Review: Butter London Knees Up

Having failed to bring me back Henley Regatta from the US my wonderful boyfriend offered to buy me a Butter London polish from their line in my local Boots. After many minutes spent deliberating over colours, I went for Knees Up, a gorgeous metallic red.

Review: L'Oreal GlamShine Stain Splash

Carrying on with my bright lip loving from earlier posts with the L'Oreal GlamShine Stain Splash in Princess. I picked this colour because it is unlike any that I already own. I wanted to branch out into corals for the summer. Fair to say I have branched and I think this might be one of my favourite shades I have. 

Textured Hair

I've had shoulder length hair for probably around a year now give or take a few inches last summer. Before then it was long enough for all sorts of fancy hair styles: fish tail braids; up-dos; buns that didn't fall out after 5 minutes. Since having it short I've struggled to work out how to style it. At my last haircut I had lots of layers put in so I could finally create the textured style I'd been wanting. I've stopped straightening my hair on a regular basis and often leave it heat free. I think the ombré helps and adds to the controlled messiness.

Review: Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge

Since I went for a quick trip to get my make-up done at Bobbi Brown I've been lusting over this colour. I love myself a peachy blush and Fresh Melon fits the bill perfectly. While it looks scary in the pan it comes out much paler and allows you to build it up to the colour you want. I found I got the most colour pay-off using my Real Techniques Expert Face brush. I really want to get the stippling brush for cream blush purposes.

Birthday Haul

It was my birthday on Wednesday so I thought I'd share some of the things I got. This is by no means me boasting but these are the things that are likely to appear on the blog in the next few weeks or so.

ScandalEyes New Releases

After reviewing the Rimmel ScandalEyes Eyeliner earlier on this week it's good see that there is more to come in that range later on this summer. A new Retro Glam mascara (£6.99, 7 August) will be perfect for those 60s doll-eyed looks and I'm really keen to try this out. I love big lashed looks without using false eyelashes and often layer up mascaras to achieve this. Hopefully this will cut out the need to do that!

Sticking with a retro 60s theme two new eyeliners will be in stores from the 10 July. ScandalEyes Thick and Thin pen (£5.49) has a 3D felt tip allowing for different thicknesses of lines depending on the angle you hold it at. Maybe I'll finally be able to do the perfect flick. For those who prefer a thinner line, the Precision Micro (£5.49) has a ultra fine tip to be used to define the eyes. Both will dry fast and wear for 24 hours and be in the blackest of black. Fabulous.

Review: Shetland Brown - & Other Stories

When in London, and on a hunt for Liberty’s we happened to walk past & Other Stories on Regent Street. Now, I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about this, and I know I’m really late to the bandwagon again. I should probably rename this blog “Things everyone else wrote about months ago”. If you don’t know then & Other Stories is run by the same people behind H&M, Cos and Monki. I didn’t go out looking for it, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to go in.

Review: Rimmel Scandaleyes Eyeliner

I’ve heard a lot of good things about these so decided to hop on the bandwagon and buy myself one. I went for 012 Bronze because; despite my love of neutral eye shadows, I don’t have one in that colour.

London Calling

I’ve been a little missing in action recently, the boy has returned from Canada and America so we’ve been catching up and chilling out. One of the things we did was go to London for a few days so here is what we got up to.

Review: Essie Matte About You Topcoat

To start with, I’m a sucker for nail polishes with cool names. I’ve been thinking about matte topcoats for a while and whilst on a post-essay Boots splurge this happened to find its way into my basket. I paired it with Essie’s Russian Roulette which is a red I don’t see a lot of love for but I really like it. The matte effect happens immediately and I think it’s pretty cool. It gives the polish a different look but is still easy to take off unlike glitter polishes.

Foundation Routine

For a month or more now I’ve been using the Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation so here’s my routine and a quick review. First of all the colour. It’s such a perfect match for my skin tone. This is what I love about Bobbi Brown; they have a large range of shades to suit all skin tones. I could probably also wear Porcelain which is the lightest colour but Warm Ivory suits the warmer tones of my skin and stops me looking too pale. It comes in a nice glass pot with a pump which means you can get out exactly the amount you need. It also has an SPF of 15 but I've not noticed any flash back. The finish is really natural and if left unpowdered can be quite dewy but I prefer a powdered finished.

Liebster Award

So I was delighted to be nominated by Crystal from Everything Beauty for this award. Sorry it’s taken me ages to write this! You can see her post here. The Liebster Award is like a tag award and helps bloggers be recognised. It’s awarded to newer bloggers who have less than 200 followers. There are some rules (aren’t there always?) so here we go with the post :)

1. Each blogger should answer the questions the tagger has set for you.
2. Each blogger should post 11 random facts about themselves.
3. Choose 11 new bloggers to pass the award onto and link them in your post.
4. Create 11 new questions for the chosen bloggers.
5. Tell the nominees about the award.

Wishlist #1

Image created with Polyvore

Just a few of the things I wish I had money to spend on. 

Barefaced Cheek

Due to my love of a certain brand of leggings I am part of a Facebook group called Black Milk Clothing UK. If you’ve not heard of Black Milk then check them out here. Last night a discussion was started about people’s reactions to you sans make-up. Usually “Are you OK? You look a bit ill?”. From that, people began uploading photos of themselves without make-up on and the photo above was my contribution. It’s taken on my webcam so it’s not the best quality so I’ve added one taken in the natural light this morning.

Review: Nivea Anti-Stress Protect Deodorant

I’m fairly sure people have written weirder reviews but one on deodorant has to be up there. Luckily, it was a review from The Sunday Girl which encouraged me to buy this product so at least I’m not alone.

Beauty Blogger's Tag: Get to know me

So I’m kinda sick at the moment and lack brain power so I found this tag on EmilyNoel’s blog and thought I’d give it a go. I edited it a bit but it’s still quite long, sorry!

Review: Seche Vite Topcoat

*warning: controversial blog post ahead*

I’m not sure when the Seche Vite love-in started. But it did, in a big way. It was everywhere and everyone was raving about. I was curious but never took the plunge. Then What’s In My Handbag? offered it as a ‘Try’ on their website. I entered and won a full size bottle. So far so good.

The brows have it

I’d say that I would be the first to admit I don’t always listen to my mum, except of course she would say it before I did. But just on the odd occasion I do pay attention and then I find she’s often right. One example of this is eyebrows; both she and my make-up artist cousin said “You have nice eyebrows – don’t over pluck them, ever”. And I haven’t. So now, when some are complaining of a lack of brows mine still look fairly full. However, they tend to have blonde bits in or I accidentally get foundation in them and with a full face of make-up, they don’t really stand out.

Review: Molton Brown Polynesian Kopara Anti-aging Hand Crème

Ok, long title, little product. My Mum went to Molton Brown and bought some shampoo and conditioner and got some free samples of this hand crème. (Not cream, that’s probably important somehow). She gave them to me to use as she’s getting on so well with her La Roche-Posay Cicaplast Baume, and I suffer from slightly dry hands as well.

Feeling the Pressure...or how not to

I’ve just come to the end of a mammoth essay writing session so while everything is still fresh in my mind I thought I’d take a break from beauty and write about how to not to stress as much. Hopefully this isn’t too late for some of you!