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.

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: 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!

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.

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:

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.