07.11.2016: October Favourites

Well hello! Another long stint without any posts or updates from me. It's frustrating when all you want to do is document your thoughts, interests, absolute hates etc. but everything else gets in the way. I've started my third year of university which is notoriously 'the hardest out of all three, holy shit you have to write a dissertation alongside reading a million and one books, doing exams and other pieces of coursework' and all, yada yada yada. Summer was just a blur of working. However, I'm going to start looking at this blog a little differently. Rather than it being an obligation and feeling guilty whenever I take time away from it, I should look at it instead as being my down-time, because it's fun to write.

So, without further ramblings, lets have a nose at my October favourites. (October went super quick, didn't it? I honestly can't remember writing down month number 10 in my notebooks. Weird!)

Big

My hair is the bane of my existence. Why the heck does it go from flat as frick to a ball of frizz that won't budge? Now granted, it has gone through the old bleaching rigmaroll but can't it just adapt already? Anyway, I was nosing on the Lush website because payday got to me and I wanted bath bombs goddamnit. So I was going through and adding a Frozen and Snowfairy here and there, when I thought that maybe I should get something for the mass of blonde on my head. That was when I read the description for Big. 'To make you feel like a mermaid' - a tagline like that will always get me. Made from seaweed and seasalt, this stuff is amazing to just shove a big dollop on your head in the shower and smush into your hair. You instantly smell like the ocean and your hair feels weightless. I love it.

Nyx 'Bitten/Mordue'

Recently I've been going super boring on the old daily makeup routine. Usual Bourjois healthy mix, Nars Laguna bronzer, Sleek brow kit, Nars Orgasm on my cheeks. But wait, hold up. When Nyx hit boots several months back, I remember picking up a blush in the flurry of manicured hands swatting others' away to get to the matte lip cremes. Just so happens that this blush was a Nyx High Definition Blush in Bitten/Mordue. This deep plum colour can make you look like a clown if you go in too heavy-handed, but when blended looks very autumnal and flattering on the cheeks. It has a few little flakes of shimmer, but nothing too in-your-face glitterbomb. Also the 'Mordue' name reminds me of the evil guy in Brave and how they constantly say it in an intense Scottish accent. Just me?

OPI's Tiramisu for Two

image taken from OPI

A week and a half ago, my mum had us booked in for a 'full on friday', which included getting our brows, lashes and nails done at our local salon. I always love walking out with brows that look good, especially after making the last job take me through two months, at the end looking slightly walrus-esque. However, this time I was most enamoured with my nails. Now, I'm normally an Essie nail varnish lover, mainly because I like the colours and they're easier to get my hands on than OPI polishes. But at the salon, I had a choice of several OPI shades for my gel nails. Wanting a dusky pink colour, I chose the closest shade going which was Tiramisu for Two. It is the bomb. I've had so many compliments on it, and it just looks like the perfect nude for my skin tone. Definitely going to be picking up a bottle when I get the chance!

MACs Warm Neutral 15x Eyeshadow Palette

It took me ages to bite the bullet and buy this, simply because I've just got so many palettes that I just throw to the wayside as soon as I get a new one. Guess what? It happened again. After picking up this palette, I haven't touched any of my UD Naked's, my Gwen Stefani bombshell, not even good old faithful Sleek palettes. I was wary that I wouldn't use this much because of the ratio of matte to shimmer shades, as I tend to stick to matte shades on my eyelids most of the time. Turns out that I don't really know my own taste, as I've been shoving glitter upon glitter onto my lids since getting this. Amber Lights is definitely a stand out, usually pairing it with some Creative Copper and a dash of Dance in the Dark just to smoke it out a little bit. Another shoutout goes to Gingersnap, and the only shade that I've hit pan on is Brule. (I will forever be a matte lover.)

Hunted

image taken from Channel 4 Hunted

Over the past few days, my boyfriend and I have been glued to watching Season 2 of the Channel 4 show Hunted. I absolutely love it. If you've not heard of it before, the show focusses on 10 people going on the run for 28 days whilst a team of, yep you guessed it, Hunters, try to track them down. Whilst my boyfriend remains sceptical of whether or not it's fake (I don't think it is, however they do mention prior to the start of every episode that some aspects are recreated), I'm just sat in full-on hyper-alert hoping that the runners don't get caught. I'm not one for action, but this programme is just very interesting. I only managed to catch the back end of the last season, but this time I'm hooked. Just one more episode and we'll be fully caught up- so no spoilers please!

I think I'll leave it at that today, but rest assured there will be another post up soon enough. Let me know if there's anything that you've been loving recently, or if you've tried out anything from my favourites- or even if you're thinking of hitting any of them up since reading a little bit about my love for them!

04.02.2016: Beauty Bits I've Been Loving

With Christmas passing quickly and the new-releases of January flashing by, it's pretty easy to get caught up in a whirl with all of the new beauty bits you can acquire. I've managed to whittle these down into five things that I can honestly say I'm glad to have in my collection, and quite ridiculously have no idea how I dealt without. (Of course, this is an over-reaction. I could've done without spending the money but they were just so gosh darn pretty.) So, without further ado, I present to you the five things that I've accumulated over the past month or two and really freaking liked.

Told you they were pretty. Left: Viva Glam Ariana Grande, Right: Honeylove.

Is it a little more justifiable now? Every girl buys MAC, potentially because we flock like sheep towards anything that a pretty-lipped girl recommends. Nine times out of ten, she'll be speaking about the newest nude shade from MAC, or a pink that she believes offers the perfect 'her lips but better' tint. She'll be right. I'm not one to shy away from a lipstick, and matte finishes from MAC are my absolute favourite. So what if they leave your lips feeling like you're stranded in the Sahara? You'll look gorgeous battling the sand dunes.

Ariana Grande's shade is something completely different for me. I've tried to achieve this colour before, when purchasing Rebel (also from MAC) but sadly the satin finish left it looking too light for my taste. So when I saw Ariana rocking this colour in the ads on the side of my screen, I knew that it could be the one. It was matte, dark as hell and the packaging was pink so I was sold. Safe to say that I've been wearing this on my bolder days.

Honeylove is a repurchase for me- after a particularly heavy birthday rendezvous, my beloved lipstick was lost forever. So I bit the bullet and paid a stonking £15.50 for the privilege of having my fave nude back. Lighter than Velvet Teddy, but still matte. It's my go-to lippy to just shove on before I whiz to somewhere last minute.

Gwen Stefani x Urban Decay Blush Palette.

I am a peachy blush girl through and through. I've never gotten on with pinks- probably because I want to stray away from my naturally red-faced-ness. I can't remember where I first saw someone talking about this, but when I did, I couldn't have clicked onto the UD website quick enough. Turns out I was way too early and had to wait another week or so for it to actually be released (a painstaking week of debating whether or not I could actually afford to buy it). Eventually, I persuaded my boyfriend to buy it for me as a belated birthday present and voila. Although, I have to say that I wasn't impressed when we ordered it online and then two days later Debenhams had it in store. Luckily it arrived the day after- but still.

Anywho, my favourite shades have to be OC (furthest away on the bottom row) and Lo-Fi (the closest on the bottom row).  OC is a lovely matte peachy blush that makes me feel like it's the middle of summer as I'm battling against the January winds. Lo-Fi I'm using as an alternative to NARS Laguna bronzer, as it's more matte. I am very excited to try out Angel, too (furthest away on the top row) which is a shimmery, iridescent peach. I'll let you know if it's a third fave.

Don't worry, I bought this one myself. Gwen Stefani x Urban Decay Eyeshadow Palette.

A month before the blush palette, I caved and picked this beauty up. Look at all the neutral shades. Let's just ignore the 'slightly' garish Harajuku & Danger shades that are going on all up in that- they might be useful at Halloween or something. There are loads of pretty colours to choose from, so I've narrowed it down to my top five shades: Stark, Anaheim, Zone, Punk and Blonde.

Just a little outline of how I use these shades on the eye: I've been using Stark (bang slap in the middle) all over the lid with either Anaheim (to the left of Stark) or Zone (to the right of Stark) in the crease for an everyday neutral easy eye. When I want to make it a little darker, I put a little dab of Punk (furthest away on the top row) in the outer V of the eye. Finally, I finish up with using Blonde (top left) under the arch of the eyebrow, right on the brow-bone, to act as a highlight.

Photographing mascara is so difficult to do nicely. Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara. 

Last but not least, this mascara. This mascara. It was totally an impulse buy, I'll admit. Everyone had been raving about it and I was bored of my L'Oréal False Lash Wings mascara, so I forked out £19 of my own hard-earned wonga and bought it. I'm glad I did, but I still wince at the price for 'black stuff that make my eyelashes more pronounced'.

It does make them a lot more pronounced. I've been sick recently, so I've not managed to do anything to my face other than put this mascara on my lashes and wipe my nose. Good for the skin, bad for the people that get to see my face. Either way, my lashes looked long and full. Score.

Let me know what you thought of the bits I've mentioned, has this swayed you on delving into your purse and buying them or completely turned you off?

More on me being sick, to round this post off. It's just a cold, but honestly I am very much over it. I'm currently sitting in my room, feeling very sorry for myself. I have a lecture to head off to in a minute and I'm really not feeling it, but alas, I will attend for the sake of my education. Another blog post to come in the next day or so.

Spring Beauty Haul

First off I have to apologise for my lack of posts over these past four months. I feel like everything has just piled up and I've not had any time to update my blog in between revision for SO many tests. Enough excuses, I'll just get straight into today's post.

The other day, I ordered a cheeky purchase from Debenhams because I was a) almost out of my go-to foundation and b) in the mood for spending money on cosmetics! I didn't go mad because I have to start saving for November when I'll be going to Florida. I also placed a small order from Elf Cosmetics during their 50% off sale last week and I thought I'd share what I bought with you all!

I took advantage of the sun and snapped a few pictures of the products outside!

MAC Studio Fix Fluid Foundation SPF 15

From Debenhams, I purchased two MAC products. One was my usual Studio Fix Fluid Foundation with SPF 15 in the shade NC15 (my fourth bottle! I go through this stuff way too quickly!) because I was running low on it. I absolutely love this foundation because it's generally known for being a bit matte when on the skin- but not so much that it looks cakey. It's the perfect in between foundation for me and is generally a medium/high coverage. 

MAC Peaches

The second MAC product I purchased was the Sheertone Blush 'Peaches' (on the left), which (as the name implies) is a peachy-pink colour for the cheeks which just brightens up your complexion. I only own two MAC blushes- the second (to the right) being 'Fleur Power' which is a Powder blush that I use almost every day on my cheeks because I think that it's a simple blush that doesn't look too bright but still looks like you've got some colour to the cheeks.

From Elf, I bought the Kabuki Face Brush, an Eyeshadow "C" Brush and the Wet Gloss Lash & Brow Clear Mascara just to give it a try. Since I received these about four days ago, I've used all of these products in my daily make-up routine and I think I'd feel a bit lost without them now!

Elf Kabuki Face Brush

The Kabuki Brush is normally £6 from Elf, which although is considered quite cheap in comparison to the ridiculously expensive £36 MAC Kabuki, I never really wanted to spend that much on a single product from Elf. I've always found Elf a cheap make-up cosmetics company and anything over £4 just seems expensive from there! So when I got an e-mail saying that they were having a 50% off sale, I jumped on the bandwagon and bought myself the Kabuki brush. Elf brushes from the studio line are surprisingly soft considering they range from £3.75 to £6 and since using the Kabuki, it has yet to malt on me! It's very soft and comfortable on the skin and I use it daily to apply my Stay Matte powder from Rimmel.

Elf Eyeshadow "C" Brush

The Eyeshadow "C" Brush was a bit of an odd purchase. I just wanted a good brush that would pack eyeshadow onto my lid before applying eyeshadow in the crease and I thought that the shape of this brush would allow that nicely and easily. Again, it's a nice soft brush but it's much more dense (obviously!) than the Kabuki so it allows a lot of eyeshadow to be picked up by the hairs. I'm pleasantly surprised with how good this brush is and I highly recommend it for anyone that wants a decent eyeshadow brush without wanting to fork out a lot of money for one!

Elf Wet Gloss Lash & Brow Clear Mascara

Finally, the Wet Gloss Lash & Brow Clear Mascara. Now, I have to admit, this was only a last minute decision to add to my basket. I'd seen a few beauty bloggers speak about this before but nothing 'ground-breaking' was mentioned about it. So far, I've only used this product on my eyelashes before applying mascara and it actually seems to lengthen them greatly. After applying this to the eyelashes, I put on my Clinique High Impact Mascara and it seems to make a great deal of difference when it comes to length. It doesn't curly the eyelashes much and it definitely doesn't volumize them- but if you're looking for a lengthening product for the lashes, then this is your ticket!

I hope that you have all been well these past four months! 

Did any of you take advantage of the 50% off offers from Elf? If you did, what did you buy that you'd recommend?