Accessorize Baked Blush - A Review!

Hey Everyone!

This is going to be a little review of my latest favourite blush! It's from Accessorize, it is the "Merged Baked Blusher" in the shade "5 - Sensation" and I think it is gorgeous! It is £5, from Superdrug and looks like this!

I love love love the packaging of Accessorize make up. I think it's all really pretty and gorgeous and also really classy looking. (Classy might be the wrong word - but what I'm trying to say is it doesn't look cheap!) 

Now I've mentioned my love of baked makeup before! But I could actually just look at this and be happy I bought it, it's just so so pretty! The blush itself is a light pink shade with coral tones to it, as you can (hopefully) see. It's a gorgeous colour and nicely pigmented so easy to use and should last me a lifetime! One thing that I like, but others may not is that it's got quite a sheen to it. I like it because it kind of acts as a highlight as well a blush. If you prefer a more subtle look then maybe this might be a bit much but I adore it and I think it is perfect for nights out! Here is a swatch...

Crappy picture (as always Karen) so apologies, but I hope you can sort of see the results you get from this blush. I would definitely recommend it as I think it's gorgeous and it's only a fiver ;)

Hope you enjoyed this post :)
Karen xx

How I Highlight!

Hey Everyone! 
This is just going to be a little post on what I use to highlight my face and a miniature review! So what is it I'm talking about?....It's the Accessorize bronzer in Golden Sand and it looks like this...

I'm a sucker for baked products anyways, I love them and I always think they look so good! So obviously I couldn't resist this! Never mind using it I could just look at it all day!..But I do use it!..It's leaning towards a little expensive at £7 but it gives a lovely sheen. I don't like to use it all over my face, unless I'm going out, however I find this product is a perfect highlight for me and gives a gorgeous glow in the right places. Here is a swatch...

I hope you can see here the look it gives. I use this on me cheek bones and  tiny bit down the bridge of my nose. I really love it and if you are looking for a nice highlight I would definitely recommend giving this a try! 


Hope you enjoyed this post,
Karen :) xx

40 Beauty Questions Tag!

SKINCARE 

1)How many times do you wash your face daily?                              Usually twice, although if I'm being lazy when I get in from work I sometimes just take off my makeup with a face wipe.

What skin type do you have? 

Normal to dry skin. I'm lucky my skin isn't overly sensitive and I don't tend to get spots or breakouts often.

What is your current facial wash?

Currently I'm using the new Clean & Clear Morning Burst Skin Brightening Cleanser and I really like it, wakes my skin up when I need it!

Do you exfoliate? 

I do, I exfoliate both my face and body around twice a week.

What brand do you use?.

I love the St.Ives apricot exfoliating facial scrubs, they are amazing and leave my skin so feeling so soft! As for body I tend to switch it up and use a couple of different body polishes. 

What moisturizer do you use?

I don't moisturise much, terrible I know! But my skin is never too dry so I often just don't bother, but if I do I like Olay Beauty Fluid. I'm currently using a Body Shop body butter from the Dreams range for my body.

Do you have freckles? 

I have some freckles, but not a lot.

Do you use eye cream? 

I haven't yet found an eye cream that I really like, so I do use some but I haven't got a favourite or anything like that.

Do you or did you have acne prone skin?

No I have never had acne prone skin.

Did you ever have to use Pro-activ? 

Nope, never. 

MAKE-UP

What foundation do you use? 

Currently I'm regularly using Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation. I also like Revlon Colourstay

How about concealer? 

At the minute I'm enjoying the Collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer, but I also really love boi-ing by Benefit and I love their Erase Paste!

Do you know your undertone color?

I've never done an actual test but my skin has yellow undertones. 

What do you think of fake eyelashes?

I think they can look really nice when done well. It's a skill I don't possess unfortunetly! 

Did you know that you are supposed to change your mascara every 3 months? 

Yes! 

What brand of mascara do you use?

At the minute I'm using the MUA Pro Extreme Curl Mascara, it's amazing and only £2. I would say my all time most re-purchased mascara is GOSH Amazing Length & Build Mascara.

Sephora or MAC? 

Neither

Do you have a MAC Pro-card? 

Nope!

What makeup tools do you use in make up application? 

I have a scatter of different brushes! I mostly use my Eco tools brushes with some random ELF and No.7 brushes too.

Do you use make-up base/primer for the eyes? 

At the minute I'm using Catrice eyeshadow base and I love it, and I've recently done a review on it!

For the face?  

I'm currently using the MUA pro primer, still undecided on it though! I still think Benefit's That Gal' is probably my favourite face primer.

What is your favorite eyeshadow (color or shade)?

I use neutral brown/gold/cream shades most often

Do you use pencil or liquid eyeliner? 

If I have time I like to use gel, if I'm in a hurry I use felt tip eyeliner. Pencil eyeliner has always smudged badly for me.

How often do you poke your eyes with an eyeliner pencil? 

Not very often thankfully!

What do you think of pigment eyeshadows? 

Great colours but too messy for my liking.

Do you use mineral makeup?  

No not really. I'm not blown away mineral makeup that much.

What is your favorite lipstick?

Oh that is a hard question!...In general I like pink tones most of the time. I think the Natural Collection lipsticks are quite nice, really affordable and some nice shades. I also really like The Body Shop lipsticks.

How about lipgloss? 

Same with shades, I use pinks most often. At the minute I'm using and enjoying the Essence stay with me lipgloss.

What is your favorite blush to use?

Another hard one! Currently I'm loving the Accessorize blushes. A review will be coming soon!

Do you buy your makeup on ebay?

No

Do you like drugstore makeup?

Yes absolutely, my makeup collection is mainly drugstore products.

Do you go to CCO's? (cosmetic company outlets) 

No, just because I'm not near any :(

Did you ever consider taking make-up classes? 

No not really, I enjoying playing around, practicing and kind of teaching myself! Plus youtube is a great help, there are some great tutorials etc out there. I really love emilynoel83's videos

Are you clumsy in putting on makeup?

No not usually, if I'm feeling lazy and not wanting to concentrate too much I keep it simple.

Name a makeup crime that you hate? 

Bad mascara! Clumpy stuck together lashes do my head in, I don't know how anyone can think that looks good! I just want to attack them with makeup remover!

Do you like colorful shades of makeup (lipstick,eyeshadow) or neutral ones? 

With lipsticks and eyeshadows I tend not to be too wild with my colour choices. Personally I think natural looks suit me best. 

Which celebrity always has great make up?

I'm not sure but the person who springs to mind is Jennifer Lopez on American Idol, when it was on. I loved her makeup looks!

If you could leave the house using just ONE make up item, what would you use?

Probably mascara

Could you ever leave the house without any makeup on?

Yea I'm not overly conscious about that.

Do you think you look good even without any makeup on? 

I think I look ok! But I prefer myself with at least concealer, because I get terrible eye circles and have some scars.

In your opinion, what is the BEST makeup line?

I don't think there is one. I've found lots of good bits from lots of different brands.

What do you think of Makeup?? 

A great way to make the best of what you have, and to get creative and have fun! :)

Hope you enjoyed this post!

Karen :) xx

George Flawless Creme Foundation - Review

Hey Everyone!

So recently George at Asda have come out with a new makeup range including a much wider range of products of seemingly higher quality. I thought it looked interesting and wanted to try some so I picked up the Flawless Creme Foundation. It is £4 and looks like this..

It is quite nice packaging, it has two compartments, one with a nice size mirror and the other with sponge for application. 

So the foundation itself? Terrible! I've tried it a couple of days now and I actually can't use it anymore, I think it's horrible. I've applied it using the sponge and my fingers, neither made any difference as it's the actual foundation that is so bad. The first thing is that it is incredibly greasy, I have normal - dry skin and it felt awful on. It was like having a layer of oil on my skin, just disgusting. And as for the "flawless" coverage? Non existent. It turns to a slightly tinted almost clear coverage. Here is a swatch..

Can you see it?!...This is a couple of swatches and you can barely see anything. This might be ok for a really light coverage look but the foundation itself feels anything but light so it's actually not much good for that either! 

Overall I don't like this product and would definitely not recommend it! (I'm still wishing NYC didn't get rid of their cream foundation, boo!) Have you tried any good products from the George range?..Let me know!

Hope you enjoyed this post
Karen :) xx

Essence Stay With Me Lipgloss - Review

Hey Everyone!

It has been ages since I last did a post! If you follow me on twitter you probably know why but I won't go into it now! This is a review of a lovely little lipgloss I came across recently by Essence! It looks like this..

So to start off it is a bargain as I bought it for €1.99. It has really nice packaging, nothing too fancy but it's a nice size and I quite like the design. It has a strange little applicator, not the usual doe foot type, it looks like this.. 

I can't really see any particular benefits to this applicator, it's not awful but I think a regular doe foot would be fine if not better. So on to the actual gloss, I really like it! I was so impressed with the pigmentation, it's not something you get with a lot of cheaper glosses. Often they are pigmented in the packaging but not when they are applied, this wasn't the case with this though! The quality is definitely more reminiscent of what you would expect from more expensive gloss. Here is a swatch...

As usual my picture taking skills are letting me down but I hope you can see the kind of result this lipgloss gives! As well as this it also lives up to it's long lasting claims, something that also doesn't often happen with cheaper glosses. It stayed well for me while drinking and eating and didn't need reapplication for about 2 hours. 

So overall I was really impressed and would definietly recommend it! Such a fabulous gloss for under €2!

Hope you enjoyed this review!

Karen :) xx

The Easy Way to Fix A Broken Lipstick!

Hey Everyone!


So it's happened to us all at some point, your favourite lipstick breaks, disaster! :( But fear not, there is a ridiculously simple, easy cheap effective way to fix them! First of all I don't claim to have come up with this method, after some researching blogs, youtube videos and all that, this is the best and easiest way I have found and it doesn't involve the use of lipstick molds or any complicated stuff! So this is what you will need!...

You will need: A Hairdryer, your broken lipstick, some baby wipes to clean up and a fridge (not pictured!)

The first thing you need to do is take the tube that has a little product left in it and stick the hair dryer on it on a high heat setting. Do this for about 15-30 seconds or however long you find it takes to slightly melt the remaining product in the tube. 

Once this is done simply press the lipstick back into the tube on top of the the slightly melted lipstick. Press it down to your desired position and leave it in the fridge, upright like the following picture, for approximately 30 minutes.

And voila! Your lipstick will be fixed! This worked perfectly for me, no wobble or anything, my lipstick was back to normal! Also the lipstick I used in the pictures in Rose Pearl from Natural Collection, and this has happened me three times with Natural Collection lipsticks!


Anyways I hope you enjoyed this post! :)
Karen :) xx

An Eye Primer Extraordinaire!

Hey Everyone!

I am so very excited to tell you about this amazing eye primer I came across recently. It's the Catrice eye shadow base and it looks like this...

It claims to intensify eye shadow and increase durabililty. I bought this from my local pharmacy, it retails at €4.79 (Around £4.20) but it was 50% off all Catrice on the day I was there so I got it for €2.40 (Around £2.10), for 2.1ml of product, what a bargain!..I had recently been thinking that I had never come across any eye primers by the more affordable brands (maybe there is but I have never seen them!) and so there wasn't really a good alternative for anyone who didn't fancy spending £16 + pounds on the "cult favourites" like Two Faced shadow insurance, or Urban Decay primer potion. 

SO enter Catrice eyeshadow base, this stuff is amazing! The first thing that I thought when I was using it is that it is very similar to the Urban Decay primer potion (previously mentioned cult fave!), the product itself, consistency,  feel, application etc. all very similar. It gives a really smooth soft finish, as you would expect. Here are some swatches..

When I apply my eye makeup over this, you can really feel the primer "grabbing" the shadow, and it really does intensify eyeshadow, like it claims it will. This is all great but the main thing I want from an eye primer is to increase durability, so does it live up to it's claim?...YES!.. I have used this first thing in the morning, carried on through a normal day, then into the evening, over 12 hours and still my eye shadow did not budge. I also used it on a night out last night my eyeshadow stayed perfect all night long and (I'm really not proud of this) I didn't take my makeup off when I got home (disaster, I know!) BUT when I got up, my eyeshadow was still perfect!!...And all this for €2.40? AMAZING!

I'm so impressed by this stuff, the only downside being I know Catrice are not overly represented in the UK, so it may be a little hard to come by, but anyone from Ireland should be able to find this pretty easily. Anyways, wherever you are if you come across this product buy it, you won't be sorry!

Hope you enjoyed this review! 

Karen :) xx

Preparing for University! Tips for first time students :)

Hey Everyone!

It’s that time of year, back to school, back to college, back to uni. For a lot of people it’s their first time heading off or away from home and this is quite daunting. I’m no expert and maybe this won’t help anyone but I’ve been through it, so I said I would do a little post on preparing for university! I started university 3 years ago (I’m finished now, sob) and I moved quite a distance! I’m from Ireland but I moved to the U.K in order to do a course that wasn’t available in Ireland. It was incredibly daunting and hard considering I had just turned 18 and not only was I leaving home, I was leaving my home country. When I moved over it was lonely and it was scary and I did find myself questioning if I had done the right thing by moving for the course. Now I’m finished and I am about to start my dream job, so I can definitely say it was the right move.

First Things First

So you’re about to head off, what advice can I give you? The first thing I would say is this; don’t do a course, just for the sake of it. Do something you will love and enjoy and that will lead you to a job and a life you will love when it’s all over. If you don’t know what it is you want to do, then take some time out, think about it. If you’re not interested in your course, you won’t enjoy the lectures, you won't want to attend, you won’t want to do the work and usually that means you won’t be very successful. I seen it happen on my own course, there was people who didn’t want to be there, who barely turned up and when they did they spent their time disrupting the rest of us. Needless to say they dropped out at the end of the first year, not only is this a waste of time, it’s a waste of money. I know there is often a lot of pressure to head off to college or university straight away, but there is nothing wrong with taking time out to figure out what you want to do. One of best friends went to college to do a course she wasn’t really interested in and ended up dropping out. She took a year out and now this year she is returning to uni to do a course she is actually interested in.

The Practical Stuff!

Well the first thing you will need is stationary (Woohoo!). I would recommend the hardback notebooks with dividers – do not use just a refill pad! – Notes fall out, get lost etc and it’s not good! The divider notepads allowed me to keep all my subject notes together and because they were hardback, all my notes are still in ace condition! Aside from notes you take yourself you’re bound to get handouts as well so I also had a sturdy folder, which I bought dividers for so all my subject notes could be categorised in the same way as they were in my notepad! The other thing I had was a regular ring bound notepad, this I used this for rough assignment and research notes. This is not a lot of stuff but it enabled me to be very organised and even now I would have no problem finding subject notes from any of my years because they are so well organised! :) Aside from this it also helped to have a diary with assignment due dates, exam dates etc. in, that way you will not forget!

Home Comforts

I think a lot of first time students move into student digs, these tend to be pretty plain and not too fancy! I found that simple things made a big difference to me, a nice bed set, posters for your walls, picture collages (my favourite!) etc., anything that makes your space a bit more YOUR space. It’s probably the first “home away from home” for most people and so you really want it to be a place that feels like yours and that you’re happy to spend time in.

Get involved!

For a lot of people university is the time they come out of their shell and although it can be intimidating, remember 99% of people there are feeling the exact same as you! At my university all dorms were arranged with first years together and a fresher crew member that had been there before. So everybody that was there was in the same boat as I was. The important thing I found was this, the first people you hang round with don’t have to be your only friends; get out there, get talking to people as much as you can until you find a group of people you feel you fit into. A lot of uni life does centre around socialising and drinking, if this isn’t your thing don’t feel pressured to do it, there will always be people around with the same values as you. Join clubs and groups that reflect your interests, personally I found my best friends were people from my course, because we had the same interests. The other thing I found helped me was getting a job at our uni bar, you meet and talk to lots of people and it helped me to come out of my shell, make friends and earn a little extra cash!

Finally....

The most important thing is to know what you want to from your university experience and make sure you get it. I had the best three years of my life (so far!) at uni and I’m sure when you finish you want to be able to look back and think the same, so enjoy it :)

Hope you enjoyed this post and it that it will be of some help to some of you :)

Karen xx

Collection 2000 Smokey Eye Palette Review

Hey Everyone!


I recently received this as a gift from one of my friends and was very excited to try it! It's the Smokey Eye Palette from Collection 2000 and it looks like this...

First off I like the packaging, it's not fancy or anything but it's a good size and would be great for travelling with. It has 9 shades which include shimmers, mattes and a cream and they are classified into dark, medium, light and cream. It also comes with a nice double ended applicator and a step by step how to guide on the back. The applicator is actually pretty nice, it looks like this...

It has a large side for packing shadows on and a smaller side which is good for using in the crease, along the lower lash line etc. The guide on the back is pretty simple but covers the basics in a four steps, it looks like this..

So the shadows themselves..I found them to be ok, not great, not awful. Here is a swatch in the order they appear in the pack..

Now I know the picture quality isn't fantastic but I think you can see what I mean. The shimmer "Medium" shades are nicely pigmented and I quite like them. The darker shades aren't as pigmented, like the matte black shade is very light, and I found it took quite a bit of effort to get the kind of "BAM" look I want from a smokey eye. However the pink toned light shade and the cream are really nice and really good highlights. 


Overall the feeling I got when using this palette was that it would be perfect for a smokey eye beginner. The medium and light shades are really nice and the darker shades are quite forgiving and so if you were trying a smokey eye for the first time I think this would be perfect! To sum up it's a nice little palette and well priced at under £5. If they were to make more smokey eye palettes using some different colours; plums, blues etc. I would definitely consider investing!


Hope you enjoyed this review! :) 


Karen xx