I'm doing YouTube!! (omg!)

EeEEEEeee!! So I've uploaded my first YouTube video. I was wanting to do it for ages, but I was too scared and didn't really have the equipment. My boyfriend surprised me with a wee tripod and shutter release remote control for my iphone, so I had no excuse haha! So here goes....
 

 

Yes, the screenshot it awful.

 

What do you think? Should I do more YouTube videos?? I'm nervous haha!

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

Mini Lush Haul! :)

I am suuuuuch a bad beauty blogger - I'm gonna have to admit that I don't regularly shop at Lush. I KNOW, right?! =p

 

I do like Lush, but to be honest I'd rather spend my hard earned pennies on makeup etc. I don't actually go for a huge amounts of baths, so Lush never really crosses my mind. I also find the staff a little overbearing. But, at Christmas time, I do like to go in and treat myself. So here's the goodies I got:

 

 

Obviously I got Snow Fairy because it's a MUST at Christmas. I know most people know what this is, but in case you've been living under a rock, it's a candyfloss/bubblegum/all things sweet scented shower gel, with little bits of glitter in. It is very sweet, which I don't usually go for, but I've never met anyone who doesn't like this scent! I bought the small size for £3.50.

 

 

 

I also got three baths bomb style products. The labels (and my photo taking skills apparently) are a bit rotten, but here's a wee pic:

 

Sunnyside, So White and Magic Wand.

 

Sunnyside - £3.65

I can't WAIT to try this. It's a glittery gold bubble bar that turns your water into 'liquid gold'. It's also got moisturising oils in it. I can't really smell a huge scent off it right now, but when it's melting it will release citrusy scents like yummy orange.

 

So White - £3.20

A white bath bomb that is heavily scented of apple. I left it in my room and the next day I walked in my whole room smelt beautifully of apple - such a fresh, unusual scent! Apparently when using this, you throw it against the side of the bath and the white shell cracks open to turn your water pink & bubbly - I'm exciiited!!

 

Magic Wand - £4.95

This is basically Snow Fairy in a bubble bar. I love the design of it, you can swish it in the water a few times to make it all pink and bubbly, and then you can reuse it over and over. Like Snow Fairy, it smells of candy floss and pear drops.

 

I don't know what I'm most excited to use! I think Lush might be winning me over - I can't wait to go for baths now and just chill out with my coloured, scented water. :) And, of course, Lush is against animal testing which is a huge bonus!!

 

What do you think of my Lush goodies? Have you got any favourites you recommend I try?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

Stila, Dior and Philip Kingsley goodies! :)

So I'm back my holiday from Turkey and it was HOT! Hahha. I'll do a post of some of the outfits I wore over the weekend, but right now I'm too excited because I got a little Escentual.com haul!

I bought a voucher for the site off of BuyaPowa about six months ago, and promptly forgot about it. Until August 1st, when I went to check it, and found out it said 'valid until August 1st' but apparently that did not mean INCLUDING that day as the voucher was already invalid. BOO! I was gutted, but tweeted Escentual and they extended the voucher for me, YAY!

I placed my order at 4.30pm yesterday, with free postage, and it arrived before midday today.  AMAZING service. Really chuffed. Here's what I got:

Stila Beach Collectable Palette in Living the Life in Laguna (£10), Philip Kingsley Elasticizer 75ml (£12.20), Dior Addict Extreme Lipstick in 536 Lucky (£22.80) and Stila Smudgepot in Kitten (£13.00).

Exciting stuff!

I will probably be doing reviews to follow, but here's some close ups and some swatches:

The Stila Palette:

 The four eyeshadows are:

Top left: Sand Dollar

Top right: Sunset

Bottom left: Cove

Bottom right: Bonfire

And then it's the blusher: Seashell

And the bronzer underneath: Pacific Coast Highway

Taken in natural light

Top pic, l-r: Sand Dollar, Sunset, Cove, Bonfire

Bottom pic, l-r: Seashell, Pacific Coast Highway

Kitten Smudgepot:

Dior Lipstick:

What do you think? £50 voucher well spent? Even if I did got a bit over haha. I'm especially excited to try the PK Elasticizer, my hair neeeds it! Have you tried any of these products?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

Primark & New Look Haul :)

I showed you two of my pretty pastel dresses (only £17.99 each!) from New Look in this post, so now I'm gonna show you the rest of the things I got from New Look and some things from Primark. They might be all of a similar theme haha - a bit pastelly and a LOT girlie. =p

Dress - Primark, £13

Blazer - Primark, £18

Shoes - New Look, £25 (not new)

I think this dress is super cute for like a semi-formal summer event, or a summer wedding. It's sheer but has an under-layer, and the drape at the front is really flattering! I also LOVE this blazer, it has padded shoulders and a structured lapel, with runched sleaves. Again, a really flattering fit I think! :)

Top - New Look, £16

Skirt - Primark, £8

Blazer - Primark, £18

Reeeeeally unsure about this. I don't mind it too much with the blazer, but don't think I have the confidence (or the figure) to wear it outside my own garden haha! Maybe by summer I'll feel a little bit better about it. =/

Dress - Primark, £13

Blazer - H&M, £24

Shoes - Missguided, £32

I don't know why I'm posing like a mental for this outfit. It's so pretty tho, I can actually see myself wearing it to work with tights as it's kind of a shirt dress. The little pockets have bows on them, which is adorable. This blazer has got a lot of attention from my last post, I can't believe I haven't featured it before! I got it in H&M a few months ago, but as far as I know it's still available in store. :)

Dress - New Look, £17.99

Shoes - ASOS, £50

Necklace - York Market, £4

Cat - Priceless

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed I wore this dress on my night out in London. It's another New Look kids dress, love their selection just now!! Dana is in this because a) my cats were trying to get in all my photos anyways and b) because I had a frame left in this collage haha.

EDT: I scheduled this post on Wednesday, but then I went shopping in Primark and got more goodies haha! I got a cute little top which I haven't photographed cause I'm gonna use it in my next OOTD, but I got two more blazers - oops. I'm a blazer addict!

Blazer - Primark, £15

Bracelets - (left) Swarovski and my sister's creations, (right) Forever 21

This blazer is exactly the same as the lemon one but in black and for some reason cheaper. I tried to get in the structured sleeves, they look much better in real life. And it's definitely BLACK, even though it looks blue in the second pic.

Blazer - Primark, £15

I just kind of threw this on on top of this dress for speed, I probably wouldn't wear them together. This blazer is turquoisey and a lot less structured than my lemon and black ones. Even though this is a size 6, it's still a baggy fit but I quite like that about it. It's a lot lighter too.

Well I hope you liked my Primark and New Look goodies, probably gonna be my last haul/OOTD post for a while cause I'm now skint!! What outfit is your favourite? have you found any cute bargains recently?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

MUA Lipgloss Review & ELF Goodies

I'm just back from London town, yay! Had a wee six day holiday there, will blog about it soon but for now here's a post I thought I'd scheduled for when I was away, but clearly didn't get posted. Hm. Oh well! =p

Some of you may have read about the awesome goodie bag I got sent from More! Magazine (check it out here) and I wanted to share a few things with you over time. Today, I'm gonna show you the MUA lipglosses I received, which retail for £1 each. I have tried some MUA products, but never lip products. I was sent three of the new Out There Plumping Lipglosses:

L-R Sienna, Peach Shimmer and Shocking Pink

They come with the standard applicator, but I had to work quite hard to actually get any product onto it.
Here are the swatches:

The most wearable for me is definitely Peach Shimmer. The colours go on true to swatching, and sit 'on' the lip rather than kind of adapting to your lip tone like some lip products do. They lasted a decent amount of time, nothing startling. They made my lips tingle a wee bit, no noticeable plumping action tho, although I rarely find lip plumpers to actually work.

These will not become my go-to lipglosses. But to experiment with some different colours, for £1 you can hardly go wrong.

I also got a few ELF products recently. One is the Mint Green nail varnish, which I posted about in my last NOTD here, and I'm gonna show you the other two now. One is an eyeshadow primer because I'm desperate for one after my UD Primer Potion ran out and my ELF Eyelid Primer turned out to be just 'meh'. I thought I'd give ELF another try, and bought the Studio Eye Primer and Liner Sealer (£3.50).  Here it is:

I actually really like this style. On one side is 'prime', which is a twist up solid, crayon style primer that glides on fairly easily, with a very small amount of dragging. One the other end is 'seal', which is one of those little nibs that you can dip into any eyeshadow to make it a liner. I doubt I'll use this side. Here's an example of some eyeshadows over the primer:

Left of each photo is without primer, right is over primer.

Left photo shows Urban Decay Naked/Naked2 Palette shade Half Baked, and right photo shows Urban Decay Naked2 Palette shade Bootycall

I'm impressed with this, the colours look much more intense. And here's the test results, photo on left is five minutes after I've put my makeup on in the morning, and pic on right is about eleven hours later:

Sorry about the lighting differences, just due to different times of day.

Not too bad huh? There was a bit of creasing on the lid but I think I have unusually crease-y eyelids anyways haha!  I'm actually quite excited about this product! I think it could defo become a staple in my daily routine! :)

I had to buy one last thing to get free delivery in ELF haha so I opted for the All Over Colour Stick in Golden Peach (£1.50). I have yellow undertones and in summer I tan really well, so I figured a nice peachy bronzer would look nice!

It has a lovely smell (in my opinion anyways) and is quite shimmery. I've read mixed reviews on this, but it was only a few pounds and I'll need to wait until I have a bit of a tan before I can try it out for myself! The swatch looks quite pretty tho:

So what do you think of these products? Are you a fan of cheaper brands, like MUA and ELF (they love abbreviations, don't they??)?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

ELF Haul - some goodies!!

About a week ago I got an ELF haul delivered to me, I only ordered it a few days before so as always their customer service is great.

This is what I received:

Sorry for the poor quality!

Their prices are just too good to refuse, and with free shipping when you spent over a tenner, I was a happy bunny. All of the products above came to £11.45. Amaze.

I got the eyeshadow primer as my UD one I got with the Naked Palette is nearly out and I want to try a cheaper alternative before splashing out on Urban Decay. The blush brush was simply because I was a bit dissapointed in my Sigma one and wanted to try a cheaper version (and also I needed to get my basket to over £10!).

However, you can see the quality of the ELF brush next to my Sigma brush is seriously poor so I doubt I'll be using it.


Their lipsticks are an amazing price, £1.50 each, and I aready own a few so I know that the quality is pretty good for the price. This one is called Gypsy and looks like this:

Left - no flash, right - flash

The brush cleaner was what I was really wanting, it's for daily cleaning of my Sigma brushes. A little spritz on your brush and wipe off and it's decently clean until my weekly wash. Or as least that's what I'm hoping for.

I've tried it on a few brushes and so far so good!

I got this:

.. because I've actually been wanting to try a mattifying nail varnish for ages! Looking forward to using this.

The bronzer/brusher duo I got because I'd heard it was a dupe for Nars Orgasm/Laguna duo.

 Left with flash, right no flash

I don't have Laguna, but here is the blush compared with Orgasm:

ELF left, Nars right. No flash top, with flash bottom.

Seriously don't know who decided they were similar... they're not at all. ELF is a lot brighter and doesn't have the shimmery gold undertones Orgasm has.

Altogether tho, ELF is a pretty awesome place to stock up on cheap, decent quality make up. I know a lot of people love it!

Have you tried ELF? What is your favourite product?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

Haul: Part Two - Urban Decay

As I mentioned in my last post, I enjoyed a little shopping day to spend my £100 Debenhams card my sister got me! Turns out the sale wasn't on, but the kindly MUA at the Urban Decay counter took pity on poor befuddled me clutching my little gift card and put through the 10% 'friends and family' discount.

And so... I finally got...

The NAKED Palette (£35)!!

Isn't it beautiful?? Now I know every man and his dog has reviewed this palette, so I won't go into squeals of excitement about it. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves:

Haul: Part One - Lush/Superdrug/Boots

If your name is Heather Ryce, don't read this blog post!! Your (delayed) birthday present may or may not be shown below.. =p

So I went shopping today, with the £100 Debenhams giftcard that my sister very kindly sent me. I was all excited because it's 'mega day' which means 10%-40% off throughout the store which would obv make my giftcard go even further! Except, of course, I got my dates mixed up and megaday doesn't even start until Wednesday. Joy.

I am not a very good present shopper, I tend to get distracted by stuff I want for myself. Does that sound selfish? Maybe it is, but I'm just so easy to shop for!! =p

I bought faaaar too much so going to have to split this into two posts so you don't die of boredom. This post will look at my Lush, Superdrug and Boots buys.

My first stop was Lush, it's not somewhere I usually shop but I've heard so many good things so I went in to make some purchases.

NARS Orgasm, London Haul & 30 Day Challenge

A few days ago I reviewed one of the new products I bought in London, Benefit They're Real mascara. Today I'm going to show you a few other things I purchased! Now, I don't have a lot of money right now what with being unemployed and all, but I managed to treat myself to a few things (with help of my boyfriend and parents!!).

 Yay! I got me my Nars Orgasm blush! I've wanted it for a while now. Actually, I wanted the Orgasm/Laguna duo but my pennies wouldn't stretch to that lol. So here it is! It's a lovely peachy pink shade with a subtle golden shimmer which claims to suit any skintone. I always opt for peachy shades because of my yellow base tone, and I've heard so many good things about this that I haaad to snap it up!