Love is in the air… And shopping.

Hi beauts! Another post for you! Two in one day, crazy! So recently my love and I went on a lovely little spa weekend, sort of to celebrate Valentines Day (which we don’t normally celebrate) but mainly to just get away and do something together. We’ve been together over three years but never really gone on any trips since I was always away at uni and neither of us had the type of funds to waste on trips. So this was a lovely, relaxing trip for us to do something new! And we really enjoyed it! We stayed at Tankersley Manor, where we had a lovely cosy room with a beautiful bathroom. We had facials and back massages, lounged in a hot tub and then spent a few hours at the amazing Meadowhall shopping centre, which was huge. I thought I’d share a little of our trip with my lovely followers! 





First of all the food was wonderful. Even the buffet breakfast was above par, particularly as they had Nutella for your toast! Nutella! The evening meals were really good, this crispy chicken and trip of pork were to die for. 



Here’s my makeup look for our first evening meal. I have Mac Pro Longwear foundation on, along with the Sleek contour kit in light and Sleek blush in pomegranate. I used the Naked 3 palette and Mac Silk Taupe on my eyes along with Lancôme Hypnose mascara and Sunnaclaores Goddess lipstick. The lighting in the bathroom was a nightmare to work with. Just saying. 

Now unfortunately I did neglect my blogging duties a little by not taking any pictures. But in all honesty I was having a great time and was barely thinking about my phone! Also, I would have looked a little silly trying to take photos of the Jasmine Room (where I got my facial) with the spa lady right behind me! Also it had wicked dark mood lighting anyway. But know that it was lovely and if your northern based and interested in a nice spa weekend go check it out! 

As I said there was an amazing shopping centre, it was ginormous. There was so much ground to cover and my feet hurt so much at the end of it and we’d only been there 4 hours! Girls you know that’s not that long. But I had a great time and I think my boyfriend did too, which is surprising as he hates shopping. But to be fair there were a lot of different shops that we just don’t have in our small town. Such as… 



Hold your hands up if you think Krispy Kreme rules! *dislocates arm.* I love the original Krispy Kreme donuts, they are so damn moreish. 

I almost squeaked when we came across a Crabtree & Evelyn store. I just had to go in and try one out and what do I do? I buy it of course. 





I mean first of all just look at that packaging! It’s beautiful! I still haven’t found the nerve to throw away the bag and the box. And the cream itself makes me so happy every time I smell it. It’s like fresh cut lemons and I just love it. 

I was clearly on a roll with the delicious smelling skin products because we also hit Lush. I mean how could we not?! 



Everything in Lush is just so… Lush. My boyfriend actually picked the creamy candy bath bar (that’s the bright pink one) which I did not expect. He’s not a bubblegum kind of guy. But this stuff is actually lovely. It smells like strawberries and cream with a hint of bubblegum and sugar. It should be too much but it works really well. You can either crumble it under running water for bubbles it smoothe it over your skin as it has she’s butter in it. Either way you end up smelling and feeling great! 

The other item is the Each Peach (and Twos A Pear) massage bar which also smells like lemons (I think we have identified a favourite scent of mine.) This is really lovely to smoothe over your skin and the scent is so fresh and crisp it’s divine. The only problem is my my house is so cold it takes ages to melt it enough to use! Sometimes I’m dragging it over my skin rather than slathering! 



I also got myself this cute little blue suede bag from H&M which I have yet to use. I have nothing that matches it! Come on spring, bring your flowers, warmth and pastel fashion! 

And finally my boyfriend got me the most amazing little gift ever! Are you ready? It is… 



A build a bear Toothless! Isn’t he so damn cute?! I love How To Train Your Dragon and I love Toothless the most! I cuddle him and everything. It was such a sweet gift from my love and I really appreciated it. 

And that was our spa get away! We both really enjoyed it and it’s given me an appetite for adventure and to experience more things and places. I’m already thinking Paris! What do you guys think? Anyone else been on a spa break? Anybody been somewhere or done something amazing that you would recommend to me? Let me know below. Love and kisses!

Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette and Eyeshadow Primer Potion: Review.



Hello my darlings! Look! A post! As promised! I do keep my word you see. Now! This review is a looooong time coming considering I got this palette for my birthday last September! I know, I’m a bad blogger. But hey! Life gets in the way of wishful thinking sometimes! So on with the review! 

So you have no idea how utterly excited I was to get this! I’d been wanting it for a while and when my beautiful boyfriend got me it for birthday I was beyond thrilled. Unfortunately my first impressions weren’t the best. However, I will start off with the good things first. The packaging is of course gorgeous and totally unique; I love the rose gold shade and I also love how easy it is to click open and closed. Although it’s quite a big palette, it’s flat pack shape means it slips into makeup bags and suitcases with ease, which is perfect for me as I always take too much of everything whenever I go anywhere. The eyeshadows themselves are all absolutely beautiful. 



The pink matte shades Limit and Nooner are amazing for working into the crease and all of the shimmer shades are really buildable, so they can be worn day or night. I also love how finely milled the glitter is so that you don’t get chunks of sparkle, but rather a lovely wash of subtle shine. 

Now as I’ve said, I didn’t have a great first impression of these eye shadows. When I first tried them I noticed they were really powdery. When I was dipping my brushes into the powders I would get a dust storm of shadow puffing up from the pallette and I didn’t think that would happen from an expensive product such as this one. I was to be honest quite disappointed. However I persevered with them, as they are still very nice shadows and apart from them being extremely powdery they looked wonderful once I actually got the shades to stick to my eyes! And I’m happy to say the more I used them the better they got. Maybe this palette is like wine. Or women. They get better as they got older, because I’ve noticed now that they’re aren’t really powdery any more and apply much easier. I almost always reach for this palette when doing my eyes. I’ll either use shadows just from Naked or I’ll mix it up with other shadows and palettes I have. Although Naked 3 and I got off to a rock start, I think it’s going to be a life long friendship! 





 Now along with the Naked 3 palette I also got Urban Decays Primer Potion. I had a small bottle of this years ago, that came with one of my first ever Urban Decays shadow palettes (my parents had good taste) and I loved it. I have trouble with my eyeshadow staying put; itoften seems to melt off my face! So this stuff really helps it to stay all day. The great thing about this is that it came with a little booklet full of little testers of all the different versions of the potion you can get, such as anti ageing. 



These little pouches are really deceiving, I’ve still only used two and don’t even need to use my full bottle yet! So I was really pleased with these presents and am still loving them now. Anyone else have either of these products? What do you think? Comment below loves! 

Tartan and Knit

 

Hi beauties! Just a quick winter outfit and makeup look for you today! Now I absolutely love this jumper and skirt combo as its so comfy yet so chic! I’ve worn this look for work as well as retail therapy days (i.e spending all my money on stuff I don’t need.) Also please excuse the mirror picture, there is never anyone around to take an outfit picture for me! I really need a PA darlings. Anyway this is a great look for winter and autumn as the tights and jumper (from Primark) keep you nice and warm without cooking you and the adorbs tartan skirt (from Newlook) adds a little something special so I’m not just tucking myself away in featureless layers. I also love my little brown ankle boots (from Next) that my boyfriend got me as an early Christmas gift. They are comfy and a little quirkiness to outfits with skirts.

The makeup is pretty simple and fresh, which adds to the whole preppy school girl look this outfit is screaming. I’m wearing Estee Lauder Double Wear foundation which i got a test sample of and am now hooked, its simply amazing. I’m also wearing Sleek blush in Pomegranate, which I looooove. It is such an inexpensive yet beautiful, pigmented and long lasting blush and a lovely deep pink with specks of shimmer. I’ve done a full review of it previously if you are interested. On my eyes I’ve used my Urban Decay Naked 3 palette using Strange on the brow bone, Buzz on the lid and Trick in the inner corners. I also used a Rimmel matte brown on the outer corners. On my lips I am wearing Lime Crime lipstick in Coquette which I adore. Say what you will about Lime Crime and the controversy surrounding Doe Deere, but they make damn good matte lipstick. My hair that day decided to be good to me and kind of went curly as it sometimes does, so I decided to do a half up kinda job as I always end up tucking ,y hair behind my ears anyway. It kind of made me look about 5 but who cares?

So! That is one of my cosy, tartany, jumpery winter looks! I am sure there will be more! What do you guys think? Kisses.

 

 

Birthday, bitches!

Hey guys! I know I promised you a birthday post aaages ago but I’ve been so damn busy! So it was my birthday on the 9th and I had a really lovely time. I had a BBQ at my house with my family, which I loved and the. My boyfriend surprised me to a nice meal after work on my birthday. I’m so lucky! I also got a few wonderful beauty presents (some of them from myself to myself!) and the one I was moooost excited about was the Naked 3 Urban Decay palette from my boyfriend!!! I was also psyched about the stack of new books I got from him and my sister.

This is the beautiful little pile of presents from my boyfriend. I mean yeah I picked them all but can you really expect a boy with a total boy mind to understand which makeup you like? I don’t think so, that is why I gently guided him to these gifts (by taking him into the shop and saying that one.) He also treated to a steak meal at one of our favourite Italian restaurants which was lovely. I got a cheeky Cosmo.

I got money from everyone else which I suppose is what happens when your 23 and all grown up! But I preferred that as I could then spend it on things I knew I wanted! Namely makeup! He first thing I indulged in was my first ever limecrime product. I opted for the Coquette opaque lipstick and I won’t say too much about it now as I will do a full review of all the beauty products I feature. But I’ll leave you with a sneak peak.

I also picked up another lip product; Bourjois’ Rouge Edition Velvet liquid lipstick. I suppose I went with this one because I’ve been interested in matte lipsticks lately and I just wasn’t ready to bite the bullet and pay the extra amount to get a limecrime Velvetine as I’ve heard mixed reviews. Again I will give a proper review on this product.

I also got myself the Sleek Face Form kit which I’ve fell in love with! More to come on that later! Ohhh okay here’s a little look!

No doubt I have also bought a million other things like clothes and makeup and meals with my birthday money but these were the main ones I wanted to show you! I hope everyone has a great birthday whenever that happens to be and I hope you get lots of makeup-y presents! Loves and kisses!

Experimental Make-up: Royalty

Hi beauts! I know I’m not posting as much as I used to, but now that I’m working and have my own home it’s so damn hard finding the time and energy! I work all day and then I’m exhausted and so far I’ve barely left the house, so no makeup or beauty post inspiration! However! I had an idea to start a (hopefully) weekly post called Experimental Makeup. I wanted to do this not only because I’ve recently bought a 120 eyeshadow palette (more to come on that) but because I really want to progress my makeup skills as well as blogging more. I’ve fallen way behind and it’s not good!

So for the first ever Experimental Makeup post I decided to show you guys the look I went for when I went for a big girly night out to Newcastle for my friends birthday on Saturday. I wore a black and purple flowered jumpsuit so decided a royal purple eye would go well.

Now it’s not the best picture of me, so try not to laugh. For the eyeshadow I used a mixture of palettes including a colourful urban decay palette that I’ve had for years (from which I got the beautiful royal purple) and some brown elements from my W7 In the Buff palette. I decided the look needed something a little more, so I gave it a little sparkle and shine by using the Rimmel Scandal Eyes Liquid Eyeshadow. Gold and purple? A totally royal and opulent look in my opinion!

I have both of these colours and I really like them. As a thick cream liquid they’re really easy to use and apply so pigmented. You can blend them really well with your regular brushes and the colour lasts.

To finish the look off I brushed some of the purple eyeshadow underneath my bottom lash line in the inner corners and a black shadow from the same UD palette under the outer corners to make my eyes stand out a little more. The only thing I was lacking were fake eyelashes, but I’ve never had enough patience for them!

So what do you guys think? Is this an idea you guys would be interested in? I know summer is nearly over for most people and the colourful looks may be a little redundant to some people, but I personally love wearing colourful makeup all year round as well as toned down looks. It depends on my mood I guess! My experimental looks won’t just be bright colour either; I’m planning on trying a 60s mod look with eyeliner as well as a mixture of different day looks and night looks. Let me know whether this is something you’d find interesting and just generally what you think! I’ll leave you with a picture of myself and the birthday girl, just for fun. Love and kisses!

W7 In the Buff Eyeshadow Palette.

Hello beautiful lovers of beauty and makeup! So even though my beautiful new nude eyeshadow palette arrived in the post about a week ago, I’m only just getting round to showing you all because I’ve been a bit busy, but here they are! I bought this at about the same time I bought the new makeup brushes and they only cost £4.97 !!! I love Amazon. Now, they could be classed as the poor girls version of the Urban Decay Naked palette and I will admit I really wanted the Urban Decay after seeing so many reviews and mentions of the palette on WordPress and YouTube, but it is just SO expensive and I am just a lowly unemployed student *tiny violin playing.*

So, when I came across this on my internet makeup trawls I couldn’t resist. The reviews on it were all fantastic and positive, claiming they are a great alternative to the Urban Decay Palette and that the colours are pigmented and last all day. So for the price, how could I not?! When it came in the post, I was surprised at how big the tray was! The shadows are also generous size, being 1 and a half inches long and half an inch wide. They also cover the full spectrum of a nude palette. The only thing they lack which the Urban Decay provides is the names of the colours, which provides references for any tutorials or favourites. This is a minor detail however. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to try them out yet, but I’m planning on doing a few different looks with them to post about so I can give a proper review of them and also showcase how they look. Stay tuned! Kisses.