I had my first foray with Topshop Make Up today and was really quite impressed with what I found. In fact I spent almost an hour perusing the counter and drawing colourful stripes on my arms. At one point the Security Man loitered behind me, clearly wondering what on earth I was up to. Thankfully he didn’t follow me into the changing rooms where I photographed the swatches to show you guys, though I’ll save those for a separate post.
I was very restrained and came away with just two products in my little paper bag…
Cream Blush, for which I’ve had several recommendations from beauty bloggers and an eye crayon in Tarnish. I’ll tell you about the blush first…
Topshop Cream Blush in High Five
Looks pretty scary. It’s not. This is the lighter shade; the other is called Pinch and is a darker reddy pink. The texture is creamy, obviously, quite soft and easily blendable. It spreads reasonably easily and feels slightly tacky on my skin. I didn’t apply powder over it and am not sure if/how that would work.
Heavily swatched you can see the slight sheen on my skin… it looks almost gold here. I’m the kind of girl who wears make up to pretend that’s how I actually look, rather than ‘hey I’m wearing make up’ but I’m actually coming around to the idea of heavily applied blusher. Mind you, I think it looks best on under 25s and over 70s, so I’ll steer clear.
Blended with fingers you can see it looks much more user friendly!
And applied with a brush, which is how I’d actually use it on my face, for a subtle flush. I think the colour looks rather gorgeous here, a slightly corally toned pink. You need the teeniest amount… I literally touched it with the tip of the bristles and that was enough for one cheek.
Sorry(ish) that my face is a bit blurry in this pic, but hopefully it’s enough to let you see the colour of the blush on my cheeks. I also applied a little to my lips… it looks nice over lipbalm. As you can see in this close up of the compact, the colour is softer in tone under the surface.
Topshop Eye Crayon in Tarnish
I’m loving the idea of eye colour that’s quick & easy to apply. I simply don’t have time for anything else now that my day consists of dropping off and picking up small children at various times. Four different times to be precise. I have about 5 minutes in between to do work, tidy the house, blog and draw a quick Topshop tattoo on my arm…
Tarnish is a cool peat/espresso brown, no orangey tones there at all, though there are little flecks of bronze through it, enough to catch the light and give a slight metallic look without any glitter or fallout.
Light swatch, heavy swatch and smudged. I’ll use this mainly as a smudgey liner on my upper lid – it glides on quickly and easily and is very workable.
It’s not very big, just over half the size of a regular eye pencil I’d say – and as you can see it will need sharpening fairly often – but I couldn’t resist its charms. Other colours include the most delicious dark metallic plummy purple.
Topshop cream blush costs £6 and is available instore or online at Topshop.com
The eye crayon in Tarnish costs £5.
