Winter Warmers

I am someone who loves snow. But more when I don't need to be anywhere or do anything, i.e. over Christmas is a great time to snow for me. When everything seems to grind to a halt and I have to come home it's a little annoying. Today we were finally hit by the snow that has been threatening us, never appearing and seeming to fall everywere else, and it got us pretty good. I made the effort to get into my work only to do half a day because everything was cancelled. I would also enjoy snow a little more as someone I overheard today said "I wish snow was warm." I do too! I will just enjoy it by looking from my window in the warmth and comfort of my flat. Here's a little snippet of south east London just after sunset.My journey to work can take me anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour since I rely on public transport so when it's chilly I need to find ways to keep myself warm. At the weekend I had a little ponder around TK Maxx for a flask, I went there specifically because I wanted a proper design brand that would keep my drink hot, not just one that looks pretty. Thermos is a godsend as far as I'm concerned. I'm also loving cable knit clothing like this assymetric jumper and tri-flower headband I purchased in New Look. Thermal leggings are from Primark, I usually wear these under something when I'm not indoors. The socks are tube socks for skiing purchased from a sports shop. All in all, I'm pretty toasty. "Warm" smells are a huge hit for me this time of year too. Since around Halloween, I can't get enough of anything cinnamon or gingery smelling. I found this candle in TK Maxx by Our Own Candle Company. TK Maxx is a great place for jar candles like this. They don't sell any Yankee candles, but there's a few brands pretty similar, I particularly like this one because they're made from soya, and I love the tankard design. This one has three scents so I shouldn't get bored of it and it really fragrances my room nicely. This one is priced at £6.99 which isn't bad value for a candle of this quality, and there's lots of other lush scents to choose from.

What are your favourite winter warmers?

Sleek Sparkle Palette

Sleek have released a new limited edition palette that looks very fitting for the run up to Christmas and New Year. I snapped one up as soon as I saw them after missing out on the Bad Girl palette that was full of great smokey colours, similar to the Graphite palette. This one features a lot of darker sultry colours with glitter particles to create some great looks for the party season. Although a lot of the shades are darker toned, theres also a bright pink shade thrown in there and a yellow gold and silver which are shimmery rather than glittery, and of course there's a matte black shade as with pretty much all Sleek palettes.

Palettes are priced at £5.99 in Superdrug and if you go now you can take advantage of the 3 for 2 offer which is available on all cosmetics.

Here's a break down on the colours:

Cranberry: a hot magenta pink with glitter particles.
Dream Maker: a greyish, silver blue with glitter particles.
Galactic: a medium royal blue with glitter particles.
Twinkle: a navy blue with glitter particles.
Starlight: a dark grey with glitter particles.
Noir: a matte black.
Illusion: a dark midnight purple with glitter particles.
Festive: a rich plum purple with glitter particles.
Mistletoe: an emerald green with glitter particles.
Glitz & Glamour: a smokey off black with glitter particles.
Gold Ribbon: a shimmery yellow with a hint of gold.
Tinsel: a shimmery light silver.

Accessorize Make-up

This was unbeknown to me, but I discovered last week that Accessorize now have their own make-up range. I don't know if this available to buy in the Accessorize shop too, but I found it in Superdrug. It had replaced the Elite range of make-up that I rarely purchased anything from and I wandered over to look at this new range, not realising at first it was by Accessorize, it was the pretty packaging that caught my eye first.I felt a little dubious at the fact it was Accessorize, not because I don't like the brand (you know I do!) but because usually I have been disappointed by own-brand makeup by shops that specialise in something completely non-makeup related, I'm thinking Topshop makeup here...

Accessorize makeup pleasantly surprised me though. It looks absolutely beautiful and even if I swatched it and there wasn't much colour pay-off, I probably would have still bought something based on looks alone, shallow as I am. The stand out products for me are the minerals, though I couldn't tell you what else is in the range since these were the only products I really looked at. The solo mineralised eyeshadows were just stunning, very reminiscent of MAC mineralised shadows, with two or three colours running through one another, giving off one shade when you swatch it all together. I thought I'd get a bit more value for my money and purchased a duo mineral shadow though. Again there were a lot of colours that appealed to me, I didn't catch the name but there's a gorgeous jade green light and dark duo. I went for a safe neutral that I can wear every day to start me off with this range and this shade is called High Maintenance (number 3). This is a perfect duo, the colours compliment one another very nicely, there's a lighter shade, which I'd describe as somewhere between MAC's Jest and Nylon, it's a great eye-awakening colour which I'm really in need of this time of year. The darker colour looks lovely worn alongside in the crease, it's a mix of Satin Taupe and Woodwinked, it's nice that even though these are neutral colours, I don't own any dupes for either of them, they are quite unique in their own right. I felt like I need to show you what these products look like swatched, even though this is the worst lighting, I find blogging is difficult in the winter months, I'm never home in the daylight to take decent photographs.

If nothing else, the photographs show you the effect they give your skin even if not an accurate portrayal of the colour. They are comparable to MAC mineralised products, they give the same shimmery, irridescent effect, although I'd say not quite as shimmery or pigmented which I think is a good thing in some people's eyes. I personally love the shimmer, but it's nice to own something a little more toned down. The left shows the High Maintenance duo. The right is the blusher in Pretty Pink. This is undoubtedly one of my favourite blushers I have purchased. The colour appears light and a slightly darker peachy pink with lilac veining. The overall colour on your skin is the lighter peachy pink colour. For some skin tones this might make a better highlighter than a blush, but I love that on my skin it just gives a dewy lift without making me look that done up. I usually go for colours like MAC's Springsheen which when I'm wearing it, is pretty obviously a blusher. It's not as obvious with Pretty Pink unless I layer it. I have been wearing both of these mineralised products together for the whole of this week and I feel like this is a natural looking, "glowy" makeup combination. I'm happy with everything about the product, from quality to price (I can't remember exactly but both products together were under £10) and I will be back for more, perhaps some of the bolder colours. The mineralised bronzers looked equally beautiful but I wouldn't be fooling anyone when it's nearly December, so I'll hold out until late Spring for those.

Have you bought anything from this makeup range?

What are your thoughts?

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!