sleek | true colour lipsticks

sleek true colour lipstick in cherry: £4.99
sleek true colour lipstick in mulberry: £4.99

there's a firm place set aside in my heart for dark, vampy shades of lipstick that strike fear into the hearts of men all over the world (ok, i'm just kidding), so when i noticed that sleek had a good selection of vampy shades available within their lipstick lines, i decided to pick a couple up to see how they got on after having loved every other sleek product i'd ever purchased. i opted for the shades cherry and mulberry – cherry being a red with blue undertones and mulberry being an intense browny-purple – which perfectly satisfied my vampy-lip needs and i very quickly tried them out once they arrived.

the formula is extremely creamy and, as you'd expect from sleek, highly pigmented; one swatch and you've got intense, opaque colour. i tend to wear these lipsticks one of two ways: either over the top of lip balm for a more subtle, diluted pop of colour, or over the top of a deep red lip liner to really help the colour thrive and stay in place for longer (just for reference, i'm wearing the lipsticks over lip liner in the above pics.)

as for wear time of the lipsticks, i'm definitely impressed. if you wear the lipsticks alone you'll get a good few hours of wear out of them before you even need to think about reapplying them (providing you don't eat, however i have managed to keep them in place while drinking), however because the formula's so thick and creamy i've found that it can move around a little on your lips and leave it looking a tad patchy in places as the formula can tend to gather more around the outer edges of your lips. to try and combat this, i went out and grabbed myself a cheap mua lip liner, and since then these lipsticks have been an absolute dream to wear. i apply the lip liner all over my lips, pop the lipstick on top and i'm essentially good for the day; intense colour and zero patchiness until i ruin it all by stuffing my face with cake, so my best advice for perfect all day wear is... don't eat cake! but how could you not? reapplication is definitely a worthwhile compromise.

i think i'm ready to announce that these are probably the best quality lipsticks i own, and they definitely aren't the most expensive, either. at a very reasonable £4.99 each, i don't think you can go wrong with these lipsticks if you're looking for intense colour, a creamy finish and long lasting wear... that being said, what else could you possibly want from a lipstick?! another massive thumbs up for sleek, who are quickly becoming one of my favourite brands.

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sleek | matte me lip cream

there are two things i tend to steer clear of when it comes to lip products: matte formulas and nude colours. however, after my recent stint of becoming utterly obsessed with marina and the diamonds and trying my absolute best to channel the strong, independent lady that she has you believe she is, i decided to dip my toes into a couple of new zones and ended up purchasing this baby.

on first impressions i thought "what have i done?!" as the product applies wet and i assumed (for some reason i just cannot fathom) that the formula would stay somewhat tacky while on your lips, so after rubbing my lips around mindlessly while the formula was drying, i was disappointed when i ended up with a patchy, flaky finish. attempt number two and this time i applied the product evenly and waited patiently for the product to dry before touching my lips together, and viola, the product was even, smooth and covered my lips perfectly!

in terms of longevity, this product's a tricky one. i can sit and sip at my tea and not have it budge, yet throughout the day it'll wear off of its own accord and go a little flaky around the inner part of your mouth, which for me is never a good look, meaning i feel cautious all day while wearing it because i don't want it to resemble the dreaded 'foundation lips' look that is massively avoided. to prevent this, i like to top it up every hour or so just to be safe.

the colour is wonderful. i'm very much into my bold red lips, however lately i've been enjoying wearing softer, more nude colours with a soft pink blush, and this works perfectly for giving an overall softer, girlier look. because of the matte formula, it can however look a little bit overdone because your lips don't have any kind of natural sheen to them, and attempting to give them some kind of sheen with a gloss over the top just budges the product around on your lips leaving them patchy.

all in all, i can say that the matte look has definitely intrigued me. so far i'm finding it a little tricky to wear, however i'm definitely tempted to go ahead and buy some more matte lip products to see what i can get to work for me!

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sleek | blush by 3 palette

 sleek blush by 3 palette in pumpkin: £9.99

i remember buying my first sleek product at around the age of fifteen from internacionale and remembering how fantastic it was because i'd just never had a blusher so bright before. on reflection, i can now report that the blusher was in the shade pixie pink and the reason i was so impressed was because sleek blushers are renowned for how fantastically pigmented they are. for ages i'd been trying to get my hands on the sleek rose gold blush, however every time i found myself in a superdrug with a sleek counter, that shade was just never in stock. as i grew increasingly more impatient and my current blusher grew increasingly sparse, i decided to take action and head to superdrug online to place an order and make sure i got my hands on this long coveted blusher.

while browsing the range i stumbled across the blush by 3 palettes, and where a single blush is normally £4.99, i thought it wise to invest in a palette and get 3 blushes for the price of 2. i opted for the palette in 'pumpkin', composed of a rose gold colour (lantern), a pixie pink (squash) and a bright coral (p pie), as it meant that i could flit between a rose gold and pink cheek whenever i saw fit, and the coral was there as a choice on the days where i may have been feeling a little brave!

in a nutshell: i love these blushes. they're easy to blend, long lasting and crazily pigmented; gone are the days of rubbing my brush around in my blush tub as just a couple of pats of your brush on each of these shades is enough to provide you with a more than adequate flush of colour. i initially thought i'd be most drawn to the lantern shade, however after using them all i can happily report that they all look fab and are superb for supporting the subtle changes i occasionally like to make to my makeup when matching it to my outfits. i'd say that p pie is the most bold of the colours and is one i'll probably sport more in the summer when my face has a little more colour to it and suits more of an orange toned flush, but for the moment while the weather's still cold, squash is my go to blush teamed with a nude lip. all in all, i'm a very happy girl. bravo, sleek.

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