Haulage Part 1 : Freebies & Cheap Makeup finds

I'm here to show you my massive haul for this week. Yes I know it's only Tuesday, but when there are free makeup giveaways, I go runnin' ! :)

Up first is Jemma Kidd lip gloss with Red Magazine.
It's a summer perfect Pink/coral lippie.

Jemma Kidd Hi-Shine silk touch lipgloss in Coral

Full size. I have absolutely LOVE the citrus scent to this lipgloss, smooth texture and  application.  It's a lovely little lipgloss to throw into your bag and reapply constantly without worrying about using it all up like I do with my precious Chanel lippies.


Next up is my Reiss tank top or vest as they call it here, I had a choice with the white, blue, and grey and of course I went for the grey :) Very thin and just a simple "knock-around" top for home or running to the shop real quick. I'm quite happy with this. Oh and it came with Elle Magazine.

I really do enjoy all these free giveaways, well I love the magazines too. I am very digital and electronic when it comes to everything else in my life, but when it comes to fashion magazines and schedules/planner, I love having it in my hand.

Another item that I picked up was Rescue Oil, which is supposedly a miracle oil to help with scars, stretch marks, and other skin issues. 

The packaging states that it is to be gently massaged in the area you want to moisturise or into your bath.

It apparently helps with:

 * Ageing Skin

* Scar Tissue

* Treatment and prevention of stretch marks

* Before and after pregnancy massage oil

* After sun treatment

* Dry dehydrated skin conditions 

* Therapeutic bath oil

I'll be using this for the latter 2.

 I have never heard of this stuff until I saw Bio-Oil at Boots and went home to google it. I didn't realise that there were all these great reviews on this product.  Then, this past weekend, I forget who's blog I read it from (sorry!) but they said that instead of buying the £9-10 bottle of bio-oil to give Rescue Oil a try for only £1, so I figured....why not? If it doesn't work, I won't cry over £1.

So here it is, it's a strange orange colour due to the peach kernel oil, and it really doesn't have a odour either.  I'll give this a go tonight and report back!

So while I was in poundland buying Rescue oil, I couldn't help myself to stroll around, and saw a bunch of Rimmel lipsticks.  Ok, so I have never worn Rimmel and up until recently, I was a bit of a snob and wouldn't wear makeup unless it was expensive (How delusional was that right?!?!?!) and so I decided to give it a go. For £1 I gave it a go, but honestly I'm not happy with it, it instantly started to make my lips flake. So overall, nice colour, but made my lips flake, so it won't be staying with me.

This is Rimmel's Moisture Renew Lipstick in Beach Babe.

So right after Poundland, I popped into Superdrug, because I was getting my friend Gosh Gasoline and Gosh Blue Monday.  As much as those colours are very very very pretty, I'm just not dying to get it for myself.  Maybe because I know I have access to it now. Now watch, Gosh will discontinue them and I'll be here kicking myself in the a$$ for not picking them up lol!

So Gosh is 3 for 2 right now, so I grabbed this one for myself.

Gosh - Lavender Love

Although it is more of a periwinkle ladies.

This is my first Gosh (apart from the holographic one that sucked really badly), so I will do a NOTD soon and report back.

So I am splitting up this haulage into 2 parts, but the second part has to do with my Boots rave and all the Boots items that I got at a bargain bargain price.
To kick off the next part, this is one item that I got for only £2.50.
No 7 nude lipliner (made very popular by Lisa Eldridge) was something that I couldn't pass up with my £5 off voucher.  You get one of these vouchers when you spend £5 or more at Boots, so essentially, you get it for nothing.
This lipliner is suppose to be very flattering and yes it is.  It really is and I'm so freaking happy with this lipliner, because all the liners that I have owned before wore too nude on me or leaned too brown for my liking, and this matches my natural lip colour perfectly!
I just found my favourite lip liner!

So yes, next up will be my Boot's haul.

But before I go, I HAVE to share with you the strawberries that I picked from my in law's garden. So cute!

Ok Will be back with Part 2!

Review: The Break out & The Maria Badescu Drying Lotion

Kind of like the "Beauty & The Beast" scenerio, last night I had a massive allergic reaction or breakout to the left side of my face. First the itching, then all the bumps appearing...yeah I was not very happy, so I immediately washed my face and tried to get whatever was causing this reaction off of me (if in fact it was an external allergic reaction).

I thought to myself...what did I eat different? what did I wear different? and the only thing that I can think about was wearing the Stila tinted moisturizer that I got from Tkmaxx a while back on clearance.  The only reason I didn't think that was it was because I have worn it before without any adverse reactions....so back to the drawing board.

The day before I tried the Inglot makeup base, which I thought was very very greasy. Perhaps it clogged my pores...anyhoo...the culprit still remains anonymous.

So I turned to my handy dandy friend, the Drying lotion by Mario Badescu.

For those that haven't tried it, it is a very strong liquid that is placed on any pimples or whiteheads and left overnight.  I have used this before, this is my 2nd bottle and the only thing that is strong enough to work on my tough, yet sensitive skin.

The only odd thing that I noticed tonight was it said "DO NOT SHAKE THE SOLUTION". Just like that too, in bold caps! whoa, I had no idea that you weren't suppose to shake the solution, because it does separate and I just assumed it worked better when the solution mixed together.

That's a bit odd to me.

It is a life saver, my face is back to normal, well I use the term normal loosely here lol

I just can't rave about this product.  It is ugly on your face, so it's for something you want to do at night, and it works overnight or as long as you don't smear your face on your pillow and wipe off the solution lol

But I find that it works on the deepest pimples of mine. Oh and a bit of warning, if you have been scratching, picking, and punctured your pimple (yes I know it's gross but some of us still do it) then this ointment will sting like a b*tch when you put it on.

But you know that saying, "no pain, no gain", well at least you know it's working.  Nobody said beauty wasn't painful.

Anyways, huge love and rave for this product.

NOTD: Orly - Space Cadet Nail Polish

I am convinced that my camera hates me and that the universe is telling me to get a new professional camera just for blogging, but with all the money I have, I end up spending it on beauty products instead of a camera.

So my apologies that my camera is not picking up all the multiple colours in this very unique duo-chrome (heck trio-chrome, yep I just made up that word) nail polish.

Presenting...

ORLY - SPACE CADET

Wait, it's green, nope it's purple, wait I see copper glitter, then all at once it has a pink overlay on top of it.  It's so many colours all at once.

You'd expect this polish to be gritty, but it is so smooth.

I never thought that green & purple would be my thing. Lots of ladies love Deborah Lippmann's Wicked Game or Hard Candy's Beetle and I just never drooled over it, but this has that 3rd dimension that just makes it perfect for a gal like me.

My pictures only show the polish changing in 2 different ways, but I guarantee you that there is a 3rd - and this sets this polish off into a legion above DL and Hard Candy's green & purple's duo-chrome polishes.

Review: LORAC - 3D-Licious, 3D-Mension, 3D-Luxe Eye Shadows

Happy Saturday everyone.
I'm here, just drinking my coffee and having a relaxed morning (for once).

Today I wanted to swatch the Lorac eyeshadows that I was given a few months ago during a forum gift exchange.  Periodically throughout the year, ladies participate in a gift exchange called RAOK (Random act of kindness), where you get a secret name and you shop for that person and you ship off their gift.  In exchange, you will also get a gift from someone else.  It's quite fun, as long as everyone does their end.  In the past we had a lot of drama, but luckily the last RAOK went very smoothly.

My secret person sent me these after seeing that I was wishing for it. It was a limited edition gift set from Ulta and for some reason, my Ulta never had it. So I was really really surprised to have gotten this :) - Sorry Bunny it's taken me this long to do a proper review on it.

These eyeshadows are none like I have in terms of colour. I'll get into that a little bit later. First, the texture is of high calibre.  Smooth as can be..I'm talking - Dior & Inglot buttery texture.  You dip your finger in it and literally you can feel the shadow give in.  It is very nice! The Colors are highly pigmented and duochrome.  Now...in the nail polish world, duochrome is drool worthy, so I wanted to have these to see if that same effect on the eye.

From Left To Right

3D-Mension, 3D-Luxe, 3D-Licious

3D-Mension has a bronze/pink duochrome
3D-Luxe has a beige and pink/peach duochrome
and 3D-Licious has a brown and teal duochrome

My favorite of the three has to be 3D-Mension and 3D-Luxe. 3D-Licious's colors mix together to create a shade that's a bit too red for me on the eyes.  I personally don't like that shade on me, so that is why it's not my favorite, but it is by far the silkiest of all 3.

I may be way too late, but I haven't seen poignant duochromes such as these in any shadow.  I'm going to play with these for both daytime and nighttime look.  I believe that Menion and Luxe will be great for day time and then when you add Licious, it will pump it up for a smokey evening look, and if all else fails, then Licious will become an eyeliner for me.

Overall, texture + unique duochrome = one good product!

My Ramblings

This post isn't about hauls or featuring any specific product in particular, it's just a general rant and rambling about beauty and beauty products.

I started this blog roughly a year ago to show the world all the exciting cheap finds that I was getting and just in general to talk about my lemmings and just things that got me excited.  A year later, I find myself with a semi sized makeup collection and a NP collection that I can be proud of. lol.  So what gives? Lately, I haven't been getting that same rush, that same thrill as before.  Don't get me wrong, I still love seeing all the pretty colours, and love knowing how to apply it on my face now, but something is just off with me.

I was chatting with a few online friends with the same obsession as me and I told them that something was completely off with me. Was I sick? haha!

And I woke up this morning and realised what was bothering me.  I think what happens is that when you collect nail polish or makeup, you end up reading endless blogs, watching tons of youtube videos to see what the latest and greatest is, and when you can't obtain these HTF, rare, very limited edition items - well...you're left feeling a bit "empty". And although, I don't have any complaints about my personal life and I'm completely in love with my husband and my puppy, I think I have gotten into a horrible mindset of having to obtain these items that are just clearly out of my budget range now.  My financial situation has changed quite drastically in the last year, and I think that I am going through the "pains" of having to adjust to that.  I realised that's why I've been feeling "down".  I see all these wonderful products that the beauty gurus, and youtubers are highly recommending and of course my initial instinct is to buy it.  But since I can't, I think that's where the root of my issue lies.  So....what do I do?

Until I start making money at the calibre I use too, I have to just admit that it's OK, yep, it's QUITE OK to not have these items.  I need to understand that you can't have everything you want, no matter how pretty and shiny it is :)

So with that realisation this morning, I do feel quite lighter and not so burdened.  I think I need to stay away a little bit from my usual (very loved) forum, youtube, and my favourite blog sites for a little bit and perhaps check out a cheaper route.

Life is all about adaption and yes I will adapt too.

This may sound quite shallow to a lot of people, because beauty/cosmetics is a luxury that majority of people in this world just can not afford, and I realise this even more so now and it helps with the whole "not feeling sorry for myself".

I have what I need in life, that's my health, friends & family and there is nothing that Chanel or Dior can make that would let me loose sight of that again.

So no more funk! and the last 2 nights I have taken my 65 item wishlist down to only 12 items! And I love it so much!!!

I also realised one more thing. What's the point of having all this makeup and nail polish if I don't use it! So I'm going to make an effort to purge my collection of things I don't want (Blog sale coming up!) and use the items I do have and just be happy with the blessings that I've had so far in my life that allowed me to buy these wonderful things :)

NOTD: George - Troll polish & Franken"mistake"stein polish

You know  you're an addict if you go grocery shopping and you come back nail polish.
Come on...raise your hand if you do this lol

Admitting the addiction is the first step to recover,
well in my case, perhaps I'm enjoying this addiction far too much. :p

Today I'm wearing Troll, a matte finish polish from George. It's inexpensive, and formula is great. The bottle is tiny, so you're really not getting that great of a deal, but at least it's not like Le Metier polishes and you end up paying an arm and a leg.

I like this one, because I have not tried a coloured matte finish polish before.  I've always stuck with the black or dark steel/greys, but this one is nice.
Sorry if everyone is wearing pastels and spring colours, I just wear what I want, doesn't matter the season really.

Here she is...

So I realised that I never wear my wedding ring at home and none of my pictures show my ring, but yes I am married and happily too (Duncan..did you hear that? :p).

So before painting my nails, I had this mini bottle of no name clear polish given to me, so I decided to spruce it up. First I added some Inglot pigments, and I should have left it at that, but I wanted this copper glitter that I got recently into the polish, well that was a huge mistake....color clash and not in a good way either.  This is pre-screw up, here is my Franken"mistake"stein polish...

It was a nice pink and gold duochrome that I messed up. Oh well! Back to the labs!

Review: Nailtini Amaretto Fizz Nail polish

I'm not up on the latest and the greatest of nail polishes these days to be honest, but the girls on TPF always seem to be, so I just rely on them :)

Today I'm reviewing a new brand for me, Nailtini.

I have a lot of good things to say about this brand and some not so good things.

First the good...Nailtini is quite creative and you need that in order to survive in today's fast growing nail industry.  The names of all the polishes are cohesive to the entire nail/bar theme.  I'm always afraid of polishes with this sort of pearly/metallic finish, but Nailtini is not streaky at all, even with the first coat.  So that's quite impressive of this brand.

My only complaint is that the duochrome shimmer that you see in the bottle doesn't quite translate to your nails, so that was a disappointment.

However, I imagine big things with this polish, including topping it off with Rococo's Gold Leaf lacquer (as soon as I get it! god knows when lol).

Review: Collection 2000 Shimmer & Shade in Just Peachy

Today is my day for reviewing cheap makeup finds apparently :)

I got this Shimmer palette at another pound shop in town and it looked very promising.

Well My gutt instincts was right.

I get a ton of product as well (10g) and a little goes a long way.

The palette itself has a floral design which makes it not that boring to look at either.

This palette gave me a subtle highlighter 

which is exactly how I like my highlighters to be.

I don't prefer to look like a high beam.

The texture is nice and I believe these palettes use to go for £3.99 at Boots, so at £1, I think this was a good purchase.

With the weather getting warm, I'll be wearing highlighters everyday.

Review: Bourjois Perfect Harmony Shadow & Contour 11 Miss Spirit

I found this tiny little eyeshadow book at my local pound shop and I figured for only a pound it was worth a go.

Bourjois Perfect Harmony Shadow & Contour comes with:

1. 2 eyeshadows

2. A travel duo ended brush

3. A small mirror

I didn't really expect much considering it was from the pound shop, but Bourjois  seems to be quite popular and I have seen it in all the high street chemists like Boots and such, so I decided it was a good deal then for £1.

The pink shadow which is used as an all over lid color was quite soft and gave me good pigmentation.  The Green eyeshadow is used as an accent/defining colour.  It was not as pigmented however as the pink eye colour and therefore it took couple of swipes to get the amount of colour as seen below.

Can I really complain for a £1...sure I can :)

Luckily it wasn't old stock, because I smelled the palette and it was fine and the pink eyeshadow seems to be in tip top shape. The green color is a bust, so I may just end up depotting the pink shadow into my palettes and recycle the rest of the book.

Apparently this can also be used wet for more intensity, so I may try that before depotting and chucking it.

I do however love the name of this palette.

Miss Spirit, if it said Mrs. Spirit it would even be funnier. Those who know me, know why this is a huge coincidence.

CHANEL: Nuit De Russie

Today I have a very special blog post for you.  It features one of the most beautiful nail varnishes I believe that was ever made.
I don't even know how I have possession of this polish, except that my friend (aka the angel from here on out) decided to make my day, my week, heck my month, with this unbelievably gorgeous nail polish!

Chanel Nuit De Russie.

I don't even know when I'm going to wear this, because I never ever ever want to run out of it, but this is such a gorgeous evening dark blue sky with sparkly stars shining in the night...ahhhhh, no matter how vampy this is to some, this is actually a very romantic colour for me.  I think this just took my breath away.

This will be my next manicure when I have a special evening out.
THANK YOU sooooo much K.Y.!

Ruby & Millie Cheek Color Orange 20 Matte/Pearl

Ladies...I wanted to show you another one of my purchases during the sale.

Ruby & Millie's

Cheek Color in Orange 20

I'm not very keen on this one.  I got it thinking that it would give me a nice peachy color and although the color does work with my skintone, I'm not happy with the color pay off. 

It was extremely hard to pick up any color, and it was very dry.

I don't know if it's because it is more Matte than I am use to when it comes to cheek colour, but I just didn't think this was any good.  I had to apply it 4 times on my cheeks to even be able to notice any colour at all. 

The only thing that I like about this is that is clicks to my other Ruby & millie products to make a tier lol

That's pretty neat, reminds me of Le Metier products that stack up that way.

Clever package design, too bad their blushes weren't that great.

Ruby & Millie Eye Color: Beige 840p

I couldn't resist. I returned to Boots to see what was left of the 75% off sale and I grabbed a couple of more items, but this time an eyeshadow.

  (I'll be blogging about the cheek color on the right after this review)

I got Beige 840p - what a fun name, right? .......

Well what lacks in names this shadow makes up for.  This shadow is extremely silky and buttery.  It reminds me of Inglot shadows quite a bit.  You get a ton of product per swipe. The color pay off is amazing and it blends quite nicely as well.  I know I have said previously that I wouldn't have paid full price; however, my one exception is for these shadows.  I would have paid that amount, because I really believe they are high quality.  It's quite a shame that the other colours were sold out and the ones that were left were not that interesting.

Once again, if you haven't already...rush to Boots and grab these during the sale.

Makeup Is Art: Craft Store Closing Sale finds

I live in a small town outside of London right now. Well small in my view since I'm use to living in the city for all my life.  There are lots of "mom & pap" shops and department stores and nothing really in between it seems.  So when I saw this mom & pap craft store that was going out of business in 5 days, I had to swing by.

I was actually looking for a souvenir keychain, stationary, and some crossword puzzle for my father in law lol, but instead I ended up near the brushes lol

Now .. this isn't new, but it's new to me.  I have yet to try  art brushes on my face in fear that they would be too harsh, but after doing some research, a lot of people have used art brushes and they love it and at a severe fraction of the price, why not give it a try.

I got these set of brushes for 99p

12 brushes for 99p!!!!

They look stiff and scary, but the instructions read to soak them in water for 30 minutes and I think I'm going to add some oil on them perhaps after soaking just to soften them up a bit.  

I'm also going to use them not just for eyeliner brushes, but some are going to be used for nail art and also cleaning up the edges of my nails as well.

Next up GLITTER!!!

Our favourite as a child, but as an adult and also a  nail junkie I'm going to use these as well with my nail art.  Look at the glitter in that, if this was mixed with some clear polish, I think it would make some glitter lovers something drool over.

Price: 99p

for a 2 inch vial jar 

Next I got this large screw top jars.

It reminds me of the MAC screw top jars that I purchased from them for $5, but these were much larger and only cost me 60p

Not sure what I'm going to do with this, it's large enough to hold a lot of my foundations, but I really like my foundations in their jars, so I'll have to have a think what I can use this for. Perhaps mixing pigments (I have enough MAC pigments to last me 20 years lol), or mixing foundations...not sure, but I use my MAC screwtop jars for pigments, so for only 60p, I'm sure I will find something beauty related to use these for.

and lastly

My plastic craft holders that I got

3 for 99p

I'm currently using them to hold brushes, mascaras and other tools.

I don't really have a vanity set up yet since I just moved here, so I'm trying to grab as much storage things as possible, and for this price, I just grabbed them without thinking.

So overall, I think that the craft store was a huge win for me today.

 I feel good about the price that I paid and that I ended up getting them for.  I'm really excited to use all my new items.  So next time there is a clearance/store closing event or a craft store, swing by, you never know what you'll find.

So what's your favourite cheap craft store finds that you use for beauty related purposes?

No 7 Eyeliner Brush Review

No 7 has apparently been around for a long time here in England and I have seen them in almost every Boots, but I never purchased anything from them yet due to the price points. I've read my reviews and they all seem to be pretty decent, but honestly £7 for a nail polish? Really? No thanks, I'd rather pay a few pounds more and get another brand that has a better reputation.

Last Saturday I got a £5 off voucher for any No 7 product, so I went today and picked up a makeup brush. They say your makeup is only as good as the tools that you use, so I'm always trying to pick up makeup brushes at a discounted price.

Although I thought the brush was well made for something you can pick up at a drugstore, I just can't ever fathom paying £6.75 for this brush.  I enjoyed paying £1.75 for a brand that I am unfamiliar with.  It's a nice brush, the bristles are not too soft, not too rough and it keeps shape, so this worked very well with my gel eyeliner. It's just a plain black handle, nothing fancy or spectacular.  So overall I'm pleased with it, like I said, I'm pleased because I paid £1.75, but I just don't know how pleased I would be if I ended up paying £6.75 ($11) for this .

Has anyone else gotten anything by No 7 with the voucher? What are you takes on this brand?

NUXE HUILE PRODIGIEUSE OR

The things I am getting use to since my move has been...
Bad food (apart from the Indian),
Billywitches, hideous hair clenching bugs only local to east anglia, great!,
Horrible exchange rates, 
and dry/sun lacking skin.


I can cope with it all apart from the Billywitches, thank god they leave at the end of June lol.


Fake tans are a huge deal here and I can understand why, but I'm just not a fake tan type of chic, not since I turned 22 have I done the fake tanning either in the beds or spray, so when I started to get worried about the hue of my skintone these days, I found this product and have been researching about it.


At £23, I need to make sure that I want it, and indeed I do!


Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse Or, or in plain english...Shimmering gold oil.


The company's description reads as such:


The NUXE Huile Prodigieuse Or Multi Usage Dry Oil gives a golden shimmer to your face, body and hair.This oil leaves your face and body soft and velvety, whilst your hair becomes supple, glossy and full of volume. Thanks to its small golden particles, your skin is left nourished with a subtle yet sexy golden sheen.

So my wish list continues to grow lol

I hope to be able to return with a review on this item. I'm just waiting for some sort of promotion or sale to pick this baby up, but according to the reviews, everyone seems to love it! I hope so.

Ruby & Millie getting the Boot from Boots

I almost missed this going out of business clearance, but luckily I got there in time, a tad late, with lots of foundations and powders sold, but I did manage to pick up a few things at 75% off. So if you haven't gone yet to Boots, rush and grab yourself a bargain.
The only stinker is that the brushes are not on sale. I wonder what they are going to do with the brushes???

I managed to pick up 3 of their nail polishes:

I will post swatches of these later, because you see 3 vampy dark blues and purples right? Wrong, the actual color that comes out of these bottles are much lighter, I've never seen anything like that before. Each were picked up for £2.50 a bottle vs. £12 a bottle

Next up...

This is their liquid foundation.  They are 30ml each, this is in shade Base 5, which I believe is slightly too dark for me at the moment; however, a little mixing will fix that right now.  £4 for something that was roughly £17

And last but not least, cake brow liner.  I had such a disappointing experience with the NYX version, but for £2.75, I really couldn't turn this one down, so here it is in my home.
I wanted the brown one, but I had to give that to my friend who I was with, since it matched her shade much better, so she grabbed the last brown, and I grabbed the last black.

The rest of the merchandise was swatched and a bit nasty, I wish I had gotten there a bit sooner. I'm going to go back tomorrow however and see if it has gone down anymore in price!

So that's my Ruby & Millie haul from the Boot's clearance sale.
Rush over there if you haven't already since mine was pretty much emptied out!

A forum, an obsession, and day out nail polish hunting

When one has an obsession, one can either indulge secretly or share their obsession with someone else. In my case, I share in a public forum full of women with the same obsession as me. So I feel normal when I am there amongst all the other polish lovers.

It is through the love of nail polish and other beauty products, I've come to talk to some interesting people and then some really "interesting" people lol.
But overall, it is all in good fun.

Today I met up with one of them physically and we did what we love to do best...shop for nail polish! And victoriously we shopped.

I can't show everything I got, because a huge portion were gifts, but I did grab some for myself...how could I not. The shopping was contagious.

I wanted to show you all quickly what I was able to get in the clearance section and a clearing out sale as well.

China Glaze: Pelican Brief, Below Deck, and Sea Spray

My China glazes with flash

Boots is having their 3 for 2 sale, so i got 2 bottles as gifts and picked up Grey Day for myself

Ruby & Millie were 75% off!!!!

For some reason, it looks like my Boots is getting rid of these

Bargain!  I really wanted to try these, but at the prices that they were retailing for, I really didn't want too try them, but now I will be able too.

My Ruby & Millie with flash

I'm going to do a review on these. I did quickly swatch these, and what you see in the bottle is NOT what you get on your nails, it was quite odd, but more to come on that

So although they were not the latest collection, I really didn't mind, because sometimes patience pays off, in my case, 50-75% off.

I had a blast picking these up and spending some real life time with a fellow nail polish addict today.