Cruelty free haul- skincare

Cruelty free skincare time!
I treated myself to a few new cleansers and a moisturiser from Lush in Belfast and the Body Shop Online.
I got:

The Body Shop Camomile Sumptuous Cleansing Butter £12 (but I got it on a deal for 40% off, free postage and a mystery free gift) Click here to buy

The smell of this is amazing! It is good at taking makeup off, but it does take a bit of getting used to, if you've never used Cleansing balms before. I'm torn between this and the Lush cleansing balm I got below, because this is more expensive and it's quite hard compared to Ultrabland, but does smell nicer. 

The Body Shop Vitamin E Moisture Cream £11 (but it was free for me!) click here to buy

This face cream is lovely!! I have really dry skin and it moisturises so well. 

Lush Angels on Bare Skin £6.40 

click here to buy

This is my new favourite cleanser scrub! It has cleared up my skin quite a bit too. I would use this in the mornings and use a cleansing balm in the evenings. 

And a little sample of Ultrabland click here to buy

This cleansing balm is nice, it's like putting soft butter on your face! Strange, but it removes all your makeup and leaves your face a bit of moisture too. 

I'm quite pleased with all of the products I bought, and they are all cruelty free too which is an added bonus! 

I absolutely ADORE Lush, and I can't wait for the Christmas stuff to come in! I have a wishlist made for it and for the Body Shop! 

What do you think of Cruelty free skincare?

Cruelty free wishlist

After seeing my pitifully small stash of cruelty free cosmetics, I realised I really need to buy some new stuff! So this is what I will buy when I've used up some of my current makeup.

Foundation

£14

http://www.beautifulmovementscosmetics.com/internal/products.cfm?foundation

I love this brand, and their lipgloss is fantastic, so I would really like to see if their other products are as good. You can order little samples of their foundations too and see which colour is the best. 

Concealer 

£10

http://www.soapandglory.com/makeup/kick-ass-concealer

Soap and Glory is famous for their bath stuff, so you can forget that they sell makeup too!! I've heard great things about this concealer, and I love that it has a little setting powder too! 

Bronzer

 

£13

http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/make-up/bronzing/honey-bronze-bronzing-powder.aspx

This product looks so cute with it's wee honeycomb pattern, and it also comes in a very light shade which is perfect for my milk white Northern Irish skin!

Eyeshadow

£14.50

https://www.lush.co.uk/products/happiness 

I am obsessed with Lush, but funnily enough I've never tried their cosmetics! This colour looks gorgeous as well, so I think this would be a great first buy. 

Lipstick 

£4.99 

http://www.barrym.com/products/lips/gelly-lips-1/gelly-lips.html

Barry M is an amazing brand, and after testing some of these lip things (is it a stick? gloss? I've no idea) in Superdrug the other day, I think they would be great!

I'm glad that these brands are cruelty free, it makes my change a lot easier! 

Switching to Cruelty-free cosmetics

Prepare yourself to cry:

I have just decided to switch to Cruelty-free cosmetics(because of so many different reasons, not least the absolute wrongness of supporting animal testing), but I'm struggling because it's a bit confusing!

So basically 'not tested on animals' means
-not testing on animals (duh)

BUT it also means:
-not being owned by a company that does (because then animal testing is still being funded)
-not selling in China (because to sell in China you are required by law to test on animals)

So, it depends on each person what your definition of cruelty free is, but anything with this symbol fits all of the above criteria.

http://jesseanneo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/whats-that-bunny-saying-makeup-and.html

This link really explains the symbols well! 

So, I'm using up my current makeup and stuff before I replace them with cruelty free options.

Check http://www.gocrueltyfree.org/ out, and see what you think of going cruelty free!

Copper eyeshadow

Copper is one of my favourite eyeshadow colours,i t's really pretty on blue eyes, and I just love metallic eyeshadows.

Products I used 

Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer in Warm Medium 

 Benefit Stay don't Stray Eye primer 

Sleek Eye Dust in Inferno 

MUA Undress me too Palette - copper shade 

Maybelline Gel Liner in Black 

Collection Eyebrow pencil in Blonde

Maybelline the Falsies mascara

Hope you liked this post! 

Autumn Resolutions

Instead of New Years Resolutions (let's be real, no one keeps to them) I've decided to do Autumn Resolutions/Back to Uni Resolutions!!

- Obligatory Fitness Resolution 
Get fit- isn't that a resolution staple? I've tried ToneItUp in the past, and it was really good so I'd try this again and stick to it this time... maybe

- Use more colour in makeup 
I'm thinking Urban decay Vice palette instead of Naked palette etc

- Learn Mandarin
I am a language junkie. I absolutely love learning new ones, and mandarin seems so interesting and challenging!

- Take things away from my Pinterest beauty wishlist 
I have a Beauty wishlist on Pinterest that is ridiculously big, so I would like to try some things from it and take those pins away rather than adding new products I would like to try.

- Make all the recipes on my Pinterest recipe list 
Pinterest is like a disease, it takes over your life!!! My recipe list is about 120 long, so I would need to get started!!

What are your resolutions?

This week's haul

 This week I got 4 new products, so I decided to share them with you!

I got: 

MUA Matte Lipstick in peachy keen http://www.muastore.co.uk/matte-lipstick-peachy-keen

BareMinerals Bareskin Foundation in Bare Linen http://www.bareminerals.co.uk/bareSkin-Pure-Brightening-Serum-Foundation-SPF20/UKmasterbareskin,en_GB,pd.html

Sleek Eye Dust in Inferno http://www.sleekmakeup.com/eye-dust-inferno

Benefit They're Real push up liner http://www.benefitcosmetics.co.uk/product/view/theyre-real-push-up-liner

The only product I actually bought was the MUA lipstick, it was £1 from Superdrug.(BARGAIN)

I was given the Sleek eye dust by a friend, and the other 2 were free samples. Boots had an offer on, if you went to a Benefit counter there, you could swap any old eyeliner for a sample of their new gel liner, so of course I had to take advantage of this!

The Bareminerals sample came via the post, but you can also get a sample at Bareminerals counters too. 

So far, I really like all of these products!! The Eye dust and lipstick are gorgeous colours (as you can see below), and the eyeliner and foundation are quite good products too!
The eyeliner takes a bit of getting used to, and by the time you've got the hang of it, the tiny sample has run out!
The foundation is nice, it's very natural and quite light coverage. I would like to try the special brush that BareMinerals have developed to use with the foundation.

Left- Sleek Eye dust 

Right- MUA lipstick 

 Hope you liked this post!

That's it!

I've posted all of my content from my old blog, so from now on it's new stuff!


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Benefit lipgloss... oh how I love thee

Last Christmas was probably the best Christmas of my life. Why? Because of the sheer amount of Benefit makeup that came into my life. 

First, was a few cheeky purchases at the counter in Belfast (and one in Spain too) 

Elle magazine gave out free Benefit lipglosses with each issue 

Then, I splashed out on the AMAZINGLY FANTASTIC Benefit advent calendar, which added a good 25 products to my collection 

And from Santa, I received the gift pack of lipglosses. 

All in all, a successful December I would say. 

So, I'm going to show you my lipglosses from Benefit. 

These are not full sized, they are all 6.5ml, so they're half of the full sized, as they all came as either a free gift in a magazine, the advent calendar( everything in this was deluxe sample sized) or in the gift pack. 

 

Benefit ultra plush lip gloss in (L-R) 

Icebreaker (clear) 

A-lister (baby pink) 

Poutrageous (coral pink) 

Fauxmance (dark pink)

Lollipop (barbie pink) 

Kiss you (lilac)

Ultra plush lipglosses in (L-R)  

Dandelion (light pink)

Sugarbomb (glittery pink)

Coralista (coral)

Hoola  (bronze)

 My absolute favourites and must buys are dandelion and lollibop. 

If you are going to buy a lipgloss, I would go for one of the Ultra plush at the top, because they have better colours. The ultra plush that correspond to a blush are really quite see through, and don't do much more than add a tiny hint of colour. That being said, all of the lipglosses are good in that they're not sticky at all, the packaging is really cute, and they have some nice colours. But, at £14.50, they are maybe better left for Christmas wishlists! 

First Impressions

This post is about my trip to Boots on Friday, and my thoughts on what I bought! (oooh that rhymes) 

This was my wee haul: 

First, Lasting perfection concealer in warm medium

An absolute staple and favourite of the beauty blogger world! I had tried this many moons ago, maybe when I was 14 and I hated it, because it was too pale and too much coverage. Collection have either changed the formula since then or I have realised the benefits of a good coverage concealer, (I think it may be the second, 21 year old skin is VERY different to 14 year old!) 

This concealer is fabulous! It is amazing on under-eyes and on redness, and is really thick. 

Secondly, eyebrow pencil in blonde
I have so much trouble trying to up my eyebrow game. I always feel like my brows look WAY too dark when I put products on them, and this pencil did make my eyebrows look very very solid! But, having said that, if you wipe the excess off after, this is a pretty decent eyebrow pencil! 

Thirdly, super size mascara

I didn't actually pay money for this, it was free with a purchase of over £5.
I am so fussy with mascara, and I have 3 staple mascaras that I hardly ever deviate from (I'll show you which in a later post) so I very rarely try new mascaras because the bar is set so high. 

Having said that, this mascara was actually surprisingly good!!! It lengthened my lashes quite a bit, and it volumised them a bit too.

I'm glad I tried these products, and now I think I'll have to try some more Collection stuff!! 

MUA Heaven and Earth Palette

Today I'm going to show you my 2 favourite looks from this MUA palette.
This is definitely the best value palette, it's available from superdrug for £4!! http://www.superdrug.com/Make-up-3-for-2/MUA-Eyeshadow-Palette-Heaven-And-Earth/p/267771#.VAxjcPldWSo
Unlike the MUA palette (and most other palettes) the eyeshadows don't have names so I've numbered them for easiness.

Look 1
This look is made up of the gold eyeshadows in this palette. I prefer gold, bronze and copper eyeshadows because they work best with my eyes.
  so using this little diagram, I'm going to describe how I did this.
First of all, I put 4 all over my eyelid, so a-e was covered.
Then, I applied 6 all over a and c. This was quite a harsh line, so I blended it out at the crease.
Next, I put 5 at c and d, in a sort of triangle shape. Again, this was a terribly harsh line, so it needed blending more. I also added some more 4 over the top to have some more gold colour.
Lastly, I put 1 at b and e to highlight.
Normally at this stage,I'd also put on eyeliner, but I wanted to show off the palette by itself.

Look 2
This look was more brown toned, and more neutral in colours.

 Again, using this diagram and the above labelled palette to show you this look!
I used 9 to colour the entire eyelid, a-e
Then, I used 10 all over a, and blended it at the crease (blending is key with all eyeshadow)

 Next, I used 12 on c and d and yet again, blended it!
And lastly, I used 1 on b and e to highlight (this helps make your eyes look bigger and your eyebrows look better)

                       

 

hope you enjoyed this! (and please ignore my yucky skin!

Primers

For years I used makeup without applying a primer first, and I never thought anything of it until I got a sample primer and decided to try it out. THEY ARE AMAZING!! Since then, I never apply foundation without a primer first, and I've tried out quite a few! So, now here are my top 3 face primers:

1. Benefit- The Porefessional

This primer is absolutely amazing!!! I use it EVERYDAY, it smoothes, minimises pores, and takes away shine, up until the end of the day

http://www.benefitcosmetics.co.uk/product/view/the-porefessional 

2. Smashbox- Photo Finish 

This primer is lovely, it makes your makeup look fantastic and there are many different types, such as hydrating, colour correcting, luminizing etc, so check it out! http://www.smashbox.co.uk/products/6038/Face/Primer/index.tmpl

3. Benefit- That Gal

This primer is fantastic, but it is better used by itself as it brightens your skin, so it's a bit silly to put makeup over the top! It smells gorgeous, and moisturises your skin too. 

http://www.benefitcosmetics.co.uk/product/view/that-gal 

Sorry that they're all quite high-end products, but I think that it is best to spend a little more and get something really good quality. But, that's not to say that high-street products are bad quality! If you have any recommendations for other primers, comment them below, I'd love to hear them!

Whoops

So, I am indecisive.
Very indecisive.
So indecisive that I changed my blog name.

Oh well!
So, I am going to move the few posts that were on my other blog here, and then start posting new content afterwards.

Enjoy!!! (again)