July Haul

Hi all,

This is a collective haul of things I have picked up since getting paid so pretty much throughout July. I'm going away a week on Monday, only in this country but we still want plenty of spending money so no more buying until our return. 
Most of the items are budget friendly but there is one that was a bit of a splurge for me. 

I've tried my best to separate them into their own categories. So lets get started

First up we have essentials, I picked up these Sure deodorants from Boots, they were half price and around £1.57 each. I've tried the white and purple one before and really like it so I thought I'd give the black one a go too.

I also picked up one of the Natural Collection Body Sprays, these are only £2 and thought it would be nice to pop into my bag for work and this Ice Musk one is quite lovely. I remember use these in high school so it brings back some nice memories.

On the subject of essentials I spotted these, I have another Balmi lip balm but its the round one and I was intrigued to see the shape of the actual balm on these cube shaped ones. If you too are curious keep scrolling!

The No7 products are the BB Lips in Blush Coral and the High Shine Gloss in Tangerine Twist. These are £8.50 each and are both SPF 15.

Exciting stuff or what? The new shape of these is this conical shape. I've tried the mint one, its not that great. It does tingle but its not that minty which I would have liked, here's hoping the strawberry one is better.


I don't really need any body stuff so just picked up these two, its a Soap and Glory scrub of your life mini, just for me to take away with me. These are about £2.50 at Boots. The sachet is a 2 part foot buffer and butter. With the weather being as it is the old feet are constantly out so we need to get them in tip top condition. This was 79p from Home Bargains.

I didn't even realise until I went to pay that because I got 2 products I got a free gift which was a nice surprise. Its a rather cute and summery plastic make up bag, its actually a really good size and I think I'll be taking it away with me. All my bags are fabric so are a nightmare to clean if something leaks whilst your travelling but this will be a quick wipe down.

As an added bonus the bag actually contained some No7 products too. 

Now I'm no too sure on the eyeshadow but everything else I will definitely use. There is a 10ml primer, a 10ml tinted moisturiser, an eyeshadow, a travel sized mascara and a full size lipgloss in Coral Kiss. I'm not usually a fan of the No7 GWP but I think this one is great and considering I only spent £17 for all this I think its a bargain. 

I've been looking for a good primer for a while and spotted this Dr Jart one in Boots, I really like the BB creams from this brand so I decided to give the primer a go. Its £18 from Boots and I will be doing a review on this shortly as this is one of the first things I bought and I've been using it everyday.

I also saw these Garnier Moisturisers in Boots, they were buy one get one free and £5.99 each. I went for the gel formula for dull skin and the lotion for normal skin. I've tried both and so far I am loving the lotion! A review to some on this one shortly too.
I wont go too far into details about the last item, the Nivea BB cream. I really do not know what I was expecting with this, lets just say the effectiveness if reflected in the price. This cost £3.99 from Tesco.

I needed a cheap waterproof mascara for work, Mayebelline was on 3 for 2 at Boots and I wanted two products from their line anyway so I figured what could be cheaper than free right? This is the Great Lash mascara in black and it cost £4.99. I have seen some people rave about this mascara so I thought it was worth a shot. The two items that I was purchasing anyway were the 24 hour color tattoos in Metallic Pomegranate and Pink Gold. These were £4.99 each, so these two plus a mascara for under a tenner. I think that's a good buy!
I also watched a video on Youtube, I didn't catch her name unfortunately so I can't tell you who she was but the Miss Sporty Mascara was in a favourites video of hers. It was £3.49 and is called Lash Millionaire,its an all in one and claims to give you rich volume, breathtaking length and virtually perfect lash separation. These are some pretty strong claims for a mascara under a fiver so we shall see how this stands up. 
Finally was just a mascara from Max Factor, I do like most of their mascaras and this was on offer for £4.99, its the Wild Mega Volume mascara in black I haven't tried it yet but I'll do a review as soon as I have given it a test run.

Last but not least was my cheeky splurge purchase. I've wanted this since getting a sample in a Glossybox about a year ago but just never bothered to order it. I've been looking in various places at hair masks and treatments and decided to just take the plunge.

I'm pretty sure everyone will either know or will already have the Philip Kinglsey Elastisizer, I absolutely fell in love with this and I was gutted when my sample ran out. Always one for a bit of a bargain I spotted that the 1000ml bottle was much better value than the smaller sizes so I opted for that one. You can find this here on the Feel Unique website. This bottle is £62.90 but the value is £107. Bargain. I've never tried any of his other products so I got some of the sample sizes of the shampoo and conditioner to try before committing to a bigger size. These are £5.05 each on Feel Unique for 75ml and they are actually a really good size to try before splashing out on the bigger sizes or just to take on holiday with you. 

I hope you liked my little haul, if there is anything here you would specifically like to see a review on please comment below.

Pixi Early Bird Kit Review

Firstly I will start of by saying that I love Pixi make up, everything I have ever used from this brand have always been amazing, from the packaging to the quality of the product. I have never had a bad word to say. I was really hoping my review on this product would be the same, unfortunately not this time.

 

This is the Early Bird kit, I picked it up from Boots, it retails for £16 but has a value of £64 if you look at everything individually.

I thought the packaging was so cute and as I've always loved their make up I thought it was definitely a good investment.

 

Its really sweet and girly packaging and when I opened it up I wasn't initially disappointed with what I saw, you'll see what I mean with the next picture.

This looked like a whole lotta happiness in one small palette. It contains 3 blushers, 2 bronzers, 1 highlighter, 4 eyebase powders and 16 eyeshadows. That in my opinion is a serious bargain for £16.

However after looking a little more closely I didn't feel that the palette was of such good quality that I am used to with Pixi products, the pans were loose from the palettes and were lifting out of the palette for starters which slightly disappointed me. 

I overlooked this and just tried to push them all back in being careful not to break the powders, this helped slightly.

The blushers, such pretty colours and I love the printing on them

The eyeshadows and eyeshadow base colours (central) you can see slightly what I mean about the pans here.

Bronzers and highlighter again lovely colours and printing on the product, I really like that they do pay attention to small details.

Now, here is what let the product down, possibly the most important thing, the pigmentation. Some of them are as usual really good quality and have excellent pigmentation but others are just not good at all. Some of then I couldn't get anything from them at all and others were just picking up glitter and no colour. Here are a few swatches of the better colours.

I attempted the lesser quality ones but I was essentially just photographing my arm and that seemed rather pointless.

The reason I am being quite negative on this product is, although £16 for a palette containing so many products from Pixi is quite cheap, there are lots of other brands out there that offer cheaper products that are much better quality than the duff ones in this palette. 

Would I buy it again? No, sadly not but this hasn't put me off Pixi as a brand and I will still be checking them out on my next Boots visit.

Have you tried this palette yet, or any product from Pixi?

Quick review of Natural Collection mascaras

I recently repurchased some of the Natural Collection mascaras from Boots. They are a Boots own brand product and are super cheap. Some of the products in the range aren't that great but these mascaras are fab, and for £1.99 each you can't go wrong.

Firstly I'll apologize for the really crappy photos. My camera is playing up at the moment but I wanted to get this post up.

Here are my naked lashes. I wanted to show how the mascara works so I didn't curl them before I just went straight in with the mascara.

This is the Natural Collection Lashlength Mascara in black. It definitely lengthens and separates my lashes and much better than some of the more expensive ones I own. 

This is the Natural Collection Lash Build mascara. This again lengthens and separates my lashes but also adds some volume too. 

Have you ever tried the Natural Collection mascaras? I used to be a bit of a mascara snob and only purchased high end mascaras but not too long ago decided to try out high street brands and I'm so glad I did because I've found some fantastic mascaras 10 times cheaper and just as good as others that I've tried.

Whats your favourite high street mascara?

Hello_TerriLowe A BOOT-iful Giveaway

This is my entry for a giveaway by Hello, TerriLowe, you can find more details of the giveaway here on her blog!

I thought this was going to be super easy to do, I'm really picky with shoes. I will usually go onto a website and only be able to find one or two pairs max that I actually really like so choosing is never really too difficult for me. I went on to the Barratts website to find the shoes that I would buy if I won the giveaway and it has taken me forever to do. They were so many shoes to choose from that I actually really liked but here is what I came up with.

I went for heels for the upcoming Christmas season. How could you not love these bad boys. Sexy and stylish with some rock chick studs. 
The boots I thought would be great for winter with either leggings or a dress with tights. I love the ruching and the oversize buckle, they look super comfy, really stylish and good quality. What more could you want?
Finally I opted for some flats, I could use these for the office or for a casual lunch with the girlies. I really like the beading at the front, I think it makes them look a little more dressy that plain black pumps.

All these 3 pairs came to a really surprising £67.50, I'm sure you'll agree that is an absolute bargain for 3 quality pairs of shoes.

Which shoes would you buy?