Subtle Everyday Smokey FOTD

 I wore this look to town with friends at the weekend. The camera doesn't seem to pick up all the of the make up as this is a bit darker and more noticeable in real life.

I didn't want it to be over the top though as it's only a day look but I still wanted a bit of definition to my eyes.

I applied painterly paint pot to my eyelids as I wanted everything to last through the day. Then I lined my upper lash line with quite a thick rough line of brown eyeliner and smudged that out with a cotton bud.

Over the line of eyeliner I applied a chocolate brown eyeshadow from Rimmel in another thick line and then blended with a MAC 217 to soften.

I applied the eyeshadow to my lower lash line quite low under the eye and blended with a cotton bud.

Then lined my upper waterline with my eyeliner to make sure no skin was showing through and to make my lashes look thicker.

I applied mascara top and bottom but only one coat and made sure there were no clumps.

I decided to keep the rest of my face really simple only applying bronzer to contour slightly and wearing Rimmel's Nude Delight lipstick on my lips.

Maybe I will apply a bit more make up next time so it shows up on camera properly!

xxx

Haul!

Here's a few things I've bought recently - 

Free Clinique Gift with Glamour Magazine

It's Glamour's 10th Anniversary and to celebrate they have teamed up with Clinique and are offering a choice of 10 free Clinique products with every magazine. I chose the red lipstick but I'm thinking about going back and getting the eye cream too as I've heard good things about it.... 

The lipstick itself is called Rosette and has SPF 15. It's a nice colour with gold specks running through it that would flatter everyone.

Lancaster Infinite Bronze Sunlight Make Up

I got this set of Lancaster make up in TK Maxx. The RRP value of all three products was £60 and I got them for £8 which was a very nice bargain! 

First is the Lip Variations duo. There's a red cream lip colour and a pink gloss and you also get a pretty good lip brush. I LOVE the red colour, it's really highly pigmented and the formula is nice and creamy. You can wear it as a stain which is what I've been doing or really go for it and have bright fire engine red lips!

The pink gloss is also quite highly pigmented, it's basically a slightly more pigmented tinted lip balm. The colour is a nice bright pink that's wearable and peps up the face.

Lancaster Star Dust Sparkling Powder Trio

This is a trio of powder highlighters which you can use on the body too. It comes with a white colour, pale yellow gold colour and a light bronze so any skintone can use this. It's quite glittery which is slightly disappointing because I would like a highlighter to be less glittery so it looks more natural. The colours are still nice though and there's no reason why you couldn't use the powders on the eyes.

Lancaster Face Luminizer

This is a tinted moisturiser that makes you look glowing and healthy. The colour is a good colour match for me and the cream sinks into the skin nicely and quickly. The colour very similar to a Nars foundation shade called Gobi.

I am always apprehensive about putting creams on my face which aren't noncomedonic or hypoallegenic because my face breaks out easily. I will definitely keep this and use it on others though as I think it's great.

Top to Bottom - Tinted Moisturiser, Pink Gloss, Red Lip Cream, Clinique Rosette

Superdrug Vitamin E Eye Cream

 I bought this as I wanted an eye cream but didn't want to spend a lot on one. This was about £3 in Superdrug and I've used it a couple of times so far. It feels a bit chalky and is a bit difficult to rub in...but I will review this after a while of using!

The Pink Cow Vanilla Biscuit Shower Gel

I think I have found my ''HG'' shower gel...

I spotted this AMAZING shower gel in Boots. It's paraben free which is great for us and the enviroment, you get 500ml (usual shower gels are 250ml) and it smells good enough to eat!!

What attracted me first was the ammount of product you get and that it was on offer for £2. It's normally just over £3 I think. They have other ''flavours'' but I decided to get the Vanilla because I adore vanilla. It smells exactly like it's name and reminds me of when you're making the base for a cheesecake and are crushing up digestives and butter!

Umberto Giannini Grunge Glamour Tousled Salt Spray

I love salt spray for adding texture and volume to my hair as it's naturally quite straight and sleek. I like to wear my hair messy most of the time and had been meaning to get some more spray.

I've only ever used the Vo5 one and so I decided to get this as the packaging is lovely and to see if it's better than the Vo5. It has a really nice sweet vanilla smell to it. I will review this and let you know how I get on!

So that's my haul ladies.. I would like to say a big warm welcome to the new followers that have subscribed to my blog this week! xxxx

NYX Make Up Box

I was in TK Maxx yesterday rumaging through their make up and beauty section as they sometimes get in some really nice high end or foreign brands.

A brand which I have been wanting to try is NYX. I've seen quite a few blog posts about them on here and in YouTube tutorials.

TK Maxx were selling these NYX make up boxes which have 12 eyeshadows, 5 lip colours, 6 highlighters and blushers in as well a quite a nice mirror. I was really excited to see that they had NYX, and what better way to try them out than get a box with lots of different products in! It was a really good deal too beacuse I payed £9.99 for it when the RRP was £25.

So when you open it up, you have a side of bright eyeshadows, then on the other side you get grey/silver colours and a brown.

The bright eyeshadows are quite highly pigmented and bright, but the quality is nowhere near as good as other shadows I have. The silver/grey side I find to be slightly less pigmented, and again the quality isn't that great. I like the choice of colours, the bright blue and grey shadows are nice and aren't too shimmery. All the other silver/grey shadows are quite shimmery. 

 

If you were to use these shadows I think you would have to work quite hard to build up the colour. Applying it with a sponge applicator makes it easy to build up the colour though if you pat it onto the eyelid. I also think if you used these shadows wet you'd get a nice highly pigmented colour from them and even use them as liners.

Then you have your blushers and highlighters. I don't see a highlighter colour here apart from a really sparkly brown colour, which could only really be used to highlight on dark skins. 

All of these products have sparkle in them though some more than others. They have a nice orangey coral blusher which looks nice and then a really bright pink, but I especially like the three contour/bronzer shades they have which are almost matte.

Then finally you have the lip colours. You get a nude, and sparkly browny nude, an peachy pink, an orange and then a fushia/purple. I really like the selection of colours and the formula is nice and creamy. I like how there is only one lip colour with sparkle in and the rest are creamy because I hate wearing sparkle on my lips!

You also get some cheap eyeshadow applicators as well as a blusher brush and lip brushes. I find these are always useless and impossible to use, however the lip brushes might make good gel liner brushes!

What do you think of NYX products?

Clothing Haul + Revlon Lip Gloss Rave!

I haven't bought many clothes lately, I seem to be spending money on make up and skin care products instead. I did however go shopping on the day after Boxing Day for some things, and I also got a couple of tops yesterday. So I thought I'd do a little clothing haul as I've not done one in a wee while!

I also want to rave about two Revlon lip glosses I got yesterday after reading Chic Geek's post about them. I'm absolutely in love with these glosses and that's quite a big deal for me as I don't actually like lip gloss!

Firstly though I'll show you some things I got in the sales-

• Denim Shirt from Internationale

• Floral Hook & Eye Dress from Peacocks- 

I've been wearing this a lot, it wasn't in the sale but I loved it too much and paid full price, which is a very rare thing for me to do! The sizing is quite dodgy though, it's a size 10 but is still too big for a size 10.

• Blazer from New Look

This was a bargain at just £7. I've been after a blazer for a long time and it's a really good fit.

• Stripy Basic Tee from Internationale

• Embellished Playsuit from New Look

I love this, wore it for New Years Eve but I will also be wearing this a lot in the summer with gladiator sandals. It's great for nights out and was another bargain at £9!

Now onto the Lip Glosses....

Left, Lilac Pastelle, Peach Petal

I bought these after reading about them on Chic Geek's blog. They looked irresistible and I'd been looking for a decent nude gloss and also a lilac lip colour for quite a while. 

I don't really like lip glosses because I find them to look quite tacky when they have glittery particles in them, which most of them do. I also don't like the smell most of them have or the sticky texture. It's very annoying when it's windy and your hair sticks to your lips too! That's why I usually wear a lipstick and if I want to make it glossy I'll put a clear lip balm over the top. I've found that most brands (apart from higher end brands) have a very limited and not very imaginary range of colours either. 

That's what attracted me to these Revlon glosses. They don't have any glitter in AT ALL and are the exact colours I'm looking for.

They do a lovely bright coral colour as well but I couldn't afford to buy all three so I will have to wait to get that one. 

They're just the right ammount of sticky to stay on your lips but not feel horrible, have just the right ammount of colour and I love the packaging, it's really classy. 

They smell really good too, like vanilla, chocolate and marshmallows! Most glosses I've used actually smell like vomit to me, I'm not even joking! I had a Rimmel gloss which was meant to smell like oranges or something but it was awful and to me it smelled like sick...

Lilac Pastelle

Peach Petal

The nude is gorgeous. It's peachy but not too peachy, and I can see it working on any skin tone. It's not too pink or orange- just perfect!

The lilac is really lovely. You can build it up to be a full on lilac if you want to which would look amazing on darker skins, but it looks a bit strange on me! I think this colour would be amazing with 60's style eye make up.

I am so happy I've discovered these glosses, and thank you to Chic Geek for blogging about them! :)

Plum Lips

The other day I bought a plum lipstick. I have been seeing a lot of plum make up looks lately and I think it's a really nice look especially for Christmas/New Year parties.

So I played around with a bit of make up today and here's what I ended up with!

I have sort of ended up with a Daisy Lowe/Vamp look... But I quite like it!

Products I Used...

• Lily Lolo Foundation & Bronzer
• MAC Prep+Prime Finishing Powder
• Clinique Gel Liner
• Clinique Airbrush Concealer
• Clinique High Impact Mascara (wow I'm using a lot of Clinique at the moment!)
• Max Factor Lipstick in 701
• Rimmel Nude Lipliner
• Collection 2000 Kohl Pencil in Brown (in crease)
• Beauty UK Palette- Shadows Used- two brown colours on top row & the black.

So there's my plum make up look!

Do you like the plum/vamp make up that's around at the moment?

A few bits: Lily Lolo Minerals, Rimmel Shake Up Pink Lipstick

I love mineral make up, and buy mine from English mineral make up company Lily Lolo. So far I only have mineral foundation & concealer from them and wanted to try out a bronzer and blusher.

• I ordered South Beach which is a light matte bronzer and Clementine blusher which is a peachy-pink.

South Beach Bronzer £12

Clementine Blusher £7

Swatch:

• A sample of Star Dust shimmer powder, which is a mineral highlighter. Samples are £1.25 each

• Another sample of Nude Cover Up, which is a concealer one shade darker than the one I am using at the moment, as when I go on holiday I will be needing a slightly darker shade

• I also got a sample of Lily Lolo's Blondie foundation, which is also the next shade up from the foudation I normally use

Star Dust Shimmer Powder  (left) Blondie Foundation  (right) Nude Cover Up  (bottom)

I also thought I would show you the Rimmel Shake Up Pink Lipstick I mentioned in my last post!

With full-on colour...

...and sheered down for a natural pink lip

I really like this lipstick and will be wearing it a lot!

Little Haul: Rimmel, Barry M

I went into Boots yesterday & got a few bits. I'm going on holiday next week and so I had a little list of things to get for going away.

I got this really bright polish from Barry M in the colour Coral. It will be perfect for my toenails while on holiday, and I know Barry M polishes stay on and don't chip.

I also needed a waterproof mascara. So far all the waterproof mascaras I have tried have always been really dry and spidery, not good when going for a natural beach look! I also don't like having to scrub away at my eyes trying to get the stuff off!

So for this reason I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a waterproof masacara. This is where good old Natural Collection comes in!

I bought their Waterguard Mascara, which says it is smudge proof and water proof. It was £1.99, and I tested it last night. It looks really natural, isn't dry, doesn't clump AT ALL, and most important of all...it's actually waterproof! When it came to remove it, it was pretty easy to remove, I didn't have to scrub away. What a bargain!


I also wanted a pink lipstick, which I could wear as an alternative to a nude, as I'm getting a bit bored of nudes!

I bought this Colour Show Off Lipstick from Rimmel in Shake Up Pink. I have a coral colour lipstick from this range, so I know that they are really pigmented and stay on. The colour is what I'd describe as a Barbie Pink. It's really bright when you layer it up but you can sheer it down to a nice natural shade. In the picture it looks more peachy, but it's definately a pink...I love it!


For going on holiday I also wanted to tint my eyebrows. My eyebrows are naturally very blonde, and I don't want to have to fill them in every day. I'll be swimming a lot too so I don't want to have to worry about anything rubbing off etc.

I bought 30 Day Mascara in Dark Brown. So I will let you know how that goes!

I bought another tube of Freederm Gel. If I feel I have a spot developing I pop this on and it calms it down!

I got a buffer for when in the shower. I was using a pouf thingy, but didn't feel like it did anything!

Finally, I got some good old face wipes! They had 2 for £4 on Simple wipes in Boots, so I grabbed a couple...

The Simple Wipes are my favourites for removing my make up & they feel really refreshing.

Products I'm Loving Right Now

This is my first ever favourites post!

But let's get right down to it...

Products I'm loving right now are....

MAC Eyeshadows- Vanilla, Era, Arena & Brown Down

• Vanilla really brightens my eyes up when used all over the lid & in the inner corners
• Era is a nice taupe lid colour with a nice sheen to it without being shimmery
• Arena brings out the blue of my eyes
• Brown Down is a great warm, matte brown good for socket work & adding definition. I use this along the lashline most days.

St Ives Body Scrub

As you can see I have practically finished it!

• Smells divine and leaves my skin so smooth...

Hush Cream Colour Base from MAC

•  I love this product, I use it on the top of my cheekbones as a highlight but also all over my eye lid, gives a nice peachy shiny eyelid. Doesn't stay on the lid for long though & creases. May try setting it with a powder to see if that works!

Estee Lauder Projectionist Mascara

• I have been using this for about 2 weeks and really like it. It gives natural looking lashes but lengthens and defines them beautifully. Doesn't smudge or flake off- love it.

Barry M Blusher in No.5

•  This coral blush really warms up my skin, you can vary the depth of colour building it up to a bright coral. It doesn't cake at all, blends in so easily that it could be mistaken for a cream blush! It lasts all day on my skin & think it's fantastic value as I bought it for around £3 or £4.

Natural Collection Lipstick in Sand Castle

•  I bought this over a year ago, so it could be out of date, who knows! It's a really nice sheer, natural pink which is pretty much the same colour as my lips. It peps up my complexion and is a nice creamy formulation. Not bad for £1.99... You can buy Natural Collection at Boots in the UK, and all of their products are under £1.99 (I think). They are also fragrance free & not tested on animals, hence the name Natural Collection!

Tweezerman Eyelash Curlers

•  They curl like no other! That's all I can say... and the curl lasts all day!

MAC Prep+Prime Finishing Powder

•  This is a white powder which when applied to the skin becomes translucent, no trace of white at all. It's so finely milled you don't look like you have anything on your face, yet it smooths out my face making my pores dissappear and controlling my shine! Love it. 

Bach Rescue Remedy

•  I sometimes can get stressed and anxious... as I'm sure we all do... this chills me out nicely!

Barabra Daly Eyebrow Pencil

•  You can get Barbara Daly at Tesco, this is the first of her products I've tried and so far like the brow pencil. It's a good colour for my very fair brows. 

MAC Harmony Blush

•  I use Harmony to contour everyday, it's a matte powder blush and a nice warm brown colour which suits my skintone nicely. I bought this after Tanya Burr  reccomended it for contouring. I also use this as a bronzer sometimes and bring it onto my cheeks and forehead to warm my skin up!

Blistex Relief Cream (sorry it's blurry!)

•  I pop this on at night time to moisturise my lips as they get quite dry sometimes. It helps with cold sores & chapped lips...does what it says!

 

 

What products are you liking at the moment?