High end vs High street beauty debate, my September savings

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of communication, if you follow me on twitter @emshelx you will know that I moved into my University accomodation this weekend, and it's all been sooo hectic. So I will try and do as much posting as I can this week, amongst my nights out and introduction lectures! I've realised that I never really write about low end products, okay, I do, but what I mean is that I usually tend to buy more high end products, which is stupid of me because everyone loves a bargain right? okay, so I will admit that I can be a bit of a 'make up snob' when it comes to essentials like foundations, I do always fall for expensive is best - But recently i've realised, that is completely wrong. Maybe I'm just paying for the name, eg. Chanel isn't a make up brand really, it's a fashion brand, so why do they charge £40+ for foundation when other places can charge £3.00, do they put crystals inside it to make it that expensive? What actually is it that makes these high end brands so expensive because it's usually the high end make up, especially foundations which contain more damaging/artificial ingredients than cheaper brands, which usually use more natural products which benefit the skin. Aah, it's a difficult debate but I personally believe that with most high end cosmetics brands (can't believe i'm saying this), that you are paying for the brand name over the efficiency of the item. I think I can safely say that after my recent purchases.  Recently, whilst in a local supermarket, Tesco, I wanted to have a look at the make up that they do. All i've heard is good stuff about lower end brands such as MUA,ELF AND VIVO brands which actually, if it wasn't for blogs I would have never even looked at, or never even bought.  In Tesco, they stock a lot of VIVO, a brand that I'd never personally heard of until I saw it on the Tesco shelves. I instantly picked it up because for the price that it is, it's worth a try. Even the packaging is high end, it's proffessional and modern. Just what you expect from the likes of Estee Lauder and other expensive make up brands. If someone was to see the brand in my make up bag, I don't think they'd think, wow that's really cheap tacky make up, I actually think they'd assume it was expensive, because the packaging suggests that it is high end.

The first product that I bought from VIVO's range is the eye brow pallette. This palette is extremely nifty as it doubles up as eye shadow and eye brow colours, you also get a double ended brush which is okay to do your eye brows with, and a mascara type brush to gel your eye brows down and keep them neat. This was £5.00 which for me is quite expensive for a brand in Tesco, but I love how compact it is, there is even a mirror inside and it's all packaged together nicely, instead of you having to carry round 5 different eye brow items. When you compare that £5.00 to the prices that high end brow palettes are I think it becomes obvious that actually, £5.00 isn't that bad. Especially for something so compact and good. The colours are really good as well as they are neural, but still come in a range of shades, these shades can of course be blended, to create the perfect brow or eye shadow colours. I was really happy when I found this because Benefit do similar palettes which I was hoping to buy, but they're at least £20, which is shocking when really, eyebrow palettes are just the same as eye shadow compacts. So when you compare that you could buy 4 of the VIVO palette for the same price as one from Benefit? And I reckon they're exactly the same... it makes me want to buy everything from brands such as VIVO.

The next item really is a basic item, because it's so basic and because I ALWAYS manage to lose tiny things like eye liner pencils, why do I insist on buying them from places like MAC, where they cost about £15.00... all it is is a pencil? So I decided to buy myself one from VIVO when I was in Tesco, I think it was around £1.50 AND it includes a smudging brush on one end, what a bargain. I decided to get it in brown because I'd rather wear brown on my eyes nowdays as I feel black is too harsh for my skin tone.  However, at this price I could buy every colour. The blending brush works really well surprisingly, it smudges the line really effectively to say how cheap the product was. Imagine how expensive it would be for a 2 in 1 product like this from any high end cosmetics brand? I have seen similar pencils like this by MUA, although they are only £1.00 and they include a sharpener on one end, which is perfect because I always lose my pencil sharpeners.

Last but certainly not least, the VIVO colour block, amazingly it was only £3.00, a special introductory offer.  Although, it will only be £5.00 at full price. That's cheaper than a Starbucks. For even one of these colours from any other cosmetic brand it would be at least £5, yet this whole block cost me a mere £3.00. I really wanted to buy a new eye palette from Clarins, the one I wanted was around £40.00 and included around 3 colours. This is really good, okay the brush isn't that great but who cares, getting a brush with it really is just a bonus. These are definitely the colours that I was looking for as I wanted to recreate the autumn shaded sultry eye that a make up artist did for me at Shu Uemera, but without the price tag. Many people who I have shown this beautiful palette to have compared it to Urban Decay's Naked Palette, of course, that is a favourite with bloggers - minus the horrible price tag. Maybe this is the new naked palette? You do get dark colours as well which I like as it makes the perfect kit for a sultry eye look. They did do other colours as well, I just chose to buy this one. Maybe i'm gonna have to go grab the other colours?

How do you feel about low end/high end products? What is your high end must have and what's the best bargain item that you've found? What do you want to try?

I may set myself a task, to only use 'cheap' make up for a month. Let's see how I get on..

Em x x x

Remember you can speak to me on twitter too!

@emshelx

Mwah 

xxxx