Small Boots Haul

I went and spent some Boots points the other day, so here is the results of my little spree. 
I really only went in with the idea of getting a pale coloured nail polish - preferably a grey one. I definitely didn't plan to get most of this. 

I noticed these new blushers from Collection that looked pretty cool so I decided to get one of them, if they are good then I'll be sure to get more. They claim to be mistake proof, and I suck so badly at blusher so we'll soon see if they live up to their claims. 

The only things I planned on getting were these nail polishes, the colours look so lovely on and I've decided the Rimmel Rita Ora one is my new favourite (its in the shade Rain Rain Go Away). Its just such a lovely pale grey purple shade. The Barry M one is in the shade Almond (I think...) 

Final two things now, both are contour kits - why I thought I needed two is beyond me. The first kit I saw was the Seventeen Define & Conquer Contour Kit and the other is the new Maybelline Mastersculpt kit in the shade light medium. Hopefully my pale skin doesn't look orange with these...

Have you bought anything new recently? 

Benefit Fine One One | Review

This is actually something I bought a fair while ago, and only really got used to using recently. I honestly have no idea why it took me so long to use - its bloody amazing, pretty much fool proof and gives you the prettiest shade of colour ever! 
Everything about this product is perfect, when I say perfect I mean it. The packaging is so pretty, even by Benefits standards. It's compact, and rose gold. I mean come on, what more could you want - it is stunning! 

The product itself is made up of three different colours, a champaney highlight colour, a pink and a coral orange. Am I making much sense? I know the way I've described it probably isn't selling you on how it looks but believe me, its so worth spending the pennies on. 

I tend to layer it up a wee bit, giving maybe three swipes and blending out. The Real Techniques Buffing brush is ideal for this - this brush was made for it. The colour is really sheer, despite how it first looks when you open it up, so you might want to build it up a wee bit to get a colour you like. 
I don't think there's anyway that you'll be able to fully appreciate this without trying it in person. So go, go now, and give this ago! If you're looking for something to add to your Christmas list then this might be something? 

★

Starting Off: Blusher

Hello, so this weeks catch up post is for blushers. Blush is't something everyone loves, I used to hate wearing blush - I could never get it to look right. But I do think blush is something everyone should have at least one.

I'm probably still considered a blush novice, at least I would consider myself to be one. Despite this, I do have a heck of a lot of blushes - I think I have 6 or 7..... I only really started to wear blush over the past 8 or so months - mainly because Pixiwoo have a really good and helpful video for applying blush, highlight and bronzer. It was really helpful and after watching it, I got into using and wearing blush a heck of a lot more. I also started buying so many blushes...

Blush is good for making you look a little more alive - not the best way to put it, but for me this is what it does. It just gives you a healthy glow, which is always good for me - especially when I used to get asked if I wasn't feeling well because I was so pale.

All the blushes I own are in powder form, but you can get them in cream forms. Blushes also come in different finishes - matte, shimmer and even some with a highlight aspect in them. I think I have something from all of the finishes, I love my Milani blush and that one is a highlighty type one. For everyday wear, maybe not the best - but hey, I've never been one for following the trends.

When applying blusher, I would say the trick is to be light handed with it. If you want to add more you can always do so easily - trying to fix adding too much is a heck of a lot harder.

I hope this post was some what helpful, and you enjoyed reading. 

Whats the blush you love the most?

★

Physicians Formula Happy Booster Blusher

Every time I've seen the Physicians Formula Happy Booster Blusher I have died a little inside. The blush looks so beautiful, the little pink hearts looks so lovely - I have the colour Rose. Now that I have it I'm a little scared to use it, I don't want to remove the hearts. I thought I would first talk about the packaging since its so pretty. The compact is a metallic hot pink, its quite similar in size to the Milani baked blushers. When you lift up the blusher part, you find a section that has a mirror and holds the brush it came with. I probably won't use the brush, as I'll just use my own blush brush but I suppose its nice if you were travelling to have the option.

The design on the blush is the nicest thing I've ever seen on a make-up product. When I see the hearts start to fade I may give a little cry, seems like a crime to remove the design. The hearts come in different colours from hot pink to light pink and there's even a couple of brown ones.

The product is very lightly scented, I think it smells a bit like roses. You would only really notice the scent if you practically stuck your nose right in it. The colour of the product did worry me slightly as in the pan it looks like quite a dark pink - I feared the clown look. Not to worry though, the colour doesn't seem to be overly pigmented (good thing or bad thing?) so you only get a light pink colour with the tiniest bit of shimmer running through it. You could build the colour up and get a darker pink, but for me I'm more than happy with a light pink. This is the type of blush that I think almost anyone could get away with wearing, you could get both a light and a dark blush look from this - so there is something to suit almost everyone.

Have you tried anything from Physicians Formula? 

★

Milani Baked Blush

I'm not a huge fan of blush. It looks pretty in the pan, but whenever I try to use it, well it seems to go horribly wrong. Most of the time I steer clear of it for fear of looking like I've been slapped in the face/ look like a clown, other times I'm in a panic trying to fix the horrible mess I've made on my face.

For a couple of weeks now I've been playing around with this blusher and I've so far not had a bad experience with it. This wonderful blush is by Milani, its one of the baked powder blushes in the colour Luminoso.

The blush is a beautiful soft peach colour, with tiny little bits of gold shimmer running through it. It gives the skin a health radiant glow, it's a beautiful blush that I think would go with most skin tones. The pigmentation of this blush is amazing, the lightest swipe of your finger ( and your brush ) and you get the beautiful colour showing up so well. The blushes feel so soft and silky, they blend really well even if you put too much on you could easily fix it.

I don't own many blushes, so I can't really compare it to any. Although it is one of my favourites now, the packaging looks really classy - gold shiny and sleek. I think it looks beautiful, some may say a little bulky, but I think this is quite compact in comparison to some other ones.
This blush is so beautiful, why we don't have them in the UK is beyond me. They would fly off the shelves if they came here! I would love to try some more of these, and hope that in the future Milani come to the UK!

★

Blog Swap

A couple of months ago I got in touch with Zoe offering to send her some of the products that she featured in her international wishlist post. We decided it would be cool to do a swap, that way we both get to try products that we can't get our hands on. There are so many products I'd love to get my hands on American products but postage prices make it near impossible to do.
I had a lot of fun picking out what I was going to send Zoe, and had just as much fun packing it all up. I was really excited sending it off, I get overly excited when giving people gifts. When Zoe told me her box had arrived I was so happy, I was really excited for her to see what was inside - and I was really excited to see her thoughts on it. It made me even more excited for my box to come through!
Zoe received her box 2 days before I received mine. And I was really excited when it came through - my mum was even excited to see what was inside.
When I opened the box there was a lovely little note from Zoe, it was so sweet and now makes me feel bad that my note to her was so rubbish. 100 million thank you's to you Zoe! ( I had no trouble reading your note, your writing is lovely). On most - if not all - of the items Zoe had left little notes with little bits of info on her feelings on the items or why she bought them.
To say I'm excited to try out these products would be an understatement! Any free time I have will be spent playing around with all these items.
Lets get on to talking about zee items!

The first things I opened were a little sweetie and a keyring, It was really sweet and thoughtful of Zoe to include these and I wish I had thought to do the same!(next time I shall!) This picture really doesn't do justice how lovely the keyring is - it has already found its home with my house keys.

In the same little bubble wrapped package was a Wet N Wild Colour Icon trio, I've wanted to try something like this for ages! It seems like the perfect way to get into eye-shadow since each colour is labelled so you know where it should go on your eye. The colours are lovely neutrals - just my cup of tea.

The next thing was a Maybelline Colour Whisper, we don't get these in the UK yet so I asked Zoe if she could get me one. The colour is Berry Ready which is a beautiful berry toned red - perfect for the winter months! I wish it was acceptable to use smiley faces in blog posts, this one would most definitely be covered in ":D".  The packaging is really pretty, I would say cute but I doubt many people would agree with me, its quite dinky so should fit perfectly in my little storage drawer.

The next item I unwrapped was a Milani lipstick. For whatever reason I hadn't thought of Milani making lipsticks - silly me - I was honestly under the impression they only did their amazing blushes (thank you Zoe). The colour of this is Plumrose, and I have to say but this lipstick smells bloody amazing!! It smells like a sweet, but for the life of me I can't remember what one... The colour is a lovely dusty/ vintage pink? Or dark pinky/ purple? I'm not sure, but it is a lovely colour. Not one I'd usually go for but I really like the way it looks on, and so does my mum. (I can smell the beautiful smell while wearing it, heheheh)

Apologies for the dark photos, but these are the next things I got. I love shadow pencils, they are such an easy way to add a little bit of colour to your lids. So these Wet n Wild ones will be getting an awful lot of love and attention. Zoe got me the colours Graphite and Pixie. Zoe said that she has the lighter coloured one and that its a great inner corner colour - I've been trying to find a really lovely inner corner colour for ages so I'll definitely be trying this for that. Graphite looks to be a really dark brown, I do love me some good brown shadows.

The camera has not picked up the colour properly at all! But anyway, another eye pencil! ( :D ) I fear soon I may need a separate drawer just for eye shadow pencils! This one is by NYX and is one of their Jumbo Eye Pencils. We can get NYX over here, but I think we can only get it online - not the best when yo can't physically see the colour so I've never actually placed an order before. Filled my basket up many a time but never actually purchased. I think if I enjoy using this then it'll be the little push I needed to actually buy some stuff. (so many "actually's" there) the colour in the picture looks really brown, but its actua more of a champagne pink colour, in the shade Yogurt. I think this will be a good colour for days when I only want a light wash of colour. Unfortunately the cello tape held on really tightly to the pencil and took a little of the white paint stuff off the packaging. Sad face.

This NYX Mosaic powder, is like nothing I've ever seen. Also is it a blush? Is it a bronzer? I'm not really sure, I thought it was a blusher till I realised it said powder.... It's in the colour Peachy - further making me think its a blusher. I'm going to have to have a little play about with this to try find what its best suited for, I'm going to have so much fun with this. It is a lovely colour though and I will make it work for me.

As soon as I saw the packaging for this I started saying "oh my god" over and over again. I also may have squealed and bounced about. To be honest with you, I don't know why I've wanted one of these for so long or even as much as I have. It could just be the beautiful packaging - that's actually probably exactly what it is. But none the less, I am really, super, no, immensely excited to use this!It really is a Happy Booster, since I was really happy before I saw this and afterwards - well I was over the moon.

This Milani blusher is possibly the most beautiful colour of blush that I have ever seen. This had me "ooooing" when I saw it. Milani blushers are always talked about by American bloggers and YouTubers and I've wanted to try them for so long! This is such a beautiful colour, Thank you Zoe!! The blush is in the colour Luminoso, I can't wait to see how it looks on! 

Wet n Wild seems like such an amazing brand, and this lipstick looks like such a beautiful colour. The shade is Purty Persimmon, it is such a lovely orange red colour. Beautiful!

Zoe had said that these were the best knock offs for Bath and Body Works, and my oh my. If these are knock offs then I wonder how good the real things are. This body mist smells heavenly, its by essence of Beauty, I think... Zoe said she got this scent so that I could have a little reminder of the Caribbean. In the winter I think this will be lovely and fresh and a lovely reminder of the sunny weather that will be back (hopefully). 

I love hand sanitizer, and Zoe got me a hand sanitiser in the same scent. I'll be taking this with me to university with me so I can have clean hands all the time! Yay for hand sanitiser, the smell is so lovely and fresh.

Another thing from the scent range is a hand cream, this will probably also makes its way into my school bag. Now that winter is coming my hands are going to need a little moisture boost, this shall do the job nicely. 

The final item is a face mask. I love face masks and finding a good one is brilliant! Zoe says she really likes this one, and said it removes all the dirty stuff on your face. This makes me really excited to try this, if I like it I'll have to try find out where I can get it from in the UK. 

Thank you again Zoe, I love everything and I hope you enjoy everything you received as well! 

I hope you've enjoyed this post and please check out Zoe's blog, you'll love her blog and her just as much as I do. 

Have you tried out any of these items? What do you think of them? 

★

Sleek Contour Palette

I've seen people all over YouTube talk about Sleek make-up and was always really interested in trying it out for myself.  I was overly impressed with all the products they had, and I had to restrain myself from buying everything in sight. I bought the contour kit, since I was in need of a highlighter and that had one in it.

For £9.99 this is a total steal, bargain or however else you want to say cheap for what you get. I think the highlight of the product is the blush and the highlighter. I would probably say the contour powder is brilliant as well, but I'm terrified to use it, just in case I turn myself brown, looking like I've smeared mud all over my face.

The palette has a huge mirror in it, which would be perfect to take in a make-up bag. The pigmentation of the products is pretty good, the blush is the most amazing colour.

The blush is a beautiful pinky/red with a lot of gold through it, it looks beautiful on. It makes you look very glowy and healthy. The highlight is a lovely champagne colour, it looks amazing under the brow bone and on top of the cheek bone. The contour colour now that I've swatched it doesn't seem as scary as it looks in the palette. I think I'm going to play about with it a bit and see if I can become friends with it.

I really like this palette for the price you get so much and it is very high quality. I'm really wanting to try other things by Sleek, if you have any ideas on what I should try next then please leave it in the comments I would love to know what products you like. :)

★