Zoella

I was introduced to this collection at the Illamasqua event a few weeks ago.
In all honesty, there were only a few things i really felt i would wear.
The collection is very different from the previous Sirens collection, which i would describe as “safe”, something you could wear everyday for a summery, bronzed look.
This collection I would say is more vampy & smokey. Something i would probabaly be more likely to wear at night.

At the event itself, we were given 2 items to try out.
I was given the 2 lipglosses. One being a gorgeous milky pearlescent shade & the other a very scary metallic silver, which, i don’t really think i will wear. Its a fab idea, but personally i think the only time i would ever rock a silver metallic lip is for a photo sesh. I’ve seen people dabbing it in the center of the bottom lip, and i agree that looks fab, but i think thats as far as i’d go.
The MA at Illamasqua suggested to use it on your eyes, i tried this & i hated it. I find it FAR too sticky to put anywhere near my eyes. Think of honey on your eyelids haha.
I immediately had to wash it off (and that took ages) I think if you want to achieve the mega metallic look on the eyes, stick to the liquid metals.

2 things i really did love from the Dystopia collection, were the pigments. I love that you can use these anywhere. Lips, Eyes, Cheekbones, Cupids bow, Collar bones, Clear Polish…etc etc.
And I highly rate the packaging idea, it has proved to be very tidy…pigments..as a rule…are not tidy..
The two pigments are “Static” & “Android”.
Static being a gorgeous pearlescent shade. It pictures awfully but looks amazing.
Android is a dark grey with fine particles of silver glitter…again, very pretty.
With all pigments though..there is fall out…annoying but it’s hard to prevent this.

I didn’t have anything like this in my makeup collection. I have heard fellow bloggers compare Static to a Mac Pigment (which i can’t remember what it’s called – so that was a whole lot of good..)
The Illamasua MUA (who by the way, was one of the nicest most helpful people ever, which i hadn’t experienced at an illamasqua counter before…) demonstrated the foiling effect of the pigments using sealing gel. It looks amazing, and since i didn’t own Mac’s version, i decided to buy it with the pigments so i could use it for liner and minimising fall out.

Above are swatches of the pigments. On the left side of my hand are the pigments without the sealing gel & on the right is with. It makes such a difference.

The lipglosses i find to be quite sticky, and i do not like the applicators. I find i have to stare at it, make sure some comes out, i go to put it on my lips and its sucked back down…mine also got messy very quickly. However, one plus point of the application is that you can layer it on top of a coloured lipstick and not have the colour rub off onto the applicator. I also think these last a reasonably long time!

Left: Explode sheer gloss, Right: Galactic intense gloss

Besides the fact i think they’re quite sticky and a little messy, i really do love Explode gloss. Its one of those shades that will tone down a bright lipstick and give it a gorgeous pearlescent glaze on top. I have been teaming this with a lot of different bright colours and i have become a little bit addicted to it. Would reccommend this one highly :)

Overall, i wasn’t blown away by the collection, but there are some gems in there that if you dont already own something similar, you should definitely check out.
Hope this has helped some of you!

♥