MAC Margin Blush

Hardly an unsung hero in the makeup community, I'm sure everyone has heard of Margin. Beauty bloggers and celebrities alike admire and endorse this blush, and for good reason. I've had this on my wishlist for a long time, and am pleased to be able to finally cross it off. MAC describe this blush as a peach with golden shimmer.

The peach colour is universally flattering, suiting a range of skin tones. I'm pretty pasty this time of year but the blusher suits my skin tone with a tan or it's natural winter hue. The blusher has a frost finish which means the golden shimmer has an almost metallic finish, but this is subtle enough to look pretty and not make you too shiny faced like some frosty finished blushers I've used previously.

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of this wonderful blusher applied on my face so you can see the understated effect you get. It gives the perfect "natural glow" look  which will complete any natural make-up look you want to create as well as when you're feeling like going heavier on the eyes or lips and you want to keep the cheeks natural looking.

I hope this has helped you if you're looking for a new blusher. It's definitely one I will be repurchasing when I've used it up, which at the rate I'm using it will be sooner than I think! 

On another note...I cannot actually believe it's Christmas in two days!!! I've managed to escape London and am back visiting my parents which is just lovely having meals cooked for me and being looked after, and of course, lots of love from Layla.

MAC and Lush goodies

Here's a few things I treated myself to this weekend. I stopped by MAC and my favourite Lush store on S.Molten Street (less crowded and more friendly).

I traded in five black pots for a face mask and also picked up these toothy tabs which I've been meaning to try for a while. Quite excited about these!
A new found love in MAC was Arena eyeshadow, a gorgeous shade for all you neutral lovers out there.And a total impulse buy, I knew nothing of this lipstick, nor the current collections, I'm completely out of the loop on current MAC collections these days, but this is from the Fashion Flower collection. I will post a full review of these items next week, but for now I can say, Growing Trend, an amazingly gorgeous nude, was love at first swatch.

I hope everyone's had a fabulous weekend!

MAC Soft Ochre Paint Pot and meeting an old friend

Last week I headed into town to see a friend I had not seen since our school days. Despite the realisation that it was so many years ago, and coming to terms with the fact that I am now OLD, I had a lovely time catching up with her. If you've been in a similar situation, there is that moment beforehand where you wonder how much they've changed, what if they're no longer a nice person! I can honestly say that besides growing up, my friend hadn't really changed, and I mean that in a good way. Just an older, wiser version! And this, despite being very successful at what she does for a living.
Harry is a makeup artist, and does a lot of fashion and editorial work. This was her dream all those years ago and how good it is to see those dreams become real. For the record, mine was to become a writer, which I suppose you could say I do here, but it's not my job. As I got older my dreams changed, I still maintained wanting to write but alongside this I found a new dream and chased that instead. I'm glad I'm doing the job I love (which I don't mention on here because it's worlds apart from my beauty blog!) but there is something to be said for people who never give up that one thing they want to be. Persistence is the key I think.

I would really love it if you went on over to: http://harrymakesitup.tumblr.com/ and http://harriethadfield.com/ to find out more about her and the work she's done, you can tell her I said "Hi". I think you'll agree it's pretty darn good.

That day we mosied around the make-up shops near Covent Garden and of course, whenever I am there, a MAC visit is a must.
I was after a paint pot to use as an eyeshadow base. I have not been too impressed with my UDPP, it does not live up to Too Faced Shadow Insurance in my opinion, so I decided to give these a go. Originally I thought I would but Painterly, it's the one that always springs to mind. However, looking at them and comparing Painterly to Soft Ochre, the latter was the obvious choice for me. I'm really quite yellow tinged, or golden as I prefer to say and this was a better match for my skin tone, not to mention how much better this shade is for the natural colour of most people's eyelids. The problem I believe a lot of people find with Soft Ochre is the dryness of this particular shade. I can see where there is coming from, Soft Ochre applies smoothly and creamily, but is quick to dry. You could get around this by applying it to one eyelid and then putting on your eyeshadow before moving onto the next. The most important thing is the staying power that this paint pot has. In my experience, it is still not as good or long lasting as TFSI, but perhaps slightly better than UDPP in longevity, not only in making my eyeshadow last a little longer, but the sheer amount of product you get in one of these little pots. If I use this every day, I can see it lasting me at least a year, now that's value for money. For some people I can see a hygiene issue around this as it is not in a contained tube, but a pot that you swipe your finger in. My answer is use a brush, or more simply, just wash your hands before you use! Not too difficult.

Overall, I rate this product quite highly. I would probably not repurchase, purely because I don't think I will ever get through an entire jar of this, but I may try different shades.

MAC Disney Venomous Villains Collection

You're quite possibly sick of the sight of this collection by now. I know it's been out in the States for a while, and in the UK since the beginning of October, but I got my Disney dose at the weekend after a bit of blog research to find out what products I was going to like.
It seems like I always go for cheek products in every collection. I'm not sure if that's a conscious descision or not. It was the last make-up product I got into, and therefore have the least amount of in my own collection, so maybe I'm making up for that. But I always get drawn to the beautiful packaging and the pinky peachy tones of blushers. To me they're the most fun and most appealing make-up product.
The packaging of this collection is pretty much everything you can hope for from Disney. Shiny, glossy black casing and bright, colourful cartoon print. I went for two of the Evil Queen products, Oh So Fair Beauty Powder, and Bite of an Apple Blush. I wanted Her Own Devices Beauty Powder to grab me, because I love Cruella and wanted to buy something with her on, but swatching it on my skin, I got nothing, it was pretty much invisible on my skintone. I've never bought a Beauty Powder before so I'm not entirely sure what to do with it, but judging by the colour which is like a dusky rose pink, I will use it as a blusher and highlight concentrating the colour on the tops of my cheeks. The colour is very similar to a No.7 blush I had in the shade Soft Damson which I loved and conveniently broke recently, so I needed to replace anyway. I do love me some peachy and coral toned blushers most of the time, but I feel that winter is the time to rock pink blusher as it's the colour your cheeks naturally go in the cold.

Bite of an Apple is a much bolder pink. It's leaning towards the red side of pink and I would use this just on the apples of my cheeks with Oh So Fair to create that Snow White rosy cheek look.

Overall I was quite impressed with this collection, it's a lot more exciting than some of the recent collections that have been put out. The only thing I missed that I would have quite liked to own was the nail laquers. I haven't seen any colours like those before, they looked really interesting to me. I suppose it's kind of a blessing because I'm a bit poor right now! I've just moved flat this week and I started a post-grad course at uni in September so that's why I have been quiet on the blogging sphere. I don't plan to give it up though and want to say a huge thankyou to everyone who's still following me, I kind of expected to lose a lot of followers but I'm glad to say that's not the case, so thankyou for that. Oh, and also I recently discovered the Luuux site. I joined a couple or so weeks ago, I thought if I enjoy blogging and could get a Balenciaga bag out of it then it's pretty foolproof right?

What are your thoughts on Luuux?

Did you buy anything from Disney Venomous Villains?

If you have the nail laquers, are you happy with the result?

FOTD using UNE Foundation and Sleek Jewels palette and NOTD 1/9/2010

It feels like England is clinging on to Summer now with a little burst of sunshine, even though technically it's September, we're now officially Autumn. This time of year usually means finding transitional makeup, makeup that's suitable for both seasons. For me, that usally means finding rich, plummy, golden colours, at least for my eyeshadow. A palette I find perfect for those rich, beautiful colours is the Jewels palette by Sleek, so I dug that one out and will show you a quick FOTD.I used the champagne gold colour all over the lid, it's a perfect wash colour, and probably one of only two colours I can use all over the lid. Then for the crease I picked out the plum/purple shade, and used the silver on the inner corner. Still a pretty neutral look, but the purple livens it up a little. Sleek is fantastic for their pigmented eyeshadows, they look so multi-dimensional once applied, so much depth to the colour. The only problem is finding a palette with an entire range of colours that I can wear. I wish they would bring out a neutrals palette, like the Urban Decay Naked palette, it would be pretty near perfection in a £5 palette. Close up of the eyes - I used Sleek Jewels, No. 7 Amazing Eyes eyeliner, (I found another liquid liner that actually compares to my HG Loreal Superliner!) it was given to me by my Mum since she couldn't apply it, and it's surprisngly very good, and I'd say pretty fool-proof too, if you're a shaky-hand-eyeliner-applier as I am.

Other products I used

EYES: Bourjois 1001 Lashes mascara, topped with Rimmel Volume Flash the Max mascara; Eyeshadows primed with TFSI;

FACE: Une Skin Glow Foundation in G06 (Love this, review to come soon); Rimmel Clarifying Powder, MAC Refined Golden bronzer.

LIPS: Maybelline Colour Sensational Lipstick in Rose Pearl.

And not to leave my nails out, since I really love this colour, I painted them in Barry M's Racing Green, which is truly a gorgeous colour in it's own right, it reminds me of old Jaguars, not just the colour but the finish aswell. I decided to turn it matte out of curiousity, and it turned out pretty good. It's a slightly irridescent colour, and you can still see the other dimensions to this colour, just in matte form. I'm going to be sporting this a lot through Autumn I think. I prefer dark colours for my nails so I'm not going to miss the summer pastel shades too much.

What are your favourite colours for autumn?

MAC Dazzle Lipstick Win-Win

I knew I was going to like the Dazzle lipsticks. It was actually Tali's post that drew my attention to the beauty of these. I avoided the Dazzleglass's with the chunky glitter in, purely because it looked too chunky. Admittedly these lipsticks are a little scary to look at, and even to swatch but they are surprisingly very nice and very wearable on the lips.

I've tried to take a number of pictures here in different lights and different settings to give you an idea of the colour of this lipstick, and to see how different it looks in different lights. It proved really difficult to capture the true colour which is one of the things I like most about these lipsticks, they are so eye-catching and appear a different colour in different light. Win-Win is a pink shade with gold glitter. I'd say it's one of the least intimidating colours to choose from and definitely more "me" than the others. Having said that, when you swatch the lipsticks, you'll see they're actually not as bold as the colour in the tube. It's almost like the light reflecting off the glitter takes the emphasis off the colour.

Here's a picture with and without flash on my lips. I'm glad to say these lipsticks have great staying power. They've survived a few drinks and a meal without my lips looking like one hot glitter mess. The colour is still visible after a few hours although when the colour does start to fade, the glitter seems to linger a while longer. I actually don't mind it though, it doesn't look as you would expect with a glitter lipstick, at least in my experience, the glitter tends to stay put, I can see me having issues trying to remove it without rubbing glitter over my face, but during normal wear throughout the day, it's stayed just on my lips.

I think if you want to wear this in the day it's perfectly suitable, keeping your eyes simple, but might be best kept fresh by applying plain/clear lip balm over the top every couple of hours, rather than just adding to the glitteriness with another coat of the lipstick. It's definitely wearable during daylight though, I mean it's glittery and it draws a little attention but it's not so in-your-face as other glitter lipsticks I've seen or wearing a classic red lip during the day. You could say it's a sophisticated glitter lipstick if such a thing exists.

I am looking forward to wearing this on a night out though, when glitter is more socially acceptable and less risque. I think this will complete a grey smokey eye shadow look.

I also love that these are lipstick you can wear without worrying about priming before or coating your lips with a gloss afterwards. The glitter speaks for itself really, I wouldn't say you'd want to wear this with dry lips but it's not gonna dry out your lips anymore like you would probably expect. It's actually quite moisturising, and you don't notice the glitter at all. They're not obvious chunks that you can physically feel, yet they're obviously pretty visible and you don't need a gloss to finish this look, it looks pretty finished and polished by itself.

Now I said I avoided the Dazzleglasses, especially those recent chunky glitter ones, BUT, I would like to see the result of these topped with a Dazzleglass, just for interest.

Stereo Rose - How I love thee

I got suckered in to the hype of Stereo Rose after browsing several beauty blogs the day the In The Groove collection was released in the UK. I normally like to wait for swatches and reviews before I buy anything myself. I am quite good and restrained usually, I won't buy something just because everyone says I HAVE to. But honestly when I saw this in the flesh, i HAD to have it! So I went and I bought it the very next day I saw it on beauty blogs. And here is the little beauty. The colour is peachy toned, and not a million miles away from the shade of Too Faced Brightening Blush in Papa Don't Peach. It has that same irridescent quality that I love to a blush, just a slight sheen when the light catches you. I'm not the biggest MSF fan in the world, but I think Stereo Rose is an exception. It doesn't make you look shiny like a lot of MSF's will (I don't actually mind that btw) and the colour pay off is actually very decent. I also own Triple Fusion MSF and the colour pay off was next to non-existant, don't get me wrong I like the colour, but it was more sheen than colour, whereas Stereo Rose is a healthy mix of just the right amount of colour to sheen. This is exactly what I hope and expect from a mineralised or "baked" cosmetic product and it makes me wonder why MAC haven't made them all this consistency.

Here is the sheen I am talking about. I have layered this on more than I probably would to go out in public, but for photographic purposes it really shows how gorgeous the colour is. A perfect peachy pink, with just a dash of bronze which would look stunning if I was a little more tanned! This is a versatile product, MSF's aren't specifically for blusher purposes, there are mineralised blushes also available, but an MSF can be used all over the face in some way. It's easy to achieve a light application with MSF's so if you like to wear blusher as well as bronzer, this would be perfect to dust over your bronzer, just to give you that extra bit of glow.

I know this is now a hard to come by product, but it is the stand out product (by a mile!) of this collection and worth trying to hunt down.

I hope that your shopping experience is more successful than mine...when I bought it, I asked for "a Stereo Rose MSF please", expecting the guy that worked there to know what I was talking about. I felt so geeky afterwards, because apparently he didn't know that MSF was shorthand for mineralise skin finish. I thought "Stereo Rose" would give it away, lol I just expected him to know instantly what I was talking about, because jeez, doesn't everyone know what Stereo Rose is! I guess even the people that work in MAC aren't as obsessed as us beauty junkies!

Leeds Castle and Recent Buys (pic heavy)

It's June, which means officially now, we can say it's summer! My absolute favourite time of year, I love going on day trips and being outside so this past bank holiday Monday was a great day for me to get some fresh Kent air when me and some friends took a trip to Leeds Castle. It was a great day, turned in to evening round our flat and just the perfect start to Summer. I didn't know what to expect from Leeds castle, I've never been before, all I knew was it wasn't in Leeds! I'm sure a lot of people expect beauty bloggers to not have a lot of substance to them, but I know I'm not alone in enjoying soaking up a bit of culture every now and then and that's why I like to post on a different topic every now and then.

So the first thing we were met with inside the castle grounds were peacocks, lots of them! They're so beautiful and impressive, and not a little bit scared of humans, this one came so close to me.

What a showoff!

An albino peacock!

The castle itself was really impressive. It's gone through a lot in it's history and belonged to a lot of different families so there is no real theme. Every room is completely different which made it quite interesting. I loved this bathroom.Loving the Japanese themed ornaments in this room.

Today was another stunning day. I've been ill most of this week with what I believe might be laryngitis, although I never see a doctor or pay that much attention to my symptoms so it could be a number of things! Anyway I don't like to stay inside and waste my holiday time off from work so I ventured over to West London today, I went to Kensington, primarily to visit the Saatchi gallery. If you're not familiar with the place, it's a gallery that has contemporary art from around the world. I went about a month ago and it was contemporary Indian and other Asian art. It's recently changed to British artists now. It is interesting, it's the kind of art where if you're not clued up on art history you find yourself questioning whether a lot of it is really art. I know I did myself. But there's no questioning some of the art in there, it's extremely talented, I definitely think there's something for everyone in there. The first couple of rooms are always really out there, and a lot of people give up and don't carry on to the top, but both times I've gone, it's got better as I've got towards the top. Saatchi gallery is on King's Road, admission is free and they regularly change the exhibition, so it might be worth a look if you're visiting the area.

I couldn't be on King's Road without popping into MAC, I just don't think it's possible. I bought a 4 pan palette and two eyeshadows, Jest and Retrospeck. They are both gorgeous neutral colours which I really thought my palette was missing. I intended my 15 palette to be a neutrals one. Since MAC eyeshadows are expensive, I wanted ones I would reach for everyday, but then that branched out to colours that were unique and I didn't own anything like them. The idea was I had some everyday colours, and some shadows to create a pink eye, and a green eye when I wanted some colour, since they are the two colours I always go for. I found that even though I had gorgeous colours in there like Tempting and Woodwinked, I wasn't reaching for them, but always went for the same suspects; All That Glitters, Patina, and Satin Taupe for a smokey, seductive eye. So now I have some more neutrals. I always seem to find a way to justify my addiction anyway! I figured also, now I have a palette for if I go away overnight, and only want to take enough eyeshadow to create one look. Now of course I need to buy two more to fill it! I think I'll be swapping them around quite a bit, but that's the great thing about the pans, they're designed exactly for that.

I think it was Liparazzi who drew my attention to these two colours. They are often overlooked, or maybe it's because everyone owns them so doesn't mention them either way I'm glad I have them now, I can see me reaching for these a lot. In the picture below Jest is on top, Retrospeck underneath. Jest gives your eyelids like a glow. I find it hard to describe the colour as it's not anything specific, it's not really golden, or pearl, but somewhere between the two. It's very pretty, and really makes your eyes look healthy and alive!Retrospeck is similar to All That Glitters, but slightly more golden and with more chunks of glitter in. It's not fall out city though, so don't panic. Below, I have put Jest next to Hush for comparison. When I bought Hush I made the mistake of not looking at the colour in natural daylight, but only what I saw in the MAC store. Under the shop lights, I saw a neutral colour that I could wear on my lid. Reality, Hush is very much on the light pink side, it doesn't look all that pink, but when swatched it has a real pink tone to it. It's pretty, and works great as a highlight for a pink eyeshadow look, but it's just not what I intended to buy. What I did want was what I found with Jest, it looks kind of pink in the pan, but it's really not an over the top pink, it's almost colourless, I guess peachy is a better word. Not too light, just the perfect tone for a wash over the lid. Here they are swatched, Hush is above and jest is below, as you can see, quite different. I also went in to Accessorize today, I bought a couple of flower hair clips. I think they're nice and summery, and look pretty and girly with a summer dress. I have an obsession with Japanese culture, so couldn't resist this cute necklace with a Japanese doll. It hangs quite high on the neck so will look good with other chains of different lengths.

An essential I had to buy! Summertime means getting the feet out. I'll be the first person to put my flip flops on at even a hint of sunshine in Spring, I'm a wishful thinker! But of course I want nice feet so pumice is an essential part of that. I love the fact it's shaped like a foot too, a slight novelty factor.Not related to this shopping trip, but thought I'd throw this in anyway, I bought these a couple of weeks ago with a half price sunglasses voucher from Boots. They're by French Connection and were originally £52, which I was prepared to pay before I got the voucher. I was toying with the idea of getting these, or a pair of Chanel ones. I'm glad I was so indecisive because then I got the voucher, and the decision was made for me! Chanel can wait til I earn a better wage!

They are ridiculously too large for me, and I look like a kid wearing my Mum's sunglasses, but hell I like them.

I also filmed a Youtube video to accompany this but I'm too tired to edit right now, hopefully that will be up tomorrow. I'm such an amateur. xXx

MAC To The Beach Collection

I waited for this collection to hit the shops before I purchased anything, purely because I don't trust the website for accuracy of shades or finishes to the products. It turned out the products I wanted from looking at the website were the ones I liked in real-life and ended up buying anyway.

I could have quite happily gone a little crazy with this collection to be honest, a lot of it really appealed. I was subdued though and just got what I went in for, I do find it hard to part with a lot of money in one go which isn't too terrible I suppose. The only part of this collection that I would have avoided is the eyeshadows. The only colours that grabbed my attention were Shimmermoss and Humid, both of which are permanent items, and one I already own. Sweet and Punchy is a limey yellow colour, it's pretty but not something I'd see myself wearing, I own one yellow eyeshadow which rarely sees the light of day, so didn't want another to add to it. Yellow is a very hit or miss colour, I think I only need to ever own one yellow.

Both of the eye kohls were gorgeous colours, but I have dupes of both of them, (check out the GOSH Velvet Touch eyeliners if you're after a dupe) so again not something I needed.

The blushers in this collection are Hipness and Getaway Bronze. Hipness is a repromote from a previous collection and is a vibrant coral pink and Getaway Bronze looked more golden than anything else to me. I think I'd go lightly with either of these blushers.

The bronzers are both available from the permanent line, I'm still using my Refined Golden from the Style Warriors collection! It is beautiful and still a firm favourite of mine. There are also two cream bronzers with this collection, which I didn't expect to like, I've never been a fan of cream blushers, possibly due to the incompatibility with my skin type. But these seemed to be different, the formulation is one where the product goes on creamy but turns to a powder like form once you've applied it. I think this would have great staying power, so if you're actually going "To The Beach" you might like this!

The highlight powder "Marine Life" is possibly the item from this collection on everybodys wish list. It was on mine too. Then I saw it and realised I really am too sad to actually be able to use it, it's too pretty and sparkly. The gold sheen on top is only an overspray and wipes away after the first couple of uses. As much as wanted to buy it, £20 is too much to part with something I know I daren't use. I think this would be more suitable as a blush than a highlight product, the lighter part used on it's own might pass as a highlight, but the darker, coral part is more of a blush I think would look great on the apples of your cheeks.

So that's an overview of the majority of the products, now on to what I actually did purchase. I loved the colour of Beachbound lipstick. I thought it was both unique yet wearable at the same time. It's an orangey golden shade in a glaze finish which means it's not so pigmented. I bought Flurry of Fun to go over the top of it, which you can see from the pictures the outcome. While I like the two together and thought the colours complimented each other, I don't really believe that a glaze lipstick needs a lipgloss on the top and that these products are best worn separately. The other lipsticks were a little too dark for my liking, whilst Lazy Day was just a little underwhelming. I chose Flurry of Fun from the Lip Glasses for being the most interesting to look at and completely different from anything I already own. It's again a tone of orange which might sound scary, but I think Lip Glasses are the best place to experiment with new colours as they're never as intense as a lipstick. It contains glitter particles which are multi-coloured, with mostly a greeney blue glitter. Sounds weird, but it's actually quite a nice effect. It reminds me of the way sand reflects the sun, not sure if that was what MAC were aiming for, but that's what I think of! I think it works well with a neutral eye make-up look as it can look a little busy on your lips, but is a nice playful look if you don't over do it with busy eye make-up.

Hope this helps anyone thinking of buying from this collection.

xXx

Make-up Product of the Month: February - MAC Da Bling Eyeshadow

This eyeshadow is already available on the permanent line but has also featured on the Spring Colour Forecast collection. On the one hand, I feel a bit like these repromotes from MAC are a tad lazy, I would like to see some new colours, but on the other, this repromoting gives people a chance to discover a product they might not have known about otherwise. Also the fancier packaging the collections usually come in are a lure, although for this collection the packaging is as standard.

I mentioned that I was somewhat tricked in to buying this eyeshadow, because the MA in the store was wearing pink eyeshadow herself. It really wasn’t a colour I thought I would buy and pull off myself. Originally I wanted Expensive Pink but after seeing how dark that was in real life, knew it would only make me look washed out and ill looking. Although I thought Da Bling was much brighter than I was used to, it’s a lot more flattering than I expected. A combination I find works really nice is Da Bling on the eyelid, Twinks in the crease, and Hush on the brow bone. I really like how this makes green eyes (hate to use this word) “pop” (cringe, but it really does!) It’s not a colour I thought would compliment green so well but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. The colour payoff is quite good, it’s a veluxe pearl finish, which I find means it goes on quite lightly but can be built up for a more intense wash of colour depending on your personal taste. This is always the first colour I notice when I open my palette, it’s a refreshing flash of colour amongst my neutrals. Well worth a glance over if you haven't seen this colour.

Recent MAC and Topshop finds

Really all I wanted to buy this weekend was a new lipstick, but it's hard to buy just one thing! I was after a bright pink shade, a la Cheryl Cole, one that I can wear for going out, or any time I'm feeling a bit more daring. I rarely stray from safe nude shades on my lips so felt like I wanted to experiment a little. Pink Nouveau was my lipstick of choice, it seemed to me a perfect barbie pink, not the brightest pink I saw, but what I'd describe as the "truest" pink. It's a satin finish which I find has a lot more staying power than the Lustre finish. It's also more matte which I find I really need to be careful with because it can be a little drying. Along with this I got a blusher in Peaches, which is a sheertone blush, without shimmer. I'd describe it as similar to Springsheen but without the shimmer, it's very matte which I think makes it more appealing to most people.

Above is a swatch of the blush on top, and the lipstick below. I will at some point do a more detailed review/comparison of these products. Now on to the Topshop goodies. First up, this layered short sleeved top which is a mint green colour. I bought this to go with the high waisted black skirt I showed you as this top is cropped and the shape will complement it nicely. I'm loving all the pastel, nude colours that are about at the moment, it's very flirty and feminine. I like wearing this top to smarten up jeans too, and although it's cropped it doesn't really show much which I like, possibly because of my shortness! I'm not sure how I'd feel about wearing this if I was taller. This is not the best background for the top to be against for you to see it properly!Here's another staple top I bought. Again this is cropped. I like the loose sleeves, and the button detail down the middle. It's just a basic top but looks great with jeans, and it's available in a range of nude and earthy tones.

I love this jumper too. It's very simple, just a plain black jumper, but I love the gold button detailing on the sleeves. I think it's a really nice touch. This is what I love about Topshop, the little details. I like to wear this with a black waisted belt, just because it's not very fitted, and the belt helps to give a nicer figure.

Finally, I had my eyes on these a while ago, but for some reason or another, managed not to buy them. I had to go back to buy them this weekend though because I think they are quite unique. The pattern reminds me of peacock feathers, but they're on a thin piece of metal which is a nice twist, I've not really seen any like this before.

In other news, I went to the Affordable Homes Show in Westminster yesterday to find out some more information for people buying their first home in London. It was quite interesting, if somewhat of a mindfield, there's so much to take into account when buying your first flat. Me and my boyfriend had our first viewing today and it was so exciting thinking about getting our very own place. I love my flat where I live now but it can get a little tedious sharing with another person. At least now the ball's started rolling and I can feel more excited about what's on it's way. Hope everyone's had a great weekend, enjoy what's left of it!