For me 2013 is going to be a year of being frugal and saving money. So, what better way to start I thought than by looking for cheaper versions of everything I need to buy. I normally pay around £5-6 for a concealer so, this Collection 2000 concealer for £1.99 seemed like a good buy.

I saw this in Superdrug on the Collection 2000 display and noticed that they had a small range of only 4-5 skin tones to choose from. As I have really really pale skin, I opted for the '01' shade that is labelled as '01 Translucent'. I tested the tester on the back of my hand and I know my hands do catch the sun so are a little darker than the skin on my face, but this seemed like a close enough match- for the potential saving over the year, I was prepared to try this product.

*The Product*
You get a twist ended stick concealer- it comes in the same tube as lipsticks used to come in, where you remove the outer part and twist up the product. If you did not know this was a concealer, you could mistake it for a lipstick as the concealer is even shaped like a lipstick (it is just not a lipstick colour!).

The product is tapered at the end (like a lipstick) so you can apply this in the same way you would hold and apply a lipstick- to essentially draw it on the areas of your face you feel would like or need some covering up.

The pack states that this 'Conceals Blemishes' and is 'Developed in the UK; Made in China'. The product has a 12 month shelf life. There is also a little peel off sticker that has teeny tiny writing on it to go through the main ingredients etc if you have any allergies or have to check the ingredients before you buy any cosmetics.

*Effectiveness*
The product is like a wax crayon to apply- it smells and feels waxy and I had to go over the blemish/ area I wanted to conceal a few times with the stick and then put the cover stick down and try to blend the product with my fingers.

The coverage is not very good- I found it did not do a good job in actually covering my blemishes- even on the under-eye bags I was trying to cover up- the product seemed to not actually do anything. The waxy texture made me a little dubious that once I applied my powder foundation on top the areas I had tried to conceal would end up with a caked texture (I was ok as I blended it well, to the point I think I just rubbed the concealer off!).

As this felt waxy on my skin I can imagine if you use this on any quite large areas of your face that are oily or prone to break outs that the skin would feel quite bogged down and I don't think you would feel very good. I only attempted to use this to highlight the dark areas under my eyes and on my nose (that likes to go red at the end when it is cold a bit like Rudolph) - but the coverage was none existent for areas of actual redness.

**Overall**
I would not recommend this product if you actually have any spots or areas of redness to cover as I did not find that it covered anything. I know the shade I bought said 'translucent' that means see through but there was not an 'opaque' choice- so 01 'translucent' was all there was for pale skin. I doubt they would intend for a concealer to be see through anyway, as that goes against the whole point of a cover stick.

Although the price is low, the performance is low so I will not be buying this product again.