The Little Blush - Beauty, Fashion and Lifestyle Blog: MUA

08 November 2013

MUA Undress Your Skin Foundation

When MUA brought out this foundation I pretty much turned a blind eye to it. I do quite like MUA generally, but a £5 foundation? How would my congested oily skin cope with that! You'll know by now I'm always on the hunt for a beauty bargain, and feel the high street has easily caught up with quality of the bigger luxury brands. I buy almost all my makeup from Boots or Superdug and I'm always on the lookout for a great deal.. With one exception. Foundation. I'm quite happy to spend £20, £30 even £40 on foundation yet I weep into my purse when I spend £4 on an eyeliner. I just feel that is something is going to be sitting on your skin for the best part of a day it's worth making sure it's not packed with all sorts of skin hating nasties.

What made me pick up this foundation? I don't even know. Well, I do know.. I was on offer for £3 a couple of weeks back, and that's a price you can't really argue with. I'd seen a couple of reviews, all relatively positive and just thought why not! The Undress Your Skin Foundation comes in a measly 3 shades, which is honestly pretty rubbish. If you fall into the very pale category or anything darker than olive skinned, you're going to have to give this one a miss because you're skin tone is not catered for at all.

I chose the shade Beige which is a relatively good match for my skin tone. Shade range and unimaginative name aside, on to the actual foundation. It comes in a 30ml basic squeezy tube and is easy to dispense your desired amount, the foundation is ever so slightly runny but its hardly and issue. Applied to the skin, the Undress Your Skin Foundation creates a medium coverage base that lets the natural skin show through just the right amount. It leaves a semi-matte healthy finish to the skin which I rather quite like the look of now my skin is improving. I did have to conceal my undereyes and blemishes with the Seventeen concealer, but that's just a given. The MUA foundation does dry quite quickly, and although its a dream to blend at first I'd recommend being quick as when it starts to set its becomes very difficult move.

In terms on longevity, without primer you're looking at an 11 o'clock oil slick. But teamed with my favourite Witch Primer it performed better, and only needed a light dusting of lunch time powdering to keep it in place around my nose and forehead. By the end of a full day the MUA foundation usually looks ok, it did seem to looks a little patchy in places and had worn off in others but this may just be me as my skin has an issue with getting foundation to stay put. For a £5 foundation, honestly it's excellent. I would deem the Undress Your Skin Foundation as a great weekend foundation, something that would be great for a mid-day shopping trip or a lunch date.

If you're on the look out for an inexpensive foundation, its worth taking a look at this when you're next in Superdrug. Or available online, here

08 October 2013

MUA Matte Palette

Top row swatches - almost non existent!

Bottom row swatches

I can't be alone in saying that I am a total sucker for a new palette. All that make up prettiness encased in it's own beautiful packaging, practically begging to bought and allowed to grace your dressing table - It's sometimes impossible to say no! MUA have been the Dons of pretty budget palettes and bargain shadow dupes for over a year now, providing us with pretty good quality items that rival the high end counterparts.

The Matte Palette is the latest offering from MUA, this timeless palette features 10 gorgeous neutral matte shades designed to create endless looks for every occasion. The warm and cool tones of each velvety shade can be worn alone or blended together for a custom cashmere soft finish! The 10 shades included in the palette are Unwrap (white), Butter (cream), Bare (Nude), Taffeta (Peach) , Fade (brown), Penny (bronze), Chino (taupe), Truffle ( chocolate), Fog ( dove grey) and Smoke ( black)

As you can already see from the swatches above the top 4 shades are very poorly pigmented, I don't know whether it's because they are just lighter shades and they aren't really coming through properly but they seriously lack pigment and all four shades look almost identical which is a little bit pointless. The four lightest shades serve well as blending out other colours, or softening out a smoky eye but don't create much colour besides that. The bottom five shades on the other hand have blown me away! They're soft and buttery, and so pigmented. The colours blend like a dream and stay put for hours without moving even without primer. The shades are perfect for creating a little day time glamour or full on evening drama, and the 3 brown and beige-y shades also double up as brow colours!

Priced at only £4 its kind of hard to say no to the MUA Matte Palette, if you're willing to look past the lack of pigment in the first 4 shades. Available here from the MUA website.