haircare | Vanity Claire

ClaireNovember 14, 2013

How to Curl Your Hair Without Heat: Bendy Rollers

First off: I know, I know – proper Art Attack skills there, right? How I only got a C in GCSE Art is simply a mystery that will never be solved.

And now secondly: I’m sure I speak for most girls with long hair when I say this: I LOVE having curly hair – but I do not love the damage that heat from curling tongs can cause. I have hair extensions and so have to be particularly careful to not over-expose them to heat if I want them to stay in good condition and avoid the ‘skanky rat’ look for as long as possible – so this means that regularly curling is a bit of a no-no. To create waves in my hair I’ll often plait it before going to bed, but my new favourite method for achieving a more dramatic curl, but still without the heat, is to use these babies:

These bendy rollers were first recommended to me by the girl who fits my weave, and I’m amazed at how good they really are. Packs of these can be picked up in most pound shops, and are also sold in Primark for the mere price of one English pound. You usually get around 8-10 in a pack, but if you have particularly thick hair or want to create smaller curls – or want to use them to spell out words – then you might want to pick up two packs.

Using these rollers is ridiculously simple – and this from a girl who can barely do a neat ponytail (the cackhand strikes again, huzzah!) You section your hair and wrap the ends of each piece around the rollers. You can roll them as high as you want the curl to start. You then secure them by bending them.

For maximum effect, I leave my bendy rollers in overnight. I personally find them really comfortable to sleep in as I usually have them secured below chin level so there’s nothing actually digging into my head – if you have them higher then they might feel less comfortable, but it all depends on how easy you find it to sleep with things in your hair I suppose.

When I unravel the curls in the morning, they’re extremely tight and I look a bit like Honey Boo Boo. However after brushing them through a bit, I’m left with something resembling this:

Depending on what look you’re going for, you can make the curls as groomed or as natural looking as you like. Separating all of your hair evenly will help you to produce matching ringlets, while putting the rollers in a bit more ad hoc (which I do, but mainly because I’m lazy) will leave you with a messier, somewhat more natural look. I’ve found that the curls stay in brilliantly all day; in fact, much better than they tend to when I use a curling wand.

As well as looking pretty good (if I do say so myself, trumpet blowing) and being ridiculously cheap, these curls also leave me safe in the knowledge that I’ve not damaged my hair ONE TEENY BIT. This means they get a thumbs up from me.

Have any of you used bendy rollers? How do you get curls without using heat?

ClaireNovember 8, 2013

How to Save the Blowdry!

Anybody that knows me well probably knows this rather vile fact about me: I don’t wash my hair very often. Twice a week is my absolute maximum, and that’s only if I’m going somewhere or if like, a bird has pooed on me or something. My main reason for this is that I have a weave, and to take care of my extensions I need to avoid exposing them to too much heat styling. Rather than letting them dry naturally or anything boring like that, I choose to keep actually getting my hair wet to a minimum and prefer to keep things fresh with dry shampoo.

It was for this reason that I was genuinely so excited to receive this brand new shower cap from Save the Blowdry. I use a shower cap most days and while it generally gets the job done, I usually end up having to still style my hair a bit after as water inevitably sneaks in at the bottom, or the humidity leaves me looking poofy. Well – NO LONGER, MY FRIENDS.

The shower caps from Save the Blowdry have two layers. The outer layer is the waterproof plastic bit you get on others, and the inner layer is an absorbant micro-weave towel. It’s this part that makes it so different to others, because this layer protects your hair from the condensation and humidity.

And, as an added bonus, the shower cap can be turned inside out for when you’re using a hair mask and want to increase the intensity of the treatment with added heat.

I was so impressed with the concept of Save the Blowdry that I couldn’t wait to try it out – and my impressed levels hit the roof. The cap is massive, so will keep your hair in no matter how much you have or how thick it is. The elastic edge is also super-secure so there’s no danger or water dripping in whatsoever. After removing the shower cap my hair was as bone dry as it was beforehand. And on top of this – LOOK HOW CUTE IT IS.

I would like to state, just to stop you all from having nightmares, that I was actually fully dressed when taking these photos. Fully dressed. Standing in my shower. God, the things I do for this blog.

Overall, as if you can’t tell from my gushing, I’m really happy with this product. The packaging is cute too, so I think it would make a really good Christmas gift for anyone you know who’s into that Soap and Glory-esque, vintage vibe. These retail for £14.95 and can be bought online from Save the Blowdry.

ClaireOctober 24, 2013

Bleach London White Toner | Review & Results

If I had to pick one brand that’s been the most hyped in the blogging community this last month, then it’s Bleach London. Bleach is a London-based hair salon that has now branched out to launch their own product range, specialising in dip-dye kits, semi-permanents hair dyes that span fully across the colour spectrum (yes, green included), and toners. Now of course I’m hugely tempted by the pink hair dyes, but my first priority for now is still getting my hair as white as possible, so on a recent trip to Boots I decided to pick up the White Toner for £7. I’ve previously used the Directions white toner (my review of which you can read here) and was happy with it, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try this much hyped about brand.

My hair was badly in need of a toner. It had been about three weeks since I had used my second pot of Directions and although I’d tried to stay on top of it with silver shampoo and the occasional dash of L’Oreal’s lilac hair dye mixed in with my conditioner, yellow tones had started to show strongly through my hair. You may know that I have a hair weave, and my extensions are a silvery colour – thus my own hair starting to turn yellow was nothing short of a nightmare.

Process

The White Toner Kit contains a Developing Lotion, a Colouroant and a Reincarnation Mask for aftercare. It works in very much the usual way that box dyes do – you crack open the top of the lotion bottle, squeeze in the colourant and shake what your momma gave ya (and then shake the bottle too). You use the little nozzle to apply the toner to your head and then leave to develop for fifteen minutes.

This toner’s different from Directions in that rather than being a bright purple (the colour commonly used to tone down yellow) it’s simply a normal white creamy colour. So how does it tone it? My answer is that I don’t know, and I can only conclude it’s sorcery.

I had my usual struggle with application because I was only applying it to my natural hair and not my extensions, thus had to do lots of head flipping and tying up random bits of hair. Thank God nobody randomly decided to knock on my front door because I looked, quite frankly, like I should be sectioned. But eventually I managed to apply the toner evenly(ish…) to my real hair and then I left it to develop for fifteen minutes.

As you can see it actually did start to take on a lilac hue, which reassured me a bit. It was definitely developing a bit sporadically though, with some bits of my hair not seeming to turn at all despite being fairly well coated. As always I was tempted to leave it on longer than the 15 minutes, but the leaflet had explicitly said (in what I imagine to be an aloof, cool-person voice) that it did NOT need longer than this.

Results

Before / After

Okay, you can see that I seriously wasn’t joking about how yellow my top layer had got, right? I would totally be ashamed I’d even gone out in public like that, except I had spent the previous three days lounging on my sofa watching Geordie Shore and eating Penguins so it was alright really.

Anyway, the results are definitely mixed. It has toned the overall appearance of my hair down hugely, i.e. I can actually face the outside world now without too much shame. But there remain some yellow bits – nowhere near as yellow as they were before, but still a pale lemon kind of shade that I don’t want on my dream white head. I don’t know whether it’s because of the box dye that was previously on my hair before I bleached it – which is what this article on bleaching would suggest – but there seem to be these stubborn little sections that just do not want to go white, no matter how much I try.

Because my hair is in such a complicated state right now, I wouldn’t really think the toner was to blame for not turning all of my hair white. However, the weird thing is my roots:

I had freshly bleached them that morning and so I would have expected that, without any old hair dye on them, they would have been the section to turn out the best. As you can see though, they didn’t really change colour that much, and it’s not until an inch down my head that we get the whitey-grey we’re looking for. I have no idea why this is, perhaps something to do with how porous hair is just after bleaching? But then people usually have toners put on after bleach at the salon, so I’m not at all sure why it didn’t take.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the Bleach London toner. I think it would work really well for people who just want to eradicate the very brassy tones in blonde hair, rather than necessarily get their hair as pale as I want it. It will definitely also be a good option for people who hate the fact that other purple-based toners like Directions can make hair turn lilac as, although it kind of looks it in the photo of my roots, it hasn’t actually done that at all.

This costs £7, which isn’t bad at all for what you would otherwise be forking a lot of money out for in a salon. I can definitely see myself trying this out again – and I promise , for the sake of the world, that I won’t leave it three weeks ever again. The world simply doesn’t deserve to be exposed to that again.

Have any of you tried Bleach London’s White Toner Kit? What did you think?

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ClaireOctober 9, 2013

Beauty Haul: 23rd Birthday Box!

Ladies, I make no attempt at humbleness today – I am bragging and want you all to prepare yourself to be jealous. You ready? Let’s go.

I’ve documented my relationships with beauty boxes in quite a lot of detail on this blog, with Glossybox and (the artist formally known as) Beauteco both eventually disappointing me and being unsubscribed from. Imagine my absolute sheer delight then, when Lauren presented me with my bithday present from her and the rest of my friends and it was my VERY OWN PERSONAL BIRTHDAY BEAUTY BOX.

So, what goodies was my box jam packed with?

Real Techniques Powder Brush
Superdrug Face Masks x 3
John Frieda Luxurious Volume Root Booster
Lee Stafford Spray Shine
Charles Worthington Colour Shield Spray
Seventeen CC Cream
Barry M Nail Varnishes x 3
Soap & Glory Flake Away
Real Techniques Miracle Complexion Sponge
MUA Lipstick
Boots Vitamin E Eye Cream
Tresemme Platinum Strength 60 Second Treatment Shot

How lucky am I?! I was particularly amazed by the Real Techniques brushes (am I a real blogger now..?) but am so excited to try everything out. A huge thank you to my chums for giving me this amazing present, and for putting up with me for yet another year despite my endless foolish behaviour and hair shedding.

Have you tried any of these products, or have you ever had a present like this yourself?

ClaireOctober 1, 2013

September Favourites: Beauty, Fashion & Lifestyle

Hey there sexies! Today I’m here to present you with our first ever monthly favourites post. We tend not to get involved with these kind of regular series’, mainly because we go through life in a bit of a daze and barely know what month we’re even in most of the time. However, my birthday is fast approaching which means for once I’m a little more aware of the the date, so thought it was as good a time as any to give it a go. To be honest, I’ll probably still lose track of the very basic principle behind this post and start waffling on about things I actually bought back in July but just bear with me – I am very, very simple.

Beauty

Despite being on a bit of a spending ban, there are some things a girl simply can’t go without – bread, milk and beauty products, for example. Here are four my favourite beauty discoveries from September:

Osmo Silverising Shampoo & Conditioner – My main mission during September was the bleaching and whitening of my hair (which you can read more about here and here). I’ve found this silverising shampoo and conditioner to be absolutely amazing in keeping the yellowy tones out of my hair, and after using them my hair instantly has a bit of a lift.
Seventeen Flawless Poreless Primer – I ‘ve raved about this primer A LOT in this full review, but over a week on and I’m still in love with it. It creates a lovely velvety base for makeup to go on, and actually sends my pores invisible like superhero pores.
Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer – All bloggers seem to love this concealer, so I suppose the only surprising thing is that I only bought it for the first time last month. It definitely lives up to the hype, and I reviewed it in full over on Jem’s blog.
3CE Lip Pigments – these were undoubtedly my favourite eBay bargains of the month. Costing only £1.80 each, these little OCC Lip Tar dupes have so far provided me with hours of mixing fun. I also reviewed these in full here

Fashion

Unfortunately, my wardrobe was the place that felt my spending ban most cruelly. I didn’t really buy many new bits during the month, but my favourites were without a doubt my New Look cut-out ankle boots, worn with a variety of contrasting frilly ankle socks or with bare skin shining blindingly through.

My Topshop jeggings have also remained a staple part of my weekend wardrobe and are what I seem to throw on whenever I’m mooching around the house at the weekend and suddenly realise I actually have to face people (though this is usually just to go to the shop to buy biscuits). Knitwear has also began to sneak back into my life and my Primark fluffy cardigan has been an absolute fave of the month!

Lifestyle

I’ve got back into the Kindle way of life, and two brilliant books I’ve read recently include Trafficked by Sophie Hayes and Room by Emma Donohue. Trafficked is the horrific true story of a British girl who was forced into sex slavery in Italy after travelling there with a man she thought she could trust; it’s gripping and intense but ultimately very inspiring. Room is the fictional account of a young boy who has been born in captivity to his kidnapped mother. The narrative is written from the perspective of the boy, which grated on me at first but eventually became completely absorbing. I’ve just started to read Goodnight Lady by Martina Cole. It’s the second Martina Cole book I’ve read and I don’t care how low brow it is, I love all that gritty East End gangster shizz. If brothels and people getting sliced up is your cup of tea, then I heartily recommend this for some easy reading.

And thus concludes my first Favourites post! What were you all loving last month?

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ClaireSeptember 27, 2013

September Haul: Missguided & Bodycare

iyaaaa! Right, now the politeness of the day is over, let’s get on with it.

Today we have a super fun haul post for you all. Yes we are officially still on our spending ban (and are delighted to announce that it’s been worth it thus far as our application for our new house has been accepted! AWOOGA) but in our defence, many of these products were absolute life necessities. I mean, do you really expect us to go through life without false eyelashes? What sort of barbarian are you?

As it was payday on Wednesday we actually ventured away from our desks at lunch time and went into town. Like the big spenders we are, we headed straight to Bodycare to stock up on all of our cheapy cheap beauty essentials. We then came back to our desks and placed some orders online because we’d scratched the shopping itch, but just made it more itchy and needed to scratch it some more. Hate when that happens, don’t you?

Here’s a little run-down of some stuff we purchased:

Lauren

Gut gott in himmel, I accidentally spent £30 in Bodycare. As Drizzy would say however, you only live once and my life required lots of new beauty products. CUFF ME.

I won’t bore you too much, but a couple of these products I would thoroughly recommend. First off, Eye Candy eyelashes are a big favourite of mine and they are amazing quality for the price. When I get the chance to go to Bodycare, I always stock up on these badboys. If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative to Eylure, then these are your man!

I also have loads of love for this heat protecting serum, L’Oreal Hot & Smooth. I used to use this all the time when I was younger and first started straightening my hair and sort of forgot about it until I saw it the other day. They’ve changed the packaging to be a bit more jazzy, but it’s definitely the same product inside. 100% recommend it, especially if you are skint like I am but still want to protect your locks. HUZZAH.

I put in an order with Missguided after spending about 300000 hours trying to figure out what to buy. This dungaree dress was the result, which I LOVE. Unfortunately it’s way too big so I’m going to have to return it and exchange, but it’s the perfect A/W addition to my floordrobe – 90s you are back with a vengeance, my son!

Claire

Kimono | Crop Tee | Bodycon Midi Dress – Missguided

I also bought quite a few bits in Bodycare, but as I started scooping up my various shower gels and body scrubs to photograph it occurred to me how massively boring they all were so I thought ‘EFF THIS!’ and threw them all back into the shower. My Missguided order was thankfully a little more interesting; I snapped up this kimono (there’s 15% off them this week, so go go go!) and crop tee to wear over the weekend as we’re going to the Bullring’s tenth birthday catwalk show so I fancied something new – don’t worry, I’ll also be wearing something on my bottom half, I’m not trying to be the most scandalous person in Birmingham (Lauren already has that title).

I also finally bought this midi dress that I look at each time I’m on their site. I’ve always been put off buying it as the sizes only some in ‘S/M’ or ‘M/L’ (which is something that annoys me more than you would even believe, how can they narrow down all the shapes and sizes of women in the UK to just two sizes? How? How and why and how?!) but it’s part of the Sweet Deal range and only costs £5.99 so I decided it wasn’t the end of the world if it didn’t fit. It’s an okay fit; as I expected it’s too baggy on me to really be called bodycon, but it still sits quite nicely and is a good length so is fine for work – and still amazing for the price!

What have you all been buying lately? And what do you think of this haul?

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ClaireSeptember 11, 2013

La Riche Directions White Toner: Review & Results

Why hello there, you scoundrels. Some of you might have read my post last week where I documented how I home bleached my hair. Although I was really happy with how it turned out (and most importantly, the fact that I didn’t go bald) I knew the yellowy-toned bleach colour wasn’t what I wanted this time around and so decided to buy a toner to attempt to get my hair the white/grey colour of my dreams. The toner that I bought was La Riche’s Directions semi permanent white toner. I bought two pots from this eBay seller for £7.89 – I think you can track them down cheaper in shops, but I was happy enough with this price for two.

The toner was really easy to use. After washing hair, you apply this and then are instructed to leave it on for 15 minutes. Because I had some quite strong yellow tones in my hair, and also because I wanted it as white as possible, and ALSO because I just like being a risk-taking motherbitch, I decided to leave it on my hair for closer to half an hour. I rinsed it out and VOILA:

Apologies for the poor quality iPhone pictures, but I think this demonstrates the results pretty well. As you can see, the toner managed to take almost all of the yellow out of my hair. The parts which had the brassiest tones – annoyingly, right by my fringe at the front of my head – still remained a slightly different colour, but this was to be expected considering all of the different things I had going on in my previously dyed, extension-filled head of hair. Because I left it on longer than suggested, some bits took on a lilacy hue but to be honest I was fully okay with this, and actually quite like it.

The toner left my hair feeling nicely conditioned, and one pot was enough to do my whole head (which might not sound like a great feat, but bear in mind it took three boxes to bleach). It’s supposed to fade after a couple of weeks, but I’m hoping my silver shampoo and conditioner, coupled with the fact that I try to get away with washing my hair as little as possible, will drag the colour out for a bit longer.

I’m still on a mission (entitled Operation Granny Chic) to get my hair even whiter, so will keep everyone updated on how this goes. If anyone has any product recommendations for me then let me know!

ClaireAugust 16, 2013

DIY Hair Mask: An Eggcellent Idea?

The word ‘natural’ is definitely not one that Lauren and I use often in relation to our hair and makeup – unless it’s in the context of ‘ugh, look how natural my face looks today. This is disgusting; pass me the foundation and a trowel’. View Full Post

ClaireAugust 2, 2013

Lush Caca Brun Henna Review.

‘Ello lovely human beings,

Today is a slightly different post to our usual blog frolics. Today, I am discussing hair, hair dye and my first venture into the world of henna.

Backing up a little bit, my hair career (is that a thing?!) has been extremely varied. I started off a little ginger curly haired afro child, migrated to a strawberry blonde (with the help of highlights!) in my teens, bleach blonde and vibrant red at uni – finally settling on brunette when I graduated and decided to become a grownup. Here’s a little collage for your viewing pleasure.

I’m really loving being a brunette at the moment, but I have found that my hair’s condition hasn’t really got any better. Because my hair is quite light naturally, I look genuinely ridiculous when my roots start to come through. This means I have to dye my hair every month or so to keep myself looking less like a middle aged man and more like a 21 year old girl. Obvs this is WUBBISH for my hair and has meant that I decided to move away from chemical dyes.

I hotfooted it to Lush because I heard they did henna dye and after a rather complicated explanation from the lovely sales lady, I bought what looked like a smelly green bar of chocolate. I got it in the shade Caca Brun, which is just the plain brown henna shade. Whilst being somewhat intimidated, I also felt very smug and convinced that I had become some kind of Buddhist hippy in the space of about 10 minutes.

According to my new best friend at Lush, the henna takes about 5 hours to develop and is extremely messy so I prepared myself as fully as possible to do the deed a couple of Sundays ago.

This was my henna kit! Not as extensive as some blogs I saw, but it was actually fine and I’m glad I didn’t have too much crap around! The stuff really is messy…

The general idea is that you grate the henna, mix it up with hot water to form a consistency of thin yoghurt and then apply to your head while it is still very hot. You obviously don’t want to scald yourself, but the henna becomes hard and thick when it dries, so virtually impossible to spread onto your head! I forgot to add a grater into this picture, so took another one to be thorough and in case you have forgotten what a grater looks like.

You can see how weird the henna looks in this picture – it’s so green! I mixed it up with hot water and it formed a liquid, which can only be described as looking like baby poo. Needless to say, I was very apprehensive about putting this stuff on my head.

I ploughed on though, and whacked loads of it on. They recommend starting at the back and working your way across the head, so this is what I did. I also concentrated on my roots, because that’s where I wanted most of the colour.

At the end of it, this is what I looked like! I piled the henna-ed hair on top of my head to make putting the shower cap/plastic bag on easier. It also made me feel like I was going to a fancy ball.

I am a moron, I am sorry.

I popped on my shower cap AND a plastic bag because I was worried about dripping. I looked genuinely mad.

A few things I noticed while hennaing my hair. It is REALLY heavy once it starts to dry/harden on your hair. In fact, I felt like I was carrying an extra person around all day. I was basically Professor Quirrell. It also drips, a lot. I ended up wrapping an old towel around my plastic bag head because even with my precautions, it dripped lots! Other than that, it didn’t stain my skin at all (I wiped all the bits on my head/ears) and it didn’t stain my kitchen either.

It also smells quite strange. Not necessarily unpleasant, just a little bit like wet hay, incense and cats.

Five hours is also a long time to wait. I discovered that Safe Haven is a terrible film.

So, what was my verdict?

Ah, henna. You cruel, cruel mistress. After all that effort, smelling of cats and discovering that who I thought was Nicola Sparks was actually Nicholas Sparks (WHO KNEW?!), the henna basically did nothing to my hair. My roots are now a delightful shade of weak tea, resembling nothing brown in the slightest. My hair, if anything, is a muddier colour than it was before. I didn’t even feel the lovely conditioning feeling that everyone raves about when using henna.

This is a useless picture I took on my iPhone but hopefully you can see the tragicosity that was my hair. Double vom.

IT BASICALLY WAS 5 HOURS OF MY LIFE WASTED THAT I WILL NEVER GET BACK. And I had to throw away my pink pig shower cap, which had ears and a tail and amused me on Monday mornings.

Back to the drawing board it seems…the drawing board being a cute salon in Oban, Scotland. They fixed my hair and now I look like this, marginally better I think!

Excuse the pout, I thought I was Kate Moss for a minute.

ClaireJuly 27, 2013

July Haul: Missguided, Primark, ASOS & More…

Forgive me father, for I have shopped.

As it was payday this week, and as I was left on my own today while Lauren swanned off on her holiday with her family (erm, did she miss the part of our housemate contract where it said she wasn’t allowed to go away without me in her suitcase?), I decided to pop into town for the ever mysterious ‘one or two bits’. Of course this always accidentally turns into six or seven bits – but I can’t help that I have ~~a heavy flow and a wide-set vagina~~ no willpower.

I’ve also had a few things delivered the last couple of days, oops…

ASOS Petite Pencil Skirt £15 (SALE) / Missguided Split Maxi Skirt £5.99

This ASOS skirt is my favourite thing that I’ve bought in quite a while. I’m going to Sheffield next weekend for my friend’s birthday and had originally ordered the white bardot dress from Missguided’s value range for that. However, when it turned up with the rest of my Missguided goodies, I wasn’t in love with it and so this skirt was swiftly ordered in its place. The colours, the print, the fit… it simply makes my soul happy. The maxi skirt from Missguided was thankfully not a disappointment like the dress was. I LOVE this skirt and am actually wearing it today (god help any neighbours who would have been walking by at the point where I whipped it off to take these photos). The slit comes to about halfway down the thigh so it’s just about daytime-acceptable.

Missguided Acid Green Skater Skirt £5.99 / Missguided Crop T-Shirt £3.50

Don’t worry, I will iron these before wearing them…

Primark Playsuit £8 / Playsuit Leopard Boyfriend Tee £5

When I went into town I popped into Primark to look at the shoes, and ended up coming away with these. This playsuit was one of those things that you almost don’t want to buy in Primark because it seemed as if literally everyone was snapping one up, but it was simply too pretty to leave without. I also picked up this t-shirt on a bit of a whim. I love leopard print but actually don’t tend to wear it very much (blonde extensions, fake tan and leopard print – it’s even too much for me, and that’s saying something); this print with the leopard faces really caught my eye though. It’s an oversized, boyfriend-fit tee which isn’t my usual thing but I thought it would be good for slouchy days. To be honest I have no real idea at the moment what I’ll wear it with, but I like clothes that also give you a good challenge, like you’re on the Crystal Maze.

Primark Floral Headband – £2.50

Excuse my MASSIVE SHNOZZ but – I’ve finally hopped on the floral crown bandwagon.

Naturally, I ended up picking up a few beauty bits too. My first stop was Poundland, where I found these bendy hair rollers. Next, I swung by Boots and picked up No. 7’s Exceptional Definition mascara to try, after reading some good reviews. Usually I’m loyal to Boots, but I headed to Superdrug too today to investigate the MUA range and instead discovered the Sleek stand. I’ve only seen Sleek online before (probably due to my afore-mentioned Boots loyalty) and so spent ages poring all over their different products before eventually deciding to try their BB cream. With my trip to Sheffield next week in mind, I picked up a new Barry M lipstick in ‘Palest Lavendar’ and of course some new false lashes. I went quite small compared to my usual drag queen-esque lashes, as the lipstick’s quite intense:

And so I came home quite a bit poorer of purse… but richer in mood? That’s a legit justification for spending, right? I’ll be trying and reviewing all of these bits soon and pestering you all with my thoughts on them, YOU LUCKY THINGS.