New Batiste Lace Dry Shampoo

The newest fragrance launch by Batiste is Lace which is described as 'seductive and elegant' and smells amazing!

I can't put my finger on what it smells like but whatever it is, it's a winner with me! 

I always seem to go back to the Tropical fragranced dry shampoo but I think I'll be a buyer of this fragrance too as it smells so nice, not too floral or sweet. 

This is available from Boots and Superdrug for £2.99 for a 200ml can.

Review - Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation

I've been looking at this foundation for a while now and been deliberating whether to buy it or not and finally decided to take the plunge and buy it when I checked my Boots advantage card and found I had lots of points to treat myself with!

Sorry for the rubbish photo above!

I decided to buy Soft Beige which was a tad too dark for me but not noticeably too dark (if you get that!)

It applied easily to my face and gave a medium coverage. It has a slight glitter shimmer to it but it's not obvious at all and instead gives you a nice 'radiant glow' like it aims to!

This lasts all day long and doesn't sit heavy on your skin.

This costs £8.99 for a 30ml bottle and is available from Boots and Superdrug.

Battle of the....primers

A couple of years ago no one really bothered with make up primers but since then there has been a boom in products being released. The first primer I bought was the Studio Secrets smoothing resurfacing primer and the latest one I've bought is Bourjois Flower Perfection translucent smoothing primer. 

I can tell you're thinking why that is relevant but in fact these two products are so similar it's a little bit silly.

I've had the L'oreal primer since 2010 and it's taken me ages to use it because I simply wasn't impressed with it. Ok at first I have to admit I did like it but I hadn't used any other primers so had nothing to compare it to.

Both products look the same but the textures are slightly different. 

The L'oreal primer is more of a cream and even though it does sink into the skin quite quickly it does leave my skin feeling a little coated and I have to admit in the end I really hated using this product but not one to waste anything I persisted and used it up.

On the other hand, the Bourjois primer is more of a lightweight gel. It absorbs super quick, leaves your skin feeling like silk and my foundation went on really well over this. The only thing that I don't like it that it's in a pot rather than a pump but the product's consistency wouldn't suite a bottle so I'll forgive them for this!

Overall I would undoubtedly buy the Bourjois primer over the L'Oreal one any day. It simply suited my skin better but it is slightly more expensive at £9.99 for 7ml compared to £14.29 for a 15ml pot. 

If you want to try these then both of these are available at Boots or Superdrug.

Mega haul! Boots, New Look, ASOS and Primark!

I've been meaning to post this for ages now but haven't got round to it. This is just to show recent things I've bought.

Primark

Black peep toe shoes - £6

Boots

Rimmel Scandal Eyes Mascara - £6.99

Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation - £8.99

Rimmel Gel Eyeliner - £6.49

Revlon Photoready Primer - £11.99

Revlon Photoready Eye Primer - £9.99

ASOS

Tweezerman Tweezers - £22

Nail Rock Nail Wraps - £6.70

New Look

Patent shoes - £15.99

Earrings - £3.50

Cut sleeve t-shirt - £6.99

Minnie and Mickey vest - £12.99

Swallow print top - £9.99

Swallow print vest - £19.99

Lace panel vest - £12.99

Cross back skater dress - £22.99 

 Bird print vest - £12.99

So that's my recent mega haul! I bought some more things from New Look but returned them and got my money back in credit vouchers so alot of what I bought actually cost nothing! But of course it did cost me a while ago so it wasn't strictly free! Anyway link you latest haul posts in the comments below and I'll have a look!

Battle of the...smoky eye palette

I've been using Bourjois smoky eye palettes for a couple of years now and love them, they make creating that perfect smoky eye so easy to do but at £7.99 they are a little on the more expensive side but then MUA brought out their own version of the Bourjois palettes.

The MUA 'smoky eye' palette costs a mere £2.50 and looks practically the same to the Bourjois ones.

In fact these are so similar the only sight downside is that the MUA shadows are slightly less pigmented than the Bourjois ones but as these are a third of the price then who can complain?!?

Overall I prefer the pigmentation of the Bourjois shadows but as there is such a difference in price I would buy the MUA palettes as you could get three MUA palettes for the price of one Bourjois smoky eye palette which in my eyes makes it an out right winner.

Have you tried either of these or have you found another smoky eye palette that you'd recommend?

Review - MUA Love Heart lipbalms

These MUA Love heart lip balms have been out for quite a while but I've only recently had chance to use them properly.

These are available in 5 shades and I bought 3 of them: sweet kiss, kiss me and sugar lips.

I was actually quite impressed at how pigmented they are as some other products like these don't show up on your lips at all. They are also really quite moisturising and even though I felt like they did sit on your lips a little my lips felt lovely and soft afterwards.

These little pots are quite big so these should last ages and at only £2 each they are such good value for money.

They are available from MUA online.

Review - Avalon Organics Tea Tree shampoo

When I had really bad eczema on my scalp I was desperate to find something that just soothed it as it had for some reason flared up so bad it was driving my insane. It wasn't really itchy but it was flaking like crazy. I had tried most shampoos that seemed to work in the short term but then had little effect. When me and my mum popped to one of our local towns we nipped into Waitrose to have a look and I came across this Tea Tree shampoo from a brand I'd never heard of before, Avalon Organics.

This was priced at £5.99 for a 325ml bottle which is a little more than I like to spend on a shampoo but I was willing to try anything to try to calm my scalp down. As the brand suggests it is organic so no nasties are included and it had a subtle scent of Tea Tree.

So off I popped into the shower when I got home and I was pleasantly surprised. It foamed up really well, a little goes a very long way, and it left my hair feeling, clean, shiny, soft and gently scented. I wouldn't say it helped my scalp in a major way but I think that the fact it didn't contain parabens or SLS did help to calm the flakiness down.

Now would I repurchase? If it was on offer then yes I would but I don't think I would pay full price for this when I've used cheaper, similar products that cost less. But even though I did like this and would probably try some of the other products, but again only if they were on offer.

Review - No7 Melting Gel Cleanser

This review was requested by one of you lovely readers and I had hoped to have had it up by now but as I've been lagging behind on the blogging front lately I've only just had time to write this post.

The melting gel cleanser is a part of the new No7 Beautiful Skin normal to dry range. My skin is actually combination but the whole 'melting' your make up away thought really appealed to me so I thought I'd give this a whirl.

You get 150ml in the tube which is quite a generous amount considering the small amount you need for your face. You simply rub it onto damp skin and wash away with warm water or you could wipe away using cotton wool or a sponge like I do.

The gel is a light yellow/orange colour and it is quite a light formulation. I found that it really did melt my make up away and removed every last trace. I didn't try this on mascara as I was a little worried about it irritating my eyes.

I would recommend this for you to try, even if like me you haven't got dry skin, as it's really easy to use especially if you're removing your make up before jumping in the shower. It costs £9 for a tube but if you wait for the £5 off No7 vouchers that Boots are always handing out then you could grab it for a bargain £4!

New Wilkinson Sword Intuition Naturals razor

I simply love Wilkinson Swords Intuition razors, I've used them for years probably since they first came out which was quite along time ago now. Every now and then I invest in a new razor when mine starts to look a bit shabby or I simply fancy a new colour! I've had my current one since February 2010, I remember this because I lost my old one when I moved house! Which I quickly found once I bought a new one, typical!

So when I received an email from Wilkinson Sword with a brand new product in it I was really excited to see it was a new Intuition Naturals razor which contains 100% aloe vera and the packaging is also 100% recyclable too! You can't get more natural than that I suppose!

You get the razor which is a green colour, one 3-in-1 shaving foam blade cartridge thingy (not exactly sure what you'd call this!) and a holder that can attach to the tiles in your bathroom using suckers (I haven't photographed this as I never use it).

With the Intuition range you don't need to use shaving foam as it has a solid shaving foam around the blade so you can simply jump in the shower or bath, wet your skin and the blade and shave away! Simple! And it lasts for ages.

The razor costs around £6.49 and the replacement blades cost around £6.12 and are available from most health and beauty retailers.

Spending ban!

Yes you've read it right I'm going on a spending ban! As a part of my Day Zero Project I want to go on one spending ban a year but as I started Day Zero last year I missed doing a month so I'm attempting to catch up. As from today until the 4th June, which is also a Bank Holiday, I am going on a non-essential spending ban. This means I'm not going to buy any clothes, make up or random rubbish that I don't need. In fact I'm going to try to last until the end of June with the whole not buying make up, after all I did just buy quite a lot of new items to try last week. So there we have it, wish me luck! Sorry for the lack of pictures but I'm writing this on my iPad and figuring out how to add photos is too taxing for my brain at this time of night!

Review - L'Oreal True Match Minerals Foundation

As you may probably all know I love mineral foundation. I've tried most brands but one that never appealed to me was L'Oreal True Match Minerals.

I think this one was one of the first on the market when mineral foundations were first coming to light and I remember it was reviewed on a TV programme and it didn't score very well. Maybe this is why I've always overlooked it.

Recently the True Match range has been given a bit of a face lift with new packaging and yes, even though the product is the same and it has the same crappy looking brush, I got sucked in by the new packaging. Ok the only thing that's changed on the packaging is the writing.

So yes you do get a mini kabuki brush with it and the foundation is underneath. And yes the brush is as crappy as it looks. The bristles are a little hard for my liking and they shed like mad.

The top to the foundation is attached to the brush so detaching the brush can be a bit messy as powder sticks to it.

The texture of the foundation is nice and it applies easily, even using the rubbish brush. The shade I got is a little too dark but with a little blending it does eventually blend to my skins natural colour but this is what it's supposed to do! It is True Match!

This is priced at £14.99 which is reasonable for a mineral foundation but I don't think I would buy it again as the packaging design isn't the best but if you want to try it you can buy it from Boots or Superdrug.

The month that was...April....

....and the first five days of May!

Yes I'm late with this post but the last few weeks have been pretty crazy. Work has been mental, I was left by myself for three days last week as my colleague was off sick and the other was on annual leave so I had to cope by myself which by Wednesday morning I wasn't doing very well and was ready to walk out. Thankfully on Thursday and Friday things picked up and I regained my sanity.

I also had a job interview but unfortunately I didn't get the job. Apparently it was down to me and someone else and they chose the other person. Damn them!

Even though I've put on 5 pounds over the last couple of months I still took advantage of a trip to Marks & Spencers by buying Percy Pigs including the new Percy in the Pink chocolates and yes they were yummy!

I also finally got round to sorting out piles of rubbish in my bedroom and they are still rubbish free. Below are the before and after photos if you're interested, which you're probably not!

And the less said about the recent weather the better. This photo was taken last Sunday when it was absolutely abysmal. 

In other news my cousin had her baby, a boy which she called Charlie, I discovered Disarano and Pepsi Max don't taste good together and Great Tastes of America is back at McDonalds! Oh yes I'm excited about this and will be visiting over the next month!

Hope you had a great month!

Review - Sanctuary Matte Perfecting Hydra Lotion

Sanctuary is a brand that I think just about everyone knows due to their amazing bodycare ranges but I have to admit I'm not that well acquainted to their skincare range.

They cater for people with different skin types including oily/combination which I have. A while ago I picked up their Matte Perfecting Hydra Lotion face cream to give it a try.

This cream claims to be a "balancing lotion to quench skin for a clear, shine-fre complexion".

You get a generous 50ml bottle which has a pump top which is not only hygienic but means you get the perfect measure amount. Personally I use just less than 1 whole pump.

The lotion itself is slightly scented and is of a light consistency. Once applied it sinks in quickly and does leave my skin matte and feeling moisturised all day.

This is available from Boots for £13.29 which is slightly more than what I like to pay for a face cream but Boots do quite regularly have the £2 off vouchers so they make it slightly more affordable!

Have you tried anything else from the Sanctuary skincare range? What would you recommend?

A year of nail polish - April

Maxfactor - Meteorite 

Bourjois - Shade 18 (not sure on the name)

No 7 - Me Me Me