Illamasqua Haul

I've been wanting to make a purchase from the Illamasqua online store for a while now, just as soon as I could decide what I wanted, had enough money saved up, and, well, had the motivation to place an order. I think I must have been watching a Fleurdeforce video when she mentioned an Illamasqua product and that spurred me to go onto the website. What luck that they would be currently having a sale, so I readily checked all the categories and chose just enough to push me over to free shipping.

These are not the first Illamasqua products I own. When I was in London at the start of this year with my family, I visited the flagship store a couple of times with my future sister-in-law and picked up a medium pencil (Vow), a cream blush (Betray), a cream eyeshadow (Peak) and a lipstick (Magnetism, which I have unfortunately not been able to find as of late... that lipstick was amazing). This time around, I picked up two more medium pencils, one cream pigment, one pure pigment and an intense lipgloss.

Medium Pencil in Titivate (2A1)

What I like about the medium pencils is that it's not limited to one use, as in, you can use it for your eyes, for your lips, eyebrows, any part of your face really. Titivate is a (like almost all Illamasqua prodcuts) super pigmented pencil in a bright deep pink. I originally picked this up not as a lip pencil, but I wanted to use it for a striking colour point for my eyes, but I honestly see no reason to not also double it up as a lip liner. I think even if I lined and filled in my lips with this pencil, I could just top it off with a gloss and be good to go. 

Medium Pencil in Debonair (2M1)

I had the same idea with Debonair as I did Titivate. A true bright sky blue colour, I wanted to use this like an eyeliner as well to bring light and focus to my eyes. The pencils are so creamy and so smooth when I swatched them, it shouldn't be too bad to use them as a base for eyeshadow either. 

Intense Lipgloss in Belladonna

The only product that I purchased that was not on sale. I was browsing through the lip product section of the site, and saw this dang pigmented lipgloss and fell in love with the colour. Admittedly, it did remind me of my missing Magnetism lipsitck, but I am not really one to repurchase many items, especially if it might (hopefully) turn up again. In the chance that Magnetism does decide to appear, Belladonna is a deep pink, slightly rosey colour, a similar feel to Magnetism, but a bit brighter so I could choose which one depending on the mood or weather. Indeed, this lipgloss is more like a liquid lipstick and the sheen from it on the lips is just lovely.

Pure Pigment in Berber

The first thing I thought when I got this product was how the hell do I open this. I was a bit hesitant to try with a bit of gusto because, well, it's a pigment and I didn't want to spill it everywhere. I tenderly pried the top off and that was useless, because there was a sticker restricting fall out. But either way, it was also nice to find that inside the lid was shaped to also block the entrance to the pigment so it won't spill out when jostled about. I chose this pigment mainly because I needed something to push me over to the free shipping minimum, but without going over too much. I read the reviews and ultimately decided that I needed this pigment; it was the reddish rusty colour that I had always wanted and all other people that had purchased it raved about the pigmentation. So I'm hoping that I would be able to find a way to use a pigment, as I'm not that good at dealing with fallout.

Cream Pigment in Delirium

This is one of the first products I saw on sale that made me decide to officially place an order. I thought that I could use this cream pigment as a contour colour, but, if failing that, it could work as a blush either way. I didn't realise that Delirium would be so plummy, I was more expecting a grey/brown based tone which would be more neutral. But I do love purple make up products, that seem to just work well with my skin.

left to right: Titivate, Debonair, Belladonna, Berber, Delirium

I thought it was also pretty nifty that they included a little Illamasqua magazine (issue 2) inside my order. Not only does it include in depth information about some of their products, it also has how-to/get the look pages and other articles that would interest any beauty enthusiast.

This haul was quite the splurge for me, but I'm happy that the products I chose were all pleasing, and I'm hoping that I can get a lot of use out of all of them. The only thing that I will say though, is that the shipping (in particular the tracking), was a bit of a nuisance, as I waited longer than I thought I was going to, and I couldn't even track my parcel. If it turns out that I am indeed well in love with Illamasqua as I feared, I would definitely place another order, perhaps the eyebrow cake and the highlighters will be on my list.