Accessorize Latest Finds

Accessorize is pretty much my favourite place to buy accessories from. I picked up two pairs of earrings from there recently. A silver pair in this filligree leaf design which is also available in gold and has the matching necklace in both silver and gold. These were priced at £12.

I also got these cute gold bird stud earrings for only £4. I didn't mind paying the bit extra for the leaf ones because I don't wear drop earrings like this everyday, I prefer them for going out. Studs on the other hand tend to get worn out more quickly so £4 is enough to pay for a fashion pair like this.

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?

NOTD Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream

Sorry about the shoddy lighting. This is my latest helping of Barry M, Strawberry Ice Cream. It's a gorgeous pastel pink colour. I love the pastel collection from Barry M, it was definitely lacking amongst all the bright shades that were on offer. These are true Barry M pastels though, because they're still bright, they're not like a faded colour that you would expect from a pastel. They're pretty though, and if you're like me and don't own any pastel or even any light pinks, (I know, shock horror!) then this is a perfect start. I don't know how I've not owned any shades like this before. It's too pretty.

Would You Rather...Tali's Tag

I feel I've been rather absent from Blogger lately, I think we all go through this from time to time. I go from blogging every day to not blogging for a couple of weeks. Partly because of lack of time, partly because of lack of inspiration. Today I have both so yay!

Today is my boyfriend and I's 4 year anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been that long and I'm glad that we are both still happy. We're going to go out for a meal later to celebrate.

On another celebratory note, I was pleased to see when I logged in today I have 199 followers. I see 200 as quite a milestone, and it doesn't seem that long ago I reached 100. I don't want to be presumptious, but hopefully 200 is just around the corner! I know it sounds cliched, and fake, but I genuinely mean this: I would still blog no matter how many people were reading this, it's my little space on the internet to talk about what I love and I love interacting with those of you that share this interest with me and it just means even more that there's so many of you. Remove all the negativity and this is really a great community.

I thought I'd get back into blogging with a tag as I haven't done one in a while, and I came across Tali's tag that interested me so I'm going to go ahead and do that.

Would you rather...

Never use mascara again or bronzer again?

This is pretty tough, but I would have to lump with giving up the bronzer, at least I could substitute it with blush. There's no substitute to mascara, except maybe false lashes but I couldn't be doing with applying them everyday.

Only be able to buy high end make-up or drugstore make-up again?

I like to mix the two! I'm going to say drug store though, high end is more of a luxury for me than a staple part of my make-up. Most make-up items have a drugstore brand that works really well, I couldn't choose just one drugstore brand though.

Be in love or be loved?

I think I'd rather love. I'm pretty sure if you love something enough it will eventually love you back. I can't imagine not having love for someone!

Go out with chipped nail varnish or unshaven legs?

I could deal with chipped nail varnish, I don't like it and I end up picking at it profusely if I see a chip and I have no access to a bottle of nail varnish remover, but hairy legs are a no-no.

Go out with messy hair or no make-up?

Messy hair all the way. It's not uncommon for me to not brush my hair some mornings.

Leave the house with an orange tan or peroxide-gone-wrong ginger hair?

Orange tan as tacky as it is. I've had bad hair experiences in the past and it makes you so self-conscious, people can notice it from the front, from behind you, your hair is really one of the first things people notice, so at least with orange skin I could try and hide my face a bit.

It were winter forever or summer forever?

Summer summer time! I'm a total sun worshipper, now the days are getting shorter it's increasingly hard to get out of bed, I feel like a flower that curls up without the sun! I'm not a fan of the cold either. I love most things associated with summer though, long days, ice cream, trips to the beach, generally being outside doing things you can't do in the winter.

Have permanent 2 inch roots or permanently unplucked brows?

2 inch roots are OK in my opinion. Unless you have black hair dyed peroxide blonde, bit too much of a contrast. I don't pluck my brows much, I plucked them a lot when I was younger, thankfully not too thin, so the unwanted hair has taken a hint over time and isn't growing back. So neither of these things really bother me.

Leave the house with dried toothpaste drool or crusty yellow sleep eyes?

Dried toothpaste, yellow eyes are pretty disgusting, at least toothpaste is a sign you tried to clean yourself.

Give up all MAC or all Illamasqua products?

Illamasqua, I haven't really jumped on board of the Illamsqua bandwagon yet. I'm quite easily swayed though, so it could happen.

I tag...you! If you want to do it!

Purity Organic Skincare - Product Range Overview

I've mentioned my love for Purity before and reviewed a couple of their products. Recently I entered a competition of theirs and although I didn't win, I was kindly sent some products as a thank-you for entering. I was really not expecting all these lush goodies, so it was a lovely surprise in the post. Below are the cleansing products. I have previously purchased the Conditioning Cleansing Lotion myself before, and this is a product I find very effective and kind to my skin. It has quite a milky texture and is a gentle way to remove my make-up at the end of the day. Because it's conditioning, it also leaves a nice smooth finish on my skin. I have also bought the Exfoliating Wash before which I'm sure I've reviewed so won't go in to detail here, but it's another great product and one I will repurchase when this runs out. I alternate between this and Lush's Angels on Bare Skin, and they both seem to do wonders for my skin. The Facial Wash is one I wanted to try out so I was happy to see this in my parcel.

A couple of products I probably wouldn't have otherwise purchased were the two anti-aging products. I'm still just about the right side of 25, and I don't really think about aging although I feel like the cosmetics industry would have me believe that now is the time to start taking action to help prevent the effects it will have on my skin. I'm not buying into most of the hype surrounding anti-age products, but I think these products are a little bit different from your average anti-aging product. I won't name any brands, but there are some that claim far too much than they actually deliver and contain such a cocktail of chemicals, they end up doing the exact opposite to your skin than you were hoping for. I remember a programme a while back which studied a variety of products. Whilst using the products, skin might appear younger, but once stopped, and the skin examined, it was clear the signs of aging had been sped up. The brands with the fewer chemicals came up tops and that's why I feel like I might be having my eyes opened to Purity for their anti-aging range, I've actually used the serum mask once and I have very positive thoughts so far, so a review will be to follow shortly. The original Facial Moisturiser is my current moisturiser, I purchased this myself with the Cleansing Lotion, so it's good to have a back-up when it runs out. The other moisturiser is the Regenerating Overnight Moisturiser which I haven't yet tried out. I tend not to use rich moisturisers as my skin is quite oily, but going in to winter time this is less of a problem, and it is always beneficial to your skin to give it a good hydration from time to time so this is something I'm looking forward to trying.

I'm going to give using the products I haven't reviewed a little while longer before I review them in more detail, but my initial thoughts are pretty good and of the usual standard I expect from this brand.

Have you ever tried Purity?

UNE Eye Pencils

I'm on an Une role at the moment. I loved the foundation so decided to branch out and try their eye pencils. If there's one part of your body that you might want to avoid products with man-made chemicals in it's probably your eyes, and these are the first eyeliners I've seen that are natural. I wear eyeliner practically every day, liquid on the lashline, and a pencil or kohl on the waterline, and have done for years, so I know I'm not sensitive to any chemicals, but it's never too late to try and be good to my body.

There are a few different eye pencils available, and this is where you need a beady eye because they all look the same, same white packaging, same square shape, and the concealer is the same format too which I found the whole idea of a pencil crayon concealer quite interesting. But anyway, thinking about it, eye pencils are one of the most annoying things to buy, they will be put closely together and get so mixed up, you reach for a kohl and you get an eyebrow pencil, I also don't enjoy sifting through them to find one that hasn't been blunted (real word?). That wasn't an issue with these pencils since they took me the best part of 20 minutes to remove the security packaging when I got home. Still, you might need to look at these closely since the only clue to colour is on one end of the pencil, the names give nothing away as they are random letters and numbers.
Below is the eyebrow pencil in B01. There were only two shades available, and since I'm blonde I went with the lighter shade. This was a bit of a mistake since my hair naturally is quite a dark shade of brown, and so my eyebrows are not really blonde. I usually find dark pencils a bit too contrasting with the light hair so I don't want to go any darker than my natural brow colour. The B01 pencil has a slight reddish tone, so I would say this particular pencil would be great for a redhead, or someone with naturally blonde eyebrows. I swatched it on my hand so see the colour but sadly I will have to sell this since it's really not a match for me, it's far too light. I may go back for the darker shade but have a feeling this may be too dark for me, and since the eyebrow pencils are all sealed and there's no testers, I might give it a miss. From the swatch however, I was pleased with the quality of this pencil, some eyebrow pencils have to be pressed quite firmly on the skin just to get any colour pay off. This usally means they stay put once they are which is important because you really don't want to see your eyebrows smudged half way up your forehead. But I liked the way it just glided on with minimal effort and was hard to rub off my hand afterwards. The colour is buildable, I just got a faint bit of colour to begin with, but it doesn't look like an obviously drawn on line, just feathered, evened out colour with no patches which would look very realistic on your brows. Not so in my case since it's about 3 shades too light but you know what I mean! I had a terrible time opening these pencils, and consequently ended up breaking this one. This is the Absolute Blacks KOHL which was available in two shades, this one and a very similar looking one which I think had a hint of blue, but it was difficult to tell the shade just from the end of it. This is a very highly pigmented pencil, it has a very soft formula, similar to kajal, which is why it broke so easily, but it means this goes on like a dream, so soft! Initially, I really liked how easy this was to apply and achieve a dramatic look if you wanted, but a few hours in and I was not so pleased. I'd only worn this in my flat, and a couple of hours later, I looked in the mirror and I looked like I'd been to sleep in my makeup. Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but it was smudged up, to the point where I would be very wary about wearing this out in public. I've used a lot of kohls in the past, by many different brands and never experienced this, so it's a little disappointing, since this is the product I really hoped would work for me.

I'm not one to dismiss a product too quickly though and I gave this another try today, this time applying just to the waterline, I think I put a little on the lower lashline last time instead of liquid liner, and it seemed to fare better when not applied directly to the skin.

The third and final eye pencil I got was this Sfumato Eyes Pencil. Now I don't know what Sfumato means to you, but for me, it means a great quality eyeliner, one that is kind on my skin, and doesn't give me panda eyes. I went for S11 (I have to add at this point how much I really don't like the name format of Une's products, it makes them very unspecial and hard to remember) which is a deep dark brown with ash tones. I use this in the same way I would use the kohl, but I was very pleased to find this does not move about of it's own free will, but stays nicely in place underneath my lash line. It doesn't last as long on my waterline but I think that's pretty obvious, the only colour that stays there for long enough is black, any other coloured eyeliner I've used there has generally faded after a couple of hours, maybe less.There were also some glittery pencil liners available which looked fun and perhaps next on my to-buy list.

Has anyone else tried any of these pencils?
Also, please get in touch if you want to take the blonde eyebrow pencil off my hands as I might as well sell it.!

Loving and Disliking Part Une...

Some things I'm loving and disliking (Because hate's a strong word!) lately.

Loving:

Sushi! Can't get enough of it lately

Katy B, there's something hauntingly beautiful about her voice, and in the genre she's associated with as a whole, I hope she takes off and gets the full credit she deserves.

Finding shoes that fit well. I love heels but it's so difficult to find the right combination of high heel, stylish and comfortable all rolled into one. Lately I've been successful in finding shoes that I like and don't hurt like hell either.

New beginnings. I'm excited that one chapter of my life has ended, and now another one is about to begin, exciting times ahead. :)

Disliking:

Breaking nails - I had them in such great condition, they were long, strong, the tips were white, so I painted them A LOT, and now I seem to be breaking them. :( Nothing lasts forever does it, but why is it when I break a nail it has to be so low down. Oh dear.

Shorter days, it's only September and it's noticable already that the days are getting shorter, booo!