Tom Ford Lipstick - Vanilla Suede

I have been craving a Tom Ford lipstick ever since I got into my lipsticks earlier this year, but I've found it pretty hard to part with the £36 price tag. Christmas is all about receiving gifts you wouldn't normally buy yourself, so when my dad asked for a few ideas I couldn't resist adding this! I love my Nude lipsticks as I feel they really suit my skin colour. There also perfect for any occasion and any time of year. 

Vanilla Suede is a frosty nude colour, gorgeous for these frosty winter months teamed with a brown smokey eye. I absolutely the love formula of the Tom Ford lipsticks and I can completely relate to all of the positive reviews as the lipstick melts onto your lips like butter, really moisturising! 

The packaging I think speaks for its self, it's chucky and very luxurious looking. I like the TF on the actual lipstick, I'm going to be gutted when that wears off!

Love Me Beauty Box & Freebie Code!

So I’m not usually a fan of Beauty Boxes, because I’m not a big fan on sample size products because I find they are usually too small, especially if they are skin care samples. I also don’t like the fact that you don’t know what you are getting each month and the fact the boxes can be ‘hit or miss’ I think it would really depress me if I was looking forward to receiving a box and ended up getting a bunch of products I didn’t like.

 

That’s where Love Me Beauty are different, they let you log in to their website each month and pick 1 of 3 boxes, so you know exactly what you’re getting sent out and you have a choice of 3 boxes, you can also then tell if you would like to part with your money or not.

 

After seeing the December box for this month I knew I had to have it as it featured 3 full sized products that I knew I would use as well as 2 sample products, one of these being quiet a big sample!

 

Headline Colours Nail Polish in Quicksand

This is a lovely Taupe beige colour, I am really impressed with the formula of this polish, you only need 2 coats and it dries really quickly. A perfect shade for the Autumn/Winter months.

Lord & Berry Lipstick in Glazed Pink

I normally wear pink toned lipsticks so I was really glad to see this in the box, this is a glossy lipstick and gives you a lovely frosted pink colour, it glides on easily without sticking to your dry bits and the packaging is really luxurious and stable. This lipstick retails for £12 on its own, so its defiantly worth picking this box up if you’re a fan of this lippy!

Lord & Berry Lip Liner in Romantica

I don’t normally wear lip liners, so I was really excited to try this product. It goes on like butter – so soft and silky. I like to use this lip liner all over my lips, as I find it stays all day and gives me a lovely festive colour when teamed with a Smokey brown eye!

 

Vitality Mask by S5 & Rodial 5 Minute Facial

I haven’t tried any of these face masks yet, but I’m really looking forward to trying them out. I love a face mask and I have a pamper evening every week by putting one on whilst in the bath. No doubt I’ll end up having more over the festive period as I’ll be off work and it will be way to cold to venture out. Xmas films, a face mask and a hot chocolate with marshmallow’s sounds like a better idea!

 

Overall, I am really happy with this box and I think it is great value for money, if you are going to use the products within it. December contents are worth over £35. Love me Beauty did say they "included a little something extra in our boxes as a Christmas present" but I didn't receive this for some reason, so if any of you did, I'd love to know what the extra gift was! 

 

You can purchase this box fromwww.lovemebeauty.com for £10 (plus P&P) or you can buy a subscription. If it is your first order, and you use this code ‘BUDDY18’ you can also receive two free products in your box, meaning you are getting 7 products instead of the 5!

Urban Decay Naked 3 palette

So today I treated myself to the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette after it being sold out pretty much everywhere I was so excited when I saw some left in House of Fraser and knew I had to have it, especially after it sending the blogging community into a bit of a frenzy!

 

This palette unlike the Naked 1 and Naked 2 palettes is more of a pinky neutral colour base in a variety of matte and shimmer colours, These colours are all new to this palette, so you have no repeats from the previous Naked palettes. 

The shades from left to right are: Strange, Dust, Burnout, Limit, Buzz, Trick, Nooner, Liar, Factory, Mugshot, Darkside, Blackheart.

 

All of these shades are really pigmented and blend like butter, there are so many looks you can create with this palette. I think it’s a really romantic palette. I’m not normally a fan of pink eyeshadow’s but this looks really neutral when on the eye. Darkside and Blackheart can also transform your daytime look into an evening look, as these help you create a darker, smoky eye.

Naked 3 comes in a hard rose gold metal tin and is complete with its own double ended brush, one side for packing on the colour and the other for blending your colour out (these are actually really good brushes for a palette!) There’s also a primer potion pack inside the box, with four types of Urban Decay eye primers, each with enough to last you about a week – a lovely extra surprise!

What do you think of this palette? Is Naked 3 be on your Christmas list?

Billion Dollar Brow Pencil

This little beauty has been a life saver of mine since I have been trying it out. The universal brow pencil* is the perfect shade of brown for my eyebrows, it’s a lightish colour brown, perfect for you blondes who have brown eyebrows (like me!) as most brow pencils are quiet a dark brown so I can never find one that matches perfect, this pencil is also universal for you dark haired girls, you just need to build up the colour.

 

The texture of this pencil isn’t waxy at all, and blends in well with your natural eyebrow hair, making it look subtle but like you have defined brows. I also like the fact that this is a ‘twist up’ pencil, so there is no need to sharpen it, a massive plus for me.

 

The packaging, I feel is quiet classy looking, it looks really luxurious with the BD brows logo down the side, especially as it comes with a blending brush the other end, great for sweeping across your brow after you have pencilled them in to blend and make them look natural.

 

I like to have my eyebrows threaded every 2 weeks, I then fill in my brows where there are any gaps with this pencil, sweep the blending brush over my brows to blend the colour into my eyebrow hair, and walla! Easy, natural looking brows.

 

BD Brows (which has become massive in the US) remind me so much of HD brows, I think they are a slightly cheaper alternative but still great quality because they specialise in brow treatments and products, please check out their website, they have some gorgeous little goodies!

 

This eyebrow pencil retails for £17 and you can purchase it fromwww.billiondollarbrows-uk.com. – next on my wish list is the hint of tint brow gel!

Lauren's way - little helpers gift set

How cute is this packaging?!

 

So this little beauty is the perfect gift set for any tanaholic or anyone that has been wanting to try the Laurensway tans but doesn’t want to part with their £18.95 price tag without trying them first. I have tried Lauren’s way tans before and absolutely love them. My favourite are the darker than dark tanning lotion (which I use once every week or my Xen-tan ones) and the glam tan, this is a spray tan which I use whenever I want to be darker, especially for a night out!

 

Laurens way use moisturising ingredients in their tanning products, as well as being paraben free and alcohol free. I feel that the darker than dark tanning lotion is a dupe for the xen-tan morrocan oil tan, I used to use this but I feel in love with Laurensway after seeing how cheap they are compared to xen-tan!

 

Within the gift set you receive 3x 100ml products. Which is amazing, considering the normal size bottles are 250ml. In this particular set, the darker than dark little helpers gift set* you receive a 100ml darker than dark lotion, 100ml glam tan spray and a 100ml after tan moisturiser.

 

The Laurens way tanning products that I have tried don’t have that typical fake tan biscuity smell, which I hate so much, so this is defiantly a plus for me. I find the tan lasts very well and doesn’t fade patchy, especially if you use their moisturiser which smells lovely, like a tropical smell.

 

This little beauty only costs £15 and is limited edition for the festive period so be quick if you want to grab one of theses beautys! Laurensway also have some other cute gift sets, in this gorgeous pink wrapping so please check these out too!www.laurensway.co.uk.

Miners Cosmetics

So with Christmas only round the corner I have a fantastic cheap and cheerful Christmas present idea for you all.

 

Miners Cosmetics is an online affordable makeup brand, pretty much everything they sell is under £5 and excellent quality, with the loveliest packaging. For all 3 items I received these totalled £9, Perfect for a secret Santa or stocking fillers.

 

First of all is the lip-gloss Christmas bauble*. How cute is this? You receive 3 mini lip-gloss’s in three popular shades, a light brown, a baby pink and a vibrant pink. These are great for popping in your clutch bag for a night on the town because they are so cute and small. I like the packaging this comes in too, it’s a clear bauble with a glittery string, I have reused this bauble and filled it with mini chocolates to give to my brother attached to his Christmas present – it’s so versatile if you fancy keeping the lip-gloss’s for yourself! This cute Xmas gift only costs £2.99!

 

Next up is the Phat Eyelid Liner in gold digger*, what a cute name? This pencil is perfect for the festive period as it’s a lovely sparkly gold, which is really easy to apply and lasted all day with a eyelid primer as I used it all over my lid. The packaging is also mega cute and expensive looking, seen as the product only cost £1.99!

 

And lastly I got the moisture effect lipstick in English Rose*, I was intrigued to use this as it was featured on This Morning, this lipstick is so moisturising and glossy looking. I think the shade on my lip alternated as one day it looked a lovely pastel pink and the next it looked more like a pink coral, which is fab! This lipstick costs £3.99.

 

I am looking to purchase the brand new limited edition Tin o’ Tints from Miners Cosmetics, these are flavoured lip balms with a subtitle tint within them, They also come in the cutest packaging, for £2.99 you really can’t go wrong.

 

You can purchase all of these products from www.minerscosmetics.co.uk please check out their other products, for all you MUA and ELF fans, you may be a Miners Cosmetics convert!

 

Xx

The "hard to buy for" male gift idea!

If your farther is anything like mine, then he is the hardest person to buy for. 1, he has everything he wants 2, there's only so much after shave a guy can own and 3, he's a fussy guy! 

I was browsing through a website called "not on the high street" they have some gorgeous unique gift ideas which are perfect for them hard to buy for people! 

I came across this real leather and silver engraved bracelet* which I knew my dad would love. I've seen him wear subtitle leather pieces before and he also loves sentimental gifts. On the silver part you can pick what writing you would like. I had "a daughters first love is her father, love you from shewie. Xx" (shewie is his nickname for me from when I was a baby so I thought it would be a cute gesture!) you can also pay slightly extra and have the font added using your own handwriting, how cool! 

I know my dad is going to love this gift because it's classy, sentimental, good quality and something I know he will wear. This bracelet retails for £49 and I think it is worth every penny as it's such good quality and a very sentimental gift. 

What do you buy someone that has everything or likes unique gifts? Check out www.notonthehighstreet.com they have loads of fab ideas - things I would have never thought of!

HD Brow Eyebrow pencil gift set*

I have finally found an eyebrow pencil that works with my sparce eyebrows! I have always struggled to make my eyebrows look natural because they have a few gaps within them where hair won't grow, I need to pencil or powder them in everyday. I either have the problem that eyebrow pencils have a waxy feel or are too thick and make your eyebrows look too false and drawn on. I wanted to achieve a natural looking full brow where it looks like I'm not wearing anything on them. 

These HD brow pencils are literally mirical workers. The tip of the pencil is flat, but unlike other eyebrow pencils you don't use it by the tip, you use the side instead, which gives you very fine hair like strokes.  These pencils arnt sharpened like normal pencils, they have a small string sticking out, and when you want to sharpen the pencil you pull down on the string to reveal some more pencil, and then sharpen the actual pencil led with a knife. How cool is that as well as being super practical! 

When applying this pencil you literally do it like your drawing individual hairs onto your eyebrows. You can do this by drawing small light strokes throughout your eyebrows instead of drawing on the whole eyebrows, this will give you more of a natural looking brow. 

In this set you receive a brown eyebrow pencil which is buildable because of the fine stroke technique you use when applying and a black eyebrow pencil. I like to use the black pencil on my eyes to outline them because the tip is so thin it gives me such a fine line. 

This HD brows gift set is  currently on sale for a bargain price of £14.95. The reason I say bargain is because these pencils are normally £11.95 each. 

If you are stuck for buying anyone a luxurious, inexpensive gift this Christmas, I think this set is worth looking in to. Every women I know wants lovely brows so this would be perfect for any age range. 

You can purchase this gift set along with various other Christmas gift sets and products from www.hdbrows.com (they also have free delivery on at the moment!) 

Bodyshop Haul

So recently bodyshop had 35% off all orders, free delivery plus a free gift worth £10 with all orders over £5, so of course I had to purchase a few cheeky bits! 

The bits I got were:

Bannana shampoo

I love this shampoo, it's made from real bananas and smells gorgeous. 

Rainforest hair butter 

I thought I would give this a go as I was in need of a weekly hair mask after running out of my Aussie one. This smells lovely and I can't wait to use it! 

Honeymania bath melt 

I have heard so many positive reviews about this product so thought I would try it. This is sooo thick, like a big pot of honey! You grab a handful of this, swirl it into a running bath and then you have a lovely bubbly bath that smells delish!

Honeymania lip balm

I love the bodyshop lip balms and as the honeymania range is limited edition, it would be rude not to! This tastes so good.. But not as good as my favorite, the lemon one! 

Gingerbread scented oil

I thought this would be perfect for the winter months over a burning candle, it makes my room smell so festive and warm! 

Gingerbread body wash

I love the smell of the gingerbread range, so thought why not smell festive and good enough to eat too! 

Gingerbread sparkle lip balm

I loved the look of this lip balm, the dome reminded me of the EOS lip balms, it's also sparkly and smells wintery and festive! 

Face brush

I thought I would give this cutie a go, I thought it would get into my pores better than a flannel when I'm using my foaming face wash (which it does!) :-) 

Vitamin E cream (the freebie)

I have decided to keep this on my deal at work, because this cold weather is really drying my skin out. 

Latest in beauty: the glamour beauty edit box

Recently I saw on twitter that glamour magazine had teamed up with the latest in beauty box to bring us a limited edition box. As soon as I saw this, before I could think twice I had already got it after I saw the HD Brows kit which normally retails for more than the box was actually worth!

 

The box cost £14.95 with the contents adding up to around the £65 mark! Such a bargain.

 

The items I received in the cute packaged box were:

 

HD Brows Kit in Foxy I have been after this palette for as long as I remember! I bought the MUA brow palette a few months back and have been using this as I heard it was a cheap alternative to the HD brows kit. Yes it is, but oh my! I have been missing out. The HD brows kit lasts all day on my brows, is water resistant and smudge proof. This is now my makeup staple and I am kicking myself for not picking it up sooner! I am so happy I received this in Foxy as I am blonde, and was worried I would receive the vamp shade which would have been way to dark for my eyebrows.

 

Maybelline Baby lips in Hydrate  I already have fallen in love with the baby lips lip balms. I always carry one in my handbag, I have pink punch and peach passion because nudes and pinks are the usual colours I wear on my lips. These smell amazing, have cute packaging, aren’t greasy or heavy and are so lightweight. Perfect for adding subtitle colour to your lips when they are in need of a hydrate! I was chuffed when I received the clear version, as I was worried I would receive a duplicate of what I already had!

 

Benefit their real mascara in black I have wanted to try this mascara for ages. However, I go through mascara so quickly as I pile it on, that I have never been able to justify the cost for expensive ones. This mascara is absolutely amazing! It makes your lashes look naturally long without clumping them at all. It reminds me of the look of individual false lashes. I have seriously been impressed by this.

 

Eyeko eyelash curlers These are the best eyelash curlers I have ever come across. They are so sturdy and have a velvet blue handle. So luxurious!

 

Phillip Kingsley Dry shampoo I love dry shampoo, I use it daily to help backcomb my hair and matteify it because my hair is so thin it’s so hard to style. It’s nice to use a high end dry shampoo, you can really notice the difference as this doesn’t leave white powder in your hair and smells gorgeous.

 

Natural Origin face oil It has never appealed to me to use a face oil as I thought they would give me really bad breakouts, but after using this, my face actually feels as soft as a baby’s. It also dry’s quickly so your face doesn’t look shiny and oily. I like to use this before I go to bed instead of a moisturiser.

 

Tony and Guy hairspray This hair spray smells so lovely and doesn’t have that typically hairspray smell, I am repurchasing the full size this weekend because it doesn’t make your hair sticky. It holds your hair in place naturally, perfect for you back-combers out there!

 

Overall, I am so glad I saw this when I did and purchased it before it sold out! I have wanted the HD Brows kit for a while now and I purely got this set for that, but I literally love all the bits I have been sent, these are defiantly the latest in beauty items.

 

Well done Glamour Magazine and Latest in Beauty for a FAB box for such a lovely price, I am very impressed!