As we saw, one of the places I spent a bit of (the most) money in London was Selfridges Beauty Hall. On my shopping list was a few items from MAC and a new nail varnish from Illamasqua!

I now have six Illamasqua nail varnishes and honestly, they are some of the best nail varnishes I have ever tried and well worth the fairly substantial price (at £14.50 a pop)! They last for ages, they are pretty easy and trouble-free to apply and they dry super quickly. The new shade I picked up is called Scarab, which is a beautiful metallic red- Illamasqua describe it as a ‘Deep Ruby Red’.

Please excuse the messy application, but isn’t it beautiful? It is such a perfect shade of dark red, I’m in love!

As I said before, I bought four new bits from the MAC counter: Sheertone Blush in Pinch Me (£18), Eyeshadow in Sable (Frost, £12.50), MAC Viva Glam Rihanna (Frost, £15) and MAC lipstick in Myth (Satin, £15).

Here they are all together! You’ll see in the swatches in a bit, but the photo really doesn’t do either Sable or Pinch Me justice- Pinch Me is a beautiful, deep peachy pink and Sable is the most gorgeous metallic bronzey brown.

The top swatch is Pinch Me, the bottom is Sable. For a Sheertone, Pinch Me is really nicely pigmented and it blends out as much or as little as you’d want it to. I think it’s very flattering on my skintone and is pretty much exactly what I wanted from my first MAC blush, so I’m happy! And I know Sable is probably one of the best known MAC shadows, but it’s so pretty! A beautiful, almost antiqued bronzey brown and great by itself on the lid for a quick work look. Great pigmentation and a lovely texture, this is one of the best MAC shadows I’ve tried.

Here are Viva Glam Rihanna and Myth with their tops off (ooh, cheeky!) for you to see how they are in the tubes. The colour is pretty much as it looks here when swatched, and Rihanna is a Frost so has a bit of glittery shimmer- but it’s much less than you’d think!

Here they are swatched on my hand. Both wonderfully pigmented, with a good texture and both are also really comfortable on the lips. Myth works well for my skintone- at first I was worried it looked a bit ‘concealer lips’ but actually, when I got used to it, it’s lovely! I wanted a decent nude for work and I think this fits the bill. Viva Glam Rihanna is also beautiful, and the Frost finish makes it that much different that it warrants a place in my collection. It’s blue-toned so doesn’t make my teeth look yellow and both lipsticks have decent staying power- though, obviously, they need topping up after a few hours and definitely after eating or significant drinking. However, VG Rihanna especially fades really nicely, especially when used on top of a lip liner.

Here’s a quick face I did using Pinch Me, Sable and Myth yesterday. The overall look (complete with my now signature thick cat-eye liner) is a bit more 1960’s than I would usually go, but I actually really like it for a change!

Here’s a bit of a closer look at both my eyes and my cheek. I think you can see here how pretty Sable is on my lid- it blends out really nicely and I think whilst it would look lovely paired with other shadows- maybe Club in particular, or an MUA browny-colour I have that’s about two shades darker than this- it looks really good by itself. This is also Pinch Me applied and blended out- it’s a very, VERY sheer wash of colour here, but tonight I managed something a bit more punchy and I will show you in another post!

Also, here is a bonus very rushed and very flashy (sorry) shot of my outfit yesterday, which I have entitled Big Cat Overload. Although, the Lion King shirt from Primark is one of the best things EVER.