Illamasqua swatches and review

Hello there!

When you are a beauty junkie, you pretty much browse the net looking for new exciting things to drool at and test. I had never heard of Illamasqua and would've lived my life in complete ignorance if I hadn't found out about their nail polishes through Scrangie's blog. I had no intention of buying nail polish but I decided to check out Illamasqua's webstore and just have a quick look. UH-OH. They were selling cosmetics, too!

Illamasqua is a relatively new makeup brand from UK. They are not selling trend products as such, they are interested in night time makeup. They describe their line with the words "Makeup for your alter ego". Simply put, it means the edgier and stronger side of you that comes out when you go clubbing etc.

Well, it didn't take me too long to make the decision to check their products out. And it only took a week when I got my goodies.

Here are some of their lip glosses in their nifty squeeze tubes:

From top to bottom: Move, Mistress, Soul, Galactica

Move, Mistress and Galatica are Intense Lip Glosses which means they are more pigmented than Soul which is from the Sheer Lip Gloss line. Move and Mistress are both matte in the sense that although they are very glossy, they don't have shimmer or glitter in them.

This is Move on my lips (sorry about the face, I'm not wearing any makeup apart from the lip gloss in these photos). It's a lovely pink-mauve colour. I used to have a similar colour but I think I accidentally threw it in the bin (and afterwards banged my head on the wall for several minutes). Really lovely, I'm very happy with this shade because it's so flattering.

And this beauty is Mistress. A warm, a bit orangey red that looks scary in the tube but gorgeous on the lips. I find it hard to wear red lippies because they usually clash with my skin colour but this is just pure love. It's becoming my mistress for sure!

Soul is a champagne shade and compared to the other glosses I hauled, it's very sheer. I like it and it gives a nice shine to my puckers. It's from Summer 2009 Sirens collection which concentrated on sexiness and golden shades. I think this is a beautiful shimmery nude and from what I've gathered, it's a big hit among the Illamasqua fans.

Galactica is pure, molten silver. Not just silvery but really rich, foiled silver goodness. I had a hard time taking this one off after taking the pics because it's full of shimmer and highly pigmented. Although it seems unwearable, I have worn this in public in daylight hours. Just apply it a bit less and it gives your lips a nice shimmer. This looks awesome on top of other lippies, too. This lip gloss is from Autumn 2009 Dystopia collection that has some really dark and edgy products.

I wanted to concentrate on the lip products because I often ignore them on my blog because I like to concentrate on my eyes when doing my makeup. Here are swatches of some other products from Illamasqua:

Upper row, from left to right: Solstice, Phenomena, Involve

Bottom row, from left to right: Fondle, Rude

Solstice and Phenomena are Liquid Metal products. They are creamy and can be used on eyes, lips, face and body. I've only tried them as eyeshadows and they are too greasy for me, they just creased in less than an hour. But I'm not giving up on these because the colour pay-off is great and the metallic effect is so cool. I swatched them on bare skin.

Involve is a Pure Pigment. Of course I had to have something purple for my eyes, are you kidding! I love it. It's very pigmented and as you can see from the photo, it has this amazing silver and blue shimmer to it. I swatched this one on top of Too Faced Shadow Insurance.

Fondle is a golden pink (or pinkish gold) Illuminator. It can be used on eyes, cheeks, lips, basically everywhere. I wanted it for a blusher and a highlighter because I'm such a sucker for golden pinks. It's very runny when you squeeze it out (same packaging as with the lipglosses) but it dries quickly.

Rude is a Cream Blush. The pan is HUGE for how little of the product you need. And I mean you need only a small dab and you get a lot of colour. It's completely matte but because of the creamy texture, it looks very dewy on your skin.

I haven't tried out Illamasqua's Powder Shadows. From what I've read, they are almost all completely matte because Illamasqua wanted to cater also for people who have a few or more wrinkles on their skin.

I'm going to buy Illamasqua again. I love their approach to makeup and they have interesting products (and crazy product names!). Right now I have a serious hankering for Underworld lipstick, Tantrum sheer lip gloss, Phallic nail polish (told you!) and some of their false eyelashes. They also have brushes and other makeup tools. AND, when you have made your second order through their website, you get 10% off from the following orders until a year has passed from your very first order. In the US, Sephora is carrying Illamasqua but I've understood that they aren't yet having the limited collections in sale. So if you want to shop something from Dystopia, you either need to travel to UK or make an order through Illamasqua.

So what do you think? Does this make you want to buy some stuff for your alter ego?