each tube than the pout paints

Sleek pout paints
  • are very pigmented
  • are cheaper (price point is N700 to N1, 200 depending on where you buy them)
  • you need more product to cover the lips fully
  • will not bleed off your lips, they're a little drier in texture than the liptars
  • you get less product in each tube than the liptars

So there you have it! Which will you choose, tell me?

Note: OCC liptars can be bought at Gifty's Daughter, in Lagos and PH, and Sleek pout paints can be purchased at most cosmetics stores, especially Sleek Apapa