Wake Up Make Up

Hi everyone! Apologies again that it's been a week since my last post, I will probably only be able to get a couple of posts up per week until the 8th when I finish uni  as my work experience is really, really hectic at the moment! Today I thought I'd do a post that seems very appropriate for my life at the moment and that's make up that makes me look more awake.

YSL Touche Eclat Foundation £29, MAC Soft & Gentle £21.50, Rimmel Match Perfection Concealer £5.99, Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless Mascara £7.99

YSL Touche Eclat Foundation in BR20 - As you can probably tell from the picture, I absolutely love this foundation! I'll be honest and say, it isn't the best in terms of lasting power on my combination skin but honestly, the finish is so beautiful and illuminating that it's the only foundation I don't always need concealer with on an everyday basis. It really brightens the skin without making me look shiny and I love how vast the colour range is as this is the best foundation match I've tried.

MAC Mineralise Skinfinish in Soft & Gentle - A cult product for highlighting but I actually love this most as an eyeshadow to really brighten up my whole face. I do like this as a highlighter but recently I've found that when I catch my reflection I really hate seeing glitter on my face so I'm definitely on the look out for a more sheeny highlight if anyone has any recommendations! I will definitely continue using this as it's so so nice as the perfect champagne eyeshadow and I love how awake it can make me look.

Rimmel Match Perfection Concealer - I don't think I need to rave about this again as I already did a full review here but this is the best concealer high end or high street that I have ever ever used. It's so, so brightening and offers a bit of coverage too without drying my undereye area, creasing or looking cakey. I would never be without this now, it's the perfect concealer.

Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless Mascara - This mascara is really good at giving me full, long and slightly curled lashes. I have naturally very straight lashes and I have to say this stuff is one of the best mascara's I've used that actually holds a curl in them! It really opens up my eyes and makes my lashes look so nice, the only slight gripe is that it sometimes smudges though a lot of people who don't have such sensitive eyes haven't had that problem and bare in mind every mascara smudges on me!

Rimmel Eyeliner in Nude - This isn't pictured as it just ran out but this is great for putting along the waterline to make your eyes appear a lot whiter and brighter. It's super cheap and works beautifully as well as lasting all day.

I'd love to know what make up products you use to give you that awake look and again, if anyone has any sheen type highlighters to recommend me I'd be so greatful! x

Boots & MAC Haul

I'm back again with more shopping I really didn't need but got anyway! I've tried to justify it by telling myself it was okay because I got my student loan on Monday but actually, it probably isn't justifable, especially seeing how many lipsticks and nail varnishes I already own. I basically couldn't resist picking up a couple of things I'd wanted for a while now that I had a bit of a money and to get some work appropriate lipsticks because starting next week, I have a two week internship at Red Magazine which I'm so, so excited (and nervous) for. Not only do I not really own nude/neutral lipsticks but it also meant I had to get some more fashionable clothing pieces as in all honesty, I'm a comfy casual kind of girl! Anyway, onto what I picked up!

First up was nail varnish. I have to say, I was so excited when I saw that my local Boots had started selling a ton of nail polish brands: Sally Hansen, Sinful Colors, Butter London and more so I really had to narrow my picks down to a couple, even though I ended up buying another two polishes later that day! The Sally Hansen shade I got was in Hidden Treasure, a beautiful lilac greenish duochrome which I cannot wait to use. Then I got the shade Gorgeous from Sinful Colors as I'd originally planned on getting Topshop Eclipse but when I saw this one with a similar effect for £1.99 I had to try it out. Then I went to John Lewis and saw the OPI polish in Which Is Witch and couldn't put it down! I had originally intended on getting this but it's an amazing glitter polish full of holographic pieces of glitter. Finally I got MAC Soiree, a rose goldish polish I'd wanted to ages as I'm obsessed with anything rose gold. 

Next I headed to get lipsticks. From MAC, I got Hue and Patrisserie and let me just say, I cannot believe I'm only just trying these for the first time when I own so many MAC lipsticks! They are both really lovely shades and very wearable nudes, coming from somewhere who really struggles to get nudes to suit them. I've always found they just haven't looked right on me and have shown all the imperfections in my usually dry lips but now they are in better condition thanks to my Maybelline Babylips, they actually look really pretty and will be great for when I'm working. I then couldn't resist picking up three more of the Bourjois Rouge Edition lipsticks because they are my favourites alongside MAC and are just incredible. I now own six and love them all, I got Rose Tweed which is a browny nude, Rose Neon which is a bright but still everyday shade of pink and Rouge Jet Set which is a true red colour. I also got some Tweezerman tweezers as I needed some new ones and thought I'd take the plunge and try them out and a MAC Brow Crayon in Spiked as my current brow eyeshadow has started to look too warm toned for my brows!

Have you tried any of these products? I always love to know people's thoughts on them! :) 

MAC Mineralize Lipstick in Elegant Accent

Hi everyone! I'd firstly like to apologize for the lack of posts this week. Been doing work experience for my course which meant doing work for a festival interviewing bands etc which was really fun, plus I got to meet Bastille who I love! Music stuff aside, I wanted to review a MAC Mineralize Lipstick because I haven't actually seen any reviews of this since they came out but they are really, really nice! I actually have two shades - Elegant Accent, a pretty pink and Lush Life which is a bit like Rebel but in a glossier form.

As I said before, I got the shade Elegant Accent which MAC describe as a 'mid-tonal warm rose cream'. I think I would agree with them, though on me it is slightly more of a baby pink than a rose shade. Formula wise, these have to be one of my favourite formula's (if not my favourite) from MAC followed by amplified, matte and lustre! These are by far the most comfortable finish for me, they are extremely lightweight to the point where it feels like a lip balm. Don't let this fool you though as these provide a very decent dose of pigmentation and moisturization to the lips and can be built up a lot if you do have a lighter shade. The finish has a shine to them but nothing glittery or overpowering in my opinion.

Then onto the packaging. I absolutely love it, not only does it look sleek but it has a magnetic closure which I think really adds something to the design. The only slight downside to these lipsticks is that they are £20, £6 more expensive than the normal MAC lipsticks. However, it is worth noting that these contain an extra gram of product so with the other you are paying over almost £5 per gram of product whilst these would work out as £5 so it's not too disimilar. 

Overall, I'd highly, highly recommend these lipsticks. Don't let the lack of reviews put you off, they are the most beautiful formula and finish and I will definitely be picking up more when I eventually use some more of my lipsticks I'm not so keen on up! I'd love to know your thoughts if any of you have tried these?! Also, please let me know any requests of posts you'd like to see! :)

Emma Hardie Amazing Face Natural Lift and Sculpt Moringa Cleansing Balm

Today, (for my 50th post!) I thought I'd do a review of one of my new favourite products, the infamous Emma Hardie Cleansing Balm. I'll start by saying, this is the best cleanser I have ever tried and I've been through a lot, probably at least twenty ranging from Simple, Origins, This Works, Good Things, Antipodes, Liz Earle, REN and so on! Although there have been some I thought were nice enough, this is only the second cleanser I've ever really loved and seen a difference with other than the Clarins Melting Gel Cleanser which has since been knocked off the top spot!

Emma Hardie Cleansing Balm, £34 for 100ml

As the title states, this cleanser is a thick balm. The way I use it is putting a 50p sized amount onto the palm of my hand then mixing it with some water so it becomes a cream. I then massage this all over make-up free skin with my hands (I prefer to use Bioderma to remove my makeup) before going over it with a wet muslim cloth. 

I've been using this cleanser for over a month now and I've never been so impressed by a skincare product. Not only does this leave my skin brighter which I always look for in skincare, but it's also dramatically shrunk my pores, reduced my oilyness AND my dry spots. I used to have to powder every half an hour, then the Clarins Lotus Oil got this down to about every 2 hours and now, I literally powder once a day. It's amazing the difference it has made in such a short space of time and how much better my makeup now sits on my face.

I don't rave about skincare a lot compared to how much I've tried so this truly is a testiment to this product. It takes a lot to impress me and if I don't see brightness, a reduction in my oilyness or my pores shrink I will not repurchase something but I 100% would not live without this in my collection now. It's worth every penny not just for it's effects but the smell is also completely heavenly!

Have you tried this cleanser? What's your favourite?

Models Own Fruit Pastel Collection

Hi everyone! I'm currently working my way through a long list of recent purchases I have to review but I know this particular collection was one a lot of you requested to see in action. As you may have seen from my wishlist that I've been eagerly awaiting the release of the Models Own Fruit Pastel collection for a while now, which features five scented colours that I thought would be perfect for spring/summer.

Models Own Fruit Pastel Collection, £5

So first off, the shade range. I have to say, to me these are the perfect five shades to put in a 'pastel' collection, pretty much covering all the colours I would love to wear in these upcoming months. To me, there wasn't one that I thought looked too scary or ugly which wasn't great for my bank balance when it came to buying them! The shade names match the scent of each one; Blueberry Muffin, Apple Pie, Grape Juice, Strawberry Tart and Banana Split. 

I have to firstly confess that the scented element really isn't what I was interested in, I don't often go to smell my nails anyway..? But actually, it is a cute edition to them. However, if this is something that drew you to these polishes it's worth noting that after two days wear, the only ones I can still smell are Blueberry Muffin and Strawberry Tart.

Onto the formula which is where this becomes a little disappointing. These take a lot longer to dry than I'm used to and to get an opaque, non-streaky finish it took three coats. On top of this, they do have a tendancy to bubble even with a good top coat, which was really such a shame. I actually ended up applying them twice as the first time, I had bubbles on every nail which I cannot stand! Wierdly though, the second time round only the yellow and the pink bubbled badly, despite all having the same amount of time between each coat, whilst the other three remained pretty bubbleless.

Overall, I will probably continue to use a couple of the ones that don't bubble but I will probably be passing on a couple too. Banana Split is a really great pastel yellow which is so hard to find so I may persevere but with some of the other shades, I have plenty of similar only with a better formula. If I were to recommend any of these as a better shade/formula, I'd have to say go for Blueberry Muffin, Grape Juice or Apple Pie (though the blue and green were the only scents I really liked!)

Swatches L-R Blueberry Muffin, Strawberry Tart, Banana Split, Grape Juice and Apple Pie

Hope this review helped and please let me know your experiences with them as I'd love to know if it's just me doing something wrong! Also let me know if there's any posts you'd like me to do and I'll add them to my list! :)