Illamasqua Summer 2014 Collection

If you follow me on Instagram, then you may have seen my excitement when Illamasquas 2014 Summer Collection made its way into my collection. 

Made up of three Matte Lip Liquids in the shades Exotic*, Forbidden* and Surrender* as well as two Velvet Blushes, one of which I have swatched above in the shade Flirtatious*, the collection is extremely pleasing to the eye and in my opinion, is what a Summer collection should look like.

I had extremely high expectations of this collection from the offset, even from only seeing the press images beforehand and so could not wait to get stuck in with trying each and every product.

Flirtatious, the Velvet Blush, speaks for itself in my opinion. A perfectly toned Coral Cream to Powder blush, this was never going to go down anything other than positively for me. Applied with my fingers and dabbed out, it gives the most gorgeous pigmentation in a matte finish, and it's made its way into my top blush stack already- impressive huh?

Liquid lipsticks are my current products of the moment and I can't quite get enough of them. With this in mind, I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled I was with the look of these three intensely pigmented shades. The shades, the brush applicator and the initial application are to me what liquid lipsticks should be, however, I must admit I'm not the biggest fan once they've been on the lips for more than say, half an hour, which for a lipstick, sadly just doesn't make it worth the application. 

With the matte finish that these provide, I personally find them far too drying on me. They dry to what I can only describe as paint on the lips and look ever so slightly too cakey, turning into a bit of a messy situation that cracks horribly and is pretty hard to remove.

Not one to give up on products that I'm desperate to make work, I've been trying these a few different ways, and I must admit, applied over a heavy lip balm, with a gloss on top (kind of defeats the matte finish) or dabbed into the lips lightly, they do work a lot better and look a lot less dry paint and a lot more of a wearable bright.

Surrender is by far my favourite of the three shades, which is probably no surprise, but in all honesty, in terms of shades they're all equally stunning.

Worth a go if you don't find drying lipsticks a struggle they are, but I personally can't see myself wearing these for occasions when I won't be able to touch up constantly, which is hugely disappointing.

Available to buy now, Illamasquas Velvet Blushers cost £21.50 whilst their Matte Liquid Lips cost £18.50 online and at Illamasqua stores and Selfridges.