Livvie - A superstar in the making....

Hey, Today's post is a little different from our normal posts! I just had to show you a video of my little one having a right old sing song. She had decided to don my sister Hannah's hat and using Hannah's guitar she broke out into song. The song she created was Hannah Smells of Egg, its quite catchy and she is very passionate! Here is her poor Aunty Hannah who I dare say is not impressed with the song!!!

Thank you

Some of My Current Favourite Blushers...

Hey, How is everyone? Today's post is on some of my current favourite blushers (all are also recent additions). I used to wear my Benetint most days with a bit of highlighter or bronzer but at the moment I have been more tempted to use powder blusher. So with making this change to my normal makeup I wanted to introduce you to the current ones that I am using. First up is Sleek's blusher is Pomegranate, I have wanted this for so long yet never got around to ordering it offline (I could never get it in my superdrug). But I was fortunate that Welsh Beauty Blog had it for sale on her blog sale so I got it for £3 you can check out the rest of the colours here. This blusher is very pigmented and is such a rich colour, I have to be careful when applying it or I can easily go overboard. Once applied it's a gorgeous shade that has a golden shimmer as well.

Second up is more of a bronzer/highlighter but I love the colour I wanted to show you guys! It's from George at Asda and I picked it up on a recent trip, you can check out the other items I got here. With being very pale this has been giving me the right amount of glow that I need! Third up is a new purchase that I got in my Mini ELF Haul . It's a studio blusher in Merry Berry which retail at £3.50 and you can see here. I was worried that this was similar to the Sleek one but they are quite different. ELF is a lot more plum toned, and not as pigmented as I hoped but it actually works better as it is on my skin tone.

Fourth is my Benefit Bella Bamba Blusher, which retails at £23.50 and you can see more on Bella Bamba here. This is a well pigmented pink/coral shade with a light gold shimmer - prefect for summer! Next up is Collection 2000 Blusher is No4 Trouble which retails at £2.99, as I mentioned in my previous post here this shade is not very pigmented, yet it does have a nice warming tone for my skin and has become a firm fave.

Lastly we have Boots 17 Sweet Kiss from the Spring Collection at 17 this retails at £3.49, you can see my post here on the Spring Collection at 17. This is such a gorgeous pink and again suits my skin tone great! Have you got a current favourite blusher? Any suggestions of new ones to try or look out for?

Thanks

NOTD Collection 2000 Swizzles

With British Summer Time now here and the lovely weather we've been having (although its dark and miserable this morning in the North West), I thought I'd go for something bright and cheerful.

(flash)

I this up in Superdrug last week. They had an offer where if you spent £4.00 you could get a free Hot Looks polish.

I actually went Swizzles, as it went perfectly with my dress for my Hen Do last Saturday.

(no flash)

I got a good opaque finish with 3 coats and was really happy with the glossy finish I ended up with.

The colour looked great on and I got loads of compliments - nice little extra bonus.

Ok so this is from the Hot Looks range with is fast drying and it really does dry quickly. When I use this range I hardly seem to smudge the polish once its on. My only let down was that after putting it on at 10am, it already seemed to have tip wear by about 7pm and quite a few chips by the next day. Not good! Even though the colour is gorgeous, I wouldn't really pick up anymore unless i spent over £4 again. I just think there are better cheap polishes out there.

A Good Moisturiser v A Bad Smell

Ok so today's post is actually on some products my mum a.k.a Heather, Le Grand Fromage, Tron (as in Heathertron), or Ned as she's more than usually referred to has been trying out.

Not 100% sure where most of these nicknames have come from and we're not sure she's that keen on any of them, but it hasn't stopped us yet ;)

She's been after a new moisturiser recently and after seeing some good reviews we said she should try something from the Lacura range at Aldi's - she wants a good but cheap product.

She picked up the Q10 Restorative Day Cream for Mature Skin, along with the Multi Intensive Serum.

In the end, I think her review comes down to whether you can put up with a Really Bad Smell for a good product.

Is its really worth it??

So over to our mum!

Day One – Face cream only

Smell is disgusting had to wash my hands because I couldn’t stand smell on them! Went on like thick gulp – yuck! Thoughts - I won’t be using this again. However that evening my skin felt so soft. Not sure if I’ll last week.

Day Two

Decided to preserve - just need to get passed the smell and gulp! I have used Olay since I can’t remember when, but Lucura is having much better results in just a few days.

Day Three

Used serum first then the face cream – much better the cream seemed to sink in better and smell better... not sure if I’m just getting to it or the serum helped! My skin feels lovely.

Day Four and onwards

Results – put up with down sides of face cream because the results are so good.

Haven’t said very much about serum... leaving the best till last, amazing absolutely love it. Beats No 7 Prefect and Protect for me – not often I really like a product. I’m a ‘well I’ve bought it now and waste not want not type of girl’. But this is good, I will still use my No 7 Serum up but this is the best thing EVER.

Day Seven

No breakouts, just soft skin, my skin feels better each day.

The Serum is my must have product and I really don’t rave. As for the Face Cream, I’ll see how I feel by I get to the end of the jar! (Not sure I’ll make it though) Still on the fence! But don’t think I’ll buy it again.... still need to find my prefect face cream on a budget.

Beauty Blog Link Love

Hey,

How is everyone? We hope you all have a great weekend, we are off to Chester for L's Hen Do tonight.

Here are this week's Beauty Blog Link Love for your reading.

Miss Beauty Nerd dishes on Asia's hottest and most coveted product - BB Creams!!


Jellyminx shares a Jessie J inspired makeup tutorial.



K from Beautifully Addicted To gives us a look at ELF Mineral Glosses.


Anita over at Pleasureflush sorts through her stash of mascaras to find out which ones are keepers and which ones are heading for the bin!


Fee at Makeup Savvy takes on this year's Spring/Summer key fashion trends with a series of inspired nail art tutorials!


Phyrra's Indie Spotlight for March is Epically Epic Soap Co. Learn all about Allison!


Getting downright Dirty with LUSH makes for one very clean-smelling Lipglossiping!


Lisamarie from Beauty Crazed swatches spring blushes and tries to decide between Givenchy and Yves Saint Laurent!


Ooh, shatter! Musicalhouses shows you an awesome black and silver shatter NOTD with Barry M Instant Nail Effects!


Krasey Beauty hobnobs with makeup royalty, and learns of new beauty releases, while she's at it!



Beauty's Bad Habit shares her favourite eyeshadow bases and primers for vivid, 'life proof' eye make-up that lasts.


Checked outELF's black bottles yet? Queen of Turquoise has!


Welcome to your new addiction - Alyson reviews the NYX Soft Matte Lip Creams at The Gloss Menagerie.


Tracy at Beauty Reflections gets a 70s makeup vibe with Rimmel Glam'eyes Quad Eye Shadow that fits right in with the 70s fashion trend!

The Pink Sith won't be able to kill your lemming for this new Armani Beauty Eyes To Kill Intense Silk Eyeshadow in # 4 Pulp Fiction.



Who said neutrals can't be dramatic, Madame B Fatale shows you how!



Kimberly takes the Dare To Wear Charity Challenge: For Japan Are you up for the challenge?



Hop in the car for a roadtrip with My Lips But Better and OPI's Fall 2011 collection, Touring America.


Are you a Kate or a Vanessa? You'll find the answer at Musing on Beauty, by comparing Chanel Rouge Coco Shine and Dior Addict lipsticks.


The Chantecaille Sea Turtle palette came swimming into Cindy's life, see if she thinks it's worth the $79 price tag.



***


Did you hear? BarryM may come to Canada!! To celebrate Spiced Beauty is giving away a huge 5-piece prize pack.


Want to win 2 NARS blushes + other goodies? All you have to do is be a follower of StealMyHeartLovee's blog for a chance to win.


Music and Makeup has been going for 2 years! Jo celebrates with a giveaway of some of her favourite products.

theNotice is giving away a ridiculously glittery Honeycat Cosmetics lipgloss. Whether you're a cat lover or a glitter girl, you *need* to check it out!

Thanks

Feeling all Demure....

My Nails Inc London is slowly running out, do I've been on the hunt for something similar. Would love to find a 'dupe' but a similar colour would do!

So I wanted to show you a lovely polish I stumbled upon in Superdrug - MeMeMe in Demure



It is darker than London but I LOVE the shade against my skin.




It goes on easily altough I did have to go for 3 coats as I could still see a bit of nail in places. It also last well. 3 day on and only minimal tipwear and no chips :)



Going to go back and have a lock at the other shades!

Lx

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

New George at Asda Make-up

Hey,

Well guess what I spotted when I was doing my food shopping on Saturday morning....some new lines in the George Make-up range. My first though was to have a look and see what additions they had made but all I could notice was that they had slightly ripped off Benefit Cosmetics.
The new items that I could see first were two new shades to there Matt Finish nail polish, in a pink and red. I am still not a convert to matt nail polish, so far I have a black but haven't really used it.

Then I spotted that they had released a tinted moisturiser which reminded me of You Rebel (especially the packaging shape). They have also released two cheek tints (dupes of Posietint and Benetint) and a highlighter (High Beam)

Then I noticed the lipglosses, which are dupe for the Benefit lip glosses, these retail at £3.75 and come in 11 shades. I actually picked up two shades in Grrrrr and Pucker Up. Both apply well, are pigmented and none sticky. But the first thing I noticed is that Pucker Up (bottom pic) is a complete dupe for Benefit Nookie Nookie.

I really like the lipglosses and at the price I would be tempted to pick some more up! My only gripe is the smell, why do cheap beauty products need to smell ELF has managed to make lipglosses that don't smell for £3 why can't everyone else!

All of these items were on promotion when I saw them and though I have never been tempted by another cheek tint (I am loyal to me Benetint). For the the fact these are retailing at £2.50 I am tempted, even just to have as some spares.

Has anyone spotted these dupes in Asda? Has anyone tried them yet?

Thanks

More No7 Nails

Hey,

I just wanted to show you two more nail polishes I have picked up from the No7 Range. I have ended up buying some more as I still had some of the £5 off vouchers left (they are valid till the 27th March).

The two I got are Betty Blues from the Stay Prefect range (you can see more here) and Hot Pink from the Speed Dry Range (you can see more here).

Now I don't think I would ever pay the full price of these nail polishes which is £7 but as these work out to £2 with the voucher I don't mind picking them up. You can see my other shades here, which are in Beanie, Damson Dream and Totally Teal . I still quite fancy picking up Violetta from the Speed Dry range but other than that I am not sure I fancy any other shades. Though they do have some other great bright shades Pink Grapefruit, Salsa, Vivid Violet, Cherry Tang, Coral Kiss, and Poolside Blue.

What purchases have you made with your vouchers?

Thanks

Round-up of the Week

Hey,

How is everyone? We hope you have had a good week!

Again both L and myself have been quite busy, and we both have busy weeks to come! I have had the last week off but we had a busy week scheduled. We had taken our Little one to Whipsnade Zoo for the day, we choose the day that was really foggy but we still had a great time.
We also painted our Little ones room in the lovely shade of Sweet Pink and decorated some of her existing furniture. Then finally L has come to mine this weekend for a visit which was nice.

As I said we have both been busy and L is trying to finalise a lot of her wedding plans as she now has 11 weeks to go!! So she was at mine this weekend to try her actual wedding dress on, as it had arrived in. She looked Amazing!!!

She has also been busy prefecting her cupcakes for her wedding (she's making her own) and the above got trialled for comic relief. She has brought some down with her for us as well and I have to say they are gorgeous!

This week on the blog:

• K showed you her cheap and cheerful lipglosses versus her new MAC lipgloss - Lipglosses:Cheap & Cheerful vs MAC
• We had a NOTD featuring 3 new ELF shades - ELF NOTD:Dark Purple Glitter, Desert Haze and Innocent.
• K showed you a NOTD featuring Barry M Pink Flamingo.
• We had another ELF product featured on the blog - ELF Mineral Lipglosses.
• Then K showed you some of the new products and treats available from Benefit Cosmetics - Finding Mr Bright, Mad Hatter Tea Party, & b.right! Radiance Skincare.
• L showed you her yummy cupcakes that were made for Red Nose Day.

Hope you have a good week!

Thanks

Some images from http://www.weheartit.com/

b.right Radiance Skincare

Hey,

As I said yesterday I have another Benefit treat for you! As most of you maybe aware Benefit will be launching a new skincare range b.right Radiance Skincare.


The first hit of the range will contain 5 items Its Potent! Eye Cream, Refined Finish Facial Polish, Triple Performing Facial Emulsion SPF 15, Total Moisture Facial Cream and Foaming Clean Facial Wash.


The whole range is designed:

• for radiantly refreshed, hydrated skin


• for a brighter, more youthful-appearing complexion


• it's simple, luxurious & provides brilliant results!

Foaming Clean Facial Wash - (£16.50) effectively cleanses the skin, removing make-up & impurities with a soft, gentle lather.

Refined Finish Facial Polish - (£17.50) gently exfoliates to purify the skin & help minimize the appearance of pores.

Triple Performing Facial Emulsion SPF 15 - (£19.50) hydrates, protects & comforts the skin with an oil-free, lightweight formula.

Total Moisture Facial Cream - (£26.50) provides concentrated immediate & long term hydration.

It's potent! Eye Cream - (£23.50) fades dark circles & helps smooth fine lines for brighter, younger - looking eyes.

We got to try out some of the first five items and I have to say they all seem lovely, it'll be good to give them a proper go! But the ones that really stood out for me was the Refined Finish Facial Polish and the Triple Performing Facial Emulsion. I love a face scrub so the facial polish seems right up my street, it was a cream texture with tiny particles in and didn't feel drying once removed. The Emulsion also is my my thing as I don't tend to like creams to thick and the emulsion is more like a lotion feel and its oil free! I never really get eye creams but this did really seem to brighten the eye area. The cream was nice and could be introduced to my regime as a night cream (which was suggested at the event). Finally the face wash was nice and again didn't feel drying but I personally prefer the scrub.



I think this range is a great step for Benefit into skincare, the bottles and packaging is great (it would look nice out on the side of your bathroom). Also the part I like the most about the range is the smell, just fresh and clean not overpowering at all.



The range will be available in Debenhams, Boutique and online from 1st April and launches nationwide on the 16th April. You can find out more about the range here and sign up for the newsletter to get more information.

Thanks

Mad Hatter & Make-up Party!

Hey,



Just two little bits of information for you about some lovely events that Benefit have running at the moment. First up is a Make-up Masterclass with Benefits Head Make-up Artist Lisa Potter Dixon and Interntaional Make-up Artist Renton Wade.You can learn tips and tricks from the two, the class is the 7th April 6.30pm - 8.30pm and is £50 (Price redeemable against products). It will be at the Benefit Boutique Spitalfields Market and you will receive a complimentary goodie bag. You can register for your spot on http://blog.benefitcosmetics.co.uk or events@benefitcosmetics.com .

The second event is the Mad Hatters & Make-up Party!

Guests will immerse themselves in the sumpuous world of millinery couture and be pampered by Benefit's top make-up artist, all while sipping cocktails in teacups and enjoying vintage sweet treats.

For more information please contact Lisa Potter-Dixon lispd@benefitcosmetics.com

I think the masterclass sounds amazing, but the Tea party just sounds great for an alternative Hen Party or party!

Thanks

Baking for Comic Relief

Wanted to just quickly show everyone my yummy cakes for Comic Relief!

In work today we're selling breakfast butties and cakes for comic relief - so I thought I'd help out and make some cakes.

And I did a few biscuit as well,