Anastasia Beauty Express for brows and eyes product review

Here is the Anastasia beauty express for brows and eyes that I was lucky enough to be sent to review. Although this review has been in the pipeline for a while (my bad) I’m really excited to share it with you. Please note that while the packaging is impossible to photograph it was lovely to look at! The packaging is very sleek and inside a cardboard sleeve was this leatherette embossed case that is kept safe and shut with a handy magnet. I thought this was a nice touch as I travel a lot and don't want to risk anything popping open/exploding in my bag.

The products included are from left to right the brow wax cream, the brow powder duo and a matte and shimmer eyeshadow duo. I know this because somebody had the foresight to put a small insert into the box to tell me exactly what everything is. This is the set of shades for blondes.

There is a mirror in the lid of the packaging but I’d say that’s mostly useful for touch ups. If you’re holding a stencil and a brush I wouldn’t recommend trying to use the mirror in the packaging unless you have to. That said, it’s of a reasonable enough size. I used this kit on a train the other day! If pressed you could probably do the rest of your eye makeup in it. There also aren’t any tweezers included in the kit but if you view it as a makeup item, you’re already getting 5 different products, a brush and some very useful stencils. Which is pretty good going!

The brush is angled and I was a little surprised to see that for so many products there was a single brush. While I wouldn’t expect something to use for the eyeshadows the only quibble I had was using the same brush for both powder and wax and getting it gunky (for lack of a better word) fast. However, it’s perfectly adequate to do both jobs in one sitting, and would be quick enough to clean off. The hairs are both soft and fairly dense.

Step one involves selecting a stencil from the box. Step two involves applying the wax cream to your eyebrow to prep it. Step three involves placing the stencil over your eyebrow as shown in the diagram and filling in the area left exposed with powder. The next step is to remove the stencil and tweeze any straggling hairs outside of this powdered area. Although this means tweezing in the middle of doing your makeup it does make sense in that you’re still using the stencil as a guideline. The final step is to use the eyeshadows provided to highlight your brow bone, lid and the inner corner of your eyes. If you were to travel with this, you effectively have a whole eye look. The steps are repeated in French on the insert which is admirably thorough.

There is an impressive selection of stencils included in the pack and they are the slim high arch, full arch, medium arch, high arch and petite arch. This is one of the things I haven’t seen much of in smaller brow kits and I think it makes this kit much more comprehensive. After a few tests at matching up stencils I went for a medium arch, I initially thought I’d be using the petite one but given my over-plucking I probably wouldn’t normally match that. There is a small and useful diagram on the insert of the ‘Golden Ratio’ of where your eyebrow stencil should match up in alignment with your nose.

Here are swatches (from left to right) of the wax, two eyebrow powders and two eyeshadows. The wax is clear and doesn’t give as much of a ‘wet look’ as some products I’ve tried. The powder is buildable and the darkest shade doesn’t look out of place against my currently mid-blonde hair. The eyeshadow is very light and works as a good base/neutral tone. Unless you were to cake the products on all at once, it doesn’t look too much and in fact simply looks groomed and ‘barely there.' My ‘Scouse brow’ fears did not come true in the slightest. There also isn't too much of a red tone to the powder which I found when using my MUA pencil.

With my ELF kit I’d like to add that I used to put the cream over the powder. Don't ask me why, I just thought early on that it worked better. There is a risk of blonde eyebrows looking dark and overdone with my ELF kit (I use the Ash studio brow kit) due to the fact that both the powder and the gel are pigmented. Although it has two ends to the ELF brush I don't think I've ever bothered to really clean them (shame on me)and the one Anastasia brush gets the job done fine. The Anastasia powders seem finer and offer more of a shade range than my ELF kit.

I tried using the stencils initially without instructions but bogged myself down in too much product. This time I followed the very helpful instructions on the inside lid of the packaging and it couldn’t have gone better. The trick is to remove the stencil to check out your handiwork before you move onto the next step. I do tend to touch up a little after removing the stencil but honestly my brows look better than I’ve ever seen them. The stencils really help get your eyebrows to look more symmetrical and groomed when working with the product. As far as makeup products go when it comes to achievable immaculate, quick natural looking eyebrows? Anastasia has this one covered!

Here I used just the brow powders and wax with the medium arch stencil. This should also demonstrate the fact it blends right in with my hair tone!

Will I be swapping my usual budget ELF option for this? Given the higher price on this product I’d probably want to save this up for nights out but I actually can see myself being able to pull this look off every day. When the cream and powder product in the packaging runs out I might not repurchase this entire kit right away (specifically for budget reasons) but I’m going to treasure the stencils and brush for a long time! The stencil element and clear instructions would make this a perfect gift for anyone who is an eyebrow newbie like me and if you look at it like that it’s an investment. Trialling this product has shown me it doesn’t take that long to get the knack of brows. While I may try out another powder, pencil or cream in the future the stencil is the key aspect of this set and it’s a gem. Altogether this kit represents all of the cosmetic products you'd need.

The retail price of this product is $39.50 on the Anastasia website or £27.50 at cultbeauty.co.uk but I’m definitely a convert to just how natural looking and effective it is. I would very likely look at Anastasia products and try to somehow work them into my budget/stash in the future! While I can't say this is a super cheap product, it definitely does the job, you get multiple products and it would make a great gift.

Anastasia of Beverly Hills Lash Genius review

I know that I told you all I'd be trialing an Anastasia brow product a long time ago. Well due to issues in getting samples out to bloggers I ended up getting my parcel quite a few months later than expected but with the fantastic bonus of another product to try. I have been dying to try this because when I heard about it, it seemed far too good to be true.

Anastasia Soare's beauty range Anastasia of Beverly Hills has made bold claims with their new Lash Genius. This product primarily works to waterproof your favourite existing mascara. It is a topcoat that according to their website "instantly waterproofs, refreshes, and protects any mascara all day." I must say that I was a little skeptical but excited by this idea. With the summer coming, I couldn't wait to take this product and put it through its paces. On its own Lash Genius simply looks like a mascara in some rather nice packaging, but don't let that deceive you.

Apart from a slightly chemical smell in the tube (didn't notice it at all though from the wand), the product is clear gel-like and didn't irritate my eyes upon application. The brush has quite stiff comb-like bristles and while I was worried it might not cover all my lashes, it actually managed to get through my slightly stiff and already clumped lashes without much trouble. The stiff bristles actually helped it get to the roots really well. I strongly approve of any brush that lets me get to the roots of my lashes properly so this is a tick in my book.

So here is my everyday eye makeup. I had trouble finding a decent shot of this as by this stage in my photos I might have already applied the product. Can you tell? No? Me neither. What I'm wearing as my usual daily mascara is actually a combination of 2true's Voluptulash and Accessorize's lengthening mascara ... because I like to be awkward. Now I personally know that this combination isn't at all waterproof so I was really interested to see what would happen next.

Now the eye with two heavy coats of Anastasia's Lash Genius applied here is on the left. One application of the product actually helped define my already applied mascara and only after two very heavy coats did I notice the lashes looking at all like they had been moved. Lash Genius did very little to disturb the product that was already there and I don't feel I lost the desired effect of my chosen mascaras. All I notice is my lashes are slightly more bouyant? Between each application I left a few minutes for this to dry as I would a mascara - just to give it a fighting chance. This second shot is literally taken about a minute before I threw a lot of water at my face.

In the picture below however, it's fairly obvious which eye has the Lash Genius on! There is no visible product migration from the left eye and yet on the right hand side I'm sporting the panda look. There are actually droplets of water on my lashes and yet the black pigment on the left hasn't moved. I even screwed my eyes up for good measure before I took this in order to fully simulate what having a good cry looks like. The staying power is quite incredible and although my lashes themselves moved a bit after a soaking, the product did. not. budge.

Having left my eyelashes to dry out naturally after this, the eye with a topcoat on looks simply a little clumpier than before and not panda-esque at all. Even having given it a good rub just now nothing came away. I haven't had any real irritation at this stage although by now I'm quite aware that the makeup is still there. However normally I would at least blot my eyes! My current mascaras when combined don't normally fare as well and there was no flaking, smudging or smudging of any kind. Removal with a makeup wipe was actually slightly better than what I normally experience with my daily mascara.

If you plan on visiting a pool, beach, the movies (Monsters Inc. gets me every time) or any other venue where you might not be able to guarantee a dry eye this Summer; I'm fairly sure that this product could literally save your face! As a precautionary measure, it works perfectly. I know that my Mum has very sensitive eyes and real trouble with mascara migrating, so I'm fairly certain this would probably solve her problems too. As for me, I know exactly when I'd wear this. There happens to be a hot-tub in my boyfriend's back garden so this will be in my makeup bag for the rest of the Summer!

The Anastasia Lash genius costs $21 and can be purchased here and their shipping is worldwide! Other Anastasia of Beverly Hills products are also available at Sephora. I also have my Anastasia brow review coming up soon!

The blonde brow dye-lemna part 1

If anybody reading is unaware of this - my hair has not always been blonde. Well, unless you count up until the age of 5 but really my hair became naturally a mid-brown shade and stuck there a long time ago. However that natural colour has been concealed for the best part of the past 5 years due to my experimentations with home hair dye kits and I've since been been red, orange, purple and this year I happily settled on blonde.

The main difficulty with going blonde from purple was exactly that - going blonde from purple! What I can't ignore though having got past that is the constant need to maintain the colour. Topping up to cover my roots is the first obvious must but recently, I've had another problem...

My eyebrows have always been quite fine; but their bland brown tint this has made them actually pretty difficult to integrate with the more vibrant hair colours I've tried. Here they are in their plucked-but-natural state. While they are just about light enough to look inkeeping with my shade of blonde, I find that day to day they do still need a bit of attention... And yet more attention I pay to my eyebrows the worse they seem!

While I'm happy with my hair as it is now, since going blonde I wouldn't dream of putting on my face without at least some pencilling and combing of my eyebrows! So in the following blonde brow series I'm going to show you what they look like naturally, my current budget go-to products, and compare them both to a higher-end product I'll be trialling by an industry expert.

Anastasia Soare of Beverly Hills has been an eye and brow guru to Madonna, Oprah and Jennifer Lopez. With products that boast a focus on skincare, clinically tested formulas and a recently expanded range of shades, I was definitely intriged to be offerered a chance to trial her answer to my daily problem of unkempt brows! Her products are available in Sephora and in the posts that follow, I'm hoping to investigate just how much of a difference a total shakeup to my brow routine will make. I'll see you all in part 2!