May favourites

This month has definitely been one of trying new products and getting to grips with older ones or testing new combinations.

T-B- NYX cream blush in "Natural", Beauty UK blush in Royal Rose.

My NYX cream blush has become an everyday staple for a dewy finish to an everyday face. It adds a healthy tint whilst remaining in place pretty much all day. I've been using one of the new baked blushes by Beauty UK which I'm a big fan of, it's very pigmented with some fine shimmer to it, and it complements the NYX blush well enough to use on top just to add a bit of extra kick to the colour or keep it on for longer.

Ooh la la Naked is a wonderfully creamy moisturising body wash with a heavenly scent that makes me want to eat it and produces mountains of creamy lather when used with a shower scrunchie (buff puff/ mesh-thingy... Everyone calls them a different thing!) 


Naked's Perfect Getaway cream cleanser is something I've been using everyday for the last week and a bit and so far it's pretty much perfect. I don't use it quite as the directions suggest (smoothing on and removing with a cotton pad) but use it like a hot cloth cleanser which seems to be working well. Full review on this to come once I've been using it for longer! 

Max Factor Experience Weightless Foundation - I'd seen Fee @ Makeup Savvy rave about this foundation and I love, love, love it! The coverage is amazing, for general blemishes I don't need anything extra but spots do require either a tiny bit extra foundation (which can be built up without looking at all cakey) or a dab of concealer. It visibly perks up my skin leaving it looking smooth and perfect whilst not looking like I'm wearing a heavy foundation or feeling as though I'm wearing anything on my skin at all! It lasts all day, doesn't need any powder on my normal-combination skin and is what I'd describe as a satin finish. This is definitely a must have and something I'll be sticking with. I actually got hold of this for £6 including postage on ebay instead of the Boots £10 price after swatching instore for a colour match.

elf Studio cream eyeliner- after quite a number of months of this being my only used eyeliner the top of this started to dry up and made application difficult and a bit messy. Having started to burrow down past the top layer of drier eyeliner it's got a new lease of life and I'm back to using it every single day without fail. Such an amazing product for the tiny £3.50 price tag. 

elf Studio stipple brush- perfect for cream blushes and for a quick swirl in pigmented powder blushes too. 

Bourjois Delice de Poudre bronzer- a tiny price for a lot of bronzer! This smells delicately of chocolate which in my books can only be a good thing, it's just about totally matte though there is the odd bit of shimmer thrown in. It's great for evening out my chest and neck if my fake tan is starting to fade or for a bit of all over colour on my face, this is a really buildable powder ideal for us paler girls (mine's number 51 which is the lighter colour I believe). 

Nivea Daily Essentials oil free moisturising day cream is another new product, I was running low on my Simple oil balancing moisturiser and this was on offer in Tesco for £1.50 (usually £3) so I thought it was worth a try. If anything I prefer it to my Simple moisturiser, it's scented, which I like, and it's possibly a little more moisturising too, the formula is more creamy and less gel-like. Does a great job of keeping my skin from getting oily through the day and moisturises too!

17 Wild Curls is definitely my favourite everyday mascara (and that's not to say it doesn't deliver fierce curled lashes!) but with No7's exquisite curl mascara layered over it I'm left with even bigger lashes that are both volumised and lengthened. 

A long favourites post this month! Anything outstanding that you've used this month? Let me know!

x

NYX cream blushes

NYX blushes are pretty legendary in the beauty community. They're affordable with a wide range of colours and a great formulation, so why it took me so long to get hold of some I've no idea.

L-R- natural, boho chic

I eventually bought them from an ebay seller in America (see the current listing here) and I paid around £5 each for them, including postage. The two shades I have are Natural and Boho Chic, as sadly the infamous Glow was out of stock. You can see all the different shade selections in the listing.

It's taken me a couple of months to work out how best to use them, and to decide whether I like them or not, now that I've found that my ELF stipple brush is perfect for applying and blending just the right amount I'm really enjoying using them! I'm clearly like a small child, some days I choose cream blush just because it's fun to use... You can apply with fingers too, you only need a tiny dab, I dot it onto the apples of my cheeks and blend up and out towards my hairline.

The effect once on is a glowy, dewy look that can be played up or down depending on blending and it lasts most of the day even without a powder blush on top on my (currently!) normal skin.

Well worth a look, and I'd really recommend the seller that I've linked to in the post too!

Are you a cream blush fan? Any tips to share? Let me know :)

x

Mapril favourites

Since we're now half way into April and I've still not done March favourites I thought I'd squish them together (hence the oh-so-clever title) and maybe do a mini favourites at the beginning of May if anything's changed..

So, Mapril favourites...

Soap and Glory's Scrub Your Nose In It. Love this! Great for an oil-free face all day and can be used as a mask as well, lovely minty scent and feel to it, this will be great especially as the weather gets warmer. Full review to come.

Topshop blush in Flush remains a firm favourite, because of the cream-to-powder finish I've been using it over powder mineral foundation (shock!) without any disastrous results too.

Please excuse the ridiculously grubby packaging, although pretty it seems to be like a magnet for staining! I've been using my Lily Lolo mineral foundation with my Liz Earle Skin Tonic for better, more flawless coverage and extra staying power.

L-R Mac Laugh a Lot and No7's Power.

 Mac's Laugh a Lot is a Lustre finish and on my lips doesn't look that much different than my normal lip colour, except with a lovely glossy finish that generally makes a simple face of make up look much more polished. Power is a gorgeous raspberry colour that I tend to blot down to leave a pretty stain, it's perfect for spring and it's not drying either! 

NYX cream blush in Natural. I have finally worked out how to make this work for me. A very, very light hand and my ELF stipple brush, I buff it in and it leaves a wonderful fresh finish and a perfect natural colour, just as the name suggests! 

What are your new spring favourites?

x

NYX Tea Rose lipstick/FOTD

Face-

 ELF all over cover stick

Clarins' True Radiance foundation (003, Soft Ivory)

ELF studio blush in Candid Coral

Eyes-

ELF cream eyeliner in Copper

Wild Curls mascara 

Lips-

NYX round lipstick in Tea Rose

This was my first NYX lipstick and I'm really pleased with it, the texture is wonderful, smooth and silky but not too slippy with pretty decent staying power. Plus there's no cheap lipstick smell/taste! I'm looking into different shades now, so if you've got any personal favourites that you'd recommend then please do let me know! 

x

Cherry Culture not-quite-shopping...

Cherry Culture have 20% off till the 30th of June (thanks to Charlotte for the heads up!) so I went over to have a look and found myself in a frenzy of "adding to basket"... 

I love nothing more than being able to put anything and everything I even vaguely like into my basket and then proceed to chuck it out later, it's part of the buzz of shopping online. Am I the only one who does that? You can't do it in real shops, it's a right pain!

One of the NYX Runway Palette's in particular caught my eye and so that went in too. Finally I whittled my selection down to two palette's (total of just $10!) and 2 lipsticks for a total of $15 which then goes down to $12 with the 20% off... Until you add shipping, which in all fairness isn't unfair at all, it just turns a giant bargain into only-just-on-the-verge-of-bargain-land. Which is a shame. I may well end up doing it all again tomorrow and actually buying the stuff.. We'll see!

At least I got a nice buzz out of throwing everything into the basket! Anyone else find you end up in a much better place mentally after a nice lot of nearly-buying on the web? Or is that just me?! ;)

Rachel xx

EOTD

Gosh base

Primark neutral duo on lid and crease
NYX eyeshadow pencil in Gold in crease
No 17's Va Va Voom palette- turquoise/aqua as liner!
L'Oreal Telescopic mascara

Hope today's been a good one for you!

Rachel xx

NYX

Last month I was having a little wander round ebay and started searching for NYX products. I was especially interested in the jumbo eyeshadow pencils and tracked a seller down who had them for £6 with free P&P. Having never looked it up anywhere else I assumed this was reasonable, it wasn't until I decided to have a look on a couple of US sites that I realised just how expensive that was!

Shopcraze sell them for just under $3 dollars which converts to around £2.. £2!! Shipping was about £4.75 which is pretty reasonable as most companies posting from the UK charge near £4 anyway.

Total order for 2 jumbo eyeliner pencils (cottage cheese and gold) plus a single eyeshadow- pure skin, which I thought was going to be matte... but isn't! Was around £10 or so, which would only have bought me one NYX pencil on ebay!

I love the eyeshadow pencils, they give really intense colour whilst blending well and being really quick and easy to use, and they're really long lasting. Will almost certainly be buying more!

Do you buy NYX? Where do you get yours from?

Rachel xx