Eyeshadow on a budget

From foil to shower to liquid, here are my favourite cheap eyeshadows! All of these eyeshadows are from either Boots or Superdrug and are really super quality for those of a budget.

The MUA Heaven and Earth palette is a great set of 12 eyeshadows, all of which are shimmery and very pigmented. The palette is £4 which is really great value for a set of creamy well pigmented shades which blend well. The only downside to the palette is that there is no matte shade to use in the crease however if all MUA shadows are of similar quality then there matte palette should be a perfect accompaniment.

Another thing from MUA is one of their single shadows for only £1

The texture is quite flakey and almost mousey but for £1 I really can’t complain it stays on the lids well, it’s nicely pigmented and it’s easy to work with. The best way to apply these MUA eye shadows is to use the sponge applicator that comes in the palette I know a lot of people don’t like those and throw them away but really they apply the most colour, if not with one of the sponge applicator than with your finger. Over all I really like the MUA eye shadows, they are cheap and cheerful and some of the shades are nicer than some Clinique and Estee Lauder shadows I have. I will have to try their matte shadows.

Thanks for reading

Gracie

Beauty Boxes: youBEAUTY’s July box, plus a look back…

There are loads of amazing beauty boxes available at a range of price points…if you live in America.

However that doesn’t mean us UK fans have to miss out too. I’ve been recieving for youBEAUTY’s monthly Beauty Box since May and I’m really impressed with it.

The breakdown:

You pay £6.95 a month and it is withdrawn from your bank account automatically. This is good as you can canel anytime (for many other Beauty Boxes they have a £90 year subscription fee, which is too much bank-busting commitment for me).

You choose 2 products from a list- some might argue that this ruins the ‘surprise’ nature of the Beauty Box, but I am not one of those people. I like the fact that you get an element of choice, but you still get to play with new brands and products!

You get an assortment of samples and some discount codes too. The samples vary in sizes from sachets to pretty decent sized!

Here is my May Beauty Box:

Oriflame Tender Care Protecting Balm (gorgeous packaging!)

GlamGlow Supermud Clearing Treatment (cult beauty product!)

Caudalie Divine Legs Tinted Body Lotion (sample)

Charles Worthington Salon Hair Leave-In Conditioner (sample)

It also came with a packet of fancy granola which I made short work of…

And here is my June Beauty Box:

300 Trecento Revitalising Hair Treatment (this is absolutely massive)

Urban Veda Daily Purifying Facial Wash (saving this for holiday)

Montagne Jeunesse Dead Sea Mud Spa mask (this is actually full-size)

And an expanding face cloth thingy, sadly no snacks…

Finally, here is my July Beauty Box which just arrived:

The package…with my address censored out because net safety!

The box itself, very sleek

The products in situ and the booklet with the discount codes

And here are the products:

Dr Bronner’s Hemp Lavender Castile Soap (1st choice)

Archeia Rose Rejuvenating Cream (2nd choice)

Egyptian Magic All-Purpose Skin Cream (free sample)

Agent Provocateur FATALE perfume (free sample)

Dove Men Pro-Moisture Shave Cream (free sample)

Plus discount codes, like every month

Initial thoughts:

The soap is really gorgeous, the packaging and size are cute and it smells nice. I’m kind of disappointed in the Archeia cream since it’s really small and this was what I was particularly excited to try. Conversely the Dove shaving cream is HUGE, considering it wasn’t one of my choices! I will give it as a gift, or if I feel particularly selfish I might just use it to shave my legs with. TMI? I’m really glad I got samples of the Egyptian Cream and the perfume, since I was keen to try these.

It’s not too late to order the July box, although if you plan on subscribing I recommend choosing at the beginning of the month since they tend to run out fast!

The youBEAUTY Box is available here: http://www.youbeautydiscovery.co.uk/members-box

Biiiiiig brand review: The Body Shop. Sale, skincare and haircare!

The Body Shop is a pretty iconic high street brand appreciated by people of all ages. Although they’re now owned by L’Oreal (boo!) the products themselves are non-animal tested and the company is hugely focused on sustainable sourcing and they do all kinds of philanthropic projects globally which is always good to know. Their rewards cards scheme is totally worthwhile and has saved me loads of money. Aaaand they currently have a sale! I’m celebrating this by reviewing my Body Shop purchases.

First I’ll start with what has come to be a cult product- Body Butters!

These are hardcore body moisturisers that come in man-size jars. They come in like 500 different flavours and The Body Shop is constantly bringing out new ones so I promise there’ll be a smell you like, even if you don’t like smelly things!

I have the Olive, Passionfruit and Satsuma ones. The Olive is nice because it’s less of an overpowering fruity smell, it just smells really fresh and clean so this is good if you’re less keen on sweet smelly things! The Passion fruit smells heavenly and almost edible, but the smell is pretty strong. Sadly it’s being discontinued 😦 This does mean that you can often find it reduced instore though! The Satsuma one is a less overpowering smell but it’s still fruity and delicious!

These are best for putting on right before bed as they are HEAVY moisturisers so you can let them sink in without having to go about feeling all greasy and sticky.

For a lighter body moisturiser I use the Body Lotions.

They come in a pump bottle and are also lighter on the wallet too! (£8 compared to the Body Butters which retail at £13)

These sink in way better than the Body Butters. The pump packaging is also way more convenient and hygienic than the Body Butters, and they’re available in all the same flavours! I have the Sweet Lemon and the new Vineyard Peach and both smell fab, I would particularly recommend the Peach one.

Other body products that I love are the Banana conditioner and the White Musk deodorant.

Both of these were pretty much chosen for smell only. The conditioner is lightweight so I slap it on after I’ve conditioned once already and then I have delicious banana-flavoured hair. Seriously it smells so good. If you have short hair or oily hair the Banana conditioner will do the job on its own.

The deodorant isn’t the best anti-antiperspirant, but again, it smells really nice so I use it with another deodorant. Is it a bit pointless to get products that don’t work as well just because they smell good? Probably. I will definitely repurchase the conditioner but not the deodorant.

Now, on to SKINCARE.

Here are my two toners: the Tea Tree and the Aloe.

I’ve only used the Tea Tree a couple of times because my skin tends to be dry rather than oily/blemish-prone. When I do have face-freak outs, this has done a pretty nice job of de-oiling and un-spotting. However, I am in two minds about this because it contains a large proportion of alcohol. Surprisingly my skin hasn’t reacted to it, which is good because I’m generally pretty intolerant to irritants. Buuuuut I would definitely advise caution on this one, as alcohol can be very irritating and drying.

The Aloe toner contains much less alcohol. I use this frequently and while it does feel nice and soothing going onto my skin, I don’t feel it’s really making a huge difference. I’m unlikely to repurchase this.

However, I am a huge fan of some of the other Aloe products!

The Mask is definitely one of my Holy Grail products. It’s neither drying nor thickly moisturising, so it’s suitable for all skin types, and it does a magic job of calming and softening tired, reactive skin. When I run out of this (which may be never seeing as it still looks full despite me using it very regularly) I will definitely repurchase. It’s gentle enough to be used everyday and it makes my skin feel incredibly soft and smooth, as well as eliminating surface redness.

The Serum is another almost-daily product. I use it before moisturising or sometimes in the morning just as an extra-care step. It has all the soothing effects but is also surprisingly moisturising for a lightweight product!

I received the Gel in a package deal. It’s very nice and it’s been useful for sunburns or times when my skin has reacted badly to another product. However, you can buy aloe vera gel for much, much cheaper. Boots offers it for here £2.21 per 100ml which makes The Body Shop’s £26.67 per 100ml seem extortionate!

In terms of the Body Shop’s skincare ranges generally, I have found the Aloe range consistently brilliant. It’s also recommended by Paula Begoun, a skincare expert who’s very hard to impress. The Vitamin E range has also been raved about (and my mum has the entire range and swears by it) but sadly it made me break out so I won’t be reviewing any of these products personally!

Finally, I have a few products that are as yet untested:

I will post reviews of these too if they impress me particularly!

Next on my list of things to try are the multi-purpose Beautifying Oils. These come in all the same flavours as the Body Butters.

Escentual French Pharmacie skincare PSA and HAUL- reviews to follow

Good news- you can buy French Pharmacie products from the likes of Caudalie, La Roche Posay, Klorane, Avene, Vichy, Nuxe and Bioderma at Escentual for 1/3 off through June! Boots also stock many of these brands, but often Escentual’s prices are cheaper, and with a third off the choice is pretty clear. The skincare and haircare products are well loved and receive high commendations from many beauty bloggers, including the lovely Lisa Eldridge, who discusses them here. And I will never dispute Ms Eldridge.

You can stock up on the following cult products:

Bioderma’s Sensibio micellar water (formerly Crealine). The whole Sensibio range is actually excellent.

Avène’s Eau Thermale. I always keep this in my handbag.

Nuxe’s Reve de Miel lip balm. I haven’t tried this yet, but the basic principle is that it’s a matte lipbalm that moisturizes but won’t affect the finish of your lipstick.

Plus obviously many others.

Here is a quick pic of my haul-

From left to right that’s Bioderma’s Sensibio Micellar Water and Sensibio AR Creme, Avène’s Cold Cream bar, Thermal Water and Milk Cleanser. I will be reviewing these shortly!

On my wish list I also have La Roche Posay’s Effaclar Duo and Anthelios Ultra-Legere Fluide.

What are your French pharmacie favourites? Have you purchased anything from Escentual and loved/hated it? Feel free to comment and submit!

Buy yours here!

Suprisingly wearable Festival Forest Flower Fairy FOTD

This is what you call low-budget sfx. As in, so low-budget it was created in a moment of inspiration while waiting for noodles to cook. Nevertheless, I’ve been wanting to try something like this for a while and I’m pretty happy with my first attempt.

I absolutely adore coloured contour looks, and this gave me an appreciation of how much product it actually takes to appear on camera. I put on what I felt was a respectable amount of greeniness (I wanted it to be striking and freaky but not Grinchish) but it was completely invisible on in the photos. I had to absolutely shovel on the green eyeshadow to get it to look good here.

This look is easy to replicate and I think it’s really flattering and could easily be worn to a festival or party. I want to try this using different flowers for inspiration (mine was loosely based on a rose) to create my colourscheme, but also with different skintones.

This was all created using normal cosmetics brands, no sfx.

Budget Brand MakeupRevolution HAUL

I’ve been interested in buying from new affordable makeup range MakeupRevolution ever since I found out that they offer a white foundation for mixing, since I’m very pale and have loads of foundations that are just too dark. (see more on this here)

I took the plunge and ordered a few bits, including some of their pastel bright lipsticks- at only £1 each it doesn’t matter if I’m to chicken to wear them out!

The Blushes

Vivid Blush Lacquer in Desire and Heat

My first thought when I saw these was ‘oh, they’re quite small’.

That was before I opened them and started mucking about. They are SOOO pigmented. Imagine the smallest possible amount of blush you could squeeze out of a tube. Now divide it by 10. This is how much you need to get a bold blush look. I don’t think I could use up one of these bad boys if I lived to be 100. Pretty solid investment for £3.

Cream Blush in Peach Cream

I’m already a huge fan of cream blushes, but this colour is super flattering and has a nice matte finish. It’s actually somewhat similar to my Etude House Cream Blush but I freaking love the colour so that’s okay.

TOP TIP: I apply liquid or cream blushes by tapping them in with my finger or using a beauty blender!

The Lipsticks

I’m impressed with the quality of the lipsticks themselves, they’re not very patchy and have decent longevity. However the packaging leaves a little to be desired; although it looks chic it feels flimsy and the lids keep falling off.

The crazy colours are actually surprisingly wearable: Felony in particular is actually quite flattering and would look particularly good as part of an ombre look.

(The reason that Immoral looks so scubby already is because I used it to turn my boyfriend into Bluebeard, which I strongly regret not photographing.)

Finally, I also ordered one of the Amazing Care lipsticks in Love a Hug.

This is a bit weirdie, it’s a shot of colour encased in a clear jelly stuff. I love the idea of it but in practice the middle bit’s worn down and applying it is a bit of a pain. It’s moisturizing and gives a nice sheer look, however. I’ve used this a lot!

The Foundation

I got The One Foundation in Shade 1, which is literally white.

Okay now this IS small. I was a little disappointed with the teensy size of this; you’re getting maybe a quarter of the volume of a normal foundation. But then again, it is £4! This is a very watery liquidy foundation; it will drip off of your hand. So I was surprised when I put it on my face and it had quite respectable coverage.

This would actually almost work as a normal foundation for me; that is how pale I am.

It is a true white-white, but because it is thin and sheer it doesn’t make your face white-white since your skin colour shows through underneath, if you see what I mean.

I haven’t used this as a mixer yet (boo) because I’m scared! I don’t know if it will blend in with my foundations because it is so runny.

What I have tried is using a layer underneath foundation, this is really good for eliminating redness and and hyperpigmentation. If you suffer from rosacea or are even just sunburnt this could be a solution for you.

It has a matte finish and lasts quite a long time (I haven’t tried it with a primer yet)

Overall I would say that MakeupRevolution by far exceeded my expectations; for a budget range you’re really getting decent quality products. I would recommend them if you’re in need of branching out your collection!