First proper haul in aggggeeessss!

At the moment I still have basically no income (should have some basic ESA reinstated but the DVLA forgot about it -__-) so I can't really afford to buy makeup or clothes or other nice luxuries. I still make some very small purchases occaisionally but they are few and far between. I'm also currently having some problems leaving my house, so Claire decided to take me out shopping and buy me some presents. We went to Kingston. I was very anxious and had some real difficulties but in general I had a lovely time, Claire was really good at looking after me and calming me down and she was really generous! I got lots of goodies and technically only spent £2 of my money! I felt accomplished afterwards.

Claire also decided I needed to have my picture taken. I'm not sure why, I didn't look particularly nice! And yet I am sharing for some reason :P

 

It doesn't look it in the photo but it was too bright for me to see, which is why I'm pulling a silly face.

And I like this photo because it's just like this one from about a year ago when we first got Weevil :) Yet again it looks like I'm strangling him when I'm not, and he's a lot bigger of course!

And the other day Jesus appeared in my cooking!

 

It's Jesus or some kind of crab-beast anyway :P

Now please follow under the cut if you wish to see my haul. 

New Gals in Town

Anyone on the blog circuit has probably heard all about these anyway but incase you haven't i thought i'd discuss a few of the new makeup lines that have popped up recently in the UK and share my thoughts about them.

All For Eve:

All For Eve is a truly amazing and noble brand. Many companies will donate a percentage of profits to charities (for instance MAC donates all the money from Viva Glam sales and Illamasqua donates a percentage from SOPHIE products) but this is the first beauty company i have heard of that will donate ALL of the profits of EVERY product to a charity to research women's cancers.
The brand launched in October of 2009 but the products have only been available to purchase recently.
The products look wonderful to me, currently they stock an always glamourous bold red lipstick and nail polish, crystal nail file and a whole range of body care items like body scubs, lotions, shower gels and hand cream. The prices are really reasonable for classy looking products, the toilettries are all under £10 and the most expensive item is the nail file at £12.50.
i plan on getting the red lipstick because you can never have too many red lippies! ... well maybe you can but it's for a good cause :) and also the crystal nail file. I'd been planning to get one anyway and this one seems averagely priced, is pretty and again supports a wonderful charity.
The body and bath stuff sounds great too but i have a huge stash already i need to get through, but when that's done i'll be giving it a go.


Topshop:

 

To much anticipation Topshop launched their own makeup range earlier this week. There are two collections, the core collection which i suspect will be around with some additions and discontinuations for a good long while and a limited edition seasonal range. As you might expect from the brand the colours and products are bang on trend (particularly the nail polishes which boast all of this seasons pastels and the newly essential matte topcoat) and there are some very interesting looking colours and formulas. The packaging is superbly designed and the products look to be great quality.

I was actually surprised by the prices of the products, Topshop has been steadily growing more expensive over the years and i was expecting the makeup to be way above drugstore prices (possibly rivalling MACs or other lower high-end companies). I was pleasantly surprised to find that, while the prices aren't cheap, they're pretty affordable. The most expensive products are the foundations and highlight liquids at £10. The rest of the products range between £3 - £8. A few Topshop's have the products but not all, but Topshop deliver worldwide. I actually went to Oxford Street today and bought, swatched and checked out the whole line, so expect a haul post and then review coming soon :)



Models own:

Well the brand isn't new but they've just released a huge amount of new products, basically doubling their collection. New products (adding to their previous collection of loose eyeshadows, cheek and lip tint, nail polishes, lip glosses, brushes and eye pencils) include blushers, face paints, lip balms, lipsticks, mascara and pressed shadows as well as new shades of their polishes. The new products aren't available on their website yet but you can get them on the Boots Website and Asos as well as in selected Boots stores. I popped into the Oxford street Boots today and had a look see and the products i swatched (lipsticks, face paints and blushes) all seemed really lovely. Basically everything is a fiver. I've got a big stash of their nail polshes already and really love them, a lot of people seem to have problems with the formula but i've always found them really excellent.

MUA:

MUA (Makeup Academy) is a new range for Superdrug and i am very excited about it because every item is just a pound! There are a great deal of products available already such as eyeliners, mascara, lipsticks and glosses, blushers and bronzers, nail varnishes and eyeshadows and a great colour range. Having seen a few little reviews already it seems that the quality is variable, though really you can't expect perfection from a pound. It's available online or in select Superdrug stores (have just found out it's in Wimbledon so i'll be heading out to try it soon). I'm excited to see the colours in real life and quite interested in the glitter eyeliners, which are apparently pretty bad quality wise but come in neon shades which i've never seen before and the eyeshadows are meant to be very good.

Latest Haul

This was my most recent haul, from about 2 weeks ago (i'm proud of myself, i've barely bought anything since! This may not seem much of an achievement to most people but i am very proud of myself) when i took a little trip into Wimbledon and visited the shops that are my current Kryptonite: Superdrug and Boots.

 

Firstly i popped into Superdrug and, for me, got away with a very small amount! I picked up Sleek blush in Flamingo, GOSH foundation in porcelain ( i may have finally found my skins perfect match!) and GOSH nail polish in Bright Passion and Sweet Peach. Sweet Peach was on clearance and should have been half price (£2.50) but i found out when i got home and looked at my receipts (i really should start looking at them sooner!) that i had been really undercharged. I only paid £1.25 for Sweet Peach, a quarter of the full price, and, for some reason i have no idea why i only paid £1 for Bright Passion! I felt quite guilty about it, but also very pleased! Saved me a few bob, thanks Superdrug :)

 

Then i went to Boots and picked up a lot of bits:

Colorsport 24 hour eyeliner in black, Maybelline Falsies mascara in black, Collection 2000 eyeliner in Dig It, 17 Nail polish in Tropical Island, 17 nail polish in Orange Soda, 17 Eyeshadow in Funfair

i had a voucher for 150 extra points when you spent over a certain amount, and another for 50 points if i bought a 17 Eyeshadow. So i did, and it was 3 for 2 on 17! I also got Soap and Glory's Flake Away but forgot to photo it and I think i also got some boring lady things like tampons.

Swatches and reviews of these new products will be coming up! :)

2True Cheek n Lip Tint in Blush Pink

I've had the photos for this review on my computer but managed to misplace them in a folder where they shouldn't have been, but i've finally found them! Hooray.

I bought this a long time ago but i still love it. Like all 2True products it costs just £1.95 or you can get 3 for a fiver. There are 2 shades of this product, this one i'm reviewing 'Blush Pink' and another which i don't know the name of (i do have it somewhere but i have put it somewhere) but is basically a very cheap Benetint dupe.
I picked up this colour as, having a few cheap dupes of Benetint already, i wanted to try a cheap dupe of Posietint. I was going to pick up the 'Me Me Me' version (I cant find it online so i can't tell you what it's called but i think it was around £5 ) but then spotted this. Now what i realised when i got home is that this actually isn't a particularly good dupe of Posie tint, but i actually like this so much better!
Posie tint is (I believe, i've never tried it just seen photos) a light, slightly iridescent pink liquid, 'Blush pink' from 2True is a bright, bright, basically neon pink.

 

(it's actually brighter and more neon in real life)

It's thicker than other lip and cheek tints and stains i've tried, seeming more like a runny cream, but it works in much the same way. While the colour might look a bit scary in the swatch if you only use a tiny dot it applies as a sheer, clean wash of pink but it's buildable so if you're like me and want fluorescent cheeks you can achieve it on your skin.

Here's my naked cheek:

And here it is using Blush Pink (i applied 3 dots in a triangle shape on the apple of my cheek and then blended)

 

As you can see it just gives a lovely bright pink 'rosiness' to my cheek. You could always make it more sheer by using a smaller amount, or more vibrant by using more :)

However there was a problem when it came to applying it to my lips. At first i wanted to get the stain to apply the same colour as it is in the swatch, a bright, bright neon pink. However to get it to that colour i had to use lots of layers to get it to that colour and i really don't recommend that.

 

Naked lips

 

Applied very thickly.

As you can see adding lots of layers made it look odd and sort of clumpy, patchy and thick. It also didn't feel nice, it was too thick and quite drying. However when i applied just one or two sheer layers it looked really lovely:

  

A more natural flush of neon pink :P This time it felt fine, i could forget i was wearing it and looked a lot less messy.

I've found that on my cheeks this will last all day with no problems and basically no fading at all. But on my lips it will probably last for an hour or 2 before it starts to fade. But i bite and lick my lips a lot.

However i had one problem with this stuff, i do not like the taste or smell. You only notice it when the product is wet, when it has dried i can't tell it at all. I can't really descrive why i don't like it, it seems to be entirely unflavoured and unscented, but tastes and smells chemical-ish and just nasty to me. Also if you are looking for a posietint dupe this really doesn't work, i'd try the Me Me Me version or just shell out the big bucks on Benefit.

However if, like me, you really like this bright candy pink i would absolutely encourage you to try this. It works well, it's under £2 and the only downside i an see is that before it sets it tastes and smells a little funky :P

Haul!!

Ok like i said in my last post i've been very very naughty recently.
Firstly i got some bits from Asos:




Models own lip glosses in blackberry, fuschia and red.

The Asos/Ciate nail paints were only £1.50 each! I got all 3, Mary Kate which is A black with gold sparkles, pixie which is a sort of racing green colour (it looks much lighter and brighter in the pot than when you swatch it) and Agyness which is a sparkly purple. I realised Agyness is basically exactly the same as my Barry M vivid purple, so if anyone would like this i'll sell it for £2 including shipping in the UK (i've only swatched it once. On asos it would be £3.50 including postage).
I also got some gorgeous tights that were in the sale (they're gold and black and sort of a houndstooth design). I also got 3 Models Own lipgloss and nail polish sets in red, fuscia and red/black (you can see the red/black set is in it's case) which also included a nail buffer thing and were £4 each. The red and fuschia lipglosses are gorgeously opaque but the blackberry one is sheer, also the red/black polish is a dupe of my Barry M red/black colour so again if anyone would like this set it's yours for £5 including shipping (and also i'll be donating 10% of anything i sell for a while to Haiti). Finally the only thing that wasn't in the sale was the Urban Decay lip primer potion, but even then i got a discount as there is an Asos 20% code :) Haven't tried this yet but will keep you posted.

Then I went into town to get something secret for my Goomba's valentine gift and ended up getting far too much for me!

Firstly i went a bit mad for nail polish in superdrug. I've gotten really into nail varnish at the moment, i'm absolutely desperate for some China Glaze and color club, but as i cant afford the shipping from the US at the moment i thought i'd stock up on some cheap drugstore brands. The collection 2000 polishes were under £2 each and go on really nice and opaque. I also discovered a secret clearance stash of old Urban Decay polishes (they must have been hidden in the stock room, i don't even remember when my superdrug sold UD!) so i got 3 of them for £1.99 each. I also picked up a collection 2000 base coat/ridge filler that isn't pictured.


From left to right the colours are:
collection 2000 Hot Looks: Wham (a light grey), hoola hoop (a sort of bubblegum pink), minx (a pinky-purple glitter), vixen (a fuschia glitter), BMX bandit (a kind of cornflower blue, love the name!), button moon (a very pale blue with a slight green tinge. Again wonderful name!).
Urban Decay: Trip (a bright fuschia pink with slight blue pearl), X (a sort of brown/purple/gold duochrome) and finally Freakshow (which is purple with green and blue duochrome).

and here are swatches of all the polishes, including the ones from Asos. A lot of them look awful, they're gorgeous in real life. Annoyingly the 2 i'm hoping to sell don't look anything like they do in real life so if you're interested please tell me and i'll try and take a better photo!:



Models own red/black, red alert and foxy fuschia, Asos/ciate paints in pixie, agyness (looks dark grey here, actually a metallic purple) and mary kate (which has gold shimmer in real life you can't see at all here), Urban decay in X, trip and freakshow, collection 2000 hot looks in minx, wham, bmx bandit, hoola hoop, button moon and vixen.
Then i got this gorgeous pearl necklace from Accessorize. I've always wanted a necklace with just giant pearls (a bit like Frank n Furters :P) and while this one isn't my perfect version it's pretty close:



And lastly, Lush. Now i know, i know, i have already got enough toilletries to last a year or so, but i couldn't help but grab some of the valentines range and some others of their new products. I was also really really brave and it payed off! I love the sound of their new Turkish Delight shower smoothie but as it's £15 i couldn't possibly buy it without trying it out, so i asked for a sample. Now this might sound like nothing but because of my disability i was literally shaking and on the brink of tears thinking about asking because i was just so scared. But i managed to find the courage and asked and as a reward for my bravery (though of course the lovely guy at the checkout didn't know it was a reward, he was just being nice :P) not only did i get a sample of Turkish Delight, but he gave me a little pack they'd put together which includes their new Creme Anglaise body lotion, Sexy Peel Soap, American cream conditioner and Smitten hand cream. I left feeling really proud of myself :)



Anyway i picked up Love Soap (and of course i had to get it in the gorgeous heart shaped box even though i'm keeping it for myself!), magic mushroom bubble bar, space girl bath ballistic and Happy blooming bath melt and my sample pack :)

So that's all the shopping i'm allowed to do for myself for at least a month! (though internet shopping doesn't count :P) I'll be reviewing most of the things anyway, but if there's something specific you want to know about just leave me a comment :)

A lot of christmas looks

Hi everyone,
I want to enter this superdrug competition here:
http://superdrugloves.com/
basically you just have to show your 'favourite party look' using products available at superdrug.
I decided to do christmas-themed makeup instead of any sort of sparkly party look. Perhaps this isn't wise, because they don't ask for it to be christmassy, but hey it's more fun this way.
Anyway i had loads of ideas but i'm only allowed to enter one look, so i thought i'd do them all and ask you lovely people which one you like best. Any input you guys can give me would be really really greatly appreciated! :)

Cherubim:

gold glistening skin, gold eyeshadow with white/blue eyeliner and highlight, false lashes, rosy cheeks and coral cupids bow lips.

Holly punk:

matte pale skin, matte red lips, dark green eyeshadow.

Glitter poinsettia:

green glitter eyeliner, red lips with red glitter lipgloss

Misteltoe and wine:

wine coloured lipstick, various green eyeshadows, white eyeliner.

So have a look and tell me which one is your favourite and i would be most greatful.
If anyone else is entering let me see your looks please! :)