Another little something I found ;)

So you will not believe what I found the other day. Hidden somewhere in a folder on my memory still I found my birthday haul (from September) that never saw the light of day. I feel like I should put quotations around it or something. Either way, original intro included, please enjoy my very outdated birthday haul. I have made a few adjustments, were necessary.

Finally! 

It’s been a while, trust me I know, but after a brief spot of illness I’ve finally got around to it. So as some of you may already know I turned 18 on Saturday (of last year) and all I can say is that my family clearly know me very, very well. (I have left out gifts from my friends as this post was incomplete and I can’t quite remember what everybody got me, sorry!)

Disclaimer/Brightside: I may have been ill but I have had almost a week to try out each product so my opinion is 100% my own – unless stated otherwise. As usual this isn’t meant to be a show off it’s simple a haul and a collection of honest product reviews. 

1.       So first up was actually the last present from my parents that I opened.  My Mom decided to play the tease and said ‘I don’t know if you’ll like this one, we can send it back if you don’t.’ Do you recognise it? I know I did. Yes this featured on my August wish list and now it sits proudly in my bag draw.  So instead of me gushing on and on about how many hugs my Mommy received for this one I’ll just let you read again what I said last time I went on a love rant for this thing:

“If I see a bag and fall in love in an instant, it’s pretty safe to say that on closer inspection I’m going to find that it’s a Fiorelli. Whilst dragging my rather unlucky boyfriend around the bags I 

stumbled across a shoulder bag that took my breath away. Now it you haven’t already guessed, I’m a big bow fan and this does not disappoint. This bag has sparkles. It has prints. It has texture! What more could you want. And all for the not so bargain basement price of £39. But when did you ever get a Fiorelli for a fiver?” Taken from: http://www.topkattv.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/august-wish-list.html

Cue excitement! 

2.       Perfume. I thought I would do these ones after the others as I received perfume from my Mom (I say my Mom because my Dad deals with all the gadget type presents and Mom tackles the beautician in me)  and boyfriend (at the time) . The first bottle that I opened was the new Roberto Cavalli perfume. I do believe it’s the first fragrance but if not don’t hesitate to correct me. I firsts got a whiff of this perfume from a sample from which magazine I can’t remember, it may have been ELLE. It was love at first smell(?) I suppose. I have a big bug bear for people who describe a perfume by saying, ‘It’s... sweet, but musky, and fresh at the same time. It’s a little oriental, kinda floral...’ It always leaves me sitting there thinking, ‘erm, what now? It can’t be all of those.’  And yet I stand corrected, there is indeed a perfume out there that smells like all of those and more. This unique fragrance seems to be constantly changing on my skin. Sometimes it smells like chocolate, other times like walking through a meadow. It’s a wonder. 

3.       My next enthralling fragrance was one of my all time favourites that I may have carefully hinted to my then boyfriend that I loved (loved the perfume that is). I’m a big fan of all of the Christina Aguilera fragrances but By Night is definitely tops of her range for me. Beware though, this is very sweet so if you’re not a hard core ‘wish you slept on a bed of cupcakes’ type girl then I wouldn’t really recommend this as an every persons fragrance. 

4.       Whilst I love a good surprise my dear Mama kept quite strictly to a list of things I fancied. On that list was our next item, Benefit’s ‘Porefessional’ primer. I’ve been wanting to try this for a while and it certainly does the job. Pore minimising: check.  Matt: check. Long wearing: Definitely. This product leaves skin with a very very smooth base and soaks up oil like you wouldn’t believe. I decided that seeing as I’d been neglectful of my moisturiser whilst bed ridden I’d forgo this product as I was afraid it might dry out my already parched skin. Wrong! We’re talking oil slick by the time I got to college and I soon found myself in the bathroom dabbing this product on. It’s multi use with a hint of concealing power which means it can be used underneath make up and on top of foundations like a liquid blotting paper. 

5.       Last beauty related item from my Mom was the Nails Inc. Caviar Top Coat and Base Coat set. I’ve had these before and absolutely loved them. I’m a nail freak and there’s nothing I hate more than a chipped manicure. This set ensures that you’re polish is good to go all week and the top coat is super glossy. Mom also threw in a Nails Inc. Nail buffer as she knows I’m a big Nails Inc. Fan and let’s face it, why bother painting your nails if they’re not buffed to shining perfection underneath. You look after your skin under your make up, why not your nails!

So that’s a somewhat condensed version of my birthday beauty haul.

2012 is so last year!

A few, some experimental looks, that I stumbled across from last year :) Enjoy.

Au Naturel: Is it possible?

I begin this post even now with trepidation. I had a little bit of a meltdown the other day and took a vow of 'healthiness'. Read the rant: Boom! So I figured whilst I'm on my little health kick I might try a huge, shock tactics, overhaul on my current life style and revisit a few of my failed past challenges.
The first, is the Spending Ban challenge which I failed after less than a month but this time I am determined. So here are the rules that I set for myself last time:

• Whilst I will be cutting down on unnecessary spending on eating out etc this ban is mostly on beauty products. So that's makeup, clothes, accessories, perfume, skin care and body care (other than essentials). 
• Having said that I will not be buying books, CD's, DVD's or magazines or the like. 
• As stated above, I'm not going to stop all spending because I'm a student and there often isn't another choice but to eat out. However I will be sticking to plans that I have made with friends already. Cuts on leisure activity's will be enforced after these pre-arrange events have taken place. 
• This challenge will last one hundred days.
• The ban will exclude any birthdays in the next few months. Because why should my friends suffer! 
• Obviously college supplies etc. Class books, educational trips and such will have to be payed for.

I will do my best, but no promises lol. This blog has always had a fairly random post set up, but I may have to begin posting wish lists!

So the other challenge I've also failed in the past is the no heat hair challenge. I have a plan and I will get this one done. My general time frame on this is generally just as long as I can last. I will keep you updated!

Last but not least. The bare, naked face. This does not mean I'm going to stop wearing mascara but basically if it goes on my skin, then it's out. So powder, foundation, concealer, blusher. Not touching me.



So I'll see you with my apology failure post in about, two days?

Tah Tah! 

Enough is enough!

So today I had a little silent inside-my-head breakdown in a changing room when I looked in the mirror and for the first time in a long time thought, 'those aren't sexy curves.' I've always had hips, boobs and bum and happy about it too but today my body confidence hit a bit of rock bottom I realised that it wasn't about how I looked in the mirror but really about how I felt on the inside. A few months ago I made an effort to swap fizzy drinks for water, alcohol for juice and allow myself the cheeky cup of tea to flush out the system a bit more. Even just keeping the constant sugar intake down made me feel sooooo much better. But over Christmas we all let that down but moving into the end of January it's really time to break out of the winter cycle. So here it is. Chocolate is the enemy. Crisps are unnecessary grams of salt and water is my new best friend. I'm getting out the water filter and falling back in love with aqua.

That's all. Bye!

Style Icons

The general 'celebrity' concept may be a creation of the modern media minded world, style icons have been transfixing audiences since the birth of cinema and cameras making stars out of much loved legends such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and on and on. For this reason I thought I'd share with you some of my vintage and not so vintage style icons.

So let's start our style time line in 1926 with the birth of Norma Jeane Mortensen. Whilst curves in all the right places will never go out of fashion, Miss Monroe made it a statement and those hips are a large part of her ever growing legacy. She began her career with The Blue Book Modeling Agency and after doing a bit of research decided to get in with her own icons by dying her brunette locks blonde. Now I think the brunette curls give Marilyn a lovely 'girl next door' look, it's a distinctive change from plane spray painter Norma Jeane, to the icon that we all know and love. Either way, she's absolutely gorgeous and for me the reason red lips mean you feel like a million dollars.


Moving on to 1929 when Ella van Heemstra gave birth to Audrey Kathleen Ruston, later to become Audrey Hepburn. Whilst Monroe went on to become a national sex icon Hepburn to me is doe eyed innocence encapsulated in a waif frame (your not fooling anyone with that Tiffany's breakfast pastry!) Audrey Hepburn however is another icon who decided that her brunette head of the 50's had to go and replaced it with her 60's blonde. Audrey's classic look is timeless and would look just as stylish on the runway today as she did on screen 'back in't day.' 

Skipping fantastically into the 21st century two of my more modern style icons. Born in L'Haÿ-les-Roses (Paris, France, if you didn't guess) in 1982 Clémence Guichard is one of my favourite icons. Taking her mothers maiden name of Poésy she's known to the UK as Fluer Delacour in Harry Potter but she became one of my favourite actresses starring opposite Kevin McKidd in Gunpowder Treason and Plot - spectacular performances from both if you're into Elizabethan England drama - but style wise she caught my attention in Birdsong and lets face it, I would love to live that life in Paris, well perhaps without the war and abusive husband... Either way, her style is chic, sophisticated and effortless.

Image of The Month

 Last but not least my most recently born style love is our image of the month Leighton Meester. Gracing us with her presence in 1986 she got effortless au naturel down to a T. I still shamelessly covet my Blair Waldorf style dress and remain mesmerised by the Vera Wang Lovestruck advert, which Leighton is owning every time. I think what I love most about her style though is that she's such a blank canvas. She can adopt a range of different looks and still look like she just woke up fabulous.

Stay away from Chemist4U!

Bad customer service? Here’s a site that whilst you probably won’t use very often it’s good to know how truly awful it is.

    I’m a Groupon subscriber, I mean, why not? I purchased a Groupon for Model Co. and I wasn’t really very familiar with their products. However after looking on their website I decided that the products looked really nice but did cost quite a bit of money. Thank God for my Groupon! For nine pounds…. Erm, something, I got a Groupon voucher for a product worth £52.  The little set that I orders was called The Luxe Lip and Last Kit and should have featured three lip glosses and a mascara.

    Here’s where it all goes wrong. Instead of ordering direct from Model Co. you make the purchase at Chemist4You.  So I went to the site, clicked on the item, entered my code etc. did the essential double check and went to check out.

     And then I waited. And waited. And then some. The delivery time for this company is shocking. When my package finally arrived the invoice showed the item that I have ordered to be correct and yet the item I was holding in my hands was the cheaper Lip and Last Duo. Okay Sophie, don’t panic, it’s just a simple phone call to customer services. Except they don’t have a phone number. Apparently I’m not the only one to have encountered this problem as upon typing the website into Google, ‘Chemist4U phone number’ was the highest search suggestion. A bit fishy? I thought so.

     At the end of the day it was only lip gloss but it shocked me that for a company that specialises in sending prescription pharmaceutical to people’s homes would be so sloppy with it distribution. This was around Christmas time and I had been ill for several weeks which meant that the entire thing was an inconvenience I didn’t really want to handle. Therefore, in my fit of pre-Christmas rage I jumped onto the Chemist4U website and submitted what they call a ‘ticket.’ This is the only way provided on the site to get in contact with customer services. Chemist4U state that you will be sent a tracking code to track the status of your complaint. I waited days and didn’t receive one. I managed to convince myself that I must have mistyped my email address and therefore submitted another ticket explaining this issue and also the possibility that I just hadn’t received one. (And if you’re thinking ‘check your junk email,’ yup, did that too.) After I received no tracking code for my second ticket I was getting a little more annoyed.

      I waited despite this for about two weeks to receive some kind of acknowledgement from them. Nothing. Nada. Finally, with no way to contact the company I was forced to return the items with a letter of complaint. Again I have received no correct package. No contact whatsoever from Chemist4U.

      I have now made a complaint to Groupon who are trying to process the problem as quickly as possible. It’s been a month since I made my original purchase and Chemist4U’s mistake is still not fixed.

      I guess that was my long way of saying, ‘head’s up, stay the hell away from this awful site.’ Poor customer service equals the loss of customers.

Thank you for listening to my rant.

Bye Bye for now.

From Sample to Love Affair! Skinetica Anti-Blemish Solution

     Recently I’ve tried something else that I just have to share with you. Whilst I’ve never struggled with anything like acne or any major blemishing, I do, as most people, experience breakouts at various times in year. During the winter I feel like I’m constantly eating left over chocolate from Christmas and changing up my skincare routine to accommodate the ever changing weather. Together these cause my skin to just malfunction on every level. When I was having some trouble with a particularly nasty blemish on my shoulder (it can be used on your face and body) my sister gave me a sample of Skinetica Anti-Blemish Solution. The product claims to have dramatic results within three days and it’s no word of a lie.

     I was so impressed I went onto their site and ordered a sample for myself, having had this for only a day I am desperate to order a full size bottle.

      So here it is: The actual product consistency is like water. Apply it to a cotton wool pad and sweep over the face like a toner if dealing with large areas, for individual spots do the same but only apply to those blemishes. It’s gentle so don’t worry about all over face coverage. Allow the product to air dry. Once dry the solution is active for twelve hours. I apply it in the morning and before I go to bed. The product must be applied to clean, dry skin before any moisturisers or makeup but can be worn beneath both of these as it doesn’t leave a residue on the skin. I have noticed no reactions between the product and my makeup.

      What I’m trying to say is that this is very fuss free but works brilliantly. I noticed a drastic reduction in the size of spots and also the redness surrounding them.

       The only thing I don’t like about this is the smell. Don’t worry it’s very faint and will not linger once applied to the skin. The smell is a little like… if you dissolved a lot of sugar in water. A kind of sweet and a little sickly. But again, nothing I can’t handle for the fast acting miracle in a bottle.

      If you’re living in the UK free samples are available and a full size bottle (100ml) will only set you back £9.99 with postage included. Postage will be added to all orders outside of the UK.

       As this is a new company this is their only product but I really hope they will expand into other skincare products in years to come as, you can probably tell, I’m in love with it.

MUA Haulin'

If you have me on Twitter, which most of you don’t! You’ll know that I went out to Superdrug the other day for a bit of an MUA haul. After being rushed along I only ended with two products which I thought I’d do a quick review of for you. 

The first product I picked up, and this was more of an experiment. The Matte Perfection Shine Control Foundation is only two pounds which is why I decided that if I don’t like it won’t kill me to throw it out. I wasn’t expecting this product to stand up to my more expensive foundations but you can never judge a book by its cover. Some of my favourite products are very cheap so anything is worth a try even if this only became an emergency foundation. I have mixed feelings about the foundation. On a daily basis I only really use foundation or conceal on blemishes and around my nose as my blackheads are more noticeable there.  

The packaging is pretty much what you would expect. It is cheap but it’s easy to look past that. I found that on first application the product matched my skin tone well (I use the shade –Fair) as the product is fairly neutral, perhaps a little on the yellow side which is good if you’re trying to combat redness. I felt that whilst this is supposed to me matt the finish was dewier than I expected but once set with setting spray and powder the product gave a healthy glow without shine. Throughout the day I found the foundation did keep shine at bay however the finish wasn’t as good as I would hope and it became slightly patchy as the day wore on. Coverage is definitely light and would work much better for evening wear when it’s not being battered by the elements. This is the foundation I would buy if I was ridiculously skint because for the price, it’s not too bad but, as I expected, it doesn’t match up to any of my other foundations.

The second product that I grabbed was MUA’s new Fixing Mist. RRP of £5 has been reduced to £4 pounds in Superdrug which is where MUA is sold exclusively. The bottle is 85ml which seems small but is bigger than Collection 2000’s £5.99 Fix Me Up Makeup Fixer.  Compared to most budget makeup fixing sprays this is almost fragrance free. It has a slight sent but unless I’m really paying attention I barely notice this. I would have liked this to be more ‘misty’ when sprayed, as suggested by the name but otherwise this does dry quickly and I have noticed a difference in how long my makeup lasts. This was tested with my regular foundations, not the MUA one. If you’re looking for a good but cheap fixing spray or you’re new to makeup fixers this is a good one to go for as it’s cheap enough and small enough that if you don’t like the product, you having paid a small fortune for it as you would for a Skindinavia or Urban Decay setting spray.

QUICK HINT: Skindinavia and Urban Decay’s product are the same formula but Skindinavia is cheaper. 

So if you’ve got any budget beauty finds that are must haves let me know.