First give away!! *NOW CLOSED*

Hi lovelies!

I was going to wait a couple of weeks before I launched my first give away, but as it happens I'm just too impatient!
As it's my first give away, it's not anything special but I hope there's a couple of things that make it worthwhile. This is really just for me to test the waters of a give away, so if I decide to do it again I'll make sure it's a bit more impressive!

* Dita Von Teese Body Lotion 200ml

* Duck Island Body Lotion 30ml

* Burberry Body (Tester size)

* Pink Chiffon Anti-Bac hand gel (from Bath & Body Works) 

* Seche Nail Lacquer (in 'Precious')

* Bracelet from shopdixi.com

PLUS:

A surprise gift!

I'm afraid this give away is only open to entrants from the UK (keeping it small as it is my first one.)

Please make sure you leave an email address or your twitter username so I can contact you if you win!

It may seem a bit odd that i've included a hand sanitizer, but I own a fair few of these from B&BW and I'm a little bit obsessed with them, they all smell so good and as far as I'm aware there's nothing quite like them available in the UK. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Talisman

Something about 2013 has drawn out my love of all things tribal and aztec. It's always been there, usually hidden under lots of lace or flowers. It's also causing my taste in jewellery to change, usually I'm a strictly 'only wear silver' kind of girl, but there's something about bronzed jewellery that I really do love.
I've made a few purchases and I just thought I'd share them with you :)

£5 from Urban Outfitters

£10 from shopdixi.com

      

£5 from shopdixi.com

£21.99 from ebay.co.uk

I also couldn't resist ordering 2 new dreamcatchers, I only have 1 and it's a bit lonely :( 

Next time I complain about my lack of money...remind me of this! 

-K 

x

I find shelter in this way.

My week according to instagram...and I can confirm it basically means I've spent far too much money! oops >_>

1. Sometimes my cat, Molly, falls asleep like this and proceeds to snore. Her ability to be so cute makes me jealous. // 2. I had a nice little City & Colour delivery, all the way from Canada! // 3. I bought new leggings. £7 from Primark! // 4. I decided to be brave and venture out into the snow. // 5. Snow at 4am. // 6. I curled my hair for the first time in so long, this needed to be documented.

7. Socks and sunglasses courtesy of Topshop! // 8. New hand chain, also courtesy of Topshop. £2.50 in the sale! // 9. I went to London with my sister and decided to treat myself to a new ring. // 10. Whilst in London, the boots I was wearing proved to be very comfortable so I found these in the sale. Tie dye high tops...what's not to love! // 11. I became part of the motelrocks.com street team! // 12. I don't own many vinyls, but the ones I do have live on my wall. 

I also wanted to share a song that I discovered a few nights ago. I suffer with Insomnia and at times it's very stubborn. I finally jumped on the Soundcloud band wagon and found this artist. I purchased his album and it's kept me company til the early hours of the morning.

I hope you've all had a good week!
I'm back at Uni tomorrow (for the first time since last...May?) eep! I have a few things in the pipeline for my blog, including a give away, an updated layout, and some more product reviews! So keep an eye out for them :)

-K
x

Motel Rocks

Just a quick post here! I wanted to share my discount code for Motelrocks.com
Feel free to share it and I hope it helps you grab yourself a bargain!

From the perfect start, to the finish line. *FOTD*

Today's post is a bit of an experimental one! I thought it might be quite nice (possibly more so for me) to start a 'Face of the day' (FOTD) post. Now I can't say I'll be doing this every day once I'm back at Uni, but sometimes I find it's nice to document what make up looks I've been particularly happy with so I can go back to them if needs be! Hopefully, some of you might find this helpful too.

Today's look was based around a suggestion by Hannah (who blogs over at Daisies and DMs) so thank you for that!

You might have seen yesterday's review post on Illamasqua's Liquid Metal, and I wasn't completely sold on it! Ditto for the Too Faced Candlelight Glow. Hannah suggested (/requested haha) I try the Liquid Metal over the top of black eyeliner. So...hopefully I've done it correctly and this will give a good idea of what the outcome is like with the combination of the two. 

(Excuse the light glare!) 

As you can see this is a fairly simple look, nothing too fancy but I think quite nice for a night out or something! I'll include a list of products at the bottom of this post, but for the overall look I'm simply wearing foundation, highlighter, blush, red lipstick, and black eyeliner underneath Liquid Metal. 

Now for a close up!

I much prefer the look of the Liquid Metal over the top of black eyeliner (I simply used a kohl liner to cover my lids and used a brush to blend it outwards, and then a different brush to blend on the Liquid Metal.) However, my previous problem with the Liquid Metal of creasing is still there which is a shame! More experimenting to be done. 

And talking of experimenting, I think I'm getting to grips with my Too Faced Highlighter. I started off with my Tarte Amazonian blusher and brushed very softly up on to my cheekbones- paying particular attention to the very top. I used the highlighter above the blusher and again down the side of my nose. I think I quite like the way this looks. Unfortunately it doesn't show up quite so well on camera. 

Make Up Used: 

L'Oreal Studio Secrets Primer

L'Oreal True Match Foundation (Rose Ivory)

Maybelline 'Fit Me' Liquid Concealer (Fair)

Tarte Amazonian Clay Blusher (Dollface) 

Too Faced Candlelight Glow Highlighting Powder

HD Brows Eyebrow Palette (Bombshell) 

Bourjois Contour Eyeliner Pencil (01 Noir Expert)

Illamasqua Liquid Metal (Surge) 

Bourjois Volume Glamour Ultra Curl Mascara (Black) 

Tarte Glamazon Lipstick (Wild) 

-K

x

Illamasqua Liquid Metal *Review*

Today has been a day of firsts for me, as I was surprised by a late delivery of a second parcel containing the Illamasqua Liquid Metal eyeshadow. I bought this after a friend informed me that Illamasqua had a sale on their website and I'd been desperate to give this brand a try! After loading my basket with 10 different items, I reigned myself in and settled on this one product.

At only £5 (down from £17.50,) I figured I had nothing to lose even if I didn't like this product!

I opted for the colour 'surge' as the current snowy weather brings out my love of all things shiny and silver!

Unfortunately this colour is now out of stock on the Illamasqua website, but it's always worth having a look around the internet to see if it's available elsewhere! 

Just a quick swatch of the colour here. As you can here, it's a slight off-silver colour, not quite pure silver so it's an interesting colour to own! 

Now the application of it, it's incredibly easy to use and build up. When I first touched it I thought it felt incredibly similar to the 'Maybelline 24hr Colour Tattoo' eyeshadow, and whilst I do love the colour tattoo products, this is one is much nicer to apply and to get a completely smooth finish across the lid of your eye. 

That's the product on it's own, as you can see it's very subtle but still adds that extra dimension to an otherwise simple make up look. 

Now, this is me so I can't go without my winged eyeliner, but instead of thick black I opted for the slightly more subtle 'L'Oreal Super Liner in Golden Black.'

 

 This is where I become slightly disappointed. Really, I should have known to put primer on before applying the 'Liquid Metal,' but as I'd already applied it to my eyelids before applying my foundation it just completely split my mind! 

The colour wears off more or less straight away. I've had it on for about an hour so far, and it's not so much the fact that it's started to smudge (I actually quite like the look of it,) it's more that it's pretty much worn off on my eyelids and has transferred itself to the crease above my eyelid. 

In all honesty, I'm completely torn over this product. I love the colour, I love the shimmer, I love the idea of what I could use it for. I just don't love that it doesn't last longer than a few minutes. 

Would I pay £17.50 for it...no. 

Will I try and buy a couple more colours on pay day? Yes, probably! 

I'm determined to find a way to make this work for me because I so badly want to fall in love with this product. 

Have any of you ever had any experience with Illamasqua products, and have you been pleasantly surprised or been left a bit disappointed?

If you want me to write a review of any of the products I've mentioned, just let me know!

-K

x

Shop @ Illamasqua

As a side note, let me know if you'd be interested in seeing posts of 'Make up of the day' or something along those lines. Every so often I end up particularly pleased with my make up, so it'd be useful for me to remember what works and what doesn't, but what's more important is if it's beneficial to you guys!

Too Faced Candlelight Glow *review*

I have made my first step away from the world of blusher and into the land of highlighter.
I was a little dubious about how well I'd get on with a highlighter as I suffer from what I lovingly call 'moon face syndrome,' by this I mean I have a round face and pale skin yet my cheekbones are quite high (that is...once you get through my hamster like cheeks.) So, I wasn't sure if a highlighter would be of any benefit to me.
This is the first time I've used a highlighter, so I still have to figure out which technique will suit me most. (If anybody could help me without with that...that'd be great!) But as this is my first highlighter, I thought I'd go all the way and invest in the 'Too Faced Candlelight Glow Highlighting Power.' 

You can buy it here :)

I purchased mine from escentual.com as I had a 10% off code for my birthday. 

At £25, I think it's fair to say I was expecting an almost-miracle. 

This is also my first Too Faced product, I've heard many good things about the brand but I still wasn't too sure what to expect! 

The main thing that stands out to me about this product is the overall look of it, it's incredibly feminine with a romantic feel about it, and that sucks in the girl in me. 

The product is bigger than I expected, although I think this is mostly due to the packaging rather than the amount of actual highlighter inside. 

What I do love about this is that there are two shades, and you can use them either individually or blend them together with your brush. I opted to blend them together so I still had a bit of colour on my cheeks as opposed to just highlighter. 

On the left you have the highlighting powder with the pink tone, and on the right is the golden tone. On the swatch they look very shimmery, but once it's blended in I've found I've been left with a small amount of shimmer and a nice, natural looking glow. 

As I said before, I think it's going to take some time before I really get the hang of how I can get the most out of this, but for my first highlighter- I'm pretty happy with it! 

Would I say it's worth the money? Eh...perhaps not! But then this is the only one I've tried so perhaps this is as good as it gets. I'm eager to try some more just so I can really compare the results! 

I've applied this down from my temples and onto my cheek bones, and added a small amount down the sides of my nose. 

Overall, I really do feel like I'll benefit from this! As I'm so pale (and I now have black hair again,) I can always use the extra lift on my skin to make look less like the living dead. Anything that can add a bit of life into my skin is always welcome! 

Unfortunately you can't really see it in the photo... but I think that just goes to show how the swatch really amplifies the colour and that it really is nice to blend in order to achieve a natural look. 

Have you tried any highlighters? If you've had any great success with one, please do let me know! I feel like this may be my new obsession...for a short while at least! 

Do you find one product reviews like this helpful? I have a few products that I've been thinking about reviewing, but then I don't want to bore everyone! 

On that note...my new Illamasqua eye shadow has just arrived, so keep an eye out for a review on that! I'm very excited to give it a try.

-K

x

A full set of make up- all for under £10! *The Verdict*

Hi guys!
I'm finally back with a (hopefully) substantial beauty post! I was thinking the other day about how much money I must spend on beauty products, not even the 'luxury' things, but just my daily make up. I wanted to challenge myself to see if it was really necessary for me to spend as much as I do, so I sent myself to boots with a limit of £10 and the aim of buying replacements for my usual make up.

Here's just a brief overview of what I would usually wear on an average day...or the most basic of make up choices. I tend to change my eye make up quite a lot but I still always fall back to my trusted winged eyeliner.

L'Oreal Paris Studio Secrets Primer- £14.29

L'Oreal Paris True Match Foundation (Rose Ivory)-  £9.99

Dainty Doll Loose Powder (002)- £19.40

Tarte Amazonian Clay 12 hour blush (Dollface)- $25/£15.70

HD brows palette (Bombshell)- £19

L'Oreal Paris Lash Architect 4D- £10.99

Bourjois Paris Clubbing Liner- £6.99

L'Oreal Diamantissime Lipstick (Feric Fushia) - £7.99

Total= £104.35 

Wow...I never expected my total to be that much...and that's with my most basic eye make up too. 

Now for the outcome of my £10 make up spree! 

Natural Collection Colour Foundation (Porcelain) - £1.99 

Natural Collection Loose Powder - (Cool Translucent) - £1.99 

Natural Collection Lash Length Mascara - £1.99

(On special offer- 3 for £5)

Natural Collection Lip Gloss (Cherry Drop) - £1.99

Miss Sporty Liquid Eyeliner - £2.79

Total= £9.78

As you can see I wasn't able to get all of my usual go to products, such as the primer, blusher and eyebrow liner or shadow. I'll be honest, the primer and blusher I can go without. The eyebrow shadow, I cannot! 

Now for a quick run down on the products. 

The foundation was a bit 'eh' for me. Mostly because I'm so pale and I really struggle to find a foundation that doesn't turn me into an orange, so that was a definite problem for me with this! 

The coverage, overall, was pretty impressive. (Although at the moment my skin is struggling to realise that I am in fact 21, not a 13 year old girl going through puberty so I could have used some extra help!)

However, if you're not overly pale or looking for something with a miracle coverage, this actually isn't  a bad product! I found it easy to apply (using my fingers as I didn't allow myself to use my normal make up applicators) and it doesn't feel particularly heavy on my face. 

I had the same colour problem with the loose powder, but aside from this, I actually prefer the finish of it to my Dainty Doll one. To be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of Dainty Doll products and they're not exactly cheap, but for my pale skin it seems like the easiest option for me. I might have to rethink this product though!

Overall verdict: Not too shabby for £1.99, but I'll be sticking to my L'Oreal True Match foundation, simply for the sake of not becoming orange! 

I'll be honest, I expected the lipgloss to be a lot more vibrant, so that was a bit of a disappointment for me. However, if you're looking for something with just a slight tint of colour and sparkle, this is actually pretty good. It's not the greatest for staying on, but for £1.99, reapplying it isn't too much of a problem. 

I'm completely torn over the Miss Sporty Liquid eyeliner. I love the finish of it, but the application isn't the nicest of experiences. I found it quite hard to get an even line and I had to go over some parts a couple of times to make the overall look of it more even. 

I'll probably stick to my Bourjois Eyeliner, but I'm still pretty impressed with this product when I consider the price of it! 

As for the mascara, I think it's nice if you just want a natural look or just something to darken your eyelashes, however it didn't particularly do anything in regards to lengthening or thickening my eyelashes. Having said that, there wasn't any clumping which is always a welcomed relief!

And the overall finished look: 

As you can see, this is a very basic look and you can tell the foundation is too dark for my face (check out the chin compared to the neck- and I spent a fair while blending in!) 

I can't get used to the pale eyebrows/ winged eyeliner contrast- and this is why I love my HD Brow Palette so much! Having said that, I am pretty happy with how the eyeliner turned out, I just wish the lipgloss was a bit brighter and I had something to define my eyebrows with! 

But still, not too bad for under £10!! 

Please do let me know if you find posts like this useful (especially fellow Brits!) I'm thinking of doing a similar one with products from Superdrug as I think with the help of MUA I might get some surprisingly good results! And let me know if you decide to set yourself the same challenge. It's given me a bit of wake up in regards to how much I spend on Make up...I dread to think of how much my entire make up collection adds up to. 

-K 

x 

Be sure to follow me on Twitter & Tumblr! 

I've updated my layout recently....what do you guys think?? 

Sometimes it's my life I can't taste.

I just have a photo spam for you really... :)

New favourite item of clothing...100% organic cotton courtesy of Camden Market. 

My friend and I have a tradition that every time we go to London we have to pose in front of these paintings in Charing Cross tube station.

Sometimes I just have to feed the geek in me. 

New camera...so excited to get to know this camera, and to see the many mistakes I'll make along the way.
This was a birthday present from my Mum and I'm so happy to now have this in my possession.  

Happy Birthday, Me!

In celebration of today being my 21st birthday (yikes!) have a photo of young me :)

It's only 9am and I already feel like I've been spoilt. I'm off to London in a couple of hours so I best continue to get myself ready. I imagine I'll post about my day at some point.

x

Retreat to the bliss of our creation

Hi Guys, and Happy New year!!

Yet again, it's been a while since I've posted anything. I haven't got a New Year's resolution...but maybe blogging more regularly should become one!
I wanted to make a very delayed post on the Christmas Glossy Box!

This time they changed the packaging to make it a little bit more festive :) 

Inside the box:

At first I was quite disappointed with the selection in the box, however now i've had it for a couple of weeks I've grown to love a few of the products and have become very happy to have them in my possession! This is why I love Glossy Box, I now own items that I love but never would have thought of buying. 

Seche Nail Laquer- RRP £9.99

To be honest I've not really used this item, I tried it on one nail but it's not a colour that I particularly like.

Anatomicals Lipgloss- RRP £3.49

I've only just started using this product. I realised the other day that I wear so much bold lipstick and therefore own no natural looking colours. At this point I remembered I had this nifty little item and it came to my rescue when I decided to go for the more natural look. 

Rituals Magic Touch Body Cream- RRP £5.00

This body cream doesn't really stand out to me. It smells relatively pleasant and works as well as any other standard body cream. 

Milkshake Conditioning Whipped Cream- RRP £14.79

This is something I'll definitely be buying! I don't know why or how...but I think I might be a bit addicted to it. I've used this pretty much every time I've washed my hair, and I love that it gives my hair just that extra bit of softness. My hair's quite thin so usually leave in conditioner leaves my hair looking quite heavy and greasy, but this doesn't do that at all! It has such a weirdly pleasant smell as well. I think this could be love... 

i-Divine Eye Palette- RRP £7.99

At first I wasn't really that bothered with this product as I already own so many eyeshadows, but I've grown attached to a few in this palette and they've become a regular in my routine. I love that this palette is only £7.99 and the pigmentation is so good. The eyeshadow lasts all day too! Great investment. 

As a little bonus I also received a Glossy Box blusher. I don't think you can buy it online, but I'd be interested to know if there's any similar as I really like this colour!

I really need to try to blog more regularly, although I return to Uni in a couple of weeks so I'm not sure how well that will work when all the assignments get thrown in my direction!

How often do you think is often enough when it comes to blogging? 

x