Review | Avon provocative plum lipstick

Before we go anywhere else, can we take a moment over this packaging please. It's slightly sci-fi and totally amazing. Instead of the standard twist up, you push up the button on the side, the lid flips up and the product slides out of the tube. It's so. cool.

I've never been all that daring in the lip department (or any, for that matter), but I feel like it's one that I want to break into this autumn. I love purple lips, so this light purple seemed like a good place to start. It was a colour my mum bought for me one Avon order and has earned a surprising amount of use considering my lack of daring. Its consistency is more like a balm than a lipstick, and leaves my lips feeling fairly noursished.

I don't know exactly what lipstick this is because the only thing on the packaging is the colour 'provocative plum'. It's quite a light pink-y purple with a slight shimmer to it, and the glossy nature means that you can't really build the colour much. I find that it tends to last about 2 hours before I notice it needs re-applying, but a bonus is that I can normally get away with not using a mirror to put it on.

I'd totally recommend looking into getting a colour like this if you're looking into branching out, plus Avon are a pretty good brand to try!

What's your favourite lip colour? Daring or neutral?

n xx

Loving lately #7

L'Oreal Paris Super Liner Blackbuster Intense £6.99

Lee Stafford Hair Growth Treatment £8.49

Nivea Lip Tin Raspberry Rose £2.10

Boots Tea Tree & Witch Hazel Charcoal Facial Scrub £4.59

Rimmel Lasting Finish Nude Foundation £7.99

Who doesn't love a good wishlist?! Recently a lot of things have been catching my eye in Boots, and budget or no budget these beauties are all things that I've either loved before or heard too many good reviews about that I just can't ignore them.

What have you been wishing for recently?

n xx

Updated make up bag

 I've done a few make up bag posts in the past, and it's been a year since my last one so here we go again! If you wanted to see the last one it's here, and what I've been using seems to have changed quite a bit since last year. This is what I'll tend to wear on a daily basis at the moment.

 L'Oreal true match foundation in N1 ivory review • the body shop instablur primer • Collection lasting perfection concealer in 1 fair • Max Factor CC under eye circles review • MAC studio concealer in NC15 review •

 Seventeen blow out volume mascara • Benefit gimme brow in light/medium review • MAC mineralize skin finish in light plus •

the body shop honey bronzer • MAC peach blosom creamsheen review • MAC quad (kid, omega, brule, espresso) review •

Do you have any of these? I hope you liked this post!

n xx

Haul | The Body Shop

A few weeks back I decided to treat myself with a few new make up bits from the Body Shop. I don't often buy their make up, mostly because I get carried away by shower gels and moisturisers on a regular basis. These were both bits that I've heard quite a few people loving. 

Honey bronze bronzing powder £13

All-in-one instablur universal £14

I picked up the bronzer in shade 01, and I was interested by this because I'd heard that it's perfect for paler skin. It's a really subtle colour that has become a staple in my daily make up because of its distinct lack or orange-y tones. The instablur primer had my attention from its launch, especially because I recently ran out of my beloved Stila primer. Though the consistency is a little weird and feels like it should make my skin oily (it doesn't, just FYI), I've noticed that my make up doesn't budge for a lot longer than other primers that I've used. 

Have you tried either of these?

n xx

Dry hair dilemma

Recently I've been having real problems with my hair. I've been growing it out since I was 16, but my hair grows like a glacier, plus recently it's been getting pretty dry and split even though I don't do much to it. I rarely use heat, and I've never dyed or bleached it. 

The best treatment for it would be to cut about 3 inches off so that it's healthy, but instead I'm going for a trim and some natural Lush lovin'. I went in and asked for the best products for my hair in the state, and was recommended Rehab shampoo and Jungle solid conditioner. I've only used them a couple of times so far, and though the smells aren't ones I would normally choose, I feel like my hair is already not quite so dry. Full reviews undoubtedly coming soon!

Do you have any recommendations for dry hair? Any are welcome, I'm pretty desperate over here!

n xx

Life lately #9

 (sorry Merima but I love this photo)

Like I'm sure I've mentioned about twenty times already, I've moved back to uni for my final year, which means the best thing ever: being reunited with my uni family. I'm pretty rubbish at keeping in touch, which is why I still only talk to about two people from my pre-uni years (shoutout to Ania because she's my favourite person ever and I know she's reading this) so september means one massive catch up with so many people. Leaving Norwich is always hard, but having my uni family makes life so much easier.

I hope you're all having a great september too!

n xx

Shellac nails | part two

 If you missed the first part of my experience with Shellac nails, you can read it here.

These top two photos were taken a week after I'd had them done. Though you can see that they've started to grow out a little bit, I was happy with my colour choice! Even after a week of the same colour I still loved my choice.

I hadn't had any chips in any of the polish, though being used to shorter nails I did start to struggle with them being a little bit longer.

Two weeks after having them done, I was definitely ready to take them off. The nail varnish itself was amazing and had very few chips- around four or five maximum, and only in small sections.

They had definitely grown out noticeably around my nail bed by now, though all the chips were around the top of my nail. The main problem that I had at this stage was the length and strength of my nails. Simply they aren't really strong enough to be the length they were (I've been trying to get them stronger for a while now), so they were catching and breaking on things. I ended up taking off the shellac polish the day after I caught and ripped half a thumb nail off with a potato peeler (sorry if you didn't want to see the bloody photo that came with this).

Even if I hadn't of shredded my thumb to pieces I think I would have still taken the polish off at this point, though I'm impressed with how long it lasted without chipping.

I've decided to do a part three about taking the Shellac polish off, so stay tuned for that next week!

Would you try these out?

nxx

Book review | the manifesto on how to be interesting

As an english student, I read a lot. I mean, a book per week plus a lot. That's 50+ books a year. I have a journal where I write reviews for myself (you don't need to tell me I'm sad I already know), but I thought why not share some reviews of what I've read? Reading is probably a bigger part of my life than beauty so it seems only fair.

So,  this book. The manifesto on how to be interesting by Holly Bourne, bought because of this girl (specifically this video) and from here. Once I'd finished it, I was left with that contented book-finishing feeling.

The main character, Bree, is a wannabe writer who's still in school and rich as anything but unpopular beyond belief. One teacher tells her that to be a successful she should consider writing out of her comfort zone, so she begins a blog called 'the manifesto on how to be interesting'. Even though it was pretty cliche in many places, I really enjoyed reading this. It was easy to get into and I read it in about a day. I won't give away any spoilers, but I thought the ending was quite realistic in that it wasn't 100% happy and content.

I'd definitely recommend this! It was a nice change from my normal uni reading to read something more young adult aimed. I gave it 4/5 stars on Goodreads.

Do you think you'd give this a read? Or any books to recommend?

n xx

MAC woodwinked

Way, way back in 2012, I bought my first MAC products, and among them was woodwinked. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it, but somehow it got lost and I only recently re-found it (and successfully depotted it).

It's a 'veluxe pearl' shade, a beautiful slightly bronze/ gold undertoned shimmer shade. MAC describe it as a 'warm antique gold'. Do I really need to say more? Though I'm a glitter fan, I'm wary of anything but matte eyeshadows, so it's a big deal that I love this. 

If you fancy it for yourself, find it here.

I think it's going to be an autumn staple for me, especially as an outer eye or crease colour!

What are you're favourite autumn eyeshadows?

n xx

Loving lately #6

I've never really been the most 'green fingered' individual. I haven't inherited my mother's uncanny ability to kill off pretty much any plant left in her care, but I never remember to water anything that I buy. After several attempts that didn't end so well (those casualties were sent to the safety of my nannie's house to recover), I decided it was time to try a cactus, which are much lower maintenance.

I'm actually in love with the three that I have; I bought the first one, which is on the left, several months ago from the Good Food Show at the NEC in Birmingham (there's an outside gardening show on at the same time), and my other two were from Homebase. I didn't want to get any that have needles on them, mostly because I couldn't see that ending in anything but pain for me. They're been surviving well so far, though I'm still keeping an eye on them in their new home on my desk!

Would you get a cactus?  I'm so in love with them I'm in danger of becoming a crazy cacti lady

n xx

Room tour | student room 3.0

So today I thought I'd give you a little look around my new house. This is the third student room I've had, and by far my favourite! I put up a tour of my room in halls, but didn't do one for my room last year because I was never happy with the way it was- it always felt like something was missing. I'm super excited to live here for the next 10 months or so!

 This was my room the day I moved in- the desk, chair, shelves, chest of drawers and bed were all provided (as well as a few bits like the lamp on the desk), everything else is my own mess!

This is how my room has ended up looking now, and I'm pretty happy with it!

 I've still got a few things I need to sort out (wardrobe, I'm looking at you) because I stupidly forgot a few important things from home like coat hangers! 

Now I'm off to read this months ELLE by fairy light with a hot chocolate, so I hope you enjoyed this post!

n xx

Review | Barry M gelly hi-shine nails

blue grape

sugar apple

£3.99 each from Boots

I'd seen these floating around in reviews recently, so I decided to give the Barry M gelly hi-shine nail varnishes a whirl when I saw them on offer in Boots (there's currently still a Barry M 3 for 2 on if you're interested!).

I picked two blues, blue grape and sugar apple because I don't have so many of those in my vast collection. I really love the finish of these, they're so satisfyingly shiny and look perfect after two coats. They lasted about 4-5 days without a top coat, but even then not all of my nails were chipping badly.

With almost 30 colours available to try, I definitely think I might try some more of these out- I really like the look of coconut and huckeberry!

Have you given these a go?

n xx