March Beauty Favourites

I am way behind with my posts for this month trying to balance work and constantly working evening, I try to spend what little spare time I have with my little family...my little one is so chatty and full of personality these days so I try not to miss anything! There are so many things I've been getting good use out of recently so here are my favourite beauty products for the month of March.

The Body Shop Strawberry Body Polish
£5.00(75ml) or £10.00(200ml) from The Body Shop here.
When I'm doing the whole full wack body exfoliating, shaving shebang, I tend to use a seperate body exfoliator and then follow up with a shaving foam or shower gel so I have a good lather to work with. This not only exfoliates but it lathers up as well which is brilliant and saves time using additional products. It smells beautiful of course, it isn't too harsh and leaves my skin feeling really soft.
La Roche-Posay Effaclar Purifying Foaming Gel
£9.75(200ml) from Escentual here.
I've been in urgent need of a cleanser suited to current skincare concerns and this always does the trick. It makes my skin feel so lovely and clean, it doesn't irritate my face at all and as it doesn't contain soap I never experience any dryness after using.
L'oreal Skin Perfection 15 Second Miracle Cleansing Oil 
£6.79(150ml) from Feel Unique Here or Boots.
Cleansing oils have slowly become my go to product to remove make-up as I tend to wear quite a thick foundation base and I have found that oil breaks up my make-up the easiest. I had previously just used my DHC Cleansing Oil sample but spotted this in Boots on offer and thought I would give it a whirl. I massage two pumps of this into my skin and it gets rid of everything.
No7. Total Renewal Micro-dermabrasion Exfoliator
£11.50(150ml) from Boots here.
Doing a bit of research on the best exfoliators out there, I came across this several times and decided to grab it whilst I had a voucher to use. I haven't really used a face exfoliator for ages now and generally just relied on flannel or my Clarisonic Mia to exfoliate. This product is well worth trying out, it leaves my skin feeling super smooth and I think it has reduced the redness of my acne scarring to some extent
ELF Studio Makeup Mist & Set
£3.95(60ml) from ELF here.
This little beaut had been gathering dust for some reason in my dressing table drawer when I had a lightbulb moment one day and ended up rediscovering just what an amazing little budget buy this is. I have been using quite a thick foundation recently in the form of the Rimmel Lasting Finish Foundation which can sometimes make me look a little cakey. A few spritz' of the ELF setting spray on my face and my make-up magically appears seamlessly blended in with not a trace of the dreaded cake face in sight.

Blink+Go Eyeshadow and Blush Pallette
I've found myself reaching for this soooo much recently, the shades are beautifully soft and the pigmentation is spot on. Unfortunately this palette has been discontinued now, which is such a shame as I particularly love the khaki and brown eyeshadow shades as they create a not too OTT smokey eye for the daytime.
Rimmel Moisture Renew Lipstick in Notting Hill Nude
£6.49(150ml) from Feel Unique here or Boots.
This is my fail safe lip colour - swatches and review here - for when I don't feel like being adventurous (that would be most of the time) and it lasts for a pretty decent amount of time. It doesn't hurt that I love the tacky purple packaging although I think the newest formula is in a slightly more modern looking tube. A great budget beauty buy nonetheless for ladies who love lipstick.
Nails Inc. Elizabeth Street  Nail Polish
£11.00(10ml) from Look Fantastic here.
I love a good pink nail manicure and this is one of my favourite baby pink polishes. The formula is awesome, the longevity is good with Seche Vite top coat applied over and it's just such a pretty colour.

Top 10 Favourite Products of 2011

Hey everyone, just thought I'd share my favourite products for the year seeing as it is the last day of 2011. I cannot believe how fast this past year has gone!! This time last year I'd finished the first semester of my final year in Uni and was just generally enjoying Christmas after the past few stressful, deadline filled months...now I've graduated with honours and I have a baby, madness!


There's quite a few things included here that I've still not posted about on my blog but I'm afraid I have one rather demanding child so I've just literally not had time. Hopefully now we're all in more of a routine I'll have a few more spare moments to dedicate to my blog :-) Anyways, here's my favourites of 2011!

Barry M Nail Polish in Peach Melba
I wore this to death over the spring/summer months and I'm yet to find a colour that suits my skin tone more than this.

 Estee Lauder Double Wear Maximum Cover Foundation
This is quite a recent purchase but I love it so much that it just had to be in my top 10. It's without doubt, THE best foundation I've come across for covering blemishes and acne scars which I'll be reviewing next month so keep an eye out for that.

Sigma F80 Synthetic Kabuki Brush
Another recent purchase that I fell in love with immediately. This helps blend foundation seamlessly whether your using it to stipple or brush normally. 

HD Brows Eye & Brow Palette
I've never really done much in terms of grooming my eyebrows until I received this in September's Glossybox. The shades are perfect for me and really pigmented.This has also been a true lifesaver recently after some silly woman got overexcited and threaded my eyebrows to within an inch of their life :-\

 

Make Up Academy Heaven & Earth Eyeshadow Palette

My daily used, go to palette, I love love love this! Full of neutrals, super soft, easy to blend and well pigmented for a bargain price...what more do you want?!

Maybelline Pure Cover Mineral Concealer
I've repurchased this soooo many times over the past year and despite purchasing the much raved about Studio Finish Concealer by MAC, I still reach for this every time.

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion
One of the most raved about products amongst the online beauty community and I can certainly see why.

Hugo Boss Orange Perfume
As I mentioned in my Christmas gift post, I received this as a gift and I've not stopped wearing it ever since. A gorgeous floral scent with a hint of fruitiness.

The Body Shop Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask
I don't wanna say too much about this as I'll be doing a full review of it soon. This tightens my pores, extracts all traces of oil resulting in instantly mattified skin. One of my favourite face masks ever!

Maybelline The Colossal Volum' Express Mascara
Hopefully if you read my blog you will of seen my review of this so you can see the results for yourself! My favourite mascara ever, period!


And that concludes my top 10 favourites of 2011!! Hope you all have a great night tonight whatever your doing! 

Happy New Year Dolls!!

July Favourites

Hey everyone, hope your all having a great summer! I'm so happy it's finally stopped raining here and the sun has (sort of) been making an appearance :)

Just thought I'd share some of my favourite purchases from last month, I was considering doing a post like this every month as I tend to rave about products I've just bought and consequently, some of my holy grail products become forgotten about. I have actually spent quite a lot on make-up this month, mainly on E.L.F. products as they had a 50% promo on about a week ago I'm gonna do a haul post on everything I got from them another time though as there is so much to review, so much that I've not even had a chance to try everything I bought yet! Anyways here's my favourite new purchases & products from July:

 

H&M Brick Red Poncho

I'd had my eye on this poncho for a while as I knew it would cover my bump and it looked lovely in the catalogue promo photos. I'd resisted purchasing for a while when I noticed it had gone into sale for the other day and considering the lack of affordable and fashionable maternity clothing I caved in and bought it....as well as a few other things :) 

H&M Feather Earrings

I can never just buy one thing from H&M, it's so bloody cheap and on-trend! Which leads me onto these boho kinda earrings I also purchased. Long, embellished earrings have always been a bit of an addiction of mine but recently I was trying to give my poor earlobes a break from all the heavy fake metal I'd been hanging off them over the years :\ Fortunately these are really lightweight and look stunning on.

Available from: hm.com

Neutrogena Visibly Clear Spot Stress Control Ultra Light Spot Treatment Moisturiser

I've always found Neutrogena products slightly hit & miss especially when they changed the formula of one of my HG face washes :\ Anyways, I reluctantly purchased this moisturiser as it was on promo in Boots and needed something cheap to replace my Body Shop skin clearing lotion. Whilst I'm still not sure of it's spot fighting abilities, the way this makes my skin feel is great. It feels really light and refreshing on the skin and which I'm guessing is down to the cucumber ingredient. On the days where we've had really humid weather, this hydrates my skin just enough as well as cooling it down.

Witch Anti-Blemish Skin Clearing Primer

I absolutely love this product. It fades the redness around my breakouts and previous acne scars, mattifies oily patches of skin, makes my skin surface smoother before applying make-up and I love the fact that it acts as a barrier to the plethora of make-up products I apply over the top. I've been using this for a few weeks now and admittedly it is my first ever primer! I don't use moisturiser underneath as I feel like applying both a moisturiser and primer is just drowning my face in products which doesn't help if you have oily skin plus this does a great job of moisturising on it's own. Overall, great product if you want a purse friendly primer :)

Boots Skin Clear Oil-Absorbing Sheets

These have been a god send for me over the last month! I hate applying powder over greasy skin so oil blotting sheets are a must-have for me. These are quite powdery when you tear them off the adhesive inside the packaging but they work wonders at absorbing oil from the skin and my make-up doesn't come off at all when using them either which I've noticed can happen with other oil blotting sheets I've used in the past.

 Products shown available from: www.boots.com

Make Up Academy Professional Eye Palette Heaven & Earth

After seeing several bloggers raving about this value for money neutral palette I had to have it considering I'm pretty much always on a budget and Superdrug were offering free delivery on all purchases so win win for my lazy, pregnant self :) Honestly though, this is a fab eye palette if you love neutrals as that's pretty much all this consists of.

Top row swatches taken in natural daylight.

Top row swatches taken with flash.

Bottom row swatches taken in natural daylight.

Bottom row swatches taken with flash.

Overall, this is an amazing product for the price, it retails at £4 which I think makes it well worth trying out. The shadows are very easy to blend and pigmentation is good so I'd definitely advise snapping this up before it sells out!

Revlon Super Lustrous Lipgloss Peach Petal

 This had been on my wish list for a while simply because I was yet to find a nude coloured lip gloss that actually gave a nude lip and having googled swatches of this, I was hopeful this would end my search!

Bare lips with no product applied.

Lip swatch of Revlon Super Lustrous Lipgloss in Peach Petal.

 For your reference I'm an NC25 in MAC, so as you can see, this is highly pigmented and does in fact lighten my lips to give a more nude lip. One thing I would say is that this gloss is really sticky so it can go on quite streaky and kinda sit on any dry bits of skin. Overall I'd say this is a fab lipgloss, just make sure you really moisturise your lips beforehand which I mistakenly didn't do when I was swatching! I'm definitely going to be purchasing some more colours from the range in future.

Products shown available from: www.superdrug.com

 

 I hope you've enjoyed this post or it's at least been a bit helpful, would love to get some feedback.

 Have you tried any of the products I've spoke about and what products or brands are you loving at the moment?

Something Oh So Special...

 

I'd seen a lot of bloggers reviewing this pallette and knowing how good quality Sleek palettes are along with the neutral shades this palette mainly consists of, I knew I had to have it. I've just started getting back into wearing eyeshadow more often so thought this would be perfect to ease me back in gently :-)

Top row shades L-R: Bow, Organza, Ribbon, Gift Basket, Glitz, Celebrate. Bottom row shades L-R: Pamper, Gateau, The Mail, Boxed, Wrapped Up, Noir.

 I'm afraid my swatch photography skills aren't amazing yet but hopefully you can get a good idea of the colour payout. 

Swatches taken with flash.

As with previous Sleek palettes, these shadows are highly pigmented but really easy to blend and with the colours on offer here I'd say this is a great palette for someone who's just started experimenting eyes but doesn't want to try anything drastic. It's great if you just love eye shadow in general though! I love pretty much every colour although I'm not quite sure how I'd use the pink shades yet, I'm thinking of trying Ribbon as a blush as it looks like the perfect mix between peach and coral that I've been searching for.

What I used: The Mail as a base colour, Wrapped up on the eyelid and a teeny, teeny amount of Celebrate in the crease.

This is just a really subtle, natural eye I did the other day purely using colours from this palette. Celebrate is actually a lot more pigmented than it may seem on my eye as I've said I used a minuscule amount as I wasn't really wanting anything too smoky or dramatic that day.

Available from: http://www.sleekmakeup.com/
 

 Have you tried this yet, what do you think about it?