Merry Christmas, fellow Beauty lovers!

I just wanted to post a quick little message to you all on this lovely festive day just to wish all of you that celebrate this holiday a very Merry Christmas! Also, to those of you that don't tend to celebrate Christmas, I hope you're enjoying everything that's on the television and eating lots of goodies!

I'm super excited for the New Year, as I'm hoping to start up my YouTube channel- which I'm hoping you all might have a gander at in the future. Anyway, enough about that!

What did you get for Christmas? 

Lots of love

x

Trip to Paris!

Recently I went on a little trip to Paris, as I'd always wanted to go to see the amazing sights that such a beautiful city has to offer. The weather was less-than-perfect, I must say. If you plan on going to Paris, try not to go towards the end of November- the rain is not to be desired, especially if you're planning on taking a picture of the Eiffel Tower! Thankfully, as the day wore on, the rain subsided and we managed to get a good ol' look at the beast.

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It was a tiresome day, speed-walking around Paris so that we could get back to the ship on time. We did manage to see all of the main sights though. We even had enough time to venture up to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower- which was magnificent. If I ever go again, then I'll definitely take the long trip up to the top! Another thing that I managed to get done was to go on the Metro (essentially the French version of the Underground that we have in the UK), which was entertaining to say the least. We saw a man do a puppet show for the little kids sat behind us, which was very cute.

Paris fascinated me in only a way that London has before. I've always loved cities and I'm planning on one day moving to either London or Cardiff- whichever the most affordable! I hope that you don't mind that this isn't at all beauty/fashion related.

Leave a comment below if you've ever been or would one day love to go to Paris, or if not- why? 

My MAC Make-up Collection

I love make-up, that's a given. One brand that everyone always jabbers on about is MAC, the expensive brand that makes absolutely stunning make-up that even got it's name into a song (Unpretty ring any bells?). Now, I tend to spend whatever money I receive on makeup or skincare- and most of the time it's saved up to buy that one item that I've been drooling over since I laid eyes on it. That sort of item? You can bet it's from MAC. 

I am and always will be a sucker for MAC Cosmetics. The lipsticks, the foundations, the blushes! I could spend a day in Debenhams at the MAC counter looking at all of the lovely goodies that they have on offer- though I wouldn't recommend it as some of the MAC's I've been to don't have the most welcoming staff members, tut tut. Despite the odd looks you can get, it's all worth it to spend your money on that one item you've been lusting after. 

Over the past year I've started purchasing MAC products and although I've not got that many, I still thought it would be nice to show you the bits that I've collected.

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Products above (from left to right)- MAC Lipstick in Ruby Woo, MAC Blush in Fleur Power, MAC Lipstick in Impassioned, MAC Concealer shade NC15, MAC Studio Fix Foundation in NC15, MAC Lipstick in Pink Plaid and MAC Lipstick in Ravishing.

Everyone has their own favourite type of cosmetic. I would say that mine has to be lipsticks- though it does have a tendency to chop and change occasionally. I just think that MAC do such a huge range of shades and they offer so many different finishes to choose from that it's hard not to hand over £14 for one lipstick that'll give you so much happiness. I think my obsession is a tad ridiculous- but at least I've not blown all of my money on them. Yet. I always make sure that I don't have a similar colour in my collection before forking out so much money for a lipstick and so far, I've gotten my hands on four completely different colours. 

Ravishing

Ravishing, the lipstick to the right, is a cremesheen finish, meaning that it's very moisturising for the lips but still is very pigmented, although slightly glossy. This is a lovely colour, but is probably my least favourite of the four I own. I just think that it doesn't look as nice on my fairly pale skin as I'd hoped- but if you're fairly tanned/dark skinned, I think that this lipstick would look absolutely lovely. 

Ruby Woo

The lipstick next to Ravishing is Ruby Woo- my absolute favourite out of the four lipsticks. I'm definitely a bright red-lip kind of girl. I love how it gives a sultry finish to your make-up, just making it look slightly more sophisticated. Being a matte finish, it isn't very moisturising at all, so I always tend to put a bit of lip balm on and let that set into my lips before putting on this lipstick. My only problem with this lipstick is that I sometimes find it very hard to apply, it tends to be very dry and rough to put onto the lips. I don't know if I've just got a strange rogue lipstick as I've not heard anyone else point this out and my other matte lipstick doesn't tend to do this either. Frustrating!

Pink Plaid

Pink Plaid is completely different to the previous two when it comes to colour. It's a very sweet colour, just topping off a make-up look and doesn't tend to stand out, so it's ideal if you're trying to go for a simple look. This is also a matte finish, which isn't at all like Ruby Woo's finish, even though they're both classed as 'matte'. How strange! This was my first MAC lipstick and I absolutely love it! Highly recommended, I must say.

Impassioned

The final lipstick I have from MAC is Impassioned. This is my most recent lipstick purchase after I saw Zoella's MAC Lipstick Collection video and fell in love with the colour that she had on her lips, which she mentioned was this one. It's extremely bright, which I love, and it isn't too shiny on the lips (I'm not a fan of shine!). The finish is Amplified Creme, which I thought was a pretty darn cool name for a finish. Pretty sure that it just means 'super bright', which suits me!

Studio Fix Fluid Foundation, SPF 15

This was my first ever purchase from MAC. I was in desperate need of a foundation that could be tested to match my skin tone. I went into Nottingham and hunted down the MAC store, getting one of the ladies that worked there to match the correct foundation to my skin. She asked me if I'd prefer a dewy or matte finish foundation- so I picked matte, not completely knowing if I'd love it or not. I'm super glad I did, because this foundation made my skin look radiant. Yes, radiant. My shade is NC15, which I believe is the second lightest shade they do- which shows how pale I really am! I've repurchased this foundation since my first bottle because I love it that much- it's definitely my go-to! It's medium-full coverage, which I definitely need- doesn't need much building up either! When I first got it, it smelt considerably like Baileys. Just a heads up. 

Studio Finish Concealer, SPF 35

I've never quite understood those that have said to go for a shade of concealer two shades lighter than your foundation. I just thought that it would look silly, having light patches in your foundation over spots/bags that you're trying to cover, so going against those that say that, I went for NC15- the same shade as my foundation. I'm glad that I did, because I still find that this concealer appears much lighter than my foundation for some reason. I do love this concealer though, I have no faults with it. I don't tend to use a brush with it as it's not a liquid concealer and it would be difficult to get it out of the pot, so I just dab my finger into it and then put it onto my skin where I feel like I need more coverage. I think that this is one of my favourite concealers that I've ever tried.

Fleur Power Powder Blush

I got this blush as a gift from my Mum, who took me to MAC and let me choose one thing that I'd like- to which I hurriedly rushed over to the blushes and drooled heavily for a little while. After about ten minutes, I decided on this peachy-pink toned Satin finish blush. I use this blush pretty much daily, that's how much I adore it. MAC blushes are very expensive and most of the time have dupes, one that I've found for this blush is an MUA blush in Shade 5. I will be doing a comparison of these two blushes in a future blog post, so check out for that. (Once written it will be linked here.)

So, that is it for all of my MAC products. I hope that you've found this post interesting. What MAC products do you own? or if you'd like to see any other collections of make-up brands that I have, feel free to comment below. 

Have a great day!

Make-Up Brush Collection

Ever since my fascination with beauty products began, I've branded myself as 'the girl who needs more brushes'. I think that I've got more of an addiction to the brushes than I do with the makeup itself! Admittedly, my collection of brushes isn't a huge one, as it mainly consists of Real Technique brushes- but they are exceptional at what they do.

The brushes that I own from the collections available are the Core Collection (reviewed here), the Powder brush, the Stippling brush and the Shading brush. I also have a cheeky EcoTools foundation brush thrown in too. Now, being a girl that wears her make-up whenever she goes outside means that my brushes get dirty pretty fast, so I need to try and make sure that I wash them at least once a week (a painfully endurance-testing task, I can tell you!). Most of the time it only gets done once a fortnight, but I always need to make sure that I have a day ahead where I don't have to wear make-up, otherwise the washing needs to be done as soon as my make-up has been applied and then left until just before I do my make-up the next day! Ah, planning ahead.

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Out of all of my brushes, the three that I use the most have to be my Stippling brush, my Buffing Brush (part of the Core Collection) and my Shading brush. 

Stippling Brush

Once applying moisturiser, I tend to squirt some of my Studio Fix Fluid SPF 15 (Shade NC15, if you happened to be wondering) onto the back of my hand and then dipping my Stippling brush into the foundation, I swirl the brush onto my skin and make sure that it's covering all of my face, pushing it into places that I think need extra coverage. 

Buffing Brush

Once I've applied my foundation with my Stippling brush, I'm left with an awful lot of lines on my face which I definitely want to get rid of- which is where the Buffing brush comes in! I just buff the foundation into my skin in circles, building it up if more coverage is necessary. Some people tend to just apply their foundation with this brush rather than using the Stippling brush too, but I find that the foundation tends to sit on my skin if I solely use the Buffing brush by itself. I've gone into quite a bit of detail about this brush already in the review, so check that out if you want to know why I recommend it.

Shading Brush

The thing that I lack the most of when it comes to make-up would be eye shadow brushes. I know, it's terrible. Recently I purchased the Urban Decay Naked Palette, but the brush that came with it seemed to scratch my skin and it was just very uncomfortable to use- so I had to purchase one that was soft and still good at what it's meant to do. I didn't feel like splashing out on a brush, so I went for another Real Techniques brush. It does the job nicely, leaving me with pretty well-applied eye shadow daily. The only problem I have with this brush (and it's entirely because I only have one eye shadow brush) is that it gets dirty much quicker than the rest of my brushes- but it's one of the easiest to wash, so every cloud!

Overall, I love Real Techniques as a brand- all of their brushes that I've tried out are impeccably soft and they do their job amazingly well. If I ever leave the house with unappealing makeup, I can't blame my tools! If you would like to see what I think about the rest of my brushes that I haven't yet reviewed, drop a comment below and I'll get around to it as soon as!

Have a great day!