Jewel filled christmas

After falling in love with Rebecca Ferganson's, off the xfactor, pony ring she wore at boot camp I searched the internet high and low looking for a place to buy it!

When I found it I then proceeded to spend a small fortune there, and now I want to tell everyone about it so they do the same! The shop is called the Jewellery Box and you can find their facebook page here .

If like me you like abit of bling you will love it.....here is what I bought! The rings were my sisters for christmas but the rose bracelet is all mine :)

Pretty bad girl!

Being a Benefit employee I may actually get the sack for admitting this but after months of preaching to customers that Benefit's 'bad gal lash' (£15.50) is one of the best mascaras I have only just tried it for the first time myself!

Lucky for me it is actually a very good mascara and I will not be hunted down by an angary mob.

Heres the pros:

Separates lashes well

Very dark black, so gives a strong colour

Smudge proof

For evening I like my lashes really clumpy and its almost impossible to do that with this mascara, although most people will think that is a pro, I do sometimes have to put a thicker mascara like Rimmels 'volume flash' over the top!

Whilst doing a little christmas shopping...

.... I picked up a little gift for myself. A lovely pair of short lace up Hunters wellies.


Now all I need is some snow or a torrential down pour so I can wear the damn things!

Coco Chanel will be turning in her grave!

Cringe!!!..... So I have final opened it, and its been placed between the gorgeous Chanel Allure and Coco Mademoiselle. What am I on about? I'm talking about one of the most embarrassing things I'll ever admit to buying.


Britney spears perfume, Midnight Fantasy (which I have to mention was only £7.50!)

To be honest, its actually quite nice. Very very sweet so you have to like that sort of thing but I do and for possibly the cheapest perfume I've ever seen that didn’t make my eyes go red, I'm pretty impressed. Therefore its blingy and tacky bottle has taken pride of place next to my other favourites on my dressing table........... and will stay there until I have guests!!!

A beautiful baby has arrived

Although I like everything about cosmetics, my one true love is hand bags, specifically designer handbags. So when I saw my favourite brand, Mulberry, was doing a diffusion line I was immediately on the case! My amazing auntie and uncle in America got me my favourite design from the Mulberry for Target collection and it arrived this morning :-D.

Here she is:

Its honestly even pinker in real life!!!

Thank you Ian and Nona for your troubles getting my baby too me!

Clothes Show, 6/12/2010

On Monday I went to work on the Benefit stand at the Clothes show, Birmingham. Heres a picture of the beautiful Benefit stand...

Although I was working I did get a chance to pick up some beauty bargains. As Bourjois is one of my favourite budget brands I visited their stand where they were sell 3 products for £12. I stupidly didn’t take very much cash to the show so I could only get 3 things :(.
I got...

10 hour sleep effect foundation: This foundation is light weight and meant to give a dewy finish that wakes up the skin, and although I have had a stinking cold for the past week, it has perked up my skin. I would say it does dry to a slight powdery/ matte finish and the coverage is only slightly more than a tinted moisturiser but if it can make my sicky dull skin glow it has to have something going for it. It managed to pretty much last most of the day with a primer underneath, I only noticed about 3pm/4pm that it was wearing off.

Healthy mix, Anti fatigue concealer: I bought this after it was recommended on the ‘Yummy mummy beauty blog’ and I have to say I am pretty impressed. I think the colour I have bought is slightly too light for me but it covers up my dark circles really well and the smooth hydrated finish it leaves is really great for the price it is.

Volume Clubbing mascara: I have used this mascara many times and I love it. It gives great volume which can be layered on really heavy but the bristles keep the lashes separated. It’s also really smudge proof; I’ve never had any colour fall under my eye when wearing this mascara!

I also got given a free Benefit Boi-ing concealor for working the day, I’m abit obsessed with concealor at the moment because of my big red sniffy cold nose and you really can’t beat boi-ing, it has mega high coverage but isn’t too cakey, if you have never used Benefit before its a great product to start with.... you’ll never look back.

And finally a big thank you to the people at Carmex that gave me a free lip balm, I never used Carmex before but I love the menthol effect and will be buying it again!

The new guy..

Swoooooooon! Another Sleek palette is launched to add to the ever growing collection....
This one is called 'Sparkle', £5.00 @ Superdrug, and its basically some very nice colours from other palettes but filled with glitter.... what is there not to like?
The names of the colours have a festive twist, they are called: (top to bottom, left to right) Cranberry, Dream maker, Galactic, Twinkle, Star Light, Nior, Illusion, Festive, Mistletoe, Glitz & Glamour, Gold Ribbon and Tinsel. My favs are Illusion, Festive and Twinkle although as I am with all these palettes I'll probably only use the greys and blacks!

For anyone new to the Sleek Palette phenomenon, they are highly pigmented eye shadows from this cheapo brand in Superdrug which I am OBSESSED with and would recommend anyone to buy! They are amazing for getting crazy, as well as smoky colours and they stay on really well.

Does anyone else love the Sleek palettes as much as me?

Starry Eyed

I purchased this eye shadow trio, 17's Starry Eyes in Neptune £4.99, after reading a good review online. Well all I can say is they were wrong!
The colours in this trio look lovely swatched (below), but even with a great primer like Benefit's stay don’t stray the colour just didn’t come out very strong and they were impossible to keep separate and turned a washy browny/grey when mixed together. I am going to give it another go but I think its eye shadow heaven for these guys.

Dior Nude Foundation

Although I am mainly a bit of a bargain girl, I do make sure that I invest in a good foundation, because seriously a good base makes a huge difference to your makeup.

I've just bought Dior Nude liquid after swooning over it for months and 'borrowing' multiple samples from Boots. Dior’s says this foundation contains 40% water, and it does feel really really light weight on the skin and leave you with a really natural glowly skin. It is described as a light coverage but I was really impressed with how well it covers all my red bits and the dreaded freckles!! It wears pretty well throughout the day although without a primer I do notice it wearing off after about 4 hours.

I was matched with a rather pasty 020, which is embarrassingly the best matching foundation I've used, so I decided to practice what I preach to girls all day long and not buy a colour that’s too dark!

I would defiantly recommend for anyone looking for a new foundation to try this, and if you looking for better coverage try their Nude gel compact!

Natural Collection Lipsticks

I had these lipsticks recommended to me by a friend from work after swooning over her lip colour! They are a bargin-tastic £1.99 from Boots and although they are obviously not the best lipsticks in the world, they are great for playing around with a new colour. I bought a selection of pinky/nudes called (from left, and top on swatch) Rose Petal, Pink mallow and apple blossom. My fav colour is apple blossom with is almost a foundation colour nude. The formula is pretty hydrating but does sink into the lip creases loads! I would really recommend trying these if you’re looking to try a new colour or fancy a different colour for a night out!

If you do read my blog at all please become a follow, the more people, the more chance I have for freebies!

old dog.... same tricks

So as I'm still trying to save the pennys, after my boyfriend kindly pointed out what my £100 of boots advantage cards points meant that I have previously spent at Boots, dont work it out, lets just say its bloody loads! I am finding that I'm re-descovering amazing products and heres a quick one I wanted to mention.

John Frieda, frizz eaze glossing mist (roughly £5). Its absolutly amazing at smoothing and 'De-fluffing' your hair after blowdrying or straightening, and it makes your hair very very shiny! Talking of hair, what do you think to my new 'non cheryl cole comparable' hair colour, almost back to my virgin hair colour

Dont give me lip

Snore, snore, snore I know this is another Benefit post, but tough luck, I had to mention these awesome lipsticks.

Fall 2010 colours for lip sticks, they are called "full finish" but they are still pretty silky and glossy. The colours are as follows: (from top left) Shy, Mod Squad, Pinking of you, Rumor, I tink I love you, (bottom row from left) Pillow talk, Slow Zone, Saucy, Wanna?, espionage.
I had a little trial today and I think I might have to make a purchase, my fav is espionage, soooo autumn 2010 and pillow talk! They feel like balms on the lips, and last a couple of hours (not amazing, but they were never meant to be long lasting). And the best thing about them?..... they have changed the shape of the flat ended benefit lipsticks to these points so they are soooooo much easier to apply especially when using a darker shade.

As if by magic

If you love sleeping in your makeup and then waking up and it basically being perfect for work that day then you’re going to LOVE Benefit's new liquid eyeliner (£14.50). It’s indestructible and stays a really sharp line without flaking like other liquids! It’s an amazing dramatic black which dries to an almost wet look finish.

If your after a little more budget version of this eyeliner then collection 2000's new extreme eye liner is another really long lasting liquid liner that just came out. It comes in some great colour variations too!

Magic inks sister product for dramatic eyes is Prrrowl! A blue glitter top coat mascara and lip gloss duo. The mascara takes alot of coats to be able to see but once its on its gorgeous, although you do have to be carefull with clashing eye colours. It does look amazing dotted over the top of magic ink liner though. The gloss is a really pretty baby pink, which is a little more opaque than most Benefit lipglosses.

27/10/10 Today’s Purchases....

I have tried my very hardest to save money but today I feel off the band wagon :-P and I had abit of a cosemetic frenzy!

I bought the two brand new Sleek palettes that I've been waiting for all week! They are called 'good girl' and 'bad girl' (£5.99)! Bad girl is defiantly more my kind of thing because it’s all greys and black whereas I'm pretty sure I'll probably never even wear the good girl pink palette haha! I just had to have both! I did read somewhere that the good girl palette makes a great blushes though. I would recommend the Bad Girl palette for anyone who wanted to create a great smoky eye because all the colours work great with each other.

I bought Barry M's brand new instant nail effect varnish in black (£3.95, varnishes on 2 for £5 in Boots at the moment). These product is SOOOOO weird, its a black top coat that when it dries splits and dries with a matte, streaked effect, which you can see in this photo! It has to be put over the top of nail varnish but it looks AWESOME and will be amazing for Halloween! 10/10!

I finally went to have my hair cut for the first time in about 4 years :-S... scary! I went to a new salon in Derby called Allure, its opposite Queen St swimming baths. My hair was cut by Jay and I think he did a fab job and I would highly recommend him, he didn’t take too much off the length which was my biggest fear because hair dresser often don’t listen to a word you say..... and check out this awesome blow dry (chezza eat your heart out!). I was convinced the art of the blow dry died when they invented GHDs but he’s still got it!

I also bought the most AMAZINGLY funny Halloween costume but that will be saved for after the big night!

what a style faux pas....

Cheryl Cole with red/purple hair.......what a copy cat :-P I did it first

(photo taken from www.look.co.uk)

19/10/10 My purchases today...

Yesterday I bought:

The perfect lipstick.... I've been after a nude/pink for ages and I found it at YSL. Its from the Rouge Pur Couture range, no.6 (£22.00). The texture is like a glossy balm, and lips feel really hydrated after. It doesn’t stay on as well as I expected because I'd read really good reviews on other blogs but I wanted it mainly for the colour so that’s ok. I have been wearing it with Benefit's Stay Don't Stray (£19.50) underneath to cancel out the colour of my bright red lips haha.I also bought these belts £4.99 from Newlook for the pair. I wanted them to put around my cardigans, shown here. In the evening I went to a charity bingo event at Boots, in support of MacMillan cancer research and I won this gorgeous selection of Lush products. I love Lush and when I get chance to have a big bubbly bath I use their product so I was so glad to win this box. In it there is.... the blackberry bath ballistic, Avobath bath ballistic, Butterball Bath Ballistic, Big blue bath Ballistic, Blue skies and fluffy white clouds bubble bar and Karma Bubble Bath.
Thank You Lush for donating the box so I can smell sweet for weeks!
Today I am stopping in, tidying my bedroom and watching box sets of gossip girl to try and save myself from spending money..... until tomorrow!

18/10/10 my purchases today...

I'm trying to cut down on spending money on random things because my boyfriend claims I am addicted to spending. However, here are the things I bought on my lunch break yesterday (oops)...

Ever since I was little I have wanted one of those name necklaces because my name was quite unusual when I was young. Now its common as muck and I can have these delightfully tacky named goods :-) £3.99 from some random card shop in the Westfield Derby.
The eye liner was £2.50 from Marks and Spencers and I bought it because the colour was recommended in a magazine, Vogue I think. Beautiful metalic emerald colour and the pencil is surprisingly soft.

If it ain't Barocco

Oh my gosh.... look what I spotted at work yesterday.... Clarins winter 2010 range! Clarins is a brand I have never really used apart from the odd thing but theses look to swing me. The packaging is beautiful and the colours are perfect for winter the blush is a beautiful matte light peach and gold. The perfect colour for winter.

The Gold shimmer powder is my fav... it contains tiny gold 'rocks' that give off gold seckles to pat on the body and face. It was actually made to be on my dressing table.

FINALLY....

After a whole year of wanting this product I finally managed to get it!! Benefit's Jiffy Tan (£19.50) is an instant tan for the body and face... and its AWSOME! The colour is much better than any developer tan I've ever used, its instant so doesn’t involve any waiting around in the 'cowboy' pose for hours on end, it smells divine AND most importantly it doesn’t splash off like other instants (*cough* Rimmel sun shimmer *cough*) when some dick in a bar spills a drink on you! All round a massive 10/10, defo worth the splurge!

berry berry autumn

I saw this image in last weeks Look magazine, all the makeup was done by Benefit... so obviously I loved it :-P. The lipstick on the model on the right is called No competition, and is soooooooo on trend for autumn
Conveniently I already own this lipstick, but have never worn it. So I decided to bring it out of hiding, and heres the final look :
It didn’t come out quite as purpley in this photo, but its was a little more gothic. I liked it, but I was very conscious that in my black work uniform I looked like a twilight wanabee!

Looky here...

I love these images of Diana Vickers from 4th October issue of Look magazine. It shows every decade in style from the 30's to the 90's. I love the way clothes and makeup have be used to show the changing looks. All the makeup was done by Joe Bass using YSL. My fav image is the 60's one, I'll be going done to the YSL counter to find that nude/pink lipstick.