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

I got my hurrr did

A few weeks ago I made a post about having a change with many aspects of my life but firstly my hair. (here)

So I took the plunge and made the cut (pun intended) and had a restyle. I popped into a salon across from where I work and showed them some pictures of what I like, what I don't like and also how much I wanted to spend! 

This is before. I have massively thick hair, and it has bleach and colours on it to make it into a caramel/honey brown colour. I didn't have any layers cut into it so it looked like a giant heap of hair. 

I abuse my hair with straighteners, curlers and a hair dryer so it often looks and feels quite dry. As I have such thick hair as well it can often get quite frizzy and unruly. 

So after two and a half hours of sitting in the hairdressers chair, three Ok! magazines later I left with my new hairdo feeling very happy and confident. 

It is a lot shorter than it used to be and I'm still getting used to not being able to tie it up. 

I had some nice layers cut in and a few colours pulled through all over too. I'm really happy with how it looks and feel confident too. 

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

My October in photos

My Instagram hasn't been as active as it could have been over October. What with my work life and person life being rather busy I haven't had a lot of time nor have I done anything photo-worthy! So here are a couple of my instagrams from the last month.

I love chocolate as much as the next girl and I was excited to try these out when my mum came home and handed me these. They taste like dark chocolate then you get this strange raspberry after taste in your mouth. 

These Gü hot chocolate cartons are so nice! They're very rich in chocolatey taste so you don't need a big mug of it. Delish! Perfect winter treat with a sprinkling of marshmallows. 

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

Deer make up tutorial

I love this cute fancy dress make up idea! I saw this floating about on YouTube and Pinterest and thought I'd give it a go myself.

For this look I used: 

Black face paint

White face paint 

White pencil eyeliner 

The contour powder in light from Sleek

Black mascara  

I started this look by drawing a line from the bottom of my eyebrow to the end of my nose and did the same for the otherwise. 

I joined the lines between creating a heart  like shape. 

Down the centre of my nose I filled in with the white eyeliner pencil and a bit of the white face paint. 

Then I filled in my eyebrows with a black face paint to make them look thicker and bolder. 

Using the white face paint again I stretched the white colour from my nose to around the middle of my eyebrows and around my eyes too. 

I coloured in my water line with the eyeliner pencil. 

Using a thick stippling brush I applied a fair amount of bronzer/contour around the top of my forehead stretching around the corner of my eyes and onto my cheekbones to create a C shape. 

Then on my contoured cheeks and forehead I dotted the white eyeliner. 

Ta da! 

It isn't the best but I'm quite impressed seeing as it took me about 5-10 minutes. 

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

Pop art make up tutorial

For this look I used:

Black face paint

White face paint 

Red lipstick

A thin angled brush

A lip brush 

A blue and purple eyeshadow 

I started off drawing a bold, black line all the way around my face. 

I then drew a line down my nose and around the corners of my nose too. 

Then, still using the black face paint I drew a curved line where my cheekbones are. 

I then made my eyebrows more prominent still using the black face paint. 

I drew two black wrinkle lines in between my brows. 

I used an Accesorize eyeshadow palette to create a really bold and vivid eyelid colour.

I used the purple and dark blue. 

Using a red lipstick I filled in my lips and then dabbed some white face paint into a squoval shape on my lips. 

Using a thin brush I dotted the white face paint on across my face in a symmetrical pattern. 

Lastly I drew two lines with a curve at the end on my collar bones.

Ta da!

I hope you liked this post. Love, A x

Leopard print eyes

If you're not one for dressing up at Halloween i think this is a great alternative and looks good too.

I started off with an orange/bronze base eyeshadow colour. I think this one was a Collection shade. 

Using a L'oreal ultra precision liquid super liner I drew little squiggles, lines and half moon shapes on my eyelid to emulate the look of the leopard print. 

Super quick and easy to do. I'd definitely recommend! I hope you liked this post. 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