February Favorites

Hi Lovelies, hope you're all okay, I've been feeling really rubbish had a throat infection and a awful cold so i've been a bit down in the dumps over the last few days but hey ho! I'm quite happy too see the end of Feb to be honest with you, it's never really been a month i've loved that much and i'm hoping that March will bring us some much needed sunshine and some signs of spring. Anyway, I have quite a lot of stuff to show you so I shall get on with what my favourite products of February were.

Mac Studio Fix Foundation NC15 - I love this foundation, this and the Rimmel Wake me up foundation are definitely my two holy grail make up products and I love them both a lot, for days when it's rubbish weather I find that I want a bit more coverage and the Mac Studio Fix gives amazing flawless coverage and lasts all day. It's not too pricey for a 'high end' foundation either which is quite good it retails at £20.50 I think! Anyway I just really enjoy using this foundation and for a night out I wouldn't really choose anything else. I really want to try the Mac Studio Sculpt foundation next so please leave me your opinions in the comments if you've tried that one too!

Maybelline the Rocket Mascara - Love this! I have a massive love affair with Maybelline Mascara's and to be honest i'm not really someone who likes many of maybelline's products. Firstly I love this mascara because it has a massive brush and it really does lengthen my lashes and it holds a curl in my lashes too which is good because my lashes are normally dead straight. I'm not sure that this is the most voluminousness mascara (which it claims to be) but you can definitely build it up depending on how much va-va-voom you want your lashes to have! I really like this product and I think it's a really good drugstore mascara.

Chanel Bronze Universal - EEEE, i love this so much! This is the first Chanel product I've ever tried and I love it, I was eyeing up this product for so long and then I got it and I've just fallen in love with it, it looks so natural on the skin, blends flawlessly, smells amazing and is pretty much everything you want in a bronzer, it lasts so long, you only need a tiny bit and it's just a super product! I couldn't rave about this particular product enough & this is definitely my stand out product of the month, it is gorgeous.

No 7 Nail Varnishes - I was looking through my nail varnish collection the other day and I saw that I actually own quite a few of the Boots No 7 Nail Varnishes, I think I've had a few gift sets with them in and I used to purchase them quite often when I could get them for £2.00 when I had a No.7 £5.00 off voucher, so anyway I was looking for some more bright colors for the spring months and I have been really loving this bright light blue & dark navy blue by No.7 and I've been wearing them quite a bit, they are long lasting, super easy to apply & very opaque coverage and I just think they're really good quality and they have a really nice shade range. You can read a full review here.

Elf Blush - Flirt - I've been cracking out my old Elf products recently and have vowed to use them more otherwise I think that they should go to a new, more-loved home, this has been a product I've been really loving, it's a cream blush in such a gorgeous pink color, it's quite bright but I apply it with a stippling brush to get more of a natural blush color and I find that this compliments the Chanel Bronze Universal really well. I would say that this color will look gorgeous in the summer months with more of a tan, but I really like the formula it's almost a bit like play-dough consistency.

Charlie Pink Perfume - I got this in a cheap gift set just after Christmas and thought i'd just use this as a perfume for work or around the house because I go through perfumes so quickly and I wanted to save some of my more expensive scents but in actual fact I find this one smells sooo amazing and it's so cheap. It smells quite sweet which is my preference and is a mix of red fruits, tangerine and vanilla which just smells gorgeous. You can pick a 30ml bottle of this up for about £5.00 or you can get the spray perfume but I just think it smells really elegant and feminine.

Urban Decay the Glinda Palette - I won't talk about this product too much because I did a full review on my blog of it nearer the start of the month but I've been using this palette loads and I love how the shades are so individual but actually quite wearable considering they're not really neutral shades. I just really love Urban Decay and their eye shadows are second to none in terms of quality. If you want to read a full review of this product you can find it here.

Soap and Glory Smoothie Star Body Milk - I don't think I could actually do a monthly favorites without including one of the many products that I love from Soap and Glory I actually have a whole drawer full of their products because I am that addicted and this has been the one I've been loving the most this month. This is just a body milk that is to be used after you've showered, and I find it moisturizes the skin really well and keeps my skin smooth and it also smells really good. It says it a  mix of almond, cocoa, yogurt oat and honey and I just think I smell like a cake or a cookie and I literally smell good enough to eat which is a bit weird but I really like it haha and I just love how moisturizing it is! You can read a full review here.

Anyway I hope you all enjoyed my monthly favorites, please let me know what you've been loving this month and I will speak to you all soon! :) xxx

Mac Studio Finish Concealer NC15 Review

Mac Studio Finish Concealer £14.50 - Mac Website

Hi Ladies, hope you're all okay today's post is going to be about the Mac Studio Finish Concealer in NC15, I've been using this concealer for a good 3 months now and I love it. I find that concealers aren't really reviewed all that much on blogs though and when I was doing my research on this concealer before I got it I found that I couldn't find that much out about it so I thought i'd give my two sense for you all.
Firstly I really like Mac products but they are pretty pricey, in terms of this concealer though I find that it is pretty reasonable in terms of price, it only costs the same as a lipstick from Mac and in all fairness you will use this product everyday. You also get 7g of product and I think this is pretty good, I've had mine for 3 months and hardly made a dent in it and trust me I have a lot to conceal on this face haha! The product also has the added bonus of having SPF35 and is known as an industrial strength concealer meaning it not only covers blemishes ut also claims to cover tattoos and birthmarks.Other great facts about the product is the fact that it is water resistant, fragrence free and non blemish genic which is obviously good because you don't want to make your spots worse when applying this product.
Apparently it has vitamins A&E which are both anti-oxidants but in all honesty after 3 months of use I haven't really felt the benefits of them and it doesn't make me desire the product anymore. Other good things about this product is that it contains Silica which is good for absorbing skins oil and is really good for acne sufferers if it is applied in the right way. I would also say that it is really good for really bad dark circles as long as you blend it in a lot and make sure that you set it because otherwise you could experience some issues with the product caking.
With all the boring facts aside I really do like this concealer, I find that it gives really good coverage and is a really thick and creamy concealer. It really helps to cover my dark circles but I think the application of this product is key, you only need a little bit and you need to blend it in, I personally find that blending in my concealer with my ring finger means that the product is helped to warm up and absorb into the skin a lot easier. You do have to be careful with this product because it can easily end up looking cakey underneath the eye area especially and I would say that it definitely accentuates dry patches so I would say this is much more suited for more oily skin types. I love this product because of its staying power and coverage, this product will last all day n my face but I do find that if i'm having a watery eye day then the product doesn't stay so i'm not sure about Mac's claim that it is water resistant.
The product will last a really long time, i'd say I could get a good 6 months or more worth of use out of this product which is really good and I think the packaging is pretty good and feels sturdy although its kind of gross having to put your fingers in it everyday. Probably one of the best things about this particular product as with all mac products is the shade range with a huge amount of nc and nw shades to pick from. Also the Pixiwoo sisters are big fan of this product (what else do you need?!) & 70% of the people who reviewed it on make up alley said they would repurchase it!
So I think this product has well deserved love and I personally would really recommend it, I think it works really well and I will repurchase it as soon as it runs out because I can't imagine not using it now! What concealer do you use? Let me know and i'll speak to you all soon! xxx

3 New Products I've Been Loving

Eco Tools Bronzer Brush/Chanel Bronze Universal/Benefit Fine One One

Hi everyone, hope you've all been okay, sorry for the delay in posts recently, I was uninspired for a little bit and then I've just been really busy but i'm back now and have loads of new posts lined up for you all over the next few days so hopefully that will make up for it. For today's post I thought I would share with you a small haul of some products that I've been loving lately. Some of these were presents from my lovely boyfriend for Valentines day & I actually picked up the Eco-tools brush the other day and I've been loving it. Also whilst I was away I reached a massive 500 followers on my blog and i'm really happy so thank you to everyone who's supported me, i'm really overwhelmed by how many people now read my little old blog and it really does make me very happy. Also I just thought i'd say i'm sorry for being a bit snap happy again and adding way too many photo's to this post, since i've got my new camera I just can't help myself haha and new products always look so pretty!

Chanel Bronze Universal - I love this bronzer, it's amazing. I've been eyeing it up for such a long time & I was so happy that my boyfriend got it for me for Valentines. It's a gorgeous product and I feel so posh pulling out my first Chanel product! It's such luxury and glamorous. The packaging of this product is obviously lovely & really special and I actually just want to keep it out all the time and decorate my room with it! (haha i'm such a sado!) But it's also a lovely product. It's the perfect contour color for me and it really compliments my skin tone. I really like the fact that it's not too dark for my paler skin and is more of a natural bronzer color compared to some of the other bronzer's I've tried recently. You get 30g of product too so it's going to last such a long time, you only need a teeny tiny bit because it's so pigmented so I will be surprised if this doesn't last way over a year or more. It's perfect to just bronze the whole face or contour, it also smells amazing! I know that's a really random thing to notice but it smells really nice and it feels really lovely on your skin as well. Application is also really easy, I like to buff this into my skin with the Real Techniques Contour Brush and I think it looks amazing. I think this is one of my favorite make up products ever & I love it. I would really recommend this product to anyone, it's perfect.

Benefit Fine One One - This product is also amazing, I'm not much of a blusher girl but because this is a cream product it really works and I actually really like it. The cool thing about Benefit's fine one one, is the fact that it's a contour color, a blusher color and a highlighter color all incorporated into one stick which means you simply place the stick at the middle of your cheek and pull it upwards and have your contour, highlight and blush color done it one quick sweep. It looks really natural and nice as well and it really adds a lovely pop of color to your cheek. I was so curious to try this simply due to the fact that i've not seen a product like it at all and I really think that it's such a cool product. I love the name and the whole concept behind the product and I can't wait to experiment with it more.

Eco-tools Bronzing Brush - I think i'm a bit obsessed with brushes at the moment, I decided to pick up0 this brush so I had a nice brush to use with my new Chanel Bronzer and I felt like this would be really good. I've never tried eco-tools brushes before but i've always heard really good things about them and I also love the ethics and concept behind the brand, with it behind a brand that is environmentally friendly and also is cruelty free. I'm really happy with this brush, it's really dense and soft and is really good at buffing in product to the skin, it's perfect for powder and also works with the bronzer really nicely too. It was a really good price too at just under £10.00 and feels like it will last a really long time so, so far i'm really impressed with this too.

Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post, If you want too see a review of any of the products i've mentioned let me know in the comments section below & I'll talk to you all soon! xxx

Valentines Day - Beauty Picks

My Valentines Day Make Up Picks -

Hi lovelies, hope you're all okay, today's post is back to being beauty related and today I thought i'd take some inspiration from Valentines day which is coming up on Thursday and show you my top beauty picks for the love inspired day. I don't really know why these particular products stood out for me as products that were perfect for your Valentines make up look but I just thought they were. Anyway, i'm not going to ramble on too much, I hope you all have a brilliant Valentines day whether you're paired up or not & I hope this is useful if you're doing anything special. Also I know the hearts background is a little distracting but I wanted to inject a bit of 'love' into the post so you'll have to put up with it!

The first pick which I think is essential for V-day would be a really flawless base, whether you're going out for a meal or just chilling with your partner you'll want to have lovely skin, I think this is a scenario where you want to look completely natural and kind of go for the 'no makeup' look but still have good coverage to help blur any imperfections. Therefore I think a really good pick for date night would be the L'oreal Lumi Magique Foundation, (here) this is going to make you look really nice and natural but give you a really subtle glow so you'll look really healthy and glowing, which is definitely a look you should be going for. There is quite a good selection in these shades and its really easy to blend so you aren't going to have any problems with application.

The next thing I think you need to make sure you get right on date night would be your blush, I'm not a massive fan of blusher i'm more of a bronzer girl but there is something about the pinks shades that just make me think of valentines day, you want to have a really rosy glow to your cheeks on a date so I would say that the 'Love at first blush' (here) by Soap and Glory is your perfect product, plus the name just reminds me of Valentines day! Love at first blush has loads of different segments inside it and contains different shades of pink and white so that you get a gorgeous pink blush with a bit of a sheen so it also works as a highlighter again portraying a glowing skin look. Alternatively I think cream blushers work really well, they're amazing for staying powder and they look really natural because you don't want too look too plastered in makeup, the cream blush I've chosen on this occasional is by the Body Shop and it's part of the Lily Cole collection and it's in the shade 'Crazy For Coral' this would really compliment more darker skin tones and look really nice with a tan, this is a very sheer product but you can build it up which means it will be really hard to not end up with a natural finish.

The next thing you want to think about on date night would be your eyes, I think you have to decide whether you want your lips or your eyes to be the feature of your Valentines make up look and make sure you only stick to one. For Valentines day I don't think you want something heavy or bright on the eyes, it's more than likely that it will scare your date away if you turn up with bright green and blue eye shadow, for that reason I decided to start of the eye make up look with a Maybelline Color Tattoo (here) in on and on bronze, they do a selection of shades so pick which one will suit the eye look you want to create. These make an amazing base for eye shadows and are going to keep your eye makeup on all night, this can also look lovely on its own as long as you blend it out into the crease. For shadows I've suggested using the Naked 2 Palette by Urban Decay but in all honesty you could use the normal naked palette or any neutral eye shadow palettes, Make up Academy do some great ones. I just think they have a lovely selection of shades which means you can smoke it up if you want to have a more sultry eye look or you can just sweep a neutral color over the lid and add a bit of definition in the crease. Neutral eye shadow in general is just a massive pick of mine for Valentines day. Next you'll want to create some curly, flirty lashes and the best mascara for giving you both amazing volume and length in terms of your lashes would be Benefit's 'They're real' mascara, (here) which gives you the look of wearing false eyelashes without all of the hassle.

The next thing I think is a top must have for Valentines day is a strong lip, depending on the look you're going for you can add some 'va-va-voom' and go all out with a statement bright red lip if you want too, this Kate Moss for Rimmel one in shade 001 (here) is perfect for that and will really draw attention to your lips. Or you can choose to go more subtle with your lips, my two picks are from Soap and Glory and they are the 'Sexy Mother Pucker Lip Glosses' (here), these are really cool because they plump your lips, this is really good for date nights because you can magic your lips too look fuller and bigger really quickly. The two shades I have gone for are a really light nude color & also a hot bright pink, I think it's all down to preference and the lip color you'll feel the most comfortable with.

The last thing you want to make sure look perfect for your date night would be your nails, now obviously your nails need to match you're outfit but the two nail varnishes in my collection that really reminded me of Valentines day was the Barry M Nail Polish in shade 302 (here) and the Models Own Mirror Ball nail varnish in 'hot stuff' (here) which has a little more glitter to it.

Lastly you want to smell really nice so I would slap on your favorite fragrance so that you're smelling sweeet, my fragrance of choice would be the original Juicy Couture Perfume which I love.

Anyway, I hope you have a lovely Valentines day, let me know what your Valentines Beauty must haves would be in the comments & i'll speak to you all soon.

Home Decor Haul - Vintage Accessories

Bedroom Decorations - Dunelm & B&M

Hi Lovelies, Today my post is a little different, I haven't done many posts that differ from beauty and fashion but I went to Dunelm and B&M yesterday and picked up some new bits and bobs for my bedroom and seeming as my blog is called Gem's Beauty and I always promised to blog about all things beautiful, I thought i'd show you all and maybe it'll even give you some inspiration. I'm planning on redecorating my room and I want it to be really girly and vintage like so all of the bits and bobs I picked up are pretty much to that theme.

The first thing I picked up was a gorgeous jar from Dunelm, I'm actually thinking that this would make a great brush holder for my brushes and will look great on my dressing table. This is really well made and heavy and it's just simply white and has stones and pearls embellished around the top, I really like this & think it's super cute. I think it was £4.99 too which is quite a good deal. It actually says on the website that you can use it as a candle holder too which is pretty cool! You can find it on the website here.

The next thing I picked up was this glass jar, I just thought it was super cute, it has a tiny fake ivory gala around it which adds a lovely pop of color and then has some silky ribbon tied around it and two plastic hearts dangling from the ribbon too. I think this is a really decorative piece and will look nice around my room. It's from the Wedding Collection at dunelm, (like most of the pieces I picked out actually) and is also a candle holder, you can pick it up for the really good price of £3.99 here.

The next thing I picked up was this really lovely diamante love letter ornament, it really caught my eye, I've always liked the 'love' and 'hope' ornaments but the reason this one in particular stood out for me was due to the fact it has some diamante detailing, it just seemed to make it look more detailed and stand out and be more of a 'feature' I guess, so I thought it was gorgeous. This was a really good price too at £4.99 and you can pick it up in black or white here.

The next thing I picked up was something really random, i've never ever been interested in room and linen sprays and I think i've always thought that they were targeted at older audiences but I was smelling some whilst I waited for mum and I fell in love with this one, it literally smells so amazing and is so refreshing, every single time I go in my room I have to spray some more, this one is the Jasmine and Ylang Ylang scent, I don't think i've ever been a massive fan of Jasmine but this smells pretty awesome, it's a floral sweet scent but not overpowering and just really refreshing and calming. The scent comes in a lovely glass bottle with a pump too so it's really nice to have on display and I just had to have it because it was a bargain at £2.99, they do lots of other scents too, I know they do a vanilla one mixed with amber and a cotton and water lily one which also smelled amazing but I made myself stick to one! You can again pick this up on the website here.

The next thing I picked up were these 3 hearts, they're all slightly different but they all have ribbon on the top and I think they will make a really nice decorative piece on one of my more plain walls. I have also seen some people hang things like this off their wardrobe doors or just any door handles so I thought they could work nicely for that as well. Again I picked up these 3 hearts from the Wedding Collection haha my rooms going to end up looking like a wedding reception! But anyway you could pick up all of the hearts separately so it's good if you only want one or if you pick up a couple you can mix and match your favorites. The first one I picked up was the crystal flower heart hanger, it's on a piece of wire and is just filled with different shape crystals and jewels, I really like it and I picked up the medium size one which retails at £4.79 here which I think is quite fair. 

The next one I picked up was the flower heart this one is again just flowers on a wire, this one is a little different because I picked up a cream one, it's got lovely little pearl hearts on it and has a lovely finish on it. It also has a lovely cream ribbon on which will make hanging it up really easy. It was fairly expensive at £4.99 but I jsut thought it was lovely, again you can pick it up here. The last one I picked up was really small and dainty I went for the bead heart hanger in the size small which meant it was only £1.99, bargain! this one is really cute and I thought a smaller one would compliment the bigger two that I got, it has lovely silver and pearl beads on it and I just thought it was super cute! This one is avaliable here.

The last thing I picked up from Dunelm was this rose gala, now let me just tell you this picture really doesn't do this product justice at all. All of the roses on this gala have a really cute glitter on them and like tear drops of sparkle on them as well as beads. They are on a really long white bendy kind of wire and you can you have the gala straight or you can bend it which is really cute. It would look lovely around a mirror or a fireplace and is such a fairytale feature. It's again from the Wedding Collection (haha I know!) and is just soo cool. They also do the roses individually for 99p and they had a clear vase filled with them and it looked so pretty and they also do a spray, which is obviously a nice idea for fake flowers. Now this was quite pricey at £7.99 but I just loved it, I think it helped to tie everything together and was just so lovely! If you go on the website here and zoom in you can see it in all it's beauty! I love it.

The last thing I picked up was from B&M, I don't know how popular B&M is or if it's a national thing I just know that they have a store in my area which is like bargain central! I picked up this gorgeous wooden photo frame from there for a bargain price of £5.99 this is so lovely, it looks like there is a collage of photo frames and they're all different shapes and sizes. I really liked that this already has loads of pictures of hearts in and it just made it look really pretty and I don't have to worry too much about filling it if I don't want too. They don't have this exact one on their website but they had loads in my local B&M so if you have one near by you should go and check that out!

Hope you liked this post, I know it was a little different but I thought it was quite nice to change things up a little bit. Let me know if you enjoyed it or not in the comment section below & I'll definitely show you my room once it's finished and I have all my new stuff together! xxx

Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless Mascara

Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless Mascara - £7.99 - Boots - Here *

Hi Ladies, sorry to bombard you with another Rimmel Post, I know I've mentioned them quite a bit over the last few weeks but I've just been enjoying their products. Anyway about a month ago now Rimmel offered me the opportunity to try out their new mascara before it released, I jumped at the opportunity because as you know I am a bit of a lover of Rimmel Products. Anyway this came in the post quite a while ago now and I've been trialling it for quite a few weeks because I wanted to give you my straight up honest opinion.
Now each new mascara needs a unique selling point which will get people to want to splash their hard earned cash, the Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless Mascara actually contains ingredients that are supposedly meant to make your lashes grow, some of the ingredients within this mascara include Procapil, Keratin and Antioxidants. The Propacil within this mascara is meant to prevent the loss of lashes and strengthen the lashes and also help to fight the eyelash follicle ageing process (a bit technical I know!). Therefore this is meant to be a perfect mascara for anybody that has had problem with eyelash loss, has sparse eyelashes or has noticed any thinning or patchiness of the lashes.
The first thing I noticed about this mascara as I do with pretty much every single make up product I pick up was the packaging. This mascara really stands out because it's in a really cool almost luminous yellow tube, it's really bright and shiny and I quite like it. I know it's a bit out there but I think it's quite cool, I prefer mascara's that are coloured and stand out a bit so I can see them better within the depths of my makeup bag and I really just hate having loads of black bullets of mascara everywhere. The shape of the tube is pretty cool too, it can stand up by its self because of it's square bottom and it's quite compact which I also like.
The next thing I noticed about this mascara was the wand, I tried to get a close up for you, it's a plastic wand which grips the lashes and pulls them through. Normally I'm not a fan of plastic brushes but they're real by benefit has recently converted me. I find this mascara really separates my lashes and adds a lot of length. Another advantage of this mascara is the fact that the handle is quite fat which I like, it means you can grip it better and have full control over the wand.
All in all I quite like this mascara, I find that it's really good to lengthen the lashes, I can easily apply a few coats of this and find that my lashes look really lengthened and really cool, I do find that this mascara slacks a little bit on volume but I find that most plastic brushes don't really give me a huge amount of volume. I like the consistency of this mascara and I find it's really easy and simple to work with, I also think that it's one of the most black and creamy mascara's on the drugstore market which I really like because I find that some drugstore mascara's can have a grey cast. I really like this mascara, it's so buildable but in all fairness you really don't have to build it a lot, for me I just put like 2 or 3 coats and then it does enough so that I have really built up lashes that look really good. This mascara really holds a curl too and also adds a lot of length, I really do enjoy using it and think it's one of the best drugstore mascara's I've tried in a long time. In terms of consistency it's quite a wet consistency which I like, but it's not wet enough that it will end up on your eyelids or half way down your face when you've applied it. I've been using this for a fairly long time and think it's really damn good, as for making my lashes grow I haven't really noticed a difference but I don't have patchiness or sparse eyelashes in first place! Hope you enjoyed this review! Let me know if you've tried this mascara! xxxx

February Wishlist

Feb Wishlist - Chanel Bronze Universal, Benefit 'Fine One One', Rimmel Apocalips, Real Techniques Eye Kit, Proactiv Solution, Mac Creme Cup & Rimmel BB Cream

 

Hi everyone, hope you're okay! Today I thought I'd do a February wish list, I have done a wish list post in ages and I personally really like reading them and it adds a bit of depth to my blog rather than having constant review posts. Anyway I'm not going to ramble for ages I'm just going to jump right in and get on with it.

1. Chanel Bronze Universal - I've wanted to try this product for such a long time, I've heard so many great things about it from lots of different bloggers and I have never actually tired any Chanel products so I think this would be a great way to dip my toes into the Chanel pond so to speak. I think the packaging of this product is really luxurious and it just looks lovely. I'm out of bronzer so I can probably justify picking this up but the price tag at £30.00 has always put me off, I think that's sooo expensive! It looks lovely though and apparently the 30ml contents lasts for absolutely ages seeming as it's a cream product and from my experience with cream blushes I would expect it to last a long time too. I have ready so many reviews on this product and I think it's the product that I want to pick up the most in the month of Feb.

2. Benefit Fine One One - This looks like a really cool product, it's a new release from Benefit and I have been seeing it on loads and loads of blog posts recently and it's really made me want to try it out. Sticking to the cream products this is basically a cream stick that contains a stripe of blusher, a stripe of bronzer and a highlight shade, this means you can just hold the product at the center of your cheek and in one quick swipe have your blusher, bronzer and highlighter done. I think it's such a cool idea and I think the reason I want to try it so much is the fact that it's so different to a lot of products on the market and I've not seen anything like it. I also think Benefit is such a cool brand and the packaging and idea behind this is really cool. This is a fairly expensive product at £23.00 but I think it would be good quality the only thing I would be worried about would be how messy it would get and I would be a little skeptical in case the shades mixed in together and I ended up without the definition of the 3 individual shades. 

3. Apocalips - I recently did a post on the new offering from Rimmel and I said that they weren't that ground breaking or different to be getting the huge and over top amount of hype that they have been served by the blogging community. That being said I do quite like them I just wish they didn't smell funny. I really want to try the shades Big Bang and Nude Eclipse to see how they are and I'm wanting to try those out this month.

4. Real Techniques Eye Collection - You may have seen on my blog this week that I have recently picked up a new Urban Decay eye shadow palette - the Glinda. But recently I've just been experimenting a lot with eye shadows, I want to pick up some eye shadow brushes that I can use with all my new palettes, I do have a few old ones from Elf but I know real techniques are good quality and a bargain for the price!

5. Pro Active Solution - 4 Piece Set - My skin has been playing up loads lately and I've heard that Pro Activ solution is one of the best ways to get your skin under control quickly and also improve it's quality. Also seeming as it is the new year I really wanted to start taking care of my skin more and I though a 4 Piece Skin care set would probably help me to do this. As much as I do want to try this though I'm a little bit sceptical, I've heard very contrasting reviews on this product, some people love it and swear by it and some people hate it and swear that you should stay away from it! So I don't really know.

 

6. Mac Crème Cup - I love Mac lipsticks, if you haven't heard me rave about it enough I got Mac Angel as a Christmas present and love it to absolute bits, I've used it every single day since and I don't seriously think I could live without it. Mac lipsticks are hands down the best I've ever tried and I really enjoy using them. I've heard crème cup is the same sort of colour as Angel but more of a creamy formula and without the frost finish so I would love to try it out.

 

7. Rimmel BB Cream - This is a new release from Rimmel and in all fairness it's a product that I haven't heard a whole lot about, I think this is why I am so fascinated by it, I really haven't bought into the whole 'BB' trend and think that the whole idea is a way for companies to just rebrand tinted moisturisers, I've never really found one I liked either but I'm quite keen to try this just because i'm a huge Rimmel Fan and they're a brand that never seem to get it wrong for me. This isn't a product that I've been lusting after but a product that I am curious about.

 

As a side note since I made this wish list I have added 2 more things to it haha, i'm so rubbish! I really want to try out the Urban Decay Naked Basics Palette and also the Urban Decay Naked Flushed Palette, both really interest me & intrigue me and I have been loving Urban Decay over the last few months so I would love to try their new releases!

 

Hope you enjoyed this post, let me know what's on your February wish list! Thanks for reading! :) xxx

 

Pamper Night In - Essentials

Pamper Night In - Essentials

Hi everyone, today's post is a little different, I like to change it up and do something other than reviews once in a while and today I thought i'd talk about my favorite pampering night treats. I'm a massive girly girl as you may know and I like nothing better than having a pampering night where I can just have a bath, treat myself and it's one of the best ways I can think off too really relax and chill out. I think everyone should try and make sure that they have some 'me' time and look after yourself a bit so I thought i'd dedicate a whole post to it.
Firstly I always start off my pamper night by having a really hot bubble bath, I was stupid enough to forget to photograph my bubble bath which is the Soap and Glory 'Calm one, calm all' bubble bath, as the name suggests it leaves me feeling ridiculously calm and relaxed and is so creamy that it just makes me want to fall asleep. Alternatively if I really want to treat myself I will crack out my Lush collection and use one of their products to make my bath something special, the one photographed is the Lush Massage Bar in 112 Dream time, it contains ingredients such as jasmine, sandalwood, chamomile and lavender and is housed in a bar with the scent of cocoa butter which you all probably know is my favorite scent. This is a really relaxing scent and you can use a massage bar as a shampoo, a conditioner and also a bubble bath so a real star of a product. Depending on whether i'm having a relaxing bath or a relaxing shower I will also use Soap and Glory's 'Sugar Scrub' this is a scrub that contains brown sugar and sweet lime and it smells really good. You just scrub it all over yourself and it leaves you feeling ridiculously soft and refreshed and gets rid of all those dry skin cells.
I also like to try and look after my hair whilst i'm bathing or showering, the first thing I would do is use my normal shampoo and conditioner, probably my favorite one I've discovered recently would be the Aussie 3 minute miracle conditioner, I can't get enough of this product, it nourishes my hair, gets rid of knots and leaves it silky soft and shiny without weighing my hair down, it's fast become my holy grail hair care item. Also if i'm really trying to treat myself I will use an overnight mask or balm, the one i'm using at the moment is the Umberto Giannini 'Overnight Beauty Moisturizer Balm'.
Once I get out of the bath I really look forward to treating my skin and doing all my body care. I have quite a lot of choice in terms of body moisturizers, I have way too many in all honesty, I really like to use my Boots Extracts Cocoa Butter if I just want to really moisturize all my skin and feel soft and silky but I also like to use the Dove Summer Glow if I want to have moisture but also add a bit of a glow to my skin because this has a hint of self tanning ingredients in it which means you're left with a subtle tan and a bit of a glow if you use it frequently. The next thing I like to do is lather my feet in Soap and Glory's Heel Genius and put on a pair of thick socks so I can let it sink in over night and end up with silky, soft feet the next day.
The next thing I do is take care of my face and my skin care, during the most part of the week I like to use Simple Skincare, I use the cleanser, toner and moisturizer from that range simply due to the fact that I have really sensitive skin and this really works for me. On my pamper days though I like to use a cleanser that lathers up more and the Peaches and Clean cleanser from Soap and Glory which is a lovely face scrub that just clears impurities from my skin. Another step I will often take is to use my facial sauna which is a really good at home treatment, you fill the base with water wait for it to warm up and put your face over it for as long as you want, it's really relaxing and makes me super tired but it is also amazing for clearing out your pores, making your skin soft and making your skin glow, it's lovely. After I've done that I will often just spread some Blistex treatment over my lips to add extra moisture.
The last thing I like to pamper is my nails, I remove my nail varnish with the quickies nail varnish pads they remove nail varnish in one swipe and then I just a nail varnish of my choice and paint my nails in it. The one I've chosen in this post is the Revlon Nail Varnish in 185 Sweet Tart.
Last but not least there are a few more ingredients you need to make a perfect girly pampering/treat night, firstly you need chocolate (it's an essential), then some DVD's, my picks range from Ugly Betty to the Kardashians, to Gossip Girl and confessions of a shopaholic. I also like to chuck a book into the range 'You had me at hello' is new in the book charts and really cheap too! And lastly you need this weeks copy of Heat Magazine to fill you in on all the celeb gossip!
Hope you enjoy this post and gained some tips! Let me know your essentials for a pamper night! xx

50 Random Facts About Me

Hi Dolls! Today's post is a little bit different, i'm not one to just sit down and write about myself on my blog although I should do it more really because it is a blog based around me and what I'm loving, but anyway I'd rather write about beauty related things normally. But today I was struggling for inspiration and couldn't think of any posts to write and I've seen this tag floating around and nearly every blogger has done it now so I thought i'd jump on the band wagon and tell you guys 50 random things about me. I don't know if any of you will find this at all interesting but I figured that it might help you guys to get to know me a little better and help you to relate to my posts a little easier.

1. I'm a complete and utter chatterbox, I used to get told off for it all the time at school and now get shouted at, at work for the exact same thing. I can always find something to talk about and a lot of the time I talk complete and utter rubbish and no one will even be listening but if there's no one to listen I'll just chat away to myself anyway.
2. I'm a bookworm, I love nothing more than getting into bed when you're feeling a bit sleepy and reading a book. I love books and think I pretty much always have. Romantic ones and girly books are my fav and once I get hooked i'm one of those people who won't sleep or move until i'm finished. Sophie Kinsella is one of my favourite authors ever!
3. I want to be like Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl, she is amazing.
4. My dog is the cutest thing ever and I won't let anyone disagree with that.
5. I am a handbag hoe, I could buy hand bags like their was no tomorrow, I don't really buy expensive bags though simply because of the fact I never stick with a handbag the longest a handbag is really reached for by me is a month & then I move on.
6. I'm very clumsy and my family worry about leaving me home alone haha!
7. My favourite Disney film óff all time has to be Finding Nemo, a lot of people say Dory reminds them of me :(
8. I got a new camera today and it's gorgeous!
9. My favourite other film is How to lose a guy in 10 days, it's simple & classic and no one will ever beat Kate Hudson & Matthew Mcgonney.
10. I don't think that Robert Pattison is good looking.
11. I really like accents, Australian and American accents are the best.
12. If I had a chance to go anywhere in the whole world I'd probably go to New York, I want to visit their sooo bad!
13. I'm a home bird - 100% and I don't like to be too far away from long. My home is comforting.
14. I didn't have a hobby or a talent until I started blogging. It's the only thing I've really been interested in or dedicated a huge amount of time too.
15. I love being inside when it's raining, especially when i'm all snuggled up, I think the sound of rain is very therapeutic and calming and I always feel better when I can hear the rain.
16. I love travelling, long car journeys & plane rides are my favourite thing ever.
17. I have a very special family and i'm very close to them all, I love them all to pieces and I'm extremely lucky.
18. I have very little patience when it comes to small things & I get frustrated and give up quite easily.
19. I really miss secondary school and sixth form and I think it's true when people say that School and your younger years are the best days of your lives.
20. I'm a very anxious person and I worry a huge amount, I suffer with anxiety problems and I freak out a lot.
21. I'm not a good sleeper, I don't understand how anybody can go to sleep early when I rarely sleep before 3 or 4am.
22. I love listening to music, I'm someone who likes to listen to all of the chart rubbish and dance around to it! There's nothing better than having a good sing song and dance around.
23. I have a serious crisp addiction, I think I need to go to rehab for it (seriously!).
24. I really don't like shaking people's hands.
25. I like chocolate too.
26. I'm really pale and people often ask me if I'm ill when I'm not.
27. Talking off being ill, I'm ill all the time, I have an absolutely rubbish immune system & have constantly got something wrong with me.
28. I love burning candles, it makes the room have a really nice ambience & feel.
29. I'm learning to drive but driving tests freak me out beyond belief.
30. I'm 20 this year and it scares me to absolute death! Last year of being a teenager!!! Eeeeek
31. Christmas is my favourite holiday, I love buying people gifts and I love how it's a day where everyone gets treated and just enjoys themselves.
32. I hate hospitals and needles, two of my biggest fears.
33. I never used to be bothered by the dark but I hate it now.
34. I own so much stuff but I feel like I need it all and I'm rubbish at throwing things away (definition - hoarder).
35. My phone's always near me all the time and I love it too bits, I really don't know how all those folk in the olden days coped without having a phone and 24/7 contact. Or how they coped without twitter or facebook?! how did they have a nosey!!
36. I constantly have a head ache :(
37. I'm meant to wear glasses but I don't (I know, I know, it's super bad for me).
38. I could quite happily live in pj's and onesies, I don't know who invented normal clothing but they shouldn't have.
39. I love watching American box sets & reality TV. Give me a bit of keeping up with the Kardashians, gossip girl or ugly betty and you have me sorted. I must own half of hmv with my dvd collection. Also the TV show 'Friends' is my fav, I just love it so much - such a classic, wish they'd bring out a movie!
40. My bed and my shower are two of my favourite places in the whole wide world.
41. I love playing Sims!!! Such a great game!
42. I love shopping, online shopping, high street shopping, just general shopping, nothing makes you feel  greater then when you've treated yourself and done a bit of retail therapy.
43. I get a huge amount of compliments about my eyebrows - so strange.
44. I don't like to be called Gemma, I much prefer Gem.
45. A roast dinner is my absolute fav! I don't know how you can be British and not like a really good home cooked roast dinner.
46. Sunday's are one of my favourite and least favourite day's all rolled into one.
47. I can never be bothered to update my I pod, the songs on there are probably about 6 years old.
48. One of the best things about any day is taking my make up off at the end of it.
49. The scent I love the most is cocoa butter or vanilla, I really love sweet scents.
50. I love Labrinths voice so much.

Hope you enjoyed this post! :) let me know if you've done anything similar, I love reading posts like this  especially when they're about my fav bloggers! xxx

Are Rimmel Apocalips worth the hype?

Rimmel Apocalips - 101 Celestial & 303 Apocaliptic - £5.99 - Boots - here

Hi lovelies, hope you're all okay. Today I'm sharing with you a new release from Rimmel. If you haven't heard about these then you must have been living under a rock because they really have taken the blogging world by storm and I honestly couldn't tell you any blogger that hasn't got an opinion (or a post) about them. I picked these up the day they were released which was about 2 weeks ago now I believe. I picked up two shades 101 Celestial which is a light plummy pink shade and 303 Apocaliptic which is a bright fuchsia pink. I know some bloggers picked up the whole collection but I just wanted to try a few first and see if I liked them or not.
Also I just thought I'd mention that I got a new camera you can see the picture above & the pictures from this post were taken on it, yay!So let me know what you think, I'm loving it so far.
As you know I am a massive fan of Rimmel and they are probably my favorite high street/drug store makeup brand, I pretty much love all of their products and over the last year or so I think they've really stepped up their game and have been releasing some really good products. Therefore when I saw these had been released I was quite excited too see if they were going to live up to the hype and be as good as people had been saying.
Firstly I would say that these products are good, the pigmentation of all of these products are pretty impressive and when I swatched them in store I was pleasantly surprised that there the pigmentation was across the board and there were no disappointments. Another great thing about these is the fact that they only with stand the texture of a gloss for a few minutes and then turn completely matte and therefore they are a good consistency to wear.
Basically Apocalips are the formulation of a lip gloss with the pigmentation and wear ability of a lipstick which is cool. Another thing about these is that they are fairly long lasting. I also love the concept behind the name of the product 'Apocalips' I often think that the name and marketing of a product are key to a products success and I also think the packaging is gorgeous, the bottle is quite a funny shape (almost rocket like) and I think they look really sleek and individual, I also think it's cool that you can see the shade through the bottom of the tube.
But, do I think these are the worth the huge amount of hype that they are getting in the blogging world? I personally don't know. I don't think they're bad products at all but I don't think they're amazing products either. I find the smell and taste of these products to put me off a bit and I don't think they're very smooth on the lips. I also think that they bleed really easily. And I would also say that because of their extreme pigmentation they are quite hard to wear, I would say that they are much better for nights out rather than day time wear because I think you'll find that they end up half way across your face.
I would also say that because of the huge amount of hype these products have received they're not really going to ever be able to live up to it, yes they're good but the way that people are going on about them kind of makes you think they're going to be amazing and ground breaking and in all honesty I just think they're good.
Overall I like these a lot, I do think i'll pick up a few more shades, I really want to try the more nudey shades and I think 'Big Bang' is the most perfect red and will be amazing for more daring days and nights out but I absolutely hate the smell of these products and it does put me off a little bit. If you haven't tried them then you should definately pick some up, I don't know anybody who hates them and would never wear them I just think they are a little big over-hyped, although the pigmentation and lasting power of these is pretty impressive. What do you think of the Rimmel Apocalips? Are they worth the hype? xxx