Of Love and Lipstick

Hey guys! It's the end of the month and that means it's time for....JANUARY'S FAVOURITES! Yes, here I will tell you all what I consider to be my favourite products for the month of January. Can you believe how fast this month has went? It's like time has been put on fast forward, which I'm not complaining about; get me closer to Florida and all! 

Lush! Lush! Lush! I do love me a good rummage around in Lush. I still consider myself quite a newbie when it comes to Lush products. I've really only tried their face masks: Cupcake and Catastrophe Cosmetic. I cannot say for sure what my favourite is, as I've only tried two. The thought of smothering my face in chocolate was too tempting for me to deny any longer. When standing at the fresh mask stand, at the weekend, my eyes kept drifting back to the chocolate Cupcake goodness. One whiff and I was sold! That chocolaty minty goodness took me back to winter days with a mug of my favourite mint hot chocolate...mmm.

I am totally in love with this and could not wait to try it out. I saw it sitting oh-so innocently in Tk Maxx; upon which I had to dive on it before anyone else saw it BareMinerals, and anything similar to that standard, is hard to come by in my local store, so this was amazing. I was worried that it was going to contain totally weird and obscure shades but no!

It's rather unfortunate but here in the UK Sephora does not exist. There are no branches. For this reason, I was so freaking happy to find these hidden away at my local Tk Maxx. These came in a set of four and were in the clearance at £10 (BARGAIN!!!). The four shades, in order are: Cover me in Petals; Set the Mood; Ms. can't be Wrong, and  Only Gold for Me.

Most of this haul comes from Tk Maxx and I make no apologies for that. It is no secret that it is my absolute favourite shop to find little amazing beauty bargains. I also like that fact that I could chance upon some exclusive brands from America, which are not stocked here.

From time to time I do enjoy a good crafty project. I've never got enough time for something really intricate, so I thought I'd do, quick lip scrub. I decided to experiment with lip scrubs (due to an overabundance of sugar in my baking cupboard). My end result was a blue peppermint lip scrub, which looks pretty good from the picture above.

Firstly, many apologies to those who have started their new year diets. I have been wanting to start a baking series like this for a while; but life's been getting busier. Baking is a big part of me; I'm the families baker, which is strange because I can't cook. Bake = YES!. Cook = NO! I don't know how that works. This is technically a brand new baking book for me. I bought it well before Christmas but I've never used it yet. It contains recipes from countries all over the world (as the front cover says), such as Africa and India. 

The real question should be what's NOT in my makeup bag. Haha! I quite literally carry all my everyday makeup in this bag. It's just a large cute floral patterned bag from Primark. It stays on top of my Ikea nine drawers and holds all my everyday makeup. It's so much easier to reach for the bag instead of rooting through my drawers searching for everything. 

American Apparel Core hoodie  £40 / Wallis short sleeve top , £14 / Petite jeans , £76 / Easy spirit shoes , £35 / Tignanello backpack , £71 / Turquoise jewelry , £39 /  Wallis gold earrings , £3.30 / House of Harlow 1960 sunglasses , £99  University has just started up with a bang! Two essays in the next couple of weeks. I need to get me a bunch of posts written to schedule as my precious time is going to dwindle quickly. The next in my 'Get the Disney Look' series.  It's based on Jasmine from the Disney film Aladdin. I love this one as it is all turquoise and gold; my two favourite colours in the world. I seem to LIVE in these colours during the summer. 

I can't remember when I first became aware of the Korean beauty brand 'Etude House', but DO remember being in absolute awe of their super cute packaging. It's all very girly and pink.  Before Christmas, as I was doing some research, I discovered that months earlier Etude house had brought out a collaboration with Disney. To me this was a match made in heaven. In the collab, there were four sub collections that were each based upon a Disney princess; Snow White, Belle, Cinderella and Jasmine.  After a thorough look on eBay I discovered that some pieces of the collection was available; making me squee with happiness.

A riella Couture Sky Blue Gown , £725  / Giuseppe Zanotti high heel sandals , £1,045 / Tom ford Jennifer c lutch, £1,095 / Marchesa snowflake diamond ring , £6,555 / Allurez white gold snowflake necklace , £1,009 / Marc Jacobs daisy perfume , £52 / Topshop nail polish , £5 Next in the Disney series is Elsa, from one of the best Disney films 'Frozen'. This is my most recent collage; I quite literally finished this less than an hour ago. Elsa is considered to be one of the stronger females in the Disney franchise, teaching girls to not hide who they are (and that they don't need a prince to be amazing!).

One of the Christmas presents that I was most excited to receive was the Soap and Glory 'The Next Big Thing'. It's tradition for someone in my family to gift me with small Soap and Glory products, so to unwrap this was a big surprise. The box is very large; perfect for anyone to use for storage purposes after you hve taken the products out. It is covered in a graphic design pattern by Hattie Stewart, quite similar to a hot pink leapord print (I recieved the online exclusive edition). The gift box contained TEN full sized products, yes you heard me, TEN FULL SIZED! The combined price of all the products reached £76, but this was ordered for me when it was a Boots Star Gift at £29. The box contained:

I have to talk about my new favourite everyday  lipstick!  The golden metallic case makes the product feel very luxurious and, when I got this, it was the only one in gold I owned which made it stand out. It doesn't feel like it's a cheap material either.

One of my New Years revolutions was to make myself stick to a good skincare routine. Before, I never done much skincare; I'd just wish my face with plain soap and water. I knew that my skin was never the smoothest, or clearest, but it never bothered me before. Reading other people's blogs have let me see just how important it is to take care of our skin. This has lead to my most recent purchases (even though ALL my money is supposed to go into my savings).

Hey everyone I love Makeup Revolution! I first revieved some products not long after Black Friday (I got the free Black Friday bundle!), and so far I have been very impressed. So much so, that I now have a wishlist of other products that I need to buy and try. Blush Palette - All About Pink The description on their website: ' Celebrate the amazing PINK Blusher with this amazing palette. Mixture of matte, shimmer and baked merged powders.Comes in professional palette with large full sized mirror.'

I thought that I'd start a series of full makeup looks; showing you how I looked before and after. This means that, unfortunately, my face will be plastered all over the post. I thought I'd start with a simple, glam look with cat eye eyeliner and bold red lipstick.

Hey guys! Not the post I expected to me posting today, but I found this in my queue. It was supposed to be automatically posted on the 2nd but for some reason it has not. It's technically only a few days late.  I'd like to use this post to introduce you to what I chose as my favourite products of 2014. I chose a range of beauty/skincare products instead of just sticking to only makeup. I thought it allowed for a more rounded off look at my favourites instead of being 'OH! I like all these lipsticks and...' I hope you enjoy!

Spotty V Floral £35, Christian Louboutin Lady Peep £610, Valextra Handy Clutch £745, Amrita Singh East Lake Earrings £26, Ela Stone Louise Ring £85, Lanvin Band Choker Brass £55 Hey everyone! Just a quick update today; nothing too in depth. This is my next Disney collage, I know everyone is sick of them by now. This is Minnie Mouse inspired. here is no specific movie to base it on, so I drew inspiration from the classic Disney Minnie that you would find at Disney World.

Good Afternoon So one of the gifts I received at Christmas was the Urban Decay Naked 2 Palette. It cost me £37, which is a substantial amount of money but I feel that it's a good investment for the future. As I am still very much considered a makeup 'newbie' I was not quite sure of the difference between the three palettes. An incredibly helpful Urban Decay representative took me aside an explained them throughly before suggesting that my pale skintone suited the Naked 2 more.

Aidaan Mattox Sequin Dress £190, Migid Satin Ruffle Clutch £16, ABS Pave Starfish Studs £22, Olivia Rubin Cuff £5.77, Orelia Shell Pendant £7.44 Happy New Year to you all !!! May 2015 be AMAZING! And onto the first post of the year...