My July Love Me Beauty Box

I'm a completely newbie to subscription boxes. I've looked at a few different ones over the past year or so, but never made the decision to sign up to them. When I came across Love Me Beauty's deal on living social (3 boxes for £14.95 + P&P), I decided it was time to give subscription boxes a go and ordered my first box.

I was really pleased when the postman rang my flat buzzer on Saturday morning. Not only had I forgotten my box was on it's way, but it also meant that my buzzer system had been fixed whilst I was in France!

I like Love Me Beauty as you get to pick what you want in your box. They give you 6 credits to spend, and then allocate a number of points to different products. You can either spend just your 6 points, or if you want more then you can pay extra to get the additional products. I went for 3 things I knew I'd use; hairspray, nail varnish and eye shadow.

The hair spray is a full size product by Neal & Wolf and is worth £9.50 on it's own! I've never heard of Neal & Wolf, but they had a few different products available on Love Me Beauty to pick between. I went for the hairspray as the one I'm currently using is feeling very thick and heavy on my hair. I'm very interested in trying this out.

There were a very different nail varnish colours from the NailsInc Gel Effect range to choose from. I went for Colville Mews as it's a very neutral shade and will be suitable for work. The product is again full size, worth £15. I've already given this product a go, and I love it. Application was super easy, the  colour is gorgeous, and the finish is perfect! Very impressed.

The final product is a mineral eyeshadow by Bellapierre (£12.99). It's not a brand I've heard of before, and it's only recently I've started trying mineral make up, but I've been impressed with Bare Minerals products so thought I'd give this alternative a try. Again I went for a neutral colour, Champagne, as I don't like my makeup to be too bright. As it's a shimmer powder, it probably won't be something I use daily for work, but I'll definitely be giving it a go on my next night out.

Overall I'm rather pleased with the products I've picked, the fact that they're full size, and how much money I've saved. Just on this one box, I've saved £17.49. I'm excited to try out all the products and to receive my next beauty box in August.

Sarah x

Post Exam Shopping Haul

To celebrate passing my latest CIMA exam I took myself on a little trip around town and decided to treat myself to a few new purchases.

Shoes - Debenhams £20

These shoes caught my eye with their lovely pattern. My mum described it as animal print, I thought of it more as an aztec pattern. Either way, they look lovely. I'm hoping they'll be comfortable too.

Bare Foot Lotion and Cream - £3 each

I love love love love these products. They smell gorgeous! After only a few uses I can definitely see the benefit of these. Hoping to post a review very soon.

Smashbox Makeup - £17 to £28

After it was pointed out to me that my face was becoming very shiny from my makeup, I've been on the hunt for new makeup, particularly a new foundation, that would stop the shininess. Since reading Dominique's Smashbox Liquid Halo Foundation Review at the weekend, I decided to pay a visit to the Smashbox counter in Boots and see what they had to offer.

From chatting to the helpful assistant and testing out a few different products, I came away with the Liquid Halo Foundation, BB Cream Concealer and Finishing Powder. Lets see how well I get on with these!

MUA Eyeshadow Palette and Bronzer - £1 to £4

I've heard a lot of good things about MUA, and not wanting to spend a lot of money on eyeshadow, I decided it was time to give this brand a go. The palette has a perfect range of light shades that are going to be perfect for every day, or for nights out. The bronzer, was a complete spur of the moment purchase, but for a £1 I can't really go wrong.

I may have gone a little overboard celebrating passing just this one exam....when I'm finally qualified I dread to think how much I'll spend as a celebration.

Sarah x

My Everyday Makeup Routine

I really enjoying reading other people's blog posts on their everyday makeup routines, and since it's been a while since I posted something other than my weekly weight updates I thought I'd use my spare time to share my routine. I'll admit now I'm not the greatest at applying my makeup, and a lot of the stuff I do I've taught myself along the way. I'm an only child so I haven't had sisters to learn from and my Mum doesn't wear a lot of makeup, so it has just been trial and error over the years. So here goes, my before to after routine. Apologies in advance for the poor quality of some of the photos.

Before

Stage 1: Moisturise

I have two major problems with my skin, an oily T zone and the tendency to go very red very easily. To combat this I apply No7 Redness Relief Balm (you'll see from this post I'm a massive No7 fan) before I start to straighten my hair and leave it to soak in. Then whilst I go and brush my teeth and get dressed I apply No7 Beautiful Skin day cream for Normal/Oily skin. This is one of my more recent No7 purchases and I love how smooth my skin feels after wearing it, and how much better it makes my makeup last. Once this has sunk in I move onto my foundation.

Stage 2: Face

I've gone through a lot of foundations over the years but really found it hard to get a great colour match because my skin is so pale. The best match I found was from the Benefit Hello Flawless range and when I first switched to this I absolutely loved it (see my Benefit Product Review) and was convinced this was going to be the best for me. But after another week or two of wearing it I began to notice that the foundation just wouldn't stay on my skin and I'd regularly left with patches around my nose where it had rubbed off, even if I hadn't touched my face at all. It didn't matter what I did it just wouldn't stay, so I switched back to my good old faithful No7 and their Stay Perfect foundation. I apply with my foundation brush (which I think is a No7 one also) all over my face so I get an even coverage.

My concealer again is a No7 one (beginning to see the trend here?) I bought it as it was supposed colour match to my foundation, however I do think it's slightly lighter. I only use a little of this under my eyes to try and hide my bags and to cover up any spots I have. Finally, I seal it all with some translucent powder (again No7) and apply a little bit of pink blusher on my cheeks to give me a little colour.

Stage 3: Eyes

You'll finally see some variation in products here. I start with my eyebrows, using Benefit Browzings to give some definition and shape to my face. I was a bit skeptical at first about this product because its seems a lot of money for such a little box, but despite using it every day it is lasting me a very long time. I use this with a Boots own make eyebrow brush to get my brows all going the right direction and the shape I want.

Next I apply eye shadow. I very rarely go for bright eye shadow because I never think it suits me. So out of the pallet in the picture, which is a Victoria Jackson pallet, I tend to go for the pink/white/gold colour on the left. I've had a few different Victoria Jackson products, particularly eyeshadows, and do like the colour variations but sometimes they don't show up very brightly unless you apply a lot. Majority of the time however, I don't find this an issue because I don't like my eyes to stand out loads.

After finishing my eyeshadow, I move onto eyeliner. The eyeliner I'm currently using is a Natural Collection one I bought for £1.99 from Boots. I'm not very good at applying eyeliner so I don't do anything fancy like wings, I just apply a line to my top and bottom lids to give my eyes a little bit of definition, and there's often some days where I don't apply any at all. Depends on how I'm feeling and if I'm running late.

Finally, I apply mascara. The one I'm currently using is my newest makeup purchase, No7 Lovely Lashes. I was, until this week, using Benefit They're Real mascara but I've now ran out and none of the Boots I can easily get to sell Benefit products. I have to make the effort to go into Town or the the Metro Centre to buy Benefit so I opted for something else. The No7 product is great, it doesn't make my lashes clumpy at all, but I do feel it looks better when I don't have eyeliner on. It seems to loose it's effect when I do. But it does make my lashes look rather natural, which I like.

Until I wrote this I didn't actually think I wore that much makeup, but maybe I do. Anyway, here it is my everyday makeup routine. And here is the final result. Hope you've all enjoyed and again sorry for the poor quality photos! Let me know any recommendations you have.

After

Benefit Cosmetics Makeup Review

Having been using a No7 foundation for quite a while now and finding it didn't quite match my skin colour that well, last weekend I paid a visit to the Benefit beauty bar in John Lewis, Newcastle upon Tyne, to try out their foundation range and see if I could find a better match. After talking with the very helpful Benebabe and trying out a lot of the Benefit products on offer I came home with the Hello Flawless foundation and powder which I've been using daily since purchase.

I have a very pale skin tone so ending up with the lightest colours in Benefit's range didn't surprise me. The "I'm pure 4 sure" ivory foundation and "I love me" ivory powder are a great match to my natural skin colour, and surprised my Mum when I actually said I had makeup on it's such a great match.

The foundation gives a good coverage from a very small amount of liquid. It's very smooth and creamy to apply, and blends in well. When I first tried it, I did feel this foundation was slightly heavier than some others on the market I've tried, but it's not so heavy to make you aware of the fact you're wearing makeup. I've worn the foundation every day this week from 7am till 6pm ish with issues around the product wearing off, so I'd definitely say this is good for those who don't like to keep reapplying makeup whilst they're out and about.

Benefit also do a Stay Flawless 15 hour primer to extend the length of coverage and provide a little sample in their foundation bottles to try. Knowing I was going straight to my boyfriend's house after work I thought I'd give the sample a go yesterday morning. As soon as I applied the primer, my skin began to feel very dry and the coverage I'd been getting from the foundation prior to this just didn't seem to work with the primer.

By 11 o'clock yesterday I ended up with a huge patch across my nose/cheek where my makeup had just rubbed off, meaning I had to spend 10 mins in the toilets at work removing the rest of my makeup so I didn't spend the rest of the day looking patchy. Not ideal as I don't carry spare makeup around with me.

For the rest of the day I felt that my skin was very dry and for ages was very hot and red. I do have sensitive skin so whether this was a reaction to something in the primer or just a result of me scrubbing the makeup off at work, I'm not sure. So unfortunately this is one Benefit product I wasn't impressed with, but I'm glad I'd had the opportunity to try the tester before I ran out to buy it.

The powder also gives a good coverage from very little product and is very light on the skin. With previous powders I've found that if you touch your skin after applying powder you can feel it on your skin, with this you can't. It also doesn't seem to leave a residue of powder in the room you've been applying it, something I found with my previous powder which seemed to leave product all over my dressing table/floor/mirror no matter how careful I was with my power brush.

Overall, a good purchase in the foundation and powder. Good coverage, and good colour match. Perfect for every day use or for special occasions. I used to be a No7 girl through and through but I'm slowly find myself becoming more attracted to Benefit products. Next on my whishlist to try is their blusher, mascara and brow products.

Price: £25.50 for the foundation, £25.50 for the powder. (If you're a student Benefit's website offer 10%)

Purchase from: Benefit Cosmetics Online, Boots, John Lewis, Debenhams, Fenwicks

Rating: Foundation 8/10, Powder 8/10, Primer, 2/10