Anyone who is familiar with this blog might know that it is typically a blusher-free zone due to my naturally (extremely) rosy cheeks, so for me to be featuring a ‘blush palette’ might seem a lil strange! However, despite the name this palette only has two pink blush shades with the rest being highlighters and bronzers which are much more my style. And they really are gorgeous too – seven shimmers and one matte shade that can be used to create a perfectly sunkissed summer glow even on the palest of skin tones.
I personally love to swirl a huge fluffy brush over the above three shades and sweep it across my cheekbones. The bright white highlight shade is incredibly pigmented and intense, so to stop myself accidentally going overboard I focus my brush on the bottom left corner shade which is such a lovely, subtle, glowy highlight. The bottom right shade adds a touch of warmth to my otherwise pale complexion and helps balance out the whiteness of the top highlight.
If I’m going for a look that’s a bit more golden I’ll then sweep my brush across the bottom four shades in the palette and lightly apply them under my temple and cheekbones. Though I personally love the bronzed shimmer I wouldn’t recommend this palette for traditional contouring, as it has only one matte shade that wouldn’t suit many skin tones. If you’re looking to try out the new strobing trend, however, I would definitely say give this a go as the highlight shades are gorgeous and the palette is only £6! Seriously…what can you get for £6 now except one and a half frappucinos or some stamps?
If you haven’t already heard, one of my fave beauty vloggers Essie Button just hit one million subscribers! I’m so happy for her and to celebrate she is giving a number of viewers the chance to attend a celebration with her – more info in this video here. You can enter the comp by describing your fantasy 24 hours with no limitations, and I must say I got quite distracted by this and it took me half an hour to finally perfect my answer! Oops. I really enjoyed thinking about it though and thought I’d share my ideas in more detail to inspire you to do the same. Please tweet me your ideas/posts here and I’ll read as many as I can!
9AM: I’d wake up with my family and friends in the Georgian Hotel in LA and then head to I-Hop for some breakfast. We stayed in the Georgian when we went to California a few years back and it’s just gorgeous. I am also desperate to try I-Hop as it features in pretty much every American travel vlog I watch and I’m a big pancake person! (I mean I really like them, I don’t mean I’m a pancake/person hybrid who cries maple syrup) (that’s just weird).
10AM: My morning would be spent shopping in New York, with a mid-morning snack at Katz’s deli. I’m not gonna lie, this whole day mainly revolves around food – most people have a bucket list of places/sights they want to see whereas I have a list of restaurants I want to eat at. #noregrets.
12PM: Lunch would have to be at Osteria Francescana in Italy. It’s been on Masterchef so many times and the head chef Massimo Bottura seems like such an amazing guy! It’s also near Canal Chiaro, which is attractive to someone called Chiara for obvious reasons…
2PM: Post-lunch we’d head to Thailand for the afternoon to relax on the gorgeous beaches. This part is definitely inspired by the video for Duke Dumont’s I Got U, both because it looks like a stunning place and I love the song! I might even have Duke DJ on the beach while we’re sunbathing and drinking frozen Woo-Woos.
4PM: Mid-afternoon signals only one thing for me – afternoon tea. Yes. I haven’t quite decided on a place yet although it would have to be somewhere posh in London, maybe Fortnum & Mason or Claridge’s.
6PM: By this time a pre-dinner pampering would be in order, in the form of a bath in the hot springs of Reykjavik in Iceland and some mani/pedi action! I’d also have my hair and makeup done so I look extra flawless for…
7PM: Dinner at The Shard in London. We went there for lunch last December but I’d love to see the view of London at night, especially if there’s a fireworks display over the Thames (which there will be because this is a fantasy 24 hours!). I’d choose the menu this time though – seabass and smoked salmon for the starter, with confit duck and dauphinoise for the main and something smothered in caramel for dessert. Everyone would be able to pick their dream menu too though, I’m not going to force my veggie/pescy friends to eat duck!
9PM: After dinner we’d all then go to a Luna cinema showing of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off at St Paul’s, with great views of the late summer sunset over the cathedral.
11PM: Finally my night would end in Hawaii (on whichever island has the lowest light pollution so you can see a hella lot of stars) with a private beach party with all my friends, family and favourite people in the world. Disclosure and Mary J Blige would perform as well as others (I’d get my family and friends favourite artists there too), and we’d all be able to jump on stage to sing with them. I like the idea of me and a couple of my friends upstaging Kanye West in a rap battle, just sayin’. A party isn’t a party without some good food though, so I’d get a bunch of the best street food vendors there armed with gelato and hot dogs. Yum.
I’d definitely make the most of my 24 hours and not roll in to bed until 9am the next morning after watching the Hawaiian sunrise! This whole plan might change in a couple of years after I see somewhere else I really want to visit, but for now I’m pretty confident that if someone gave me a day without limits I know what I’d do…
If there’s one thing I love more than black liquid eyeliner it’s coloured liquid eyeliner. That’s sparkly. So of course the makeup magpie in me was drawn to this Stila liner in the shade Electric, a stunning jade/emerald-turquoise with just the right amount of metallic shimmer to make it eye-catching but not reminiscent of glitter glue.
My favourite way to wear it is as an accent liner alongside my usual black flick (although the green wing seems to have been lost in the above pic sadly), to highlight my green eyes and inject a bit of colour in to my usual neutral eye palette. It certainly lives up to the waterproof claim as it’s ultra long-wearing, although I do start to curse the staying power when it’s time to take the liner off – it goods few minutes of rubbing to get this stuff off! Be warned that it does actually stain your lid so if you’re removing this in the morning after a late night you might be going to work with a faint green tinge on your lids…Not an issue for me really but something to note.
Overall it’s a strong 9/10 (one point knocked off for how hard it is to remove!).
I’m a big fan of micellar waters and haven’t tried one yet I don’t like, so when this Simple one started to crop up on many bloggers favourites I knew I had to try it.
The soft-water consistency dissolves my base makeup instantly leaving my skin soft and cleansed. Eye makeup does take a bit more work, as I have to press a cotton round over each of my eyes for around twenty seconds before it really starts to remove it, and even then it takes a bit of rubbing to get my mascara off. Still, this is normal for any makeup remover and the ease of not having to scrub away over a sink and soaking my top in the process makes it all worthwhile.
It’s as good as any micellar water I’ve ever used and does leave my skin extra-soft, but it’s not really any better than other ones. This isn’t a problem until you consider that it’s nearly double the price of my favourite Garnier Micellar Water, which is £4.99 for 400ml compared to the Simple one which is £4.49 for 200ml – half the size. I understand it probably uses much more natural ingredients and is suitable for super-sensitive skin, but those things aren’t really an issue for me. So yes, the Simple Micellar Water is pretty fab but it’s no better than it’s competitors and at double the price you’d expect it to be.
If you’ve checked the Lush website recently you might have noticed an influx of new products (most of which have come from Lush Oxford Street) that have been released. While any Lush is usually good Lush for me, the news is not all happy – in order to make room for their shiny counterparts, many old favourites have been discontinued. The products told to say their goodbyes are:
Ultimate Shine Shampoo Bar Squeaky Green Shampoo Bar Zest Styling Gelly Rose Queen Bath Bomb Space Girl Bath Bomb Phoenix Rising Bath Bomb Granny Takes A Dip Bath Bomb Dorothy Bubble Bar Amandopondo Bubble Bar Flying Fox Shower Gel Grass Shower Gel Sweetie Pie Shower Jelly You Snap The Whip Body Butter Aqua Mirabilis Body Butter Ice Blue Soap Godmother Soap Dirty Soap Mangnificent Soap Putty For Your Hands Soap Formulae Known As Body Lotion Lovely Jubblies Body Lotion Lustre Dusting Powder Tiny Hands Solid Hand Cream Vanilla Dee- Lite Body Lotion Vanilla Puff Dusting Powder Stepping Stone Foot Scrub British Nanny Moisturiser
*tiny sob*
I have to admit a few of the products on this list have really surprised me – Sweetie Pie and Dorothy (above) have both been firm favourites for years, and Granny Takes A Dip is a relatively new addition.
If anyone asked me to recommend a good drugstore eyeshadow palette, Makeup Revolution and Sleek would be at the very top of my list. This Vintage Romance palette comes from the latter and is no exception to the rule – the shadows are highly pigmented and amazing value for money. Most of the shades are shimmers/metallics (my fave) with a couple of mattes in there, and all of them have love and city themed names such as ‘Propose in Prague’ and ‘A Vow in Venice’. The best colours in my opinion have to be ‘Marry in Monte Carlo’ (warm plum with a hint of gold), ‘Court in Cannes’ (cool metallic bronze) and “Bliss In Barcelona’ (royal purple with blue undertones). Lovely.
Oh. My. God. As a self-confessed Lush obsessive, I am almost ashamed of myself for ignoring this bath bomb for so long. I don’t know why I never got round to trying it but my inner-mermaid weeps for the lost years I could’ve been using this starry-patterned orb of happiness. It’s sublime. The second you drop it in to a hot bath the outer pink layer starts to gently fizz away, revealing a core of turquoise that mixes to form lavender waves. The soothing soft-sleepy-sweet scent is so relaxing that by the time you’ve watched this Candy-Land volcano melt in to the water you want to cuddle under a blanket and snore to your heart’s content. Bliss.
Anyone who has been reading/watching me for any amount of time will know that I absolutely adore the S&G Sugar Crush scent. I’ve already worked my way through the scrub, the body butter and the shower gel so you can imagine my sigh of “finally” when they brought out a matching body spray. I’ll admit I was dubious that S&G would be able to capture the true bubbly-limey-sweet-loveliness of the fragrance in liquid form, but kudos to them they have. And in a great formula too, as this lasts amazingly well for a body spray. What more can I say, except go give it a sniff?
Angellec Makeup 