December Eye Make-Up Challenge: Day 5, My Everyday Look

I like to keep my usual make up really simple and quick so that I can always do it in a rush. I don't actually wear make up every day as I'm fairly happy (ish) to go bare faced but if I have the time this is my go-to eye make up.

I know I've done fine with this because I've done it who knows how many times! The most important thing for me with every day make up is flawless skin. I'm quite lucky that I have never suffered from acne (I get about one spot a year) but my skin makes up for it by being ridiculously dry. I have to religiously moisturise or foundation will cling to my dry patches. I'm very self conscious of my dry patches as I used to get teased at school about it which is ridiculous as it's not even that bad! The things people find to use against you are so stupid.
For my eye make-up I make sure to use an illuminating concealer under my eyes and a little on the brow bone (mine is a Body Shop one) and then smudge a little bit of pressed powder over my lids to even out my skin tone. I've been sporting a black liquid flick for a couple of years now and I love the way it defines my eye shape and brightens the colour of my iris. This one is Rimmels Exaggerate Liquid Liner and I love it for it's pigmentation and ease of use. I like to keep my flicks fairly small and I don't flick up to much because I like to create the appearance of a longer eye rather than a rounder eye. (There is enough roundness in my face as it is!) Mascara is as always my Body Shop Super Volume Mascara in black.

I hope you liked my usual look! I'd love to see a link to what you usually wear.

Day 1/Day 2/Day 3/Day 4

I'm really looking forward to day 5's look as I'm planning to recreate this FOTD as a step-by-step tutorial as it's been really popular and a friend has said that she'd love to know how I do my make-up. This will be for you, Bex and Hannah!

Review: MUA Single Shadows in Shade 28 and Shade 30

As most of you know I picked up a few MUA goodies in a recent haul. I've since reviewed the lipsticks (fantastic, in case you were wondering) and now I wanted to give my two eye shadows a thorough examination.

First up! The packaging isn't anything to rave about, although I do appreciate the clear lid. I hate when I can't quickly see which colour I'm grabbing. There's no apparent scent and to be honest I wouldn't expect one from eyeshadows.
These colours are beautiful. Extremely soft and buttery. There is a fair bit of fall out when picking these up on a brush and you do have to rub them in a little to get a smooth application.

You can see here that the particles can be a little bit patchy, more so in Shade 30 (Gold) and a few have settled on places other than the swatch! However, it's when these shadows are applied with a damp brush that they really come to life for me.

It's literally like painting on liquid metal. It's so so so beautiful !I couldn't get over it. These would look amazing used as chunky eyeliner.

Sadly I couldn't get as good a picture of the gold shade, but you can see how beautifully it catches the light.

I have to say, I love this brand. The cosmetics are of amazing quality, particularly when you consider that most of the range is just £1 and there are often deals such as 3 for 2. MUA have recently released a line of make up brushes which I would be very interested in knowing more about! Let me know if you're tried them. I really can't wait to pick up some more of these shadows and I know that they are soon to become a firm favourite in my make up case.

What do you think of these shades? Which ones should I get next?

Lauren

Mini Super Drug Haul: MUA and I love...

Everyone knows about the fantastic 3 for 2 offer on at Superdrug at the moment (ends December 4th aka my 4 year anniversary, eek!) and I decided that it was high time I took advantage of it myself. I'm feeling extremely strapped for cash at the minute because payday isn't 'til Monday, so naturally I headed straight for the MUA section.
Previous to this I was a total MUA virgin. Never touched the stuff, never even heard of it before I started blogging. That is until I swatched a few bits yesterday and gasped at the gorgeous pigmentation of the eyeshadows! Wow. I've also heard great things about the lipsticks so I grabbed 3 and I threw in a nail varnish for good measure.

Excuse the weird sticky stain. They all had these horrible little "new" stickers on and I clearly suck at removing stickers.

 In daylight.

At night with flash. (first and second swapped round, sorry)

The labelling on these is literally the most confusing thing. There were some numbers on the stickers and one of them had two different names on two different stickers?! So bizarre. I'll update with the shades if I can figure it out. They look super pretty and I can't wait to try them on my lips.

I'm a sucker for metallic browns and these bronze and gold shades are just beautiful. They are so pigmented and smooth. These are in shade 28 and 30.

The nail varnish is in Plum Noir. Unbelievably I picked all this up for £4. Oh my goodness. My purse was very grateful!

As I was browsing the bath bits a brand caught my eye which is simply called "I love..." this is very Philosophy style packaging, super sleek and quirky but without the price tag.

This raspberry and blackberry scent was by far my favourite. It smells incredible. It actually smells just like my current addiction, Sainsburys own Raspberry Sorbet, tastes. I know that's a weird way to describe it but you'd know what I mean if you tried it! I got this huge 500ml bottle for just £2.05 which is fantastic and picked up the matching lip balm for 99p.

Sadly I wasn't able to smell the lipbalm in store because it plastic wrapped and there wasn't any testers but to be honest I'm a bit disappointed! It's nowhere near as nice as the wash smells and when I tried it it was hard and waxy and difficult to use. I'm not sure if it just needs warming a little but I'll post a review when I've had a few tries with it.

So that's everything! Expect some swatches and reviews in due time.

What have you picked up at Superdrug recently? And what do you think of the featured brands?

Lauren

FOTD: Off Duty Cool

I usually don't wear any make up when I'm relaxing inside the house but when I'm out and about during daytime I like a light wash of skin brightening make up. Inevitably, if you go out looking like you just woke up, you will run into your ex/that girl that was mean at school/that person that you had a crush on for like a year and they never asked you out.

1. A smooth moisturised base with light foundation and concealer and little bit of highlighter on the cheek bones.

2. A champagne coloured shimmer shadow washed over the lid and a little under the bottom lash line. I used Marshmallow Shimmer Cube from The Body Shop. Choc Chip was used to just add a slight shadow to my upper lash line.

3. A couple of slicks of mascara, I used Maybelline's Collosal Cat Eyes.

4. For a teensy bit of colour, I blended out a smudge of Barry M's Flamingo Peach on my lips and topped with a Body Shop peachy lip gloss and I used The Body Shop's Macaroon blush to brighten the apples of my cheeks.

My hair here is what I'm most proud of ( I know it's not exactly face!) This was achieved using the Enrapture Totem Styler, which I've been using for the past couple of weeks, on setting 2-2-2 (using chunky sections.) I used Tresemme Heat Defence before blow drying and before tonging and Silvikrin Hair Spray to set before lightly brushing out. Great, effortless-looking big curls! This is my favourite off-duty hair style. I'll do a review on that styler soon and show you a few of the great ways to use it.

What's your go-to relaxed weekend look?

Lauren

p.s. I know that my hair is 3 different colours :( I'm a natural dark blonde and I'm trying to gracefully grow out my chemical laden locks. Please be kind!

My Body Shop Collection

I really am dedicated to this brand. A lot of it has to do with where I live. It's a really small town and there are no department stores and beauty counters and fabulous makeovers. There is literally a Boots, a Superdrug and The Body Shop. Boots has a Clinique/Lancome/No7/Elizabeth Arden section but I used to work there and I know for a fact that are mostly all manned by nasty b*tches (I hate saying that but it's true) and to be honest I don't really want them earning commission from it and I feel like they wouldn't respect me as a customer anyway. I've had a few occasions when I've returned something and the staff have expected me to go and pick up the replacement myself, despite the fact that they are supposed to do it, just because I used to work there. I wouldn't do it where I work to old colleagues so why should they?

Oh my gosh this is turning into such a rant. Basically I like to come into a store for skincare and cosmetics and actually have them talk to me about the products and help me choose shades/types etc. That is what a beauty shopping experience should be like. I am actually quite good friends with the manager in my local Body Shop now and it has made the world of difference to my shopping experiences. I look forward to going in there. 

So... needless to say I have picked up a few items. I felt that it would be fun to kind of lay them all out and see how much I've got. So here is the photo evidence... oh dear...

Yes there is a lot. To be fair, the Tea Tree skincare collection is my boyfriends. And the apple body wash has almost ran out.  Hmm.  Let's take a closer look.

So we have:

3x Body Washes

3x Body Butters

2x Facial Washes

1x Exfoliating Wash

1x Exfoliating Pads

1x Eye Shadow

3x Shimmer Cubes

1x Toner

1x Night Cream

2x Day Moisturiser

1x Blemish Balm

1x Lip Balm

1x Lip Butter

1x Blush

1x Powder Base

1x Foundation

1x Face and Body Brush

2x Eyeshadow Brushes

1x Highlighting Concealer

1x Lipgloss

1x Vanilla Bliss Gift Set

1x Body Mist

1x Body Polish

1x Mineral Mask

1x Eyeliner

2x Mascara (the other is stored away and unopened!)

1x Bath Lily

1x Make Up Cleanser/Remover

Total: 38 (47 if you count the shimmer cubes as individual shadows)

Terrible. But to be fair this is the only thing I really splurge on. Oh well. If they make me happy then who cares?

Have you got a single brand collection to rival this?! Send me links to posts!

Lauren

Review: Barry M Lip Paints: Part 3, Peach

The long awaited third instalment is here! In all honesty I've been putting this off because I don't like the way it looks on me and I wanted to find a way to make it work. Plus it's good to have some variety on here. Without further ado:

Peach 54 £4.49

This was the only paint I bought out of the Ultra Moisturising range and it was purely because I want to see how the colour would look on me. It looks like a really nice peachy nude in the bullet. Again, same cute packaging and no strong scent.

It was really difficult to get an accurate picture of this on me. In actuality it is really really bright peachy-orange. Like when they would give you a "skin" coloured pencil in school, that was the colour. I'm sure that this would suit some darker skin tones as it is though. It needed to be really toned down to make it wearable for me personally. 

I blotted quite a lot of the colour, evened it out with my finger and then applied a translucent peach gloss over the top. there was still plenty of colour pay off but I would actually wear this in public! It's really a shame because I loved the texture of this and it was so matte and smooth and pigmented. 

You can see in this swatch how much more smoothly it applied.

What do you think? Have you tried Barry M's Lip Paint in Peach?

FOTD: Casual Work/Daytime Make Up

This is a great casual look for work or school. I tried to work around the idea of "subtle definition."  The main focus here is clear, pretty skin and bright eyes! I work in a clothes shop which can be really draining. I don't need to tell anyone that's ever worked in retail that people can really push your limits sometimes. So feeling down combined with shopping centre dryness can be a nightmare for skin.

I used my moisturising foundation to inject some moisture into my skin and even out my complexion and followed it with a little concealer under the eyes and around the nostrils. I then set this with some pressed powder.

For the eyes I used my bronze body shop shimmer cubes in choc chip and dark chocolate. I used choc chip as a light wash over the entire lid, blended out at the top towards the brow bone, and dark chocolate to add some shadow in my crease and define a little of the lash line. I lined with a black liquid liner coming up into a slight point at the end of the lash line. Two coats of black mascara on the top lashes and one coat on the bottom helped open up my eyes without going over board.

I finished this look with little peach blusher and a slick of lip balm. 

Et voila! A simple, quick day time look that the boss can't argue with.

Lauren

p.s. I know about the eyebrows. :(