Ooh La La! Lovely Lilacs (pinks) From Make Up Store

Sometimes I jump on the idea of a make-up trend and then quickly scuttle away before I've even tried it. You know, you buy something that you think will be a bit different and then in the cold, hard light of day - bottle it.

Colour me (err) lilac - with a touch of tan

So it has been with the colour lilac. Before Christmas (this is how long it's taken me to muster the courage), I spotted a brand I'd never seen before on Carnaby Street called Make Up Store. Inside, it looked a lot like M.A.C and quite a bit like a professional film and theatre make-up shop; rows upon rows of pigment, shimmer and sheen presided over by extremely helpful, colour-confident and immaculately made-up MUA's. I went in and walked out with a caramel blusher, a lilac blusher and a dinky lilac lip gloss pot. I then proceeded to spend £16 on Christian Lacroix notelets in Liberty. What can I say, it had been a nerve-wracking day. I was trying to shop the edge off of it.

Since then lilac has been popping up everywhere. I especially love the lilac lips, cheeks and tan coloured eye-combos showcased recently in a ton of magazine editorials, so decided to finally embrace this most powdery of purple shades. It has to be said that I appear to have used a TOWIE trowel to load on the blusher but I still like the look; fresh and spring-like.

Shade-shifting: in some lights the blush and gloss appear
 less lilac - more pink

Neither of the shades I used on my cheeks (Matt Glory) and lips (Bay) are actually as lilac as they seem in their pans. Instead, they're a cool pink with slightly violet undertones but very lovely nonetheless. The second blusher (Matt Caramel) is a tan hue with a hint of dusky rose/maroon. I've been using it as a cheek contour  - every 10 years I rediscover my cheekbones - and generally as a means of warming up a genetically wan skin tone. It's a useful, versatile shade. 

Considering that there is a lot of powder fall-out from the blushers (the talc high up in the ingredients list is probably responsible for that), I wasn't expecting the quality to be up to much but these are surprisingly good. I chose the matt variety which are so sheer - but buildable as you can see! - that they actually blend very, very evenly. As an aside, a blusher that doesn't apply patchily can only ever be a positive in my book. Being a perfectionist I HATE it when that happens. 

In terms of negatives, the casing is so butter-fingers light that the blushers have ended up skimming the bathroom floor like hockey pucks on more than one occasion. The lids also have an annoying habit of slipping out of their hinges. At £14 for a Blush Colour and £11 for a Lip Gloss Pot it would obviously be highly preferable for these things not to happen, but neither would put me off of buying more from the range because the effects/performance of the make-up itself are - luckily - so good.

Ultimately, I haven't found my perfect lilac shade but I have found a perfect violet/pink blush and a make-up range I will return to. Have you tried Make Up Store? x