Sorry I haven't posted in a while, it has been a busy few weeks for me, but I'm back now with some amazing buys to share with you all. I have been hearing a lot about Primark's new beauty range, and as a fan of their nail varnishes already, I was really excited to check it out and go on a bit of a spending spree. I actually bought more than I meant to as I seemed to get a bit carried away with the £1-£1.50 price tags...but carry on reading and you'll see why I got quite so excited...
This lovely little lot came to just £16. Incredible right? They had a brilliant selection of products on offer including loads of other lovely bits of makeup such as lipsticks and waterproof eyeliners. (They're on the hit list for the next visit!) There was also a lot of make up and nail tools available too such as tweezers, scissors and make up brushes (apparently the brushes are pretty good for the price).
Let's start with the makeup I bought...
These 3 products came to a total of £4. £1.50 each for the lip gloss and the lip crayon and £1 for the eyeliners...
I'd seen a blog post before I went into Primark that mentioned these eyeliners. They are an absolute steal at £1 for the set as it even comes with a sharpener. This is cheaper than even the eyeliners from MUA which are £1 for one! I could only see this set in the colour black which is fine with me as that's all I wear, but if you like a splash of colour in your eye makeup, then perhaps Primark liners aren't for you.
The eyeliner goes on very nicely and is pretty soft. It's also very blend-able so you can get a great smudged effect with it. I love eyeliner pencils as they are very versatile and last for ages. So if you buy this great pack of 2 you won't be needing to buy anymore for quite a while!
Next up is the lip gloss. There was a pretty good selection of colours for this but I'm a sucker for a lovely pink lip gloss!
There was one of these opened in the shop so I got to have a good look at tube and tip before I actually bought it, and I loved the fact that it has a brush tip. All of the other lip glosses that I own have a wand so this makes a nice change. This colour is a gorgeous shimmery pink. The picture above isn't great and doesn't really represent the colour as it looks a bit light, but it looks lovely when it's on. Gives a great shine on your lips, lasts for quite a while and even smells nice! Great make up bag staple so well done Primark.
Sticking with the theme of lips, I decided to give one of the lip crayons a try...
I then moved onto the vast nail section and this is what I came away with for just £12...
The Black Board set isn't actually from the new range, it has been in store since last year. I have been wanting to get it for a while and was a bit worried I would be too late, but I found it on a bottom shelf on sale for £2 (original selling price of £4). There was only 2 left so I felt pretty lucky to get it!
The kit comes with 'Black Board' paint which is a plain black matte paint and a matte top coat. I do already own the Primark matte top coat so a spare never goes a miss. It also comes with 2 pens for doing the designs on the nails. I expected these to be a felt tip style but they're actually just a push down to release nail art pen. Very similar to Barry M nail art pens. The colours of the pens are pretty cool and they do look good against the black. I only did a small amount of experimenting with this set but it was effective. Well worth £2.
Also from the old range I picked up this Spotty nail polish.
This was also in the sale and I got it half price at £1. I haven't actually tried this polish yet but one of my besties (who is also a bit nail obsessed!) has this and said it's great. She was the one who told me to buy this. Like I said at the start, I already own a few old Primark Beauty polishes and I've been very impressed with them so I can't see this being any different.
Primark now has a new range of polish out which comes in 10 colours and is a slightly bigger bottle than the ones from the old range. I only picked up one of these to try but now regret that and wish I'd picked up more. I chose this lovely brown/mink colour.
It's a 10ml bottle so great value for £1. I love the design of the bottle too. Make a nice change from normal polish bottles. The polish itself goes on very nicely and 2 coats is plenty for good coverage. It has a nice thick brush so it doesn't take long to paint your nails at all, and gives a very neat finish. The only criticism would be is that it has a funny smell. I do find that you get an odd smell with most cheap polishes though, so if you can get over that then you'll be fine.
This is a quick manicure I did with the polish to show the colour off, and this is just 2 coats with a top coat. As you can see, it gives great coverage and is a gorgeous colour.
I picked up the nail art pens as a bit of a last minute thought. They weren't originally in my basket as I'd only recently bought some nail art pens, but I couldn't resist the colours of these, especially the metallic ones. These are just £2 for each set of 3.
When you unscrew the lid, each one has a lovely thin brush, but as an added extra, when you pull the top of the lid off, they also have a tiny precision nib. What an added bonus! I'm yet to properly experiment with these but I think the designs you can do will be endless!
Now, I'm not a massive fan of false nails as I think they can look cheap and tacky but the selection in Primark is pretty incredible! They have everything on offer from detailed designs, to Ombre, to plain French manicure. I decided to limit myself to 3 sets to try them out...
These are just £1 a set which includes 24 nails in various sizes, and some nail glue. I love painting my nails and doing nail art so I only bought these for a quick fix before a night out if I haven't got time to sit and paint my nails. So far I have only used the owl set and I was pretty impressed with the finish.
The nails themselves aren't too long and they fitted onto my nails perfectly so no filing required. Having never used fake nails before, I wasn't too sure about how much glue to use and it was definitely trial and error. I found that you do need to be pretty generous with the glue. I'd lost 2 nails on my left hand (the hand I did first) within about 30 minutes, but when I reapplied them I used more glue and that seemed to do the job as I didn't lose anymore that night. They were a pain to get off the next day but after lots of soaking and filing I did get them off. As suspected though they did ruin my nails, but I'd say it's worth it for such good looking nails, and it's nothing a bit of TLC won't fix!
Finally I picked up this nail polish remover pot.
Priced at £1 this is a wonderful purchase (I've since bought another one!). It does exactly what it says on the tin. The removal is instant and it saves messing with cotton pads and normal polish remover. The pot isn't great for removing glitter polish but as we all know, glitter polish is a nightmare and I'm yet to find an effective technique for removing it! This is a great investment.
Overall, the Primark beauty range is fantastic. A great selection of quality products in a good range of colours. I love that Primark is really tapping into the nail art trend and is offering cheap products that are very accessible. Obviously it depends on the size of the shop as to what products they have on offer, but I have seen a good selection in even some of the smaller stores. Also, look out for little goodies by the till...there seems to be different bits in those plastic bubbles to what there is on the shelves. Happy shopping!
Sam x
I'm actually surprised at how good the nails looked, I would never have thought to look in primark! Going on my shopping list :) Do you get this kind of stuff from primark often?
ReplyDeleteHey Emma, I was pretty surprised too! Primark is a bit of a goldmine for budget beauty buys. I've been buying a lot more from there recently, especially now they've got the new PS range. I'd recommend going to have a browse in the beauty section next time you're in there :)
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