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

Summer Spends

Although I'm supposed to be saving ready for my new house, there's a few spends I couldn't resist this summer. Here's my highlight summer spends for 2014.

1 - Jack Wills Fullford Tee - £14
I love Jack Wills clothing at the best of times, but even more so when they have a sale on. This tee comes in a wide range of colours and was down to £14 in their summer sale. The one I've got is a lovely lilac colour and is very loose fitting and comfortable. Great for summer! I love the style and comfort so much my Mum and Grandma are buying me two more in different colours for my birthday.

2 - Boots Cucumber 3 Minute Clay Mask - £1
My skin recently has been feeling very greasy and spotty so I decided to invest in a face mask to try and help my skin out. I didn't want to pay a lot of money so I did some research and found this Boots Cucumber 3 Minute Clay Mask which had some rather good reviews. I decided for £1 I couldn't really go wrong so bought it on my lunch break. After one use my skin was feeling much smoother and a horrible spot that had been developing on my chin disappeared straightaway. I was rather impressed. It's not a massive tube that you get, but if you use it twice a week as recommended it should definitely last more than a month. A purchase I will definitely be repeating.

3 - Dorothy Perkins High-Tops - £7
Another of my sale bargains. I wasn't particularly after a new pair of casual trainers but stumbled across these in the DP sale and they caught my eye. When I took a closer look I saw that the only size left in stock was my size, and decided it was fate! They're super comfy and will be great as the weather starts to get a bit cooler and wetter.

4 - Trudi Canavan Thief's Magic Ebook - £6.49
I love a good book and can't wait for my holidays to be able to do some serious non-college related reading. Trudi Canavan is one of my favourite authors, I've read every book she's published and loved them all. This is the first in her new trilogy and I'm really looking forward to getting into the story. It's a bit pricey for an Ebook in my opinion but since it's relatively new and still cheaper than the hard copy I'm not going to complain.

5 - Personal Planner - £17.95
This is by far my favourite summer spend. I love a good diary and this is definitely one of them. I won't write much here as I plan to write a blog post alone on the pros/cons of this purchase but I definitely will be buying another next summer.

6 - Sensationail Gel Glitter Nail Varnish - £15
I bought this to go with my outfit for the Christening I went to a few weeks ago. It's a gorgeous peachy colour with glitter, the only downside was it took quite a few coats to have a good coverage. You need a UV light for the gel to set, but once it is set it looks really good. For me I didn't quite get the two week coverage it claims to give but I'm not the best at applying nail varnish so I'm normally pretty pleased if they last more than a week.

Sarah x

100 Happy Days - Day 26

Day 26 - Having freshly painted nails

Although I'm not a wiz at this, I do love having my nails painted. As with a lot of women at the moment, I love having gel polish put on....I just can't afford to pay someone to do it for me all the time, so therefore I'm trying out different home techniques.

Today's paint is from a gift set my mum got me for Christmas called Nails inc. Capsule Colours (click on the name to see where you can buy it). The set came with 8 different mini nail polishes and a full size gel effect top coat. It's a bit pricey (£52 in Boots..it was on offer at Christmas) but it does seem to give a really good effect. It doesn't give the same feel as when I go to the salon, but it's a good colour, lasts longer than normal nail polish and gives a good glossy look.

I've tried 3 out of the 8 colours and all give a really nice effect. Last week I had a really bright blue on (picked out by my boyfriend) but as I have some important meetings this week with senior people at work I've gone for a more subtle purple colour. The copper colour is also really nice, very subtle and goes with everything.

Not sure how long these mini polishes will last but I'd definitely consider buying a Nails Inc. product again in the future.

My rating: 8/10. A little pricey and not quite the same as gels, but a good product nevertheless.

Nails Inc. Capsule Colours