Matte berry nails

I love berry shades especially in the winter I think wine, berry and burgundy shades come into their own. I haven't painted my nails in a long time as they've become a little bit short and also I must admit I have been a bit lazy and just couldn't be bothered.

I used these this Barry M shade in Raspberry and a Rimmel London matte top coat to create this. 

I used two coats of the Barry M colour and then when they were tacky and almost dry I then used the matte top coat and waited about twenty to thirty minutes until my nails were fully dried to do normal things again.

Ta da! The finished look. 

Here's a closer shot. I really love the matte effect.

What's your favourite winter colours? 

Thanks for reading I hope you liked this post! Love, A x. 

Sleek face form contouring kit review

Hello! I hope you're all well and have had a lovely weekend! A few months ago I bought the Sleek contour, highlight and blush kit in light. Before I purchased this I had seen it floating about and I heard a lot of very good reviews about it so decided to take the plunge. Beforehand I hadn't really tried contouring, I always found it really fascinating how you could practically transform your entire face and bone structure.

First of I shall mention that this kit comes with a bronzer/contour which is a very matte colour. A highlight and a pink blush. I got this for £9.99 from Superdrug.

I actually really like the packaging for this, like the name, I think this kit looks very simple and sleek. I am so clumsy so automatically feel a bit nervous holding this in case I drop it and everything inside breaks up. Inside there is also a mirror too which I don't use, I feel I need a larger mirror as I'm not very good at it..yet!

Here's the inside. I really like the contour and highlight shades but I feel the blush is a little too pink and glittery for my liking.  So if I do use it I use it very, very sparingly. 

As you can see all the shades are incredibly pigmented.

I started off with no make up whatsoever on here.

I've applied a collection concealer under my eyes and on my blemishes. Then I applied a light layer of Rimmel London Wake Me Up foundation. I then used a Real techniques angled brush to apply the contour underneath my cheekbones as I've sucked in my cheeks while pulling 'duck face'. I applied the contour on my jawline and on my temples too to give my face a slimmer appearance. It gives a really nice sculpted and well defined effect. 

I apply the highlight above the contour, down my nose, on my Cupid's bow and beneath my eyebrow arch. It is a very light, glittery pearl shade. It gives your face a lovely, natural glow. 

I then apply the blush to the apples of my cheeks and blend well. 

You can see the defined line down my cheek bone. I really like this kit although I'm not very good at contouring yet so with time I hope I'll get a bit better and will be able to challenge Kim K in the contouring stakes!

Have you tried this contour kit? If so what do you think of it? 

I hope you liked this post, love A x.

Some bits from Miners Cosmetics

The very lovely people over at Miners Cosmetics send me their products to sample and review every month or so and I am incredibly lucky to be able to say that and also that we've had this partnership for about two years now. I am a big fan of their products (and I'm not just saying that) I used their eye shadows and concealer to death!

So this month I received a nice parcel after a long day at work and I was so excited to rip it open and try the new goodies inside. 

This month's package featured the new Autumn/Winter edition of the Unique You magazine and four new samples perfect for this season picked out by their brand ambassador, Hayley Sparkes. 

Here is the latest magazine, I'm looking forward to flicking through this on a lazy evening in. 

I received: 

A liquid liner 

A powder eyeshadow 

A lipstick 

A kohl pencil eye liner 

Starting off with the liquid eyeliner. I like that it comes in a small, hard plastic tube so it's easy to transport and pop in your clutch bag if you're going out for the night. 

The colour of it is a really dark blue which at first I was a bit wary of. I usually only wear black eyeliner so it was nice to try this. I have very light blue eyes anyway so the dark blue against the light blue looked really edgy. 

The fluid comes out nicely. I personally prefer a thick, bold, statement eye look so with this you may need to apply the colour a few times to get the look you are happy with. 

The nib is quite small and thin making it more precise however I found it quite hard so irritated my eye so I had to be quite gentle the next time I used it. 

This is the colour after one dip into the tube and one swipe across my hand. 

Next onto the lipstick. 

The one I got sent is called Kiss Me Quick and is a lovely soft pink shade. 

This is a part of their moisture effect range. It feels so smooth and silky to apply and doesn't leave my lips feeling dry at all. 

This shade has lovely coral undertones so will work differently on everyone creating unique shades for the wearer. 

This is the kohl pencil eyeliner in the colour blue. This is a much lighter blue compared to the liquid eyeliner. It has quite a creamy, easy to apply consistency  which I like.  Like I mentioned before about the colour of the liquid liner, I'm a bit nervous about trying new and bold colours but I'm sure I'll pluck up the courage to try this on a night out.

Lastly is the eyeshadow dip and define in the shade Damson Dust. This unscrews, one end is an eyeshadow brush on the lid and the bottom is filled with a metallic eyeshadow powder. 

I think this is a such a good idea to have the brush and powder included as one. I really like the metallic purple shade of this. You could wear this on it's own or use a darker purple or bronze to create a smokey eye. 

I've swatched all of these products.  From left to right is : 

Dip and define eyeshadow powder 

Blue liquid eyeliner

Moisture effect lipstick 

Blue kohl eye pencil. 

Thanks for reading this post. I hope you liked it! Love, A x

Beetlejuice makeup tutorial

When I was younger and was far more into celebrating Halloween AKA Trick or Treating to get sweets I was never very creative with costumes. Often I'd have what I felt was the easy option, My dear Mum may say otherwise as she painted my face a vulgar, bright green as I became transformed into a witch. These days there are hundreds of different costume and make up ideas and what with becoming an adult no longer does Halloween mean dressing up in a scary outfit but dressing up in an outfit yet still looking pretty shamazing all at the same time.

Beetlejuice is such a classic Halloween movie and I wanted to emulate this with a cool make up idea perfect for a Halloween party or similar. I found this idea off of Pinterest and I'll link the original picture below.

So for this look here is a list of all the products I used: 

A black face paint

A white face paint

A purple eyeshadow 

A green shimmer dust but you can use facepaint

A black pencil eyeliner

A black mascara

A purple/deep red lip colour

Here is my attempt!! For a first go at this look I was actually pretty happy with it. 

Step one: I started off with my eyebrows. I have naturally very thick, dark eyebrows so wasn't too sure how I would go about making them green. I completely covered my eyebrows with pritt stick glue and then used my hairdryer to speed up the drying until it was tacky. I then, using my Barry M Dazzle Dust in shade 72 Emerald I dabbed it on using a thin brush. 

I was really pleased how that turned out. 

Step two: I started work on my eyes. Starting with my eye lids, which I completely covered with the dark purple colour. I used Bourjois Little round pot in the shade Brun Sompteux. It took a few strokes of my eyeshadow brush to really get the deep, glittery colour onto my lids. I then used a thinner, angled brush whilst using this eyeshadow to go underneath my eye too. I coloured in my waterline and lined my eyelid with Benefit's Bad Gal pencil eyeliner and coated my lashes with a 17 mascara called Superlash.

Step three: CAN I JUST ADD that I don't have any formal qualification in Art, Make up, Beauty etc so what I'm doing might not be the correct way to do things, I'm just having a go! Also the way I'm setting out these steps was just how I did it. I don't think there is a particular order in which this should be done. As you were. 

So for step three I began work on the black and white droplets coming off my neck. I used the black and white face paints for this. I picked those up in a Fancy Dress shop near me and I think they were about £2 each. I started off drawing black squiggly lines (very technical term I have for you there) and joining them up to create a droplet look.  I left a significant gap in between each one to make room for the white as well.  I then filled in each droplet with the white or the black paint. 

Step four: To create these lips I outlined my lips using a lip brush and the black face paint. I tried to make the cupid's bow look as prominent as possible. Once I had drawn the outline I filled in the colour using a Collection Lip Butter called Perfect Plum. 

I love this colour! Such a wintry shade.

Ta Da! So that is your Beetlejuice look all done! 

Thanks for reading. I hope you liked this post! Love, A x

Magenta and Silver

For my nails this week I used a Champneys polish in the shade Magenta which I got in a gift set from my mum for my birthday. As well as a Barry M nail polish effect in 319 silver foil. 

I painted all fingers apart from my ring finger in the Champneys colour and used the silver on that one. 

And a clearer picture of my nails beneath. 

I think they look really cool and glam! 

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post! Love, A x 

Just a little Boots Haul!

Hello!

I haven't posted in a while as I had some personal things going on, but I am back with a few more posts this week to get yourself a little dose of me in your lives ha! I hope you are well and are enjoying March so far.

Yesterday we popped into a bigger town not too far away and I made a pitstop in Boots and picked up a few bits. I got a lot of points vouchers through the post the other day and annoyingly I left them at home so I didn't get as many points as I would have liked.

Is this a bit of an odd thing to show, I'm not too sure..But most people use razors right?! Anyway I picked this one up as it was only £4ish. I haven't used this one before but my sister had and said it was good. 

I also picked this one up too as it was at a reduced price. I like to stock up and they were both a lot cheaper than usual so I kinda had too right ha! 

I got this Charles Worthington Mineral hair rescue masque for £1.99 as I haven't tried it before and my hair is looking a little dull and lack lustre at the moment. 

I got this Real Techniques sponge which I had seen many positive reviews on.

I really like this nail polish remover. I find it gets rid of tough polish really easily and it doesn't have that overly strong typical nail polish remover scent. I think this is my favourite one I've used so far.

After using Herbal Essence's Bee Shine shampoo and conditioner for the best part of a year. I really liked that one and made my hair feel so lovely, soft and left it smelling really good. So I thought I'd try something new and as I dyed my hair about a month ago I've noticed my hair has been looking a bit dull so I got this colour protect to hopefully revive it! 

I got this Rimmel London nail polish from the range by Rita Ora as I like the nude shade, I think it'll look really cool and understated. This colour is 513 Let's Get Nude.

I also picked up 212 by Carolina Herrera from a sample perfume gift set I got at Christmas. Out of about 10 different perfume samples the one you liked the most you could pop into your local Boots and get that in a 30ml bottle. I liked them all actually, but this one stood out the most to me. It's a delicate scent which you could wear day or night. 

I think the bottle is really unique although I prefer bottles you can stand up. 

I really like the musky/vanilla tones of this perfume. It's very strong and long lasting too.

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post. Love, A x

                             

Make up storage

Why hello there!

Recently I had a massive room clear out and got rid of a lot of clothes from my wardrobe and some of it I gave to a charity shop. I like to think I'm quite good at decluttering and I managed to free up a lot of space including two drawers. A my old make up box was getting old and somewhat overflown I moved all of mu make up bits into a drawer in my wardrobe. I have sectioned everything neatly using boxes that different Boots three for two sets came in like their Ted Baker boxes. 

Wardrobe drawers. Everything is a lot easier to find now. 

A girl can never have too much make up, right?

All my nail varnishes are now stored in a Hugo Boss perfume box set. 

I swatched every colour and if I'm looking for a specific one I wrote the name and brand on it too (organised much?!?) 

In another box I've stored all my eye makeup including eye shadows, mascara, eyeliners and a sharpener. 

In another box I've stored all my lip stuff including, balms, scrubs, lip pencils, lipsticks, lip glosses and because there wasn't enough room elsewhere I put my jazooli contouring kit in here too. Beneath this I put all my brushes in between. 

I also put all my powders, foundations, primers, blusher and bronzer together in this box. 

Behind all this I put all my body butters and other things I didn't know where to put..

This is where Mr body butters and Mrs body scrubs live. 

Other body butters, hand creams, lotions and nail pens live here. 

In this last box I have put all my nail stuff like false nails, nail glues or nail transfers. 

I picked these funky falsies up in Primark for 50p! 

I also keep these eyeliner transfers in here too. I haven't used them yet even though I've had them for quite a while. 

I got these ages ago in Topshop and I think they look really cute. I'm just waiting for the right occasion to use them. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post! Love, A x