We Will Glow

I've never actually tried any of the Topshop beauty stuff before, being completely honest. I think too many bad experiences lead me to believe any company that didn't have cosmetics as their main priority sucked at creating make-up lines (such as New Look, and Primark). Fortunately, it was only a few weeks ago that little bird told me that Topshop's cosmetics were made by the same suppliers as MAC cosmetics.

This information is sort of wasted on me in terms of being some kind of cosmetics investigator, other than maybe if the lipsticks smell like birthday cake. However, it did persuade me to give their stuff a chance.

The first item up for inspection is their nail polish, kindly purchased for my birthday by my friend, describing the shade as "Lydia in a bottle". I couldn't agree more, 'Sweetie' Belle' is a gorgeous shimmering lilac and gold shade. I quite like the packaging, it's very modern, cute and understated and the shade is unique to the rest of my collection (shockingly).

I applied two coats to each nail, and to be honest it looked pretty awesome even with just one coat. The formula was fair watery and easy to work with without being uneven, therefore dried pretty fast too, so no smudges! As an added bonus, it lasted for around 5 days without a single chip. I'm not sure what's in the formula, but it's pretty damn good.

As for the pricing, compared to my usual favourite Barry M averaging around the £3 mark, at £6 these polishes are a little more pricey, so would be more of a special one off treat rather than a regular purchase. They do have a lovely range in store, so to avoid temptation I'm probably going to have to avoid the store until next payday.

Next up, we have the liquid Glow Highlighter in 'Polish'. My friend and I were browsing in Topshop on our day off, having a swatch of different bits and bobs when we came across this little gem.

Another product in similarly simple yet adorable packaging that does what it says on the tin. What more could you possibly want?

Unfortunately because of a combination of my face kicking off and being unable to find time to have my brows threaded, we won't be seeing this one in action of my face, so for now I'm just going to leave you with an arm swatch.

It's a lovely, lightly whipped creamy formula that reminds me a little bit of the Dior Glow Maximizer in terms of the effect. It has a sort of pale golden/pinkish hue, a wonderful shade for the paler among us, ideal for highlighting cheekbones, brow bones, or even mixing a smidge into your foundation for an all over radiant effect.

I would advise using a small brush to extract the product from the container, because if you're a little heavy handed like myself then you can expect to blob on a little bit too much and go from a simple bit of highlighting to instantly blinding everyone within a mile radius with your glamorous glimmer.

This highlighter set me back around £9, which I don't consider to be that bad compared to similar products. I just wish that it had a little box or some way to prevent people from molesting it in store when they can't find the appropriate tester.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with what I've tried so far and can't wait to try more!

Have you tried the Topshop beauty range? What do you think of the quality? Can they hold a candle to MAC?