Budget Beauty Series - MUA Make Up Academy Professional - Face

When I first started drafting this post the MUA Make Up Academy Professional range only had a few face products - the range was very much all about the eyes but since then they've added new products to the range on a pretty regular basis. The pro face range now includes new bronzing products, a face primer, BB creams and several concealers. Way back in the the day though when the range first came out and when I could still buy make up I bought a couple of the original MUA Pro face products to try out - the matte foundation and a mosaic blush

MUA Make Up Academy Professional Matte Foundation 

To date this is the only true foundation in the entire MUA range. It comes packaged in a simple yet effective matte black squeezy tube, it's not the most exciting of packaging but it does the job, it does get a little bit dirty though so I do make sure I give it a wipe down every so often ;)

The Matte Foundation comes in 3 shades and the one I went for was the lightest shade - Shade 1 Soft Sand., which is actually a pretty good much to my skin for most of the year.

It has no identifiable smell, and it has quite a thick creamy texture

Because of the texture I found it best to apply this foundation with my fingers, and then to smooth it over with a foundation sponge. Based on the texture you would expect this to be quite a full coverage foundation, but I would probably say that it's actually more of a medium coverage. It is pretty buildable but the key thing not to use to much at once as it makes it harder to blend - how about some scary befores and afters

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

As you can probably see the coverage is pretty decent without being too heavy or cakey. I personally needed to use a concealer alongside this product on stubborn blemishes but on good skin days it really didn't need it. If you look for a completely matte foundation this isn't it - the finish it left on my skin wasn't flat matte by any means, MUA describe it as a "velvet matte" finish  and my skin was left with more of a natural finish and glow, so I still needed to use a bit of face powder on my t-zone which can get pretty shiny.

I have to say I actually really liked this foundation - it's a tiny bit light for me at the moment because I've been fake tanning (more on that to come later this week ;) but this is a pretty decent colour match for my skin. This texture was good, creamy but not heavy, and the finish was nice without being cakey or too flat. Better still this foundation retails at just £2.00 for 30ml! It's definitely something I would consider purchasing again in the future, it just shows that you needn't spend a fortune to find something you like :) 

MUA Make Up Academy Professional Mosaic Blush

There are a lot of products like this on the market if I'm being honest, I know NYC do something similar and blushers and bronzers with multiple shades are nothing new, but I have to say that this one is pretty special. The MUA range currently comprises of 2 bronzers - Sunkissed Glow and Natural Glow and 1 blusher in the mosaic design - the blusher - Shade 3 English Rose has rapidly became one of my most reached for products when I'm in a rush and can't be bothered with the full blush, contour, highlight routine.

Mosaic Blush in English Rose comprises of 5 different shades of pressed powder in one compact, ranging from a lilac, to a peach, to nude, to a dark rose pink, all in a shimmery finish

I guess you could pick out the shades with a smaller brush, to use on your eyes and maybe even you cheeks but to be honest I just swirl a brush over the whole palette, which produces a lovely rose pink shade. Apologies that the swatch pictures were taken in slightly different lighting but I hope you can get the idea.

and you for good measure here it is on my cheeks :)

I really, really love this product - it gives a lovely hint of blusher and highlight in one swoop, it's really easy to use and it's not so pigmented that you can over do it. My one issue is the compact, it is so hard to open, I've broke more than one nail whilst trying to get into it, so what I do now is stick a coin or the end of a pair of tweezers into the gap and twist it. I can live with that though, this is super pretty and retails at an amazing £2.50 for 8.9g of product - bargain!

I hope you guys have found that useful, I'd love to know what MUA Professional Face products you've tried, so please let me know in the comments, and as per usual if you have any questions please leave me a comment too I love reading what you have to say xx The next post in my Budget Beauty Series will be another post on the fabulous MUA range and in particular the Pretty Pastels eye palette, so please keep  checking back and don't forget to follow x Thanks for reading and I'll see you soon x