Monday 31 December 2012

Nail colour collection: woodland escape

Hey guys!

For Christmas, amongst many of the amazing gifts I received was this nail polish set. I'm always painting my nails and it's a passion that I definitely share with my mum and due to this, she picked up this lovely set for me which is from wilkinsons for only £5!  

The first thing I noticed about this amazing little set is the packaging, I don't know about you but I'm definitely the sort of person that gets attracted by packaging and not actually the product itself. When I finally focused on the colours I was able to see that they are the perfect colours for autumn/winter.




(The swatches above are in the same order as the nail polishes in the photo's)

Overall I absolutely love this set and for only £5 I think it is a complete bargain and I will definitely be looking in wilkinsons to see if they have any more sets that are similar.

Have you tried this nail colour collection set?

Thanks for reading!

Saturday 29 December 2012

Revlon lip butter: berry smoothie

Hello!

So recently I was lucky enough to win a lip butter from Revlon. I hadn't actually realised I'd won until it arrived at my house so it was definitely a nice surprise. If you have been reading my blog for a while then you will know that I love the Revlon lip butters and did a post on them here.

The shade I received was berry smoothie and as I'm generally into paler shades I was slightly worried that I wouldn't be able to wear it. However, I've been wearing it almost everyday recently so it's safe to say I was worried over nothing!






I won't go into too much detail about the actual product as I'm sure you would have heard of the Revlon lip butters before but what I will say is that the colour is perfect! It's definitely not as pigmented as some of the other colours that I have but it gives me lips a lovely colour and a colour that isn't too over the top for me.

Have you tried Revlon lip butters?

Thanks for reading!

Thursday 27 December 2012

NOTD: cookie nails

Hey guys!

As the title suggests, today's post is a NOTD and is definitely a simple one to create. The two colours I used here were 'brownie' by W7 on four nails and for the dots and 'case study' by Essie. 

I really love this combination as it's so simple but I think the colours work really well together and thought they looked rather like a cookie!


Thanks for reading!

Tuesday 25 December 2012

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and I hope you've had a brilliant day. I've had an absolutely amazing day spent with family and filled with laughter. I got some amazing Christmas presents this year which I love and the food was AMAZING! I'd also like to say thank you so much for reading my blog!

Below are some pictures I have taken throughout the day and please excuse the quality as they are photo's that I have been posting on instagram throughout the day.







Monday 17 December 2012

NOTD: Red Glitter

Hello guys!

Is everyone else as excited for Christmas as I am?! Today's nails are Christmas inspired and are extremely plain and boring but I think they look really nice! They are red and glittery which is perfect for Christmas. The nail polish I used is called 'red dazzle' by W7 and I bought it from here for only £1.30. 


What is your favourite nail polish for Christmas time? 

Thanks for reading!

xxx

Saturday 15 December 2012

Review: John Frieda sheer blonde shampoo & conditioner

Hello!

Today I thought I would share with you all my thoughts on the John Frieda sheer blonde colour renew shampoo and conditioner. 

Personally I haven't been one to always dye my hair, for the past few years I was dying my hair red with home dye box kits but recently after debating for ages, I finally decided to get ombre hair. 

My hair is naturally brown which means I wanted blonde on the ends of my hair and another shade of brown through the middle. To get brown hair blonde it generally needs to be bleached and therefore I knew I needed a toner to ensure that my hair stayed as healthy as possible and didn't turn orange! 

After speaking to my hair dresser about what product she would recommend, I went and bought the John Frieda sheer blonde colour renew shampoo and after seeing they did I conditioner I decided to try that too.

So on to the actual product...



The idea of both the shampoo and conditioner is to reduce the brassiness in bleached hair meaning that it stays blonde and doesn't go a sort of orange colour. The shampoo does look quite scary when it comes out of the bottle as it is bright purple but it doesn't turn your hair purple so don't panic! The conditioner however is just a white colour.

The first couple of days after having my hair dyed it went extremely orange and although it didn't look that bad I panicked because I wanted it blonde so I started using the shampoo and conditioner and after just one wash my hair had changed completely and was a very light blonde, just what I wanted!

Both the shampoo and conditioner have quite a nice scent to them, not my favourite scent but not a bad one either! Another thing I noticed is how much product you get in the bottle! They are only 250ml bottles but I still have product left in each bottle and I've been using them for about two months which in my opinion is amazing!

My hairdresser advised me to use this shampoo and conditioner only 1-2 times per week and use an alternative shampoo and conditioner in between however I think it depends on how often you would like to use it as I don't think it would damage your hair if you wanted to use it more.

Overall I am extremely impressed with these products and will definitely be repurchasing them!

You can buy them from superdrug for £5.89 each or they are currently on offer for buy 2 for £6.99 here and  here.

Have you tried these?

xxx

Monday 10 December 2012

NOTD: touch of mauve

Hello guys!

This is just a quick post to show you what I am currently wearing on my nails. I decided to just paint them one colour this time and go for something plain with the colour I used being 'touch of mauve' by Revlon. I love the formula of the Revlon nail varnishes and absolutely love the fact that they are extremely quick drying. 

The photo below doesn't really do the colour justice as I have just taken it from my instagram so sorry about the rubbish photo!


What are you currently wearing on your nails?

Thanks for reading

xxx

Wednesday 28 November 2012

My favourite youtube beauty gurus

Hello everyone!

First off I'd like to say how sorry I am for being the worlds worst blogger recently. I've literally had so much uni work to do and I'm definitely struggling to do it all, especially considering I've only just started! Hopefully i'll be back to regular blogging now :)

Today I thought I would share with you guys three of my favourite youtube beauty gurus. Up until recently, I never actually watched beauty videos on youtube and just read blogs but I came across a video that I liked (can't remember what one) and started searching for similar videos. Now I'm addicted to watching youtube videos and watch the three youtubers that I am going to show you religiously!

1. Sprinkle of Glitter

Louise from Sprinkle of Glitter creates videos obviously about beauty but also general videos about her life, hauls and fun videos which are all extremely enjoyable. Louise is one of my favourite beauty gurus on youtube because of her videos but also her amazing personality. Although I don't know her personally, her personality shines through her videos and because she is so bubbly it makes her  videos extremely fun to watch. You can find Louise's videos here. She also runs a blog which corresponds with her youtube channel which you can find here.


2. Zoella

Like Louise, Zoe from 'Zoella' is also one of my favourite beauty gurus. Zoe's channel also consists of beauty videos, hauls and fun type videos. Zoella was on the first channels I ever started to watch and I'm so happy I found this channel as I couldn't recommend it enough! Zoe comes across as such a sweet girl and always makes me smile throughout her videos which makes them enjoyable to watch. What's also exciting is that Zoe from 'Zoella' is best friends with Louise from 'Sprinkle of Glitter' which means they often features in each others videos (yay!). You can find her youtube channel here and her blog here.


3. Macbarbie07

Last but not least is Beth from 'Macbarbie07'. Unlike both Zoella and Sprinkle of Glitter, Beth is actually from America which is a fact I actually love because it means her videos are slightly different to all of the UK beauty gurus that I watch. Beth's channel mainly focuses on both fashion and beauty and her videos are edited amazingly! Beth makes her video's really funny and the bloopers are always hilarious! You can find her videos here.


I hope you enjoyed this post, I know it's quite different than what I normally post! I definitely recommend you go and subscribe to their channels, you won't be disappointed!

What are you favourite youtube beauty gurus?

xxx


Thursday 15 November 2012

Nivea lip butters: caramel cream & raspberry rose

For years now, I have been obsessed with lip balms due to the fact I hate having dry lips and always find myself using it, especially in the colder weather!

I haven't really tried any Nivea products before but after seeing these when browsing the superdrug website I knew I had to order them. I decided to get the lip butters in caramel cream and raspberry rose as the only other one is original which seems too boring to me!



These lip butters are extremely motorising and both smell AMAZING! My favourite out of the two is the raspberry rose as it smells exactly like fruitella's (they're sweets if you didn't know).

I find that these lip butters don't just sit on the surface of your lips but sink in which makes them extremely pleasant and beneficial to use. These are definitely my go to lip product at the moment! I also love the fact they are so inexpensive and I would definitely recommend them!

You can buy them from your local superdrug or superdrug online here for only £1.49.

They are currently on offer for £1.25.

Have you tried these?

xxx

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Review: Ecotools brushes

Hello guys!

Today I am going to be reviewing some ecotools brushes for you. I am not going to be reviewing them separately in this post as I haven't tried using all of them yet but I will be giving a brief review on the brushes.

First of all, I have wanted a foundation brush for a while and after reading good reviews about the foundation brush from ecotools I decided to try it out. 

The quality of this brush is very good and it is extremely soft. I have been using this brush everyday to apply my liquid foundation and absolutely love it. I find it gives me an even coverage and allows me to apply my foundation quickly and easily.

As for the set of brushes, I bought four brushes and a makeup pouch to hold them in. Unlike the foundation brush these brushes are slightly smaller due to them being travel sized. Out of this set I have only tried the eye shadow brush which is also very good quality and great for blending. The other brushes I received in that set are a mineral powder brush, a concealer brush and a mini kabuki brush.



I am extremely impressed with these brushes and will definitely continue using them on a day to day basis!

I also need to state that I am unsure whether these brushes are real or fake as they were purchased on eBay from Hong Kong. However, I knew this before purchasing them and even if they are fake I'm not fussed because they are still amazing quality. 

I bought the foundation brush from this seller for £1.89 including free delivery and the five piece brush set I bought from this seller for £3.78 including free delivery.

Have you tried these brushes?

Thanks for reading!

xxx

Sunday 11 November 2012

Candles from Primark?

Hello guys!

This is just a quick post to let you guys know about two candles that I received picked up from Primark. 

During the winter months, candles are basically my life and with this in mind I am always looking for new candles to try so when I saw these I knew I just had to try them.

The candle on the left is 'Autumn Apple' and smells absolutely divine  I actually picked this one up when in Ireland last week and it only cost me 1 euro! The boughs of holly candle on the right cost £1 (I think) and also smells lovely. However, I've only burnt the boughs of holly candle and it doesn't let off much of a smell when burning which is a shame!

Primark have been selling a lot of different candles recently and I would definitely recommend trying there if like me, you like candles or if you just want to try some as they are extremely well priced!


Do you own any candles from Primark?

Thanks for reading!

xxx

Friday 9 November 2012

EOS lip balm: worth the hype?

Hey guys!

I'm sure that no introduction is needed with the EOS lip balms as even though they aren't easily available in the UK everyone and their mother seems to have one. 

The normal flavours are lemon drop, tangerine, honeysuckle honeydew, strawberry sorbet, summer fruit and mint. However, after watching one of my favourite youtube beauty bloggers Macbarbie07 here talk about the limited Alice in wonderland EOS lip balms I decided to go for one of them instead. 

The limited edition pack consists of three flavours: blueberry potion (the one I bought), watermelon wonderland and sweet vanilla nonsense. 

I love the fact that this EOS lip balm is named 'blueberry potion', I think it's just a really cute touch. As for the actual product, I'm actually not as impressed as I thought I would be. I think this is because everyone goes crazy for them. 

I really like the smell although I personally don't think it smells that much like blueberry. I like the application as it's not messy due to not using your fingers and I also like the fact it is a completely natural product. I do find this lip balm very motorising and I like the fact that it sinks into your lips rather quickly. 


Overall, I am happy with this product but due to people raving about it the way they do I actually expected more. I have lip balms that are equally as good (some I actually prefer) and they are only a fraction of the price.

I would recommend this product as it is very good but there are definitely cheaper lip balms that are just as effective!

You can buy the limited Alice in wonderland EOS lip balms from this seller for £3.79 with £1.99 postage.

Have you tried the EOS lip balms?

Thanks for reading! 

xxx

Wednesday 7 November 2012

W7 makeup haul

Hello everyone!

I'd like to start off by saying sorry for the rubbish photo's by the lighting in my house was rubbish today :( Anyway today's post is going to be a W7 makeup haul from eastendcosmetics. I'd never really heard of eastendcosmetics before but quite a lot of people had been mentioning it on twitter and it would be rude for me not to place an order.

I hadn't tried any W7 products before but when I saw people purchase the face powders and give them glowing reviews I knew I wanted to try some products.

I decided to buy three box powders that I had read good reviews about. As you can see they look very similar to the style of the benefit blushers and I really like the look of them.



Along with the box powders I bought three nail polishes. I bought a glitter red and a glitter black (the red one will be perfect for Christmas!) and a bronze sort of colour.

All of these products were extremely cheap and each product cost less than £2. 

I will probably do individual reviews for each product but if you would like a specific one to be reviewed let me know in the comments!

You can buy these products from eastendcosmetics here

Thanks for reading!

xxx

Thursday 1 November 2012

Skin Therapy: nourishing hand & nail moisturising lotion

Hello!

I've never been a person for hand cream as I generally never get dry hands or feel the need to use a hand cream. Whilst in wilkinsons with my mum I saw this hand cream on sale for two for £1 so decided to get two and try them out.

What they say: "Skin therapy hand & nail lotion combines a special bend of skin softeners, moisturisers and vitamins to help protect hands from the drying effects of water, wind and detergents. The light formulation is non greasy and easily absorbed to help relieve dry skin whilst strengthening and conditioning nails"

First of all, this hand cream is only 59p per tube which to me is EXTREMELY cheap!



I absolutely love the hand cream and find myself always reaching for it now. The consistency is just right in my eyes and the scent is very pleasant and not overpowering. I also have found that there are lots of product in the actual tube.

Overall I love this hand cream and for only 59p or 2 for £1 you can't really go wrong!

Have you tried this hand cream?

xxx

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Yankee Candle Lip Balm: Christmas Cookie

Hello guys!

So today I have a post for you that I am really excited about! I definitely have an obsession with Yankee Candle and when I found out that they were selling lip balms I immediately purchased one. 

There are five lip balms to choose from and as Christmas Cookie is my favourite Yankee Candle scent I obviously had to buy that one! I'm not sure whether they are available in the UK or not but I ordered mine off eBay from this seller for £3.99. Personally I think that is expensive for the amount of product you get but I love it so I don't mind!

It smells EXACTLY like the candle and contains SPF 15 which is an added bonus. 



Overall I love this lip balm and can see myself buying another flavour (or two).

Thanks for reading!

xxx

Sunday 28 October 2012

NOTD: red and black

Hello everyone!

Just a quick post today to show you how my nails currently are. I decided to paint two coats of red nail varnish and then create two lines of black dots using a dotting tool. This is a super easy design to do and I think it looks quite classy (the picture doesn't do it justice!). My nails are actually a darker red that the picture shows but my camera wouldn't pick up the camera properly :(


Have you tried this design?

Thanks for reading!

xxx

Friday 26 October 2012

Review: MUA lipsticks in shades 5, 9, 11 and 15

Hello everyone!

For today's post I decided to do a review on the four MUA lipsticks I own, these being shades 5, 9, 11 and Juicy.

I'm assuming everyone knows the brand MUA and so I'm just going to get straight into the review. 

Recently I have been loving lipsticks and with MUA's only being £1 it would be rude to say no to buying a few, right?

The packaging of the lipsticks in my opinion is very simple but I really like the fact you can see what shade the lipstick is by looking at the top of the lipstick as it makes it much easier when looking for a particular colour. I also think the lipsticks feel very secure when I am using them.

The one think that I HATE about these lipsticks is that some are bigger than the others, it really bugs me for some reason. For example, if you look at the picture below you can see that shade 5 is taller and more square than all of the other lipsticks.




From left to right: shade 5, shade 9, shade 11, shade 15 Juicy (swatched x3 times).

I love the texture of all of the lipsticks and think they have very good pigmentation. I think they have a reasonable wear time but reapplying lipstick doesn't bother me anyway, especially when they only cost £1!

Out of all of these colours my favourite shade is shade 9 and is the one I tend to wear the most. I generally don't wear it as brown as it is swatched on my hand but I find this colour compliments my skin tone the best and I really love it!

Overall I think these lipsticks are brilliant, especially since they are only £1!

You can buy these lipsticks from either MUA here or superdrug online or in store.

Thanks for reading.

Have you tried these lipsticks?

xxx

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Revlon matte lipstick in mauve it over

Hello everyone!

So today I have a review for you on a matte lipstick from Revlon. I've never really been a lipstick person until recently and after seeing this lipstick reviewed a few times I decided to buy it. This is the first matte lipstick I have ever owned and I absolutely love it! 

I don't find this lipstick drying at all which I thought may be a problem due to it being a matte lipstick. I find this colour very wearable as an everyday shade and have been wearing it quite a lot.





I'm very impressed with this lipstick but the only thing I have a slight problem with is the fact that I wish there was more lipstick in the casing as there isn't actually that much of the lipstick.

Overall I'm super impressed with my first matte lipstick!

You can purchase it for £7.50 from superdrug online or in store.

Have you tried this lipstick?

Thanks for reading!

xxx

New Hair!

Hey guys!

Just a quick update to show you my new hair! I've never had my hair dyed professionally and have only ever  used red box dye a couple of years ago. However, I've been really into the 'dip dye' and 'ombre' hair styles which are extremely popular at the moment so I decided to get it.

My hairdresser thought it would be best to put two different shades of blonde in my hair (you can't really see the dark blonde in the photo) and I absolutely love the way it looks and I'm so pleased I got it done! 

Sorry for the HORRENDOUS photo. I've taken this photo from my instagram hence the annoying edit and excuse the no makeup face! My hair also looks so short in the photo!


Thanks for reading!

xxx

Monday 22 October 2012

MUA eye primer

Hey guys!

I'm so sorry for being the worlds worst blogger recently but I've just started uni and have been so busy with it that I've barely had time for anything let alone blogging! Hopefully I'll be back to blogging properly now though.

Today's post is a review on MUA's eye primer. If like me, you have never tried an eye primer then you might want to first try one that is very inexpensive to see how you get on with one (that's what I wanted anyway). MUA's eye primer is only £2.50 and I'm actually really impressed by it!

The idea of a primer is to smooth your eye lid ready to apply eye shadow and makes the eye shadow (or eye liner) last a lot longer. I found that the actual eye primer isn't too thick or too runny which makes it very easy to apply on your lid.



As you can see from the picture below, the circle on the left is eye shadow without the primer and the circle on the right is eye shadow with the primer. On the right the eye shadow has a lot more colour pay off and when removing both circles from my hand I noticed how much harder it was to remove the eye shadow with the primer. This shows that with the primer this eye shadow would last a very long time!


Overall I am really impressed with the eye primer and always wear it when I wear eye shadow now as I find with the primer my eye shadow lasts all day!

You can buy the eye primer from MUA online here or from superdrug either online or in store.

Thanks for reading

What is your favourite eye primer?

xxx