Department Store Cosmetics

Admittedly, I don't have much experience with "in house" brands, besides a few items from Sephora.  But there has been a lot of buzz lately about Marks & Spencer's cosmetics line.  It is a store that has clothing, accessories, and some grocery items, but they do not have any branded makeup like other department stores. 

I decided to try out three items- lipstick, mascara, and eyeliner. 

First up is the mascara.  It is called "AM/PM" and has a double ended brush. 

The a.m. side says "defining" and its a rubber brush.  The p.m. side says "volumising" and it's the fiber one.  

Here are the results I got:

Obviously any mascara is an improvement over my bare lashes!  The formula was really thin, and I did not care for it at all.  I want to really "feel" the mascara on my lashes, and I didn't.  The dual brush wasn't really a selling point for me either.  I didn't feel like it did enough to warrant buying again, and it was a pretty high price for a non-brand- it was around $17. 

Next up, the eyeliner: 

The swatch: 

It is a really pretty ocean type blue.  I liked the colour, and I liked that the product lasted nearly 8 hours completely intact.  It did have a little dry time after I applied it initially, so I had to leave my eye closed.  I've worn it with just a tan eyeshadow and I thought it came out fine- it's not neon but vibrant enough.  

It was a pretty ok eyeliner, but not like "Wow, I love it!", I mean eyeliner isn't hard to find.  

Next up is a lipstick, I got the shade "Geranium".  

The swatch: 

It is a pretty colour, but such a shame because it totally sucks.  I mean do not buy their lipstick, period.  It is so slimey it basically came off before I could even photo it.  It is just a horrible product, I threw it away.  

So in short, I would not buy their cosmetics again.  Personally I wasn't impressed with the store itself so it's definitely not worth me making a special trip and the one I went to was even in another country.  I honestly have no clue why their stuff is getting talked about besides affordability, and cheap in this case definitely doesn't mean good.  Just my opinion.