Primark & Essence Bargain Beauty

 A little while ago I picked up some new basic makeup as the pieces I've been using I've had for months (bad, very bad). I'll be fully honest here the reason I am so excited for this post is because of the beautiful purple roses that made my shots look professional. I always stick with the same brands, colors and pieces so I went straight for Primark/Penny's to their Essence stand to find my usual, and was surprised with my results.

As I said I always go for the same Essence pieces and that includes my mascara, although this time I went for one a bit different and boy am I glad I did. Eyes are my main focus when I do my makeup, I want them to pop and be the focal point. With this mascara they certainly are. I love a good dark lash and this mascara offers a vibrant black and even curls and gives an extension of the lashes.
Roughly €3.50

This one, I always go for the same, although I went slightly lighter this time. Roughly €4.50 I can't quite remember although I think it may have been cheaper. I live for soft touch mousse it was actually one of my first ever makeup pieces as my mum used it and I followed suit. I usually apply foundation first and then a light layer of the mouse to give a complete flawless soft coverage. If you've never tried mouse I can't recommend it enough as it really lives up to it. There are higher priced alternatives available but I find Essence and incredible quality and affordable brand, plus they're cruelty-free.

Lastly, I picked up this new foundation, stepping out of my comfort zone to try a new brand which was the Primark/Penny's P.S for just €3.50. I can not shout from the rooftops enough how AMAZING this smells, I mean smell is just as an important factor as everything else, it is truly beautiful. I barely use as much as I would normally as a tiny amount goes a long way with fantastic coverage and another amazing thing is the lasting effect, it lasts an entire night out (and even through to the next day, but we don't fall asleep with makeup on, and pizza in our hands) without any need for finishing spray which I would normally use. 

I'm a proud bargain beauty user, are there any bargain brands that you use without fail? 

Autumn Make Up Essentials- Blogtober Day 3

For me, Autumn is all about warm tones and this time of the year would be the main time I would actually colour coordinate my makeup with a season because the colours popping on your face puts your whole Autumn look together. Oranges, Reds, Browns, basically all the leaf colours were seeing along the paths, on your eyes and lips, there our go-to Autumn colours and look. 

 As I have blue eyes I've always been told orange toned eyeshadow is my colour and when I really want to make my eyes pop it's my go-to colour, so Autumn is even more of my favourite because of this. My Body collection palette is my main Autumn, it has all the dark warm tones that a girl could need. 

I would normally start with a brightish orange on my lid, working a dark brown into the crease and darker brown into the corner and it gives a gorgeous Autumn smokey eye.

Of course, Autumn means deep dark popping lipsticks. I think every girl has that go-to red lipstick that puts their whole look together. But lately (thanks to our girl Kylie) dark plums and marroons are becoming a statement look, and what better time to whip them pouts out than Autumn where they will match all those woolly jumpers and hats.  Using red for my first time was daunting as its such a pop of colour but once you master the red you then get the confidence to try more colours and it's totally worth it. I would now say dark plum or red colours are one of my favourites to wear. 

The Colours I have picked out for Autumn are a dark brown from Active, Deep Red from Technic Colour Mix, Majesty Matt from P.S at Primark, and two Rimmel Londons 620 & 880. 

Along with all those pops of colour, of course, we need 'da highlight thou'. Everything about Autumn is warm, and bronzer couldn't be made more perfect for just this season. Dark tones of foundation and bronzer, that you wouldn't have in Spring or Summer, again make the whole of your Autumn look fit together. Also adding that bit of highlight on your nose, cheekbones and other places you like gives us the glow of a new season. My freaking amazing bronzer and highlight set is from Sunkissed and called Sculpt and Glow. 

So they are my must-have Autumn makeup essentials. I really enjoyed making this post as it's my first ever flat lay photos and organising and laying everything out, theming it all with Autumn was so interesting... And then sorting through the 200 photos to find the right four. 

I hope you enjoyed this post, 

What are your must-have makeup pieces for Autumn? Leave me a comment below. 

Flower Braid Hair

I'm all about being unique and unusual if that's what is you and when I got my side shave I finally felt like 'yup this is the real me'. I just love the BoHo look to the side shave and its uniqueness and after starting to grow it out I decided I would let it continue growing for awhile and see what my next hair adventure would be. Now anyone who has had a side shave or undercut knows how crazily annoying and difficult it is to grow out (picture puffy short hair in all directions on just one side of your head).

It has taken months to even be able to have some control over the hair that is growing out and I'm at the stage where I can start to sort it out into something a little less, well, "shit what happened to your head?".

Now I am no hair expert, that is more than safe to say, and have no skill with doing hair at all. But I have always wanted to be able to do little daily styles that are cute and just less, hair-sitting-on-head-looking-like-nothing, ya know? So I sat down and was determined to make my short growing back hair into little plaits kinda like cornrows (but nowhere near as good). I'll be honest, I don't even know how many times I tried this and how long it took me but I am somewhat happy with the result.

Not at all how I was imagining it to look, but hey not to bad right? 

So seeing the result let me start to see it as a Bohemian look and thought "hey haven't I got little hair flower things somewhere?" and behold another step to the amazing hair tutorial... 

Quite alright don't ya think? I was pretty chuffed with how it turned out and thought it was a cute little hairstyle showing my personality (and also hiding the dodgy side shave). 

Now I can tell you this, I am not able to recreate this look, this was a once off on the day I was actually able to make a hairstyle seem a bit more than like a 5 year old did it, but perhaps it might inspire some of the greats out there (let me know if it does because man I gotta see that).

Bargain Beauty Buys

Cara Pharmacy and their bargain make up brands will always be a godsend to me, and this time I 'popped in just for a look' I happened to find some of the cutest amazing little products.

First up has got to be the one I am most excited about this incredible Sculpt and Glow palette by Sunkissed. I've always been on the search for a really bright good pigmented highlighter and the second I saw this palette I knew it was the one and for only €3.50 I couldn't let it pass. I can not describe how soft and full of colour this highlighter is. It is so strongly pigmented you only need the tiniest of amounts to give a strong effect. Excuse me while I drool over it, there is not enough words for this you just have to go get one immediately.

The second product I picked up was this Playboy bronze bunny matte powder. Again I have been searching for a good finishing powder as the one I've been using has been dropped (continuously). The fact that is Playboy I know its a good brand and the fact its also a bronzing powder is a bonus for this pale skinned Irish girl. Another bargain at just €2.50.

Make Up Storage/Organisation

After going out the other night I was met with this mess (see picture above if you dare) and got some serious organisation going. I have this four drawer storage boxy majig from Asda for years and so I divided it into eyes,lips,face and nails and made some rather dodgy looking signs because I do love to label. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                  The eye drawer has to be my favourite because its the one I use the most and it happens to be the easiest to organise. I basically keep all my mini palettes stacked, eyeliners,pencils and eyeshadow sticks in a bundle and a few odd jars of glitter and shadow along with my lashes neatly at the bottom.

                                                                                                                                                                                                               The Face drawer is a little unorganised to be honest its quite hard to organise things that don't well.. organise. I just try to keep it neat with my foundations, primers and concealers at the back and powders and bronzers at the front. 

 Now the lip drawer quit instantly screams PINK which is a bit pointless as its not my colour at all and I rarely wear it. Most of the lipglosses and lipsticks I've been giving but I keep my two favourite ones at the front and they are my Deep Red Technic Colour Max and Spotlight Beige 620 Rimmel London Moisture Renew.

 

I keep my palettes stacked beside the boxy majig so there within grabbing distance when I'm doing up the face. 

And there you have it for my makeup storage/organisation.. its nothing fancy but my inner OCD me likes to keep things organised and I'm pretty sure most girls do.

All dressed up... and nowhere to go

With College over all my old school friends are back home and we decided to head out to a UV Party one night. Now I rushed home from work and literally took two hours getting ready because I fancied getting really dolled up (my first time wearing a crop top, really not sure about it but YOLO right) and went all out. When I finished getting ready obvs it was time to upload a made up selfie to Facebook.. and heres where I learn't the event had been cancelled. After much debating about bothering to go out at all (it was a Thursday night nothing was on) we finally decided to just go for a drink and see what was happening (absolutely nothing literally 8 other people in the bar and never seen town so quiet). Anyway the main point of this post is to share my make up pictures because I am soooo happy at how it turned out. I'm not the most girliest of girls and makeup is something I wouldn't call a skill of mine but through a lot of practice (and much taking it off and redoing it) I managed to look somewhat different (my age for starters, no more being called 13). I learn't that orange tones bring out blue eyes so that was my main focal point and I kind of just went from there...... *insert way to many selfies 

Bargain Beauty Buys

On my recent trip to England I couldn't believe the bargains I picked up on makeup products. It's a good thing I only had minimal room in my case on the way back or I'd be in dept by now.

First up is this amazing Technic 2 in 1 colour fix powder and foundation compact. Now if they name didn't describe it enough its basically a supper handy compact powder and foundation set with a mirror also. I was looking for a perfect powder and the fact that you get both with this was perfect. I picked this up for £2.79

 I fell in love with this Technic eye shimmer sticks the minute I seen them and it was extremely hard to choose between all the great colours. I went for neon blue and deep purple my two favourite colours. The thing I love most about these is the fact that there soo unbelievably easy to use, a simple stroke with one of this across your lid and it looks like you spent ages on eye shadow.
I got these for 85p each.

When I seen this amazing Body Collection highlighting bronzer I thought it was pure genius. I'm not good a bronzer at the best of times and when I seen there was this easy to apply liquid version I knew it was for me. I picked this up for £1.47

I saw this incredible Body collection eye shadow palette then luckily enough came across a broken one that was reduced to £3.45 which was incredible because all that was wrong was the pin on the lid. I absolutely love the colours on this palette there so deep and eye catching and its every colour you could possibly need.

 


This deep dark Technic ColourMax lipstick is by far my favourite thing I picked up. I really love red lipstick but it totally doesn't suit me. However dark colours seem to be okay and this shade was absolutely perfect. as you can see from the picture I started using it straight away. I got this for 85p. 

Relaxing Sunday

Today I did a Spa Morning for myself and my Mum. Along with candles,incense,face masks, hand masks and Relaxation music. We had the most relaxing morning and I felt so amazing and refreshed after. We will deffo be doing this more regularly. It was also just a really nice thing to do with my mum and we had a great time.

Products used:
Spa World Dead Sea Minerals Face Masks
Soap&Glory The Righteous Body Butter
Tea Tree and Peppermint Hand Pack
Tranquil Moments Relaxation CD