APRIL Favourites!

I hate how fast time flies when you are older!  I remember being fifteen and sitting in my room watching the clock, and five minutes seriously lasted forever!  I guess its good at the moment as it means that summer is approaching, but it makes me want to really enjoy every minute of my life as it happens, you know, cause it all goes so fast?

Anyway!  Here are my favourite make-up and beauty products that I’ve used the most this month!

MAC Ever Hip Lipstick – J’adore this lipstick!  I hated it when I tried it on in store, as the lighting in there is awful and always makes everything look so unflattering on me, but I bought it anyway and I’m glad I did.  Its the perfect coral/pink shade which suits me no matter how I do my eye m-u.  You can see me wearing it with a smokey brown eye – HERE!  The consistency is beautiful – really moisturizing and it smells great.  Not sure it lasts all that long on my lips, but I love it anyway.

The Body Shop Lipstick #42 – I’ve had this for a long time but I’ve only just started wearing it again.  It is the perfect natural brown/pink for my lips.  You know those days when you want to wear a lipstick, but not anything too bright or colourful? Well on those days I reach for this.  I can wear it without looking like I’m wearing any lip product which I like.  Its moisturizing once on, but you have to apply a few strokes to get a nice pigmentation.  The silver bullet case is stylish and it smells good!

The Body Shop Peppermint essential oil – This essential oil was discontinued from TBS a while ago and I’m so upset that it was, as its probably my favourite essential oil and the one I use most often.  I get very bad back-ache, especially at work (I have scoliosis – curvature of the spine, which is most probably the cause of the back ache, and the reason I’m only 4’11’’).  This week I had a photoshoot with a make-up artist, stylist, model and I was the photographer, so I hired out expensive flash kits to use which were SO heavy and really did my back and neck in.  I am still in SO much pain from carrying it all and to even move my neck kills.  So I’ve been using the peppermint oil with the monoi oil (below) to massage into my back and neck and it feels really really good.  Its feels really minty, fresh and reviving when rubbed into the skin.  It also feels really cooling and tingly which relieves my neck pain for a while after I apply it.  I highly recommend peppermint oil to everyone who gets achy!  The smell wakes you up as well!

The Body Shop Spa Wisdom Monoi Miracle Oil – I started using this product at the beginning of this year, and I really love it.  (The packaging has recently been changed and looks a lot prettier in the stores, I have the old packaging).  This is the perfect body oil in my opinion and I have no reason to ever use another.  It leaves the skin moisturized and smelling beautiful – but what I love most is that it really sinks into the skin, and doesn’t leave any greasy residue at all if you moisturize it in properly.  It smells sooo good, but I can’t describe it so you’ll have to check a tester out in store.  This has really improved my eczema dry patches and it feels like a total luxury.  I’ve also used this in the bath AND in my hair.  I add a few drops into my bath when its running and I feel so soft after.  For my hair, I dampen it, apply the oil all over and leave it in for 15mins and then just wash it out and continue as normal.  I love products that are good for multi-tasking, and this proves useful for everything.

Boots Original beauty Formula Cleansing Milk – You can read my post about what I think of this – HERE!  It looks gorgeous on my vanity table, I adore the rose scent and I love how soft it leaves my skin feeling, although I think it needs a pump to stop me getting the product everywhere!

L'Oreal Voluminous 4x Black mascara – I’ve only just started using this mascara, but so far I really like it.  The big fat brush allows me to reach all my lashes in one sweep and lets me build up layers to get the coverage I want!  I will do a review of this properly with pictures next week!

GOSH foundation brush – I’ve had this for a few years but hardly used it, as I used to be really spotty and I felt I was just spreading spots around my face by using a foundation brush (this probably isn’t true – but it’s how I felt!).  Now that my skin is good, I’ve started using it again and it allows me to apply the foundation evenly around my face and I generally enjoy using a brush instead of my fingers.  It has a nice long handle and looks very professional, and I think the quality of the brush hairs are really good.  I have another GOSH brush (the one that looks like the MAC 187) which leaves massive long black hairs on my face which I hate, but the hairs in this one do not fall out.  The hairs are soft and man made (I think?!)!

OH! And I got a BlackBerry last weekend and I LOVE it!  Its so pretty and I love all the applications and the fact that I can go on the net whilst I’m on the move!

That’s it guys!! What do you think? Are any of these products your favourites too?  XX

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The Body Shop Shimmer Cubes 07

Here are more Shimmer cubes, this time palette 07.  This was the first shimmer cubes I bought at TBS and I think the colours are quite unique together.

07

Again, the colours are obviously shimmery-cubes of shadow. 

(without primer, dry)

The silver in my opinion is the base colour and suits the three other shades well.  Its great for highlighting and adding to the corner of your eyes.  The brown and pink are beautiful shimmers which add a flush of colour over the lids.  The purple is quite hard to get a good true colour swatch when used dry, I think this shade is quite hard to blend as well.

Used wet -

  (used wet, without primer)

The colours show their full potential when used wet.  You can see my previous post on the shimmer cubes – HERE.  So you just wet your brush, create a paste with the cube and then apply to skin! Easyyy peasy! They really do look beautiful when used as a paste. 

What do you think of these shades guys?  I am always a bit confused with this palette as I don’t see how to use the brown and purple together, but I guess its just a selection of different colours in one set that you can use separately.  And again, if you have a few of the palettes you can swap the cubes around to create your own.  The shadows last well, they dry easily without creasing when used wet and with a primer.  Each cube will last you a lifetime, which is good for the £16 price tag.

I hope everyone is having a good week so far.  My first prize winner on my giveaway received her prize package earlier this week and you can see her post about it HERE! Go check out her blog, I love it!

XXX

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The Body Shop Shimmer Cubes 06

Hey sweetpea’s! How is everyone doing?

A few people have asked to see swatches of TBS’s shimmer cubes and of course I was happy to show them off. 

06

06 is probably my favourite and most used shimmer cubes.  The selection of browns and neutrals are very wearable and I adore shimmers, so these are perfect!  All four colours can be used to create the perfect brown smoky eye which I do regularly!

(used dry, without primer)

Above is the shadows swatched directly onto my hand without any primer.  The colours are nice and pigmented, especially the two on the left side.  The other two are nice, buildable highlighting shadows which look lovely in the corner of the eye and as a base. 

However – These colours are especially outstanding when used with a wet brush.  It creates an intense look, which is still blend-able, but more striking.

You can see the comparison above.  This was literally just using a wet eye shadow brush and creating a paste with the eye shadow.  The shimmer cubes are all intended to be used dry and wet, and the cubes dry as normal, so they can be used again dry the following day.  This is also perfect if you want to create your own coloured liners – just use a liner brush! 

(used wet, without primer)

I thoroughly recommend these cubes.  The packaging is perfect – each cube has its own little lid and they can be removed from the plastic box, which means if you have a few of the palettes, you can place different cubes into each box to create your own palette, or if your only using one you can just pop that into your m-u bag instead of carrying around all of them.  The lids also prevent the colours merging and making a mess.

The shadows have amazing lasting power when used with any old primer and the cubes are really deep.  I have had these for almost a year and have only just made a dent in them – they will last forever, which is perfect for the price aswell, which I think retails at £16.

Does any one else have the cubes? What do you think, pretty amazing huh!  If you have anymore questions about using the palette wet, then do ask in a comment below.

NEXT UP – Shimmer cube Palette 07!

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Boots Original Beauty Formula Cleanser!

Evening all!! I’ve seen lately that the Boots Original Beauty Formula range is doing the rounds on the beauty blogs, so I thought I’d review a few of the bits I have.  I have practically everything in the range, the cleanser, rose toner, cold cream cleanser and the vanishing day cream.  I have only yet tried the cleanser and toner however, so I’ll review the cleanser today!

I first saw this range on one of my favourite beauty blogs – The Gloss Goss, and fell for the lovely natural ingredients and cute vintage packaging.  So I picked some up when Boots had the 3 for 2 skincare offer.  I have been using this for a few weeks to take my eye make-up off and it does a lovely job.  It has a milky creamy consistency, which, when applied to a cotton pad and placed on the eye, removes a lot of my everyday eye make-up.  I do wear a lot of eye make-up daily, and I normally need to use up a few cotton pads for each eye to remove every trace of make-up. 

The smell is gorgeous, a sweet rose smell which I adore.  It has 19 ingredients, mostly preservatives and natural ingredients such as Olive fruit oil, Cocoa seed butter, and a few flower oils.  Saying this, it doesn’t leave my skin oily or tacky at all, instead my skin feels rather fresh and moisturized.

One thing I really dislike about this, is the fact that I can never get any product out of the bottle, so I have to shake it and then loaddsssss of it comes out on to my cotton pad!  It is seriously messy (or I’m just extremely clumsy!), and I end up with it everywhere.  It would be so much easier if it had a pump, or if the bottle was able to be squeezed, although I know this would affect the aesthetic-ness of the vintage bottle.  Because of this, I do get some product in my eye, it doesn’t sting but it goes cloudy, obviously, which disappears once you rinse it off.

Would I buy this again – Probably, yes!  I can’t help but feel like an elegant Victorian lady in her boudoir when I use this, or see it on my dresser.  It does a good job of removing make-up and it smells really nice.

The whole Boots Original range is very affordable, this was about £3.99!  I will update soon with what I think of the other products in the range!

Has any one used this before? What did you think? Do you like the vintage packaging?

XXX

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My Make-up Storage/collection!

Sooooooooo, who wants to see my current make-up collection?  I currently really love the way I store my make-up at the moment, its handy, practical and doesn’t look all to bad.

I’m currently living between two homes; My flat in London where I live during the week with two friends, whilst I’m at uni, and on the weekends I go home to the house I have lived my entire life, with my parents in Essex.  So at the moment I don’t have my entire collection all in one place.  All my favourite bits are here, in London where I spend the majority of my time, and the rest is back at the family home, which I haven't got pictures of yet!

This is my bedside table where I keep my ‘stuff’!

The four tier silver storage thing was like £5 from a little random store on my high street back home, and the silver mesh thing is a stationary separator from Staples, which cost around £6!  It is the perfect size to fit on top of the drawers, and to also hold any random bits.  I keep eye cream, lip balms, some foundations, body oils, brush cleaner and hair sprays here, as well as random essential oils and tattoo balms!

So, I’ll go through all of the drawers with you.

First drawer – Eye shadows! Pigments, glitters, shimmer cubes, paint pots etc!  The Barry M dazzle dusts are kept in a Muji box/tray thing!

Second drawer – Lip products! This is my favourite drawer! I keep most of my lipsticks in a, get this, ferrero rocher box – these are incredible and the perfect size to hold lipsticks, so next time you polish off a box, use it to store!  I keep lip glosses next to the lipsticks, and there is another ferrero box at the back holding even more lip products.

Third drawer – Blushers and bronzers!  I have a selection of shimmer waves, mineralized skin finishes and blushes which I adore, along with a few Body Shop limited edition blushers!

Fourth drawer – Eyeliners/mascaras! I keep a few false lashes on top, and underneath are mascaras, glitter liners, pencil kohls, and two eye shadows quads!  Again, my favourite glitter liners are in a Muji tray that you can see below!

Okay, so thats the drawers, onto the other bits!

 

These clear drawers are the cutest things ever! They are from Muji and it even has a mirror on the top lid, it was around £8 and they have loads of varieties of these boxes, I highly recommend!  Here I keep products that I reach for regularly, Body shop eye shadows and shimmer cubes, Mineral foundation, etc. 

 

I keep some brushes in a JD mug.  Mainly foundation and blusher brushes, along with some nail files.

AND FINALLY!

The products that I will most probably use every day.  I keep my recent favourite lipsticks and blushes here, along with my concelers, mascaras and brushes.  I used to keep my everyday products in a make-up bag, but it got messy and a box is a much cleaner option.  I rarely close the top lid like in the picture above though.  The box was under £2 from Hobby Craft!

So, what does every one think? I ADORE looking at make-up storage solutions and other peoples collections, so I hope you enjoy mine.  If there are any products which you spy and would like a review/swatch of, then let me know, also if there is anything that you want to know what it is, then comment below and I’ll get back to you asap!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX P.S How amazing is the weather in London at the moment!! I can’t help but be in the best mood because of it!

P.P.S All of the items here were bought with my own money!

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The Body Shop Hi-Shine Lip Treatments!

Tonight, I’m in a lipglossy kinda mood, so I decided to dig out some of my glosses to swatch for you!  I have four of the Body Shop’s Hi-shine lip-glosses, one full size and three minis!

01 – Pink Cream

(sunlight)

(flash)

This is one of my two favourite of the Hi-Shines.  Its a gorgeous pale nude brown in the tube, but applies as a clear almost nude lip-gloss. 

11 – Juicy Peach

   (flash)(sunlight)

My second favourite, Juicy Peach!  A gorgeous peachy pink in the tube, which sparkles pink and coral on the lip!  The gloss itself is pretty clear, but the pink sparkles look adorable and suit any complexion!

10 - Perfectly Pink

(flash) (sunlight)

I have never actually worn this out before, as I don’t usually tend to wear dark pink/purple on my lips, but looking at these pictures, I’ve fallen in love! This is probably the most pigmented out of all the Hi-Shines, it comes out as a purple/mauve pink, which sparkles like crazy under light, as you can see in the first picture. 

???

Now, I have no idea which shade this is by looking on TBS’s website, and as it doesn’t say the number of the shade on the mini I have, I really have no idea!  But I will name a few guesses which the name could be below

This is the colour in the package, just so you know.

(flash) (sunlight)

Okay, so I think this could be either 02 Mauve Dream or 03 Bronze Beam.  I will check the next time I go to TBS and update this blog when I find out, or if any one else knows, then let me know!

This again is a beautifully glittery shade, but with more pigmentation, and colour than the first.  It has the same purple pink sparkles but the base is more coloured red than being clear.

Conclusion – If you have ever tried a Hi-Shine Lip Treatment, you will know that they are super moisturizing, yet super sticky!  I wouldn’t wear these on a windy winter day, instead I’d save them for the summer when I know my hair won’t catch in the gloss.  As they are so sticky, they literally cover your lips in the most silky-smooth-feeling layer of gloss, which feels pretty incredible when you pucker your lips!  The colours are very pretty, and although they look very glittery, they haven’t got any chunky glittery chunks in, at all, they are all smooth and the glitter just sparkles, instead of sits on your lips, which is a bonus (it basically doesn’t feel cheap).  The smell of the gloss’s are very nice, quite fruity – maybe passion fruit?  The tubes are real handy to use and carry around and easy to apply from the tube.  The glosses have also never leaked in my bag, which is a plus as I know a few glosses have that tendency!  They retail at £9.50 for a full size 6ml tube which will last you forever as you don’t need a lot to get the gorgeously glossy look.

What’s your favourite glossy tube shade? Has anyone used them before?

P.S – I bought all of these hi-shines with my own money. All opinions are honest!

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Sleek Palette - Original

Does anyone fancy more Sleek swatches?!  I DO!  I bought my sister this palette on her birthday as an extra gift as she was always stealing my Storm one.  She adores this palette, so I thought you may like to see the shades in this one!

 

And the swatches -

 

Beautiful colours aren't they? They are slightly more bright and daring than the Storm palette I have, but you can definitely just add flashes of colour to any eye look with these shades.  I much prefer the shimmers in this palette (#2,3,4,5,6,10,12).  The other shades (apart from #1 which is slightly matt), are quite glittery, they have fine pieces of glitter in them, rather than just shimmer (these are numbers #7,8,9,11).  They don’t sweep onto the skin as neatly and cleanly than the shimmers (you can see the glittery bits in the close-up swatches above), but are still beautiful to look at and wear.

Again, all the shadows are very pigmented, which saves you using loads.  All these swatches is using just one or two sweeps of shadow on my finger and then transferred onto my arm.  I thoroughly recommend these palettes.  I know its such a pain that they don’t sell them in the US, I’m sorry if I’m making you green eyed with envy! Maybe I will include one in my next giveaway!

I’d love to see some looks you may have created with this palette, anyone! If you have a link, then post it in a comment below!  XX

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TBS’s Big and Curvy Mascara review!

This evening I am reviewing The Body Shop’s new mascara – Big and Curvy!  It came out around two weeks ago and should be permanent in their collection.

The packaging is GORGEOUS.  I adore the bright vibrant pink tube – it makes it very easy to find in the depths of my make-up bag, TBS are really going to town with their new colours and packaging recently.  The wand is thin, long and quite bristly, allowing you to coat every lash with just one swipe of the product.

BEFORE -

ONE COAT -

I find that all Body Shop mascaras give me wonderfully long lashes.  This one really lengthens and separates them as well as giving my normally invisible lashes, some brilliant volume and intensity.  One coat really is enough for beautifully long, striking lashes.

TWO COATS -

Two coats obviously adds more length and volume to the lashes and makes the look more dramatic, which is great for transforming your look from day to evening.  It can verge on clumpy (which I find with every mascara I use – maybe I don’t apply it right?) if you pop too much on.  The colour of the black also intensifies with another coat.

Conclusion – This mascara is suitable for contact lens wearers (as are the other TBS mascaras) but the amazing thing about this one is – it does not budge!  This isn’t claimed to be a ‘waterproof’ mascara, but seriously, once you apply this, it will not smudge, bleed or flake ALL DAY LONG.  I can’t stress enough how tough this is, which is again why it would be great from day to evening wear.  The only slight problem with this is, it is a pain to remove at the end of the day.  I normally have to use a few pads of make-up remover and a wet wipe to completely remove every trace of this.  I haven't yet tried using a waterproof eye-make-up remover yet though so that may possibly work better.  This can be found for £10 at all Body Shop stores, so if you like the look of it, check it out! Also, TBS has a 3 for 2 offer on makeup, so you could pick it up with a few other bits if you needed too!!

What do you girlies think?  I adore the packaging and the look it gives, do you?

P.S – This product was given to me free of charge as a TBS customer consultant, but it was not intended for to be reviewed.  All opinions are honest and reliable! X

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GIVEAWAY WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

Helloooo!

So, my first ever giveaway ended on Thursday!!!  It was to celebrate reaching 100 followers, and I now have a lovely 184 followers which I am so happy about!  So hello to all my gorgeous new followers, I hope that you all enjoy reading my blog and thank you to every one who entered the competition!

In preparation to randomly choose the two winners, I went through each entry and wrote down the names of every one who entered, either once for those who commented on the post, or three times for those who posted a link to the giveaway.  Each name was then cut and folded and placed into my pretty basket (which used to hold my lipsticks!) and was shaken and stirred in preparation for the draw!

Mixing it all up!

I decided that the first name I pulled out would be the First Prize winner, and the second would be the second – obviously!

So here are the WINNERS!

FIRST PRIZE -

SECOND PRIZE -

CONGRATULATIONS to both of you! I will contact you via email to get your details etc!

To everyone else who entered, thank you so much, I really appreciate all the excitement surrounding my giveaway and I hope you all stick around for my up and coming posts!  I’ve enjoyed this giveaway so much that I’ve already started spotting more bits and bobs to buy for my next giveaway! Haha!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!! XXX

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Sleek Look part 1!

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days, I have been such a busy bee! I had an acting job in Dorset this morning, and spent all yesterday rehearsing. I drove down with the acting team last night to stay in a hotel in preparation for the job today! It was very fun, I really enjoy acting and it is a little hobby of mine when I’m not at uni!

Anyway, on Tuesday night I went to a football match with my Dad and Sister, and I used my sleek storm palette to do my make-up for the evening, as a few of you said it would be good to see how I use the palette. This is a kind of smoky brown shimmery eye which I do the most often with these eye shadows. I will be doing more colourful looks with them soon!

These are the products I used -

• So I primed my eyes with UDPP and applyed #2 all over my eyelid as a base colour.
• I then blended #1 and #3 on my lid, up to the crease.
• Then I blended #4 in the crease of my eye, and blended it up a tad higher so you can see the colour when your eye is open, and I added #5 into the outer corner, just to open the eye up more!
• After I had blended all the eyeshadows together with my holy grail brush (The Body Shops blender brush), I lined my eyes with The Body Shops black liquid liner, and Gosh’s black velvet kohl liner.
• I used The Body Shops new mascara ‘Big and Curvy’ on my lashes (Review to come!) and finished with a slick of MAC’s Ever Hip lipstick!

The key to this look is building up the colours from light to dark, and blending, blending, blending! This eye shadow brush I just could not live without, it is a staple brush I use whenever I do my make-up and the only one (apart from a blusher brush) that I carry with me constantly.

Do you like this look? So sorry for my tried looking eyes, I think I have slight insomnia and can’t always sleep too well – that and the fact that I watched Paranormal activities a few weeks ago and haven’t been able to sleep with the light off since! Haha! Was this helpful to you? If you do something similar do show me! You can email it to me via my email address in the sidebar of this page!

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