I always find myself unable to resist buying Soap and Glory products. I mainly put this down to their cute, girly packaging that catches my eye whenever I go into Boots, but I suppose my terrible lack of self-control doesn't help either. Today was no different, and despite only buying a few products, I still felt somewhat guilty handing my money and Boots Advantage Card over to the cashier. I figured I wouldn't be feeling this way if I actually needed these items in my make up collection, but the 3 for 2 offer was on so you can hardly walk away with just one item... right?

For a while now I've found myself having a love/hate relationship with my eyebrows. For starters, I find it almost impossible to get them looking remotely similar on both sides, and I must spend a good 20 minutes on them some days which really isn't ideal. Today I decided enough was enough, and after spending hours last night watching endless beauty gurus rave on about the Soap and Glory Archery Bow Tint and Pencil, I decided I had to go and purchase it.

Having medium to dark brown hair, I always struggle to decide what colour brow products to buy, but luckily for me this pencil only comes in two shades; Love is Blonde and Brownie Points, so you can probably tell which one I opted for. The thing I like most about this product is that it is double ended, consisting of a fine-tipped brow tint on the left and a pencil on the right. The packaging instructs you to use the left side first, using light, feathery strokes to fill in any gaps in your brows. To add more 'oomph' and definition you can use the pencil over the top. I've found that combining the two is definitely the most effective way to achieve perfect brows, and after just one use I feel like I may have finally found my Holy Grail brow product!

Before discovering this little gem, I was convinced that the only way to have perfectly defined brows was to jump on the bandwagon and buy a Mac 266 brush and fill my brows in with a powder. Of course this doesn't come cheap, which is why I plummeted for the £10 option from Soap and Glory. I'll admit that for a brow product it is priced a little steep, but it's incredibly difficult to find a decent brow product for anything less, so for me it's definitely worth it.

I must already own close to a trillion-and-one concealers, but I've heard so many things about this one that I simply couldn't not try it out for myself. I may have only used this once so far, but I already feel that this really lives up to it's name- it honestly does kick ass. First of all there are two shades; one peach-toned designed for under-eye circles and one yellow-toned to use for concealing spots. Not only this, but there's also a secret compartment at the top containing a translucent setting powder to set everything in place. The concealers have a creamy consistency making them easy to blend and so far I've found that a little goes a long way. With many people comparing this to the £29 Laura Mercier Undercover Pot, this is definitely a great alternative at a fraction of the price! (Available here).

Having swooned over the Soap and Glory Sexy Mother Pucker Gloss Sticks for quite long enough, I decide it was finally time to try one out. I picked Bashful- a super-glossy light pink shade. I used to shy away from lip glosses as I used to find them quite drying, but if anything, this is the exact opposite. It glides effortlessly onto the lips leaving them feeling instantly moisturised, and it smells incredible. With the warmer weather coming, I think these would be a perfect alternative to ordinary lip glosses as they provide moisture as well as a pop of colour.

What are your favourite products from Soap and Glory? :)

 

This Wednesday it was my birthday. Unlike many people who write little lists of all the things they'd like and organise fun parties and fancy meals, I found myself doing what I do best: lounging around most of the day refreshing my Twitter every 2 minutes. In all honesty it felt like a pretty ordinary day for me. I woke up, (felt completely the same as I did the previous day) and sauntered into the kitchen for my daily fix of porridge. I then had to go to a lecture for English Literature in the middle of the afternoon, so it didn't leave me with much time to begin opening the delicately-wrapped presents and stack of cards that greeted me in the lounge. Seeing as it has been forever and a day since my last blog post, I thought I'd share a few pictures of a few of the things people bought me for my birthday. I hope people don't take this the wrong way and see it as me 'bragging'; that is really not my intention at all. I also have a few extra little bits and pieces I picked up throughout the week from Boots, and if you've read my previous blog posts you'll understand by now that I simply CANNOT bring myself to walk past without having a little nosy around at the latest offers.

When it comes to gifts and presents, I'll be the first to admit that I'm quite fussy and tricky to buy for, so I often have my friends and family having to ask me what it is that I'd like. This being said, my brother decided to do his own thing this year and did pretty well! I had a voucher for Topshop and a cute little box from Paperchase containing recipe cards that can be easily organised and filed neatly away. Although I'm not greatly skilled in the culinary department, I do like to try my hand at baking every so often so I'm sure I'll be putting these recipe cards to good use!

Recently I've been addicted to using glittery topcoats over my regular nail polish, and it seems that one of my friends must have noticed this as she bought me the Rimmel Lasting Finish Nail Polish in 'Disco Ball'.. you really can't get much glittery-er than that, right?! Last but by no means least, I thought I'd give these super-cute earrings a mention. I tend to wear a lot of studs and most of them are silver, so the two sets above will make a really nice change :)

The products I snapped up in Boots are rather random, and in all honestly, I don't think I physically needed any of them. For some reason or other I love to buy skincare products, so when I stumbled across Boots' own range I thought I'd try out their Vitamin E Eye Cream and Vitamin E Night Cream. I actually really like these, and it just so happened that they were on special offer at under £2 each when I bought them; for that price you really can't go wrong.

Much to my surprise, it was actually sunny the other day when I was in town... who'd have thought it?? I think it may have been the sudden burst of sunshine that influenced me to buy these two Rimmel Nail polishes in the shades 'Instyle Coral' and 'Tangy Tangerine'. Both colours verge towards being classed as pastel shades, and I think these will look especially great with a tan in the summer.

The Rimmel 9 in 1 BB Cream caught my attention with claims that it primes, moisturises, minimises pores, conceals, covers, smooths, mattifies, brightens and helps protect the skin. For any product, that is certainly a lot to live up to. I've only used this once, and I found the consistency very liquid-y (I didn't have to apply any pressure to the tube at all). The finish itself is definitely matte, and it reminded me a lot of the Rimmel Stay Matte foundation that I wasn't a very big fan of (let's just say that the Ivory shade used to make me look somewhat like an Oompa  Loompa- eek!) This BB Cream comes in two shades: Light and Medium, so I opted for the Light and still found it a bit too dark for me. Perhaps it's because I am rather light-skinned, but I had hoped it would blend in a little better so it wasn't obvious to tell that my face was a different colour to my neck (definite rookie error on my behalf there).

Maybelline's Fit Me Foundation Stick is definitely one of my favourite products from my mini Boots haul. I picked this up entirely by chance as it was in the clearance and the only shade left was 'Sun Beige'. Yes, from the name you can tell straight away that it isn't going to be the lightest shade, and you're probably thinking why on earth would you buy a product waaay darker than your actual skin tone??? Well of course I knew this, but it was £1.. who can resist that?! To cut a long story short, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this blended amazingly well into my skin. In some ways it reminds me of a slightly large concealer, so I like to use this as a primer before my foundation because it helps control shine. The packaging is ideal too, it's small and compact enough for you to carry around and use if you need to touch up during the day.

I don't tend to use a lot of lip products, but the other day I found an extremely red Rimmel Kate Moss lipstick in one of my old make up bags and obviously had to try it out. I'm not too certain that bright red suits me, (just think MirandaSings on Youtube) so I thought I'd try a pink shade instead. I bought the Rimmel London Lasting Finish by Kate Moss Lipstick in Shade 16 which is a lovely orange-y/ pink-y coral colour which I think would compliment all skin tones. The pigmentation is great and the formula is very creamy and moisturising, which is an added bonus as some products tend to leave your lips feeling extremely dry and unnourished. They also smell soooo great; slightly sweet and no where near chemical-like.

Have you come across any beauty-related hidden gems recently? :)