Makeup to AVOID

If I sat and worked out how much money I’ve ended up wasting on terrible makeup over the years, I’d probably be able to buy myself a car…

We’ve all been there. We’ve watched our favourite beauty YouTubers rave about a product, seen another product be featured in Cosmo and some way or another, it ended up in our makeup collection. But in spite of the glowing reviews and constant features, it ended up being horrible. Or maybe it wasn’t hyped up on social media but instead the lady at the beauty counter is just an excellent sales woman. In this post I’m going to share some beauty products I think are utter rubbish and to avoid!

*Disclaimer – Some of the products I mention aren’t in my collection anymore as I’ve recently done a huge declutter, so some pictures will be taken from the internet. I can assure you I have owned every single product I mention at some point in past.

Starting off with a foundation. I purchased MAC’s Studio Water Weight Foundation towards the end of 2016 and what sold me was the fact that it’s supposed to be a nice sheer to medium coverage, dewy, light-weight foundation suitable for dry skin. I haven’t had much luck with MAC foundations in the past because I found them all very heavy and matte, I’ve tried Pro Long-wear and hated it which turned me off for a while. I’ve also tried samples of some of their other foundations and didn’t care for those either. I felt as though the brand didn’t offer a good range of foundations for drier skin. But Studio Water Weight looked promising so I picked it up in the shade NC20. I used this daily for a couple of weeks before I started to notice how bad it was looking at the end of the day. It applied fine and looked lovely for the first couple of hours, but by the end of the day it looked patchy, clung to every dry patch on my face and had separated in other areas like my cheeks and T-Zone. It also oxidised like crazy, it looked terrible and for £27 it’s definitely not worth it! This also doesn’t mix well with other foundations. I mixed it with a foundation from No7 I know works beautifully on me and by the end of the day, my makeup looked terrible. Patchy, dry and had separated. This product was the culprit. I’ll link it below if you’re interested. Get a sample before you do buy this!

MAC Studio Water Weight Foundation

While were on the topic of the face, another terrible product is ELF’s Hydrating Primer. I purchased this about a month ago and mentioned in a previous post how I didn’t see much of a difference in my foundations performance with or without this, but after a solid month of daily use I’ve definitely seen a difference. A big, bad difference. Yes, this does feel moisturising but this product hates having other products layered on top of it and it just feels like your applying a blob of silicone to your face. I wore my Maybelline Dream Satin Liquid foundation over this, knowing how amazing that foundation is, and by the end of the day, it looked horrendous. The foundation felt as if it was slipping off my face, it looked like it had separated and in general, looked awful. This also made my highlighters look an absolute mess. I noticed that my powder highlighters weren’t blending into my skin and looked scalely and patchy, so when I tried to blend it with my finger the highlighter literally balled up and peeled off my face. I was so confused because nothing of the sort had ever happened before. I had no idea it was this primer until I did my base without this product. No problems with patchiness and separating so I can confidently say, avoid this at all costs. It’s a horrible product.

ELF Hydrating Face Primer

The next product comes from Urban Decay. I was surprised this was a miss because I usually love Urban Decay’s quality but this product seriously lacked in the quality department. Just before Christmas 2016, I thought I’d treat myself and brought the Naked Flushed Bronzer, Highlighter and Blush palette in the shade Streak. The packaging was beautiful and better quality than the product it’s self. To start, the colours in the palette were terrible, the bronzer was as orange as 2010 Snooki, the blusher was way to pink, as was the highlighter, which I personally didn’t like because pink highlights don’t suit my skin tone. But in all fairness, this product is available in seven shades so I may have liked this more if I got a different colour, but for the price, the formula wasn’t good enough. I had a hard time blending the bronzer, it liked to cling on wherever I placed it down. The highlighter was full of chunky glitter and as I blended it the glitter would end up falling out all over my cheek. The blush was okay, but definitely not worth £25. Honestly, save your money. The packaging is pretty but there’s much better blush, bronzer and highlighting trios on the market. Rimmel do some, as does Sleek and they’re much cheaper.

Image source – Temptalia.com

Urban Decay Naked Flushed Palette in Streak

While I love Sleek Makeup and for the most part and have had good luck with most of their products, the single blushes in particular, their well-loved highlighting palettes were a huge no for me. Again, the highlighting quads have beautiful, high-end looking packaging but the product inside is another story. I purchased Cleopatra’s Kiss and the Solstice Palette. Solstice was the worse of the two with completely weird and unwearable shades, like purples and orangey peaches. Cleopatra’s Kiss has some beautiful light golds and bronzy shades which I liked better but the real issue was the formula. These come with a mixture of creams and powders and the creams were so stiff and difficult to blend that I gave up with them almost instantly. The powders were easier to work with but again, didn’t want to blend. On top of that, these highlighters were full of chunky glitter, emphasised skin texture and looked horrible on the cheek bone. They looked even worse on the nose! These are fairly priced at £10 but honestly, invest your money elsewhere. There’s plenty of high-street brands that offer amazing highlighters with high-end quality.

Cleopatra’s Kiss Palette

Solstice Palette

Image source – Pinterest

Sleek Highlighting Palette

Remember to take this information with a grain of salt. Makeup is extremely personal and what didn’t work for me, may work beautifully for you. The purpose of this post is to stress the importance of buying with caution. Always get samples before you buy! If you can. But thank you so much for taking the time to read and I hope you enjoyed this post. I hope to see you in my next one.

Sofia x