Beauty Bay Haul | Zoeva, Morphe & Makeup Geek!

Hello everyone! I have a very exciting post to share with you all today…it is my haul! After over 140 days of not buying makeup, this is the haul that I purchased with my gift card from work (which I talked about in my January update!). So just to clarify, I am still on my no-makeup-buying challenge till my 21st, which is exactly 90 days away now so just three months to go. Anyway I was very grateful to get a £50 voucher of my choice, it was like a little reward 5 months later for sticking at the challenge ^_^ and of course I had to pick beauty bay as they have so many wonderful things that are on my wishlist. 

I must say here that I am extremely impressed with beauty bay’s delivery, I placed this order at 7pm on a Thursday and it arrived at 12pm the following day! Normally I don’t have much luck with hermes delivery, but for some (great) reason my order arrived extremely quickly and everything was in tact, yay!

So starting with the much lusted after Zoeva Cocoa Blend Palette (£15.50) the moment I saw this popping up on blogs everywhere, I knew it had to be mine. Although it is (yet another) neutrals palette, most of the colours are useable on a regular basis and I know there are a couple of shades in particular that I’ll be gravitating towards the most! The first shades to catch my eye were ‘substitute for love’ and ‘freshly toasted’ which are both gorgeous crease and transition shades. ‘Bitter start’ is the perfect brow bone highlight and of course ‘pure canache’ is my ideal base shade - gotta have some gold! The quality of these eyeshadows are second to none, they’re so pigmented, soft and bendable and I love how the palette has it’s own sleeve too! The size of the pans are pretty decent too so overall this is a great value palette.

One of the best things about owning a palette which is ‘hyped up’ or much loved, is that there are a lot of youtube tutorials focusing on this palette alone. I really appreciate that because I do tend to stick to my comfort zone when it comes to eyeshadows looks, doing the same thing over and over. So having a range of videos to draw inspiration from is super useful. 

I also purchased my first morphe eyeshadow brush, the M330 blending crease brush (£4.75). The main reason why I went for this one over the others was because I was determined to keep my spending total to just under £50 so I didn’t break my ban (#dedication). I also really needed another blending brush that wasn’t too big. My eyes are slightly deep-set which means I don’t have the most lid space and I find that large brushes kind of mess up the whole look! This brush is so useful and it really has met my expectations. The elongated shape and tapered tip means I can use this to apply my transition shade and crease shade and then blend it all out in a few quick strokes. It also works well for adding concentrated colour to the outer corner and in general is a fantastic addition to my collection! 

And finally, probably the most exciting part of my haul I present to you my MakeUp Geek Eyeshadows! (£4.95). Every single beauty lover will have heard of these beauties and most likely seen them in action, used by some of the biggest beauty gurus. Just in case you haven’t though, let me give you a quick introduction! MUG shadows are extremely high quality, often described as better than MAC but they’re a much more affordable (and ethical) option. I opted for 6 of the regular shadows, however there are more options on beautybay, which are a little more pricy. Each eyeshadow pan contains 1.8g which is fantastic value for money and of course the best thing about these shadows being sold on beauty bay is the fact that now those of us who don’t live in the U.S can get our hands on the whole range without being hit by dreaded customs! 

So I had the budget for 6 shadows and of course I had already watched a lot of videos and noted down the MUST have shades. I also used the lovely Jasmine’s post (here) to help me decide what my first 6 shades should be. Admittedly they don’t look exciting, however I know MUG are known for their gorgeous transition and crease shades so I had to pick up some of the ones I have been lusting after for years! From Top left I bought Creme Brûlée which is a shade I’ll be using every single time I wear eyeshadow, because it is PERFECTION at making your eyeshadow game go from a 2-8 I kid you not. You just need to use a fluffy brush to sweep this all over the crease area and it pulls together whatever you’re going to be putting on next. Frappe which is several shades deep and more brown, works in a similar way but adds depth and definition. I purchased the shades Cocoa Bear and Bitten because they are two of the most loved shades out there and they’re wonderful for the crease and for the lower lash line too. I am SO excited to play around with these because the pigmentation and quality are just wonderful! Finally the shades Homecoming and Pretentious are my ideal all over the lid kind of shades. I do love me a good gold shade too but these two stood out more to me first over the golden ones. 

Honestly I cannot describe the excitement I felt when getting this parcel, not only because it contains items I have wanted for months and months (if not YEARS!) but also because it was such a treat after 5 months of not buying any new makeup items! I know for a fact that I was a lot more grateful for every single item because of my challenge and I truly appreciated that excitement which definitely goes once you become a bit of a hoarder!!

P.S I've just seen that beautybay have the new MUG contour shades and they're less than a tenner each - such a bargain! You must check out the video on youtube because there are shades for EVERY single skintones, for real it's amazing! I cannot wait to pick up a shade or two after my birthday ^_^

Have you tried anything in this haul? Any MUG recommendations? Please let me know in the comments!

Thank-you for reading ♥

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Beauty Bay Haul | Zoeva, Morphe & Makeup Geek!

Hello everyone! I have a very exciting post to share with you all today…it is my haul! After over 140 days of not buying makeup, this is the haul that I purchased with my gift card from work (which I talked about in my January update!). So just to clarify, I am still on my no-makeup-buying challenge till my 21st, which is exactly 90 days away now so just three months to go. Anyway I was very grateful to get a £50 voucher of my choice, it was like a little reward 5 months later for sticking at the challenge ^_^ and of course I had to pick beauty bay as they have so many wonderful things that are on my wishlist. 

I must say here that I am extremely impressed with beauty bay’s delivery, I placed this order at 7pm on a Thursday and it arrived at 12pm the following day! Normally I don’t have much luck with hermes delivery, but for some (great) reason my order arrived extremely quickly and everything was in tact, yay!

July Favourites 2015

July has been an interesting month beauty wise, I have my usual make-up bits but this time I have a couple of hair related things too! The majority of these favourites are quick and easy to use things, convenient beauty bits which last well and look good. Lets start with my base of the month a newbie, which I refrained from opening for months because I was trying to use up a similarish product (the Bourjois CC Cream - reviewed). However the lack of light weight bases which were dark enough to match my summer skin finally meant I had to whip it out and what can I say, NARS have done it again!

The NARS Pure Radiant Tinted Moisturiser (£29) in St. Moritz has been putting the biggest smile on my face, this stuff is wonderful. Feels lightweight, is best applied with fingers and delivers a healthy, somewhat dewy medium coverage, blurring all imperfections whilst not masking the skin in the slightest. This is the Queen of Tinted Moisturisers, at first it looked way too orange, but once blended into the skin it adjusts very well and the added bonus of SPF 30 means it’s become a daily staple. It does seem to become a little shiny around 6 hours later, so I recommend setting the TM if you have oily skin.

The Topshop Brow Pencil in Spike  (£6.00) was a bit of a struggle to learn how to get along with, but now I’ve figured it I can quickly fill in my brows within a minute. I still love the ABH Dipbrow, but it does take a lot more time than a convenient pencil - since this shade is so dark a tiny bit goes a long way. Another new product in my collection, has been the much hyped about Kiko long lasting shadow sticks (£6.90) this one being the shade 28. When I saw they were having a 50% off sale I had to pick some up to see what the fuss was about, especially when a handful of them were only around the £3 price tag. This shade I took with me on my weekend away to London, a nude/light pink brightening colour with tiny flecks on glimmer. It works well alone and as a base too. They're creamy, blend easily and last a decent amount of time on the eyelids, once I’ve had the chance to use the all I’ll be reporting back soon!

 A rediscovery this month has been of the Rimmel Scandaleyes Shadow Paints (£1.00 ) particularly the shade Golden Bronze which I reviewed ages ago here. I have loved doing my eye makeup super quickly and the speed of these shadow paints is amazing! The doe-foot applicator means its on the lids in two seconds and I spend another 2 blending the stuff out et voila, eyeshadow is all done! It’s nice and opaque too meaning I don’t have to worry about applying a base or layering it up. Sometimes you can find these shadow paints on Fragrance Direct for a bargain price of a quid, so keep an eye out they’re handy to have around!

Another golden shade I’ve been loving is the Colour Pop Super Shock shadow in Get Lucky ($5.00). It’s a totally different shade to the Rimmel one, cooler toned and slightly antiquish? but regardless there’s something about golden hues that merge so well with brown eyes AND look like a whole lot more effort than it actually takes. The formula of the Colourpop metalic shadows are delightful, you only need to spend a couple of seconds patting down the shadow with your finger and you’re good to go. I usually like to build it up a little but a light wash is excellent too.

The ColourPop Lippie Stix in 'Brink' ($5.00) isn't exactly a summer shade, as you'll see from the swatch below, but who really cares - I love it! It's probably three shades deeper than my natural lip colour and the one inspired by that famous Kylie lip we all know so well. I am so impressed with the lasting power of the matte lippie stix! I wore it to the Safari Park and it stayed in tact and pretty flawless for at least 7 hours, fading only a tiny bit when I ate lunch (fish and chips). I did not expect it to be so long lasting, yet creamy and pigmented with one swipe. Now I just want to find a cheaper way to get more :'(

Here are the swatches for everything:

These are all one swipe, the get lucky shade is a light wash, you can build it up more which is equally as beautiful ^_^

On to the first hair products ever talked about on my blog, these are certainly something special! With shampoo I normally use whatever we have at home which does a good job and none that I have used in the past have actually left me wanting to buy them again. I have dry hair and I know the best remedy is an overnight coconut oil mask, but I often cannot be bothered with that D: Along came the Dove Damage Solutions Intensive Repair Shampoo (£2.69) and it really did what it said on the bottle! I can actually say I feel like my hair is stronger, shiny and less dry too - those Keratin Repair Actives really do seem to be doing something and yes I shall be repurchasing this again. The second hair related item is probably the biggest bargain I have purchased this year.

I picked up the Beautybay Ionic Hairdryer for £16, reduced from £40! We have an old hair-dryer, but this was such a bargain I couldn’t say no! Especially as it’s a hairdryer, blow dryer and has a large thingymabob see I told you I don’t know how to talk to about hair related things! in one go. I'm not generally one to use heat on my hair, but to be honest the convenience of this has meant I can manage hair washing and drying quickly, morning or night.

That is about it for my July favourites! Excuse my rustyness on talking about hair products, its certainly something new for me, but its nice to find hair products that are worth sharing with you all ^_^

What were your July Favourites? Leave them in the comments, I'd love to know!

Thank-you for reading ♥

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July Favourites 2015

July has been an interesting month beauty wise, I have my usual make-up bits but this time I have a couple of hair related things too! The majority of these favourites are quick and easy to use things, convenient beauty bits which last well and look good. Lets start with my base of the month a newbie, which I refrained from opening for months because I was trying to use up a similarish product (the Bourjois CC Cream - reviewed). However the lack of light weight bases which were dark enough to match my summer skin finally meant I had to whip it out and what can I say, NARS have done it again!