I went shopping.. a small collective haul

Now I'm one of them people who go shopping, quite often and then have the bad habit of leaving my purchases sitting around my bedroom until a dull day today when I take them out and remember what wee gems I've snapped up. So here we go, a small collective haul from about two weeks ago of a few beauty products I had been lusting over, enjoy!

Hair Obsession

My obsession with hair began when I was very young. When I was in infant school I had very tatty hair that if you let grow long it would just be in a constant knots, gaining me the name "Tatty Head" from my mum. I used to get it cut VERY short into a little bob

I'm about 4/5 here

So when I went into junior school I learned how to do my hair myself so if it hurt I only had myself to blame. By doing this it opened up my love for experimenting with different styles. I used to watch my mum do my sisters hair when she plaited it in and I taught myself how to plait and braid. A skill I still use to this day. 

I then went into Seniors and then the fun began when I could start experimenting properly, with colours. When I was about 11 my sister bought a blond dye and I snook into her room and used the undiluted colourant on my natural blonde highlights in my mousey hair, it turned bright orange! It was not a good look but I knew as soon as I seen the way it changed that I could not wait to be able to colour my own hair. When I was 15 my mum let me get highlights.

This was when I found out that changing your hair can completely change how the world sees you. With different ways to colour and style it there are also so many different ways even slight trims can really make a difference. Every now and again I get all my hair cut off short and sometimes I just get a fringe cut in.

 

I loved them and from then on the world was my hair colourant oyster. 

I've been Dark Brown, Ginger, Blonde and Auburn

I don't just love colouring my hair I love styling it. I just looked up youtube videos of how to do cross-head braids, GHD curling, wand waving, putting rollers in (bendy, normal, thermal and sleep-in). The different ways to style hair are amazing and new ways are always cropping up. 

Being scouse I love being a Prinny (Scouse Princess) so I love getting the rollers out and having big beautiful glossy hair. They are so easy to use, my favourite rollers to use are sleep-in rollers which are so light and you can nap in them. The longer they are kept in the more volume you get. You can get them from bargain stores like Home Bargains, B&M, Savers or you can go to Boots and Superdrug.

As of late I have tried one thing which I think is amazing. Hair Chalking! I heard a tip from Jess one of our other bloggers that she's chalked her hair using old eyeshadows. I found a massive eyeshadow pallette I got for Christmas unopened so I gave it a go and was so impressed. 

As you can see I used a mixture of blue, pink and purple. If you wet the hair, apply the eyeshadow and dry it with the hairdryer on cool it seals the colour until you next wash your hair. It's great for a temporary, gentle change. 

My Favourite Hair Products

Trevor Sorbie Heat Defense Blow-Dry Spray - £5.10 Boots

Garnier Fructis Colour Last Shampoo and Conditioner - 99p Each Home Bargains

Umberto Giannini Catwalk Beauty Hairspray - £5.61 Boots

My Favourite Hair Tools

Babyliss Waving Wand - £24.94 Amazon.co.uk

Babyliss Elegance Straighteners - £39.99 Amazon.co.uk

TRESemmé Ceramic Paddle Brush - £4.66 Amazon.co.uk

Thanks for reading my hair obsession story.

Do you have any new hair tips for me or would you like me to give you any advice on any of styling I've spoken about today? 

Night time routine

 Hey sweeties

As I love watching morning/night routines on YouTube I figured Id try writing my night time routine up for you all, as if I'm being truthful, mornings are not my friend.

I like to start off by getting changed into my sweats or jammies, bed socks, and a hoodie - preferably the boyfriends :) Personally I think you cant beat David&Goliath when it comes to lounge wear and jammies, but I do love my sweat pants from New Look right now.

http://www.chicksrule.co.uk/womens/girls-team-sweatshirts.html

I've really started looking after my skin recently so I'll start by pinning my hair back and taking my makeup off with a face wipe before heading to the bathroom to use my new favourite cleanser - Loreal skin perfection cleansing oil. This stuff is AMAZING and if you'd like a full review please let me know in the comments below!

After that, I'll use my St.Ives apricot scrub. I love to use this very quickly in the morning to give my skin a boost but when I use it in the evening I like to spend a good 30 seconds really massaging it into my skin before splashing it off with cold water.

All cleansed and scrubbed up, I head up to my bedroom to sit at my vanity and apply a moisturiser. I am yet to find one that I love so at the moment, its literally whatever I have in front of me. 

However, two things I do absolutely LOVE are my lip scrubs from Lush and a good lip balm. Both things I use religiously, every single night.

Once all that's done, there's only a couple of things left to do... Make a hot chocolate, light some candles or maybe even the fire, put on my blanket with sleeves (do they have a specific name?) and snuggle down to watch some tele or if I'm feeling nerdy, stick my glasses on and read m' book!

So there we have it, my night time routine in it's simplest form :)

Let me know what your night time essentials are.

Sweet dreams! 

Kerri x

Le Volume de Chanel

Now, I'm sure near enough every girl I know is on a quest to find the perfect mascara, and will spend hundreds of pounds in her lifetime trying to find the one that's right for her. Nothing is ever quite good enough, that perfect combination of volume and length and, let's face it, she always strives for better. Enter Le Volume de Chanel, the one mascara that has come the closest. 

I have relatively stubby lashes, and all I've ever wanted is a mascara that takes them to the length only false lashes can. I'd love to try lash extensions but in reality they're far to expensive to keep up with. I received this sample in the post a few days ago and I am sold. In a few coats it took my lashes to lengths I have only obtained before with a combination of about four mascaras that was quite frankly a hassle and a complete waste of time. It stayed in place the whole day but came off super easily with my usual make-up remover. Although the price for a full size bottle at £24 is not for those on a budget, I might actually consider investing. Has anyone else fallen in love?

Without Mascara

With Le Volume de Chanel

Kate x

 

THE GREAT GOSH GIVEAWAY

Welcome to our first giveaway! It is for the Gosh Giant Sunpowder which has an RRP of £13.99.

How to enter:

We're using rafflecopter as it's the easiest way to get a fair and easy to enter giveaway, so here is how to get those entries!

Madatory entries:

Like us on Facebook - +2 entries

Follow us on Twitter - +2 entries

Follow us on Bloglovin - +2 entries

Follow us on GFC - +2 entries

We then have a couple of bonus entries to unlock once you've done that!

Give us your email (so we can contact you if you win!) - +1 entry

Answer our question in the blog comments below - +3 entries

Tweet about the giveaway (which can be done daily to get more entries) - +1 entry

We also want to say a massive thank you to Sparkle PR who've kindly let us give this away for our giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Now onto the boring bits:
The competition will close at midnight at the end of the month.
Please read the T&Cs. One entry per person, and this giveaway is for the UK only.  

GOSH Giant Sun Powder - Body Bronzer

I received this amazing Body Bronzer made by GOSH and I only have one word to describe it on a whole: AMAZSUN!

This product is perfect for people who are not convinced about fake tan. It gives you a great shimmer and a glow that is hard to achieve with fake tan. It's a beautiful bronze colour which does come out really well. I have quite fair skin and this went on a little dark for my skin but with a bit of blending with a brush it was gorgeous.

With Summer coming up and with them little summer dresses coming out this is the best product to sweep a long your décolletage for a little bit of colour and highlighting. You can use a big body powder with this or for highlighting you can just use a face powder brush. When using on your face sweep your cheeks and chin for a lovely glow but avoid putting it on your nose as it can look really dark. It's really light to wear, it doesn't feel too heavy on the skin. 

 It is about 4 inches big, it is huge! It's also great for £13.99 in Superdrug and is currently in the 3 for 2 offer until June 2013. Great for face and body. I recommend this for a glowing summer look. (But don't wear white if you're using it as a body powder)

Apologies for lack of pictures every camera was either too bright or too dark but there is a noticeable difference in real life, and I will be wearing it to my Las Vegas night out to look extra glam!

Rating: 8/10

Magnificent Magnifibres - How to get luscious lashes!

I don't know about you girls, but I'm always on the lookout for a knockout eyelash product. I have goodness knows how many discarded, sitting in drawers and under the bed that I've bought hoping for it to turn my piggy lashes into a fluttering fan of fullness and been deeply disappointed.

HAAAAAA-LLELUJAH!

Girls, I think I've finally found my day to day eyelash fairy godmother. Meet Magnifibres. They're brush on fibres that retail at £21 and it is available to buy from www.magnifibres.com, QVC and Selfridges. It's definitely not the cheapest eyelash product on the market, but it is worth every penny as it actually works! Magnifibres say that your lashes will look lengthened, volumised and thickened. I felt it did all those three in bundles!

 The product comes in cute pink packaging that opens like a telescope. The inside sleeve has all the instructions telling you how to use Magnifibres.

 

I'm going to talk you through how to use Magnifibres and show you the result you can get!

Obviously start with your lashes totally free from product.

Step 1: Apply a coat of mascara as usual and quickly move onto step 2

Step 2: Apply Magnifibres to the lashes as you would your normal mascara

Step 3: Wait 30-60 seconds then apply a second coat of mascara to coat the Magnifibres

Below you can see the huge difference from no makeup, through my lashes with just mascara, to the final photo where my lashes look insane! I teamed Magnifibres with my Lancome Hypnose mascara.

The difference as you can see is HUGE! I really like that it doesn't add any time to my make up routine as false lashes would, and it is perfect for day to night glamour!

I worried that I'd perhaps end up with the fibres ending up in my eyes, or that my eyelashes would just end up a ball of clumpy lashes, but so far I've not found that a problem. Overall I'm so impressed with this product.

I'd give it 9/10 and I'll definitely be wearing this as part of my daily make up routine from now on. Below is how I've been wearing my Magnifibres to uni, a slick of top liner and a fresh face so it really is all about the lashes.

What do you think beauties? Can I convince you into trying Magnifibres?

Becky x

Bargain Beauty Buys - Haul.

I'm a sucker when it comes to a bargain beauty buy. I have to be dragged away kicking and screaming to resist! (Well, not quite as dramatic, but you get the idea!)

Being a full time Mum, its not always possibly to 'splash the cash' on full priced items, so when I can come away with the item I want or need and save myself a few quid, its definitely an added bonus.

In the past week i've been fortunate enough to snap up a few bargains. The savings on the RRP actually amount to more than the total expenditure which is pretty good going, if I do say so myself.

My haul of beauty bargain buys.

1 & 2.
St Moriz Instant self tanning mousse in Dark - 200ml
St Moriz Instant self tanning mist in Medium - 150ml

I found myself running out of fake tan, so needed a bit of a top up. I decided to go with my trusty cheap and cheerful(also very popular!) brand, St Moriz, so popped down to my local Home Bargains. I picked up the foam and the mist as I was running low on both. They are usually both priced at £2.99 a bottle. I get really good results with St Moriz and the price is definitely great for the size of the products. Both bottles were ticketed for half the price as they didn't have their lids! As you can see they were not sampled in the shop so for half the price I was certainly not leaving without them!!

RRP: £6.98 for both.
Paid: £2.98 for both.

3.
Kylie Minogue Darling 30ml.

Me and my other half had gone into ASDA to pick up some bits for tea and the inner magpie in me saw a super pretty, shiny, pink box on a stand at the end of an aisle. Upon closer inspection I realised they had a massive reduction on a selection of their perfumes. I picked up this one as I know its a stunning scent, which would be perfect for daytime wear. Plus I absolute love the packaging and its looks gorgeous sat on my dressing table!

RRP: £10
Paid: £6.50

4.
White Glo Extra Strength Whitening Toothpaste Professional Choice - 100ml

I'm pretty sure every girl who contributes to this blog has tried this toothpaste. We were sent it as a sample product when we were in More! magazines beauty hot 100! Now, I personally would not pay the best part of £4 for what is claimed to be a whitening toothpaste, when you can pick them up for the £1 mark, without definite proof that it does what it claims to do! (Possibly the cheapskate coming out in me?!) However, when I used this as part of a tried and tested I had noticeable results within a week. My teeth were definitely dramatically whiter by the time the tube had run out. Unfortunately I did not keep up with the use of the product and as a result my teeth did not keep up their beutiful whiteness! When I saw this toothpaste had 1/3 off in boots, I snapped one up. The toothpaste comes with its own anti-stain toothbrush and pack of flossers. A small snippet of information from the boots website - 'The White Glo formula was originally developed for people in the film industry who require utmost facial beautification.' Well, if its good enough for them, its good enough for me!!

RRP: £3.99
Paid: £2.66

5.
Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation in Desert Beige - 30ml

Since my teenage years I have been an avid user of drugstore foundations. The results of a baby, getting older and smoking have taken its toll on my skin, so I was looking for something more! I asked around and researched and decided to go and get a sample of this foundation. Needless to say I was sold!! £27.50 is a bit steep for foundation in my opinion but the results are priceless! When Debenhams had their 10% off, I picked up a bottle in my correct shade.

RRP: £27.50
Paid: £24.75

6.
Max Factor Vibrant Curve Lipgloss in 'Understated' -

If you've never heard of Social Discount Network, I suggest you add them on facebook or head over to their website right now! They have new deals up daily, though they are not a groupon style website. I do find them a bit hit and miss but some of the deals they offer are amazing. I've had about 10 items off them in the past month, this being one of them! I actually bought it because I was already purchasing something off the website so for an extra 99p, I was snapping one up! Its a clear lipgloss, though quite watery so does need topping up more often but it lacks that god awful 'hair stick to face'ness about it! The lipgloss has a very subtle glitter to it and it smells absolutely divine! It's not something i'd pick up full price but for 99p, it was definitely worth it.

RRP: £7.99
Paid: 99p

7.
SleepeZzze rollers. - 20 pieces.

I LOVE big hair. I HATE the faff that comes with achieving big hair!! If the name doesn't give it away, these are sleep in rollers! I've been wanting to try some for a while now, but non I have come across have been in my budget. When I saw this pack of 20 for just £2.99, I almost exploded with excitment! Achieve big, voluminous locks whilst you sleep. What can be better than that?!! I'm yet to try these so not sure how well they work, but i'll be sure to update when I do! If anyone has any tips for sleep in rollers please leave a comment below!
RRP: £15.99
Paid: £2.99

8.
Charles Worthington, Salon at home. Shine booster kit.

Good hair is very important to me. Admittedly I don't have much time to do my hair so it is often scraped back or in a bun, but I do appreciate shiny, healthy looking hair. I was debating between this kit and the Repair kit in Home bargains but ultimately the shine won, that inner magpie again! This was an absolute steal at £3.99 as it currently sells in boots for £19.99! I certainly would not have paid that for it. The box says it does 4 applications which is pretty fair for the price paid. I'm yet to use this too however it smells beautiful! i'm definitely looking forward to doing so and hoping I achieve super shiny looking locks.

RRP: £19.99
Paid: £3.99

Total RRP: £92.44
Total Paid: £44.86
Savings: £47.58

Have you picked up any bargains recently? Or maybe you've tried a product listed? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
xxx

Nad's Facial Wand Eyebrow Shaper

I got sent this lovely product and I could not wait to try it. Unfortunately, the day I got it I had just tweezed my eyebrows. I apologise for lack of pictures.

Here is the packaging of the Australian brand Nad's. 

£5.10 available at Boots, Superdrug and Tesco

In the box you get the pre-filled gel "Slim-Tip" applicator, four cleansing wipes and waxing strips.

Nad's is a brand that originated in Australia in 1992 which specialises in hair removal. This product is specifically for eyebrows but can be used on all facial hair. I used it on my eyebrows after I had a little bit of growth. 

The gel was not too sticky and smelt really fresh which I really liked and it was so much cleaner than waxing. It works just like a wax, apply the gel, put the strip on, rub down and pull off quickly. It surprisingly didn't hurt and didn't leave lots of residue like some at-home waxing systems can. The gel removed a lot of my little fair hairs that I find it hard to tweeze but it left a few thicker which were quick enough to just pluck out.

I'd recommend this product for someone with thinner facial hair that isn't too dark. 

Rating: 6/10

Eye Love Lashes - Eylure Individual Lashes Review

Hello Beauties! 

Having never been happy with my natural lashes, I have gone through many a pair of fake lashes in my time but until now I had never tried individual lashes. Eylure Individual Lashes Knot Free - Mini Pack are my new best friend!

Having always found intricate and fiddly tasks difficult I was put off by the application process with individual lashes, thinking I could get the same effect with strip lashes in half the time - I was wrong! Yes, individual lashes are hard to apply. Did I have to enlist the help of my Mum when I reached breaking point? Yes, but the end result is most definitely worth it. 

Before

After

Something I have never considered before is the movement of fake lashes, after using individuals I have realised that strip lashes tend to feel very stiff and when wearing big lashes, lets face it girls, we can end up blinking like a doll all night. With individual lashes the movement is much more natural, despite what length they can't be felt brushing against the eyelid and after a while you forget you even have them on. Another positive, compared to strip lashes, is that the individuals can be placed where appropriate and there is no faffing about rolling lashes round a make up brush to try and create a natural curve in the strip as apposed to the set shape  - I have always found this a problem. 

After trying Eyelure Individual Lashes I doubt I will ever use strip lashes again. Not only do they come in different lengths, in this mini-pack I received both short and medium, they are knot free. That's right beauties, finally knot free lashes. There is nothing worse than being able to see tiny knots along a girls lashes like clumps of mascara! Now obviously each lash is made up of a cluster of approximately 3-4 lashes so the thickness of these can be seen by a trained eye but in my opinion they are much less noticeable than other strip or knot lashes. 

After - NO KNOTS :)

As you can see the glue that comes with the lashes is translucent which I much preferred, though it initially has a strong odour the glue dries invisible and no time at all; unlike other tacky white glues that never fully dry at all. In my opinion the mini-pack, which include 24 lashes, provides the perfect amount of lashes for one application and are very affordable at around £5.00. These lashes can also easily be used again as they can be removed with any average eye make up remover which also removes glue from the lashes itself. 

Glue & 24 lashes 

As you can tell, I am very pleased with the results of these lashes. I have been so jealous in the past who have had professional eyelash extensions and I can honestly say I feel these Eyelure Individual lashes provide a very similar effect. 

So don't be put off by the application process, in the end I was able to reapply the lashes myself but it does take a bit of getting used to. The lashes are easier to apply when the eye is closed so unless you're a dab hand maybe enlist the help of a friend or family member. 

So get out and give them a try! 

Jessica :)

Do you believe in WITCH ?

Another BB cream review? Yep, with a difference. 

I must firstly admit, I would have walked past this in the shop. Let me tell you why, nothing against Witch! My reason is of all the BB (Blemish Balm, not to be confused with a spot cream!) Creams I have tried they have been too dark for pale Scottish skin. All of them. Some look great online and in the store but not on my face! 

So I tried it, and oh my. I love it! Firstly I was sceptical as when I put the product on my hand it did appear a little orange toned. I reached for my Real Techniques buffing brush and begin slowly blending the product on to my face and straight away it did what it claimed. 

• Evens out skin tone
• Smooths and Hydrates with providing an immediate visible improvement in the appearance of your skin. 

It covered my redness which I am prone to, and settled on to my face nicely giving me a light to medium coverage. Also, Witch anti-blemish BB cream has SPF15, is oil free and fragrance free. Bonus! I've used the product every day since kindly receiving it and will defiantly repurchase and also try other Witch products based on this. I would really recommend this product for the coming summer(I hope!) weather and generally to anyone who wants the coverage but not to look like they are wearing makeup, perfect for those at school with another bonus of the added witch hazel extract to help keep those blemish's away. You can purchase Witch Anti-Blemish BB Cream from Boots at a bargain price of £6.99! My only flaw with this product, is although it suits my skin tone perfectly (thank you!) , as far as I know it is only currently available in the one shade. 

I believe in WITCH! 

Would you swap your foundation for a BB cream?