Hello June!

                              

                                                 Happy June Lovelies

Can you believe it's June already??? It's was literally the 1st of May two minutes ago! 

I always find June to be such a fresh month full of events, things to do - I'm not biased because it's my birthday but it does make things much more exciting. I love going all out for my birthday celebrations. 

I will post an updated party planning blog and let you know what I've been up to (5 days to go eek!!!!) 

This month will be all about makeup that you can wear in warm weather because there is nothing worse than wearing makeup that makes your face feel cakey due to the heat or in some cases does not stay and literally melts off; summer nail polish colours; summer beauty and fashion inspo. 

Some of my favourite things about June:

- The evenings are longer

- The weather (hopefully) warms up but in fairness we're quite lucky as Ireland has got a beautiful, roaster of a summer the last few years.

- Festival fashion rolls around

- Summer fashion inspo starts coming into shops

- Late nights in the sun making memories 

- Random trips 

- I love changing my Skincare routine and discovering new products as summer can dry my skin out a little bit - so I need to look after it more so but I love that. 

- Skin and hair get lighter - I feel like my skin gets a healthy glow to it when I'm out and about in the heat but protecting it is key. 

- I always experiment with recipes and drinks during summer as I have more time.

                         

June is so special to me - for several reasons. So its definitely a month to be celebrated.

                              

Enjoy June, make memories, laugh a lot, stay out late, relax on the beach, put your hair down and all the cheesy sayings that have to be done hehe.

Until next time beauties,

A x

April Favourites; Goodbye April

Hey dolls,

Can you believe its May already?? April flew it was a jam packed month but it was so much fun. Well I have to include some April favourites.

My first favourite of the month is the Naked Urban Decay Flushed palette in Streak. It's a contour palette and an amazing one at that. I picked it as one of my two products when I got my makeup done in UD during April for a confirmation/my boyfriend's birthday. I absolutely love it - so easy to blend, the perfect colour not too light or dark, the blush is a a rosey pink it is fab and the highlighter is so pigmented and it gives a lovely glowy finish.

I picked up this 'Gel' polish in Penney's the other day for 2 euro - I love the shine finish it leaves and the colour perfect for summer.

I've been using the Naked 1 the last week and I've got my love back for it. I'm hitting pan on a good few of these but I did get it when it was my 19th birthday so I've had it nearly 2 years. It's full of browns, coppers and a few dark shades its gorgeous for any occasion.

I have been using this illuminator for months now and I prefer mix it in with my foundation. It gives the most gorgeous, dewy look on the face. It photographs absolutely amazing. It makes your skin flawless and glowy. You can get it from boots or any boots shop.

I know this has been mostly Urban Decay based favorites but I love love love the Naked 3. I love the rose, pinks, gold undertones and darker colours its actually my ideal palette. I use this for work, nights out and even got one the girls to use it on me when I got my make up done with UD.

I hope you enjoyed reading my (mostly UD based) favourites and enjoy May lovelies x

Until next beauties,

A x

MEMEME Cosmetics: The Ultimate Eye Palette 'Classic'

Hi fab things,

I've been using the MEMEME Cosmetics Ultimate Eye Palette 'Classic' for the while and I'm enjoying it. 

You need a good primer for the shadow to last all day. The colours are gorgeous. I love the variety. The only downside for some people is the fact they are very talc but I don't mind it at all.  

It blends very easily and the colour pay off is very good overall. I've been contemplating buying this palette for months and months and I'm delighted I finally got around to it. 

It's quite handy if you're travelling you can pop it in your bag and go. I usually go for a light smokey brown eye for the day. 

The palette is €12.99 and you can get the one I have 'the Classic' or the 'Rich Plum' palette which will be my next investment. 

You can get the MEMEME cosmetics in most pharmacies or online at www.mememecosmetics.com

Until next time beauties,

A x

MAC Lipliner Review: Edge to Edge

Hi lovelies,

Just a quick review on today's face of the day. I was treated to some MAC yesterday by my adorable Mammy because I had a weird week and I was just out of the dentist, spoilt is the word!!! 

She knew I had been looking at the lipliners for a while and I picked up one yesterday - Edge to Edge. 

I wear it on it's own but you could wear it with several pale pinks or nude pink lipsticks.

I popped the 'Free like a Butterfly' Cinderella Mac Lipstick over it for extra shine and gloss. It is an absolutely stunning colour - fab with everyday make or night time makeup. It lasts absolutely amazingily even after eating and drinking bits through the day. 

The price is €16.50 and you can purchase it at any MAC counter or at www.brownthomas.com

Until next time beauties,

A x

Getting Organised

Hi fab things,

Writing is a fantastic way of expressing yourself, I've loved writing since I was young. I love to blog, trying to find the time can be hard but I told myself February is the month I get myself organised as I received a lot of beauty related gifts for Christmas and I've tried a lot of new products in January. There is so much I want to share beauty wise, and everyday I learn more about all things to do beauty wise. Once I'm finished my degree, I plan to do a beauty course as I've always loved everything to do makeup and skincare, I would love to learn more and more.

My mam is a big influence when it comes to skincare. She has fabulous skin, and she's always looked after so I'm lucky that she's taught me to look after it from my teens. My main rule is I always have to look after my skin or my makeup won't compliment my skin at all or as the saying goes: "Beauty is skin deep". Starting next week, I'm going to blog to my hearts content and work hard on my posts. Its going to contain: favourites, a review or two, likes and dislikes, skincare, lifestyle and overall tips I find effective and that may help you.

Looking forward to posting and keeping up to date about things.

Until next time beauties,

A x

Contour and Highlight

Hey lovelies,

I hope everyone's January isn't going too bad. It really is one of those months that drags on isn't it? All the major festivities and partying has died down and its back to 'reality' with work, college or school. But its not all bad as new spring fashion comes out and there is always new makeup to be found and in my case reviewed!

Anyway today I'm going to talk about one of my favourite makeup steps: Contour and Highlight. This make up step really took off not so long ago and there has been a lot of enthusiasm about it. It is a case of hollowing out your cheekbones (while sucking your cheeks in making a duck face) and building on your own cheek bones, around the top of the forehead, down the nose (makes it look more narrow) and down along the jaw line for a more subtle defined look along with highlighting your features such as the top of the browbone, top of cheekbones, forehead, chin,nose, above the centre of the lip lip all to make your face look more oval and longer. It is a case of enhancing your own features but definition and brightness. 

I'm very excited to write this blog. I remember it was sometime in 2013 and the gorgeous beauty blogger Suzanne Jackson aka SoSueMe had a blog post about the sleek contour palette Here and then she brought out this Youtube video all about contouring. I was so excited to try it immediately and I wanted to find products similar to the ones she used.

So back in September 2013 I purchased the seventeen instant glow contour cream and the Rimmel Wake Me Up concealer as I thought they were a good combination to try out.

I remember googling what products to use to get some ideas and at the time American brands came up that I didn't have easy access to so these two products were perfect for me.
I used it the whole time. I love the colour of the seventeen cream bronzer as you can make it subtle or build it up for a night out. It completely changed the way my makeup looked. I also love the Rimmel Wake Me Up concealer and find that the two of the them compliment each other perfectly. I have only good things to say about this Rimmel product, it is the most amazing concealer/hightlighter. 

After I would set my whole face with translucent powder to keep it in place. Sometimes I would you C&H powders over my creams for a more defined contour look. 

A little tip, you can achieve Contour and Hightlight easily by either getting a powder two tones darker than your own one, like this MAC mineralize powder.

Or you can even a foundation that is two tones darker for the contour and two tones lighter for highlight.

FAVOURITE CONTOUR AND HIGHLIGHT PRODUCTS

The Laura Geller Highlighter & Blush - Spice Chai/Fr.Vanilla. This is absolutely beautiful combination and it has amazing pigmentation. This Laura Geller brush is one of my favourite brushes to use for contouring, it is fab and you can easily hollow out the cheek bones. 

  

The MAC pro longwear concealer - though it is quite a heavy concealer so I would only use this if I was going to an event early in the day and needed all day coverage like a Wedding or a Ball. It has quite a heavy texture to it so I wouldn't use it as an everyday concealer - but other than that it is perfect for highlighting if you need something to last. 

I use this sleek palette everyday. Its gorgeous for a subtle warmth and brightness to the face. It can be used as an everyday C&H but you can also build it up at night for a deeper look.

In this picture, I was at a Wedding during the summer

and I used a mixture of the Seventeen cream bronzer and Rimmel Wake Me Up concealer/highlighter, but I also put the Sleek palette on over everything at the end

This is a little blurry but I used the Laura Geller highlighter, the sleek bronzer and blush. I love mixing things up and using different C&H

BRUSHES

Personally the brushes I would use mostly commonly for contouring and highlighting would be the Laura Geller angled brush 

and the Real Techniques Expert Face brush. I found the Real Techniques blush brush fab for highlighting and blush

as the tip is flexible so it can narrowly put product on or spread it out.

I would also like to say that any of these brushes here would be absolutely perfect for C&H :

Any Angled, Tapered or Flat top brush that can easily hollow out the cheek bones.

Here are some extra brushes as a guide:

I hope my Contour and Highlighting guide has helped with tips and you can take away something from it. I remember one of my friends asking me to contour her face and she said "the contouring trend came out of nowhere and it's something I'm terrified to even try it". It is something different that has only become very well known and big the last few years but there are so many brushes and products out there these days which is very handy as you're always bound to find it someway and on any budget.

I really enjoyed writing this blog post as its my absolutely favourite step in makeup.

All the products mentioned in this blog post can be purchased from:

http://www.cloud10beauty.com/

http://www.feelunique.com/

http://www.qvcuk.com/

http://www.laurageller.com/

http://www.crownbrush.ie/

http://www.boots.ie/

http://www.sleekmakeup.com/

Until next time beauties,

A x

Crazy Times

Hi lovelies,

I'm determined to get back into my blog. I update my Facebook, Instagram etc regularly but I haven't sat down and written reviews, favourites for a while. 

Work and college have been my main focus for the last while but surely I can fit in my blog which I love doing as it's anything beauty related. 

So I'm going to set myself some targets this week to get back into it. 

Monday will be all about a haul and review of bits I bought over the weekend. Looking forward to discussing things. 

  

Tuesday will be about my favourite tans and little tricks for the perfect tan. 

Wednesday will be about my favourite nailpolishes for autumn/winter. Also a catch up of previous hauls. 

Thursday I'll discuss all about contouring and highlighting.

Friday I will be doing an easy everyday makeup look that you could do in 10/15 minutes. I love looks like that especially in the mornings because who doesn't love a few minutes extra in bed!

So that's it for now but stay tuned for the week because I'm really looking forward to getting back into my blog. 

Until next time beauties,

A x

Haul Time!

Hey fab beauties,

So I've decided to do my first haul as I picked up a variety of things yesterday when I was out shopping from; Penneys/Primark; Brown Thomas; Marks and Spencers.

 

I was in around Brown Thomas, Cork yesterday and I spotted the MAC counter. I need a new highlighter/concealer, I was all for heading over to Boots to pick up my favourite concealer - Rimmel 'Wake Me Up'.

E6.99

I have been watching a couple of youtubers lately and a lot of them seem to use MAC concealer so I said I'd pick it up and I will give it ago and do a review on it as soon as possible. I also picked up MAC's Studio Sculpt. The Concealer is E21.50 and the Foundation is around E31.50. MAC is not my everyday, go to product as I can only buy them every so often because it can be expensive for a student so MAC is definitely a huge treat to get and it lasts absolutely ages.

 

I used the foundation a few years ago when I was experimenting with make up so I'm going to give it another try (I feel like the concealer and foundation needed to be matched up, thats my excuse hehe).

So the next items I picked up were from Marks and Spencers, their own brand of make up called the 'Limited Collection'. They come in at about E6-7 each.

I loved the packaging straight away, very eye catching. I got the matte bronzer, in the shade light and the blusher, in the shade apricot.

The matte bronzer is perfect for autumn. I prefer matte to sparkle. So I'll have a review about these cute things soon.

The next spot I headed to was of course, Penneys/Primark. I picked up a few bits unrelated to beauty here.

 

I picked up a cute, colourful laundry bag. Its just so pretty.
I also picked up Nivea wipes 2 for a strange E4.46, theyre for dry/sensitive skin. I use wipes on my face before I cleanse in the morning and at night. I also got some little slippers E1.50

 

Also I got a travel bag for E15, that can be turned in a suitcase and the pattern is fab.

I also bought such a cute macaroon lipgloss E1.50

 

A random little thing but it was so pretty and smells so sweet.

 

I can't wait to review my bits and pieces for you fab things. Happy Haul! 

Until next time beauties,

A x