Budget shopping trip - Boots Naturals and Barbara Daley review

First off, apologies for the lack of posting over the weekend.  I was stuck in bed ill for most of it.  I'm back to my normal, semi-healthy self now, and even my illness didn't stop me spending money on makeup, so there's a couple of review posts coming up!

The first is a review of a couple of cheap products I picked up.  I love my Armani lipsticks and Urban Decay shadows as much as the next girl, but sometimes I am tempted by those super cheap products, with an "it's only a pound, not much lost if it's rubbish" attitude.

That was exactly my train of thought when I passed the clearance bucket in Tesco.  A lot of the products weren't sealed, so we a bit minging after having fingers shoved in them, but all of the Barbara Daley products were sealed.  The Barbara Daley range is exclusive to Tesco, and I can honestly say I've never given them a second thought.  I've also not seen the line mentioned in many other blogs.   With the an eyeshadow pen at only 69p, and a powder highlighter at £1.20, I couldn't really say no.  And I've got to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

The Light and Easy Shimmering Highlighter is a loose powder, which is a pink toned, very pale gold.  The first thing I noticed about it was the packaging.  Unlike so many loose powder products, which just have a sifter (or worse, nothing at all), this has a sifter that you can open and close.  It's a great idea, and one I think more companies should use!

I was a little concerned that the powder itself was just going to be a glitter bomb, but it wasn't even close.  It has very fine shimmer, so it just gives a subtle glow to the skin.  It works really well as an every day highlighter.  The colour doesn't really show up on my oh so pale skin, but I think it'd look even better on darker skin tones (ie. most people).  The powder is soft, and blends in easily, with no effort at all.  And best of all, it hung around on my super oily skin for about 4 hours, which is pretty good for a £1.20 highlighter!

Eyeshadow pen in Airforce, Shimmering Highligter unblended, then blended

The eyeshadow pencil is where I was really blown away though.  They only had one shade, Airforce, which is a blue toned grey.  It comes in a clickable pen form, with a brush.  

Usually I hate this as the clicks give you far more product than you need, but I didn't have that problem.  A couple of clicks was just right for me.  I didn't have high hopes for this.  Cream shadows usually only last about 30min to an hour on my eyelids before creasing, and that's after using a primer.  Only Maybelline's Colour Tattoos last 4 or 5 hours.  This cream shadow lasted (on top of Two Face Shadow Insurance) 9 hours!  The only reason it didn't last longer is because I had to take it off for bed!
I didn't set it with shadow, and there wasn't even the slightest crease mark.  Totally amazed! 

 Unfortunately, they only had one shade in the clearance bin, and I think that's because it's being discontinued, so get yourselves down to Tesco to check out their discount makeup now!  They do one other shade on the Tesco website, Otter, which is brown.  It's £6, which still isn't bad for just how amazing it is.  I'm also curious to try out their long wear eyeshadow sticks.  Shell may just be the nude cream base I've been dreaming of!

My other bargain buy isn't such a surprise.  Readers of my blog will probably have noticed that I usually use Boots Natural Collection in Sea Shell as my highlight colour.  Their eyeshadows are totally under-rated.  Every colour I've tried has great pigmentation and is easy to blend.  The fact that they're £1.79 makes them a great choice if it's a colour you're going to be using on a regular basis.  So when I noticed that I've almost scraped my MAC Yogurt eyeshadow pan clean I decided to check out the Natural Collection eyeshadows, and picked up Soft Pink.

Once I got it home and swatched it next to Yogurt, I found that the two shades are very different.  Soft Pink is much lighter.  Yogurt is so close to my skin tone that you can barely see it in the comparison swatch.  Oh well.  It's still a great colour that I'm sure I'll get a lot of use out of.  It's a little powdery, but it doesn't affect the application or wear time.  And at least it was only £1.79 I spent!

A rather empty MAC Yogurt, and Natural Collection Soft Pink

MAC Yogurt (it's there, honest!) and Natural Collection Soft Pink

Do you have any budget friendly brands that you love?  Let me know!