My Winter Skincare Essentials

This winter has been the harshest I have ever experienced, snow and ice freezing your face off, central heating on full whack sucking the moisture out of your skin and so on..

I've had to kick my skincare up a notch as I felt it getting tighter and flaky and this is what I've been using to ensure my skin has stayed true to its sexy self:

I use the Aqueous cream as a night cream and it works really good, it feels a bit thick for combo skin but it's perfect for this weather as I wake up with a face which doesn't feel tight or flaky.  I thought I would be far too young to use the serum and I was because it made my whole face flaky but I found that if I used it on my nose under my day cream, it allowed my nose to be moisturised but not look greasy.  The eye roll-on is my HG of eye creams, I store it in the fridge and it feels really nice when I put it on and I feel it moisturises better this way.

I was meant to picture these two along with my skincare items but for some reason, I totally forgot.  I use the Carmex for my lips and I feel it's not as good as the tube version which is odd as I assume they were made of the same ingredients.  I use my trusty Anatomicals handcream and it's the best I've ever used, not sticky or greasy and it really conditons my hands.  I've been using it non stop and am still not halfway through this tube.

I've had this post in draft for ages (surprising, I know) and I have since found that the Carmex tin doesn't work for me but I've left Carmex in there as the tube is excellent. So, tub - bad, tube - good.

The jewel in my crown for keeping warm in the winter however are these badboys:

Pardon the drier-than-the-Sahara leg, I only shaved my legs that day and the only reason they look furry is lack of moisture.

What do you guys use to keep your skin looking good through these horrible winter months? I'd love to know what you use so I can try it out..

Products I would quite happily elope with: v2

These:

Why?

YSL Palette Pop, free (got it free when I bought the Teint Parfait):

• Right amount of sparkle and the colour is perfect for my skin
• Sample size and it has lasted me a lot longer than a year, I use it every day!

YSL Teint Parfait, £25:

• The only foundation I've used which makes my skin feel matte but look glowing in photos
• Cheap! It costs £25 but I've been using it for an absolute age and it still doesn't look anywhere near empty
• Despite there not being many shades in the range, matching to skin is very easy

MAC Full on Lust lipglass, £5:

• Super pigmented pink gloss which makes both my lips look the same colour:

• Can be used as an everyday gloss or for pale lips when I've got a smokey eye going on

Rimmel Captivate Me lipgloss, free (won it from Rimmel):

• Non sticky
• Lasts ages on the lips 
• Gives natural looking lips with the right amount of glitter:

• Plumps your lips up despite not being touted as a lip plumper

Simple eye makeup remover pads, 0.75p:

• HUGE!
• Super gentle on eyes but get everything removed
• Not greasy (I remember I said that I loved my Boots Essentials pads which I still do, the Simple ones are also brilliant)

 L'oreal Demaq' wipes, £3.00:

• Excellent for lazy days when you are wearing a full face but don't have time/effort needed to wash
• No need to moisturise once you've used them
• Take off even super pigmented foundations

 Prestige My Biggest Lashes, £5.00:

• Knockout lashes with no effort
• No flaking, smudging etc..

 L'oreal Colour Mineral eyeshadow, free (won in a competition):

• Perfect amount of sparkle for a day eyeshadow
• Stays on pretty well without UDPP underneath it
• Brush is actually quite useful!

 Which products are you guys currently loving...and why?

EOTD: A cheat's version of the smokey cat eyes

I was messing around with my Stila palette and my new 239 brush the other day and I had a massive makeup success so I've decided to blog about it, as you do.

I was trying to just improve my blending skills but I ended up with a very nice smoked out cats eye.

Here's what progressed..

It happened totally by accident! Firstly, here's what I used:

You'd never guess this unless I told you but I'm actually showing off the manicure I got at London Fashion Week (there's a post coming up on both the catwalks and the manicure very soon!) by Heather from Jessica Nails.  First ever manicure baby and it's still holding up today.  Two nails got slightly smudged and one is a total fail but from a distance of about a foot, you can't tell!

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.  I used the top brush for the lid colour and the bottom brush for the feline aspect.

Oh, by the way, I didn't use any UDPP because mine has totally dried out and I was only messring around with the shadows, the Stila shadows in this palette are surprisingly pigmented and came up really well on my skin considering how light they looked in the palette.

This is how I got the look:

1. Load the top brush up with the lid colour and apply it to the lid and blend it out upwards, make sure though that you don't get it under ALL of the brow, you just want to cover the lid and blend it up to the outer edge of your brow (have a look at the pics and you see what I mean). 
2. Load the bottom brush up with the darker colour and tap off any excess (you can see some excess from the white/pink colour but I can remove that easily).
3. Stroke the brush across half of your upper lashline and then JUST under your socket bone/line.
4. At this stage it should look like a backwards C.
5. Blend the darker colour along the lines that you applied it.
6. Once it has been blended in, add some more and blend again.
7. Add some more colour to your bottom brush (but not as much as you had before) and gently fill in the space of the C.
8. If you've added too much, blend the middle of the C out, too much colour in there will make it look silly, you want the outer part of the C to look darkest.

You know you've finished when the C has become more of a < kind of shape, aka feline.

I used to think that this look was really hard to achieve but if I can manage it whilst watching Shameless, anybody can!

I'm quite impressed with the results, mainly how bloody gorgeous that black Stila eyeshadow is, it's super easy to blend and there is practically no fallout.

One eye took me about 5-ish minutes to do.

How many of you watch Shameless? Who's your favourite character annnnnnnnnnnd what looks have you been trying out recently? I want to know so I can take inspriation (read: copy)

Urban Decay face charts

Last year I decided that I'd be doing some Urban Decay face charts on here.

Time passed and they never came to fruition as I was blogging about a million other things.

I even had another post on here reminding myself that I'd get around to them.

I've decided NOW that enough is enough and that one Urban Decay face chart will be up by the end of this week.

I'm going to try and replicate the looks by using High Street brands so they're going to be wallet friendly.

My debut face chart shall be this one:

What do you get when you cross Basil Brush and MAC?

In short, this:

(You'd have to pay for this comedic genius in a club but here you get it for free!)

This is my first ever high end brush and I can't wait to start using it so I can improve on my blending.

I got it from Shifa's blog sale and the bristles on it are so flipping soft.  I condition my No7 brushes but the bristles (hairs?) on this brush far surpass them.

Remember my Blending 101 post? Well, in the video the 239 brush was the one I should have used to apply and blend the darker colour.  It looked similar to the No7 brush I ended up using but now I have my very own 239, I can see it is totally different.

To those of you who own MAC brushes, which are your favourites?  Which do you find are overrated?
To those of you who do not own any, which would you like to own?

NOTD (woot woot): Jessica Nails Black Ice (and a mini-ish review)

I won this polish along with some other Jessica Nails items back in December.

There is already a post on what I won (check it out here).  This polish was the standout polish me for, not in terms of application but in terms of the stunning colour.  All the colours that I recieved are fantastic but this is my favourite.  It's very hard to photograph and I had to edit the pics to get the true colour out (and even then it's about 100 times better).

Black Ice is the name of this beauty.  It's a shiny, glossy black with palpable bits of smooth glitter in it.  I say smooth because you do get nail polishes which have gritty glitter in them.  This, however, is not one of them.  Once the polish is dry, you can run your fingertips over the polish and it's all smooth. 

   

You know how sometimes you get a nail polish with glitter in it and you have to apply it five times to get a decent glitter coverage on the nail? One coat with this gives you proper glitter coverage. Also, you know how sometimes, you apply a glittery polish only to find that the glitter has worn off? This isn't the case, the glitter stays put.  I've washed dished and handwashed some clothes and it hasn't come off.

Another thing I love about it is the fact that it's two polishes in one.  You know I wax lyrical about makeup that saves time, well this beauty saves money.  After one coat, it's a nice sheer colour and after two, its "unsheer".

Pardon the dodgy application, I'm a noob as most you know.  This is the polish after two coats

I keep thinking of more things to like about this polish, if you have no patience then Jessica Nails are the polishes for you, if you apply a second coat whilst the first is wet, you get no smears and it blends in seamlessly.

I still get urges to chew my nails but the prettyness of this polish prevents me from wanting to touch them.  It's been on a few days now and I'm having no chips and the colour hasn't faded either.

I'm not sure if the brush is a different shape to other brushes but it applied really nicely, no gloopy messes and the brush was a nice "bump" kind of shape.

I've left the best til the end.  The smell of the polish is like no other.  When I applied it, I couldn't smell the usual polish smell.  When it dries, it smells like Southern Comfort..something which is never a bad thing!

In short, I love this.

Black Ice retails for £8.95 and can be bought here.

Review: SkinMD Natural Shielding Lotion

The first review of February!

I was sent this by SkinMD Natural to trial so I obviously didn't part with any cashola.  Regardless of that, I've had it a good few weeks now and I've tested it properly.  For a while I tested it out at my place with the Mr, then he went to France for a week (he's back now, yay!) and I moved back to my parents.  When I test a multi-person item like this, I make my whole family use it..which is why the reviews usually take a while.

SkinMD claim that it is "far more effective than conventional moisturisers and that it promptly absorbs and transforms the outer layer of skin into a hydrating invisible shield..finest natural ingredients together with a quantum advance in skin hydration..regeneration is fully realiused within a few days".

The bottle

Ingredients

The lotion

What did I think?
The instructions said to use the lotion every 2-8 hours and then every day.  I didn't follow these instructions as I don't think people have time to be moisturising arms and legs that often..I can't see people whacking the legs on their desks during the working day and moisturisng away without getting a few strange looks.

With that in mind, I moisturised whenever I felt I needed to.

I should mention that this cream has been used for anything and everything whilst its been in my possesion.  The Mr used it as a handream, my brothers used it as a handcream and my dad used it as a footcream.  It sounds very unhygienic but as this isn't a tub, it's very easy to just dab some on your hand and be done with it, no risk of cross-contamination.  My mum used it as a night cream and I used it to moisturise my arms and my legs.  Oh, I also used it as a cuticle massager thingy.

How did it work?
In short, VERY WELL.  It's a lotion so it's very light but it really does moisturise your skin well.  I used it on my arms for two consecutive days (as I do with my normal moisturiser) and then I found that I could skip a day and my skin would not be dry.

My brother has really dry hands and he used to moisturise every day but with this lotion, he uses it twice a week and his hands no longer look ashy.

My mum has dry skin and she used to use another cream over night which made her really greasy in the morning, this lotion hydrates and doesn't make her greasy.

My dad had hard skin on the bottom of his feet and this made the softer..he told me this and I wasn't in a rush to check myself!

It's what I've always wanted in a body moisturiser, a lotion that isn't sticky, doesn't take an age to dry and moisturises like a body butter without the added strain of having to rub it in for 5 million years.

Oh, there's no SPF in this bottle but then I don't think it's really needed for a body moisturiser? They do have a version of the lotion with SPF in it which is aimed for the face.

Oh oh, another thing I forgot to mention, there is no palpable smell from this so men won't feel overly girly after having used it and it won't get in the way of your perfume.

Purchase?
I'd buy it.  It seems costly and when I go the bottle I did think it was pretty small but it lasts and lasts and lasts! The fact that it's a lotion means that it's easier to blend in than body butter and it actually moisturises.

SkinMD Natural Shielding Lotion retails for £15.35 and you can buy it from Lloyds Pharmacy.

Excuse me, where the hell have you been?!

Remember last year when you went out shopping and picked up a right peach of an item? I do.

Remember when you came back home, swatched it, wore it about and realised that this new item was your new best mate? I do.

Remember when you vowed that this would be your signature eyeshadow/eyeliner/lipstick/lipgloss/foundation/blusher? I do.

Remember when you put it in drawer after putting your makeup on? I do.

Remember the next morning when you decided to switch it up a bit and use something different? I do.

Remember when you vowed to wear it the next day? I do.

Remember the days and weeks which followed where you totally forgot about your new best mate? I do.

Remember last week when you were rooting around your makeup stash trying to find something and came across your (neglected) new best mate? I do.

How does this happen?! I swear it's happened to me more times than I care to remember.  Remember that post I had before about items I was going to use more of this year? Well, these were the items I remembered at the time..turns out I had more which I had totally forgotten about, despite being in love with them when I bought them.  It's happened to me with a L'oreal Star Secrets Palette, Maybelline's Lash Stiletto (which I'm chucking out because it make my eyes itch after a few hours), my No7 glosses and countless other items.

However, I was quite shocked when I found these two lurking in my makeup drawers as I LOVED them when I first had them and then I totally forgot about them so from now on I'm going to make an effort to use them until they finish!

I seriously can't believe I totally forgot about Dune, I even reviewed it! Yinka recommended it as the perfect nude for women of colour (WOC's) and I trust her when it comes to those kind of statements so I snapped it up from ebay.  I got the 17 one from Boots in Terminal 5 when my mum went on holiday and I started to cry.  I'm such a dick, 25 years old and cries when her mum leaves for 2 weeks, despite the fact that I've gone months without seeing her when I was at uni.

Do you guys do the same with products? I think this might be something that only I do.

The first (original) EOTD of 2010

Remember the post where I said I resolved to use more of my neglected makeup? Well, the other day I decided to do exactly that..

I've stolen my palette pic from my other post to show you which colours I used:

I was rather daring and I decided to use all of TWO colours (oooooooooh).

This is the first time I've ever attempted to use a darker colour on the edge of my eye, I won't call it the crease as though it was originally meant to be IN the crease, my general cackhandedness put paid to this and I ended up just blending on the edge of the eye.

I quite like this look and I'll be honing in on my "crease" application over the days and weeks to come.

Also, I took one pic with the flash off and the colours totally transformed..

I don't know why it looks like I've use silver and purple here.. 

So, what do you guys think? Constructive criticism is what I really need..I know that I'm heavier on one side than the other so if you have any tips on how to rectify that, please..ENLIGHTEN ME!

Project Grow Your Own Week 4 aka ONE WHOLE MONTH!

I've been growing the stumps for a month now and white bits no longer phase me and I'm having no cravings to bite my nails.  I really wanted to speed growth up a bit but there were many conflicting reports on the web.

I was on Twitter last week and I spoke to Jayne from Just Beauty Direct (incidentally, they were the first company I ever ordered makeup from online and their service is great, they give you full sized extras with your orders and they actually think about what colours would match you instead of whacking just anything in the bag..plus every item comes in a cute little gauze bag.  Oh, AND they colour code your items so your samples are in a different colour bag to the items you ordered).    You can follow Jayne on Twitter (she's a fountain of knowledge, I tells ya!)

Anyway, Jayne suggested using a cuticle cream or a cream which claimed to strengthen nails.  So, I went to my Clarins box and found the nail cream within.  I used it religiously all week and it didn't do much.  I haven't given up though, I have been using my Sally Hansen top coat and that's doing me some good.  I was wearing a purple colour on my nails but took it off so I (and you) could see if there's been more growth.

Here are the nails for your perusal:

I'm going to pick up Soap and Glory's Handfood as I've heard nothing but good things about it.

You scream, I scream, we all scream for eye(s) cream

Finally, FINALLY I've found a conventional eye cream I'm happy with.  One that does exactly what it says.  I say conventional as my other HG eye cream is Garnier's Eye Roll On and I'm always concerned that they will stop making it as companies have a tendency to do that to products that sell well..need I mention chocolate covered pretzels and those gorgeous Secret bars? 

Before I fall into a daydream about chocolates, I'll show you the eye cream.

It has so much going for it.  It's cheap, the packaging is a nice shape and lets out the right amount of cream, the consistency of the cream is perfect, blending it into the undereye area is a dream, no tugging or anything.  I just squeeze it out the tube and pat it in gently.  You can feel it forming a "film" under your eye but that's not a problem as it soaks in very quickly, leaving your underye feeling very soft.

I've chucked the box away so I'll have to go by what the tube says.

This brightening eye cream contains the following:

• organic rose hip oil which is a hydrating anti oxidant
• arnica which helps to reduce dark circles and puffiness
• a multi fruit blend which contains AHA's (not the Alan Partridge type, I assume) which reveal a brighter, natural radiance

I didn't realise that this brand was also made by Superdrug, a fact I found out when I got home.  I wasn't looking forwards to trying this because the last Superdrug eye cream I used contained massive chunks of glitter...and it wasn't a bad batch because Jo found the same.

This Natural High cream is the bees' knees.  It does EVERYTHING it said it would.  It hydrates my undereye area, it makes the are brighter WITHOUT GLITTER and it behaves how I want an eyecream to behave.  Before using it I had tiny bumps under my eyes and after the first day of using it, the bumps were smaller and now they have totally vanished!

I don't understand how Superdrug can make such a winner of an eye cream and then such an abomination of an eye cream, all they need to do is ditch the glitter from the Vitamin E one and they're onto a winner.  Jo perservered with hers and said it wasn't a bad cream if there was no glitter in it.

Natural High eye cream is currently on sale in Superdrug for £1, but I'm not sure that's the right price because in other Superdrugs, I've seen it on sale for £2?

Roll up, roll up, girl giving away makeup at table 5

I'd like to say a big fat thank you to all of you who follow this blog, read my ramblings, (converse with me on Twitter when I pick your brains about makeup and nails) and take the time to comment, your efforts don't go unnoticed!

Now to the best bit!

I know I'm 20 followers late on this but I've been racking my brains re. what to actually give away but I think I've finally decided so here it is..

The prizes:

Everything bar the Smashbox shadows are brand new.  The shadows are new too but the bluey colour has a nail indent in it (it happened when I was trying to open the quad) and the peach has a very slight graze in it (it came this way). I'm only being a bit OTT about the condition of the palette because there have been giveaways in the past where winners have taken issue at the products not being as described.

How you enter:

• Follow this blog and be an active blogger, either in the beauty or fashion community.  If you don't fulfil this criteria and still decide to try your hand, good luck to you because you won't be winning this giveaway.  There are a lot of people out there who follow a blog as soon as giveaway is posted, they never comment apart from the obligatory "enter me" and then unfollow as soon as the winner is announced.  I'll be clicking on all the entrants to see if they have blogs and what they're about so you've got fair warning.  Another thing I feel I should add, don't become a "secret" follower and hope you can enter that way because I'll do my research!

• Leave a comment below stating what you'd like to see more of on this blog (and of course, the obligatory "enter me"), this will count for 1 entry.

• Post on your blog about the giveaway, this will count for 3 entries.

• Have a link in your sidebar about the giveaway, that will count for 5 entries.

If you post about my giveaway on your blog or link back to it, can you please tell me that you've done it so I can add your extra entries.

I nearly forgot to say, the giveaway is open internationally :)

The giveaway closes on Monday March 8th at 12 a.m (i.e. late night Sunday),  good luck!

EOTD: Blending 101

I've never sat down and thought about how to blend colours together on the lid, I usually just blend enough so that both colours kind of merge into one and you can't see any harsh lines.

I was on Youtube the other day and saw a link for a Pixiwoo blending video and decided to take up the challenge myself.  First I had to decide if I had monolids or lids with a socket bone.  I'm a bit dense when it comes to things like that so I Googled monolids and decided I had socket bone lids.

The video can be found here.

What I used:

• Boots No7 Stay Perfect Trio in Twilight (I bought mine ages ago and the packaging has changed a bit since then, they're now sold in round tubs).
• Boots No7 Eyeshadow Blend and Contour brush: for the lid work and blending of crease colour.
• Boots No7 Eyecolour brush: for applying the crease colour.
• Ruby and Millie eyeliner brush: for lining the eye.

How I got on with it:
I feel it necessary to say a few things about the No7 eyeshadow.  The colours in the photo above are as true to life as I could get them.  The white is really snow white and the black is really dark with lovely specks of glitter in it.  This is not how it applied, the pigment was severely lacking.  How Boots can charge the best part of a tenner for these lame shadows is beyond me.

Anyway, the proof is in the pudding..

Could have applied more if I'm honest but thought the shadow would be more pigmented.  Pretty happy with how I managed to lighten it out up to the brow, though.

I wasn't sure where my socket line was and where my brow was so I just felt around and decided it was the underside of the brow bone because I felt around and it circled into my eye "hole".

I thought this looked really crappy when I checked the photos on my camera because I could see a space between the black eyeshadow on the socket bone and along the lashline but then...

I still wasn't happy with the colour disparity so I decided to..

I was quite happy with the way it balanced out..

 Now for the next bit..

 This was the final step, I feel I could have added more black eyeshadow to the socket but I would have been there for ages as the pigmentation was wank.

Overall, I think I did OK considering this was my first try at proper blending, I feel the pigmentation of the shadows held me back a lot so I'm going to be retrying this later on in the week with either my Sleek palette or my Stila palette.  I think next time I will try to go a little higher with the blending on my socket and a little lower with the blending on the lash line but I'll have to find a less fluffier brush.  Also, I think I might actually invest in a crease brush.

What do you guys think? Are any of you experts at blending? If so, how did you improve at it?

If you're greasy and you know it, clap your hands *clap clap*

The other day I was being bored out of my mind watching someone play Call of Duty (badly, might I add) so I decided to play with my face a little bit.  BAD IDEA. I convinced myself that my skin was really bumpy (we don't get spots once we're over 20, didn't ya know?) and I decided to take some action.

The next day, I thought I'd just use a scrub and be done with it.  Despite having a million and one jars of stuff already open, I decided to venture into the spares drawer.

I came up clutching Tescos Skin Wisdom Instant Benefits Gental Botanical Derma Polish.  Man, that's a mouthful!

It retails for the grand sum of £1 in Tescos.  I think they were more as when I got them (I have three), they were on clearance.  I've been back to Tescos since and they've still got tonnes on the shelf.  Most of the range is now £1.  I'm going to pick up the anti-wrinkle pen and the night cream this week. 

In the pot it smells quite nice and a bit like cherries (I thought raspberries at first).  I know EXACTLY where I smelt this smell before..I was in year 9 at school and we went on a trip to Germany and stayed in the Hotel Schloss. So, now that I've told you it smells like a hotel which you've never been to, I'm sure you're all dying to have a whiff.

One thing I have an issue with is when companies call products fruity, stupid names.  Why bother? This is marketed as a skin derma polish..so basically a skin skin polish.  What irked me even more was the use of the word "polish", why would anyone with greasy skin want to polish their face?

Anyway, the instructions are a joke:

I had to read them three/four times on the box to figure out what to do.  I don't know if I'm the only one who does this but when I read the instructions, I like to actual read and be able to see mentally what I'm doing.  This was impossible, according to the box I needed two hands on my face at all times.  In the end I had to resort to practicing on Mr Ross whilst he held the box.

Doesn't sound so positive so far, does it?

I chucked the box away and was surprised to see that the instructions on the tub say:

Not quite the same as what the outer packaging said, is it?

The actual "polish" is just a scrub:

I put the "polish" on my face and totally ignored the instructions because I didn't have the patience to concentrate for that long.

Then out of nowhere there was this disgusting smell in the bathroom..somehow the smell of the "polish" had changed and it wasn't too pleasant.  I've just realised that I forgot to mention the ingredients, here we go:

I washed it off, checked my face in the mirror and it did look cleaner so I was semi impressed.

I waited a while and whacked my moisturiser on.  Hours later, I checked my face and it was still matte.  I've used it a few times and it's been the same story each time.

Repurchase?
Yes.  I'd buy this again as I think I can get over the smell and the end result is pretty good.  The product promised instant results and smooth skin and I definitely got that from this.   It's really good at cleaning my skin and not drying me out. If you suffer from the greasies, give this a try and you won't go wrong!