The organised make up bag

I have never been one of those girls with a perfectly stocked make up bag in their handbag. One of those girls that with the slightest sound of "does anyone have..." has already pulled out a grub free make up bag and answered everyone's prayers. God, normal I don't even have a bag for my make up let alone a well planned contents!

However, today is the day for change... I will be organised and I wont break my shoulder carrying 50 lipsticks around by the end of the week. So here is what my make up bag looked like pre-organisation:

It basically consists of products that I'm not bothered about using everyday because I often leave it in my locker at work. We have got...L'Occitiane hand cream, free out of a magazine but I love it and will for sure repurchase, tissues, chewing gum, a empty sample of double wear, 3 coral lipsticks and a coral gloss, Sleek suede blusher and a awful brush from a Benefit box'o'powder, Benefit Boiing concealer, 17 metallic eyes in wild nude and of course some HG balm carmex original!

Off to the bin goes the Benefit brush and the empty sample pot...its a start!

The new plan is to have a staple bag containing great multi-use products and then changing colour items. The big rule.... one lipstick in... one lipstick out!

Things that have stayed are the hand cream, tissues, gum, carmex and Boiing. Boiing is a great make-up bag concealer because its light enough to use as a foundation but good coverage for redness and under eyes.

New additions are 17 BB cream because its great for freshening up make up when it starts getting dry and Chanel Limited edition bronzer from last year, because it is a bronzer, blusher and face powder all in one and the brush is far, far better than those awful Benefit ones!

The current colour items in my bag are... a plum L'Occitaine lipgloss I got free with this months glamour, Mac Shygirl, because I'm trying to justify to myself that I wear nudes enough to buy 'a perfect day' from the new collection (don't lie, we all do it!). An awful lip liner from Collection 2000 which is probably on the way to the bin (if anyone can recommend a good nude lip liner let me know) and the Chanel Eclosion palette from the spring collection. This is the only thing I have bought from the spring colours and it honest is the best eye palette I have ever bought, and possibly the best Chanel product I have bought, it hasn't left my eyes since I bought it!

And yes, I have just noticed that I still actually have 3 lip products in this 'steam line' make up bag.... turns out you cant teach an old dog completely new tricks!

My current favourite foundations

I am constantly buying new product all the time, but most of the time they don't make the grade and get shooved to the back of my make-up draw. I then go back to my old favourite and fall back in love with it all over again, currently I'm having a long term love affair with these two foundations.

I've had Dior skin nude for over a year now, its the perfect light shade for winter, I wear the 010 shade. Its a water based foundation and needs a good shake up before using. The formula gives almost like a second skin effect, the coverage is medium but it feels so lightweight you would never think it would give so much. I find the finish really similar to the Chanel vitalumiere aqua but possibly a tiny bit more dewy. It lasts really well on the skin too. To be perfectly honest I think this is the best foundation I have ever used!
My second love at the moment is actually the complete opposite in price to the Dior Nude, its the 17 BB cream. I was going to review this when it first came out but I couldn't quite make my mind up about it, some times it looked great sometimes it didn't. Now I have found the perfect way to apply it I love it. This product is best applied with your fingers or a kabuki brush like the Sigma F80, then the finish is really smooth, light to medium coverage with a dewy finish. Like most BB creams, this cream blurs imperfections like blemishes and fine lines without being really heavy.

Its quite thick and you only want a really thin layer of this product, its not that buildable and can cake up a little if you use too much. It stays on really well for this kind of product so its great for the day time.

Unbelievably I have actually almost finished the 17 BB cream and it only came out in November time I think so that really says something about how much I like it!

I do love these two but I am ALWAYS open to trying something new, so let me know what your current favourites are?

17 Peep show mascara

I've always had a soft spot for 17 products, for the price they always perform really well. I completely missed this mascara launching, I guess because I've not been working at Boots but I saw it as I was walking through last week and thought I'd give it a try. I think it was about £5 and at the moment it comes with a cute little eye palette free.

The brush is a standard small spiral bristle brush. It has a slight curve in the middle, but nothing particularly noticeable. The formula is very stringy, which I presume is designed to build length.

Its quite a 'wet' mascara and I do get the feeling that as the mascara dries out it will get better.

'Peep show' really does what it says on the tin, it really does build length amazingly. For the way I like my lashes though I do usually need to apply a thinker mascara over the top because it doesn't give the best volume, however like I said I think it will with time.

It doesn't wear off or flake through out the day at all. For the price it was a really good buy, especially suited for someone who has alot of lashes but wants to build length.

17 Shine on lipstick

I picked this lipstick up because I had a voucher for a free lipstick when I bought something else, the something else which happened to be the magnetised nail varnish. What an amazing freebie, its actually ended up being one of my favourite lipsticks at the moment.

The formula is quite thick so the colour is opaque but with a lovely moisturising feeling. Its glossy but not at all sticky too which is a great! The formula lasts for about 3 hours, although doesn't hold through drinking or eating, or my ultimate lipstick test, cleaning my teeth. The colour is a great light pink/nude, see below.

Well I've just tried to find out the price and it turns out its been discontinued haha! Story of my life... so I'm going to pop to Boots now and see if they still have them, to pick up some backups. I'd really recommend them for a great cheap lipstick.

17 magnetized

On Friday I picked up the new 17 magnetized nail varnish in 'Green'. To be honest I was just so fascinated in how it worked I couldn't leave Boots without it.

So you paint the varnish on as normal (I left one coat un-magnetised then applied another), then straight away while its wet hold the magnet (in the lid) over the nail... and this is the finished result...
Pretty cool, I really love it and at £5.99 what a bargain! Only thing I would say is caution if your like me and your varnish normally chips before you open the front door in the morning, because of the art effect, every time it chips you have to completely remove the polish and start again. It does dry super fast which doesn't make it such a pain in the arse.

All of the colours in the range were beautiful jewel colours, perfect for autumn.

Mink 17 supreme shine

I went on abit of a nail varnish buying frenzy, which will probably explain the next few posts... I bought 17's supreme shine nail varnish in 'mink' and it cost me a bargain-alicious £3.99 (its also on 3 for 2). WOW.... a really really great polish, especially for the price, it stayed on, chip free with no topcoat for about 3 days, and it only started to chip after that because I was so amazed that I started to pick at it (as a test :-S). So, anyone with a little more patience than me could probably get the promised "10 day wear" out of it.

I love this colour, and now I know how good it is I will definitely be buying some more!

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.