Boots advantage card vouchers!

In the post this morning came my Boots voucher letter :D
There's a little thingy telling me I have £3.98 in Advantage Card points, yay (I generally use them for chocolate...)
Then in terms of vouchers (all valid until the 29th/30th of July)

• 500 points when I spend £30
• 200 points when I spend £20 (two of these)
• double points (usable twice)
• £2 off Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter (Might invest in a second colour!)
• only £1 for a 17 Wild Curls mascara
• double points on sun protection
• £10 eye test (silly them, I'm still eligible for NHS eye testing)
• £5 off when I spend £25 on electrical beauty

I have no idea how they decide exactly which vouchers to send, but all but the last two are fairly good.

There's also info about 3 for 2 on mix & match holiday essentials (I'll be using that to pick up insect repellent spray, a mini Nivea deodorant,and maybe a dry shampoo for my sailing holiday) and half price on sun protection.

Thanks, Boots!

Boots haul (another one!)

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for my slowness in getting this post out - I've been having issues with Blogger's new User Interface. On the bright side, it has meant that I have had a chance to properly use the products.

 

The first thing I went for was the Revlon Lip Butters. After testing the shades (we only had eight in my local branch, which included Lollipop and Candy Apple) I went for Tutti Frutti. I've never worn a coral lip before, but it looks good! Retails for £7.99, and I would say it's similar to 17's Mirror Shine Lipstick.

Up until now I haven't actually had a foundation - I threw out my old Natural Collection one as it was really bad at blending - but I hadn't realised other foundations were so much better than it! (Of course, this one should be, it's five times the price!) At £9.99 this is the most expensive beauty product I've ever bought, but it's so good! Full review soon. I bought shade 53 which is maybe a tad dark right now - but a little sunbathing will fix that. It's nice and yellow toned though.

Since they still have the 3 for 2, I wanted to get a mascara - I'm happy with my £1.99 Natural Collection mascaras, but there clearly existed something else which led people to go for slightly more expensive ones - this is £5.99. It's the first curved-brush mascara I've owned, which made the first use fun, but it's really good! I had thought it would be, as my favourite eyeliner is from this range.

Have you taken advantage of Boots' current 3 for 2?

Boots haul!

I decided to take advantage of the current three-for-two across all make-up, and this is what I bought:

Natural Collection LashBuild Mascara in Black - £1.99

As I mentioned in yesterday's round-up of what I took with me to Haileybury, my current black mascara is drying up. I decided to get one of their other formulas so I could compare them.

17 Blusher in Nude - £3.49

This is a really nice subtle shade for summer; I look forward to using it lots!

Rimmel Soft Kohl Kajal Pencil in 071 - Pure White - £2.99

I have this pencil in many other colours, and decided to get white as I had read that it helps to open up the eyes

FOTD: pretty in pink

Products used:

• Rimmel Colour Rush Quad eyeshadow in Urban Flower - I used the pale pink matte shade all over the eyeshadow as a base (reviewed here)
• elf Custom Eyes in Wisteria (swatched here). I found that I wasn't really using this shadow to its full capability, only as an interest point to lighten up other eye looks, so I wanted to use it as a focal point. And it's really pretty!
• Boots 17 Photo Flawless Eye Pencil in Carbon Black/ Copper.(reviewed here).
• Boots Natural Collection WaterGuard mascara in Brown/Black
• Collection 2000 ShimmerSquare in Blushalicious (currently with £1 off at boots.com, which means it's down to £3.19)
• Benefit Watt's Up highlighter
• Boots 17 Mirror Shine Lipstick in Belle

The new No7 spring collection - floral brights

It may be only just above freezing outside, but in the world of fashion and beauty it's already Spring, baby!

The new range includes an eye palette, a cream blusher, a highlighter, and a lipstick, each of which I'm going to talk about. The lipstick and blusher are £10 each and the highlighter and eye palette £13.

The highlighter definitely looks nice, especially with the sweep of shimmery pink in it. I think that if I didn't already have a highlighter, I'd almost certainly snap this up - my only reservation Is the price. It's nearly double the price of Bourjois' highlighter, and £2 more expensive than Soap and Glory's, which has had rave reviews. If there is a sale at the end of this limited edition, though, I think that would definitely be the time to snap it up.

The eye palette is lovely, with shades of brown and a base pink, with a little yellow for the inner corner of the eye. If the shadow is of as good a quality as the No7 shadow I have, then I don't hesitate to recommend this.

My only reservation would be that most of us already have the more brownish shades from the palette and a base pink that we like - so it's really only that tiny bit of yellow that we're paying £13 for. Although that yellow is lovely, for those of us on low budgets it might be worth trying Sleek's acid palette, for £6.49 which has a yellow included in the bright colours in it. There's also a more russet-y, sophisticated, yellow in their Sunset palette, which, by the way, I definitely have my eye on.

These cream blushes are lovely and come in two shades, Blooming Pink and Blossoming Pink. They seem pretty similar but I think the picture is Blossoming Pink - the other shade looks a bit redder... I can't wait to go and try this - but again, price - £10 for a blush isn't really something I can justify, especially as soap and Glory's products are only a tad more expensive and this doesn't actually look that special.

The lipstick also comes in the same two pinks - the Blooming Pink (not the one pictured, sadly) looks like it'll be a stunner - its a dark reddish pink. These retail at £10, but somehow I'd be a little more prepared to pay that for lipstick than for blusher, maybe because the packaging is a tiny bit nicer...

Overall the range is lovely, if a bit out of my price range - I guess this is what advantage card points/ £5 vouchers (if they give them out again anytime soon) / birthday gift cards (hint hint)/ sales are for...

Boots hauls!

Over the past few weeks, I've been to Boots numerous times, so I thought I'd amalgamate everything I've bought into one big post.

This is really a bit fab. I've seen a few posts complaining that it didn't live up to its promises, but personally I love it. It is very light coverage, but I like that - there's nothing worse than looking 'caked' in foundation in my opinion. If you've got very pale skin, this probably wouldn't be the product for you - I'm not that pale but I found the 'light' shade to be perfect on me. 

Lots and lots of Natural Collection stuff!

I bought their 'LashCurl' mascara in black, and it's far better than I would have thought - I will do a review at some stage, but for now it's enough to say that it's properly black and that it actually does make the lashes look more curled, so that's good.

The green corrector stick is to help neutralize my naturally very rosy cheeks, and it seems to work, which is good - this is certainly something that I wouldn't buy from a posher brand when I know it's available and very good for £2.

The lipstick, in shade 'Rose Bud' is brilliant. A really good buy, in my opinion. It's pink and springlike without being too pink and horrible. I'll probably have to stop wearing it when I pick up a tan in the summer, but for now it's great. It doesn't come off on glasses etc either, which you would expect for the price. 

Centre front are bronzing pearls - I gave these a quick go just now and they're really good - I like that the different colours blend together. On the right is some loose powder - I'm going to give this a go. 

On top of the two little pots is a lip liner. I felt I ought to have one, and it's a nice nude/pink shade. 

I got these six products in two separate 'three for £5' deals.

This is No7's Stay Perfect Nail Polish in shade 270 - Jammy. It would normally be £7 but  I used one of those '£5 off No7' vouchers they like to give at the checkout.

It's FAB. The brush is really good, for a start. It's almost a one-coat polish, but the second just helps to add depth etc to the colour. I've heard that it lasts really well too.

Emergency, emergency!

Right, so, due to my liquid eyeliner (which has gone from never-used to loved in the space of less than two weeks) smashing all over my bathroom floor I have started in my quest for a new one.
Here are the top candidates:

An exact replacement
http://www.boots.com/en/17-Liquid-Eye-Liner_927276/
It's cheap and I know it works, but maybe I should be more adventurous...

Collection 2000 felt tip liner
http://www.boots.com/en/Collection2000-Extreme-24hfelt-tip-liner_1160659/ (the picture's wrong for some reason - don't know why, I did look on the superdrug site but they didn't have it at all)

Some other liner - I have hours to kill in town on Saturday so will probably spend forever browsing both superdrug and boots. Suggestions very welcome :)

FOTD: inspired by Chloé A/W 2011

I was browsing the blogosphere, and found a really interesting article:

http://pretty-easy.tumblr.com/post/12323011680/get-the-look-chloe-a-w-2011
Normally when I see posts like those, they need a particular shade of eyeshadow, for example, that I don't have. But to my joy I actually have everything needed to do this look - or at least a slightly toned down version of it.

I started with my trusty Natural Collection ShineAway Foundation. You know what, it may not be the best foundation in the world (I'm really looking forward to trying Maybelline's Dream Matte Mousse when I've finished this foundation) but it's still darned good for what I need.

Then I used a black Rimmel Soft Kohl Kajal Eye Pencil to line my eyes, as the original post suggested, to allow it to smudge... which it did, all over my face.

Then I used my much-neglected Collection 2000 'Color Intense Trio' in Cookie Dough. I don't tend to use this much, mainly because the shades are next to each other and shed quite a lot, and also because it just doesn't go on as well as the 17 eyeshadows. Plus they're not particularly pigmented. They were, however, just right for this look. I used the palest shade as a base and then blended the darkest shade with it, but not all the way out as the picture showed - I wanted it to be wearable, after all.

The next step was to use a little of the same shade as a blush/bronzer under cheekbones for definition. I wasn't sure which brush to use for this, and initially tried my blusher brush, but that loaded on way too much of the powder. So I decided to use the 'Way to Glo' shade of the Collection 2000 Shimmer Shades, as it's slightly less pigmented. That worked better.

The original blog post suggested black mascara, only mine's a bit dried out, so I used my Natural Collection Brown/Black one.

For a natural and neutral lip, I used tinted lipsalve, and then the No7 High Shine gloss in Whisper.

And a spritz of Chanel Coco Mademoiselle Eau de Toilette to finish.

FOTD: with Boots All About Nude palette

So today I decided to see just how nice a look I could get using every element of the All About Nude palette - as mentioned in my year review post, I never use the Funfair eyeshadow shade, so I thought it would be good to use it for once.

As usual, I started with my Neutrogena moisturiser and Natural Collection foundation. So far, so good.
Then I put the Funfair (a pinkish shade) across my whole eyelid and the Walnut Pearl on the outer half. I think I got a bit overexcited at this point as I didn't apply it particularly well, and I think I started it too far into the eye, so it covered way more than just the outer half of the eyelid, if that makes sense, and you can see that I didn't do the eyes particularly evenly (each eye the same) either.
Putting the lipstick on was odd. I don't own a lip brush so I did it with my finger... But it was still shiny and nice, yet not sticky. This lipstick is one that I don't use enough, I'm always surprised by how good it is.
The blusher was odd, it's less creamy in consistency than my Natural Collection one, which is to be expected I suppose because it's in solid form. One thing I've never liked about this particular blush is that for ages it is unnoticeable and then you put a minuscule hint more on and it's suddenly too much. But it's still easier to use - and less messy - than a powder blush.

To finish off I used my usual eyeliner - Boots 17 Photo Flawless eye pencil - and mascara - Natural Collection

This photo was taken a couple of hours after application - and after eating and drinking - yet you can see how long lasting the products have been.

New Years Eve look.

Right, so I had the joys of spending NYE with my parents this year, so this is a special family dinner kind of a look.

I wore a navy blue Miss Selfridge dress with a cream collar and trim, so I decided to go for a navy eye.

Picture 1 - my 'before' face

The first thing I did was moisturise with my Neutrogena Multi-Defence Daily Moisturiser. I started using this in the summer and I love it. Then I put some Boots Natural Collection ShineAway Foundation (I use shade 'porcelain') on my cheeks, to de-pink them a bit.

Next was a thick line of Rimmel Soft Kohl Kajal Eye Pencil in shade 021, denim blue, along the top lash line and halfway along the lower lash line. This will smudge easily as I add the rest of the eye make up.

Then I swept No7 Stay Perfect Eyeshadow in shade 69, Starry Night, ( another freebie from the gift I mentioned in my lipgloss review) across the whole eyelid as a base and to blend with. Next was Boots 17 Eyeshadow in shade Regal, a lovely blue, which I put towards the outer edge of my eyelids and blended with my finger.

Last came mascara (Boots Natural Collection in Brown/Black), lipgloss (No7 High Shine in Whisper, reviewed below) and blusher (Natural Collection cream blusher in Rosy Pink).
Then I was done :)

Picture 2 - the products I used, in order from left to right

Picture 3 - the 'after' face

In hindsight, looking at the photo, I could probably have done with a tiny bit more blusher. I also made a duff choice with the lip gloss which, while it was great that it didn't leave marks on my drinks glasses, did get lots of hair stuck to it on the walk into town for dinner, when it was quite windy. I can report, though, that the lip gloss has quite good staying power - nearly four hours after I put it on, after eating and drinking, while it's not as glossy as it was, my lips still look fairly shiny and glossy with a faint bit of the shimmer. The rest of the look seems to have held up well, though, and the foundation has done as promised and kept shine at bay.

Picture 4 - the 'hours after' face.

NB: you may notice that these photos are better quality than up to this point - that's because I took them on my proper camera rather than webcam for once.

Review - No7 High Shine Lipgloss in shade Whisper

Before I start I shall disclose that I didn't have to pay for this - it was in a free gift that was given out when you spent £22 on the No7 range.
It's normally out of my price range, but my mum ended up with the free gift, so we split the contents between us.
Normally I'm an eye makeup girl rather than being into lippy, and I must admit that I initially picked this out of my makeup box to attempt a more negative review than my last two, but I think it's great.
Initially I was fazed by what is a bit of an odd colour in the tube: I couldn't think why anyone would want lips such a pale shade of pink - which was why I thought this would be a negative review. However, upon putting the gloss on (in the photo my top lip is bare and the lower lip has the gloss on) I found that really it just adds shine - and a bit of fairly subtle sparkle. I've also swatched it on my hand, to show the transparency of the gloss. I suppose I should have taken more notice of the product's name, it really does add shine.
It also has a great applicator (pictured) - something I think I will keep to use with other glosses after this tube is empty. Unlike some of the other wands, it's got a small unfluffy end which makes it easy to apply the gloss on the lips and not around them. Lily likey.
The only issue I can find with this gloss is that it is sticky. This may not be such an issue if you have less wayward hair than mine, but I have quite a lot which likes to go in my face, and this lip gloss seems almost to attract the hair, and it is sticky. Admittedly it's not the most sticky lip gloss I've ever tried, but it's certainly more sticky than, say, chapstick. (not capitalising that as I use Boots' own brand).
Then there's the price. I will enjoy using this tube, yes, but with a replacement cost of £9 I don't think I shall buy another or try any of the other colours. When I come to start spending that sort of money on makeup, or for Prom maybe, I'll come back to it, but for now it's out of my price range, and I'll go back to the lip salve and Vaseline when I run out of this.
http://www.boots.com/en/No7-High-Shine-Lip-Gloss_927422/

Picture 1: swatched on my hand

Picture 2: the fab wand

Picture 3: on my lower lip, with the top lip bare - you can see the shine

Picture 4: the tube, showing the oddness of the colour as I thought it would be

Something I have used up: Boots 17 Photo Flawless Eye Pencil

The main reason why I have used this pencil up already is that I love it, and I use it in conjunction with Boots 17 eyeshadow in shade Walnut Pearl for an easy everyday eye.
The other reason is that it's incredibly soft.
It comes in three slightly shimmery shades: blue, brown, and green. The idea is that you buy the same as your eye, and it draws the colour out. So, I have the brown one, but I might buy a green one to wear by itself or with green eyeshadow when I use up my green Rimmel Soft Kohl Kajal Eye Pencil, which I have in black, grey, green and blue, and which I'll be reviewing at some point.
That musing aside, this pencil really is good. The only caveat is that you have to not push too hard or it crumbles: my mum was doing my makeup the other day for some mother daughter bonding, and because she's used to slightly harder thicker pencils she pushed a little too hard. With a gentle hand, though, this is one of the best eye pencils I've ever used, and at £2.89 a pop, it doesn't matter that I go through the pencil fairly quickly. Once this pencil is one the eye, it stays on the eye, which is good - this pencil has great staying power.
I'm now on my second of these pencils, and after trying mine the other night, my mum's buying herself one too.
One thing I like about it is that it isn't too dark, so it helps to open the eye u, rather than making it look smaller, as lots of very dark liners can.
I would especially recommend this to anyone else with brown eyes/ brown hair/ fair-olivey skin, as I find it enriches my colouring. It's also one of the rare products that seems to look good whatever stage of tan I have.
Now, words over, let's have the pictures!
The first one is my eye without any makeup, then I've done one eye just with the pencil, and then done a 'full' eye make up with the pencil and the eyeshadow I mentioned above, along with Boots Natural Collection Mascara in Brown/Black
http://www.boots.com/en/17-Photo-Flawless-Eye-Pencil_1150614/