I Love Lilac

This week I have been obsessing about a particular shade of pinky lilac which is my favourite colour at the moment. I picked up a Barry M lipstick in Palest Lavender..

Close-up of the lips, I thought they might be too dark to take such a light colour but actually it covered ok. I also thought it would highlight all the imperfections in my lips but after applying a homemade lip scrub of Vaseline and sugar they were perfectly soft and smooth. I just added some ordinary sugar to half a tin of Vaseline and mixed together, then left it on my lips until it soaked in. I nicked this idea from another blog, have been meaning to try it for ages.

This is the actual lipstick, more pinky on than it looks in the tube.

I also purchased Barry M blush in Pink Orchid, I have read reviews of this product on several blogs and it looks such a pretty sugar pink. Pretty things really cheer me up in winter :)

After buying the lipstick I decided to hunt down a matching nail varnish, the only one I could find close to the shade I had imagined was this Rimmel one - its called Twinkle and has a subtle glittery sheen to it - actually nicer than I had hoped!

I am also a bit overly keen on hand cream at the moment, I have been applying my Cath Kidston Rose cream twice a day and worrying that it was going down too fast I bought a minature version to take out in my handbag. This is Lilac & Lavender and the cream is actually pale purple!

Even the design on the back is lovely. I got this tiny tube on ebay, the cream also comes in tins which were super pretty aswell.

I couldnt resist going back to Zara yesterday and got this cute t-shirt for just 14.99. I love the dip-dyed purple fringing.

And finally these bangles from Accessorize. The top one says Forget Me Not on it, I really like bangles with writing on but I thought only expensive designer brands made them.

All these pastels are making me feel like it's spring already, hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

Tigi Bed Head & My Fave Lipgloss

Just a quick mid-week post about a few beauty buys I picked up for a fraction of RRP on ebay. I have been tempted by Tigi for ages but was put off by the price, then I remembered my favourite online discount haunt. I got the Ego Boost for just under seven quid and the Headrush for under two fifty. The Ego Boost is a leave in conditioner and the Headrush is a shine spray. Both work on wet or dry hair which I was pleased about as I forget these things when I have just showered and prefer to apply products just before I go out the door. I used the conditioner a few days ago and it did make the ends of my hair noticabley stronger and bouncier than before. I applied the shine spray every morning this week and it definitely got rid of the fluffiness at the back of my hair and made it look glossier. Will definitely be buying these again!

I was also considering a product called Queen for a day, has anyone used this or got any other Tigi recommendations?

I also got this brand new on ebay - Rimmel Stay Glossy in Fuchsia Fever. I have been looking for A Dannii Minogue-esque bright purpley pink gloss and this is perfect, I've been wearing it everyday. You might think Rimmel is too much of a cheapy brand to be that good but I did see it winning most long-lasting lipgloss in a magazine and I'm a big fan.

Not the best picture but you get the idea. It's cute but not too bright for everyday.

I heard that the snow is making another appearance very soon and am dreading it. I have bought a new coat and Ugg style boots in readiness but I really don't want to get them dirty in the snow!

Xmas Day Outfit & Presents

Hi, it feels like I haven't looked at my blog in absolutely ages, I've been out every day of the holidays so far and am glad to stay in and relax today! Above is some of my lovely presents, my mum knitted the little pug for me - she can make anything - it was such a surprise when I opened it. I love pugs and wish I had one of my own. I also got the pink mini straighteners from ASOS, they are tiny handbag sized and I have been doing my fringe with them. They are really good and a get a lot hotter than I thought they might. For some reason I decided I wanted a collection of mini items for Xmas, I also requested the YSL Babydoll mini perfumes and a Too Faced mini palette. This is why I am selling the Elf mini palette i mentioned in the post below, I had had my eye on this Too Faced one. The colours are perfect, I used it to touch up my make-up before I went out last night. I also got my boyfriend to get me a huge bottle of Marc Jacobs Lola - I first smelt it in Harvey Nichols in the summer and have been waiting for it ever since - and my sister got me a few lovely Lush bits - she knows I love a bit of Snow Fairy.

On the day I wore this pastel pink Miss Selfridge jumper dress, I love the crochet detail at the neckline...

My Vivienne Westwood pearl bas necklace which I got for my birthday last year...

Barry M nail paint in Baby Blue, I got a couple of lovely sets of Accessorize rings last week which I have been wearing aswell.

Another pretty ring, this one came in a set of 3, the other two were a gold heart with a pearl in the centre, and a tiny rose cameo.

As I wasn't going to be walking far, I dared to wear my New Look black suede OTKs..

And for the journey from the doorstep to the car, I wrapped up in this gorgeous mushroom pink cropped fur jacket from Zara.

This is the jacket laid out - it has a blue rose print lining, could it be any prettier??

I had a nice Xmas dinner cooked by my lovely boyfriend, then we went to visit my parents later on in the day for nibbles, everyone has been very generous to us, we got 3 food hampers! Obviously I had to hit the sales on Boxing Day, I will do a post on my bargains later on. Hope everyone had a great Xmas Day.

Babyliss Straighteners & Elf haul

As per my last post, I recently bought some new straighteners and here they are - the Babyliss Pro 230 Radiance. Their original price was about a hundred pounds but they are half price in Boots at the moment and even better at forty pounds in Argos, where I picked up mine. I have had previous bad experience with Argos but I couldn't believe how fast I was in and out of there. I reserved them for instore pick up and it literally took two minutes. The straighteners are in the bottom half of the picture, I photographed them with the curling tong I already have because it all matches :) They came with a matching storage bag and heat-proof mat. Personally I have very thick hair and 90% of straighteners seem to be the pencil thin kind, great for my fringe but way too time consuming to do all of my hair. These Babyliss ones have quite wide plates, not quite as wide as my old Remington ones which don't seem to be available now, but satisfactory. The straighteners themselves were pretty good, superfast heat up time, and they did the job. I wouldn't rave about them and declare them to be the "miracle straightener" most people on the Argos website did, but they were fine, my hair came out very straight. I have yet to find a straightener that does work miracles, GHD would be the obvious answer but I have read quite a few reviews about them blowing up and a lot of people claimed these Babyliss ones were more effective than GHD anyway.

I have to guiltily admit that I treated myself to this huge make-up set this week. Well, I did have a tough interview on friday, that I did a lot of work for, and although I had been planning to buy it after Xmas I was browsing on the net and found that Elf (Eyes Lips Face) had a really good offer on. i have read some things about Elf on other blogs, and the consensus seems to be that they do really good quality products really cheaply, especially brushes. I bought a generous-sized blusher brush for three pounds fifty, and their Master Make-up set for thirty five pounds. There is a huge amount of make-up for that price, loads of gorgeous eyeshadows, not just every colour of the rainbow that you wouldn't even use, but all really soft colours. There are six lovely blushers in there as well, and even a face powder that matches my skintone.

My camera is rubbish as you can't even see the make-up in these picture but the colours are really strong, you don't have to put loads on just to be able to see it, I only put one stroke of eyeshadow on and then blended the colour as it was so highly pigmented.

This was my free gift for spending over twenty five pounds, i won't keep this as there is no pale face powder and I dont really use bronzer. There are some lovely smoky eye colours in there though and a nice blusher. Plus an eyeliner pencil and all the brushes you need. If you buy this on its own on the website it costs fifteen pounds, I am going to ebay it unless anyone reading this wants to buy it for ten pounds plus one fifty postage. This was advertised on handbag.com as the best travel make-up kit you can buy, it would be a nice present for someone. The actual Elf website was a bit annoying as it seemed to be crashing all the time. I tried several times to pay for my things and it came up saying there was an error, then after I finally managed to pay I checked my paypal balance and I'd ended up paying three times. I emailed Elf and when they didnt reply within a couple of hours i phoned their customer helpline. It connected a couple of times but there was no one there, then I spoke to a woman who was not apologetic in the least, and took ages to find my order. She said she would cancel the two duplicate orders. Then I got an email reply from the company director apologising for what had happened and when I checked my paypal again he had refunded the two payments. So it turned out ok in the end, they do have a lot of positive feedback on their site so it must have just been a one-off. Not that I would need to buy from them again now I have their ultimate collection...

Aussie goodies and a jar of beads

For the last few months I have been using Organix coconut milk shampoo and conditioner, its running low and although I love the coconut smell I fancied trying something different. I had Aussie in the back of my mind as I used a sachet of 3 Minute Miracle Reconstructer quite a while ago, and always meant to buy a full bottle.

I popped into Boots and they were doing 2 Aussie products for six pounds, as just one bottle of Organix costs almost this much on its own I had to take advantage of such a bargain! I was considering Aussie Long Hair shampoo but reading the back of the bottle it seemed to be geared towards reducing fly aways which I am not that bothered about and I was worried it might flatten my hair too much. I was also drawn towards Aussie Volume shampoo as I had seen adverts for it in magazines but really my hair is big enough already. My main issue is condition at the ends so I went for Miracle Moist.

I used both products last night and was really pleased with the results. I don't really know if it was the shampoo or the conditioner that did it but the both smelled gorgeous and really did seem to get rid of my split ends. I had previously been using Umberto Giannini intensive conditioning mask but I found it difficult to get it to absorb into the ends of my hair, whereas it seemed to just drink in the Aussie Reconstructer. Will definitely re-purchase!


I thought I would put a photo up of my pot of make-up brushes as I think it looks so pretty. I had the idea of fillling a pot with scented beads but I couldn't find any anywhere, only the kind you burn like a candle. I went through my collection of beads and jewellery making things and poured some pretty ones into an old pink see-thru pen pot. The pink jewelled brush is from B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful and the green one is from The Body Shop. I have also ordered a pink brush from Barry M but due to postal strikes I am still waiting for it. The pot is just for eye brushes as I have a few different colours of shadows and like to use a different brush for each.

Close up of the beads, photo could be a lot better but they are mainly black with a few pearls, ethnic-style silver beads, and pink and turquoise beads and sequins thrown in.

Ciate & Other Cosmetics

I've got myself some bargain bits on ebay in the last week. I have seen Ciate on ASOS.com and was tempted to buy some but put off by the nine pound price tag. It looks very pretty but its hard to justify that much just because there is a bow on the bottle! I bought the above polish for half the retail price, including postage, from an ebay seller. The colour is called Plastic Fantastic, not one of their latest colours but one I know I will wear. I used to have a hot pink Barry M nail varnish that I have just used up.

The Plastic Fantastic is less of a bright pink than I thought it would be - more of a deep magenta. I wasn't disappointed by it though, I would wear any berry shade and my other polishes are dark purple, red or black. The bottle is a large size, which I suppose justifies the price - although I'm still glad I didnt pay it all of course - the only thing is that the size of the brush didn't match up. I have been wearing exclusively Rimmel Lycra Pro polishes for the past few months because of the mistake - free application brush and the Ciate brush was disappointingly small. However I have been wearing the nail varnish for four days and it is only just starting to get the odd tiny chip so all in all i would definitely purchase again.

I also got a set of Body Shop eyeshadow cubes and an applicator brush, again for half the shop price. This set has a creamy shade, a charcoal grey, a silvery blue and a sparkly navy blue. All the cubes are in individual pots and there is a lot in each one. The brush bristles are vey soft and don't seem like they would fall out at all.

This is my attempt at a smoky eye - my favourite look. I used the grey as a base, the cream on the eye socket and the two blues as accents around the lashes. it looks quite sparkly on but not overpoweringly so. i think the colours might have been a bit stronger though, its nice and i will use it but its not quite as good as my benefit palette.

Finally, i also purchased Barry M lipgloss in bubble gum, as recommended by the Beauty Spark. It's good because it isnt too sticky like a lot of glosses, the shade it nice but subtle enough for everyday. The next item on my shopping list is an Urban Decay palette, I have seen the Ammo palette on several blogs and can't wait to try it out :)

Exciting Eyeko Goodies

I received my Eyeko order at the weekend, and was really pleased with my stuff. I got some glitter eyeliner, which you can just about see in the eye make up photo, i am also wearing Benefit Smokin Eyes palette, which includes 2 shades of grey powder, a light pink applied on the brow bone and brow definer. I love the eyeliner, it's visible but not over the top.

I also bought some glitter nail varnish which you can see in the third photo, applied as a top coat over Rimmel black pearl. The cocktail ring is from Accessorize. My third buy was some Minty Fat Balm, i think i got a slightly dodgy one as the stick had fallen out of the base and the edge of the balm was flaking off a bit. It didn't really matter though, I put it back together and it felt very minty and fresh on.

To finish it off I received a free tube of Rose lip gloss - didn't exactly taste of Rose I didn't think, but a nice lip gloss all the same. Plus there was a cute Eyeko postcard in there which I am using as a book mark until I decide who to send it to.

It certainly prettied up my weekend!

Magic Make-up Box

I decided to completely update my make-up this month, and got this gorgeous pink box from an ebay seller for under ten pounds including postage. It's a nice size and the pink looks almost like enamel. I wanted something big enough for a nice lot of items as I was previously using a small Anna Sui make-up case and although it was pretty it was way too small.

I also treated myself to some new cosmetics to fill it as everything I had before seemed to have run out or was something I never used. Plus I really wanted some luxurious-looking stuff that would look great in my new box! I often browse the Boots website and look out for products with a lot of postive reviews and I ended up choosing a mixture of recommended products and things I just thought looked nice, plus a few nice bits i already had.

My must-have items are as follows:

Bourjois pencil sharpener - too cute to pass up! i have a couple of Barry M eye pencils that have plenty of lead left but needed a good sharpen

Rimmel Clear Complexion powder - I thought I could use this as a de-shiner on my nose - it goes on ok and i really like the turquoise container but don't know if it stayed put long enough for me to purchase again

Rimmel Max Volume Flash mascara - I saw a girl with really long lashes applying this when i was out and about, and went to Boots looking for the hot pink mascara! this is really good for daytime, it noticabley lengthens but doesn't look ridiculous

Rimmel Lasting Finish Minerals foundation - I'm really pleased with this, it's quite nice-looking and has a lovely appley smell, not sure why but it smells delicious. Good coverage too

Benefit Bad Gal Lash mascara - I got this free with a magazine - the best free gift I've had, not quite as good as the Rimmel in my opinion but a very neat size

Pink heart shaped nail file - i've had this ages, it adds it bit more cuteness to the selection

Eyeko Strawberry fat balm - i've ordered a few more Eyeko bits to be features on a post soon - fat balm is my original best buy. Gorgeous taste, generous size makes it so easy to apply

Lollia 1000 flowers mini perfume - from Rose & Co in Leeds Victoria Quarter. One of my favourite shops, they have cosmetics set out like cupcakes and tiny perfumes in glass jars.

Witch Stick - i have tried a lot of anti-spot products and this is the only thing that works for me

Benefit Smokin Eyes - an ebay bargain, i got several pounds off this by buying it from a seller and it arrived in perfect condition. i love a smoky eye and this pallette comes with a generous amount of shades and even a instructions so you have to get it right

Benefit Coralista blusher - i have seen this mentioned on a few beauty blogs and as a newcomer to Benefit i was not disappointed with the quality of the product. i got this at a much discounted price as well, although the large size of the container does justify the high retail price. the blusher is a perfect shade, smells divine and has a slight glitter too it that is subtle enough for every day but noticable enough to make you feel extra special