March favourites!

This is a bit of a 'basics' favourites post, as I found up the five things that make my life pretty easily :)

Remington S7902 Wet2Straight Hair Straighteners

I've had these since October, and they're generally fab, but it was at the debating conference I went to that they came into their own. You see, I was really stupid and forgot to take a hairbrush (d'oh) - but I found that once I had straightened my hair with these you couldn't tell at all. Plus, since my hair is so thick, it would be impossible to fully dry it before straightening - with these I don't have to! I use Schwarzkopf's got2b Guardian Angel Heat Defence spray with them, which seems pretty good.

These have an RRP of £84.99 but retail on Amazon for £42.99

17 Mirror Shine Lipstick - Belle

(image from the fab Catherine's Loves blog)

I have been keeping this lipstick in my pencilcase for most of the past month, it's perfect for a quick swipe. The colour is fairly sheer, with lots of shiiiine and it's really pretty. That the colour is sheer means that you can just swipe away even without a mirror, as if you miss a bit/go off your lips it's not at all noticeable. 

Plus, the packaging is pretty snazzy too - it's fairly difficult to lose this bright blue tube in your bag.

It sells for £4.59 from Boots.

Elf blusher - Shy
(image from the fab Sugar Coated Muffin blog)
This blusher is a really good every-day blusher in my opinion, as it produces a soft pink which goes with everything and is really difficult to overdo. Plus it lasts really well to. Does what it says on the tin, really.
It sells for £1.50, either for 2g in its own thingy as shown or for 1.5g to go in their Elements system, from elf.

17 Solo Eyeshadow - Walnut Pearl (top left in this picture)
I love this eyeshadow - it's a lovely everyday basic colour, and goes with everything - basically the eye makeup equivalent of the blusher above. It's really long-wearing, too.
It retails for £3.89 from Boots.

17 BB Cream
The main reason I like this is that it is low coverage - it's really just a me-but-better look. I have been using it in Light, but I think I need to move up to Medium as I've started to pick up a bit of a tan. It lasts all day (always a bonus!) and generally helps me feel like a more polished version of me.
It sells for £6.99 from Boots.

FOTD: to the power of two, and review of Elf Shimmering Facial Whip.

This FOTD is so titled because there are two (at least) products used for each section of my face. Also because this post effectively serves two purposes - it's a FOTD post, and it's a short review of one product I used - elf Shimmering Facial Whip in Persimmon

Eyes:

• Elf Shimmering Facial Whip in Persimmon (more on this later)
• Elf eyeshadow in Wisteria (I hit pan on this yesterday, how exciting, my first pan ever)
• Collection Extreme 24h Eyeliner (formerly Collection 2000 of course)

Lips:

• Maybelline Colour Sensational lip stain in Flushing
• Boots No7 High Shine lipgloss in Whisper (layered over the top to give more shine once it had dried.

Face:

• Elf Shimmering Facial Whip in Persimmon
• Collection Shimmer Squares in Way To Glow.
• Boots Natural Collection Neutral Translucent Loose Powder.

And now for the review

I'm afraid this is a rather short review, mainly because I haven't used this product much. The formula and scent are lovely, but it's just too pale for me - I can use it as a highlighter, for which it's okay, and I would do that instead of taking my Benefit Watt's Up on holiday, but it doesn't really work as a blusher on me. If they made this in a darker pink, I would so be there, but they don't. I might invest in it in Citrus though, as I like the formula and I think that colour would get more use.

It's designed as colour you can use on your eyes, lips, or face.

I only tried eyes for the first time today and, again, while the formula is nice, the colour is a little off. It worked well as a base for Wisteria powder eyeshadow though, so I think I shall continue using it for that.

Lips: it's too pale for my skin or tastes. Just looks a bit frosted.

Face: as I said above, it's just too pale to use for anything but a highlighter,

I think this product would work really well for anyone with pale skin, and I look forward to trying it in Citrus.

It sells for £1.50 from elf's website.

February favourites!

Photo from Penelope Row

This is Boots Natural Collection Moisture Shine Lipstick in Rose Bud. I love it because it's a subtly pretty pink that's suitable for day but still pretty for night

Photo from Midnight Violets

This was free in 17's winter GWP and for ages I didn't use it as it looked oppressively red, but recently I have used it - it's a lovely dark pink that I think would suit all skin tones.

Photo from Boots

I was given this as part of a gift set two years ago, but only just started using it - and it smells really nice. Mine is a mini, which means it's quite good for putting in the bottom of my bag for when I've got to school and am melting.

Photo from Boots

This Soap and Glory hand cream and I have an ongoing love affair. It smells so lovely, of marshmallow and so on, and it works really well. I've also used it as a face moisturiser in a pinch, and it works well for that too. I've currently got a full size one and a mini on the go, and a spare of each thanks to Christmas and my birthday

Photo from elf

This primer has made a huge difference - it means that my eyeshadows stay on just that little bit longer. Plus, because I have it in Champagne rather than Sheer it works well as a pale base across the whole eyelid.

On hindsight, this is a very pink favourites list... Oh well, I'm a teenage girl!

What have been your favourite products to use this month?

FOTD: Pencil it in

I realised that whenever I wear eye makeup, whatever I do the liner lasts longer than the shadow, so I thought I'd use my eye pencil as shadow.

Products used:

• Rimmel Soft Kohl Kajal Pencil in Stormy Grey (as shadow) and Black (as liner)
• Elf blusher in Shy
• Natural Collection Moisture Shine Lipstick in Rose Bud

I think this is definitely a look I'll repeat, maybe with other eyeliners.

FOTD: Red Lips and Cat Eyes

Products used:

• Elf eyelid primer
• Elf eyeshadow in 'driftwood'
• Collection 2000 Extreme 24H eyeliner
• Elf blusher in 'shy'
• 17 Ultimate Volume lipgloss in 'very berry'

FOTD: Recreating Zooey Deschanel's look from the new sitcom 'New Girl'

If you're anything like me, and since you're reading this you probably are, I bet you have a girl-crush on Zooey Deschanel. She's great, and so pretty! I've been watching her new sitcom, New Girl, and it's really funny - in last week's episode they attempted to defrost a turkey by putting it in the spin-dryer.

Anyway, I thought I'd have a go at recreating her look from the show.

I used the following products, in this order:

• Natural Collection Corrector Stick (it's light green, to neutralise red cheeks)
• Natural Collection Cover-up Stick (beige)
• 17 BB Cream (Light shade) - review to come
• elf Eyelid Primer - review to come but mentioned here
• elf eyeshadow palette - review to come but mentioned here
• Collection 2000 Extreme 24 Hr Felt-tip liner - review to come but mentioned here (on the top lash line)
• Rimmel Soft Kohl Kajal Eye Pencil (black) - mini-review here (on the bottom lash line)
• Natural Collection LashCurl mascara (black) - review to come
• Collection 2000 Shimmer Shades in Blushalicious - review
• Natural Collection Moisture Shine Lipstick in Rose Bud - review to come

Gosh, looking at the list here it really emphasises how much stuff I already have that I haven't yet reviewed for the blog - thank heavens for Project Pan, eh?

Are any of you Zooey fangirls too? Let me know

NOTD: Because if you can't have sparkly nails on your birthday,when can you?

The title says it all, really...
Base coat: Miss Sporty vitamin cocktail (not in range any more, sad face)
Main colour: No7 Stay Perfect in Jammy (mentioned here)
Top coat: elf nail polish in Twinkle ( mentioned here) (the under a fiver bit)

e.l.f. Haul and free gift!

Last weekend, elf had a sale where, if you spent £10, you got a free gift and free shipping. 'Count me in!' I thought. There are two reasons that I love free gifts:

1. Freebies! Product without having to pay for it!
2. They help me to try new things that I wouldn't have, and in this case, since elf are mail-order, allow me to sample products that I would have doubts about buying sight unseen

This first picture is my freebie:

I received:

• A shimmer eye pencil in shade 7608 - Plum Passion. I'm really happy about this as I've been wanting a purple eye pencil, and, even better, this one is shimmery! It sells for £1 or £1.50, depending on colour, here.
• Nail polish in 1565 - Purple Pleaser - and 1573 - Twinkle. Purple Pleaser is a lovely sophisticated shade, which I think I'll wear a lot. Twinkle is a generic sparkly topcoat, which is also something I've really wanted. As with the eye pencil, it sells for £1-£1.50. And gosh they have a lot of colours.
• The eyeshadow palette, which I think was a part of a Christmas gift collection. It says it has '32 Warm colours' though it's actually the 'cool' palette on this page. The colours aren't so soft as the custom eye colours, but they're still divinely soft. Lily likey. I can see myself using this palette a lot for a while, and, like I said earlier, it'll get me to try eye looks with lots of colours I wouldn't normally use.

And here are the products I bought for myself:

• Custom Eyes element in Driftwood. They accidentally sent me two, which is great because it looks like a colour I'm gonna use a lot. It's a shimmery greenish brown, similar to Boots 17's Walnut Pearl.
• Custom Face element in Flushed, which is a bit darker than the Shy blusher I have. Looking forward to using this, but it'll probably have to wait til I use one of my three Custom Eyes shadows, as I only have the one space in my compact and I desperately want to try the Driftwood shadow.
• Eyeshadow duo in Olive, which is a nice pale green/brown matte duo. Fairly summery and springy.
• Shimmering facial whip in Persimmon - I bought it as a blusher, but I might also give it a try as a lip colour.
• Eyelid Primer in Champagne. Something I've been wanting for ages
• Brushes - Blending Eye Brush and Eye Crease Brush, both lovely and soft.

I will swatch and review these soonish, I hope. Even if I don't, they'll definitely appear in faces of the day :)

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

FOTD: it's Spring!

The trees mostly still have bare branches, but the grass is growing bright green and there were daffodils in the florist's shop yesterday. So it's spring! Yay!

Today's face of the day is a laid back look that took less than five minutes in front of the mirror - which is always good, really. Because it's Sunday and I like to let my skin breathe at least one day a week, I moisturised but didn't use foundation or BB cream today.

If you've read my blog before, you might know that I'm basically in love with my elf eyeshadows (on which note, they've got a free gift sale today and free shipping too, til 10pm). The only problem is that they have a lot of fallout. They definitely fall into the category of eyeshadows that you put on before your foundation. Today I decided to try and apply them with the minimum fallout possible. And I managed. The trick is to use your finger rather than a brush - somehow that reduces the problem hugely. It works because of how lovely and soft these shadows are - I've ordered another shadow and another blush, so there's now a queue of things to go into my elf palette (yes, all right, I forgot to include a second palette in my order...)

I used 'sage', a lovely lovely green, all over the eyelid, and 'wisteria', a pinkish lilac, above that close to the lash line. I really like the effect of that, and I think I'll team the colours up together like that again.

I used a metallic teal eye pencil - Boots 17's, though it's no longer in the range. It was a present from my lovely friend Philly (who runs her own blog) who had two of the Gift With Purchase that included the pencil (summer 09 as far as I can tell from the Internet) and gave me the second, because she's lovely like that. I guess the nearest equivalent now would be the blue eye version of the Photo Flawless Eye Pencil.

I used my elf blush in 'shy' which is a really pretty colour, as you can see on my cheek to the left of the picture - my camera isn't handling light and dark very well at the moment, as you can see, but the colours on the left of the picture are truer to life. Unlike the elf shadows, which are very soft and which I think I'll hit pan on very soon (especially sage), the blush is fairly hard, and despite having used it a lot I've barely made an indent on the top of it. I've ordered another elf blush as well, because I like this one so much. To finish off I used Boots 17 Mirror Shine lipstick in shade 'Belle' - which is, as others have said, fab. It's one of those your lips but better lipsticks.

Ta-dah!

Face of the day - family dinner

Quite a simple face of the day here - apologies for the photo, I wrestled with my camera for long enough...Eyes: I used the pale pink and the green from Rimmel's colour rush quad overshadow in 016 urban flowers and elf's sage colour from their elements range. I lined my eyes in collection 2000's Extreme 24 hour felt tip liner, which I decided on as a replacement for my liner that got dropped earlier in the week... I then used Natural Collection LashCurl Mascara in black which is amazing, and I will get round to doing a review soon, I promise...

Face generally: Boots 17's BB cream which I love - it's so light on, for a start, and it does enough of a foundation job for me at the moment. Then my new Benefit Watt's Up highlighter, which is courtesy of britishbeautyblogger.com's giveaway. It's so amazing. Love the packaging as well - it looks like a lightbulb!
Then I used a really, really old Marks & Spencer blusher in Ginger, which I gaily went for with my total face brush and then realised I'd made a terrible mistake. Once I blended it out a bit though, and removed a little of the excess, it was fine. I then used the Natural Collection Moisture Shine Lipstick in Rose Bud, which I picked up in a 3 for £5 deal as my third item and never expected to like as much as I do - the colour is lovely, it's long lasting, it doesn't come off on glasses etc, and it really is moisturising. Plus it was only £1.99

FOTD: Simple green eye

Originally I wasn't going to post this, but today at school one of my friends said she liked my eye make-up, which I took as a go ahead to share the look.

So here it is, and you have Sarah to blame if you don't like it, haha.

I think this took less than five minutes to do in total, which is always good for hurried school mornings. Another thing about it that was good for it being a school morning was that it only used three products, so there was no scrabbling around, and walking back and forth from my makeup shelf to my bathroom sink.

As always, I started with this moisturiser. I put it on as I got out of bed to let it sink in while I got dressed - this was a key time-saving thing. If I'd worn foundation today I would have paused halfway through dressing to put it on, to let that sink in while I finished getting dressed. This dramatically reduces the amount of time spent at my dressing table, and increases the amount of time I get to spend having breakfast!

First was my trusty Rimmel Soft Kohl Kajal Eye Pencil, this time in shade 031, Jungle Green. It blends so well. Love it. I put this across the top lash line, and halfway across the lower lash line, from the centre outwards. It then smudges slightly as I put the eyeshadow on.

Next was eyeshadow - I used my e.l.f. elements one in shade 'sage' - top left in the palette in this picture, and centre of the swatches - across the whole eyelid. Simple but nice.

I then used the blush - 'shy' - from this palette too, which I have really loved using over the past week, as it's just pigmented enough, but not too brash, looks natural on, and blends well.

And ta-da, the finished look! Those of you who've seen previous Faces Of The Day will notice I've had my hair cut. I decided that cost would win out, and went to Supercuts, and I'm actually really impressed. The stylist was efficient, nice, etc, and always asking if the cut was okay. She was chatty but not too much, and the salon was nice and clean. So yeah, good.

I then decided to add some lip colour, and I used Boots 17's Lasting Fix lipstick, in the shade 'Chocolate Eclair'.

It's alright, but I don't think it will be a repurchase. It has a tendency to go bright pink after a few hours...

But here was the look totally finished:

e.l.f haul and unboxing

I ordered some brushes and a custom palette, for a total of £12 including postage.

When the order arrived I could see it was well packed in a good - but not oversized - box. It was well sealed but not impossible to get into - I just used a biro to open the sticky tape. The box seems really sturdy - I'll probably keep it, it will be good for presents or storage.

When I opened the box there was lots of bubble wrap (so I know what I'm going to be doing for therapy for the next week!) and a packing note on the top, and then the brushes on top of the custom palette and the elements I ordered for it, with some wrap between the brushes and the makeup to protect it all. I like the care that's gone into this packing.

I've swatched these bits later, but I thought I'd write more about them here. The compact is a really good size, and you can see why I like the versatility. The elements are packaged well, though slightly overpackaged - within the cardboard boxes there is a plastic frame keeping the element safe. Again, care despite the fact they only cost £1.

The brushes also seem really good; I haven't had a chance to try out the total face brush, but the blusher/bronzer/blender brush is really good, and I like the angle cut across the top of both of the fuller brushes. They're also lovely and soft! The lip brush I haven't had a chance to properly experiment with, but I had a quick go and it seems to work...

Here are swatches (top without flash, bottom with flash, I know, I need hand cream) of the elements I got for the compact. From right: 'sage' eyeshadow, 'wisteria' eyeshadow, and 'shy' blusher.

Sage is a lovely colour, a definite repurchase when I run out.

Wisteria is more purple and less pale than I expected, but I can see it being useful when I figure out how to incorporate it into looks.

Both of the eyeshadows have a lovely creamy (but still powder) texture. LOVE them.

Shy is nice and sheer, which will help to avoid the clown look.

Overall I love these!

Oh, and there is a free postage offer code that lasts until 9.30am GMT on Monday morning when you spend 10 quid - the code is SHIP24FREE