The Make-Up Tag

As everyone who knows me already knows, I have a slight obsession with make-up. It is physically impossible for me to hit the shops without splurging on a new foundation that I don't need or yet another shade of lipstick that I'll probably never wear. And when I came across this make-up tag, I thought I'd give it a go!

Skincare

1. How many times do you wash your face daily? Twice - once in the morning and once right before I go to bed.
   
2. What skin type do you have? Combination. It's a killer.
   
3. What is your current facial wash? Clinique's Rinse Off Foaming Cleanser.
   
4. Do you exfoliate? My Clarisonic exfoliates my face and I use a body scrub for my bod-bod.
   
5. What brand do you use? I usually stick to Clinique or Kiehl's.
   
6. What moisturiser do you use? I'm currently using Kiehl's Ultra Facial Cream but my all-time favourite is Clinique's Moisture Surge.
   
7. Do you have freckles? I don't. I'm not really sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
   
8. Do you use eye cream? I do - Kiehl's Creamy Eye Treatment with Avocado is my holy grail!
   
9. Do you or did you have acne prone skin? Throughout my teenage years I suffered with about six spots in total but then as soon as I hit twenty, it's like puberty struck me and I suffered with a spot once a week. My skin isn't too bad now that I've got my skincare routine sorted. I guess the pollution in London doesn't help with spots.
   
10. Did you ever have to use Pro-activ? I bought it once when I went to America on a family holiday but never really used it properly. It's probably still lurking in my bathroom cupboard, gathering dust.

Make Up

1. What foundation do you use?
   At the moment I mix Yves Saint Laurent's Touche Eclat foundation with NARS All Day Luminous Weightless foundation.
   
2. How about concealer?
   I use Benefit's Boi-ing concealer on blemishes and Collection 2000's Lasting Perfection concealer beneath my eyes as I have terrible dark circles.
   
3. Do you know your undertone colour?
   Warm.
   
4. What do you think of fake eyelashes?
   I love wearing them for special occasions but I don't see how some girls wear them every day. I struggle putting them on once every blue moon. Plus, I sometimes just prefer to put mascara on rather than fake eyelashes as my eyelashes are pretty long as it is. I'm blessed.
   
5. Did you know that you are suppose to change your mascara every 3 months?
   I did. But I always remember to forget this fact as I've had the same mascara for about a year now and never suffered with bad eye health - apart from the fact I'm blind as a bat but that happened before I started wearing make up.
   
6. What brand of mascara do you use?
   Estee Lauder. It's so good!
   
7. Sephora or MAC?
   I love Sephora and would always choose Sephora due to the variety of make up and skincare they have but since England is deprived of Sephora, I'm gonna have to say MAC. Although I do love their make up too.
   
8. Do you have a MAC Pro-card?
   A what?
   
9. What make up tools do you use in make up application?
   Brushes. The thought of using my fingers to apply make up makes me want to vomit. I've tried using a BeautyBlender but I just can't get the hang of it and always smudge my make up in the process of trying it so I gave up.
   
10. Do you use a make up base or primer for the eyes?
    I usually just spritz some MAC Prep and Prime Fix spray onto my eyes and then use my concealer as a base. I really want to invest in the Urban Decay Eye Primer but every time I remember to go buy it, they've sold out.
    
11. Do you use a make up base or primer for the face?
    I do. I hate wearing foundation without it. You can definitely tell the difference in the application and finish without a primer. My favourite one is Benefit's Porefessional but I'm using Yves Saint Laurent's Touche Eclat Blur Primer at the moment and love it!
    
12. What is your favourite eyeshadow (colour or shade)?
    I don't have a specific eyeshadow colour that I love but the Urban Decay's Naked Smoky contains all my favourite shades.
    
13. Do you use pencil or liquid eyeliner?
    I use pencil for beneath my eye and liquid for the eyelid as I find pencil is easier to blend and I always prefer more definition on my eyelid and then a blended finish beneath my eye.
    
14. How often do you poke your eyes with an eyeliner pencil?
    I've mastered the art of eyeliner pencils now so I very rarely poke myself in the eye. Unless I'm putting make up on drunk.
    
15. What do you think of pigment eyeshadows?
    I love them. I only ever use them on big, special occasions though as I always make a mess so I need lots of time to make sure I can correct my mistakes. When I do pigmented eyeshadows, I always do my eyeshadow before foundation.
    
16. Do you use mineral make up?
    I do when I'm having a good skin day as I find it gives a more natural look.
    
17. What is your favourite lipstick?
    My favourite lipstick is MAC's Honey Love. It's a gorgeous matte nude!
    
18. What is your favourite lipgloss?
    I never really wear lip glosses but in New York, I accidentally picked up an Yves Saint Laurent lipgloss, thinking it was a lipstick but I tried it and I like it - it's the Rouge Pur Couture Vernis A Levres Glossy Stain in Rouge Vintage.
    
19. What is your favourite blush to use?
    I use NARS' deep throat. Naughty.
    
20. Do you like drugstore make up?
    I went off it when I could eventually afford high end make up but now I've discovered Make Up Revolution and I'm definitely swinging back to drugstore make up.
    
21. Do you go to cosmetic company outlets?
    I've never been to one but I'd love to. Might put that on my summer bucket list!
    
22. Did you ever consider taking make up classes?
    Nope. Why take make up classes when you can sit watching hours of make up tutorials on YouTube for free?
    
23. Are you clumsy in putting on make up?
    I'm not clumsy. I just can never do one eye the same as the other or one brow always ends up more defined than the other.
    
24. Name a make up crime that you hate.
    Eyebrows so defined that they look like they've been drawn on with Sharpie.
    
25. Do you prefer colourful shades of make up or neutral ones?
    I prefer neutral ones for an every day look but colourful shades for nights out.
    
26. Which celebrity always has great make up?
    Beyoncé, but then again, she has great everything.
    
27. If you could leave the house using just one make up item, what would you use?
    Tinted moisturiser.
    
28. Could you ever leave the house without any make up on?
    I always leave the house without make up. It's very rare these days that I actually can be bothered to put make up on.
    
29. Do you think you look good, even without any make up on?
    Nope. I definitely need make up.
    
30. What do you think of make up?
    Love buying it. Love wearing it. Hate putting it on. I need to be in the right mood to put it on. 

Shopping Haul.

I was good this payday and I didn't spend any money the day I got paid. So I rewarded myself today with a huge shopping trip. And I did a bit of damage. And ultimately proved to myself that I should not be trusted to go shopping alone. But since I’m sat by the phone, waiting to find out if my best friend’s given birth to my nephew yet, I thought it was the perfect chance to do my first ever haul and share what bargains I got.. as well as a few ‘you paid how much for that?!’ products.

I have, however, decided that since I kinda went mad in Lush, I thought I'd do a separate Lush haul later on in the week. So this is going to be an everything mashed together haul without Lush. A bit of beauty. A bit of skincare. A bit of accessories. A bit of everything. 

ENJOY!

Victoria’s Secret

I haven’t been in Victoria’s Secret for absolutely ages. And there is a legitimate reason behind that - they discontinued my favourite perfume ever ‘Dream Angel’. But walking past it today, I thought it was time to get over that grudge as it’s been well over two years and sometimes you just have to forgive (but not forget). So I wandered in and headed straight to the fragrance section to see if they’d brought it back.. but they didn’t and my heart cried a little until I realised they had the Victoria rollerball for £22 (WOO!). I’ve wanted a rollerball for absolutely ages as there’s nothing worse than trying to fit a 50ml perfume bottle into a clutch on a night. And I’ve never found a rollerball perfume I’ve actually liked, until I saw the Victoria rollerball in New York City but for some crazy reason, I didn’t buy it. So when I saw it today, I didn’t need to think twice. I bought it. 

Then I saw the Weightless Body Oil in Shea. I’m constantly moisturising during the dry months which seems to be all year round with England's weather in recent years. And moisturiser is great but I’ve always wanted to try a body oil in case that gives my skin something that moisturiser doesn’t - don’t know what that something could be but you never know. So I got the small bottle for £6 to give it a try as it smells amazing and I'm hoping it makes my skin feel as amazing as it smells. 

Harvey Nichols 

I’m already a self-proclaimed shopaholic so going into Harvey Nicks wasn’t exactly my greatest move, especially when it’s filled with all my favourite make up brands. I’m literally a child at Christmas when I go into any department store. But I was on a mission to get two things from MAC and two things only. Yet I left with four things and none of those four things were the two things I actually wanted. Bloody typical. 

So I actually wanted to get the faux lipstick and whirl lipliner as I’d heard such good reviews about them online and really wanted to give them a try myself as I’m addicted to nudes.. Maybe I should rephrase that.. I’m just a big fan of colours that aren’t really bold and too in-ya-face. Yet I left with the matte honeylove and matte sin lipsticks for £15.50 each and two lipliners - subculture and vino - for £12.50 each. I guess I need to head back to MAC to get the lipstick and lipliner that I actually wanted to get in the first place.. Oh dear, what a shame. 

Honeylove with Subculture as a liner is a more subtler nude than my favourite MAC combo - Velvet Teddy and Spice.

I guess I kinda went against my love of nudes too with buying the Sin and Vino lipliner combo as it’s quite a deep dark red tone but I saw it and then realised it was matte and it seemed to speak to me spiritually so I had to get it. 

Superdrug

Like with Victoria’s Secret, I haven’t been in Superdrug in absolutely ages. And it isn’t because I have some trivial grudge on them - I just prefer Boots for drugstore make-up and I’m a Boots point hoarder. But after seeing people raving about Superdrug’s latest brand addition, ‘Make Up Revolution’, I thought I’d switch up my shopping habits and pop into the Leeds store. 

..And writing this, I’ve just realised I forgot one thing I wanted to get from Make Up Revolution’s collection. I really need to start writing shopping lists. Anyway..

So if you’ve never heard of Make Up Revolution before, it’s a budget make up brand that has some pretty good quality make up ranges. I’ve heard amazing things about the pigments in their highlighters so I wanted to pick one of them up. Luckily for me, I got there just in time as there was only one vivid baked highlighter left in the shade of peach light - the one I wanted. I couldn’t wait to try it so the minute I got home, I put some on over the top of my make up and was amazed at how good it is. It’s got such a high pigment and a lovely highlight to it, and for just £3 you cannot go wrong at all. 

I wasn’t intending on buying anything else (apart from the pigment pots that I fricking forgot) but thought I’d have a little look at the palettes as I’d heard such good things about them too. I ended up falling in love with the Pleasuredome one. It wasn’t the smoky colours that I fell in love with as I’m pretty satisfied with my Urban Decay Naked palettes, but the aqua green (sell it by the hour) shade. I’ve always loved putting green on my eyes on nights out as I find green compliments dark brown eyes so well, but I’ve never found a shade that has been right. So when I spotted this green and realised it was reduced from £6 to £4, I thought now was a better chance than ever to give it a cheeky try.

And then, just as I was about to pay, I noticed the B. Makeup Brush Cleanser for £4.99. As it is, I always wash my make up brushes twice a month but I feel like I need to clean my make up brushes every time I use them as they always get so dirty, especially my eyeshadow brushes. So buying this was perfect for an every day solution in between my bimonthly washes. 

HMV

Even though I have Spotify and iTunes, I have still been one for buying physical copies of albums, especially of artists I love. My CD and DVD collection is pretty impressive for a 21 year old but since I’ve not got round to sorting out somewhere for them all to live permanently, I’ve been reluctant recently to buy physical copies.. until my mum asked me if I had Justin Bieber’s recent album. Being a diehard Belieber until I was about 19, she was surprised when I said ‘no’ so when I saw it in HMV today, I got it. And I could hardly refuse HMV’s 2 for £15 offer so also chucked another album into my basket - my bae, James Bay. Now my mum’s buzzing cos she got both Jay-Bee’s to put on her iTunes.

Primark

Spring has hit England, meaning that it can be really rainy when you leave the house.. like today.. but then it can get blinding sunshine without no notice.. like today. So when I got to Leeds, I knew I’d have to get some sunglasses as the sun really isn’t my friend when I wear contact lenses. I’ve never been a Primark-aholic but I do have to admit that I love their sunglasses so that was my first port of call when the sun got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray (yes, I did sing that out loud several times to make sure I had enough ‘hip’s to my ‘hooray’s). 

So the first pair are like a silver frames avatar style pair and I will feel like Tom Cruise in Top Gun when I wear them. And these were only £2 so I was buzzing. And because they were so ridiculously cheap, I thought I'd get another pair too. This time in a Victoria Beckham over-sized style for £1, which I thought would be fab when I hide hangovers in the approaching sunny months. I think my bank balance was beyond chuffed with my purchases too. 

Sadly I got out the shop and it started raining again so I didn’t get to wear them but hey ho, that’s England for you.

Lovisa

Leeds is special in many ways but one of my favourite ways is Lovisa. If you’ve never heard of Lovisa, it’s an Australian-based jewellery company that do some amazing accessories at amazing prices and when I saw that Lovisa was having a sale, there was no holding me back.

I had my ears pierced back when I was five years old and absolutely loved my little stud earrings. I even had to endure my first heartbreak after losing one when I was eleven years old. After that, I took the other one out and let them heal up, too mortified to look at another pair as I’d never love anything as much as that pair.

I’ve just realised how dramatic I make my life seem, especially with the Victoria’s Secret discontinued perfume grudge and this Nicholas Spark novel plot between my earrings and I.. I promise, it wasn’t that bad. I cried for about two minutes until I realised I had SATs the next day and then cried about that. I wasn’t reaching for the Ben and Jerry’s and Bridget Jones boxset, just yet.

But then this Christmas, I got given a gorgeous jewellery set that had a pair of matching earrings and I thought I’d have a go at re-piercing my ears. Three hours of screaming and about two pints of blood later, I’d done it. So when I saw that Lovisa had a whole wall of earrings on sale, I thought it was time to stock up on different designs. 

The photo doesn’t really show it well but the top set labelled £2, that were.. would you believe it.. £2, are actually rose gold and I’m pretty much addicted to anything rose gold. I’m like a magpie for rose gold things. So, obviously, they had to be mine. And at £2, I didn’t have to break the bank at all. 

Then I thought, the loopy loop ones were quite adventurous for me so I thought it was safer to go for five sets of small stud earrings that I could wear on an every-day basis, not just on wild nights out. I got (left to right) a pair of rose gold ball-ey ones (there’s probably a better name for them but I think ‘ball-ey ones’ has a certain sort of vibe to it), a pair of clear jewel stud ones, matte lilac stud ones, infinity sign ones and then a smaller rose gold stud set. These were £1.50 each, or 5 for £5. Absolute B A R G A I N!

Kiehl’s

I am absolutely loving Kiehl’s this year. After purchasing, and falling in love with, Creamy Eye Treatment with Avocado for £20 in winter (that was coincidentally featured in my Winter Favourites blog post), I thought while I was out, I might as well get another pot as mine is running low. The store was also advertising the Ultra Facial Cream so I thought I’d give that a go. At £24, it was a pretty expensive ‘give it a go’ but I was willing to pay that because of how amazing the Creamy Eye Treatment is. 

Boots

Boots is definitely my favourite ‘drugstore’ store in England and every shopping day I have seems to consist of me wanting everything in sight. But today, I was good, I resisted and I only bought four things. 

Let’s start off first with my favourite mascara in the whole entire world. At the moment I am using an Estee Lauder one as my Benefit They’re Real one ran out but after some inspiration on a night out this weekend, I thought I’d get another one as I loved it so much. At £19.50, I don’t think it’s ridiculously expensive for a high-end mascara, considering some brands can be in the £30-£40 range and it is such a good mascara. 

I also got another Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish for £14 as I noticed this morning that my current one was running a little low and my local Boots doesn’t stock Liz Earle *ultra super sad face*. Then, at the Liz Earle counter, I realised Boots had an offer on where you get 500 points when you buy two Liz Earle products. This was a no-brainer for me so in went the Liz Earle Instant Boost Skin Tonic for £14.50 Just as I was about to prise myself away, I saw the Liz Earle Intensive Nourishing Treatment Mask for £15 and it ticked every metaphorical box that I had on my list for a face mask - something I’d been searching for for ages, so that went in too. I decided to stop there, even though I’d miss out on a second points boost. It took a lot of willpower. Believe me. 

..But that is it. Along with my Lush haul, that is everything I bought today. Phewwww.

I am pretty confident though that I’m gonna love using the majority of the stuff I bought and, who knows, maybe some of the products will feature in my Spring favourites if I love them that much. Watch this space for reviews too!

Anyway, I’d better go back to waiting around for news about my best friend and the stork’s delivery! Hope y’all enjoyed snooping as much as I enjoyed splurging!