Beauty || Zoeva Cocoa Blend Palette

I've been a 'working' girl for over 5 months now, so it's hard to believe that this is the first beauty splurge I have purchased, does that mean I am finally growing up? probably not! I was in London last weekend shopping with my cousin, when we decided to pop into  the Selfridges beauty department. By 'pop' I actually mean spending about an hour lusting over all the luxury products that neither of us could afford but wanted anyway! We came across the Zoeva stand and both of us fell in love with the products. Usually I purchase makeup if I have read a great review on it, seen it mentioned in magazines or generally if I have had my eye on it for a while. So purchasing this was a complete whim for me, but I am so glad that I did. After many swatches later the Cocoa Blend palette was mine and I have been enjoying playing around with it ever since.

The first thing that excited me about this palette was the gorgeous shimmery cranberry shade named 'warm notes'. This shade is extremely pigmented and was something I wanted to experiment and play around with! A couple of other favourite shades in the palette are 'Freshly Toasted', 'Substitute For Love' and 'Pure Ganache' which is a gorgeous golden shimmery shade. The pigmentation of this palette is something that I haven't really experienced before from a 'cheaper' eyeshadow palette. By cheaper I mean £18 compared to the Naked palette price of £39.50. If you have read my blog before, then you would note that I love the Urban Decay Naked palettes as well as the Too Faced Peach Palette. These are still firm favourites of mine, but the Zoeva palette fits right in with them for a fraction of the price. 

L-R: Bitter Start, Sweeter End, Warm Notes, Subtle Blend and Beans Are White.

L-R: Pure Ganache, Subsitute For Love, Freshly Toasted, Infusion and Delicate Acidity.

Overall, it's safe to say that I am already such a big fan of this palette. I love that you are able to use this palette to create such different looks - this makes it perfect for travelling. The pigmentation is perfect and lasts all day. I applied the makeup in the images above at lunchtime and took the final image of my eye at 11pm that night. Not only is my eyeliner still on (thanks Soap and Glory), but my eyeshadow stayed put also without any creasing! Another positive of this palette is the price tag. For £18 you get a lot for your money. I would have been prepared to pay at least £25 for this beauty. 

What do you think of this palette? Have you tried this one or any others from Zoeva that you think I might like? Let me know! 

Until next time, 

Beauty || Makeup products I can't live without

I've now been wearing makeup for the past four years, I know I'm a late bloomer! Over the years i've dabbled with so many different products my collection is overflowing. Over the weekend I had a massive clean out of products that I no longer use. This got me thinking about the products I know I wouldn't ever be able to get rid of which led to this post. It's odd to think about a time when I didn't rely heavily on these products to give me a little confidence but hey ho! I would be interested to know what products you can't live without? Let me know! 

Rimmel London Wake Me Up Foundation

This has been my go to foundation for the last three years. I use this daily and very rarely swap it out for a higher coverage foundation for evenings out. I find it easy to apply to the skin, and love the coverage it gives me daily. 

Rimmel London Stay Matte Powder

This powder is probably one of the most talked about 'blogger favourite' powders on the market. I love using this as it works well, and to be honest I haven't tried many other setting products. I love using this on top of the Wake Me Up Foundation

Benefit Hoola Bronzer

This bronzer is probably one of the 'marmite' products spoken about within the blogging community. I personally love using it in my everyday makeup routine as it gives me a natural bronzed look. This was one of the first 'high end' makeup items that I purchased myself so it holds a special place in my little makeup heart! 

Too Faced Peach Palette

I've been using this eyeshadow palette for the last year as the base for every single makeup look I have created. The shade 'Peaches N Cream' works as the best colour underneath shades and 'Summer Yum' is probably another one of my most used shades from the palette. 

Charlotte Tilbury 'Super Cindy' Lipstick

You know when you just find 'your' lipstick colour? Well for me, this shade is it. As much as I love wearing a super matte product on my lips, for everyday nothing beats a pretty moisturising nude. I love how this product applies to the lips and I find that it lasts for the whole day whenever I am wearing it. Plus - who doesn't love rose gold packaging? I certainly do! 

Benefit They're Real Mascara

I have tried and tested so many different mascaras in the last four years, but one product always kept me repurchasing. I love how this mascara works with my lashes. If I am in the mood for long lashes with minimal effort, then this is the product I will always go for.

What products can you not live without? I would be interested in knowing if you have similar favourites! 

Until next time, 

Lifestyle || Falling Back In Love With Blogging!

I've been doing this blogging thing for over five years now, and although it has only been a serious hobby in the last 2, it's crazy to see how far I have come from my very first post. Blogging has helped me in so many different ways. On some days blogging was a way for me to escape my life if only for an hour or two, in times that I needed it the most. My blog has seen me through my whole University education from start to finish, as well as capturing many many...many shopping sprees! The last couple of month's have been a little tough for me and as much as I didn't really want to admit to it, I had fallen a little bit out of love with blogging. 

I know that sounds a little dramatic but it's the truth. Being a blogger is a 24/7 job, and like most jobs it can be pretty draining if your feeling uninspired or unmotivated. Since graduating in June 2017, my personal life has been extremely busy. In such a short space of time I have completed 4 internships as well as finding myself a temporary Christmas job that has led into a full time 'temporary' position and applying to as many jobs as I can find in the little free time that I have had. With all that going on, it's left little to no time for me to focus on my hobbies and passions - but most importantly my blog. Don't get me wrong the content I have uploaded since then has been written with all the love and care I normally would have, but I started to get into the rhythm of uploading posts because it was a 'Sunday upload day' rather than because I wanted to. 

Photography

Photography is one of my passions and I enjoy spending the time creating the perfect flat lays and getting the lighting right for product shots, but this was something that was getting rushed and I felt like things were a little sub par to normal. I'm a creative person and like most people, I am my harshest critic and I can be extremely tough on myself when it's just not necessary, plus it added on a lot of pressure at times when it just wasn't needed. This has happened time and time again over the last couple of months where I have set up shoots that I'm not happy with so ended up having a little tantrum and scrapping the images completely. You may have noticed that I haven't actually featured in many of my most recent posts and that's partly to do with the fact my confidence has taken a bit of a dip. Hopefully now I've spoken more openly about my blog with my family I can begin to get them to help me shoot images for posts rather than relying fully on myself - let's just hope and pray they will share my same vision! 

Twitter

I think a lot of my falling out of love with blogging has to do with Twitter. As much as Twitter is probably one of my favourite social media networks, it is also probably one of the worst for my mental health too. I don't see myself as a competitive person, but being on Twitter as much as I have over the last year (running my own account as well as running the GRLPOWR community page), has made me feel a little crappy about my own blog. Why is it that as a human being we have to compare ourselves to others all the time? This is a trait I would really like to have left behind in 2017! I love reading others posts and sharing them on my page, but felt that as much as I was trying to integrate myself within the community, I was still a little bit on the outside.  This is something that only I could change, and I have started doing that over the last couple of weeks by getting more involved with blogger chats again. I have a couple of GRLPOWR hosting slots lined up for the next couple of months too which I always look forward to doing. Recently the blogging community was hit with the whole 'follower bot' situation that really got me thinking about how honest blogging truly is and how much of a numbers game it has become. This is something that can get into your head and it had certainly got into mine which made me think about who I was blogging for. Was I blogging for numbers or for myself?- The latter won that argument! 

2018

So whats next?- I have been making so many plans for 2018 that I'm not ready to share on my blog yet, mainly because a lot of these plans are ideas jotted down in a notebook that will probably never work out or happen, but it's good to have ideas right?! I was at a real low last year and I am determined to make 2018 my best year yet. Blogging is part of that plan and I have so many goals that I have set myself to try, hopefully, to reach it. 

1. Blog 4 times a month.
2. Get outside and take advantage of the outdoors as a backdrop!
3. Write for me.
4. Feel inspired! 

I'm sorry that this post was a little different to the others, but I just felt that it was something I needed to get out in the open in a hope that I'm not the only one who has been feeling this way about blogging. I can't wait to share my new ideas here, and hopefully begin to create the content I have loved to read and loved to make again! 

Until next time,

Beauty || Rimmel London Vox Box Review

I have been a member of the network Influenster for a while now without actually getting anything from it. So you can only imagine my excitement when at the end of November I received an email to claim a box! I quickly claimed it and was excited for it to arrive! My box arrived and I was pleased with the contents inside! 

The box itself was based around the new Ink Me range from Rimmel London. The contents included a gorgeous red glitter nail polish, three lip art lipsticks, metallic tattoos, a mascara and ink me liners. My first impressions of the box were 'when will I ever wear any of these products'. After playing around with them for a couple of days I soon realised that the products were actually a lot more wearable than they first seemed. The lip art lipsticks look gorgeous when tapped lightly onto the middle of the lips. The shades I was given were 010 Pearlescent, 020 Gold and 30 Blush Gold. My favourite  out of the three is probably the Pearlescent shade as it makes the most gorgeous lip highlighter shade. Next up was the two Ink Me liners in 001 Black and 002 Gold. I found these really easy to apply as the brush itself is smooth and light to use. Next was the most pretty and glittery red nail polish in the shade 002 Ruby Crush. I was really surprised with how long-lasting this polish was. I applied it at the start of December when I received the box, and found I only had to reapply a few chipped spots once two weeks later which for ordinary polish is great! Another thing to note is that unlike other glitter polishes it's actually really easy to remove from the nails! Finally the most exciting thing for me in the box was the Ink Me metallic tattoos. Now, I know fake tattoos are the thing now, and everyone loves to use them during festival season in particular. But, I love how much they remind me of my childhood! I chose three smaller tattoos to apply to my wrist just to see how they would work and I love how simple they are to apply and how long-lasting they are too. As something that's temporary, it's lasted over two weeks now which makes me glad I didn't go all Rita Ora and apply them all over my face like the packaging suggests! 

Overall, I was super impressed with everything that Rimmel London have within their Ink Me range. I am obsessed with gold and shimmers so it was always going to be a win win for me!

I would be interested to know if anybody else has received/reviewed a Vox Box? And if so, which one it was? I have been a member for a little while now and this is my first one to have received so want to know if that's normal! 

Until next time,

Lifestyle || Lush Boxing Day Sale Haul!

I can't even begin to explain how difficult it has been saving these products to photograph for this post, although I have had a smelly room for the last week! Lush is known for their boxing day sales and everyone and their mum seems to get hyped about it. This year was the first that Lush decided to take their sales completely offline, and decided to stock the products in store only. This decision was seen to be quite controversial online, and I saw many comments on Twitter disagreeing with this decision. I personally have never shopped online during the Lush Boxing day sale, always favouring visiting in store the day after Boxing day, but I hear that the website was never really able to cater for the traffic. I guess Lush decided to do something about it this year by sending the remainder of the products to stores instead. This is a decision that has clearly helped out a lot of people as when I visited the store last Thursday, there was still quite a bit of Christmas product left on sale.

This Christmas was the first year that I was actually going to be working on Boxing day in one of the biggest and busiest sales of the year, I will let you guess which store that is! I was hoping to have a shift that would allow me to pop out in my break to visit Lush in enough time that the decent products and gift boxes would be left. Unfortunately my shift was 7-1 with no break. My dad saw how disappointed I was so said he would drop me off at work and queue up for when Lush opened to get me the bits I wanted (how lucky am I!). With list in hand, my dad managed to get second in line and headed into the store to shop. Let's just say, my dad got a little bit carried away and taken in by all of the sales that Lush had to offer! Considering these products tend to last me all year, I am SO pleased he went a little bit OTT. 

Anyway onto the main reason for this post, all of the gorgeous Lush products...

• Stardust Gift Box - Shoot for the stars bath bomb, 100g snow fairy shower gel, Shooting stars soap, Snow fair sparkle jar, Star light star bright bath melt and Magic wand reusable bubble bar.
• Snow Fairy Shower Gel 500g 
• Snow Angel Bath Melt
• Butter Bear Bath Bomb X3
• Golden Wonder Bath Bomb x2
• Luxury Lush Pud Bath Bomb
• Pink Pumpkin Bubble Bar
• Thundersnow Bath Bomb

So it's safe to say I was pretty lucky to be able to get my hands on all of those products. As I mentioned earlier in this post, I stock up on all of my Christmas products from Lush every December to use throughout the year. Is anyone else like that? 

Let me know what your favourite Lush Christmas products are, and if you managed to get any of them in the sales! (Make sure you send me the links if you wrote about them on your blogs! 

Until next time,