Daily Make Up/How Much Is My Face Worth?

For the longest time my daily make up was literally just a flick of liquid liner and some mascara but frankly, that wasn't cutting it. I've since upgraded into a full face of make up and love the freedom I have over my look. These are the products that I use pretty much every day for work etc. I don't bother with make up if I'm just nipping out shopping or slumming it around the house so I can give my skin a break.

My base hasn't changed in quite a while. I currently use The Body Shop Moisture Foundation in 03, Lightening Touch Concealer in 01 and All-in-One Face Base in 03. The colour match is essentially perfect for me and I love the included SPF. Check out this post for extra details! Sleek's Face Form (Light) is the most recent addition to my daily make up bag and it's revolutionised my base. I love how transformative it is! I have so much more warmth and definition to my face now and feel much more confident. I tend to always use the contouring powder and highlighter but swap up my blush depending on my mood. For blushes I switch between the blush included (Rose Gold,) TBS Macaroon Blush and Maybelline's Cream Blush in 06 Berry.

I always use some combination of my MUA Undressed Palette, Rimmel Liquid Liner and Illamasqua Sophie pencil for my eyes. As you can see I use every colour in the palette and never wear the same look twice in a row just to make myself experiment more. It's so easy to get stuck in a rut (coming from liner flick and mascara girl, so trust me!) so I love my new philosophy. I don't always wear liner but when I do these are my go to products. The Rimmel liquid is so easy to use and this is my second bottle already, forever repurchase! The Sophie pencil is the blackest of blacks and is really soft and blendable but doesn't smudge when it sets. Pretty much perfection in a pencil. Deborah Milano Mascara is an essential for me; I originally got it  for reviewing purposes but I adore it so it became my daily mascara. I get a ton of volume and length with a couple of coats and it's the perfect finishing touch to every look for me.

For day to day, I just wear a clear balm or lip butter to keep my lips in good condition. That way they're looking gorgeous and smooth for when I go all out with a fabulous bright lip in the evenings. I swear by Nivea Lip Butter for the most kissable lips going!

So how much is my face worth?

Base:

The Body Shop Moisture Foundation SPF 15

£13

The Body Shop Lightening Touch Concealer Pen

£14
The Body Shop All-in-One Face Base

£14

Sleek Face Form in Light

£10

Eyes:

Mua Undressed Palette
£4
Rimmel Exaggerate Liquid Liner in Black
£4.29

Illamasqua S.O.P.H.I.E Pencil
£13
Deborah Milano 24 Ore Absolute Volume Mascara
£9.50

Lips:
Nivea Lip Butter (Not Pictured)
£1.99

Total: £83.78

I so was not expecting it to be that high! I didn't include any of my brushes or moisturiser so that's pretty shocking. I don't even use any high end products aside from the Illamasqua pencil. I guess my only defence is that I've seen worse...? Not very good defence!

Do you use any of the same products as me? What do you think of my philosophy of never wearing the same eye make up twice in a row? And how much is your face worth?! Add it up and let me know!

Lauren

Orange Nail Varnish Collection and Swatches

Orange is one of my all time favourite colours. It always perks me up to have a pop of orange in my look and nail varnishes are ideal for this. I think orange is one of the most lively and positive colours there is and I find myself picking up cosmetics in this shade far more often than I'm willing to admit! As I was packing away some of my things for my upcoming move (nothing dramatic, just going back to Grandma's before University so we can help each other out) I started idly scanning my polishes and a few really stuck out to me. So here are my five favourite orange nail varnishes!

From Thumb to Pinky: Models Own Fluro Orange, Nails Inc Porchester Place, Essie Fear or Desire, Rimmel Tangy Tangerine, W7 Pastel 16

Fluro Orange is ridiculously bright, no camera on earth could capture it's insane beauty. I didn't keep this bizarre (but kinda cool right? No? Just me then...) mani on for long but it's definitely the one that I couldn't keep my eyes off. If you're after some seriously attention grabbing talons I can't recommend this enough. It has a semi-matte finish but you could easily add a glossy top coat for a little more finesse. Porchester Place and Fear or Desire are fairly similar but Porchester Place has a touch more pink and is a little more muted. Both perfect for holiday toes! Tangy Tangerine is a classic apricot and was my boyfriends favourite of the lot for some reason. When I first asked his opinion he replied that they were all the same (my jaw nearly hit the floor at his blindness) but when pressed he claimed that Rimmel's offering was "more subtle and pretty."  I have to agree, it's a great transitional shade for Spring/Summer and won't offend your poor blind boyfriend. W7 is such a pain in the bum to effectively track down but I do so love them! I got a ten pack of pastels from TK Maxx and this is one of my favourites. Very delicate and cool and gorgeous with a tan.

I really hoped you like this! I have a real soft spot for colour-themed collections and adore seeing them on blogs so I couldn't resist! I think I may go for pink lip products next time. What do you think?

Which is your favourite shade? Any others that I have to try?

Lauren

Review and Swatches: Rimmel Apocalips in Apocaliptic, Celestial, Stellar, Big Bang and Nude Eclipse

Pretty much everyone has heard of the Rimmel Apocalips by now. Hailed as a revolution in lip colour, these super pigmented lip lacquers exploded onto the market and onto a ton of blogs very, very quickly. I know a lot of people got bored very quickly of reading about these and I'll admit that whilst I'm not a fan of seeing the same products over and over, I just can't help myself clicking every single post that features them! I must be mad. It took me a week after release to finally track some of these down since my woefully poor local Boots and Superdrug simply didn't stock them. It's enough to drive a beauty blogger crazy! But eventually I had a nice little collection of the colours I "needed" (wink) and wanted to share my thoughts on them.

 

It's been said a hundred times but the packaging really is super cute and very functional. The clear base is ideal for displaying the colour and the meteoric lids fit wonderfully with the apocalyptic theme. As do the fabulous names. A* for marketing. The lids fit nice and tightly and I'm not at all worried about it coming undone. The wand itself works as an almost perfect applicator for this product and the well inside the doe-foot catches just the right amount for one full application. I've read some reviews saying that the applicator felt clumsy and applied too much product but I have to disagree. I work from the back of the applicator and begin applying to the centre of my lips. It's then just a case of flipping it over to add more product and smooth it over bit by bit. It's very easy to add too much if you don't go slowly and applying anything other than a thin layer will make a total mess (trust me. Oops.) The colours are undeniably beautiful but I do wish they had included a strong orange colour because Luna looked a little pale for me personally. Just think of the awesome names they could have for an orange! The only real negative I have at this point is the rather bizarre scent. A plastic/watermelon hybrid which does nothing for me. I really do hate melon.

Apocaliptic

 

Celestial

Stellar

 

Big Bang

                                 

Nude Eclipse

Nude Eclipse was such an enormous disappointment for me. It was just so wrong for my skin tone and for some reason it felt much drier than the others. you can see in the photo how it settles into my lip lines and just looks awful. As if I needed any more proof, the first time my boyfriend saw me wearing this he said "Why do you look like a chav?" Yes that's right, he thought I'd done concealer lips. Kill me now. However, I do quite like using this to blend with other lipsticks to create more of a pastel tone so it's not all doom and gloom.

The other colours however are just total dreams. Mega pigmented, smooth and non drying. I think my favourite is Apocalyptic - it's similar to Revlon's Raspberry Pie on me but even brighter. The darker colours do have a slight tendency to bleed (particularly if you apply them as poorly as I do)  as seen on the Big Bang swatches. They have a gorgeous glossy finish which does matte down over time but I don't find that it becomes uncomfortable at all. They also transfer onto EVERYTHING, even when blotted. You absolutely have to check your teeth before leaving the house with these. They do last wonderfully though provided you don't eat. One sandwich later and you will definitely be rocking the heavy lip liner look so do top up after meals! I've worn Stellar out to drinks though and whilst my straw looked pretty butchered my lips were still practically perfect after 2-3 hours.

Final Verdict: Beautiful colours that look fantastic but will transfer onto everything. Try at least one if you can, you might just fall in love!

Love them or loathe them? Do you have a favourite colour?

Lauren

Review: Rimmel Glam'Eyes HD Palette in True Union Jack

I recently had a spot of luck and managed to bag myself a few Rimmel goodies from Danniella when she held a Twitter giveaway! I'm an avid fan of her beautiful blog Beauty in Japan and was absolutely ecstatic that I'd won. She even popped in an extra special present which I'll tell you more about soon! One of the products I received was the Glam'Eyes HD Palette in True Union Jack. I was so excited about this. I love the design and the colours. It's very cool and innovative and I sure do love me some home pride! I've looked at these palettes in Boots before and kept putting them back because I couldn't justify £6.99 on something that I probably wouldn't use very often.

As I've said, I love the design. It's very compact and attractive. The packaging is surprisingly sturdy and I've even knocked this onto the floor from a substantial height (accidentally!) and the shadows stayed intact. It comes with a tiny double-ended sponge applicator which went into the pile with all my others. Handy to have in an emergency but I tend to use brushes. The back of the palette shows a little diagram of a suggested way to wear it which is great for such an adventurous palette. It can sometimes be a little overwhelming trying to figure out what to do with a colour combo like this.

I have to be honest, I was a bit disappointed. The pigmentation wasn't anything to write home about and the highlight shade had very high fall out. You can see the photo above that there's silver shimmer all over the place and it doesn't even seem to have a real base, it's just shimmer! The two brights are quite sheer and it was nigh impossible to build them up. The black outer corner shade was the stand out for me, pigmentation was good and it was soft and easy to blend. It's just a shame that there's such a tiny amount of it in the palette.

You can see here how sheer the colours are on me. I found that even as I was applying it the pigmentation was fading rapidly and trying to blend them made them disappear completely. It was also very difficult to manoeuvre my brushes around the palette because the pans are so small and in such awkward shapes. I really struggled to load my brushes with precision. I honestly wouldn't wear this out of the house. I think I just looked messy and I wouldn't expect my eye shadow to look as washed out as this even after a long day.

I don't think of myself as being particularly difficult to please so I was surprised at how much I struggled with this! I think it's possible that the paleness of my skin had an effect on how pigmented these looked because I've looked at quite a few reviews and they all seem to be positive and the swatches look great. Very weird. Regardless of my experience, I think it's well worth having a go with one of these palettes, you can get them for just £1.99 at Fragrance Direct here. There are some really pretty colour combinations in the range and I'm sad that it didn't work for me!

Final Verdict: Just did not work for me. Worth a go for £1.99 but don't say I didn't warn you!

Have you tried these palettes? How do you rate Rimmel's eye shadows? 

Lauren

Valentine's Day Inspired Makeup Tutorial

Ahh, love is in the air... and by love I mean an inordinate amount of money and the pressure to somehow make sex more exciting than usual. I'm only joking! I'm not a total grouch. Whilst it's absolutely true that you should be loving your significant other pretty much every day, it's kind of nice to have a day dedicated to it. And it certainly doesn't have to cost a lot of money. I for one am intending on making my lovely boyfriend breakfast in bed which I know he's going to love.
Regardless of what comes with Valentines Day there's no denying that it can be pretty inspirational with it's classic girly colour palette and patterns. Since I recently received this palette (only £1.99!) I decided that I was going to experiment with some pink shadows.

1-2

Gently pat the lid shade all over the eye. I used my Body Shop Eye Shadow Brush. Blend slightly outwards to create a more soft, rounded shape. Using the same brush, work the crease shade into the crease and bring it under the eye about half way across. Using a clean brush (or even your little finger as I did) pat some of the lightest shade into the inner corner.

3-4

Apply a liquid liner. I used Illamasqua Precision Ink in Havoc which is a deep red/purple shade and dries to a wet-look finish. Matte black would be fantastic and much easier to wear, but since we're experimenting I think Havoc is great! Slick two coats of black mascara onto the top lashes and one coat onto the bottom lashes. I then defined my brows and highlighted the arch on the brow bone using the Soap and Glory Arch de Triumph.

4-5

That's the eyes finished! Looking very sleepy. For the lips I wanted to tie into the colour palette but keep them quite muted so as not to overpower the rest of the makeup. Annoyingly I didn't actually have any pastel pinks in my collection so I had to get creative. I began by slicking on a thin coat of Rimmels Apocalips in Nude Eclipse and evening out with a lip brush (or fingers.) I then used Revlon Lip Butter in Berry Smoothie over the top by rubbing the product onto my finger and gently patting across the lips. I am absolutely thrilled with these lips! It just goes to show that you don't always need new products to get the desired effect and I'll be experimenting some more in the future with colour mixing.

Here's the finished look. Fit for Aphrodite herself! ;)

Products Used:

Face:

The Body Shop Moisture Foundation in 03

The Body Shop Lightening Touch Concealer in 01

The Body Shop All In One Face Base in 03

Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer in Light

Illamasqua Illuminator in Slay

Maybelline Dream Touch Blush in Berry 06

Eyes:

Technic Electric Beauty Ultra Violet Palette

Illamasqua Precision Ink in Havoc

Soap and Glory Arch de Triumph

The Body Shop Super Volume Mascara in Black

Lips:

Rimmel Apocalips in Nude Eclipse

Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter in Berry Smoothie

I really hope you liked my look and would love to see some links to your Valentine's looks! Obviously this is a bit "out there" with the red liner but I still love it and I did wear this out! Very brave for such a beauty and fashion backwards town but I felt great.

Lauren

January Favourites

Since I've now been blogging for over two months I feel familiar enough with my stash to start my monthly favourites! What better month to start than January?  I have a bit of a mix here, there's few old favourites and some new products too. So here are my most reached for this month:

From L-R: Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains in Honey and Crush, W7 Nail Varnish in 11, The Body Shop Aloe Gentle Foaming Face Wash, Naturals Mango and Papaya Lip Balm, Maybelline Dream Touch Cream Blush in Berry 06, The Body Shop Shea Body Butter, Rimmel Exaggerate Liquid Liner in Black

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains in Honey and Crush
I was very late on the band wagon with these but I'm enormously happy that I finally jumped on! I've literally been swapping these back and forth for Day and Night. Honey is a pretty soft pink and Crush is deep berry tone. I find them absolutely ideal for the Winter since they're slightly moisturising. Matte lipsticks tend to dry my lips out in this weather. Swatches and full review here.

W7 Nail Varnish in 11
A beautiful powdery pastel blue. I've worn it twice already this month! I even accidentally bought an Illamasqua dupe but I find the slightly thinner formula of this polish works better for me. It's a great colour to take me into Spring. I love it!

The Body Shop Aloe Gentle Foaming Face Wash
I've been using this for a couple of months now and it's almost empty. It's super light and refreshing and I love using it. I always feel extra clean and my skin looks more radiant in the mornings. I can't sing it's praises enough. Colour, fragrance and paraben free, it's ideal for sensitive skin girls like me.

Naturals Mango and Papaya Lip Balm
A more recent addition to my stash! I actually won this from Jasmine and it came in a collection of four different scents. I love all of them but this is my current favourite. It smells absolutely divine. Really fruity and fresh. It has a slight orange tint to it which comes out as a very natural peachy shine on my lips. Perfect for day time. I haven't put it down!

Maybelline Dream Touch Cream Blush in Berry 06
I bought this all the way back in November but I've only recently started full embracing it. This is 100% my go to blush. I prefer a slightly dewy finish because I feel it looks much more natural on my dry skin and this is just perfect for a touch of natural colour. It only takes a very small amount and I buff it on using my round Nanshy brush for a flawless finish. Lasts forever, looks gorgeous. Review of Nanshy brushes and cheek swatch here.

The Body Shop Shea Body Butter
The very first Body Shop butter that I ever bought and still a firm favourite. It's the one that I reach for when I have very dry skin and I love it for some extra moisture in Winter. I have quite a few of the butters and there are an amazing selection of scents. They sink in really fast and you can smell them all day long. Perfect mosturisers.

Rimmel Exaggerate Liquid Liner in Black
This is has always been my go to liquid liner and this is a brand new tube since I tragically lost my old one. It's ultra black, dries fast and doesn't transfer despite not being waterproof. It also has my favourite kind of applicator, a slightly firm point that doesn't splay or pull on my skin. Forever repurchase.

Quite a few this month that I wanted to feature! Have you tried any of these products? I'd love a link to your favourites this month!

Lauren

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!