Fine Lines | Nude Lip Liners.

Let's talk boring for a bit, yeah? Okay, I'm not gonna lie I love lip liners and think they're great - I use them every day. I will admit though, they're probably not as exciting to buy as a lipstick or aesthetically pleasing to look at, but they're a really important part of perfecting any makeup look for me so I wanted to share with you some of my favourites. I'd be here all day if I were to talk about all of my favourite colours and brands, so I thought I'd share some of my top nude/brown/neutral pencils since I use them the most, and I'm sure they're what most people wear on a daily basis too. I'm gonna go through my top shades, formulas and just some of my favourite lipsticks to pair with them for gorgeous combinations. Let me know if you find this useful and if ye would like me to do another post for other colour in the future!

Review + Lip Swatches | Urban Decay VICE Lipsticks.

What's your vice? For Urban Decay, it would seem to be launching 100 shades of lipstick (€18 each in Debenhams) and giving beauty lovers a small heart attack. A shade for every skin tone, every person, every age and every occasion - no excuses. This is certainly Urban Decay's biggest launch ever and I'd go as far to say that from my memory at least this is one of the biggest makeup launches I've seen a brand do all at once in a very long time. 100 lipsticks and 50 complimentary lipliners? That is hugeeeeee. With Ruby Rose as the new UD girl it makes the launch even better.

I'm gonna chat about the packaging for a little bit without harping on and say that I really like it. I don't love it as much as the old Revolution one because it doesn't feel quite as heavy but it still looks so badass with the bullet shell casing. I was worried it would feel like the Gwen lipsticks in weight (I have said before I wasn't a fan of how light they felt) but I'm glad to report it is a happy medium between the Gwen and Revolution lipsticks... for 100 shades I can deal with that.

The older Urban Decay Revolution lipsticks are some of my favourites in terms of shades and formula, and I loved seeing them launch the Sheer and Matte Revolution sisters. UD have now essentially scrapped the Revolution tag and packaging, to relaunch their existing (formerly Revolution) shades plus a tonne of new ones into a new Vice line up. I'm really happy they kept the older, much loved shades/finishes whilst adding to their permanent range. I own quite a few of the Revolution lipsticks and because they've decided to keep all of those shades I thought it would make sense to include them in this swatch post so you can check them out in the new Vice packaging if you missed out on them before. Although they've scrapped the Revolution line for the Vice tag, I'm delighted they have kept the old UD "creamy bad-ass luxury" texture. The formula overall is a creamy balm like feel that is always comfortable on the lips regardless of the finish. They all glide on smoothly and the mattes/mega mattes particularly give a beautiful look to the lip and fill in any lines or cracks to give the appearance of a smoother, more plump pout.

Don't Believe The Hype.

"Products not worth the hype" are quite divisive here in the beauty community; some people think that just because one person doesn't feel an item lived up to its internet hype that they're attacking them and their own love for that specific product. Of course, this absolutely isn't the case and no one should get butt-hurt over someone not liking something. If any of these products mentioned are your number 1 forever and always then that's great - I'm jealous! And I'm pretty sure there's plenty of products out there that I love and others don't. That's the beauty of being an adult, isn't it?

Either way, I'm here to share with you guys today some products that I feel get a lot of love from the beauty community in blogs and videos, and from my friends included (hence why I purchased them!) but unfortunately for some reason or another, they fell short of my expectations. I want to make it clear that not all of these are necessarily bad products (there are some downright crap ones, and I'll get to those)... some of these I do use quite often, but it's just that they didn't live up to the crazy mega fan girl hype they have online.
 I've included quite a lot of higher end products, mostly found in the likes of Sephora. I feel like high-end products get hyped up a lot more and with good reason; typically a more expensive product will or at least should perform better although this is obviously not always the case as you soon see when you try a range of different products. I'm generally very picky and harsher a critic on more expensive products because they should be out-performing their cheaper dupes for the price. Not to say that these are the worst products in the world, or to put you off looking into all of them, it's just to say that actually what was supposed to be the mecca of all lipsticks turned out to be the meh of all lipsticks, for me at least.

Empties | The Mascara Edit.

I quite like the idea of themed empties in a way, although I'm not sure I go through the same products often enough to warrant an empties post. Unless of course that is, you're me and you remember that you're a mascara fiend. So I thought it would be fun to do a round-up of some mascaras I've used/used up recently with some mini reviews as to whether they were any good or not. I will say though, just because I won't repurchase doesn't mean it wasn't good. Mascara is just one of those things that I, and I think a lot of people, are always curious to try a new one in the hopes that it will give us bigger and better lashes than the one before.

Summer Skin | Liquid Bronze and Instant Radiance.

It's sunny in France, and the Snapchat stories from back home consisting of guys stripping down to their boxers in 15 degree weather would also suggest that Summer is arriving. This is 100% going to be a stereotypical summer related blog post about healthy/glowing/dewy/natural/bronzed looking skin from your oily skinned casper friend over here. Whilst I love a full coverage matte look for photographs and nights out, I have definitely been moving towards a more lightweight and creamy look to the skin with more liquid products and, shock horror, bronzer. So, if this sounds like your kind of thing then get ready to read all about my top 5 products for a summer ready complexion. P.S I'd love to know when exactly in makeup history we made this sudden connection that healthy skin is synonymous with a bronzed JLo-esque face? I feel like Irish girls nowadays (with the exception of Cocoa Brown Tanning Thursday moments) would have been beating 14th century knights away with sticks...

Meet My Eyeshadow Palettes | MAC, Makeup Geek, Urban Decay.

Who doesn't love a good eyeshadow? And who doesn't love a good nosy into someone else's eyeshadow palettes? These are some of my favourite videos/posts to watch/read cause I love seeing what other people have in their palettes - equal parts makeup lover and nosy bitch. I know I find them very useful when building my eyeshadow collection and I hope this will help some of ye too. I keep most of my round single shadows in my MAC palettes (not all of them are MAC, I'm also swatching and chatting about my Makeup Geek and Urban Decay shadows too) but Z Palettes are also popular options! 

I thought it would be most helpful to show you the majority of my single shadows in case you were looking into some of these for your own collection, or wanting to compare them to other shades that I have here. I'm going to swatch all of them with no primer, let you know how they perform and which ones are my favourite. I will mention whenever a limited edition or discontinued shadow pops up with an * (not very often so fear not!) but I won't spend too much time talking about them. This is probably going to be a text and photo heavy post so make yourself some tea or pour ya fine self a glass of wine and let's get to itttttt. Oh, and we're going to ignore the 3 day old scauldy tan on my arms making me look like I have a skin condition. 

Brand Focus | Seventeen.

Remember Brand Focus posts? I did a couple of these on Wet n Wild and had the intention of doing them for lots of other different brands - particularly drugstore ones. However, I started this before I went to France and never brought my whole collection of any one brand with me so it was difficult to continue. I'm hoping to bring them back so if you have any brands you'd like an overview of some "the good, the bad and the worst" style products then let me know below or send me a tweet @GraceyOConnell! Today's post is going to focus on the very affordable Boots brand, 17.

I'll admit, up until about 2 years ago I thought this brand was very "tween" and I never really gave it a chance. I feel like it was just a brand I used bits and pieces of when I was 13 and then just assumed that the brand never grew or improved quality wise since I was that age. Wrong. I was so wrong. I'm here to show you today exactly why you should never judge a book (or a makeup brand) by its cover.

Empties April 2016 | Skincare, Haircare, Makeup.

I feel like I could easily do one of these once every two months - there's something so satisfying about finishing up a product and throwing it in the bin. Is that ridiculous? It probably definitely is. 

MAC x Ariana Grande | Viva Glam.

I've spoken about my love of MAC Viva Glam on my blog before, particularly with Viva Glam Miley (please read here for more information on why I LOVE the MAC AIDS fund). Unfortunately I didn't get to feature Miley II (a matte orange toned red) on my blog before they announced their new VG girl - Ariana Grande. Regardless of the VG spokesperson, I always get excited about a new lipstick release. I'm not too far gone on Ariana Grande, I could take her or leave her to be honest, but ya gal is not gonna deny I do love me a dark lipstick. In any case, I'm here today to bring you MAC's new lipstick offering for 2016 and hopefully it's something you guys are interested in checking out!