Worth It or Not? Monthly Makeup Roundup!

Hi everyone welcome back my name is Carmel and in today's video I'm going to be sharing with you my March beauty roundup. So I'll be sharing with you all of the standout products that I tried this month that were either really good, really bad or just really forgettable. So if that sounds like something that you might be interested in then please do keep on watching. So I did just want to start this video with a little update and this is an update, I guess a life update. I shared a video recently on how I've been feeling in the last couple of years really about filming beauty content when I have been so affected by what has been going on in the world. I was overwhelmed with the response on that video. I was not expecting that amount of comments and it's been the only video that has got away from me in the comment section. It got to a point where I just physically could not reply to the comments but I read every single message, every single one. I may not have replied because I physically couldn't reply to every single one but I was overwhelmed for the first time ever with the comment section. I literally couldn't keep up and that's just a reflection on you guys as a community and how just incredible you are and how lucky am I to have guys like you here. So yeah thanks from the bottom of my heart really and it was just so reassuring actually just to know that I wasn't alone and that people did share the same worries and thoughts and feelings as me and we talked in that video about how makeup is such an escape for me and although it is, it has been quite hard to film content and I also shared in that video that well my dad who is Iranian so I'm half Iranian I'm half Irish and I was born and raised in the UK so I'm a little bit of a mix of everything but my dad actually visited Iran in February and he is now stuck there in the middle of the war and so it's been hard going, more hard going for me than him I think because as I mentioned in that video my dad is so chilled he's the opposite of me so he always looks on the bright side always optimistic won't let this ruin his life won't let it affect his life significantly and yeah he's he's very inspirational he really is he's the person that you want around in a crisis I mean look he's not going to be getting home anytime soon but we're just taking that as it comes I am really up and down with it so the days are long because he phones me in the evening time for maybe two minutes at a time because everything's shut down and it's really hard to get through um so I wait for that call and if there's a day where that call doesn't come the next day is really really ultra hard for me I might be 43 but I'm still a daddy's girl and it's been absolutely terrifying for me and I've been so overwhelmed with how many people have been messaging me every day to ask how my dad is and that just means the world to me you know that you would think of me or keep us in your thoughts it's amazing honestly so overwhelming but I just wanted to say thank you for your support your love and your friendship because it really it really means so much to me um I wish you knew how much let's kick off with some eye products so I think my favorite eye product from this month has got to be these from MAC these are the MAC multi-sculpt matte liquid product so the last time you saw me talk about these I had two now I have three I actually was going to order more but I I actually talked myself out of it because how many eyes do I actually have but I can honestly say that I've used these every single day since I got them literally every single day so I started out with buffed up and cool spice and then I went out and bought stone which is a little bit cooler so we've got buffed up in the middle is cool spice and then we have stone which is a lot cooler and a lot deeper and so today I've got a mixture of stone and cool spice on and something else so I've got a mixture of quite a few things on today so these can be used on the eyes they can be used on the face and I am not usually one to use a product on my eyes and on my face I mean occasionally but I actually use these on my face a lot as either a contour slash bronzer or maybe even a blonzer these feel a lot different to my other liquid shadows so for example my Armani eye tints these are much more sheer much more liquidy than those so I definitely think that you can go in with a real sheer wash of color with these but you can build them up however since I've been using them every single day I've been playing around with them and trialing things out with them and the one thing I have noticed is and I did mention this in my initial review is that you need to be careful with the dry down time I don't think these look the best when you allow it to dry down and then you add more of it on top so when I tried to lay a stone it wasn't the best it looked a little bit patchy in places so I would say if you are going to build up the color build up the coverage do it immediately because it can be tricky when they dry down but I think you will find that with all liquid eyeshadows they're very hard to build up once they've dried down and these dry down really really fast what an amazing little release nothing super innovative but also special in its own right yeah highly recommend fabulous another thing I did want to mention to you you know my last video when I was talking about 10 times magnifying mirrors something terrifying happened to me I'm not gonna show you fully because it'll blind you but can you see my magnifying mirror so not only have I smashed my 10 times magnifying mirror which is I mean the irony of that I have also given myself seven years bad luck so yeah I mean March is going absolutely swimmingly if you were wondering I had to mention this little eyeshadow from essence this is a new product to their range this is the essence mono eyeshadow glitter so I did do a full face of essence and I used this on its own and I wet it and it was just fantastic and today I popped it over the mac multi sculpt because the mac multi sculpt really do act as a really nice base and it's just really subtle and kind of ethereal just gentle so if you want high impact with this glitter you can go for it but if you want something really soft you can go for that as well it's so gorgeous this is in the shade rosy sparkle and the best thing about this is it cost me two euro if you can believe insane we'll stick with the eyes and talk about this mascara from essence this is the what's the length extreme lengthening mascara first time I used this I didn't really like it I didn't realize it was a super skinny wand like this and I'm not usually the the first time that I wore it I got quite a bit of flaking on my face however the next time I went in I wiped off all of the excess and this has a really deceiving little brush because it doesn't look like there's any product on the brush but it's actually packed to the rafters it's really deceptive so the next time I wiped it off and amazing results and I didn't put it on my bottom lashes I do think it flakes on the bottom lashes I'm pretty certain at this point because I've worn this every single day and actually somebody did come back to me they said that they'd bought this and they'd kind of put it away because it they felt like it was too wet but once they wiped off the brush it's become one of their favorite mascaras so that is a great story some mascaras just need a little bit of extra help they just need a little bit of extra TLC and you just need to alter how you use them this has become one of my all-time favorite mascaras but it does flake on the bottom lashes on me so I don't use it there if I avoid the bottom lashes we're good to go love this I'm actually may as well stick with the eyelashes and talk about this lash serum that I've been using for the past couple of months this is the ordinary multi-peptide lash and brow serum I purchased this because I read online so many good reviews of it and this has just been so disappointing so disappointing I don't know why this hasn't worked for me I am very strict with lash serums I use them all the time I have given this more than a chance now and I've seen no improvement at all and yeah it's been about eight weeks in fact it's probably more than that let me check oh my gosh I actually started using this in November and I've seen no improvement at all with my lashes so I actually went and bought another suede lash serum because that's my favorite so I'm just gonna stick with that now I did actually buy the essence what the length lash serum but I'm a little bit traumatized now my lashes are in terrible condition right now so I'm gonna leave the essence for now and I'm just gonna go back to the suede for a bit because I'm missing having okay lashes I tried the essence silky blur hydrating longwear concealer this month for the first time and this this was a success and a fail all at the same time very similar to my experience with the Charlotte Tilbury concealer so I've got it on today and I don't like how my eyes look it might look good to you under these lights but actually when I look up close which I did tell you not to do that but if I look I know what my under eyes usually look like and they don't usually look this greasy here's the thing right this gives insane coverage insane blurring under the eyes but unfortunately for me although it doesn't feel drying it really looks drying under my eyes so I like to use the shade 160 underneath my whole eye I think it's the perfect shade actually and then I might use a bit of 150 just in the inner corner for a bit of brightening now I don't really mind how this looks you know I know nobody's staring at my under eyes but I just have other concealers that crease less this doesn't feel drying that's the thing it feels lovely and serumy but it just looks a little dry under my eyes so it wasn't a complete disappointment but I think if you've got more dry under eyes you might not appreciate this so a couple of foundations I want to talk about this month and I'll talk about the one that I've got on today which is this one from Dior this is the Dior Forever Skin Glow it's the reformulation I have it in the shade 2.5N and this was definitely a grower of a foundation for me first of all I think I expected it to be semi dewy I think because of the glowy name but this is not what this foundation is all about this is more about a lit from within glow so very soft amount of luminosity and radiance to the skin and when I first tried it I wasn't a fan because I felt like it looked really heavy on my skin and I do stand by the fact that this is quite a makeup foundation for me this is never going to be an everyday foundation because it's just too much for an everyday it's bordering on a full coverage it's really high coverage and I don't really need that on a daily basis however what it's going to be a beautiful special occasion foundation like if I'm going somewhere and I'm out all day I will put this on if I'm going for a meal a night out I've got a couple of weddings coming up not my own I've had that a couple of weddings of friends coming up in the summer and I'm definitely 1000% going to be wearing this foundation on my dry skin it feels nice it looks absolutely beautiful I mean it's incredibly blurring on the skin which is so appreciated it's ultimately one of the most long wearing foundations I've put on my face so 12 hours of I think it no actually it it says that it's going to give you 24 hours of wear and actually I don't think that is a truly bold claim it really does stay put all day I'm happy that I continue to use it because sometimes foundations just need a little bit of time to impress you and this one certainly had so yeah it's a beautiful foundation it really really is now I'm going to be honest with you the foundation that impressed me the most was actually from Essence this is the foundation that I'm wanting to wear every single day of my life right now and I didn't think I would like this so this is the Silky Blur Hydrating Longwear Foundation I wear the shade I'm actually better with the shade 155 but I can wear the shade 115 Essence have come a long long way with their foundation shades it's actually not out in America yet which I don't understand why I did send the Essence a little message but they didn't get back to me what I will say is this is one of the best if not the best drugstore foundation I've ever put on my face and I'm going to tell you that I think it's my new number one drugstore foundation it really is so I didn't think I'd like it because it claims to be a soft matte finish but this is definitely more of a soft focus it definitely has radiance to it it's most definitely not matte it's not super matte it's not a flat matte I would say that this has a satin finish on me this looks unbelievably flawless when I compare it to the Dior for example this is so lightweight it's got a really runny consistency super easy to apply and that's what I look for on an everyday basis it gives amazing coverage so I would say medium to full it's definitely buildable you know it is blurring but it's not for example as blurring as the Dior and but I'm not bothered I'm not actually bothered on a daily basis if it's not you know super blurring but it's blurring enough for me and I think the main pro of this foundation is how long it lasts so it claims to be a long wear foundation and I'm going to tell you so long wearing unbelievably so so I've fallen head over heels for this foundation and I'm really hoping that you get it in the US soon because I can guarantee you are going to love this it is just it's it's insane in essence how are you doing this I don't get it how are you making products like this and only charging us well you're charging us less than six euros I don't get it this is one to check out if you want just beautiful looking skin it's phenomenal shall we have a little chat about blushes so I picked up one of the new morphe cheek thrills I spoke about this in a previous video why can I not open this so this is in the shade yacht day now this is my toxic trait when it comes to these blush trios I don't get my money's worth because I only ever use the cream blush because I'm problematic so the top one is the cream blush the second one is the luminous balm and that is the powder at the bottom now I did not expect that amount of coverage from the luminous balm because the other luminous balms that I have are just like very gentle like very highlightery and I haven't used these two I know what is wrong with me I don't know I don't know why I'm like this this powder it I'm pretty sure it has a few sparkles in there but on my hand it doesn't look like there is but what I can say with confidence is that I love the formula of the blush trios and this shade right here as I mentioned in my previous video it makes the most perfect and I mean perfect blonzer so blush and bronzer in one you know keeping down the amount of product that you're putting on your face when you're in a rush but you still want a flush to the cheeks and you want to look just really nice and sun-kissed that is such a beautiful shade oh my gosh it's absolutely beautiful essence again you can see these in action in my recent essence video I've been using this for months you can see look all the writings coming off the front the packaging is rubbish I will say that yeah it's very flimsy and it's really hard to open these are the bouncy blushes now they're not particularly bouncy you know like the rare beauty ones are a bit bouncy but these are a cream to powder and oh my gosh I enjoy these so so much this is antique bloom which is my favorite shade and then I went and picked up electric peony which is more of a cool toned pink these are stunning and if I have maybe a dewier foundation on you know something that's a little bit more glowy I love going in with this so it's just going to give you a really nice soft blurred cheek and I think these are about four euros it's really long lasting and just really really beautiful on the skin I did speak earlier in the month about this benefit blush that I wasn't planning on picking up I didn't even know it was out actually I only knew about it when I went into store and I started to swatch a few blushes because I was on the hunt for a liquid blush this is the benefit juice stick dewy gel blush this is not your typical blush stick I'm going to say so when you put it on the skin it feels really really cooling now I don't like to apply it directly to the face I prefer to pick it up on a brush this I expected it to be I expected it to be really dewy because it says it's a dewy blush but I'm going to say that it's not actually a dewy blush it's more of a natural finish to the skin I'm going to say I have never worn it and thought that I've had super dewy cheeks so I don't know whether that's just me whether it's the shade I have me in general my the problem with my skin possibly now I'm not too bothered because the natural finish is so unbelievably pretty but the major positive about this blush is how long it lasts so I'd mentioned in my review that I had gone in and swatched this and walked away and looked at my hand hours later and the blush was still there and it's really difficult to get off this is like a blush stain stick in my opinion so as I mentioned if you have issues with your blush lasting then you're going to appreciate a product like this I didn't think I would love it as much as I do so I have this in the shade figgy which looks really really scary but I promise you it's not it's very very sheer but very very buildable so you can have a sheer wash of colour if that's what you're after or you can build this up stick with the complexion I just want to talk about one powder product that I tried for the first time this month this is the Dior Forever Nude Matte Filter yeah this is absolutely fantastic it really is this is in the shade 02 light so many people in the comments said that they also have this and that they absolutely adore it too which is so nice to hear powder is a very tricky category for me because I have dry skin I have a lot of fine lines and I just find that powder emphasizes those issues which is normal this is a powder I can get on board with for real so it is the only powder really I've put on my face that actually remains looking like skin so it's like a powder that melts into the skin and I don't know how it works very very filtering and very gently blurring and super gently mattifying and it's it's not detectable on the skin you can't see it on the skin and I just think it's the most perfect powder for mature or dry skin this will set your makeup beautifully and you will not look like you've got a ton of powder on now I don't use powder every day I use it occasionally but if I need a little bit in my t-zone which I often do I did use it today it's going to blur it's going to give you a really nice gentle filtering it's just very very beautiful and now it is expensive but this will last you for years years and years is there fragrance yeah there is you cannot smell it though when you are putting it on your face gosh so annoying the fragrance isn't it so annoying right we're going to move on to brows and I'm going to stick with Dior because I did pick up a Dior brow product this is the Dior show onset brow mascara this is not good I am not joking this is not a good product and it cost me almost 30 quid I may as well honestly I may as well have put water on my eyebrows for the amount of impact it had it did not do a single thing so I think this comes in different shades and I was really delighted when I saw the brush the applicator it's really teeny tiny I thought oh that's going to cling on to everything and I definitely prefer more waxy type products on my eyebrows because I don't have any eyebrows I'm not even going to demo this for you while I am in my full face of Dior it does nothing literally nothing it didn't even hold anything in place I had to go over with my Maybelline over the top of this if you don't want any hold in your eyebrows then you'll like this but if like me you wanted brow holding products to have some hold then I would not recommend this so yes I will demo it in my full face of Dior but that was oh my gosh I I love Dior okay they are literally my favorite luxury brand this honestly did less than nothing for me and I paid almost 30 euro for it actually this cost me 35 euro 35 euro this cost me and it did absolutely nothing nothing one brow product that was amazing this month is this one from essence so this is the brow lift and freeze glue which cost me four euros I mean very very waxy light glue holds your eyebrows in place doesn't budge gives an impact does something now there's not a whole lot I can say about a brow holding product that is super exciting but just that no white cast no residue not sticky when it goes on it looks shiny but just wait let it dry down and it dries clear it feels amazing this and the essence brow pen are in my top rotation absolutely adore them couldn't love them anymore oh yeah I wanted to talk about this makeup forever pencil I mentioned this in my buy or buy video where I spoke about this um makeup forever artist color pencil I thought I was purchasing a normal lip liner and I was picking up the shade cosmic wherever walnut and you know I love lip liners so if a new lip liner comes out I'm I'm attracted to lip liners however this turned out to be a glittery lip liner now it's actually I think supposed to be a multifunctional product I didn't know it was glittery until I got it I am disappointed with this not just because it's glittery and I can't use it on my lips because I'm just not fun enough to wear glitter on my lips I tried this even today I put some on my lash line I I don't like it I find it a bit draggy I don't find it to be smooth and I was surprised at that and surprised because it's makeup forever the one place I will use it is underneath my lash line I think it looks kind of nice under there but I am not the biggest fan I'm gonna be real with you I don't notice any great longevity with either I probably paid almost 30 euros for this so just be careful with the new batch of lip liners that they brought out that some are shimmery obviously that's my fault that I didn't read the description properly but just make sure you know what you're purchasing when it comes to these new products from makeup forever because um yeah I just find that this is going to be just a big waste of money for me and yeah just a bit disappointed with it I will take 50% of the but 50% of the blame goes to the formula because I don't really like it it doesn't feel particularly nice or quality to be honest two lip pencils that I did absolutely fall in love with in March is this one from L'Oreal the L'Oreal blur filler I have this on today so this isn't a traditional lip liner this is like the road contour lip liners so this is designed to be a lip liner but you can also fill in your lips with this it's absolutely fantastic my intention was to get more shades but I have a lot of lip liners on the go at the minute so I'm trying trying to be a little bit more sensible with my purchases but this is creamy but not too creamy so it's not going to give you super defined lips but it's going to give you a beautiful soft contour that's the difference between this and a normal lip liner so today I use this to line my lips and then I build in with it and this is the shade nude espresso and it really is absolute perfection I find it really comfortable I really like it it says it's called blur filler and I do find that it is quite blurring on my lips but it's not going to give you like a glossy finish so you are still going to see a few lip lines because it's a matte product but I genuinely adore this and in the same breath I picked up this two of the same shade of the essence pout line soft glide lip pencil so I think this is about a lot of years about 13 euros this is a euro and this is amazing and so this is the shade bear affair so just the perfect nude shade for lining the lips because I don't like my lip liners to be too dark I like them to be deeper than my lip shade but not too dark but I picked up a couple of these because I just love the shade so much a quid Irene essence how are you doing this I don't know but yeah if you're looking for a lip liner either of these are absolutely fantastic oh yeah I want to talk about these the L'Oreal hyaluron tint lip stain serums so the original L'Oreal serum I love them so the glossy lip product so I had really high expectations for these I don't like these at all now this doesn't look too bad the shade what is it worth it yeah worth it and I've got nude espresso I don't think number one that they're long-lasting they don't they don't last at all on me then once I wipe them off they leave me with a little bit of a tint and then they fade away into nothing but also they are pretty patchy on my lips now I do find that with some lip tints okay so I'm not just going to penalize L'Oreal for this I don't particularly like lip tints one of the only ones that I've really liked recently has been from Catrice and that is beautiful but this no no patchy clings to problematic areas on my lips so where I've got a lack of pigmentation it just it just doesn't look really nice and doesn't tint my lips and doesn't last so yeah not not a big fan and these were pretty pricey so I think I paid 16 euros initially for the nude espresso and then thought okay maybe it's the shade I need to try this again paid another 16 quid and just just disappointed yeah I I wouldn't recommend them no they're not very good sorry one lip product that I've been using a lot actually is this one from Essence the Juicy Bomb plumping lip gloss so this isn't a plumping lip gloss as in it's going to tingle your lips and plump them out this is plumping in the sense of it's going to blur your lip lines so it's just it's for me it's not really a gloss it's more of an oil so this is the shade blossom peach and this is my favorite shade and I love wearing it with the Bare Affair lip liner from Essence and this only cost I think it's about four or five quid for this it has a very fruity fragrance it really reminds me of like you know when NYX put lots of fruity fragrance into their products it smells a little bit like that but it's not overpowering and just super comfortable and if you're looking for a really inexpensive lip oil gloss then this is it I've been really really enjoying it and yeah I mean you can't turn down Essence prices can you they have been a highlight for me this month I just couldn't love that brand any more than what I do so do let me know have you tried any of these products or have you got your eye on any or have you tried anything in March that you think we need to check out let us know down in the comments thank you so much for joining me for this video I so appreciate you being here with me I'm really looking forward to seeing you in the next video but until then take care and bye for now