Makeup Academy MUA review

MUA. You don't hear about it a lot on YouTube beauty vlogs and when you do they are all based in the UK. Love my UK babes but they have different products that I haven't seen in the US and I'm not positive if the formulas are the same. So I'm excited to do this blog post and talk to you about my experience with the MUA brand.
So MUA (Make up academy) is sold at CVS. In the ad I got yesterday I saw that the products were BOGO free. I instantly hit YouTube trying to find more info but struck out. Tati did one video about the palette, which I did end up buying. I figured that other people might be curious about this brand if they ever go to CVS. They are priced around $10-$15 an item so I really hoped for something a little better quality than the typical drugstore products.
Here is what I ended up purchasing:

(Not shown because I totally missed it in the bag is a navy blue eyeliner)

Before the sale it rang up to around $60 so I only paid $30 for 6 products. Not bad!

Let's start with lips. I purchased anti-feathering lip liner in Berry. Also a cream lipstick in Mulberry and a high shine like gloss in nude. Here are the swatches:

The first thing I noticed was how creamy everything was. There was no grit it was just smooth and light on the skin. I ended up putting the gloss on while doing swatches and I will talk about that now since I didn't use it in my complete look. So the lip gloss has very minimal stickiness which I really like. It is so smooth. However, the taste is so gross. It tastes like burning tires. No joke, it's really bad. After a minute or so the taste disappears and it gives a slight cooling sensation which I thought was kind of nice. While washing these swatches off I did notice that the lipstick coloring actually stained my skin a little. I actually don't mind that because I've noticed with my lips, especially with dark colors, that when they start wearing off the contrast between my lip color and the lipstick color is so stark it just looks ridiculous so I am hoping that the stain will help with that.
Here are the swatches of the palette in Smoky

There are only 3 matte shades in this palette and they aren't even true mattes. They still have a tiny bit of shimmer in them. The "matte" shades are the white, light purple and a taupe. The rest are pretty pigmented shimmers. I do love shimmers, so that was a plus for me.

I didn't do a makeup look yesterday because my sensitive skin broke out in hives two days ago and I was giving it a bit of a makeup break. So today at my son's Naptime I broke out the products and tried them out! Here is the finished look:

So from the videos I watched the foundation and concealer were very light coverage and sometimes super oily which is why I used my usual stuff which I will cover at the end. So I primed my eyes and started in with a light matte shade under my brow and into my crease. I got it from a different palette because this smoky palette didn't have a light matte. Then I went in with the purple matte color from the MUA Palette in my crease with a more dense blending brush to really get it in the crease. I blended it slightly up into that light color. Then I went in with a suuuper small and dense all-over lid brush. The fallout with this product is insane which sucks for a smoky palette. Definitely do your eyes before foundation. I was able to build up the smoky blue/purple pretty well but blending it was such a pain if not impossible. Once you started blending you lost all the pigment. After I got it as blended as it was going to get, I sprayed that same all over lid brush with some makeup setting spray dipped it in that same color and tapped it on my lids for a bit more pigment.

I went in with some Perfectly Posh micellar tonic to clean up the edge and all the fallout under my eyes, then concealed and contoured. 

So I actually tried out the lipstick last night just for funsies and I wasn't very impressed. After only a few minutes I looked like I had been drinking red wine for hours. The feathering was awful and since it stains the skin it's nigh impossible to get really clean. So today I primed my lips ( I remember seeing they had their own lip primer which now makes a lot of sense) and used the lip liner in Berry. This liner is so creamy and smooth which makes it really easy to use and fill in the lip. Then I applied the lipstick in Mulberry over the top. The pictures were taken right after I applied the lipstick so I will have to update later on how well it stays with the priming and liner.

I used the cat eye side of the black eyeliner. It is a felt tip liner on one side and a pencil on the other. I like it! It's pretty black and creamy. Easy to use but the only thing that makes it really special is that it is dual ended.

And that's my total look! I don't usually do a dark lip, especially with a smoky eye but I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and get a dark Berry color and I actually really love the color on me.

So final thoughts: I am going to keep trying with the palette. I may just use it for the outer corners of my eyes instead of the whole lid. It just doesn't play nice.

I like the lipstick but TBD on how well it stays on. The liners are great though. I would recommend picking some up for sure.

Foundation: Loreal Infallable Promatte

Concealer: Nyx HD and nyx finishing pressed powder in banana

Brows: ELF brow duo and Ulta brow stain

Contour: Nyx matte Bronzer in dark tan

Highlight: Ulta Beauty illuminator in brilliant diamond

Mascara: Loreal voluminous in carbon black

Wet n Wild setting spray

Inspire

I have been absolutely obsessed with YouTube beauty vloggers lately. I cannot get enough. I get this little thrill from finding another vloggers that I trust and am inspired by. A few of my favorites are Mariah Leonard. Girl tells it like it is and is super goofy, in that I've never been made fun of in my life kind of way, which I love.
Another girl that I've totally been binge-watching is Eimear McElheron. She is this totally adorable Irish chick who does some incredible color mixes on the eyes that are like an explosion. She also has an amazing winged eyeliner tutorial that really breaks it down and makes sense. Plus I could listen to her talk all day. Her accent is amazing.
So tonight I wanted to watch something really out there and avant garde. I started with this Video
And I got a little makeup boner. The colors and the chaos of it all is so inspiring to me. I would absolutely love to try this kind of look.
Another video that drew my attention was this one by Linda Hallberg. She has the coolest tattoos. I especially love the circles on her finger. Anyways, I think this video really opened my eyes to expanding my thoughts on what makeup in this era is. It can be more than contouring and strobing and caterpillar eyebrows. Not that those things aren't great, but makeup is an expression of self and I have always broken the mold. I really want to get the basic technical skills down and then explore different mediums and create art.

Ulta Beauty gift with purchase review

The hubbs watched our boys so I could go to Ulta and use my Valentine's day present--a sizeable Ulta gift card. Stay back ladies, he's taken. 😂😉
So as I walked in I noticed a gift with purchase for Ulta cosmetics. If you bought $21.50 worth of Ulta brand cosmetics you got a full makeup bag of makeup. As I was spending a gift card and not cash, I went for it. I absolutely love some of it, the rest is just meh. So here we go!
First off here is what came in the bag and the look I put together with it.

 I used the eye shadow palette, brow tint, lip stick, eyeliner and mascara for this look.

Let's start with the bad.

The eyeliner was disappointing. It is dual ended with a gray and a purple. It was very dry even after I warmed it in my decolletage. OK. Boobs. I used the gray because I wanted a softer look, but I may go over it with my regular black because it's just not great.

The mascara wasn't my favorite either. I'm not a fan of the hard plastic spoolie in a mascara. It didn't pull out a lot of product and I didn't love the formula.

The matte colors in the eyeshadow palette are just OK. Nothing great but not terrible.

The lipstick wasn't very pigmented and very creamy. If I eat or even talk while wearing it it slides all around my mouth and when you have tiny lips it's just a terrible look. Although the color was nice so I may just use it on the inside of my lips for a gradient look.

Now for the good!

I was very pleasantly surprised by the shimmer colors in the eyeshadow palette. They are creamy and blendable and look like molten metal. So gorgeous.

I also like the brow tint in medium. It has an itty bitty spoolie brush applicator so it's very precise.

The powder brush is sturdy and very soft. I haven't seen any bristles fall out yet, so I'm happy with it.

Products I haven't used yet:

Eye shadow primer

Lip tint (although it does smell like cupcakes!)

Bronzer/highlighter (my 1 year old can now apparently reach my counter and he pulled it down when I wasn't looking and dug his little fingers into the high lighter. 😔)

This is what I bought to get the gift with purchase:

Matte setting powder on the left and a white shimmer on the right.

I love love love the shimmer. You only need the lightest touch for tons of highlight and it's just a gorgeous dewy finish.

The matte pressed powder is only so so. You have to really dig to get the powder out. I need to find a good loose matte powder I think.

(Index finger: matte

Middle finger: highlighter)

This matte lip cream is incredible. I love the color. (Called proper) It is a very orangey coral. I love an orange lip so much. The formula is great too. It is so so creamy and dries down after about half an hour to a smei matte finish. It isn't drying at all!

I definitely feel like this was a great purchase, even with the negatives in there.

Muah! 💋

Other products used:

Foundation: Loreal Pro Matte infallable in shade 101 

Mary Kay timewise matte-wear in beige 4

Concealer: nyx HD studio photogenic in fair cw02 set with Nyx HD finishing powder in banana

Brows: elf brow duo in dark

Blush: Naked n808

Lips: nyx lip liner in alluring

Nyx pin-up pout in corset