Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts

Hen weekends usually consist of large groups of drunk and disorderly women living it large with tacky pink handcuffs waving willy-shaped paraphernalia around. Although I can't rule out the latter, my first Hen experience at the weekend was quite different. I had a deliciously relaxing and totally zen weekend spent at a beautiful spa. Oil based pampering, facials, full body massages and steam treatments were all on the menu - and I've come back rejuvenated and totally inspired to carry on looking after my skin. I thought I'd share a few of my favourite new skin products over the next couple of weeks. First up, the No7 Beautiful Skin Pore Vacuum Mask.

Oily t-zones and problem pores beware; I really think I'm onto a good'un here. This 50ml tube contains a thick, clay-like substance which, when spread evenly over the nose and/or forehead, dries hard and peels off to reveal soft, smooth skin. This stuff is brilliant for cleaning out pores and helping reduce the oiliness which causes spots. I tend to limit my use of this to once a week as part of my weekly intensive skincare regime before applying a nice, thick night moituriser. It does say on the box (it comes in a box) that if you suffer from particularly dry skin, then you're better leaving this one out, but I'd say it's a great treatment for anyone with oil/oily-combination skin or anyone who suffers with clogged pores or spots in those areas.

Do you have any must-have skin saviours?

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So last week my sporadic spending habits escalated to a whole new level of crazy in the form of a cardboard 'N'. Although I had every intention of whipping out the paint brush and transforming it into something fabulous for my bedroom, with my horrendous track record of randomly purchasing things and never using them, this was a pretty risky purchase #LivingontheEdge. However this time, ladies, I surprised even myself.

I've tried to make my room pretty and girly with French phrases in perfect pastel pinks and purples or perfume bottles adorning any and every flat surface, but when you have one bright green wall (see this post) - a blindingly obvious telltale of your inner garishness - there's only so far les français can take you. So I've decided to embrace The Green and add some beautiful gaudy garnishing to my room. I think it actually suits its gentle surroundings, in a weird, opposing kind of way.

Basically I decopatched the heck out of the N, which is essentially the art of ripping pieces of paper up and sticking 'em on with glue. You will need a cardboard shape (I bought this N from Hobbycraft for just £1, but you can get all sorts of animals and objects), a paintbrush, some specially formulated Decopatch Glossy Glue and, of course, decopatch paper. I bought the latter three from The Decopatch Place (cutest little site ever) for less than £6. They have a huge range of papers to choose from or you could purchase one of their starter packs and delivery is super quick.

As the name would suggest, traditional decopatching consists of patches of paper being stuck on to create a patchwork effect. I bent the rules slightly and did strips of paper, which I think works just as well. Rip the pieces up in your desired shape, whack some glue on your cardboard...whatever, stick down your paper and glue over the top to give it a glossy finish when dry. And repeat...1,000 times.

This took me about 30-45 minutes to complete and I'm so pleased with the results. Usually when I set out to do something even remotely creative, my efforts never quite turn out how I imagined (see Halloween spider costume), but my decopatched N has become one of my few successes. I love how it's completely personalised and it only cost me £6.98 altogether - I still have loads of paper left over too, what should I decopatch next? I kind of want a zebra/leopard printed animal head??

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Everyone, I have found my soul-mate. He's seven inches tall and comes lightly fragranced. Over the last four weeks I have been indulging in the Bumble and Bumble Thickening Hairspray and I am totally in love; he knows what he's supposed to do and he does it very well. Honestly, it's been an absolute pleasure. I have thin, very straight hair which, when left to dry naturally (which I rarely allow), looks flat/lank/a bit crap. For years I have trialled pretty much every volumising product going and, until recently, I was convinced the only way to add volume to my hair was by using a mousse, which left my hair very stiff at the roots and quickly made it look greasy. The BB Thickening spray is 250ml of pure heaven for thin hair, really. I usually spray a generous amount all in the roots and lengths of my hair before blow-drying upwards with a round brush. The result: a seriously volumed barnet which leaves hair feeling natural and non-producty. It's so refreshing to buy a hair product which actually does what it says it's going to do. Although, for £21.50, it's definitely on the pricier end of the hair product spectrum, but I've been using it for four weeks (washing my hair 2-3 times a week) and the line is down to the top of the 'Bb', which I suppose is about a quarter of the bottle, so I expect this to last a good two more months at least. I really can't recommend this product enough!

What are your volumising must-haves?

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I'm not really one to smother my face in make up on a daily basis. Here's a fun fact: during the last few months of my degree, I ventured to the library everyday completely make up free. Oh yeah. To be fair, I had a few more important things to be worrying about at the time, such as the impending 10,000 word dissertation but the less said about that, the better. Even now I don't like to wear too much make up unless I have to, so when I do, I like to keep things nice and natural looking. In my opinion, a light, dewy base is imperative for natural-looking make up - my latest addition to which is this perfectly pretty little blusher. The Maybelline Dream Touch Blush in 06 is a lovely mousse consistency in a beautiful shimmery pink/coral shade. I usually dot it along my cheeks then blend it in using the MAC 109. It creates a beautiful warm glow perfect for a natural looking base and because it's a mousse, you have control of the intensity of the colour and the shimmer depending on how much you blend it.

Overall, it's a nice little edition to my make up bag and at only £6.49, you can't really go wrong. What are your favourite products for a natural looking base?

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As far as my boyfriend is concerned, eyebrows are just handy strips of hair to stop sweat getting into his eyes when he's at the gym, but oh my gosh aren't they just SO much more than that?! I never exercise, so any sweat-barrier ideas Mother Nature had when she designed eyebrows are completely lost on me, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go all Miley Cyrus on you and get rid of them. Actually, I'm more likely to go out and buy a shit ton of eyebrow products and make them more obvious than ever, which is exactly what I've done.

After all those adolescent years plucking and preening our brows, we now want them thick and natural looking again a la Cara Delevigne. I've used my fair share of brow products in the past, from Benefit to Bourjois, from creams to pencils, but I think I may have finally found a combination that actually works. My latest eyebrow must-have is the new Brow Drama Sculpting Brow Mascara by Maybelline.

I've been using this wonderful little wand for the past week or so and I really like it. My eyebrows are kind of bushy at the beginning (?) and then neaten out towards the end, which is fine, but sometimes they have a mind of their own and the hairs don't point in the direction I want them to. The stresses of disobedient brows, you do not understand! Just brush this mascara through to style them, then when it dries, they stay put. Huzzah! It's not too thick, there's no clumps and it looks natural. Job done.

This product doesn't do much in the way of filling any gaps though, so I tend to rely on my trusty Rimmel eyebrow pencil for that. If you have disobedient, bushy brows like mine, then this is just the ticket at a very reasonable price, but if your brows are already pretty neat, well then this probably won't do much for you.

What does one do when any hope of getting into London for work is completely severed by the not-so-apocolyptic (as it turns out) STORM2K13? You might rejoice in your almost unheard of Monday morning luck, you might stay in bed past midday savouring every second of the God-sent extra day off, or, like me, you might get up at 7am with every intention of catching the first train of the day, fail miserably, then spend the entire morning sorting through your makeup bag. You might laugh, but when you've timed your early morning routine to a T to maximise sleep time, nothing can delay you more than a messy makeup bag. So many unneeded products slowing you down, so little time. A good sort out was well overdue.

One thing I quickly noticed was how many lip balms I have. I've always had really dry lips and from time to time they can get really sore and red (poor me). I've tried drinking two litres(ish) of water a day. Didn't work. Healthy skin vitamins? Nope. The only thing that helps is a good moisturising lip balm. So, as you can imagine, I've built up quite the collection. Here are my top three.

1. Dr. Lipp Original Nipple Balm for Lips
A heavy-duty, multi-use barrier cream originally used for...er...sore nipples, as the name suggests. It's super thick so one application lasts for ages. The nail painting obsessive in me rejoiced to hear it can also be used for dry cuticles. At £11.50 for 15ml, this one is popular among millionaires.

2. Carmex
A fail-safe old fave with retro packaging to match - as you can tell, mine is well loved. This is pretty much the only thing I used on my lips the whole way through uni, and every time I lost it, I had to make a panic trip to Boots to buy another. I now have about five. Purse friendly at £2.69.

3. Burt's Bees Revitalising Lip Balm
I got a few samples of these during an internship placement a while ago and I LOVE them. Nourishing, moisturising and available in a mouthwatering array of scents/flavours(?). This one is Blueberry and Dark Chocolate. Mmmm.

Do you have any lip life-saving products?

After a bit of an accidental hiatus (my laptop broke and I didn't know the password to the server I upload photos to), I'm finally back to blogging again. Woo! So I've accumulated a load of photos of beauty products over the last month (and a bit), so I'm going to start making my way through those.

I'll start of with saying I am absolutely OBSESSED with painting my nails at the moment. If my nails haven't got a light-reflecting shine in a really lush or sparkly colour, then I'm not happy. Initially I really loved the sparkly, iridescent purple/blue colour from MO's Splash collection (more widely referred to as 'Mermaid Tears'). I then picked 'Grape Fruit' from the Fruit Pastel collection to go with it (smells like grapes!). Grape Fruit is ok, but Mermaid Tears is a bit disappointing. I'll admit I'm not the most steady handed in the art of nails. However, even I will defend my almost-non-existent nail painting skills against the mess this varnish made. It spreads unevenly, the sparkly bits don't dry flat and it is (somehow) partial to air bubbles. Bummer - especially considering these varnishes are £5 a pop.

It looks so pretty in the bottle though...

What do you think? Have you had problems with the Splash collection? Or is it just my rubbish painting skills (it's not)?

| Phone Case - £8.95, Advanced Accessories |

My phone has never been much of a pocket dweller; whether I'm tweeting, texting, instagramming or feeding my Hatchi, my phone is always glued to my hand and out in the open where (critically) people can see it. This means I always like to have an interesting, eye-catching phone case which also suits my flamboyant, over the top, ridiculously girly tendencies - no small feat I can assure you.

However, I found THE phone case OF MY DREAMS when I came across this little gem from Advanced Accessories whilst browsing eBay. What screams "I AM A FAIRY PRINCESS" better than the Eiffel Tower, a golden ballerina and a pumpkin carriage all rolled into one topped with pearls and diamontes? NOTHING! This is the most fabulous and over the top phone case I have ever seen - just the way I like it - and I literally bought it straight away there and then. From a (slightly) more understated, perfectly pretty Bow and Diamonte style to a completely garishly girly, in-ya-face bubblegum pink Barbie case, Advanced Accessories have over four hundred cases and cater for iPhone, Blackberry, Samsung, HTC, Nokia and iPods. What's more is they're a UK based company which means you don't have to wait forever for your sparkly new case to be shipped from China AND it's free delivery. When my case arrived they'd also included a screen wipe, a screen protector and an extra diamonte that plugs in the headphone jack for extra bling - who doesn't love a freebie?!

I understand that this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but what do you think?? x