MUA 'Dusk til dawn' Pro palette:Simple coloured smoky EOTD

What a mouthful of a title that was! EOTD would probably have sufficed, oh well!

Today my hand spazzed out and bypassed the Naked palette in favour of the MUA pro Dusk til Dawn one, which has seen very little love in the couple of months that I've owned it. In fact truth be told I swatched it for a blog post, popped it into my palette drawer and forgot all about it!

what big eyes you have!

Products used

MAC Paintpot-Painterly as a primer

Gold colour bottom row, far left all over lower lid taken into the tear duct and just past the crease.

Turquoise middle,bottom row all over lower lid (excluding tear duct) up to crease.

Deep Purple,bottom row blended up to crease on the outer 2/3rd of eye.

Turquoise and purple colours both used under lower lashline.

Loreal telescopic mascara.

Urban decay 24/7 eyeliner (zero) along waterline.

If that makes sense "/

Hello humidity frizz (what's with the weather?)

S'cuse the dodgy FOTD I know it's a little whited out and bos eyed, but I wanted to show how I wore this look as a daytime smoky keeping the rest of my make-up as natural as possible, using just Chanel Pro lumiere foundation and MAC creme cup lipstick.It felt like a no blush/bronzer/highlighter kind of day and it's so damn hot and sticky in the UK at the moment I really couldn't be bothered faffing around.

With a pair of false lashes and extra eyeliner this could also be taken into a night-time smoky eye.

Let me know what you think girls, and also which other MUA Pro palettes are worth picking up?

Love you, Love you not #1

This is going to be the first in a little series about the products in my collection which I find myself reaching for alot and then being torn between my feelings of love and hate for. I thought I would put down in words the pro's and con's of these products and with a little help from you guys come up with a verdict on whether certain products are really worth ignoring the con's for.
Soooo this week's item in the dock is....

Seche vite-Fast drying top coat

Pro's

• SUPER quick drying time 
• High gloss finish

Con's 

• Strong headache inducing chemical scent 
• Warning on the back of the product that states that Seche Vite contains a chemical that may cause birth defects!
• Product becomes thick and gloopy after a few months making it necessary to purchase a bottle of thinner (really?come on!)
• After a couple of days wear nail polish peels off in huge chunks.

Verdict

While writing up my list of pro's and con's on Seche Vite, I came up with the cons so quickly, and aside from the drying time (around 2 minutes!) found it difficult to think of any other positives. 

For an impatient soul like myself minimal drying time is massively important as without it I get bored, fidget, smudge then either find myself starting over or removing the lot and not bothering at all, this is why I have chosen for so long to ignore the negatives and persevere with "The world's finest top coat". So the jury's out until I can find a really fast drying top coat that doesn't make me anxious about putting my hands near my mouth every time I wear it (seriously what is in this stuff??).

What are your thoughts on Seche Vite?

What is everyone's favourite quick drying top coat?

July Favourites

Oooh its been a long time since I clicked on that "new post" button!! Without putting you all to sleep I will explain why, I have been without a laptop charger since my last post (over a month ago) which at first wasn't too much of an issue and I kind of enjoyed being free from my computer screen and living a kind of caveman-esque lifestyle but this past week I have missed my little blog so much that I forked out a friggin ridiculous amount on a new charger this afternoon so that I could be reunited with it *hugs blog*
Well as it's the end of July a favourites post seemed fitting to get me back into the swing of things so here we go.

MAC Mineralize skinfinish natural-Medium plus

I am generally not a powder girl, as my skin type is normal/dry I really love my face to have a dewy finish.When the sunshine graces the UK with its presence however I do feel the need to add powder on top of my foundation to keep it in place that bit longer. I love this powder as it manges to set foundation into place without over mattifying and keeps my skin looking really natural.

Chanel Vitalumiere aqua
I am trying to wean myself off Chanel Pro lumiere in case the rumours are true and it is going to be discontinued later on this year *sobs* So a few weeks ago I popped to the Chanel counter and got samples of all of the foundations to see which one could replace my beloved.Luckily I have fallen for this foundation completely! It is gorgeously light-weight but gives alot more coverage than I expected and a gorgeous flawless finish.Expect a full review soon.

Lee Stafford Sea salt spray

I seriously cant tell you how much I love this spray!!! I've used it so much just lately to create the beachy style hair that I can usually only get from being at an actual beach! There are 2 ways that you can use this, either spray on towel dried hair and then blow dry which I have found makes my hair feel sticky and gross afterwards for some reason, or spraying on towel dried hair and leaving to dry naturally which really works it leaves my hair soft and with the most perfect beachy waves which stay put all day! The smell is also uh-ma-zing its love!

VO5 miracle concentrate elixir with argan oil

I have wanted to jump on the argan oil bandwagon for a while now but have been too much of a cheapskate to part with the cash and pay for a higher end brand. So when I spotted this in superdrug reduced to £2.99 (I think the rrp is £4.99) I chucked it in my basket and hoped for the best. Turns out this is actually bloody amazing stuff! I thought that this would make my hair feel greasy and weighed down but it really doesn't even when I go a bit crazy with application! It's fantastic to use on wet hair as a leave in treatment or as a serum which is how I use it after I use the sea salt spray to get the ends of my hair (which actually need chopping off!) looking nice and smooth.

Urban Decay Naked palette 

 I don't think I need to explain why this became a favourite from the second I opened the lid and set eyes on those beautiful colours!! I picked this up about 6 weeks ago and have used it every day since as the combinations are endless.Definitely worth the £30 splurge! My favourite colours are Sin, Naked, Half baked, Toasted and Hustle.

OPI nail lacquer- Skull and glossbones

This is one of the 4 colours from the Pirates of the carribean miniature set which I bought a couple of weeks ago. I really only picked it up because the packaging was so cute (sucker!!) and tbh wasn't expecting much from this colour, however it is now my new favourite polish, it's a lovely pale creamy grey which in certain lights leans towards an eggshell blue shade. I am definitely going to try and get my hands on the full size bottle as I can see me running out of this one fast.

MAC lipstick-Hue

I lost this lipstick a while ago and my boyfriend found it under my car seat, I think he thought I was a little bit mental when I grabbed it off him shouting "Yay, you found Hue" he thought I had named it Hugh haha! Anyway Just lately my daily make-up has mostly been bronzed skin and a smoky gold eye so I love to wear a simple nude lip. This is definitely my favourite nude in my collection as it is so easy to wear, I love the glaze formula for being the happy medium between a lipstick and a gloss which leaves my lips feeling moisturised and non sticky.

So those are the products I've loved over the past month

Is anyone loving any of the same products? let me know my lovely's :)

Skincare for dry skin

Just lately my skin has really been on it's best behaviour, (touch wood) I haven't had a single patch of dry skin for over a month which is the only real problem that I get with my skin and it drives me crazy as my foundation will inevitably end up gathered on the dryness and it doesn't look pretty!
I thought I would share my latest skin care routine that I believe has helped me loads with you lovelies.


Cleanser
I was very kindly sent the Liz Earle cleanse and polish to try out around 2 months ago now I have been using it twice daily and am so pleased with it. What I love the most about this cleanser is the thickness of the formulation that actually makes it feel moisturising which is something that you don't always find with cleansers, and something I really appreciate with having a dry skin type. Also it removes make-up so easily and leaves skin feeling so super clean.This product definitely deserves it's cult status in my opinion.

Exfoliator
2-3 times a week for the past month I have been using the Vie skin sparkle system (of course the name suckered me in!) Its a 2 step system the first being the vitamin C crystal polish which you massage into the skin gently for a minute, secondly the activating serum is applied and left on for 2-3 minutes before rinsing off. I haven't always gotten along with exfoliators as they tend to cause a flare up of dry skin after I use them, which is so weird as they are supposed to remove dry skin?!?! But this one has never caused that to happen so it is definitely a winner.

Moisturiser
Moisturising is my favourite part of my skincare routine as I love the feeling of a freshly moisturised face so much! Nivea soft moisturising cream for face body and hands has been my go to moisturiser ever since I ran out of my Oilatum face repair about 2 months ago, and I actually think its so similar to the Oilatum and leaves my skin feeling just as hydrated that I wont have to go splashing out the £8 on that again any time soon.The smell of this moisturiser is so addictive as it has the same smell as Nivea sun cream and reminds me of holidays! Aside from the smell I also love how quickly this absorbs into the skin and makes a fantastic base for make-up.

So there are my 3 miracle products that have most definitely kept dry skin at bay and my skin feeling the best it has in a long time, I would really recommend trying them out if you also suffer with the dreaded dry patches. The only thing I am missing is a decent face mask,I cant seem to find one that I really love at the moment "/ Does anyone have any recommendations?

what are you loving skincare wise at the moment?

Benefit freebies

It feels like such a long time since I wrote my last blog post! The truth is I haven't been feeling overly inspired lately, that plus the school holidays, a bit of decorating and barely any shopping at all (aside from a cheeky Urban decay NAKED palette which I will do a post on as its amazing! :) ) has left me a little lacking in anything worth writing about, and I don't want to bore you all so I thought it best to keep schtum! ;)

But today after what feels like an age since reading about it on Fee's blog  I got my hands on 3 copies of this months Glamour magazine which nabbed me a posie tint, a benetint, and a high beam from benefit cosmetics (each 4ml) collectively worth £28, which as always with these high end Glamour freebies makes it so worth buying as many £2 copies as you like. Strangely as these are 3 of benefit's best sellers, I have never owned any of them, in fact the only one that has ever slightly intrigued me was high beam as I really love a good highlighter! I'm not much of a lip and cheek stain type of girl but I wont turn my nose up at a freebie and am rather looking forward to testing them all out!

benetint-Rose tinted lip and cheek stain 

posietint-poppy pink tinted lip and cheek stain (Id say it was a bubblegum pink colour though)

This was more difficult to remove than the benetint which surprised me!

high beam luminescent complexion enhancer

The swatches are making it look quite likely that I will have to attack all the newsagents within a ten mile radius especially for copies with posietint and high beam attached!!

Will you be stocking up on Glamour this month and which freebies will you go for?