May Haul!

Ok, so it has been aaaages since I spent money on things for myself, well apart from new work clothes.
So I felt it necessary to splurge a little bit and have had a few trips shopping and built up over the last few weeks a nice haul - which I thought some of you may like to see.

This is just a bit of a show and tell post - I will however be trying to do more reviews as they seem to be popular - so watch this space for those.

Here we go!
 

• The Body Shop: Hemp Hand Oil - £7 

This hand oil is a deep moisturising and protecting hand care product, I would describe it as a more intense product than the hemp hand protector cream (which I also swear by). I bought this as my medication has caused me to have eczema on my hands and this has been helping brilliantly - it is not a greasy oil, it melts and is absorbed quite quickly. It does however have the strong hemp smell, which I have actually become used to from using the cream, but this may put people off. 

• Lush: Ultrabland Facial Cleanser - £6.75/45g or £10.75/100g

This is a product that I have been after for a while, I was given a sample back when I bought Angels on Bare Skin ( here in my February Haul - see how long its been since I did a 'proper' shop!?). I have only recently tested it; but loved what I have tested so thought it was worth a purchase. It is a cream/balm cleanser that smells just like honey - fantastic! 

• Lush: Godiva Shampoo and Conditioning Bar - £6.25/55g 

I have wanted to try one of Lush's  solid shampoo bars for SO LONG! But as we don't have a Lush in my home town I have had to wait until I could get to one. I love lush as all the staff are so help full and can match you with the perfect products for your needs. I bought Godiva over the others as it conditions as well as cleanses the hair, supposedly making it really nourishing ( I have yet to use this) - but most of all, it smells exactly like Jasmine, I could just carry it round with me to smell, its gorgeous. 

• Lush: Jungle Solid Conditioner - £2.95/55g

Again I wanted a solid conditioner to match the Godiva shampoo - this is a really lovely smelling product too, less intense than Godiva and more fruity; but in a subtle way not a sickly way. Due to the length of my hair I need a really nourishing conditioner that tames frizz near the scalp and moisturises the ends of my hair. I have been promised that this is the perfect product for me - only time will tell! 

• NARS: Orgasm Blush - £21.50/4.8g 

Possibly the most famous blush in the history of makeup - hyped up to the extreme and revered as many peoples best product. I have resisted buying it for so long as I simply just didnt see what all the fuss was about. Happy with my Matte Mac blush I just plodded along without it. However...since getting clear skin I wanted something more 'glowy' for the summer months (Hello Sun! Where are you??) and so I gave in, marched my way up to the counter and gave in... succumbed to its pinky peachy glowyness; wapped it on my cheeks straight away and strutted out the shop - I will be writing a full review of this later when I have used it a bit more. 

• NARS: Albatross Highlighting Blush Powder - £21.50/4.8g

I have been using Benefit's High Beam (again featured in my February Haul) for my highlight when I wear a full face of makeup - however with my dry skin the texture of it is not working for me at the minute, plus the colour is perfect in colder months as it has a lovely icy sheen - but this is not what I want for warmer months. Albatross however (despite its appearance  has an amazing gold sheen that works in conjunction with the gold shimmer in Orgasm. The powder texture also works better for my skin while its dry.

 I must add here that I love NARS packaging, it is beautiful - not practical as it gets dirty very easily - but nonetheless beautiful and I also love the attention to detain with a mirror in all powder product packaging! LOOK AT IT!!

BEAUTIFUL!!

I have bought a couple more products as well as these but I am deeming them not interesting enough for this post - plus I don't think I can bear to see the price of any more of the products - its like my own post telling me off for splurging! 

As I said I will be reviewing most of these products in more depth when I have used them a bit more. 

Hope you enjoyed the read! 

C

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Mini Haul - Avon, Collection 2000 and Clinique

Hi Beauties!

So I have been spying a few things that I have liked over the past week and decided to purchase a few of them.

The first being Avon's SuperShock Gel eyeliner pencils - I actually only got these last night but I have tried them out and I am really liking the formula. I bought 2 colours to start with; Black and Aquapop.

Top Black
Bottom Aquapop

The formula is so creamy, it glides on so easily and the pigmentation is so intense - I tight lined my eyes last night just to check them out and I was so surprised at the colour payoff. I have heard some really good things about these and so wanted to try them out. I am hoping that they live up to expectation - but a part of me suspects that even though I love the formula there may be a lot of smudgyness to follow.

The next thing is something I tweeted about the other day - Collection 2000's Lasting Perfection Ultimate wear concealer. I really wanted to review this - but to be perfectly honest with you I have not been able to wear skin makeup every day so I have not had enough wear out of it to give it a good enough try.

colour 1 Fair

I do like the formula from the couple of times I have tried it. I do however wish that I had got the next colour darker as this is really highlighting, which is not a bad thing but it may be too light to evenly blend blemishes away without highlighting their existence  I have been using this when I can as an under eye concealer and it works really nicely in covering up dark circles - which you would expect from any half decent concealer. Again I have heard a lot of good things about this product so I am looking forward to seeing how well it compares.

The last product is not one that I have yet purchased but one that I have been using a sample for. It is Cliniques SuperMoisture Foundation. I really like this product and will be buying it very soon.

colour Ivory 

It is an incredibly moisturising foundation which I am having to wear due to the medication that I am on, causing my skin to be dryer than the Sahara. I actually went into Clinique and spoke to one of the lovely ladies there and explained my predicament and that I had a job interview coming up. So the wonderful woman dispensed me a nice big sample of this foundation for me to try out and use for my interview. It worked a treat! It evens out my skin tone nicely, it has a medium coverage and is (as you would expect with the name like SuperMoisture) very moisturising. However my face does look incredibly shiny as the product doesn't necessarily dry - but then again I cannot apply powder as that would dry out my face and draw attention to dry areas.

I am hoping that after I come off the medication I can go back to using my YSL foundation, but while I have skin issues I'm pretty sure this foundation is going to be as good as it gets!


Hope you like my mini Haul :)

Have you tried any of these products? What do you think of them?

C
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February Haul

Hi Peeps!

So I haven't blogged in like a week or something (booo), but I thought that I would post about the stuff I've bought recently.

Hopefully it wont be as long as my Jan & Feb Faves but I cant promise anything (mwahaha).

So theres a few things (not many) in this haul. A couple of them are skin care.

I have two skin care products in this haul - both Lush products - the first is the Angels on Bare Skin facial cleanser. I heard about this product on Ask the Beauty editor and just had to give it a try.

 This is a fantastic everyday cleanser, it smells divine and works brilliantly. Its perfectly suited to my skin as it is designed to cleanse whilst calming the skin, reducing redness and gently exfoliating. It has whole bits of lavender flowers in so has a lovely lavender smell. You use the product and water to make a paste that can then be rubbed on skin to cleanse, it also contains ground almonds which have an exfoliation property which is gentle yet effective - Love this product!

The second product that I bought from Lush is a lip scrub in Sweet Lips.

This sugar based scrub is great for while I have dry lips as it buffs away the dead skin leaving my lips preped for lip balm. This scrub smells like chocolate (although they have 3 other flavours) and when you have used it you can just lick it off! Mmmmmm

 My third haul product is Avons Advanced techniques Scalp soothing conditioner.

 I find that in winter my scalp becomes dry and using this treatment once a week really helps to keep my scalp moisturised.

Now onto more beauty style haul products. I purchased a lovely china glaze nail varnish from the Cirque du Soleil collection after seeing the colour Running in Circles on the lovely for the love of laquer blog.

 I loved the green and knew that this would have to be on my toes all summer! So I bought it the same day! The pics don't do the green justice - its vibrant and full of sparkle whilst maintaining a really good shine.

The next product is something that I have tweeted a bit about - the MUA pallets. I got the Undressed pallet and the Poptastic pallet from superdrug last week.

Poptastic pallet 

Undressed pallet 

Both pallets are really good, there is a lot of hype surrounding the undressed pallet as it is supposed to be a dupe for the Urban Decay Naked pallet - but I just liked it as a set of really good neutrals. Which it is. I have used this most days since I got it and its so easy to work with, the colours have great pigmentation and for what you pay (£4) you really cant go wrong.
The poptastic one is a great collection of colour, the two gold tones are showing up as yellow in the photo - they are gold not yellow. I used this in conjunction with the Undressed pallet on Saturday night to create a purple smoky eye. My only issue with it is a lot of the tones are similar, like the blues and greens, if I could swap a few colours for say a more emerald green and maybe a canary yellow instead of the light blue then I really would. But again the colour pay off is really good and I love the addition of pink!

Another product that I really love is the Benefit High Beam - I bought this on the weekend as I was sick to the back teeth of the Bourjois one I was using which had gone rock hard and unusable.

So I wandered into boots and picked this lovely up. I've always been a bit dubious of cream highlighters before, but this one is working a treat and is lovely for my pale skin tone. I apply it in dots on my cheek bone and brow bone and then blend with a brush - its really subtle (as you can see) but when the light hits your face it is so effective and it glows.

My final haul product is also another one I was tweeting about - Avons eyeshadow primer.

It only comes in one colour, but I think could do with at least another 2 to choose from as if you were any paler than I am this would be too orange toned. I am going to compare this product to MAC's paint pot in Ocre but the colour is not as beige as the MAC product. However it works REALLY well - I don't really have too much of a problem with the longevity of my eyeshadow, however I really noticed a difference, colours 'pop' more, even after hours of wearing there is no creasing and the shadow really doesn't budge after you apply this!
So I would really recommend it, as it is much, much cheaper that a lot of the eyeshadow primers out there (around £4-£5).

So that's it for my haul!

I hope you enjoyed it and I would love to know if you've tried any of these products and what your thoughts are on them!

Ciao for now

C
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