FOTD: Field Trip!

I had lunch on a beautiful cruise ship in sunny Dover yesterday (Oceania Regatta) so I had an early start, but still wanted to look my best and ensure that my make up had staying power.  Here's me:

I used:

• Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Ultimate Wear Foundation in Vanilla 1.  It's oil free and is SPF 20.
• MAC Studio Finish Concealer SPF 35 in NW15
• i.d Bare Minerals SPF 15 Foundation in Fairly Light
• e.l.f Blush in Tickled Pink
• Prestige Skin Loving Minerals Sunbaked Mineral Bronzing Powder in 03 Pure Shimmer
• Urban Decay e/s in Sin - my favourite champagne colour of all time and MAC Sable in the crease.
• Maybelline Lash Stiletto Macara
• Lancome Le Crayon Kohl in 01 Noir
• Revlon ColourStay Eyeliner in Brown - I've just discovered I love using this on my brows.
• e.l.f Luscious Lip Liquid - doesn't have a name but is a baby pink.

Some snaps from my little field trip - I love escaping from my desk!  Not strictly make up related, but I did get a salon snap in there! 

The White Cliffs of Dover

The Beauty Salon - my favourite place!  Lots of Laura Mercier, OPI and Kerastase

Double loungers - how cute! I want one, but then I'd need a garden!

Beautiful ceiling in the library

Why doesn't my office water cooler look like this?!

The dining room where we lunched

Versace crockery don't you know?!

Warm Crushed Baby Potato With Chive and Caviar
...Sadly I'm not a fan of Caviar, it was my second try of it,
and I maintain that it tastes like licking a rotten wet fish 
(not that I've ever done that, but I have a good imagination!).  
Spuds were great though :)

I always get the beef.  Before this I had Lobster Risotto and Polenta 
Souffle with Black Truffle...I was too busy chowing down to take pics!

Warm Vlarhona Chocolate Bouchon (filled with Passion Fruit Lava).  Divine.

Petit Fours - I had to have the pink mini macaroon - I'm hooked!

Primark Mini Haul

I headed to the Hammersmith Primark at the weekend in search of the 'mini sactchel' tan bag but they were out, so it's the Oxford Street branch next.  That place is a vision of hell after work, but I REALLY want the bag!  I've never been able to leave Primark without buying one piece of tat or another, but I was pretty restrained this time...

Yummy!

This smells divine and is more glossy than creamy.  I prefer to use it on it's own rather than as a balm as it wouldn't help lipstick stay on.  However, a bargain at £1!  

I expected this mascara to be useless but picked it up anyway as I don't have any in a squishy tube. Eyeko have a similarly packaged mascara but I never got to try it before Superdrug discontinued the line.  I think all mascaras should be in squishy tubes as loads gets wasted stuck to the side of a hard tube, like Urban Decay's Primer Potion. The brush is small compared to the trend towards giant brushes in the last couple of years.  The the formulation feels a bit dry and therefore starts to clump after the 2nd coat.  However it holds the curl amazingly and actually looks better in real life than in the photos.  The pictures were taken without any other makeup on to show the full effect of the mascara.  I don't mind a bit of clumping when I've got eye shadow and liner on as long as my lashes look long and full.  It was a bargain at £2.


This facial exfoliating sponge looks exactly like the Boots No7 version (£3.50) but only cost £1 for a pack of two.  I have the No7 one and remember paying something like £7 for it!  A bit of a rip off as it's very harsh on the skin and I only use it once a month if I feel my skin is very clogged.  Don't use it before going out as it makes you quite red!  Surprisingly the Primark copy is much better - it's slightly softer and therefore I don't feel like I'm scrubbing off three layers of skin, but it still exfoliates and refreshes your complexion.

My other £2 bargain was this pretty brooch.  I love still love bows even though they've been done to death on the high street.  I suppose the diamantes will fall out in a week, but there are so many the bling factor will still be high even with a few down! I'll stick it in a sweater for work or one of my light macs.

And finally, my ultimate tat find was this cute kitten matching mug and coaster set - again, £2!  I already have a tea tree of cat mugs, but you can never have enough.  I'm moving in the with the man soon and will bring this cutey with me...I can't leave my mum AND take the cat mugs with me!  Now, I'm off to look for that bag...

What's been your best Primark tat find recently?

May Favourites: Long Lasting Gems

May Favourites

I've been very busy at work this month so I haven't had much time to play around with different looks in the morning and have been sticking with a few firm favourites to get the job done.  I'm ashamed to say that last week I put my make up on during the bus ride to work, twice.  The downside has been low-key eye-liner application (pencil only) but one upside is that both times my bus literally flew to work and only got held up at one of the 4,536 traffic lights on my journey.  The universe always give you the opposite of what you want!  Anyway, I digress.

1. Miss Dior Cherie: I have too many perfumes, they're going off quicker than I can use them up before they go bad, so I get a lot of satisfaction from finishing a bottle.  My friend Rachel got me this for my birthday a couple of years back and most girls will be familiar with this scent by now.  The bottle is adorable and one I'll keep on my dressing table.  Before I got this perfume I used the copy of it - Katie Price's Stunning and no one could tell the difference.  More recently Next has released a dupe of it called 'Diamonds' and the packaging of it is more KP than Dior.  I'll do a comparison of them soon.

2. Escada EDP: It's been a bumper month for finishing up perfumes, but I'm very sad about the end of my lovely little Escada.  I carry this around in my bag to reapply during the day and lingers much longer than Miss Dior Cherie.  I have weird Teflon skin to which no perfume will stick! Escada perfumes are limited edition so I wish I'd bought the larger version of this when I saw it in the airport two years ago. It's quite a mature scent one of those late 1980s/90s feminine but strong numbers in the same vein as Givenchy's Amaridge.

3. Clinique City Block Sheer SPF 25: This is my second tube and is one of those products I will always have around.  The sun came out to play a good bit during May so I dug this tube out.  It's essentially a tinted moisturiser with sun block.  I like the idea of a tinted moisturiser as sometimes I don't want to wear thick, heavy foundation, but most that I've tried, like Benefit's You Rebel in Light make me a comic orange colour.  The Clinique one is just light enough for me and I can get away with wearing powder over the top as it evens out my skin tone and disguises mild redness.  It sinks into the skin quickly which is excellent as it is SPF 25.  I need to wear sun block everyday, but some products are so greasy any make up you apply over them slides down your face by elevensies.  I'll give a more in depth review of this product in my sun block overview.

4. Revlon ColourStay Ultimate Lipcolour in Prized Peach: Until I discovered the joys of long lasting lip colour I neglected my lips.  I would spend ages making up my eyes and applying loads of gossamer thin layers of face products, but my lips would be lucky if they got a swipe of lip balm.  This is despite having a drawer full of every type of lip product you can imagine! I don't have the patience to reapply lip gloss ten times a day, so this Revlon lipstick, which has the consistency of a gloss is great, it last a good couple of hours at least.  It is supposed to last longer than that, but of course the advertising spiel is never realistic.  I like that even though it's a bolder colour than I normally wear it doesn't make my lips look smaller than they are, which I find happens with darker lipsticks.  It is quite drying on the lips, but my lips tend to get dry anyway as I'm not an obsessive lip glosser.  I just put a moisturising lip balm on first, pat off any residue which would interfere with the ColourStay's adhesive properties and my lips are done.

5. Lacura Foundation in 10 Transparent: This featured in my last FOTD and really deserves it's own review.  It costs around £3 and is my favourite foundation.  The colour, scent, consistency, coverage and staying power are leagues better than other pricier foundations.  I wish I lived closer to an Aldi!

6. MUA eye shadows in Shades 1, 11 and 12: These too featured in my last FOTD and since I've been keeping my make up simple this month, they create the perfect 'work' eye.  They are very durable, especially if I use a concealer or eye shadow primer on my lid first.  They're only £1 each and far more pigmented than most MAC eyeshadows.  They're more comparible to Urban Decay shadows and these three are all pearlised.  However, I swatched a few matte ones in Superdrug and the quality was not as good.  

7. MAC Technakohl Liner in Graphblack: Despite owning enough eye liner to draw around the world twice I added this to my collection at Christmas after hearing tales of it's amazing staying power, especially on the waterline.  I'm all about durable products and so far this hasn't disappointed.  It's a true black and lasts longer than most eye liners, although my Revlon ColourStay is very good as well and is in identical packaging.  However, eye liners last for ages so I didn't mind forking out more for the MAC one.

8.  i.d Bare Minerals SPF 15 Foundation in Fairly Light: This also popped up in my last FOTD.  I keep resolving to finish up all my liquid foundations and then only use mineral for everyday and keep one liquid product for special occasions.  Somehow I think I'll always have a box of foundations! I'm just too curious when a new shiny products gets realised with promises of giving you perfect skin!  I do like using mineral powder foundation on it's own as I have oily skin and it's easier to match to my skin and avoid the dreaded orange tide mark, but if I don't use it with a pollyfila-type primer, like L'Oreal Studio Secrets Smoothing Resurfacing Primer it emphasises my pores too much.  This month however I just put a light dusting over it over liquid foundation to set and stay put in the warmer weather.

9. Nails Inc. polish in Picadilly Circus: I got this nail polish ages ago with Glamour magazine and it's one of my favourites.  It's an unusual deep mauve-y dark pink which finishes shiny.  Plus you only need one coat and it doesn't chip as quickly as drugstore polishes.  I tend to wear this on my toes as I hate the look of dark chipped colour on my fingernails. 

10. Nails Inc. polish in London: I got this nail polish with the Diet Coke offer (click link to go to review) earlier this month and have been wearing it on my fingernails most of the time since.  It needs two coats to look it's best and finish off with a coat of clear to gloss it up and prevent chipping.

Don't forget to comment below and tell me what long lasting gems you've discovered!

FOTD: My Stupid O'Clock Look

Forgive my slightly tired/fed up expression...I had to get up much earlier than normal today...TFI Friday!  I didn't have much time to get ready so only used the basics - a mix of high and budget products, I'm not a make up snob!

I'd just blow dried my hair - damn errant flyaway hairs!

What I used

Moisturiser: Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturising Gel.  It's an okay moisturiser but not worth over £20.


Cosmetics: 
1. Lacura Beauty Foundation in Shade 10 - Transparent.  It's from Aldi, it's the cheapest foundation I own.  I love it the most! Upcoming review.
2. Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Ultimate Wear Concealer in Fair 1.  This is also the cheapest concealer I own - and I love it the most! It covers dark circles fabulously and is very creamy.  My Mac Studio Fix can be very drying.
3. i.d Bare Minerals SPF 15 Foundation in Fairly Light.  I sometimes use this as my foundation alone and layer it on thick and buff in with a kabuki.  But I used it as a finishing powder today.  Unusually for a powder, it makes you glowy.
4. MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Light Flush.  I got this as part of the PinkzaPoppin set over Christmas.  It's a good bronzer for my pale skin, not too pigmented or orange.  I gently contoured my cheekbones with it.
5. MAC Mineralize Blush in Dainty.  Again it was part of the PinkzaPoppin set.  It's such a pretty colour but sometimes I feel it's a bit too coral and iridescent for me.  I could have applied it with a heavier hand today as you can't really see it in the photo.
6. ELF Eyebrow Kit in Light.  ELF is one of my favourite budget lines.  I use this with a small eyeshadow brush rather than the one supplied and shape my brows with a clean mascara wand.  I used to use a pencil but this kit is a lot better and reminds me of Benefit's Brow Zings.
7. MUA eyeshadows from Superdrug's new £1 range.  Review to come!
All over lid - Shade 1 - a wonderful pale gold highlight colour - FAVOURITE PRODUCT USED.
Crease: Shade 11 - pretty pretty mid brown, a bit like MAC's Sable.
To darken crease further: Shade 12 - a very multifaceted colour - browny/charcoal with a slight teal sheen.  Beautiful. 
8. Revlon ColourStay Eyeliner in Brown.  I used this on my waterline.  It doesn't irritate and lasts well.
9. Revlon ColourStay Liquid Liner in Black Brown.  Very easy to do a cat's eye with this.  The colour stays!
10. Shu Uemura eyelash curlers.  I don't rate these at all but use them given how expensive they were.  It's all hype. My H and M £2 pair are leagues better.  
11. L'Oreal Extra-Volume Collagene Mascara.  This one's a bit sloppy and doesn't help curled lashes.  Thickens and lengthens decently.  No clumps!
12. No7 High Shine Lipgloss in Shine.  This was one of those freebies you get when you spend a certain amount with No7.  It's the first lipgloss I've seen with an SPF (15).  Pretty, pigmented colour and quite thick, which I like.  Not keen on the tiny brush though. 


Perfume: Dior Hypnotic Posion - my all time favourite.  More of a 'night' perfume, but I wear it anytime. 7am? Bring it on!


What's your favourite go-to everyday product?