Real Techniques Bold Metals Dupe Review

Whilst looking for a Christmas present for someone, I found these Real Techniques Bold Metals copy-cat brushes on Amazon and since I wanted some new brushes, I decided to order 2 sets, one for a gift and one for me. In the end my sister bought my set for me for Christmas! You get 7 brushes in the set, 3 silver, 2 gold and 2 rose gold. I've been using one silver for my brows and the other two for eye-shadow, the big gold fluffy brush for powder, the smaller pink fluffy brush for blusher/highlighter and the wide rose gold for one to apply foundation or highlighter. The only one I'm yet to find particularly useful is the gold, triangular type brush. I used it to contour with but didn't find it to be particularly adept at that, though I'm not rally sure what it's designed for. 

The first time I washed them, they stood up very well with no shedding and came out looking like new. Obviously they feel a lot cheaper than the real ones because they aren't made of metal but instead much lighter plastic but that's to be expected at the huge discount. At first that's slightly off putting but once you start using them you don't really notice because they feel much like normal brushes.

The set is available to purchase here for just over a fiver including delivery!

Urban Decay Naked Palette vs MUA Undressed Palette

So for my birthday back in March I was lucky enough to receive the Urban Decay Naked Palette off my friends so today I thought I'd do a comparison of the MUA dupe of the first Naked palette as it's what I've used for the last year.

 

I think these two pictures say it all really!

The pigmentation of the Urban Decay palette is absolutely incredible compared to MUA, the left is the MUA and right is the equivalent Urban Decay colour. The difference is much more pronounced in the lighter colours but can also be seen in the darker colours. The shimmery colours also appear brighter and have more shimmer to them. The blendability (Is that a word?) of both brands is excellent and the brush that comes with the naked palette is of such a high quality considering it comes with a palette. The MUA one as expected is not.

The lasting power of the Urban Decay ones is also better than the MUA, particularly with the Primer Potion underneath (Which may I just say is amazing!). Due to how soft and crumbly the eyeshadow is there is quite a lot of fall out but I'll happily accept that as the price for how good these eye shadows are. Which leads me onto the actual price. Now to be honest if I was buying this for myself I would find it very hard to justify the cost but as this was so kindly received as a gift I really can't complain! So basically I'd still choose to buy the MUA one because I'm a cheapskate and because it was perfect for what I needed it for, I'm just super lucky to have the Urban Decay one too.

W7 Absolute Lashes Mascara Review

You know when you buy a new product but still keep reaching for the old empty one because its just better? Well that is this mascara, the Rimmel Lash Accelerator was a hard act to follow if I'm honest but still my opinion on this mascara isn't great. I'd been looking at W7's Naked dupe palettes on their website after I saw one in peacocks and was rather intrigued to see such an obvious benefit dupe on their homepage, so when I next saw it in store I knew I had to pick it up, at £4.50 I thought it was worth a try.

I had high hopes for it being a good dupe of Benefit's They're Real (which I am still yet to try) however this mascara has let me down.  The brush, whilst thin and perfect at separating the lashes so that each one is coated, I find it to be a little hard and scratchy if that makes sense? However it does well  It does add length and volume, however nothing special, its very average in this department. However it's main downfall is that as it dries, rather than smudging it has a tendency to sort of flake off. Which is very annoying as you can imagine. 

Overall this isn't one that I would recommend, so now I'm not sure whether to try the palettes, have you tried any products form W7? What do you think?