Top Winter Skincare Products

Coming into the Winter months can be quite harsh on your skin, and here in Northern Ireland, it is very cold and wet and just horrible at this time of the year - so I need products that can help reduce my dry skin, hydrate my skin and add a bit of radiance - and with these products I achieve that.

No7 Beautiful Skin Radiance Exfoliator 
 I have only been trying this product for maybe 2 weeks now maybe every other day and I really like it. Everytime I use it my skin feels so much softer and looks so much healthier adding a really like natural glow to my skin - it's also quite gentle on my skin so it doesn'y affect my sensitivity and there is little to no fragrance.
Soap and Glory Scrub Your Nose In It
I've been using this product for a good few months now, maybe 2 or 3 just as a more intensive exfoliating treatment as compared to the No7 one - it is quite strong and almost has a tingling sensation to the skin - but I've noticed that when I do leave it on for a few minutes it really helps to clean out my pores, especially around my nose and leaves my skin feeling baby soft and clean. On the downside though, it does leave my skin feeling quite tight but once I moisturise my skin is back to normal.
No7 Beautiful Skin Hydration Mask
I've has this mask for a good few months now and it's still going strong - I really love this product, it's probably the best facial mask I've used. Its quite thick and creamy in texture and it has almost a cooling effect which really helps to tone down on my redness and it leaves my skin feeling and looking so soft, healthy and hydrated - especially coming into these winter months this is exactly what I need, I would highly recommend it!
No7 Beautiful Skin Overnight Radiance Boost
I would use this product only maybe once or twice or week, it really depends on how my skin is looking and feeling, but I would apply this before I go to bed and a few minutes after I have moisturised just to ensure that I don't layer it over and it can't be absorbed properly into my skin. I really love how this product makes my skin look in the morning - its really radiant and fresh and exactly what I need for my skin.

Favourite Winter Lipsticks

Winter is a great time to start experimenting with different lipstick colours and for me, being able to alter the look of your makeup by only changing one small aspect of it is something I really love and enjoy doing - so in this post I'm going to share with your 5 of my favourite lipsticks for Winter.

 These are my top 5 lipsticks for Winter and from left to right they are;
No7 Pillarbox Red
Revlon Va Va Violet
Rimmel Kate Moss 48
Avon Frozen Rose
Maybelline Tantalizing Taupe
These lipticks are perfect for winter as they are all, non drying and very moisturising and creamy on the lips, the pigmentation lasts all day and the wear of each is great in all weather conditions - I've never had any smudge or run in the rain or cold weather which is always good and the colours themselves are perfect for winter season.
 

What are your favourite lipstick for Winter?

Ted Baker Majestic Marvels

As I'm sure some of use may or may not know, for about the 5/6 weeks leading up to Christmas, Boots have a star gift that is on offer from Friday - and this week it is the Ted Baker Majestic Marvels gift set which originally retails for £50.00  but was on offer for £25.00 - so basically half price which is amazing and as a treat, my boyfriend decided to get it for me and it is glorious. 

The packaging itself is worthy of that £25.00 as it is stunning - with rose gold detailing it is a perfect Christmas present. 

 

Included in the gift set you get - 2 Body Wash, 2 Bubble Baths, 2 Body Lotions and a hand cream - so you are recieving a lot within this so it really is great vaue for money.

When you first open it up, there are three bundles wrapped up in gorgeous tissue paper - and it smells wonderful too - there is also a pocket on the inside of the lid which would be really handy for travelling etc. 

These are the items you recieve in the gift and they are gorgeous, the packing is the same for these but with the value of these individually compared to what to pay for the gift set along with the gorgeous box - it is definitely worth looking in to :)

Freedom Pro Strobe Cream Kit

Coming into the winter months, you want your skin to look it's best and for me, using creams gives me that. I especially love using cream contours as it adds natural definiton to the face which is perfect for everyday wear and to achieve this I have been using the Freedom Pro Strobe Cream Kit which is available at Superdrug and retails for £10. 

Included in the kit you get the cream contour palette which has three cream highlight shades and three cream bronzer shades as well as their strobe brush

I absoloutely adore this kit - the creams are so pigmented and creamy that they literally glide on and blend like a dream and still have the pigmentation to give a defined/highlighted look with little product, as a little does go a long way. The brush is also really, because of the shape, I wouldn't use it with the highlight shades as its a bit too rectangular, but it is perect for fitting into the hollows of the cheeks, the bridge of the nose and along the forehead.

It also lasts all day especially when set with a powder - it doesn't budge - which I was wary off when I first applied it because they are so creamy.

From Top to Bottom - Highlight Shade, Yellow shade, Pink Shade, light contour shade, dark contour, medium bronze shade

No7 Advent Calender

For Christmas, I decided to give myself an extra wee treat and when the No7 Advent Calender came out in my local Boots store - I decided to snatch it right up and so far it has not disappointed!

The packaging itself is gorgeous, with pink and purple and with gorgeous gold and silver detailing - it has that special Christmas feeling.

When you open it up, you have quite an impressive sight - with three panels each with different sized numbered doors on each, you are sure to be excited! The colour theme is consitent throughout which I love, with the gold and silver accentuated to give even more of that Christmas feel.
There are a total of 25 doors which is amazing and super exciting.

If you are interested in seeing what I get each day, I am doing a #25daysofchristmas on my instagram where I post a picture of each of the items I get each day :)
 Instagram

No7 Ultimate Eye Palette

No7 for me, has some of the best Christmas presents on the market - with a wide range of items for both men and women and varying prices, everyone can afford to get someone something they'll truely love and along with Boots' amazing 3 for 2 Mix and Match across their Christmas range - you're spoilt for choice and you can even get yourself something as well!

So with that being said, I decided to treat myself to something when I was buying presents for other people and I decided to pick up the Ultimate Eye Palette which retails at £20 and as it was the cheapest, I got it for free!

This palette is absoloutely gorgeous! With 20 shades mixed between mattes, shimmers and satins - there is so much versatility within this palette, not to mention how gorgeous and versatile the shades are themselves - you can go daytime glam, evening glam or full on glam on the rocks.
If you are looking for a lovely affordable present for someone or something for yourself - you should definitely check out No7's range

My Go to Pale Makeup

For me personally, I find it really hard to get a flawless look when I do decide to go pale - which now is quite often - but this is because that I hadn't found a foundation that gave me the coverage that I needed especially for my red cheeks, but now I've found two *jumps up and down with excitement* and these are the No7 Airbrush Away foundation in Calico and the L'Oreal True Match foundation in 1N Ivory. These two foundations are literally the best foundation I have found for pale skin and seeing as I love them so much, I figured I would share with you all the face products I love using with them both :)

Here I am wearing the L'Oreal True Match foundation

Primer: The tried and true Maybelline Baby Skin Poreless Primer

Concealer: No7 Under Eye concealer in the shade 10 and Maybelline Fit Me concealer in the shade 10

Contour: Freedom Cotour Stick in Fair and Makeup Revolution Contour Palette

Blush: Benefit Dandelion, No7 Cranberry crush, Max Factor Miracle Touch Creamy Blush in Soft candy and Max Factors Creme Puff Blush in \Gorgeous Berries

Highlight: Rimmel Good to Glow in Notting Hill Glow and MUA highlighter in Iredescent Gold

Huge Haul

I jut thought I would show you the things I have accumulated over the past 3/4 months - there are some books and also some makeup which I know looks like a lot but please keep in mind that I'm doing a makeup course and makeup is my life and I literally can;t stop myself from buying it....

Enjoy :)

  

Where Have I been?

I would like to apologies for being so MIA lately, with work and College I literally haven't had time to gather my thoughts and ideas to do any blog posts - but seeing as I was off today and have nothing really to be doing at the minute I just thought I would let yous know about what has been happening lately.

I think in a few posts back I had said that I got onto my VTCT Level 3 Diploma in Theatrical, Special Effects Hair and Media Makeup course - and it has been quite a change. We have/are currently looking at Period/Fantasy and Casualty within one unit, Face and Body Art in another and Media makeup in another which is the "pretty makeup" so to speak, so there is a lot involved considering this is just what we are looking at this term. We also have quite a few assessments to do also and along side those we have to mood boards - which is basically putting your ideas for your assessment onto a board which you can then present to your client and they will have an idea of the look your going to be doing on them - its a bit time consuimg but it is quite a good idea.

We also have the opportunity to do makeup outide of college for the performing arts students and also for professional companies that have shows in Opera Houses etc so its all very surreal for me - but incredibly exciting at the same time. The best thing about it though for me was the kit we had to get at the start - it is fabulous - granted we didnt get everything we would have needed so we had to go out and buy it ourselves but it really has been worth it - and as we are in tech only three days a week I have quite a lot of time to play around and practice with it.

I thought I would post pictures of the work I've done as well, just so you's can see what the course entails :)

My Favourite Mascaras

Mascara for me, isn't that big of an ordeal, I do tend to like each mascara that I buy because my lashes are pretty decent, they don't tend clump easily and have a natural curve which means less hassel with curlers etc. But there are two mascaras - drugstore ones - which I really love and these are... 

Rimmels Extreme Black Wonder'full Mascara with Argan Oil & No7 Dramatic Lift Mascara
Both of these mascaras are amazing, the length and volume they both give is amazing. Neither of them smudge, they don't weigh my lashes down and are both easily removed - so if your looking for a good, inexpensive mascara that gives everything you could want from a mascara, then I highly recommend these two :)

Retails for £7.99

Retails for £13.50

What I got for My Birthday

It was my birthday on Sunday and I must say, I am very grateful for everything I recieved and for the people I got to spend my day with so without further adue, lets get started 

 

Book Review - The Last Summer of Us by Maggie Harcourt

The Last Summer of Us is based on three friends from Wales who go on a road trip during the summer – the last summer all three of them would spend together.

I’m going to be honest and say that when I first seen this book, I wasn’t sure about it, I actually put it back down on the way to the till only to pick it back up again the next day with the decision to give it a go and that is not a decision I regret.

This book isn’t the typical type of book I would go for, I love all things supernatural and fantasy based, but this book – this book is so realistic it could be someone’s life right at this moment – the storyline is so well captured in what goes on in a young teen’s life and mind when everything around them seems to be changing. There’s love, sadness, happiness, lies, acceptance and also truth and the harsh reality of it. During some moments I even found myself wondering, how can this author capture something that is so relatable to such a large number of people so effortlessly. And I know I am being quite vague about the heart of the story line but that is because I want use all to read it, I urge use too, because this is a story that will stay with you – for all the right reasons.

Sleek Highlighting Palette - Precious Metals

I got this palette ages ago when it first came out in Superdrug - and I don't know why it's taking me so long to actually review it... weird. But I do really like this product - I think when I got it it was £9.99 which to me is a bargain for the quality of the product. 

You get three cream highlighters and one powder, you also get a wee brush to apply them but I'm not really fond of it, I just like to use my fingers to apply the cream and my realTechniques to apply the powder.
 The packaging is shiny and sleek, and it also closes magnetically which saves the hassel of trying to work it open like so many palettes. The products themselves are lovely, the cream highlighters are smooth and creamy and very well pigmented and the powder is also smooth and easy to blend.

From left to right - Platinum, Royal Gold, Renaisance Gold (Cream) and Antique Bronze (Powder)

St. Tropez Gradual Tan in Shower

I am not a fan of this product.

I bought this when it was on offer in Boots for £9.96 or something like that and I thought, this is a bargain - I'm going to get it and I'm going to love it because as everyone knows, St Tropez is one of the best selling and most well known tanning brands - because their products are amazing......... minus this, one for me anyway.

The directions are too apply in the shower when the shower is off, to wet skin, allow to sit for 3 minutes and then rinse it off with just water - no soap. As I rarely have my legs out, I usually only manually tan the top half of my body - so I tried this method out on my legs and in total I have used it four times - my legs have no changed colour - which is a little to be honest because I am so pale I honestly thought there would have been some kind of noticable difference but sadly not. I'm not sure why this is the case, maybe it takes to different areas of the body differently or maybe it's just my skin, who knows...

Vaseline Spray & Go

This is now my go to summer moisturiser - it is so handy and effecient that I don't know how I lived without it for so long. You literally spray on, rub in and it dries in a matter of seconds. It doesn't leave my skin sticky or tacky - it just leaves it silky smooth and smelling wonderful.

Definitely a must have for the summer!

Maybelline dream Flawless Nude Foundation

I purchased this foundation a while ago and I have worn it quite a number of times but I've never gotten around too reviewing it so, here it it.

This product retails for £8.99 in Superdrug and Boots and I got the shade 10 Ivory

The packaging is quite small and sleek and I love how it's in a glass bottle. It comes with a "dropper" 

type thing which to be honest, isn't my cup of tea but I can make do. 

The foundation itself is very light weight and has a water consistency to it which makes it very blendable, it doesn't feel heavy or cakey on the skin and it is definitely buildable to a medium to full coverage. It feels very natural and lets your skin breath and adds a nice glow to the skin

(Left to Right) No make-up - One layer of foundation, with two layers on the cheek area for extra coverage

Overall, I do really like this foundation - its inexpensive, it has great coverage and it feels wonderful on the skin, I will definitely be purchasing another one!

Drugstore Self Tanners

I have used a lot of self tanners from a wide range of brands, and I now think I have found my favourite ones - from Superdrug. I'm all about that natural sun kissed glow and these two tans definitely give that.

The first tan is by the brand Sunkissed which I got when I was over in Birmingham for only £3.99. It has a yummy coconut scent even when rinsed off.  It is very moisturising on the skin and feels lovely as well. Colour wise it is very golden as it has more of a yellow undertone than any of the other tans I used, but once it has developed after a few hours it deepens into more of a natural tan colour.

The second tan is one I have been wanting for ages as I've seen it so much on social media - especially Instagram, and it is  Bondi Sands The Australian tan. I got this the other day when it was on offer for £9.99 and I love it. It also has a yummy coconut scent to it even when rinsed off and depending on how dark you want the tan, you can rinse it off after one hour. The colour itself is very natural, as i you were on holiday - it's not too yellow or orange, but the perfect shade of brown. It's very moisturising on the skin and makes my skin feel and smell lovely