New Almond nails!

Hi guys!
So I tweeted yesterday that I was having my nails done...yay! And I had a complete change!
For the past 7 months I have been sporting lovely square shaped nails, but longed for the on trend almond nail. However I have been so apprehensive to change the shape as I just couldn't imagine looking down and seeing them.

But yesterday I bit the bullet and just went for it!
I love them! They are the princess nails that I've been longing for! I also went with a champagne mixed glitter tip to really be regal (hehe)

Anyway I love them and hope you do too!
Mwah
C
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Avon Eyeshadow Primer Review

Hi guys!

This is just going to be a short review of a product that I've been using and loving for a while now. I featured it in my February Haul and have been loving ever since.

It is of course my Avon eye shadow primer

I compared it previously to MAC's paint pot in Ocre only more pinky beige - essentially it is very similar only it has more of a face primer feel...silky? I guess.

The packaging is not very fancy, yet because its glass it does have a more heavy and expensive feel to it - however as a girl with long nails applying this product with fingers directly is impossible (but hey what are concealer brushes for...right?)

The product goes on smoothly and blends to a nice even tone, I say tone as 'colour' seems too strong for how it appears. But as I said before when I bought it, Avon should be thinking about bringing this out in at least two more shades as it is too light for darker skin tones.

Its kind of a Ronseal product in that it does exactly what it says on the tin. It prolongs your eyeshadow wear, prevents creasing and helps to make colours 'pop'. I have had no problems blending my eyeshadows after using this, I do however let it dry a few minutes before applying as I don't want my eyeshadow to stick to it and become un-blendable.

Its not the best eye shadow primer out there, but its affordable and it works. And quite honestly I can only commend Avon for bringing out continuously good products recently - they seem to be on the ball - long gone are the blue shadow and red lip looks that we associate with the 'Avon lady' of the 80's/90's.

If you are in the market for a eye primer I would give this a go.

Hope you found this helpful :)

Muchos love

C
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Green Eyes!

So seen as its St.Patricks day I thought I would upload a lovely green eye look for you guys. Green is one of my favorite colours to wear on my eyes and so I had so much choice on how to do this look and what colours to use!

I decided to go a bit 80's/90's with this look - instead of doing the cut crease trend that we are seeing so much of now. I have used only 3 green eyeshadows (had to limit myself) to create this - however I am not counting my green glitter in this haha. Had to have some glitter in there!

Here is the look (forgive the awful lighting, its such a dull day here in the UK that the photos don't do the vibrance of the colours any justice, Oh and the flash just makes everything look shimmery).

Natural Light

Flash

Products that I used -
MUA poptastic pallet - MUA Undressed pallet - POP glitter in Green - AVON Supershock gel eyeliner in black
BARRY M pigment in Green - AVON eyeshadow primer - AVON glimmerstick brow pencil in black -
ILLAMASQUA Brow and lash gel - LANCOME hypnose drama mascara in Black Waterproof -
 COLLECTION 2000 lasting perfection concealer in Ivory - REAL TECHNIQUES brushes -
POP sparkle sauce mixing medium.

 Even though it is a green look I wanted to keep it quite understated so that it can be worn as an everyday look. Love glitter so I couldn't resist putting a bit in there - I would have covered my whole eyelid but I feel that may have been a step too far (seeing as though I'm not going anywhere today). I tight lined my eye with the Gel eyeliner pencil to add a bit more depth.

I think this look can work for whatever occasion  although I would like to try a green cut crease as I think that could work for a more dramatic look. Also its so weird to see how brown this eye makeup makes my eyes look!

Anyway hope you like it and let me know what you think :)

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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Look of the day - gold sparkle

Hey guys!

So for those of you who have seen my other blog you will know that I am on skin medication, and it is drying my skin out like crazy - so much so that for about a week I have been unable to wear foundation or concealer, just because my skin is so dry.

So today I was rather fed up with looking so awful - so I decided to pick myself up, dust myself off and make my eyes look all jazzy for a day round the shops. I decided to go with an eye look that you might wear on an evening. Simple yet effective. A gold sparkle shadow with a thick flicked eye liner...and even Lashes! That's right, you did read that correctly! Lashes!!

So here we are...

I really like this look - I have used Chanel Illusion D'Ombre eyeshadow in '98' 'Vision' - this is the pot of wonderfulness I was talking about in my Jan and Feb Faves. I have used Rimmel Glam eyes Professional liquid liner in 'Black Glamour' and false lashes by Eyelure in style 030 from the Naturalites range.

Hope you like the look and take some inspiration from it. I love the subtle sparkle and the drama of the eyeliner - its such a classic look!

Let me know what you think

C
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MAC Mineralize Eyeshadow Review

Hi there!

Hope you are all feeling good this week! Monday always feels so long, and then when it gets to Friday I'm left wondering where the week has gone! haha.

So I thought I would beat the Monday blues with a review of something sparkly and magical...

I bought 2 of the MAC Mineralize eyeshadows a while back, in November I think when I went over to the US I picked these two up in Duty free.

I chose the colours 'Smutty Green' and 'Young Punk' as purples and greens are my staple colours for eyeshadow (when I'm not going my usual shades of brown).

Young Punk

Smutty Green 

 Please forgive how my pans look, there is a lot of fall out from the product and the 'mineralize-ness' of the shadow kind of disappears when you have used it a few times.
The flash lighting is not the best to show these products off - when I first saw them in the pan I was amazed at how sparkly they were, and I love the black base as it is perfect for the smoky look that I like.

HOWEVER! If you try and apply this product dry....

Young Punk on top
Smutty Green on bottom 

This happens! NOTHING, it has no pay off and is so faint it made me regret buying them. They do give a bit of sparkle to a normal smoky eye in its dry form, which is nice, but not that noticeable.

So me being me I thought about using these as a pigment instead of a shadow - and so I added mixing medium....and got this...

So by adding the mixing medium you get a fantastic metallic, vibrant colour. Again the flash lighting doesn't really do them justice. But they are both peacocky shades that look great on their own or blended into a look. This is what I wanted when i bought them...well sort of.

All in all I am glad that i purchased these. But I am disappointed that they cant really be used as the glittery shades they come as. They are however fabulous metallic shades that can certainly stand on their own.
I would be careful when buying mineralize eyeshadows from MAC as they seem to be similar to the Frost shades in that the payoff isn't very good and the fall out is very bad.


Hope that this helps :)

Let me know your experiences with them and what your favorite MAC products are

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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