Beauty on a Budget

I'm on a tight budget at the moment so I thought I would try to look at creating a look on a budget despite the fact I have huge desires for the Urban Decay BOS III and Naked Palette. Both of which are available on offer on the Debenhams site at the moment :)

So I visited Superdrug and had a look at their 2True range. Pieces are £1.95 or 3 for £5. I chose 3 different eye definers. White, Green and Turquoise. Used with the MUA shadows I created the following look:

I used the white liner on the waterline to make my eyes look brighter. Then I used the Turquoise across the outer half of my lower lash line and the green on the inside half.

I also bought one of the Sleek Pout Polishes in Peach Passion.

Here is what it looks like in the tub:



Here is it on my finger; a kind of sticky, red, tacky, fake blood/face paint substance.






On my lips it looks like this:




It doesn't really have a scent of anything and I thought it might smell of peach, but it has a kind of cheap lip gloss scent. The colours nice on though, not too sticky.

A challenge!

Sarah, the lovely lady who runs Enchanted, set a challenge for me. Create a youtube video about Enchanted. Now I'm not very technologically minded, and I'm not all that creative. But. I tried. Here's what I came up with, I hope you enjoy.

Ice-Cream!

As some of you will know I've not been too well lately :( and that's meant I have had to have showers instead of my beloved bath's because the heat from the water was making me dizzy and feel worse :( however yesterday in preparation for the day of the xbox I had a gorgeous bath.

I recently received my Halloweenies sampler pack from http://www.enchantedbath.co.uk/ and I was desperate to use it. My favourite scent out of them so far is definately Vanilla Thriller. I have a small sugar scrub in this scent which smells to me absolutely gorgeous. It's sweet and smooth and tasty without being sickly or overpowering.

The foaming sugar scrub's are brilliant, you need a small scoop full, wet it and then smooth it on wet skin, it gives just enough foam to clean and moisturise your skin whilst the sugar gently exfoliates it.

After gently scrubbing my body with this scrub and rinsing my skin felt wonderful and smelt delicious. After I had dried off and got dressed I splashed a tiny dab of perfume from the sampler pack called Blood Bath which is sweet berry scented :) The smell of the berries against the vanilla was absolutely divine and had me smelling like ice cream with syrup on the top. I smelt edible!

The scent lasted ages and I even had a compliment about my perfume :)

I can't wait for my full size products to arrive.

Gun Metal Grey

Ok so I was supposed to be going out and I had my outfit and everything planned; a grey dress, smokey eyes, grey nail polish and gun metal grey accessories. I didn't go out though, so you get the pleasure of seeing me :)




Ignore the few messy bits I need to clean them up but this is with a coat of Rimmel's Grey Matter. This is one of the bottles with the new Xpress 1 second flat applicator which was quite good and gave good even coverage.


I then put a coat of Zoya Freja over the top. I really love this colour and with the grey base underneath it looked great. (The pic doesn't show how gun metal this is)




My eyes were done using a little Urban Decay Primer Potion and then Front Cover's Blanc de Blanc up to my brow. I then used an e.l.f Brightening Eye Palette in Drama. I applied the white wet as I wanted to get a base to make the grey and black pop! I then blended and ran a little of the grey under my eye as well. I used Sleek Ink Pot to line my eyes and then Maybelline Colossal Volume mascara to finish, which is great although does smell weird!



And just cos I'm a poser, here's a piccy :)

EOTD - 31st August

Yesterday was my birthday, and in typical me fashion I spent the day in my room on my own playing around with different things like the laptop and make ups and my hair.

Here is a few pics of how I had my eye makeup. This is using the No Dull Moment palette. I will be showing some different palettes and eyeshadows soon *promise*

I used the lighter turquoise on the inner eye, a small amount of dark blue on the outer corner and a dab of the purple on the centre of my eye. I am normally a black eyeliner kind of gal but used E.L.F's eyeliner in Ash instead and I think it really works. :)

Here are a few more pics:

FOTD: 30 August

Here is yesterdays Face Of The Day. I used the purple shades from the Smokey Plums FAMOUS palette and the No Dull Moment FAMOUS palette.

Please ignore the redness in my face, it was a bit of an emotional day and my cheeks took a battering for it.

Famous

I recently asked on a forum I frequent if anybody had tried the Sue Moxley range called FAMOUS. I didn't get any replies and being as attracted to the colours as I am I took the plunge. I bought 3 eyeshadow palettes which each contain 4 eyeshadows and cost £9 each from Superdrug. Superdrug currently have an offer on these palettes making them 342 until the end of Tuesday the 31st August. They are only available in some of the bigger stores and are not available on the Superdrug website.

The first palette is called 'Smokey Plum':

The colours appear slightly muted in my photo but if you look at the swatch on my bare skin in natural light you can see they are really vivid colours. You have a pale peach, a pale pink, a chocolate brown and then a gorgeous purples colour.


The next palette is called 'No Dull Moment':
This has a pale cream, a turquoise blue, a bright blue and then a shimmery lilac colour. The colours are lovely and really soft, if you dampen the applicator you can get a really intense colour. The turquoise shade is similar to the MUA colour I used in a recent blog post however the texture and amount of shimmer is different, this seems a lot more grown up.



The final palette is called 'Jealousy':

These are all rich, beautiful greens. Very mermaid like and a lot more vibrant than they look in the palette. I decided to use these greens straight away, the look is below.



I think the coolness of the lighter green really helps to bring out the slightly golden ring around my pupil. I really love the colours and the shadows themselves were really easy to apply, they weren't loose and crumbly like some shadows are so I didn't need to worry about them dropping on my cheeks, they also blended really well and feel really great on my eyelids. Other than the Jealousy palette the only other product I used was my GOSH Looooong Lash mascara in black. I'm now really tempted to go buy some of the other palettes while the offer is still on. The FAMOUS range also includes solo eyeshadows, lip glosses, mascara's as well as complete kits for brows, eyes and lips and full face 'glamour' packs.

Bling!

I got to spend some birthday money today. I spent £10 in Primark and bought myself some bling!




My fave item has to be this owl pendant on a long chain. It was £2.50 and is stunning. It's made up of all different sized stones and is really striking and unusual and I love it.

My next item is the vintage style bag charm. Made from a brass/old gold looking metal it has 3 plastic flowers on as well as some small pearl style beads a butterfly, a wren and a gorgeous ornate watering can. I love this, I think it would look brilliant on a bag or even on a denim jacket. This was also £2.50

The pack of 8 pairs of heart studs was a fabulous £1.50! Thats 19p a pair! They are really cute acrylic hearts in different colours. You have cream, hot pink, red, white, purple, metallic gold, metallic silver and black. You have a pair for every day of the week :) and because of all the different colours you will always have a pair to match your outfit.

The shell disc earrings were a bargainous £1.50 and are made from a brass metal disc and a teal shell disc. These are great for an evening and look really elegant.

Lastly from Primark I got this blingy ring which is silver tone with loads of diamante stones. It's stunning and is perfect for evening wear. This was £2. Imagine if they were real diamonds the price this ring would have.




Finally, and this isn't from Primark but I got a new bag today from Asda George and I absolutely love love love it! It was £5 and it has the cutest little bambi pic on it, ever.

My Friday night

Well I'm going out tonight for a game of bowling and a chinese and I can't wait. I want to look my best but without looking like I've tried too hard so I've gone for a fairly casual hairstyle and then paid more attention to my eyes.

Here is my look today:

My eyes have been created using Urban Decay Primer Potion which i dotted on my eyelids before patting in. I then swept Front Cover's Blanc de Blanc across my eyelids up to the crease. Once I had the white shimmery base I had my first attempt with the Sleek Ink Pot and having used a full size eye liner brush I am quite impressed. I then finished my eyes off by using Front Cover's Riviera in the inner corner of my eye to about half way in and then running a line of Black Iris, also by Front cover across my upper lash line before blending out to create a smokey look. A few slicks of Gosh Looooong Lash mascara and my eyes were done :)

Here is a close up:

All 3 eyeshadow colours come from the Front Cover Rainbow Eyes book.

My lip colour was created by putting a small amount of Anatomicals Stop Cracking Up balm and then I dabbed a little Super Pink eyeshadow from the Rainbow Eyes palette on to create a vibrant and glossy pink look.

I hope you like :) x

Green eyes

Ok so as I mentioned earlier I decided to have a go with the MUA eye shadows. This is the look that I came up with:

I used e.l.f Mineral Infused Face Primer first to give my skin a nice soft and smoothed texture. This stuff is fantastic and I really love it!

Then to rid myself of under eye shadows and the dark patches I have on my temples I applied a light amount of Lush's Colour supplement in Light Pink. I don't wear foundation but I find this colour supplement gives me just enough coverage in problem area's without being cakey or leaving me looking like a clown or the tango man.

I couldn't find the little tube of Urban Decay Primer Potion that I have so may need to go buy another one soon :( So instead I used a small amount of e.l.f All Over Color Stick in Spotlight shade #3106. This actually has a gorgeous sweet orange scent to it so it smells lovely when your using it. You only need a tiny little big to get enough coverage on both eyelids.

I applied a small amount of Front Cover eyeshadow in Blanc de Blanc which is the top left eyeshadow in their Rainbow Eyes box - which is fab by the way! to the crease of my eyes and then I started with the MUA shadows. I applied shade 5, which is the lime green colour to the inner corners of each eye first, also ensuring that I covered part of the lower lash line too. I then swept shade 7 from the outer corner across the crease line before finally filling in the remaining lid with the gorgeous teal colour shade 8.

Once these shadows were applied I took a small blending brush and gently blended away any harsh lines creating a smoother look before finishing it off with a coat of GOSH Looooong Lash Extreme mascara in black.

This was my first go at creating a 'look' for my blog and I hope you liked it. If you have any idea's on how I can make it better or get better photo's then please let me know.

D x

MopTop

Ok so I have now dyed my hair and I am really impressed!

Here is a before shot:

As you can see my hair is all different shades, its frizzy and wild and I hate it!

Here is an after shot:


For £4 I have managed to get back closer to my natural colour, my hair feels and smells great and with thanks to my GHD's and the Schwarzkopf spray is smooth and soft and yummy :)

I think the darker colour suits my skin tone better too.

Superdrug, you are superstars.

Todays Haul

Ok so today I visited Superdrug and Bodycare and treat myself to a couple of little goodies :)

Here is a picture of what I bought:


I got a Superdrug brand Semi-permanent hair dye in shade 5:4 Rich Chestnut. These are currently 2 for £4 instore. I normally choose permanent dyes but you can really tell how much I have dyed my hair over the years as it's all different shades and I'm not happy with how it looks at the moment so hopefully this will perk it up and make it look a bit nicer.

I also bought Swarzkopf Pro Styling Heat Protection Straightening Spray. It's a 200ml bottle and cost £1.99. I never really bother with hair care, which is probably why my hair is in such a bad state, I'm looking forward to seeing how this helps me tame my wild curly and frizzy hair whilst protecting it from my GHD's.

The third and final hair product I bought was a handbag sized Batiste dry shampoo. I've never used dry shampoo before but thought this looked interesting and I have read a couple of reviews about it so thought I would give it a go.

Now on to the make up..........

Superdrug recently launched a range called Make Up Academy. It is a budget range with all the items costing £1 each. I decided to buy a couple of the eye shadows to try as I find they are the easiest items to be versatile with. Also I'm a little dubious of cheap/budget lipglosses incase they are plasticky and like the toy make up you get as a child.


From left to right we have shade 7, shade 5 and shade 8.

Shade 7 is a deep green, shade 5 a vivid lime colour and shade 8 a gorgeous turquoise teal colour.

I decided to do a swatch on my hand to see what the colours are like on my skin. I didn't use a primer so this is what the colours look like on my skin in natural daylight and without a flash.

As you can see they are quite shimmery and so maybe not for the more mature of skins, but the colours do look really nice on. I'm quite impressed so far, they feel really soft on the skin and are easy to apply, I'm looking forward to trying to create a look with them later and seeing how they hold up as the days goes on.

Lastly I bought 2 Sleek items. I have always had a bit of an interest in Sleek ever since I got their original palette years ago but sadly I haven't managed to try many other of their items. So today I jumped at the chance. I got the Kajal eyeliner in Nocturnal (black) and I got an Ink Pot in Dominatrix.

I'm not quite sure on why the Kajal has a ribbon attached but it makes it look interesting so that's ok. Once the Kajal is out of it's lid and fully extended it looks a bit like a bullet. I really like how quirky this looks and it was one of the reasons I chose it.


The ink pot was something I wanted to try. I have never used gel eyeliner before and I really like how it looks on my skin, however, you only get a really small brush with the Ink Pot and in my opinion it's not much cop. Obviously this doesn't affect the quality of the eyeliner itself but I think if you were to get a decent, full length eyeliner brush it would make the world of difference.

On the skin the Kajal is slightly more opaque and a little lighter than the Ink Pot which gives a really dark, deep, matt black but I would assume you could build up the colour with the Kajal given the chance.
L-R: Ink Pot in Dominatrix, Kajal in Nocturnal.

Not a bad haul if I say so myself xxxx

Zoya

I was recently lucky enough to win a voucher for the Lucy Rose store. With such a vast array of products available I finally decided on two nail polishes from the Zoya range.

Zoya is an award winning brand created by Zoya Reyzis, who as a pregnant aesthetician and salon owner in 1984, realized the need for a healthier and more durable solution. Today, Zoya Nail Polish is available at the finest salon's and spa's worldwide and frequently receives top ratings in fashion, health and pregnancy magazines worldwide.Zoya Nail Polish is a nail polish free of toluene, formaldehyde, DBP (phthalates) and camphor and are also vegan friendly!

I paid £9.25 per 15ml bottle of Nail Polish and I chose two shades from the Downtown Collection.

The first shade is called Suvi. It is a gorgeous rich green colour. Normally I am not a fan of greens when it comes to nail polish but this colour is really beautiful and sits well on the nail. It's quite a dark green shade but with that hint of shine, almost foresty in colour. I have quite short shabby nails but this colour is really flattering and makes my nails look great.

The second shade I chose was Freja. This is my favourite out of the two colours I chose. It is quite a muted and understated gunmetal grey. It's absolutely bloody gorgeous and I love it. It has a few subtle hints of sparkle which catch the light in just the right way giving a gorgeous and elegant look.

Normally my nail polish doesn't last at all. I pick at it or it chips while I am typing yet these have stayed smooth and looking great with not a hint of wear and tear at all! A real plus point for me!

After looking at other Zoya shades on http://www.zoya.com I am definitely excited and can see me ordering some more. The only problem is choosing which shade to try next.

Hello and Welcome

Hello and welcome to my new blog.

I was inspired by the lovely ladies from the Lush International Forum to take an interest in cosmetics and toiletries. I've never really bothered with make up until now, and now I find myself developing a slight addiction. Those naughty enablers.

This blog will show me testing some new products and giving swatches of different shades as well as giving my opinion of what I am using and hopefully putting on some pictures of new looks.

Thank you for popping along, I hope you stick around.

D x