Small But Mighty MUA Haul

I haven't treated myself to some MUA bits for a good while now. Having been a fan of the brand for as long as I could remember, it was about time I had a splurge and as you can see from the title of this post - it happened. News of their newly-released Spring 2015 drop combined with an email which pinged through for Valentine's offering an eyeshadow/lipstick/blusher combo when you spent over a certain amount made me almost itch with excitement to try some new goodies. Let me introduce you to them...

As I mentioned, MUA have recently launched their collection for the up and coming (slightly) warmer months so obviously, this was the area of the site I virtually wandered over to first. Many an item caught my eye, notably the 'Sweet Sheen' lipbalms. These are one of two lip launches of this collection and one I felt to suit my makeup brief for Spring/Summer slightly more, so I picked up two shades - 'Coral Reef', a (surprise, surprise) bright orange-toned pink, and 'Peach Dream', a pinky, (again, big surprise) peach-tinged nude. I gave these a mini-whirl a couple of days ago on the night they arrived and while I found the former to be a perfect 'pick-me-up' pink packed with pigment (hello, alliteration-central), I was a little disappointed with the latter which didn't transfer on me so well on the lips as in the tube. I'm sitting on the fence so far so will definitely report back on those.

I then spotted new additions to their 'Pro Base' range, which I've dabbled in before. Alongside the  expansion of their 'Prime and Conceal' individual colour-correcting creams (the yellow of which I'm a big fan of), was the new 'Pro Base Smooth and Set Prime' - a.k.a. a silicone-based face primer. Now, I've only tried one silicone-based primer before - Benefit's POREfessional - and have generally got on with it pretty well as it isn't too jelly-like and once applied, doesn't feel like it's sitting like a mask on top of my skin. I have, though, heard of others who aren't such a fan and prefer more water or oil-based textures to help their slap stay on that little longer. Despite my doubts and differences to what I've sampled before (this one also comes in a pot opposed to POREfessional's handy tube), I'm giving it a go anyway. Again, I'll report back on this one.

Finally, I picked up a lip primer (I was obviously feeling all things primers this time round) - the Pout Prime Smoothing Lip Primer. Now I've not even tried one of these at all before, so again things could get interesting when this is whacked out, but the concept intrigued me. Sure, face and eyes are pretty expected when it comes to primers, but lips? I'm sure I've seen a rare one or two floating about in the bloggersphere before (I believe MAC do one?) but it's still a relatively untouched makeup area, especially in the drugstore. This cost a mere fraction of what I'd expect MAC's version to, so if it doesn't live up to my expectations, I won't be so down about it. On close inspection this simply looks like a lipbalm but with hidden priming properties that you slap on before a bold lip (or even a nude shade if your lips really enjoying munching on whatever's applied to them), smoothing out the surface and (hopefully) improving both the finished result and staying power.

As I mentioned at the start, there was also a Valentine's offer running, where for a spend over a tenner (I think) you could type in a code and receive a free lipstick, blusher and eyeshadow - choosing between two different sets. I chose the more pink-based of the two and received a pearl eyeshadow in 'Misty Rose' - a pretty light pink shimmer, a powder blush in 'Marshmallow' - a rosy, mid-toned pink, and a lipstick in 'Tulip', an easy-to-wear pinky-nude shade. All for free and all that I can see myself cracking out - you know what they say, practice what you preach...