Christmas Presents

Charlotte Tilbury Makeup
What can I say? I've gone a bit Charlotte Tilbury crazy lately! I guess it's because it took so long for a counter to open up North and as soon as I visited one I was instantly hooked. Everything is just too pretty! I've wanted the Filmstar Bronze & Glow for ages so I got that with the Powder & Sculpt brush. I've really gotten into contouring lately & that sculpt shade looks gorgeous. I also purchased the limited edition Fallen Angel eyeshadow palette which is absolutely stunning. The buttery soft texture makes these a dream to apply & blend. They are super pigmented and have a wet to dry formula so you can amp up the colour even further. I'm a blush fiend so I got the Cheek To Chic Love Glow blusher. It's a soft peachy pink with a beautiful golden shimmer running through it. I also got the Rock 'N' Kohl eye pencil in Bedroom Black. The texture of this is fantastic, it glides on and stays put all day. I've heard so many good things about her lip products so I bought the Pillow Talk lip pencil & Bitch Perfect lipstick. Nude pink perfection! I love everything I got & I've already started planning my next Charlotte Tilbury purchases. I'm even considering replacing most of my makeup with her products. This is gonna be an expensive addiction!





Makeup Brushes
Illamasqua make some amazing makeup brushes. I bought their Highlighter Brush a few months ago & now I use it every day to apply my foundation. It makes my base look flawless. I saw this cute mini brush set on their website which comes with a little makeup bag & thought it be great to travel with. The brushes feel so soft & I'm so happy I finally got my hands on one of their Angled Brushes as I've been on the waiting list for it for months! I still love my Real Techniques brushes & really liked the look of the Nic's Picks set. Plus it was only £20 in Superdrug so I thought I'd treat myself! I especially like the two face brushes as they'll be great for bronzer & blusher.



Caudalie Products
My friend got me this cute set of miniature Caudalie products including a shower gel, body lotion, hand cream & Divine Oil. Caudalie remain one of my favourite skincare brands so I'm always excited to try some more of their products. You can never have too many bottles of Divine Oil! The pattern inside the bag is really cute too.




Sarah Chapman Facialift Massager
I didn't show anyone in my family my Sarah Chapman wishlist nor did I even mention any of her products to anyone & yet my mum got me this facial massager! Is she psychic or what? I'm really pleased with this as I have the worst double chin ever. Even at my thinnest it still didn't look great. I'm sure I'll have gained a few more after Christmas too! This scary looking contraption is supposed to help tone your face, reducing puffiness & sagging. I'm gonna roll it over my jaw every night & hopefully it'll get rid of my many chins. I gave it a quick go earlier & it definitely packs a punch. Despite it's appearance it actually feels really relaxing to use.




GlamGlow Masks
Although I wasn't a huge fan of GlamGlow Youthmud, earlier this year I fell completely in love with their Supermud. For Christmas I got a cute mask sample set as well as Brightmud Eye Treatment & Powermud Dualcleanse Treatment. I love trying out new face masks & I can't wait to give these a go!



NutriBullet
My family bought me this at the beginning of December & said it was my Christmas gift. I think they're paranoid things won't arrive in time for some reason! I've been using it a lot & it's such a cool blender. I've always loved making smoothies but I hate washing everything up afterwards. The NutriBullet makes the whole process a lot easier as you blend & drink everything in the same cup so there's only one thing to wash up when you're done. It came with some of their Superboost powder & a huge book of recipes. I normally go for kale, banana, pineapple, coconut water & chia seeds. I think I might start drinking two NutriBlasts a day to kickstart my fitness regime in 2015. I highly recommend getting one of these, they're simply amazing!



iPhone 6
This is another present that I got at the start of December but that's just because my phone contract had expired. I was desperate to upgrade from my iPhone 5 because of the 128GB capacity of the iPhone 6. I have a huge iTunes library of about 9000 songs and there just wasn't room for even half of them on my old phone along with all my photos, videos, apps etc. Now I can fit everything on with ease & I love how thin the phone is. I wish it was slightly smaller though as it no longer fits in my bag zip pocket! There aren't many nice cases out for the iPhone 6 yet so I just got this pink gel case from eBay. It was only £3 but it seems to do a decent job of protecting it from scratches. Anyway I think the iPhone 6 is an incredible phone & it's definitely worth upgrading to.

I had a really great Christmas this year. I got such lovely presents & we all had lots of fun on the day. Andy didn't get me a material gift but he's booked a little trip for us next month so I'm really looking forward to that! Christmas dinner was totally delicious, if I do say so myself haha. We got Chloe so many presents this year and pretty much all of them were My Little Pony related. She was really happy to get some more of the Equestria Girls dolls & we all played My Little Pony Monopoly Junior. I'm glad she's at that age where we can play games that are enjoyable for adults too. The day didn't drag on like usual as we were just so busy having fun. I hope you all had a brilliant Christmas & got everything you wished for! If you've done a Christmas presents post then please feel free to link it in the comments below as I would love to see it!

twitter / tumblr / youtube / instagram / bloglovin'

Twenty Six

Last Saturday I turned the grand old age of twenty six. It's quite weird entering the latter half of your twenties. Now I'm only four years away from turning 30! It doesn't mean I'm any closer to growing up though. I awoke to a room filled with balloons and a Disney Princess cake for breakfast. Chloe picked it all out herself haha. For my birthday celebrations Andy took me & Chloe on a day trip to Blackpool. Obviously as I hail from Kent there's many places up north that I still haven't explored yet - Blackpool being one of them so off we went. It was probably the worst day to go as it was so incredibly windy & I decided to wear one of the shortest thinnest dresses I own. I'm pretty sure I flashed everyone around me until I could get to H&M for some emergency leggings!

Despite the awful weather I had still had an amazing time. We walked all the way up the promenade & took part in all the usual seaside tourist attractions. I really wanted to go up the tower but it was closed due to the wind so we went on the big ferris wheel instead. When we had finally worn ourselves out we went for a delicious meal at Mandarin which is apparently the 3rd best Chinese restaurant in the UK. We had chicken satay & crispy chilli beef with egg fried rice. It was so good, best meal I've had in ages! We used to go out for dim sum all the time when I lived at home but we only have crappy takeaways round where I live now so it was really nice to get some proper Chinese food for once. I wish we could've stayed longer in Blackpool as Chloe really wanted to go to Nickelodeon Land so hopefully we'll go back sometime soon. Then on Monday my family came up to Manchester for a day out with us. We had lunch at I Am Pho and then went shopping & I got lots of treats! Before it was time for them to go back to London we went to Home Sweet Home for some cake. I ordered a Dead Elvis milkshake but what I didn't realise is that it comes with a whole doughnut on top! So I gobbled up a huge peanut butter milkshake, a doughnut & a slice of one of their crazy cakes. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't followed it up with a deep fried mac 'n' cheese burger when I went out with my friends the next day... Oh well if you can't pig out on your birthday, when can you?!








I got some truly lovely presents this year & I'm so grateful for everything I received! I've had my eye on the Roses de Chloe perfume for ages. The original Chloe is my signature scent but I fancied something a little softer & this was perfect. I didn't get along with the GlamGlow Youthmud mask but the Supermud is right up my street. I tried a little sample sachet & my skin has been craving it ever since. It's a clay mask that basically contains all the acids and is absolutely amazing for blemished skin. It came with a cute GlamGlow brush to apply it with too. I also got a fresh tube of HealGel Eye and the new Bumble & Bumble Hairdresser's Invisible Oil Primer. The original Hairdresser's Oil is one of the best hair products ever so this new addition to the line looked rather exciting. My favourite present has to be this gorgeous Whistles Rivington chain croc clutch bag that Andy got for me. I've wanted a Whistles clutch for so long! They're such a chic & luxurious addition to any outfit. It took me forever to decide which colour I wanted but the black crocodile one won out in the end. I'm totally in love with it! I can feel a clutch bag addiction coming on...

twitter / tumblr / youtube / instagram / bloglovin'

Sephora In The UK

It's the moment us beauty lovers have been waiting for - Sephora now ship to the UK! I remember visiting one of their London stores way back in the day but it didn't take long for them to shut up shop and they sadly became exclusive to places like the US, Europe & China. I was lucky enough to travel to New York a couple of years ago & their store on Broadway & Prince Street was a complete revelation. Makeup heaven. So when they recently announced their plans to start shipping their products to the UK I literally squealed with delight. I decided to place a lil' order & everything went off without a hitch so I'd thought I'd share my Sephora purchases with you. I'm sure I'll be doing some full reviews & swatches of all these products very soon.



The first thing I knew I needed to order was some of the Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blushes. Tarte have just come to the UK as well via QVC. However they've priced the blushes at £26.50 each & only had a couple of shades available - none of which were on my wishlist. So I ordered them off Sephora and even with the shipping & customs charges it still worked out cheaper overall. The shades I picked are Dollface, Tipsy & Exposed. Dollface is a light candy pink. You can never have too many pink blushes in my opinion! Tipsy is a bright coral colour. I've watched so many of Leesha's tutorials where she's used Tipsy on her cheeks & she always looks beautiful. Exposed is a nude pink shade. It's quite similar to NARS Douceur but a bit more pink toned. It's a lovely natural looking blush that will help to bring out your cheekbones.



Another Tarte product I got was The Sculptor Contouring Face Slenderizer in Park Ave Princess. This is basically a cream contouring product housed in the oh so convenient form of a chubby stick. It'll make contouring a breeze & I think it'll be especially good for slimming down your nose. I've never seen anything like this before but it's such an ingenious idea! I expect to see many brands copying this product very soon.



The last item I ordered was the Alterna Caviar CC Cream. I adore Alterna's Caviar haircare range & have heard so many good things about this hair cream. I think you can actually get this in the UK but it always seems to be out of stock everywhere & it ended up being cheaper ordering it from the US. CC stands for complete correction. It's a styling cream offering ten different features including heat protection, UV protection, moisture & shine. I've only tried it on dry hair but so far, so good!



They also throw in a few samples of your choice with every order. I picked GLAMGLOW SUPERMUD Clearing Treatment, Clinique Acne Solutions Clinical Clearing Gel & AmorePacific Future Response Age Defense Creme. I thought GLAMGLOW only had one type of mask but looks like I was wrong, they have several different ones on Sephora including an eye mask! I didn't get on with the GLAMGLOW Youthmud mask but I figured this one might be different. It's always good to keep a spot treatment handy so I wanted to give this Clinique one a go. The full size version of the AmorePacific moisturiser costs a whopping £123 so although I'll never be able to buy it, I thought it would be nice to try.

The shipping restrictions are fairly annoying as I would've loved to have gotten my hands on some nail polishes, NARS or Hourglass products. You also have to spend £75 to get the £10 shipping deal, otherwise you can end up paying crazy expensive postage & customs fees. I would suggest choosing the UK as your international shipping destination before browsing as it automatically converts all the prices to GBP. If you're worried about getting hit by customs charges when your parcel arrives at your door - don't be. Sephora use a company called Borderfree who add on some charges to your order so you're totally covered when your package arrives in the UK.

To break down the prices for you my order came to £80.51, I paid £10 shipping & then £18.09 on top of that to cover taxes and Borderfree's customs charges. In total I paid £108.60 which works out at an average of £21 per product. I placed my order on April 12th & it arrived on the 19th via a DHL courier. I've bought things from the UK that have taken longer than that so I was really pleased with the fast delivery. Overall I'm really happy with my Sephora buying experience. I stupidly didn't sign up as a Beauty Insider before placing my order so I missed out on another freebie. Make sure you register an account beforehand & you can pick a deluxe sample as well as the little sachets. The amount you have to spend to be able to place a UK order means you'll definitely earn enough points for a Beauty Insider reward. I can still claim it with my next order though & I'm sure I'll be buying plenty more things in future!

twitter / tumblr / youtube / instagram / bloglovin'

A Less Than Glowing Review For GlamGlow

One of the things I enjoy most about my Sunday pampering routine is clearing out my skin with a good face mask. I noticed yesterday that Cult Beauty had 25% off everything (& will do until midnight tonight!). Considering GlamGlow is one of the many products they sell I figured this would be an ideal time to purchase the full size 50ml pot after hearing so many wonderful things about it. But I first needed to try out my sample tube I received at the Leeds Blogger Meetup. I've wanted to try this mud mask ever since I read Ruth's review. In fact I actually squeed out loud when I saw the display boards being put up at the meetup. I was overjoyed I was finally going to get to try this wonder mask without splashing out 50 quid beforehand. Fast forward to today and I'm really rather glad I decided to save my pennies.

GlamGlow is marketed as an instant facial in a tub. It contains volcanic rock, French sea clay and green tea leaf extracts that supposedly brighten, clear and tighten your skin after just 15 minutes. It is also supposed to leave your skin glowing for up to three days after application. Theres quite a few celebrities that have proclaimed their love for this mask which only added to my high expectations of this product. I eagerly applied this dark green mask in a thin layer all over my face. As I smoothed it over my face I could already feel some exfoliation occurring due to the bits of green tea leaves it contains. The green tea smell is really nice. It feels extremely tingly, almost uncomfortably so. I think it might be too much for someone with sensitive skin. It dries to a hard finish like most traditional clay masks so its quite fun trying to talk with it on.

After 15 minutes I removed the mask with a muslin cloth. Combined with the green tea leaves it gave my skin a good exfoliation and the congested areas on my nose & chin looked clear & felt smooth. Sadly thats where the benefits ended. My skin did not look particularly radiant or glowing. Certainly no more than when I simply wash my face in the morning with my REN cleanser and a flannel. And to my horror a small crop of spots had appeared on my forehead! I'm not saying that the spots are purely down to GlamGlow but it definitely brought them to the surface. That might not be a bad thing in the long run but this mask is supposed to make your skin look instantly better, not put all the crappy bits of your skin on display for the world to see. I'd be very disappointed if I were using this before a night out and I suddenly looked spottier than ever.

I really wanted to love GlamGlow but this product is just ridiculously overpriced and overhyped. I feel like if it were sold for about £20 as a regular clay mask then it wouldn't be such a bad skincare product. But considering the £50 price tag (thats £1 per ml!) and its claims of instant skin improvement & a three day glow, it just isn't worth it. It might have worked for others but even if it did work on my skin, it'd have to be pretty miraculous in order for the price to be justifiable to me. Try Liquid Gold instead.