One of the most popular posts amongst fashion and beauty bloggers is ‘What’s In My Bag’, where fabulous bloggers show off their beautiful handbags and the delightful objects that they carry around in them. View Full Post
Mini Haul: Primark, Simple and Collection!
Hey chicks!
As a lot of you will aware from our incessant celebrating, yesterday was pay day. I feel like you have never truly experienced happiness until you get that heady ‘I’M SO RICH, KANYE HAS NOTHING ON ME RIGHT NOW’ joy from getting paid. Getting paid means splashing out on those things that you lusted over last month but couldn’t afford because you spent all of your money on pay day (LOGICAL?). As soon as lunch time hit yesterday, Claire was all over eBay and investing in her current list of must-haves. I, on the other hand, was attempting to be sensible and not buy anything unnecessary. This went pretty well until I got into Birmingham after work and had half an hour to kill before going for dinner. I went to Boots, which is ALWAYS dangerous, and then couldn’t stop myself from strolling around everywhere looking for things to satisfy my deep, deep need for material possessions (nail varnish = happiness. It has been proved. By science).
This is just a mini haul post on what I bought yesterday – I’d say none of it is HUGELY exciting, but still, a haul is a haul. You have to excuse the awful photos, I had to resort to my iphone after I’d had a couple of glasses of wine and apparently this is what happens. WHAT KIND OF BLOGGER DO I THINK I AM?!
I have a little bit of explaining to do with regards to each item actually and they all come with wonderful stories that I know you are all dying to hear, so feel free to make yourself a cup of tea and snuggle down. I’m justifying this little shopping trip because most of the items were entirely necessary and I did vaguely try and be thrifty NO JUDGEMENT PLEASE, MONEY GOD.
This little bad boy I have been lusting over since I spotted it in Boots a few weeks ago. I was actually having a lovely chat with @StonesGotStyle on Twitter about it and we both were thinking it’d be a BRILLIANT product if it delivered on the makeup fixing front. For the price, I think it really could be a winner, particularly when compared to more expensive brands. I’ve got it on today and so far so good – although I would say it’s not really a fair trial as I manage to smear all of my makeup over my face when I’m at work no matter what I’ve got on. I’m going to try it out on Friday when I head out with Claire and the gals – expect a full review very soon. It also smells lovely, as a side note!
Why have you put a lip balm on a haul post, you ask? Well, it does seem a bit pointless BUT I think it’s good to know what lip balms work and smell good. There have been so many times I’ve just gone with Vaseline because I couldn’t make up my mind about other brands and to be honest, Vaseline is a pile of greasy nothing. For anyone else who struggles with chapped lips in the summer, this lip balm is perfect. It smells and tastes yummy and actually works – I’ve been using it for a while now and I can safely say I’ve not used a better everyday balm.
I CAN’T RAVE ABOUT THIS CONCEALER ENOUGH. Honestly, it is full on amazing. I’ve tried similar illuminating concealers and they have all been WUBBISH. I’ve also heard this is the best dupe for Yves Saint Laurent’s Touche Éclat and for £5, it’s definitely worth giving it a go. I bought it in the ‘Glow’ shade as it’s the darkest one they do and use it under my eyes and down my nose for contouring purposes. Occasionally I’ll use it on spots too, although I try not to as it is a mixture of a highlighter and concealer (and who wants to highlight their spots?!). Saying that, it does work well as a simple concealer too. I could go on about this product for YEARS but will save you all the torture and just recommend you purchase and give it a whirl!
Claire and I had a moment the other day when we realised that big earrings were no longer cool. It was quite a heart wrenching moment; our standard jewellery ventures used to be a giant pair of chandelier earrings. But this just simply can’t be done anymore, sob. We’ve come to the conclusion that necklaces and rings are the big players in the jewellery world now, which is fantastic apart from the fact I have sausage fingers. ANYWAY, it turns out I haven’t been quite able to let go of my love of earrings and decided to buy a load of hoops from Primark. At £1, it was pretty rude not to. My theory is, because the 90’s are well and truly back, I can get away with a bit of Jennifer Anniston hoop. I’m planning a big topknot and hoops for Friday, so I will take a picture and see if this is achieved! I also got this set of rings because I love a bit of neon and they’re a great way of adding a bit of the trend into a boring outfit (note – Primark have some LOVELY neon jewellery in at the moment).
If you follow us on Twitter, you might have seen my #bbloggers beg the other day for some eye makeup remover recommendations. I have a new mascara, which I love, but it refuses to come off. It’s not actually waterproof but has a terrible habit of sticking to anything and everything. I had a lot of response and I really wanted to invest in a No7 oil based remover that one of you lovely people recommended. However, I left my voucher at home and in a bid to be sensible, decided to go with something a bit cheaper. I also looked for the Neutrogena wipes that were recommended but unfortunately the Boots I was in didn’t stock them, so I went for the next make up remover suggestion! So far, I’ve been really happy with this Simple one and it takes all of the naughty mascara off in a few wipes. I’m actually very happy with it and for the price, I think I will buy it again. So big thanks to all of you who gave me some suggestions!
Finally, this was my last purchase yesterday! There’s not much to say apart from the fact that my shoe situation is terrible and I needed some black pumps for work. They’re quite cute, so I’m happy! I have my eye on a pair of nude t-bar studded ones in Primark actually, and will probably buy them in the next few weeks.
WELL, that was my slightly mad pay day haul yesterday. I’ve told myself I’m on a spending ban now, but lets see how long that realistically lasts….
E.l.f. Contouring Kit: Review
I’ve mentioned a few times in this blog how one of the main beauty techniques I’m interested in developing my skills in is contouring. I dabbled in it a bit, just by using my bronzer and blusher but was keen to see what else could be done. So as part of our E.l.f haul last week, I couldn’t resist trying out their contouring kit. For under £4, how could I say no?
I chose the ‘St Lucia’ shade, which I think is the lightest shade in the range – but I was a bit worried about the bronzer being too light on days that I’ve fake tanned and am sporting a touch of Orangeface (which is a technical term, just in case you were wondering). What I didn’t like about the look of this kit in comparison to ones from other companies like Sleek was the fact that it’s more of a bronzer-blusher duo as opposed to a bronzer-highlighter. I did wonder whether it would look any different to what I currently do, so also ordered a highlighter with the intention of maybe incorporating that too.
Contouring Kit / ‘Spotlight’ Colour Stick
So, what do I make of it? The contouring kit itself is good quality. I like the packaging, and the mirror inside the compact is a nice touch .I needn’t have worried about it being too light, the bronzer is quite dark. The colours are really pigmented too, particularly in the bronzer. This means that less is definitely more – the first time I applied it, I ended up with way too much product and looked like I was trying to do army camo down my cheeks. Less Kardashian, more Rambo. Mistake.
The blush is a bit less intense and once I applied it I was left feeling a bit like it didn’t add a great deal to the look. So this is where the highlighter came into play. I applied this across the top of my cheekbones and it had a much better effect with the bronzer. I actually ended up being quite in love with this product and might do a full post on how to use it once I’ve mastered the art myself.
The contouring kit IS good, but like I said – it wasn’t a huge difference to what I was already achieving myself with my bronzer and blusher. So it’s a nice product if you’re new to contouring, but not one that’s really going to change your life (some people might say no makeup product can change your life; to these idiots I say ‘SHUT UP, YOUR PRIORITIES ARE WRONG AND YOUR PARENTS DON’T LOVE YOU’)
Have you tried this product? What are your fave contouring kits?
E.L.F. Makeup Haul – Reviews to Come!
You know that feeling you get when you’re so overexcited about makeup and beauty products that you start to wonder whether you’re too superficial and your priorities are all wrong and that you might die sad and alone surrounded only by mascara? Yeah, well I was simply too busy to feel that today as I was SO EXCITED by the arrival of our delivery from E.L.F.
I’ve heard so many wonderful things about E.L.F (or e.l.f? Or am I allowed to just call it Elf? I’m so unaware of the etiquette) in the last couple of weeks that I just had to have a look at their website. I was initially looking for a contouring kit, but was so amazed by the cheapy-cheap prices that I had to throw a few other things into my online basket. I had around £15 worth of stuff, and then Lauren realised that if she spent about the same amount then we would be eligible for free deliver. Well, that’s just good economics isn’t it?
I was really impressed to have it turn up in the post today after only ordering on Monday – 3 days for free second class delivery is not bad at all. I immediately had to take a few photos to share what we’ve bought in our haul and am having to resist the urge to run into the work toilets to try out all the products. Needless to say though, they will all be tried very shortly and you can expect to see some reviews up.
Here’s a run down of what we decided to buy:
Claire
Contouring Blush & Bronzing Powder in ‘St Lucia’ – £3.75
All-Over Cover Stick in ‘Light Beige’ – £1.50
Nail Polish in ‘Desert Haze’ – £2.50
Mineral Lipstick in ‘Natural Nymph’ – £5
Lip Primer and Plumper – £3.75
All-Over Colour Stick in ‘Spotlight’ – £1.50
I ended up with quite a bit more than the contouring kit, as you can see. But with prices like £1.50, how can you resist? I love gimmicky products like the lip plumper so I’m looking forward to giving that a go, and I’m intrigued to try the ‘Spotlight’ Colour Stick as part of my contouring experiment. I also had to try the nude lipstick in the hope that it might be a cheap alternative to my Mac Crème D’Nude that I’m still using far too often for a £14 lipstick.
Lauren
Beauty Book in ‘Natural Look’ – £6
3-in-1 Mascara – £3.75
Lipstick in ‘Nostalgic’ – £1.50
Nail Polish in ‘Copper’ – £2.50
Lauren was really impressed with this Beauty Book which comes with an eyeshadow palette, primer, eyeliner, applicator and instructions on how to achieve different looks. I know, it’s extremely shocking that she ordered it in a natural shade – I think I got a new wrinkle from how quickly my eyebrows shot up in surprise. She also needed new mascara so decided to give this one a whirl – we’re excited to see how it matches up to Benefit ‘They’re Real’ seeing as it has the same brush shape, complete with the little ball at the end. She then decided to try out the £1.50 lipstick range, and settled on a new copper nail varnish.
This resulted in an incident that we will now refer to as Metallicgate, in which I made a casual comment that I wasn’t a fan of metallic polishes and Lauren argued with me that I SO WAS because I wore gold and I said that I SO WASN’T and I think I know what I like and then we didn’t speak for five minutes. It sometimes gets pretty tense here at Stylingo.
Anyway, we are SUPER excited to try out our new products and let you know what we think of them all. Have any of you tried E.L.F? What are your thoughts? And am I allowed to call it Elf?!
My Wild Sunday Face of the Day
This week has been a bit manic for Claire and I. From an epic Ikea shop (is it appropriate to do an Ikea haul post??) to having lots of big jobs to do at work, I’ve not had a huge amount of time to do my face properly. Claire did an Everyday Makeup post (it’s really fascinating I’ve heard) a few weeks ago and that pretty much sums up my makeup during the week too. A quick bit of foundation, powder, blusher and mascara and I’m done. We get up at 6am during the week and leave the house at 7, so it doesn’t leave a huge amount of time to be faffing with foundation brushes, contouring and any sort of blending hoo-hah.
ANYWAY I DIGRESS. I woke up ridiculously early this morning (tried to get up at 4 and got a stern “If you get up now I will punch you in the tit” in return. Bit rude) so decided to get up at 7ish, fix up my face and spend AGES doing it. Yes. Hello stippling brush, it’s been a while. Missed you.
Most people who know me will agree that I’m a big fan of shoving a huge amount of makeup on my face. I don’t feel like this is a problem and I definitely don’t follow the general rule of “if you’ve got lots of eye makeup on, then go for a nude lip.” With this in mind, my Sunday face of the day might be a bit much for you lucky gals who can pop a bit of tinted moisturiser on and look all fresh faced and lovely (DARN YOU ALL TO HELL). But ya know, it’s Sunday and I have tomorrow off work, so I figured it was the best time to be a bit jazzy and have a great face.
The general process goes as follows:
- Moisturise. I’m using a cheap moisturiser from Tesco’s new range of skincare. It’s not the best thing I’ve used and is a bit heavy for my oily/combination skin. I’ve nearly finished using it now so will be on the hunt for a better one soon. My standard used to be Olay and I do love their moisturisers, so there is a good chance I will just go back to that!
- Stipple on my foundation. My favourite foundation for the past few years has been Rimmel’s 25 Hour Lasting Finish foundation. It’s a heavy coverage, oil based liquid foundation and not for everyone, but I love it. It goes on smoothly and has been one of the best heavy coverage liquid foundations I’ve used (I think it’s quite a good replacement for Mac’s Studio Sculpt). The shade I used is 303 in True Nude, which is quite orange but I’m also usually quite orange so it works.
- Stippled on concealer. I use concealer under my eyes (where did these dark circles come from) and on whatever blemishes I have. I’m using a TERRIBLE stick concealer from Collection 2000 and I don’t recommend it at all, but it’s better than nothing. My usual fave is their Illuminating Touch liquid concealer, it’s amazing. I stipple using the Real Techniques stippling brush.
- Puff on powder. I’ve used a big range of powders in my wise and fulfilled years of makeup wear and I will keep coming back to the £2.99 Collection compressed powder. It does what it says on the tin, smells nice and goes on really well. What more could you want really? I’m using it in the shade Tender Touch 02 at the moment.
- Contour. For nights out, I’ll go the whole hog and contour everything on my face, although I tend to prefer doing this by using two different colours of foundation. I’ll then do a very light bit of shading on my nose, forehead, cheekbones and chin. For daywear, I just do a bit of shading on my cheekbones. I have a bit of a strange process, but I mix face powder with a dark brown eyeshadow – it’s the perfect colour for those of us who have orange faces (…when bronzer doesn’t show up, sob). I used a Look Statement Eyes shadow and my trusty Collection powder.
- Blush. I tend to use whatever blusher I find knocking around in my makeup bag. I usually buy the exact same shades of warm pink so I’m pretty non-adventurous in this respect. Today I used a Seventeen blusher pot.
- Eyebrows. Read my eyebrow post here, but I use the Sleek Brow Kit in dark.
- Eyeshadow. I like neutral colours for eyeshadows so use a combination of tans and light browns with a highlighter on my browbone. I used a well-used and nearly finished Rimmel palette today.
- Eyeliner. I use liquid and pencil. Pencil on my water line and then a winged liquid eyeliner on my lid.
- Mascara. I’m not too fussy when it comes to mascara because my eyelashes are blonde. Anything that goes on black and makes me look less like a baldy is fine by me. Claire is more of the mascara expert, so read her post about her quest for the perfect mascara here! I used a Collection 2000 one in black/brown today!
- Lips. I popped on one of my new MUA lipsticks, which I reviewed over here. I used the light pink shade in an attempt to look less like a prostitute.
And there you have it. My Sunday FOTD. Now I just need something to do today and ignore the fact it’s 9am and I have a full face of makeup. Hmm.
P.s. You might have seen on Twitter that me and Claire are in the process of kitting out our front room as a work space/blogging area (which is marginally better than the Gym Disco room we had initially planned..). This is our new desk area, which I LOVE. What do you all think??
What to Wear: My Night Out Wishlist.
I’m currently having a terrible panic that my entire wardrobe is terrible and that if I don’t invest in some new clothes quickly my whole life will become meaningless. Some might say this is slightly over-reactive but to them I say, NAY YOU SIMPLY DON’T UNDERSTAND.
Backing up ever so slightly, I haven’t bought many new clothes of late because I was saving up for my big move from Cheshire to Coventry. Now that I have my lovely new job, a wonderful (if a bit broken and untidy) house with Claire and have finally got my life together, I have a bit of extra cash to play with. I say a bit, I don’t really have any but I feel like a baller and what is a baller without a good wardrobe?
Next week, we are having some of our university pals to stay. The story is quite tragic, mostly because my old housemate is having to move back to Dubai and we may never see her again, sob. So we’re having a bit of a hoorah at our house to say farewell and also to catch up after the long and upsetting months we have been apart. As you can tell, it is an important occasion that will definitely be fuelled by wine, tequila and a lot of cry hugging. Partly because my wardrobe is in such a pathetic state and also because it’s an excuse to buy something new, I’ve been all organised and decided to plan a few options of what to wear. I’m loving the UK fashion trends at the moment, so it’s going to be an excellent time to invest in a few key staples.
I’ve been inspired by a lot of fashion and beauty blogs that have been featuring neon pieces recently, so I think this is the main trend I’m going for when I eventually go shopping. Unfortunately, I’m having to coordinate with Claire who’s going for a neon crop top and denim skater skirt so I’m a bit limited (she’s a selfish one, isn’t she). As you might know (if you’d read my fashion tragedy post), I bought these New Look platform sandals last week and managed to break them within an hour of wearing. I’m hoping to replace them this weekend so they are my shoes of choice while I’m looking for outfits!
Floral Midi Skirt: Missguided. White Cropped Tshirt: Topshop. Gold Chain: Topshop. Yellow Nail Varnish: Barry M. Platform Sandals: New Look.
Printed Shorts: Boohoo. Gold Earrings: Topshop. Pink Lipstick: Topshop. Shoulder Cutout Body: Missguided. Platform Sandals: New Look.
Monochrome Skater Dress: Missguided. Neon Satchel: H&M. Geometric Earrings: Topshop. Platform Sandals: New Look. Black Lipstick: Barry M.
So, what do you all think? Any favourites? I’ve officially got a week before the girls come over so it’s definitely time to start planning and buying!
The Most Fascinating Everyday Makeup Post You Will Ever Read*
I have to admit that nobody has ever grabbed me in the street and yelled ‘your makeup is flawless, the effect is breathtaking – tell me immediately what products you use!’ But then, nobody ever asked Katie Price to get into the world of fiction and start releasing books, but that happened and so this is too. View Full Post
MAC ‘Crème D’Nude’ Lipstick: Review
Right, so I’m aware that I’m about to make possibly one of the most shameful confessions that a beauty blogger can make, so I’ll blurt it out as quickly as possible:
ThisIsTheFirstMACLipstickIHaveOwned!
I know that this is very shocking news for the blog world, so I’ll try to explain myself. Firstly, I never used to be that into lipsticks on a day-to-day basis. Secondly, I prefer to stick to the same colour palette on my lips; as your standard blonde-hair-blue-eyes I think pale pinks and nudes have always worked best for me and so I just don’t get all that gaga over lipsticks.
However, one of my best friends got married a couple of weeks ago and I decided to invest in a decent lipstick for it. I wore a deep red maxi dress and so (surprise, surprise) decided I wanted a nude lipstick so as not to detract from the dress, and also so that I could wear my usual ridiculous false eyelashes with lashings of eyeliner. The lipstick needed to have staying power to last all day and night though, and also needed to be quite moisturizing as my lips have a tendency to get dry and so lipsticks can look cakey quite quickly.
So after much research I decided a MAC lipstick was the best option for me, in the Crème D’Nude shade.
I believe it’s one of their most popular shades, and I have to say that I am a new convert to this lipstick. The colour was just what I was looking for; nude without that ‘foundation lip’ effect that Snog Marry Avoid girls seem to like. It was subtle yet still made my face look more ‘done up’ than if I’d just gone for a gloss or (shudder) au naturale.
Before
After
These pictures make it look slightly more pink than it actually is in real life, but hopefully conveys the sheen and natural shade the lipstick provides.
It also lasted really well, felt really moisturizing on my lips and smelt lovely too (I would say it has a cocoa butter-y smell; this is probably completely wrong and I would waft it under Lauren’s nose for a second opinion but I don’t want to risk it touching her nostril). It’s become a staple of my makeup bag in just the couple of weeks since I’ve owned it, seeing as it’s so wearable on an everyday basis. I’m also already counting down the days til payday so I can justify my next MAC purchase – for blogging review purposes, of course…