Sugarpill- An Honest Review

If you’re like me, and you like your makeup to be bright, striking and generally quite obnoxious, your quest for colours has almost certainly taken you through the pastures of Sugarpill at some point.

For a long time, I worked quite hard to ignore my desire to try their products; being one of these boring, responsible adult types, I only have a limited budget to spend on my hobbies, and within that budget, I have quite a large number of hobbies and interests I want to spend money on. Despite the fact that many people said Sugarpill is genuinely worth the money, I found the idea of paying £24.95 for four eyeshadows pretty extreme.

I found a number of dupes as part of my mission to ignore Sugarpill. There is, as always, the 88 palette, which has a great selection of bright colours; with the correct base, these colours will give you plenty of scope for bright looks. For comparison, my 88 palette cost me the princely sum of £6.95, and whilst the pans are much smaller than you’d find from Sugarpill, this palette also gives me every neutral shade I’m ever likely to use.

My 88 Palette; this is actually my spare, which I bought since I've used up a number of shades in my original one. I bought this from eBay for £6.95, and I'm pretty sure it's the same as the Coastal Scents 88 Palette.

Another utterly random palette I found in a local independent beauty shop was my W7 Neon Colours palette, which is a little 5-pan palette. W7 is probably best known for their dupe/blatant copy of the Urban Decay Naked range of palettes. The eyeshadows in this palette are not what I would describe as “true neons”, in the same way that the Sleek Acid Palette is, but they are nice, bright shadows. They are a little powdery however, and so they are best applied as one would apply a neon shadow, in small patting motions to build up the colour. I’ve had a lot of success with this little palette, particularly the yellow shade, which I do think is comparable in its intensity to Buttercupcake from Sugarpill. This palette cost just £3.95 and in my opinion, proves you do not need to pay a fortune to get bright eyeshadows.

My W7 Neon Palette; I got mine from a local independent makeup shop, but they also sell W7 at Peacocks, and a number of other "cheaper" shops

The colours I found I was struggling to find dupes for were decent bright blues, of which there are five million on the market, but none with any staying power and the purples. There are always hundreds of purples, but finding them in vibrant shades from cheap brands proved difficult. In the end, I got suckered into the purchase of, what remains to-date, my most expensive (but also beloved) eyeshadow palette, the Sigma Crème de Couture palette.

My Creme de Couture Palette from Sigma; I absolutely love it, and feel like it was worth the cost, but I still die a little inside when I think of the price...

Eventually, I found an official UK vendor for Sugarpill at Cocktail Cosmetics and I finally purchased the Addicted to Pretty Palette in Heartbreaker just before Christmas. I selected this palette because I felt solid, good quality bright blues were what I was lacking from my collection. (You can check out Cocktail Cosmetics here:- http://www.cocktailcosmetics.co.uk/)

I certainly was not disappointed in this palette. Compared to the cheaper eyeshadows, I found these easy to apply; so easy that I could throw together a quick look using just the Heartbreaker and a neutral transition shade in the brief time I take to do my makeup for work in the morning.

Sugarpill's Addicted to Pretty Palette in "Heartbreaker"; I adore this palette. Top row left to right: Velocity, Mochi. Bottom row left to right: Acidberry, 2am

I love all the colours, but in particular, Velocity, the darkest, bright blue shade, is the star for me, and I honestly could not name something cheaper I’ve found that does the same job. Mochi is also a surprisingly unique colour compared to the light blues in my 88 palette, where I found (as I suspected before my purchase) that I had an excellent Acidberry dupe in my 88 palette. 2am is a colour I did not expect to like, but compared to many other muted purple shades, this really has something more to it, and blended over Velocity, it wipes the floor with many lesser warm-toned purples.

Sugarpill "Heartbreaker" swatches versus some of my cheaper eyeshadows; the top colour is Sugarpill, the bottom colours are my dupes. All shadows swatched over primer and a white eyeshadow base.

I later bought the Burning Heart palette, for which I had very high hopes. The internet generally waxes lyrical about it, and therefore I expected a lot for my money. Although I do enjoy these eyeshadows a lot, I would say it wasn’t quite the seminal moment that the Heartbreaker was for me. I feel my 88 palette has a great dupe for the red, Love+, and the W7 palette has excellent substitutes for Flamepoint, the orange shade, and as mentioned above, Buttercupcake. The star in this palette is, of course, Poison Plum; Sugarpill’s famed purple shade. 

Sugarpills Addicted to Pretty Palette in "Burning Heart"; top row left to right: Poison Plum, Love+. Bottom row left to right: Buttercupcake, Flamepoint

Sugarpill "Burning Heart" swatches (except Poison Plum) versus some of my cheaper eyeshadows; the top colour is Sugarpill, the bottom colours are my dupes. All shadows swatched over primer; orange and yellow shades swatched over a white eyeshadow base. It still surprises me how well my cheaper shadows hold up.

I was unsure whether I would love Poison Plum as much as the purples in my Crème de Couture palette; I thought they might be a bit similar. As it happens, Poison Plum really is its own beast, and the assertion that there’s nothing quite like it is very true. For me, it’s a real transformative shade, in that dependent upon what you put it over or next to, it can look different every time you apply it.

Sugarpill's Poison Plum versus some of my other purple eyeshadows. I think it's very different to the shadows from my Sigma palette, and clearly much brighter and more pigmented than the 88 palette. 

At time of writing, I’m still waiting for the Sweetheart palette to come into stock at Cocktail, but the longer it remains unavailable, the more hesitant about its purchase I become. I feel I have plenty of blues in my collection and I can honestly say I have more greens than I will ever actually use, so I just do not feel I need to have Afterparty and Midori in my life. I’m currently toying with the idea of trying Dollipop in a single, and as for Tako, I am tempted, only in that I go through white eyeshadow like nobody’s business, so it would potentially have a place for me.

Sugarpill's Addicted to Pretty Palette in "Sweetheart". Top row left to right: Dollipop, Afterparty. Bottom row left to right: Midori, Tako.

Overall, I enjoy Sugarpill a lot, and I do highly recommend their shadows from the point of view of quality, ease of application and pigmentation; the latter being something I don’t think will be easily beaten. However, I don’t think Sugarpill eyeshadows are completely inimitable; there are other brights from cheap brands that will do the job, provided you apply them right. In some ways, I’m glad I waited as long as I did before trying Sugarpill, if only to learn the techniques to deal with cheaper, chalkier eyeshadows before being presented with something so easy to work with, honestly, I couldn't be happier with the products I've tried from Sugarpill.

Primers used for swatching: Geek Chick Cosmetic Labs "Power Up Primer" and Lunatick Cosmetic Labs "Primetime" white eyeshadow base

Playing with Loose Pigments

Following the extreme annoyance of car-hunting over the past week, my partner and I have finally managed to find a car he is happy with- yay! I am extremely relieved, as the whole situation has been tiring and stressful.

My makeup for this week's car-hunting adventure was purple-heavy. There was no real reason for this, other than I like purple. I had a couple of ideas for things I wanted to play with this weekend, as my weekday makeup this week has mostly just been fueling my inner goth with eyeliner and my Lunatick Cosmetic Labs Apocalipslick in Tainted Temptress, which is a highly work-inappropriate black cherry colour.

Please forgive the blurry photo, but it was a bit of a rush this morning. I also have super watery eyes right now- curse you sleep deprivation!

I had wanted to play more with my loose eyeshadows, but just haven't had time or motivation, so that was part of my inspiration. My main lid colour, the sparkly lilac, is a Dazzle Dust from Barry M, as is the gold colour; unfortunately I don't know the names/numbers of the shades. I applied these over the Power Up Primer from Geek Chic Cosmetics, which I think works really well with these sorts of sparkly loose shadows. I used What's Under The Helmet from Geek Chic (which is a cool toned bluish lavender) on the outer part of the eyelid and Sugarpill's Poison Plum in the crease. I topped it all off by applying the gold Dazzle Dust to my waterline and Lunatick Cosmetic Labs Apocalipslick in Grave Heart Shift on my lips.

Playing with loose shadows; surprisingly quick and easy to work with over the right primer.

Overall, I think this look was quite simple to do, but it looked pretty bright and striking. I've never had much joy with loose shadows like this before; I think there's a lot to be said for a decent eyeshadow primer when it comes to this kind of pigment.

I'm quite glad things will hopefully start returning to normal; if I could just catch up on some sleep, that would be great!

Yellow is the New Black

I sometimes find myself in a bit of a rut with my makeup in that I often match, in some way, my makeup to my outfit, and this sometimes means that I always do my makeup in the same way each time I wear a particular t-shirt.

I have one particular t-shirt; a Weyland-Yutani/Alien t-shirt, which I bought from Truffle Shuffle with my birthday money last year. I fall into this trap a lot with this shirt because the colours, being a dark grey t-shirt with a predominately yellow print, seem really difficult to work with.

Check out Truffle Shuffle here:- http://www.truffleshuffle.co.uk/store/

This look, which I posted in my original blog post, is actually my standard look for this t-shirt. I had also received the Sleek Acid Palette for my birthday that year from my work colleagues, and so it became integral to my makeup for this outfit. I remember when I came up with it that I wasn’t really thrilled with the idea of just using yellow and grey, and so I worked in the orange and green.

My usual look for this t-shirt, and one of my first looks when I got my Sleek Acid Palette

After having done my makeup with this t-shirt in exactly the same way for the past year, when I’ve worn the t-shirt recently, I’ve pushed myself to do something different.

Firstly, I pushed myself to play with just the yellow and grey. I did end up going very dark in the crease (darker than just grey), as I was just enjoying being dramatic. I used two shades of yellow on the lid, and I think this made it look a lot more interesting than a flat yellow.

Dramatic yellow and black cut-crease. I still used the Sleek neon yellow in the inner corner 

I was surprised how good the yellow shades turned out in the end

For the second look, I decided I wanted to use an eyeshadow I bought ages ago and hadn’t used much, which was the Stargazer neon eyeshadow in Rouge. I bought this with the intention of using it with my Acid Palette, but for some reason, never got around to it. This eyeshadow was difficult to work with, and required a lot of blending with a transition colour to get a seamless blend. I loved the way this came out, with the Sleek colours on the lid and a soft, shimmery grey in the crease, which came from the ever-faithful 88 palette.

It seemed odd to mix red, orange and yellow with grey, but I really liked how it turned out 

The Stargazer "rouge" was a bit difficult to work with, but it was worth it

It’s good to break out of the rut; I think I’ll try to push myself to rotate my eyeshadow looks, rather than chaining every item of clothing to an old favourite look. 

A Quick Update for a Crappy Week

I wouldn't say this has been a particularly good week, all in all. My partner's car died a painful death the week of my birthday, and since we came back from visiting my family, most of our time has been spent looking for another car, which has been a thankless task. Things have therefore been pretty busy.

We did a lot of trucking around this weekend going to various car dealers. Saturday was a glorious spring day, and we stopped at one of our favourite pubs for lunch. I had decided to wear my Iron Maiden t-shirt, which I got from Truffle Shuffle a couple of years ago and will link here:- http://www.truffleshuffle.co.uk/store/ladies-iron-maiden-mummy-tshirt-from-amplified-p-1888.html

Much in the same way as the neon green look I did a week or so ago, I wouldn't generally choose to go so blue as I actually did on the day, but I enjoyed this, particularly for a spring day. I usually just wear a black smoky eye for the kind of outfit I was wearing, so it was nice to go bright.

Bright blues and a flash of yellow. I wore Lunatick Cosmetic Labs' Apocalipslick in "London Bridge" on my lips

The look took a fair bit of layering to get the colours right. I tend to find blue eyeshadows to be the hardest to work with, which I think is just down to the ingredients used to get that sort of colour. I started with yellow in the inner corner (Buttercupcake from Sugarpill) and blended this ever-so-slightly with Mochi (also from Sugarpill). I picked this shade because it has a touch of green to it, which served to tie it in to my lid colour, which was Sigma's Blueberry Cream. I used Sugarpill's Velocity in my crease.

I've been enjoying colourful waterlines recently- I did this with Lunatick Cosmetic Lab's "Primetime" white base, set with Sugarpill's "Buttercupcake"; it lasted all day.

So yes, a bit of a crappy week, particularly as we're still without a car for my partner. It's definitely been a stressful start to the month, considering I'll be going full-time at my job this month as well. Hopefully, things will settle down soon enough.

The Rules of Colour and the Blatant Disregard Thereof

I’ve been embracing a bit of my inner goth recently. I was very much a goth as a teenager, but in all honesty, the scope of my interests is to broad to dedicate my makeup, hair and clothing to one particular style entirely. These days I tend to go with “if I like it, I do it” and that suits me down to the ground.

Recently though, I’ve been enjoying some of the more classic “goth” about my clothing and such; my current favourite handbag being my Ouija Board clutch bag from Curiology Online, which I love. I’ve also just treated myself to the Loose Tooth Raglan from Iron Fist as a little early birthday treat to myself. I was wearing this combination out over the weekend, but found myself at a loss for makeup.

The "Loose Tooth" Raglan from Iron Fist- more from them here at:- http://www.ironfist.co.uk/

and also my Ouija Board handbag from Curiology Online. Check them out here:- http://www.curiology.bigcartel.com/

My partner is usually pretty good for giving me ideas when I’m at a loss, and he suggested that, since I was wearing so much black, I did some neon green!

Neon green eyes- the neon is from the Sleek i-Divine Acid Palette

I really liked how it came out, but I’d say this is out of my comfort zone. Green is definitely not a “go-to” colour for me, since my eyes are bluish green, and as every makeup segment in any woman’s magazine will tell you, greens will wash the colour out of blue and green eyeballs. Usually, if I wear green, it’s as part of a rainbow look, or at the very least, I put it with colours that do flatter my eyes, such as golds and purples; to go all green was a bit new for me.

Something a little different

I think sometimes it’s worth remembering that the classic rules of makeup and style are there to be broken. I know this look didn’t exactly flaunt my eye colour to its full potential, but personally, I think up against all the black I was wearing, it made a pretty awesome statement. I was hesitant to try it at first, but now, I think I’d definitely go all green again in the future. It’s good to broaden your repertoire every now and then.