Pages

Monday 30 April 2012

First Lux Box **SPOILER ALERT**

Hi all,

I recently signed up to Lux Box after I'd heard that Carmine was no more.

I received my box today YAY, it feels like forever since I have received a beauty box, well apart from Glossybox on Saturday.

Here is the box


Its quite simple and sophisticated, I quite like it.

Inside it looks like your typical beauty box, nicely wrapped in tissue with a ribbon and Lux Box sticker.


And for the part you have all been waiting for....the contents


On first glance I was very happy with what was inside, I think they have done pretty well for the first box and I will definitely be keeping my subscription for next month.

First up we have 


Eldora Lashes, these are cute and will fit in with my selection of lashes I have.

Next up



Steam Cream, so cute I love this tin. It has dogs on :-) I have quite sensitive skin and don't really like trying out new creams in case they break me out or I develop a rash but I will risk it due to the cuteness of the tin. RREEAALLLYY hope I'm OK with this!

Next


MOA The Green balm. This soothes, nourishes and renews dry, itchy skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis, bumps, bites, grazes and minor burns. It also works on cold sores, as a facial cleansing balm and after shaving. This will be super handy to keep in my bag and if its any good will definitely purchase again. Its 100% natural and I'm a sucker for natural products.

Almost to the end, the next product is 


Balance Me Wonder Eye Cream
This claims to Help revitalise, smooth away dark shadows and reduce the appearance of fine lines. Now that is my kinda product. I'm really obsessed with wrinkles around my eyes, I'm only 25 and having been using wrinkle products for some time now, prevention is way better than cure. Ideally I wouldn't want to go for botox, my mums skin looks great and she has been using Nivea for as long as I can remember, I can't use Nivea because of my skin but hopefully I got some of her good skin genes.

Finally we have 


BM Beauty Eyeshadow in Her Majesty, I got two, not sure if I was supposed to but I did. This is a gorgeous pinky/gold colour with a gorgeous shimmer to it. I love this its so pretty I can't wait to try it!

So this is my box, I really like it and will definitely at least try everything from the box. I'm already excited to receive my next box.

If you would like to subscribe you can find their website here and an added note, their customer service is fantastic, especially compared to some of the experiences I have had with other beauty boxes. 

Hope you enjoyed, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Lots of Love 

CF x x x

Sunday 29 April 2012

Garnier Nutrisse Ultra Color - Intense Copper Review

Hi all,

I've been wanting to dye my hair for a while now but I've been trying to find a colour that I would like and that I wouldn't want to change after 5 minutes. I've had my hair quite a few colours, black, blue, red, purple and black to name a few but its currently a dark brown quite close to my natural colour but a bit darker.
I went into Superdrug today and saw the Garner Nutrisse Ultra colours were on offer at £7.99 for two (or £5.10 each) and on the pack it shows that you can do it on dark hair. Ideally I don't want to bleach my hair so I thought I'd try them out.
The box promises
  • Ultra vivid shiny copper red
  • Extremely long-lasting colour result
  • Intensely nourished, healthy-looking hair
Sounds good to me, hopefully it will live up to its claims.

 The pack includes
  • 1 applicator bottle of developer creme
  • 1 tube of nourishing colour creme
  • 1 bottle of nourishing after colour conditioner
  • 1 pair of gloves and an instructional leaflet
You apply the product to dry hair and leave on for 25 minutes, 35 if you have lots of greys or resistant hair.

Here is my hair before (excuse the kinks, its been tied up all day and its been raining so its a bit of a mess)





I left this on for 35 minutes, I don't have any greys or resistant hair I just hoped it would intensify the colour a little more.

Here is a picture of the results


Again apologies for the mess I jumped out the shower, blow dried within 5 minutes of getting the dye off. As you can see not much of a change. I have to say I'm slightly disappointed, its nothing like the packet, I wont be using these again, however it has left my hair feeling really soft and silky and not dry at all which is good, if it had dried my hair out I would have been gutted. 

Overall I give this product a 2/10 the 2 is purely for how soft if has made my hair and I give nothing for the colour. I can see a slight difference but its nothing like what it says on the box, now don't get me wrong I know that the colour never ends up exactly like it says but this is NOTHING like it.

Hope you all enjoyed my little review

Lots of Love

CF x x x

Saturday 28 April 2012

ELF Glossy Glosses

Hi all,

ELF recently did a promotion on one of their products, the Glossy Glosses, they are normally priced at £3.50 but if you spent over £20 they were only £1. I picked up 8 of these babies. I have wanted to try them for a while but never got round to picking any up but for £1 each I couldn't not order. 






So here is what I thought. Pigmentation wise I think they are just right for a gloss, they aren't sheer in colour at all and even the lighter shades give a really good amount of colour. If your looking for a very sheer gloss with a slight hint of colour I don't think these are for you, you will see on my swatches further down that that they do have good pigmentation.
I didn't get much of a scent from them which I like, I hate overly artificially scented lip gloss, they always make me feel a bit sick and then I end up not wearing them, they each have either a slightly fruit or vanillary (I have no idea if vanillary is a word, but it is now!) 
I didn't find them to be sticky at all which I am so glad about. I was slightly worried that they might be sticky but they aren't at all. The applicator is a brush which personally I am not overly keen on but I can live with it due to me liking the product so much, this isn't really a negative on the glosses just my own personal taste.


I'm really glad I picked these up and I think they will definitely be my go to lipglosses at the moment. The quality for them is excellent and I would happily pay the full price of £3.50 for them. I've put some swatches below so you can see the colours.


From L-R  




Berry blush

Ballet slippers

Sweet salmon

Pink candy

Muted mauve

Tangy tangerine

Dragonfruit

Wild watermelon

And as an extra special treat for you all I smushed them all together so you could see what they looked like, oh how I spoil you.


Hope you enjoyed. You can purchase these glosses here on the ELF website.

Lots of Love

CF x x x

L'oreal Lumi Maqique Foundation Review

Hi all,

I purchased this foundation a couple of weeks ago now but I thought I would give it a good trial before reviewing. I purchased it from Boots, they currently have an offer on of 2 for £14 on selected L'oreal products. The foundation was £10.99 on its own so I picked up the true match foundation for £9.99 to get the offer. A total saving of £6.98. 



I'd read a few reviews on this foundation before buying and the majority of people who had tried it seemed to give it really good reviews, I will admit that I was quite sceptical as I've never been a huge fan of L'oreal make up but thought for the price it was worth a shot.
The foundation comes in a glass bottle which I think looks quite nice, the product is dispensed by a pump which doesn't give out too much product when you press down fully and its quite easy to control the amount you get out which is good. I've had some in the past and you end up with about 3 times as much product as you need, such a waste! 
So the first morning I used it I put it on over my Revlon Photoready primer, it blends into your skin really easily and the match to my skin is perfect, this was quite surprising as I really struggle to find foundations to match my incredibly pale skin.


 The formula is really light and doesn't make your face feel caked in make up but it gives fantastic coverage, I found that I only need to use a very small amount of concealer under my eyes with this foundation as it covers up any redness on my face. I popped some powder over the top and my skin really did look flawless. It lasted until I got home from work without the need to apply anything else all day. I put it on at 6.30am and got back at 4pm and it was still perfect. 
The following day I was in a rush and didn't have time to use my powder but I still found that it lasted all day. This is surprising as I have quite oily skin on my forehead and nose so usually do need powder to help eliminate this. 
I honestly can't see any down sides to this product, I love the coverage, the colour and the lasting power and a little does go a long way so I can see this lasting me for some time. I'll be recommending it to all my friends, I really think L'oreal have come up with a great product here and it will definitely be a repeat purchase of mine.

**DON'T FORGET MY GIVEAWAY ENDS ON 1ST MAY SO GET YOUR ENTRIES IN**

Hope your all having a fantastical weekend

Lots of Love

CF x x x

Friday 27 April 2012

Soap and Glory Smoulder Kohl Waterproof Eyeliner Review

Hi all,

I have been in search for a really black eyeliner for as long as I can remember, I found a Revlon one some years ago which I loved but they unfortunately discontinued it. This actually broke my heart.

Since then I have tried eyeliners from every brand I could find and nothing has ever matched up, the closest I had was my Lancome one which still isn't as black as I would like and it still left me with the dreaded panda eye look by the end of the day.
Then I stumbled across this little beauty, whilst the 3 for 2 was on at Boots I was picking up a couple of items for £5 so needed a third item and spotted this, I thought for a fiver it was worth ago, I've spent more on eyeliners that have been naff plus its technically free.

Here is the liner






As you can see it just looks like your everyday normal eyeliner, nothing special. Although it does come with a sharpener on the end. I'm not sure if I got a duff one or if its just not very good but mine actually chewed my eyeliner up instead of sharpening it so I wont be using it again.
Now onto the liner, it is so black, so so black and it lasts all day. I have used it on my water line and it doesn't budge all day. I have also used it on my eye lids to create a cat eye effect and its so easy to apply, glides on like a dream and again doesn't budge.

Here is a swatch of it on my hand, impressive huh? :-) Okay, so not the best pictures, I'm still getting used to this camera so forgive the poor photos please. I can assure you this eyeliner is great.




Here I have compared to some of my other liners that I had handy

From L-R
Elf
Avon
Nyx
Loreal
Eyeko
Prestige
Vivo
Urban decay
Lancome
Soap & Glory
 This is just one swipe of each liner, as you can see alot of them need sharpening as they are giving quite a thick line but it is one swipe.

Overall I give this eyeliner a stonking 10/10 by far the best eyeliner I have ever used, fantastic colour payoff and super long last, I will be picking up a few more of these to keep in various places so I have one to hand at all times.
I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes a black black liner, and at only £5 I think this is a steal. Well done Soap & Glory



Thanks for reading all

Hope your having a fab weekend

Lots of  Love

CF x

Wednesday 18 April 2012

TK Maxx HAUL!!!!!

Hi everyone,

I've heard a lot of people mention recently that TK Maxx are selling packs of Stila products super cheap. My local is absolutely pants, everything has had peoples fingers poked in it or opened and damaged, not good. So I decided to go for a trip to a larger store which is 25 miles from me, I am so glad I did, I managed to pick up a few goodies.



The first thing I picked up is something that's actually at my local for £15.00, I've seen it a few times and I really wanted it but I didn't need it, I couldn't justify paying £15.00 for something that I would never really get much use out of so I've always been really good and put it back on the shelf (reluctantly) BUT I found it today for £8. That's almost half the price, could I have put it back? not a chance. The box contains 1 Mineral Shimmer 9 stack, 1 100% Natural Make-up Base
1 Lip Gloss, 1 Eyeshadow Brush, 2 Eyeliner Brush and 1 Instructional DVD.




Next item that I spotted was this W7 Nail Polish set, it was only £2.00 so thought I would give it a go. I do however feel that TK Maxx needs to get some better price stickers, they are a pain in the arse to get off. 



Next to the W7 I saw some Dead Sea Elements face wipes for £2.00, I've never seen them before so I though why not. They're OK, not great I found them to be quite dry, they were sealed so its not like they were opened but they're not as wet as I would have liked.


 There top shelf which I'm usually too short to reach actually wasn't too high so I could see some things and grab them down to take a look, first thing I pulled down was a Matthew Williamson perfume in Sheer. It was in one of their sealed plastic boxes so I couldn't smell it, normally I would NEVER buy a perfume without having a sniff first but it was only £5.00 so I couldn't say no. Its OK, I think it smells like clean clothes, when you take them out of the washing machine and they smell really clean, its kind of like that. Not sure when I will wear it, maybe summer. The bottle is quite cute though so at least it will look nice next to my other bottles.




So that was everything I spotted,  bit gutted that I didn't find any Stila, feeling a little bit down walking my way over to the till and OH MY GOSH STILA!!!!! Right there by the tills I'm pretty sure people thought I was crazy, I went for the package containing all lip products, I love Stila lip stuff. It was £7.99 for a lipstick a lip pot and a lip gloss, I love all of them but I can't for the life of me get the gloss to come out of the brush. I can only assume as usual I am doing something completely wrong.








All in all I am so happy with my few purchases, all of this including a £1.00 donation to breast cancer at the till that they scan for you it came to £25.99. Pretty good if you ask me. I'll be popping down again on Saturday to see if I can find any more bargains and Stila products, get yourselves down to TK Maxx ladies, if you find anything or already have found anything let me know, I'd love to see what other steals people have found.

Thanks for reading

Lots of Love

CF x x x

Sunday 15 April 2012

Nail Polish Collection

Hi all,

My husband has recently been having a bit of a moan about my growing nail polish collection, he thinks I have too many, I on the other hand think you can never have enough. So I decided to do a little post with my collection of nail polishes. Please comment below and agree with me that I don't have too many so I can show the other half and get him to shut up! :-)


Here we have the purples, I've tried to put them all in the correct categories according to the name but some of them I would personally say they should be in a different section, clearly the manufacturers disagree.My favourite from these are the Models Own, I love this I think it will be so cute for summer and the Accessorize on the bottom right.


REDS, ok they look orange on this awful picture but I can assure you they are all very red. Favourite of these is the glittery models own, it looks like Dorothys ruby slippers. LOVE LOVE LOVE!


Greens. Again loving the Models Own, everyone comments on how prettyful this one is and I agree, its gorge!


Oranges. Not really big into oranges as you can tell by the lack of them but favourite of these would be either fruit loop by Collection 2000 (although you do need at least 3 coats to get a decent colour) or the W7, really bright and only needs 1-2 coats to be opaque.


Blues. Aww poor blues, how pathetic looking. I really don't like any of these, I don't like blue nails and I have no idea why I purchased these.


Pinkety pinks. Some of these again look orange but there not. My favourite out of these is the Sally Hansen HD polish, I love the colour, it only takes 1-2 coats and its really chip resistant.


Golds (and 1 silver) - I bought the golds around Christmas time, my favourite is the ELF, I love this polish I really want to buy some more of the ELF polishes, I just need to get round to placing an order.


Whites. I really like white polishes but I am yet to find a decent one. All of these (apart from the art deco) aren't that good, they chip really bad and you need loads of coats to get a decent colour.


Black, grey/silver and a random brown colour. Ermmm yeah, they're grey, they're not very interested. I'm not particularly into these, I quite like the Miss Sporty one but don't really wear them that much.


Top/base coats and  nail treatments. I love love love the Nails Inc Albert Bridge top coat, it dries so quickly and leaves my nails super glossy. It also helped chip prone nail polishes to last longer! I really can't say enough about this product I love it.


Finally, some random polishes that I found after I had taken all the photos, my favourite out of these is probably the Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro. Its blue but looks black when you have it on your nails and blue in certain lights, its really pretty.

So here is my collection, counting all the above I have 103 and no doubt some strays around my house. I don't think this is excessive at all. I have a couple on the way to me that have been ordered online and have no intention of stopping :-) 

Hope you enjoyed, don't forget to comment below and agree with me ;-)

thanks for reading

Lots of Love

CF x x x