Lacura Beauty Eyeliner review

I tend to do all of my food shopping in Aldi and every now and again I come across their Lacura Beauty Range. I've never been particularly interested before as I had so many eyeliners I forget to use half of them. However I was spurred on by my husband to buy the eyeliners they had so i could do a review and seeing as they were only £1.99 and they only had 2 colours I thought why not.

The picture on the left is what they look like in the original packaging. It was sealed with a plastic wrap (which I took off) and comes with a sharpener too, which is pretty handy for me seeing as I misplace mine pretty much all the time.

The picture on the right is of both unboxed. The colours I bought are smoke and emerald.










I swatched the pencils on my hand which you can see in the picture on the right, the greeny one is emerald which is more of a shimmery moss colour. The other is smoke and that is a shimmery dark grey. The texture of the eyeliners is similar to Urban Decays 24/7 liners. They are really creamy and easy to work with. I used them to do a winged liner a few days ago and both looked the same after 8 hours with no touch up. They didn't look as crisp as with a liquid or gel but overall pretty good going as I have quite oily lids.

As you can Probably tell from the pictures above, the liners are double ended. The pencil part is one side and they have a smudger sponge on the other which is shown in the picture. I really didn't like the smudger, it felt stiff and didn't really smudge all that well. It felt like i was trying to scrape my eyelids off if anything. However that said the liners smoked out really well with a small precision brush. It did take a lot of layering and smoking out and layering again of the liners to get the intensity i wanted but that isn't something that bothered me.



Overall I was really impressed with the quality of the pencils, really creamy texture, easy to use and £1.99 each. They are definitely a must have for any budget shopper or any makeup fan that is just starting out with liners that wants to experiment with a new look.

Makeup brushes and their uses

As this is my first ever blog post. I thought it best to start at the beginning with the tools I use for the looks I create. I'm going to do an overview of the brushes I use and what I use them for. Whilst some brushes are better at doing certain jobs than others, they are all multi-use so don't be afraid to experiment.....

Real Techniques stippling brush
I really like the real techniques brushes, they are affordable and great value. I use this brush when applying liquid or cream foundation. It's really soft and great at buffing the foundation into the skin by using circular motions. It spreads the foundation evenly and so a little goes a long way. But be careful, if you use too much product it can cause it to streak.

 Real Techniques expert face brush
 This is another staple in my collection, it can be used with most foundations but I find it works best for me when using cream. The brush fibers are really densely packed together, however it's still very soft on the skin. This brush also buffs foundation in beautifully. I use it like a flat foundation brush by sweeping foundation across the face and then buffing it in with the top.

 Makeup Geek stippling brush
 This used to be my go to brush for foundation until the real techniques ones came about. It is a much more densely packed stippling brush, it moves foundation around the face better by using circular stippling motions. It's great at building coverage because of the flat top and the size.

 Blush cosmetics large powder brush
 This is from a 30 piece set I had a few years ago. It's really big, super soft and fluffy. I mainly use it for a light dusting of powder to set my foundation, or to give a glow with bronzer. It works well with the bronzing powder because it doesn't pick up too much and has a large surface. 

 Real Techniques contour brush
 This brush is a domed fluffy blending brush, it is the right size for applying a powder contour shade. It picks up product well and makes it easy to blend out harsh lines. I also like to use it (once clean, obviously!) to apply powder highlight.

 Real Techniques setting brush
 When I bought this brush I was surprised at how small it is, however once I used it I realised why this was the case. It's perfect for under the eye when setting concealer.

Real Techniques pointed foundation brush
This brush is tiny! I didn't have the patience to use this as a foundation brush, didn't work well at all. It's quite stiff, however it's great for putting my concealer on under my eyes, which for my dark under eye circles is pretty handy. It packs on product really well.

E.l.f flat top powder brush
I was expecting this one to be like my makeup geek brush, it looked the same on the site when I bought it. Same densely packed bristles, same size and shape. How wrong I was, it's probably more similar to my large powder brush by blush cosmetics. The only difference apart from the flat top is that it can really pack on the powder when you need to seriously set foundation. You can use circular motions for a lighter touch, or for heavier application use it to push the powder onto the skin/foundation.

Obviously I have many more brushes than this but this is a good go to guide for anyone wanting to start their collection. Thanks for reading, please feel free to share this blog with your friends. Be back soon