Review - Sugarpill Pro Palette

FINALLY Sugarpill have released a pro palette that is available outside of trade shows! I had always wanted the original pro palette, but couldn't get hold of it. So the news that they were releasing a pro palette that was not only pink, but totally customisable made me feel all warm and happy inside!

Sugarpill's original pro palette was black, and contained the 3 Addicted to Pretty eyeshadow quads - Burning Heart, Heartbreaker and Sweetheart. 

The new palette is white in colour with the Sugarpill logo in huge pink and green lettering. It's incredibly girly and looks so pretty! The palette arrived in a matching sleeve and is HUGE!

Unlike a Zpalette, which I usually keep my single and depotted shadows in, this palette has 12 pans for you to fit your shadows in, rather than the usual magnetic open space on the Zpalette. I love the way both palettes look to be honest, and I don't have a preference when it comes to having pans in my magnetic palette or not.

The only drawback to this palette is the size. Personally, I love a large makeup item, I feel like I'm getting more for my money! But it could definitely be problematic for travelling. I keep my Kat Von D Metal Matte palette at home rather than in my kit due to it's size, and I'm unsure yet whether I will use this Sugarpill palette for work. I may swap it out for the Urban Decay Electric palette I keep at home, that way I have bright shadows in the salon and for my own use! 

Here's the Sugarpill palette compared to the Metal Matte, as you cans see it's slightly smaller in width but it's a little longer, so around the same size if you want a comparison for storage purposes! 

There are 12 magnetic pans to keep your shadows in, they are really easy to pop in and out, but very secure once they're in - I use a spatula to release the pans from the palette if I want to change the layout. 

My biggest problem was choosing which shadows to put in it! There are 12 spaces, but I have 14 Sugarpill pans. Obviously now I need to get another palette and 10 more pans to fit inside!

I depotted my Heartbreaker and Sparkle Baby palettes, as well as depotting some single pans to fit inside. I decided to leave out Frostine as there was way too much purple going on in here, and this is what I ended up with:

Isn't that just one of the most glorious things you've ever seen?!

The pro pans retail for $10 each on the Sugarpill website, or £7.95 on Love-Makeup in the UK. Sugarpill sell the palette for $20, but you get it for free if you buy 12 pans. I believe that Love-Makeup are offering the same deal at the moment, but if you just want the palette on it's own, it's £15.95, almost exactly the same price as a Zpalette.

The pan sizes of these shadows are crazy! They are absolutely gigantic, 3.5 grams, in comparison to Makeup Geek's 1.8 grams (£6 per pan) or Mac's 1.5 grams (£10 per pan) and the pigmentation of Sugarpill shadows is absolutely incomparable in my opinion. They're just not the brand to go to if you like to stick to neutrals!

Sugarpill Hotsy Totsy compared with Makeup Geek Brownie Points. You can see the size difference here, in my opinion if you love bright colours then there is no better brand for eyeshadow than Sugarpill. You do sometimes have to wait for certain products and colours to be in stock, but keep in mind that this is a small business and there will be wait times on occasion. I can never seem to catch their loose eyeshadow in Lumi in stock!

I definitely think that this palette is worth investing in, particularly if you buy the 12 pans and get the palette free. It's also great if you have some Sugarpill singles or palettes that you want to depot for storage space. It's definitely something I'll be looking at getting another of in the future!

My Favourite Makeup Brushes

Hello! Today I want to talk about some of my favourite makeup brushes. I will start off by saying, that other than my eyebrow brush, my all time favourite brushes are Illamasqua. I realise that they can be pricey, so aren't the best choice for someone on a budget or who is just starting out in makeup, but after a lot of years of makeup obsession and brush hoarding, I will always choose an Illamasqua brush over anything else. I have tried to mix up brands in this post though and have talked about different brands at varying price points, so hopefully this will be helpful to someone!

I rarely use Morphe brushes, but my favourite foundation brushes for a long time were the Morphe G6 and the M439, however I found them almost impossible to wash all the product out properly and they shed far too much for my liking. I never reach for them these days, my favourite foundation buffing brush is the Spectrum B01. Mine came as part of the Glam Clam set, which is ten brushes in a very pretty seashell brush holder for £59.99, although they do sell the B01 seperately (in pink and blue) for £8.99. This brush is flat topped so buffs foundation in beautifully, and it is dense enough to do the job well, but not so packed with bristles that it leaves streaks or the product gets stuck in the bristles and is difficult to wash out. The only problem with these brushes is that they are so pretty I have to psyche myself up to use them as I don't like getting them dirty!

A favourite to use on clients is Becca's The One Perfecting Brush. This is a very large, rectangular brush that on first sight looks like it would be ideal for contour. Becca markets this brush as an all in one tool for your makeup - foundation, blush, highlighter and contour application. I hate the idea of mixing products on my brush so I tend to use this either for contour or foundation. This brush applies foundation like a dream! It gives a natural, airbrushed finish to your look although I find that it does use up more product than the Spectrum brush does. This brush gives the perfect finish for bridal makeup in my opinion. The bristles are goat hair, so that's something to keep in mind if you are planning on using it on a vegan client. I also find that although the brush washes nicely, it stains so easily as you can see from my picture, This brush is available from Space NK for £40, although if you catch it on offer at QVC you might be able to save some money.

My favourite brush for powder application is the It Cosmetics Heavenly Luxe Airbrush Bronzer and Powder brush. This brush is SO soft! It's nice and chunky but not too bulky that you can't hold it and work properly. This brush just glides the powder over the face so you get an even application without any cakeiness. It Cosmetics isn't an easy brand to get hold of in the UK, but this brush was from QVC.

The Spectrum C02 is a flat topped contour brush. I really like this brush for contour as it's dense enough to give you a nice sharp line, but still soft enough that you can blend out your contour. It's dense but not stiff, and as it's from Spectrum it's really pretty! Mine came in The Bomb Shell set (£79.99 for 12 brushes), but it is available singly with a longer handle (The Bomb Shell collection have shorter handles) and in pink and blue for £8.99.

Another Spectrum brush, sorry! The B03 is great for buffing out concealer. When I do my own makeup, I like to blend out my concealer with my ring finger, but I always use a brush on clients. This has a nice flat top, and is dense enough to buff out but still very soft so as not to damage the delicate under eye skin. Mine is from the Glam Clam set, but a single B03 is £4.99.

I have just rediscovered the Real Techniques Setting Brush! I have had this a while, and only really used it as a back up in my collection, but it is not only perfect for setting the under eyes, as you would expect from the name, but if you are looking for the Instagram style "highlighter to blind your haters" look, this brush applies highlighter SO well! It gives a more intense application than a fan brush and you can build up the product to your desired level of glow! These brushes are £4.99 and are available in Superdrug, Boots and even some supermarkets.

I clearly had a hard time narrowing down my eye brush selection so I'll just go over these quickly! The Illamasqua Blending Brush (£22.50) is my absolute favourite eye brush, I have 3 or 4 of these in my kit and they blend eyeshadow like a dream. I also have some Spectrum B06 brushes (£4.99) in my kit too. I use a lot of eye brushes! My favourite flat brushes are the Illamasqua Eye Shadow Brush (19.50) and the Wayne Goss 17 ($32 from Beautylish). I use the 17 to set the eye primer with a light shade, and the Illamasqua brush for packing colour on the lid. My favourite pencil brush is the Wayne Goss 20 ($30, Beautylish). The Wayne Goss brushes are natural hair bristles, so again, keep this in mind when working on a vegan client.

Nearly done, I promise! My holy grail eyebrow brush is the Anastasia Beverly Hills #15 brush. This angled brush has a short handle so you can get close to the brows for precise application and it is super stiff which I love in a brow brush! There is also the #14 which has a spoolie on the other end, but I have a thing about double ended brushes (how are you supposed to store them?!) and I use disposable spoolies on my clients, so the #15 is more suited to my needs, The #15 is available on several websites for around £13. The other brush here is a(nother) Spectrum brush. The A09 is a tiny detail brush that's perfect for eyeliner. It doesn't lose its shape when it gets washed and I've had no splayed bristles either which is amazing for a £4.99 eyeliner brush!

Finally, my all time favourite brush EVER! This is an ancient Illamasqua brush that I bought probably around 7 years ago now. It was called the highlighter brush I believe, and it's what I use every day to apply my highlight. This brush is sadly discontinued now and I won't use it in my kit because I am unnaturally attached to this thing! I couldn't tell you how much I paid for this, but they do a similar brush, the Round Buffing Brush for £26. It's wider and denser than this one, but looks to be the closest to the old highlighter brush. If anyone knows where I can get a dupe, or if you spot one on a selling site anywhere PLEASE let me know!