Review | MUFE Empty Metal Palettes in Medium and Large

Hi guys, todays post should be shorter than my usual, but equally informative I hope! So you may have seen on my blog that I have quite the collection of single eyeshadows now, from both Makeup geek and Anastasia Beverly Hills. I never thought I'd be collecting and creating my own palette but I am so happy with the quality from both brands and I really needed a good palette to store them in. I do own a Z palette, however I've had it for around a year and to be honest its looking pretty battered with minimal travel. I wasn't impressed that I paid over a tenner for this palette, only to find that it didn't last very well. Its not the end of the world y'know, I just wanted better quality so I did some research and found that the Make Up For Ever Metal Magnetic Palettes!

In the U.K the only place you can order these (as far as I am aware) is the gurumakeupemporium website, I purchased both of mine from there and I HATE that they charge £4.50 when shipping especially when I think about all the food I could have bought with £9. However the palettes are really awesome and well worth paying the extra monies for. I initially purchased the MUFE Metal Palette in Large (£8.00) and this size fits in 32 standard eyeshadows. The actual MUFE single pans are HUGE, but when I say standard I mean the MUG and ABH sizes and 32 is a decent amount of shadows really. I had initially planned to only have 32 single shadows in total, but then beautybay had to drop a 'buy one get one free' on the MUG shadows and of course I had to take advantage! The medium sized palette (£6.00) fits in 20 eyeshadows, which again is a great size. If I was going on holiday for a week or two, I would definitely take the medium palette with my favourite shadows (post here) and then the basics too.

The reason I really like the MUFE palettes is because they're very sturdy in comparison to the Z palettes. Yes you can't see the shadows, but thats a small price to pay, to ensure the shadows remain secure and intact! The material is made of tin, which is light weight but strong enough to house the shadows and each palette comes with a thick foam sheet. The purpose of this sheet is to protect the shadows when you're moving around with the palette. It fills up all the space in the lid of the palette and cushions the shadows in, which is very handy. Unfortunately as you can see in the cover photo, two of my shadows shattered in the medium palette, because I dropped it on hard wood floor, without the foam insert :( I fixed them back with surgical spirit of course, but I do wish I had just put the foam in to avoid that. Luckily these palette contain a very strong magnet, so only two fell from the impact and I'm sure had they of been in a Z palette, they're would be more casualties. I will say though that a little of the shadows do transfer onto the foam, which is quite annoying and that is the main reason why I don't keep the foam sheets in the palettes unless I'm moving them off my dressing table.

Round Up:

Rating: 8/10

Pros: Very sturdy metal packaging and the magnetic sheet inside is VERY strong, so will hold onto whatever you put inside. The foam sheet is a must have when traveling and it cushions shadows in, avoiding any shattering. You can fit a really good amount of shadows in both the large and medium palettes, for a decent price too. 

Cons: These are not easily available and I hate how much postage you have to pay from gurumakeup! Correction!! Thankyou so much to Panna, who let me know you can get the medium palette online from Debenhams - yaaas! Link here. There is a little bit of shadow transference onto the foam sheet, hence why I don't use it unless I'm travelling.

Overall: These palettes are more preferred to me over the Z palettes because they're more sturdy and resiliant. When you build a shadow collection, its a LOT of money you're spending! So you want the shadows to be properly protected and last a long time. The MUFE palettes do a great job at storing and protecting my collection and they really don't break the bank either. I just wish they were sold on Debenhams too, so it wouldn't cost so much to order them.

Have you tried these palettes before? 

Thank-you for reading ♥

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Review | MUFE Empty Metal Palettes in Medium and Large

Hi guys, todays post should be shorter than my usual, but equally informative I hope! So you may have seen on my blog that I have quite the collection of single eyeshadows now, from both Makeup geek and Anastasia Beverly Hills. I never thought I'd be collecting and creating my own palette but I am so happy with the quality from both brands and I really needed a good palette to store them in. I do own a Z palette, however I've had it for around a year and to be honest its looking pretty battered with minimal travel. I wasn't impressed that I paid over a tenner for this palette, only to find that it didn't last very well. Its not the end of the world y'know, I just wanted better quality so I did some research and found that the Make Up For Ever Metal Magnetic Palettes!

Anastasia Beverly Hills Haul & My Mall Box Experience

Hello everybody, back with another haul (these will be slowing down soon as I am now unemployed! But more on that in the catch up post haha). This is such an exciting haul for me, because I have been wanting to purchasing Anastasia Beverley Hills products for quite a while, but in the U.K we have a very limited amount of the collection to choose from sadly. We can easily access all the brow range and a few select products, but the rest is limited to Sephora online. That is fine now and again, but the large customs fee really does add up.


With my birthday money I wanted to treat myself to a couple of the newer releases and I wanted to try a forwarding service. My initial thought was shipito, but unfortunately the ABH website does not allow pay-pal accounts that are linked to a UK address sneaky. So I had to find a different route and opted for a company called My Mall Box which I had heard a few YouTubers talk about before. It looks a lot more professional than ship it to and luckily they have an option where they can buy items for you for a small fee (around $5).

The process

It is very straightforwards to start this process off, you simply click on the buy for me link, enter the store name and fill in the boxes. It is really important to add the relevant details in the final box as someone else is physically ordering the items for you from the U.S. Once you have added everything you want to order, you submit it and within a few hours you should get a confirmation email saying they're able to purchase the order and the total amount you need to pay via Paypal. I was impressed with how simple the whole thing was and within 12 hours I was happy to know that my items were ordered and on the way to their warehouse. When they got there however, I received an email saying the items had arrived, but on the website they were nowhere to be seen. I waited for four days, refreshing every now and again to see if it had appeared, but until I had emailed them there was nothing to be seen. Thankfully when I had bothered to email them I got a prompt response and within minutes my order was on site and I could proceed to pay. So not too impressed with how I had to push them to

Where it all went wrong..

Unfortunately this is where my thumbs up turn to a thumbs down. First of all the shipping prices were ridiculous for how much I had ordered. I paid over £25 to get it shipped to me, which was such a joke because that was without customs charges too. Already I had a bitter taste in my mouth for such a steep price, with no warning of this beforehand. Obviously be the time its in the warehouse its hard to go back, so I gritted my teeth and paid it. The only good thing was the shipping was very fast and within three days it was in the country and near to me. I then got a text message from the delivery company saying I needed to pay £28 in customs charges to have it delivered. Of course by this point I was like SURE WHATEVER HAVE MY MONEY, NOT LIKE I'M ON A STUDENT BUDGET OR ANYTHING 💸💸💸💸💸 even though I was sobbing on the inside. So by this point I had paid over £50 to get this damn parcel to the U.K and of course opening it should have been the highlight of my whole month right??? Wrong.

**Let me quickly rewind for a minute, I was so excited to purchase the ABH Glow kit in 'that glow' which was widely available here for quite some time. I was however on my makeup ban at the time so I refrained, and of course when I get off the ban...its no longer in stock anywhere. 😒 Gleam was being sold at both cultbeauty and beautybay but when I had tweeted both of them, I got the 'sorry we will not be restocking this one'. So I was totally kicking myself for being so good and sticking to the ban, because now the kit was nowhere to be seen and thats pretty much the only thing I had asked for my birthday from my friends. It was at this point that I decided to order directly from her site as there were a couple of things I also wanted from the brand...so I was VERY excited to finally have that glow...

Only to find they have sent me the GLEAM kit 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊. Yeah. They had ordered the wrong kit and sent it over to me all the way from the U.S and words cannot describe how ANGRY I was by this point! Of course I promptly emailed them with a firm email explaining what had happened. I also stated that I expect the correct one to be sent to me as soon as possible and free of charge - especially as I ended up paying so much for the shipping. It took 5 days of emailing back and forth to get the issue sent to the right department/person and get it reordered. But FINALLY it did and a couple of days late I had the correct glow kit sent to me, so the good news? I got a glow kit for free...it just took a lot of hassle and stress to get it ._. I won't be talking about the glowkits in this post by the way, theres a whole detailed one coming up!

Moving onto the eyeshadows *takes a moment or five to just admire this palette* aren't they beautiful?! After purchasing a few in my Sephora birthday haul I fell in love with the quality of these shadows, they're not cheap at all but they are worth every penny. I'm just patiently waiting for the day when us U.K ABH fans can get a hold of them easier, soon please Anastasia :(

The awesome thing about ordering shadows from the official website is that you do get a discount when it comes to the eyeshadows. Usually they are $12 each, but on site you can order 4 shades for $40 and get a free palette with it too. The other option (which I'd do next time if I want to risk this kinda of splurge again) is to order 8 shadows for $70 and get a free 8 pan palette. I love the 4 pan palette so much, it is sturdy, made of plastic with a clear screen so you can easily see the shades and it looks really sleek. I love how the lid is magnetic and each pan has a strong magnet inside which can hold pretty much any eyeshadow. I often switch out the shades for MUG ones when I am travelling and I am semi obsessed with making quads - its a great way to really think about which shades mesh well together and also a challenge to use shades I may not use often. So the 4 shadows and palette cost me £30, which isn't bad at all for the quality (although its definitely a splurge!).

Amber: As the name would suggest its a slightly orange based gold and it is beautiful. I love this shade for everyday as its really not too intense, however you can totally amplify the pigmentation with a damp brush too and it makes the perfect all over the lid shade!

Chiffon: The most stunning satin khaki shade I have ever come across, its a beautiful deep olive green which swatches like a total dream. Quite a unique shade and not one I'll wear too often, but I think it'll become a regular lower lashline shade. I'm so obsessed with how buttery chiffon is and the colour is perfection.

Blazing: A colour I don't hear much about on Youtube, however its definitely a shade I gravitate towards often and I LOVE this kinda thing in the crease! I would describe blazing as a warm terracotta red, with the perfect pinch of brown mixed in. The fact that this isn't too red or deep makes it so easy to apply a little in the crease and it adds so much depth the any eyeshadow look - an absolute favourite.

Red Earth: A youtubemademebuyit shade, I have seen Red Earth used so many times and I just had to add it to my collection! Its a 'dull shade of deep purple' which is a unique colour to my stash. I haven't used it as much as I had hoped yet, but time shall tell if I really should have picked this up. When I do get around to writing a full review for these shadows (or my whole ABH collection thusfar), I will definitely update you all with it.

On the topic of eyeshadows I also picked up the ABH Modern Renaissance palette (£41), not from her site though, I purchased that from cult beauty. I've actually already blogged about it in my recent favourites post (here) and yes I love it SO much. To me though there is a bit of a difference between the single shadows and this palette. There is virtually NO fall out from the single shades and theres a tonne of fall out from the palette, also I find there to be a little more consistency across the single pans in terms of quality - however thats not to say this palette isn't worth the price. IT 100% IS worth the forty quid to me, as the range of colours and uniqueness that this palette brings. Also I'm not too happy with the '6 months' shelf life, it had better last a good deal longer than that!!

And finally, last but not least we have the liquid lipsticks I purchased and I am SMITTEN! I got 'crush', 'stripped' and 'ashton' which are all from the newer SS16 collection. For the first time ever I picked up shades from a brand that I completely adore, usually theres at least one shade that I tend not to like so much, but each of these have got the thumbs up from me.

I won't be going into detail with the shades because again I'll be doing an in-depth post focusing on these. However just to give you an over-view, stripped is the ideal nude shade for me, finally a colour that doesn't totally wash me out ^_^ crush is my perfect summer pink in a liquid lipstick and Ashton is the most gorgeous deep orange shade which is so flattering on every single skintone! The formula is great, long lasting and comfortable. I'm sure they must have tweeked the original one slightly because I have heard so many people say they dislike the ABH LLs, but after trying these I'm not sure how anyone could, they're amongst some of the best. Also they cost $20 each, which is pretty reasonable for what they are.

All in all I won't be in a rush to use My Mall box any time soon, I appreciate that they allow you to purchase items through them, which normal forwarding companies don't tend to do. However considering I PAID for this service, I didn't expect the hassle of them getting it wrong. There was also a LOT of emails exchanged to get to the bottom of things and although they did finally send me the correct one (free of charge), with the shipping price being extortionate I don't think its the best value for money. Also it is extremely annoying that ABH shadows and liquid lipsticks aren't stocked on any U.K websites and I hate that the 'that glow' kit is now a U.S exclusive for some reason. Basically ABH need to open up here as soon as possible, if smaller yet successful brands like Huda Beauty can expand here, so should they!

What is your must have ABH product? 

Thank-you for reading ♥

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Anastasia Beverly Hills Haul & My Mall Box Experience

Hello everybody, back with another haul (these will be slowing down soon as I am now unemployed! But more on that in the catch up post haha). This is such an exciting haul for me, because I have been wanting to purchasing Anastasia Beverley Hills products for quite a while, but in the U.K we have a very limited amount of the collection to choose from sadly. We can easily access all the brow range and a few select products, but the rest is limited to Sephora online. That is fine now and again, but the large customs fee really does add up.

How to get a first in your dissertation

Hello all! Quite a specific non beauty post from me today, but I have been meaning to type up a couple of these Uni/work related posts for a while as I have had quite a few questions from my readers and wanted to help out where I could. Obviously this won't be relevant to most people, so do excuse this post if you fall into that category, perhaps read my last post top three topshop beauty one instead? ☺️ If you are one of the people who asked for a post on the whole dissertation process, or you're a University student then I hope this is a helpful post as you get started with the big dissertation! I'm really not expecting many comments on this post, its just for those who could benefit from it haha. Also its a long one, so grab a cuppa tea or some lemonade and maybe a notebook.

I graduated from University last month and I cannot express how great it was to be standing there in the robe and cap and to realise that all that hard work, all that stress was worth it. Whilst writing my dissertation I was extremely stressed out and I'm definitely very self-critical so I did doubt myself a lot. When I got the email from my tutor telling me I had be graded a first for my disso, I nearly passed out in shock. Seriously I was SO shocked that I had done it! Now reflecting over the whole process, theres a couple of things that I did well which I know helped me to get to that grade. Obviously getting a first is not the be all and end all, but if you can score highly on such a weighty part of your course, it takes off a LOAD of pressure from the rest of your grades!


1. Time is the KEY to success.

Not to get all DJ Khaled on you, but the better you use your time, the more likely you will do well. My tutor actually met with us at the end of second year, treated us to lunch (very kind of her!) and got us discussing some of our initial ideas. Each University is a little different and each tutor is different too, some prefer you to stick to their own field of expertise, whereas others are more lenient. My tutor was a specialist in Educational psychology which is also MY preference. Each university has to be strict with the amount of support their students are able to get too, so we decided to meet for an hour each fortnight in a group of 4/5 students. This kept us on track because we shared where we were, what we wanted to get done in the next two weeks and any concerns. Bottom line is that the earlier you get started on growing your idea, the greater the chance that you will do well.


2. Don't expect your idea to remain concrete throughout.

This is certainly more aimed at social science students, who must conduct a study of some sort for their dissertation. It is very likely that you'll come up with an idea and continue with your literature review and then end up going in a different direction. The whole point of writing such a large piece of work, is that theres a lot more than a week or two of reading required. A literature review takes weeks and weeks of work and reading so deeply into a topic becomes something you end up really enjoying, even if at first it feels like you're drowning in a sea of information. So just go with the flow!


3. Maintain contact with your tutor and complain if they don't.

I have heard horror stories about tutors who just abandon their final year students in the midst of their dissertations and I always feel so sorry for the people who have to go through that. A dissertation is a huge piece of work and as students who are paying tuition fees, we deserve to get the support we need! So keeping in contact with your tutor is vital and if they do end up being useless then you must go to whoever is in charge of dissertations, or in charge of the whole department. Somebody will be able to help in some way or another, by either making your tutor get their act together, or by stepping in themselves.


4. Use the dissertation handbook.

I'm sure your university will provide you with one, either an electronic copy or a paper copy. I used mine to plan out my weeks, once I had decided upon the study. I started with the methodology and continued by reading the handbook and figuring out how many hours each section would roughly take. By chunking the sections up, it helps to stay on track of what you're doing and it's also very comforting having over 50% of it done, when you're still adding to the methodology over the whole amount of time. My tutor taught us that the methodology should be one of the last things finished, as again the whole point of the disso is to really delve deeper into the subject of your choice and this needs to be a developed over the weeks.

5. Make use of the internet and YouTube.

You'd be surprised how much a simple google search can solve, even when it comes to your dissertation! I ended up googling and youtubing a lot, especially when it came to the statistic elements which I found the most challenging. Yes a dissertation IS complicated and you won't find exactly what you're looking for from start to finish, but I was pleasantly surprised with how much information there is out there. A lot of the time I found YouTube videos much easier to understand, than reading through boring text books on how to navigate SPSS - so take advantage of all the free info out there on the net!


6. Reading through other dissertations will help.

Again at my university they had a psychology dissertation database which has a good variety of dissertations from the past few years. It was clearly stated that these are not all amazing dissertations but they were there for the purpose of guidance. I found it really helpful to look through them, see how other people had laid out their sections, their contents page, their results etc. and paired with the handbooks and online advice it made the whole process a lot easier. Especially because it really is such a HUGE amount of work in one go, which is definitely challenging to handle - but I found it helpful to look through other dissertations and see what worked well.


7. Set your own deadline for you to finish 2-4 weeks before the actual one!

This is hard and I admit I definitely didn't stick to this point, but if I had to do my dissertation all over I would definitely be more organised and plan ahead. The best part of finishing with time to spare is you don't have that panic towards the end of writing, where you're thinking did I include everything, have I put everything in the appendix, are my references on point?? Those are tasks you want to have plenty of time to do! It also helps to be able to give yourself a day off towards the end when you feel like you've been working on it for YEARS and not months. I remember anyone mentioning the word 'procrastination' (which was the topic of my disso by the way) felt like they were giving me a swift punch in the stomach in the final two weeks. Having a day or two off is helpful, as is reading aloud paragraphs to a friend or a parents and ensuring that what you've written makes enough sense.


8. Don't overthink the word count - quality over quantity.

This is obviously something you need to check out with your tutor, but from my understanding if you're doing a social science any word count over 7000 is acceptable. We were told that what we wrote is a lot more important than the amount we wrote, especially if we were just waffling and clearly trying to fill up the word count. Starting a 10,000 word dissertation is definitely a little daunting, but chunking up each section and focusing on one at a time, rather than continuously checking how many words you have written makes the whole process easier.

Questions:

1. I've just finished 1st year, when should I start thinking about my dissertation?

- Well like I said this does kind of depend on how your University does things, some give you a lot of leeway and others are more specific. At my friends University, they had to choose an area within her course and then they were assigned a tutor. At my University we were sent a document with all the tutors names on it, their key area (educational psychology, biological psychology etc.) and also what research method they specialise in, quantitative or qualitative. We then had to write down our initial ideas for our dissertation with our choice of three tutors we wanted to work with. I was so lucky to get my first choice and a tutor who was truly passionate about the area I wanted to do. In the summer between second and third year, I did a little bit of reading into procrastination, looking at what there is already and if my idea was plausible.

So going into second year, don't start thinking too deeply about what your dissertation topic should be. However if you do have any vague ideas that you want to look more into, jot them down and leave them be at the back of your mind. Once you've got to the end of second year your University will help you to think about narrowing it down! Having said that I knew girls who had got to the end of October and still had no idea exactly what they wanted to do - so bottom line is, let the seed start to develop but don't worry at all. It'll work out.

2. What was the hardest part of conducting your own study?

Although I haven't spent much time speaking about my actual piece of work in this post, I have to say I was so happy with my study. It didn't take too long to put together and I made sure it was all online so I didn't have to approach people to take part. Not the most sociable thing to say, but honestly not having to faff around with bits of paper, participant numbers, booking out labs and again approaching other busy (and sometimes rude) students took a load of strain off my experience. Thanks to my blog and social media following I managed to get all the participants I needed within TWO DAYS. Which meant I had a lot of time to look at the results and continue with my literature review. You don't need a large following to get participants in an online study, all you need to do is use hashtags appropriately and ask politely. If you are doing a study and it is possible to get everything done online, DO IT! You will seriously be saving yourself a heck of a lot of valuable time. So all in all the conducting the study part really wasn't too hard, I suppose if I had to pick one, it would be ensuring the data was put on SPSS correctly. That took a lot of patience, but wasn't too hard once I had started.

There you have it - my wrists are aching and I feel like I've just typed up a 3000 word assignment haha. I do hope this post was useful for those of you who are starting to think of your dissertations. If you have any other questions please leave them below, and if you are a graduate and have anything to add from YOUR experience, I'd love it if you shared it below too!

Thank-you for reading ♥

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How to get a first in your dissertation

Hello all! Quite a specific non beauty post from me today, but I have been meaning to type up a couple of these Uni/work related posts for a while as I have had quite a few questions from my readers and wanted to help out where I could. Obviously this won't be relevant to most people, so do excuse this post if you fall into that category, perhaps read my last post top three topshop beauty one instead? ☺️ If you are one of the people who asked for a post on the whole dissertation process, or you're a University student then I hope this is a helpful post as you get started with the big dissertation! I'm really not expecting many comments on this post, its just for those who could benefit from it haha. Also its a long one, so grab a cuppa tea or some lemonade and maybe a notebook.

Top Three | Topshop Beauty

Hello everyone, its been quite a while since I've typed up a top three, so today I am going to be sharing my absolute favourites from Topshop beauty. The purpose of these posts is to whittle down my makeup collection to the best of the best from each category, be that a whole brand or simply my favourite golden highlighters for example. I have tried quite a few things from the Topshop beauty line and so it was tricky to limit this down to three products, but if push came to shove the following are definitely the items I'd repurchase in a heartbeat.

Topshop Bronzer in Mohawke | £9.00

This is my favourite 'highstreet' bronzer by a thousand miles, I am totally smitten with it. Its a little darker than Benefit's Hoola and a little warmer but not orange in the slightest, which makes it the perfect everyday bronzer for me. When I first saw this bronzer in the pan I felt very ehhh about it, I had gotten into such a habit of opting for grey-toned bronzers over warm bronzers that I pretty much dismissed it. So I'm really glad that I finally put down Laguna and Hoola and gave this a go, because I really haven't looked back since! As the formula is completely matte, it looks very natural on the skin and it blends so well. There is no chalkiness, streaks or patches when you apply this. The formula is very comparable to that of a high-end product and I find it looks lovely with my lighter foundation shades and when I opt for a warmer shade too. The large mirror on the inside is fantastic and I do like the sleek yet cute looking black packaging. You get an impressive 10g of product, which is great value for money considering a full sized Hoola costs £23+ for only 8g!

Topshop Glow Pot in Gleam | £9 (on sale for £8.10)

I have spoken about these little pots of joy many a time here on my blog, they are wonderful! Glow pots are cream highlighters in the cutest little frosted glass packaging, which blend in so well and look stunning worn alone or under a powder highlighter. I LOVE highlighters, but I recently had to have a clear out and both shades I own managed to stay in the stash. The reason I picked gleam over polish is because it is more of a golden shade and I reach for it often. I love how quick and easy it is to use these, with the tips of my fingers just patted onto the tops of my cheekbones and nose. Its also very versatile and I often use it as a base for a powder highlight when I want a strobed look. Gleam is definitely one for those of you who have a warm/olive skintone and although the pot looks small, a little goes a long way. I have been using this for well over a year and still have quite a bit left!

Topshop Highlighter in Horizon | £10

One of the most unique highlighters in my collection, Horizon is a sort of rose gold/bronzy shade and when I looked at it in the pan I wasn't that impressed. However when I swatched it, the baked formula lead to a beautiful silky finish without a single bit of glitter in sight. Thanks to the lack of shimmer or glitter, its one of those bronzers that works really well if you have a lot of texture on your skin, because it doesn't emphasise it at all. I also think this is a lovely highlighter for everyday, sometimes when I go for my typical golden shades and then step out into the daylight I realise I've over done it for an average day. However I think the unique shade of this makes it difficult to go over the top, and if you did keep layering it would no longer look like highlight - it would appear very dark. So you simple need a small amount to create a beautiful sheen on the skin and I can't get enough!

So in a nutshell (or a few haha) those are my top three products from Topshop and each of these I would repurchase straight away! Gleam and Mohawk are great for light-medium skintones and horizon I'd recommend for medium-deeper skintones.

What are your favourite Topshop beauty products?

Thank-you for reading ♥

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Top Three | Topshop Beauty

Hello everyone, its been quite a while since I've typed up a top three, so today I am going to be sharing my absolute favourites from Topshop beauty. The purpose of these posts is to whittle down my makeup collection to the best of the best from each category, be that a whole brand or simply my favourite golden highlighters for example. I have tried quite a few things from the Topshop beauty line and so it was tricky to limit this down to three products, but if push came to shove the following are definitely the items I'd repurchase in a heartbeat.

July Favourites

Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well. Today I'm going to be sharing my July favourites, time really is flying by and soon enough I'm sure I'll be struggling to get up one blog post a week - so I have some work to do in the last few weeks off! July was, like I said in my update post, a really wonderful month and I also got to try a bunch of new makeup and I had been saving up for the longest time. Some of these things are a little random but they're items I have been wanting to share with you all for the longest time, without doing a whole blog post on it.

So starting off with my favourite base products of July, the base that has been floating my boat is the Charlotte Tilbury Light Wonder Foundation in shade 7 (£32.00), which I shared in this haul. Although I could probably easily get away with shade 6, this foundation is gloriously glow without looking oily in the slightest. A light/medium coverage which lasts really well on the skin and makes me look super healthy and almost like my skin is just naturally this radiant (hah if only!). I was worried that this would be a very over-priced tinted moisturiser, but so far it is totally worth the money, one of those you get what you pay for products. If you're a fan of a lighter glowing finish you need to check this out! If you prefer a medium/full then give it a miss. My corrector of choice is actually a very new product to my stash, I've only had it for about two weeks so its a bit premature to put it in my favourites - but that really shows how much I adore it already! To be honest I'm not sure why I dismissed this corrector+concealer offering from the highstreet, the Soap and Glory Kick Ass Concealer in Medium (£10.00) but now I have it, it is here to STAY. I think the main reason why I always avoided it was because there were never testers available in store, but the shade medium is really great. It is one of the best corrector shades I have tried, the perfect peachy colour and the formula is also perfection - not too thick, not too dry, not too creamy...I LOVE IT. The only thing I can really moan about here, is the fact that despite the slightly bulky packaging, the amount of corrector itself isn't great. I love how it includes a little powder, mirror and concealer too which does make it good value for money...I just wish they either included more corrector or they sold it separately (which would be even better).

I rediscovered Benefit's Hoola (£23.50) this month, its always a bronzer I go back to because its just a couple of shades deeper than my skintone and totally matte. So when I want to use one product which'll warm up my face and add a little definition too Hoola is where its at. Its low maintenance, blends so well and is a great tone - not too red, nor too orange or grey! Quickly mentioning my favourite lipstick of the month, because I will have an indepth review up this weekend, but I have been really loving Colourpop's ultra satin lipstick in Echo Park ($6.00). The hype with this formula is so justified and I can't wait to discuss it further soon. Echo park is a beautiful summer colour when worn alone but I love how it can be mixed too - a great formula to check out for sure.

Moving onto the eyes, for the first time ever I have been really obsessed with a mascara...which is pretty odd if you know me well. I genuinely used to dislike mascara a lot (I even wrote a blog post on why it is not my friend loool click %here% if you're super bored and wanna read), so to find a mascara I look forwards to applying is a very great achievement. The Tarte Gifted mascara ($21.00) is amazing, volumising with just one swipe and buildable without becoming too clumpy. It doesn't flake or smudge on me and the best part is the removal is super easy too. Seriously I like it A LOT. I just wish it was cheaper in the U.K thats the only downside because it costs over £20 here...VS £15ish in the U.S 🙄 I recently treated myself to The Balms Schwing Liner (£12.00), (yes its a treat because I'm used to spending a fiver max on eyeliner) because it has been on my to-try list for the longest time. It isn't 100000% LOVE with this liner, only because I'm disappointed in the applicator. I've already had to snip off that annoying bit that is kind of attached to the tip and totally SABOTAGES any attempt at a wing liner...that's the sort of applicator problem I'd expect from a £2 liquid liner. However the intensity of the blackness is incredible and it lasts really really well on my eyes which has meant that any other liner I have open right now has been thrown to the side.

As I get more into eyeshadows I become more obsessed with building the perfect brush kit - this Elaina Badro brush is the BEST for smoking out the lower lashine, something I never used to do but it makes a huge difference. I like that its not so much a pencil brush, more of a tiny shader brush so its perfect for really blending out any shadow in smaller areas - the only thing I'm sad about it that it is no longer available on the beautybay website! ☹️

And finally the more randomish faves, I'm going to have to start with this amazing Tony Moly Avocado Nutrition Sheet Mask which was recommended by a lovely reader Shehroon. I had seen these face masks floating about the blogosphere, but when I realised what a great deal you could purchase them on from Ebay I had to snap them up! 3 for less than £3 from this seller - it does come from out of the U.K though, so it takes a while but its totally worth it. Korean skincare is amazing and this mask is no exception, I put it on for 20 minutes the other day and my skin drank it up...yes I looked a bit terrifying, but it made a huge amount of difference and the next morning my dull and drained skin looked fresh, radiant and plump.

I've also loved the Soap and Glory SPF 50 (£15.00), it is a must have in my routine. Not only does it protect my skin, but it also works as a primer - two birds in one stone! Also there is currently an offer on, buy one get one half price on S&G products which I took advantage of as although these items are from the highstreet, they do add up when purchased full price!

Something you rarely see on my blog, but I HAD to mention it - the Canon 50mm lens dupe! In February I dropped my Canon lens and it literally broke within 2 seconds and was not repairable. I was gutted, mostly because when I got that lens a couple of years ago I snagged it for just about £60 and when I checked on Amazon it went up to £90 - still an okay price but way out of my student budget. I loved the 50mm, its amazing for portraits especially and whenever I have blurry background photo on my blog its because of this lens. So like I said I was very upset, but after doing a bit of research I found a 'dupe' and figured for £35 it was worth a go. I purchased the Yongnuo YN50mm F/1.8 AF/MF Standard Prime Lens for Canon EOS Rebel Camera and to be honest I wasn't expecting much...but after using it for the past few months I can't even tell the difference! It is incredible, works just as well if not better and now costs 1/3 of the price - if you own a Canon SLR, you need this lens in your life. Easily one of the best purchases of the year for me!

Last but not least the most gorgeous lashes I have tried in a while and for the most insane bargain of a price - winning! I picked these up on a whim, as I usually have bad luck with ebay lashes but these looked different. They come in a pack of three and cost only £1.19!! (Link here)Yes three pairs of lashes for just over a quid and they're sooo beautiful. They're 3D lashes which means they're really fluttery and they basically made my eid makeup look so much better ^_^ I recently ordered another couple of packs of these cause I'll be using them whenever theres a special occasion on myself and friend/family.

I also ordered a pack to giveaway, so fill in the rafflecopter and read the T&Cs carefully. This is open worldwide and I'm not advertising it in the title cause I'm SICK of annoying giveaway accounts entering - but I still want to do mini giveaways like these now and again!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

There you have it, my July faves! What have you been loving in the month of July?

Thank-you for reading ♥

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July Favourites

Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well. Today I'm going to be sharing my July favourites, time really is flying by and soon enough I'm sure I'll be struggling to get up one blog post a week - so I have some work to do in the last few weeks off! July was, like I said in my update post, a really wonderful month and I also got to try a bunch of new makeup and I had been saving up for the longest time. Some of these things are a little random but they're items I have been wanting to share with you all for the longest time, without doing a whole blog post on it.