Follower Giveaway!

Hello beautiful peeps!!

Well, the time has come for me to do my first ever 'thanks for following' giveaway! I really wanted to wait for 100, but I'm too damn impatient! Plus, I'm moving house tomorrow and wont be able to post at least til Monday now, so this is my way of saying sorry!

So, to give away I have...

1 Sleek Bohemian Palette

1 Victoria Jackson Eye Palette

1 Sigma Makeup E/S Blending Brush

1 Victoria Jackson Refillable, Retractable Bronzer

1 Duo Mister Mascara 'Tease' Eyelashes

1 Bottle of Sherbet Lemon No17 Nail Polish

So the rules are...

You need to be a follower. This is a giveaway to thank my followers, therefore to be in the running, you need to be a follower!

To enter, I'd like you to leave me a comment telling me about your Desert Island or Holy Grail beauty product. Just a few words, what it is, what you love about it and why it makes you feel good. It can be hair, skincare, makeup or body care - whatever!

For a second entry, you can either blogroll or post about this giveaway, but make sure you put the link in with your comment.

That's it! Make sure you leave an email address in your comment so I can contact you, if you're the winner.

The Small Print

The competition will be open until Midnight (GMT) Friday 2nd April 2010, so you have a little over a week to get thinking. Open to International entrants. All prizes are brand new - I do have my own Sleek Palette and the yellow nail varnish, but you will receive brand new products. I have purchased all the prizes myself, with the exception of the Sigma brush which was a gift when I bought some brushes recently. The winner will be selected by random google selection widget.

Good Luck!! A xx

Sigma Brushes

About 3 weeks ago Katy (from Makeup by Katy) and I made a joint purchase of the 'Professional Brushes Complete Kit' from Sigma Makeup. The kit included a mix of eye and face brushes, 12 in total.

The maths: we opted not to take the brush roll (an extra $20), so the kit cost $69 + $14 shippping, so in total, this was $83 or approx £55, for 12 brushes, incl postage! We split the kit 6 brushes each, so we paid about £27 each or £4.50 a brush. The shipping was quick - we ordered on a Monday evening and it arrived the following Thursday or Friday - I can't remember which. So about 11 days from the US.

Everything was packaged really well, with the face brushes covered in a thick plastic protector on the heads and each brush being individual wrapped. Having now used the majority of the brushes I kept, I'm so pleased with them. The large powder brush has shed a few hairs, but other than that they have been a delight to use. All of them have a really good weight about them, particularly the larger brushes, so if you like that feeling of heaviness, then these are for you.

Sigma SS150. A very dense powder brush, but super soft. Handle is really chunk and weighty. Perfect for an all over dusting of loose powder. I really love this brush. I've already given it a proper wash and it seems to have maintained it's softness.

Sigma SS 187. This duo fibre brush feels like air on the skin, it's so delicate! I have used it once to apply a sheer cover of liquid foundation, but felt like it didn't achieve enough coverage for this time of year. Have been using it now to apply bronzer, but will probably go back to using it for liquid foundation/tinted moisturiser in the summer. Not one single bristle has shed from this, which I'm amazed at and again, it's been washed and is still just as soft as new.


SS190. Good, solid foundation brush. Bristles are soft, but dense, so a really good application of foundation is achieved without too much work. It's almost identical to the MAC 190 in terms of bristle length, density etc. Given the MAC 190 is probably a HG product for me, I'm delighted I've found one of equal capabilities to use on MAC shampoo day.

From top to bottom:

SS224: Amazingly fluffy blending brush. Natural bristles have a tendency to irritate my eyelid, but this is so soft and didn't feel at all scratchy. Is excellent for softening any E/S edges, or just dusting off the finished product.

SS252: A really nice sized E/S brush. Good for application across the whole lid and really holds onto the shadow, minimising fall-out.

SS275: This is an angled shader. I haven't actually tried it out properly yet, but I don't anticipate any issues, if the experience of the other 5 is anything to go by!

Overall, I genuinely don't have anything bad to say about these. My experience so far of Sigma has been brilliant and for the price, I will definitely be looking to make future purchases. This is a look I created using the above brushes.