FOTD| Daily Routine

This is my first face of the day post, and I must admit that I am pretty nervous about revealing pictures of myself without makeup for all to see, but I guess we can't look our best all the time! This is in fact the pictures from my day at London Fashion Week, but it only occurred to me now that seen as I did an outfit of the day post for that, I might as well try FOTD too. Anyway, this look tends to be my daily make up routine, as it is quick, simple and easy to achieve in 10-15 minutes, I must confess however that although I alternate the products I use from time to time, this has actually been my makeup routine for the past few years, ah well. So once I have exfoliated and cleansed my skin, I then begin applying my makeup, personally, I am not really into using primers and toners for day to day makeup and I am also not a fan of using several different brushes for application and really like to keep it simple, only using my finger tips, powder and face brush. I start by using two foundations and using mostly the 'classic beige 201' and mixing in a tiny bit of 'natural beige 400' to darken the colour a little, without being too orange! I really like the 25 hour foundation as although in my opinion it most certainly does not stay on that long, it does remain on for most of the day, is light on the skin and effectively disguises spots and blemishes. Then I set my foundation using '002 pink blossom' powder, I also use this throughout the day to avoid shiny skin, again the product is very light to wear. I then use scandaleyes lycra flex mascara, as my eyelashes are pretty long naturally, I prefer volume enhancing mascaras, the thickness of this brush means its perfect for me. After this I apply '050 live pink' blusher, although this is quite a vibrant shade of pink, I think by applying just a little of it works very well, use with caution though, nobody wants bright pink cheeks! To finish my look I finally apply either some lip balm (nivia/ eos/ Vaseline) or lipstick, at the moment I am particularly into MAC cremesheen crème cup, a lovely light pink colour. What products do you use daily? :)

Make-up used (all Rimmel London) :
- 201 classic beige- 25 hour lasting finish foundation- £4.99- Bodycare
- 400 natural beige- 25 hour lasting finish foundation- £4.99- Bodycare
- 002 pink blossom- stay matte powder- £3.99- Boots
- 050 live pink- blusher- £3.99- Boots
- Cremesheen crème cup lipstick- £15- MAC

PRODUCT REVIEW| Benefit Browzings

Honestly this is my new favourite product at the moment, best thing is I didn't even need to pay £23.50 for it as my friend has kindly let me have it as she isn't too keen on it! Usually I am not a big fan colouring in eyebrows as I think some people take it a little too far with the 'scouse brow', nobody likes big pencilled on eyebrows do they?! However I recently tried this on a wim to see what I thought of it and was pleasantly surprised. The wax and powder combination makes it not only perfect for filling the brows in with colour and shaping and taming with wax, wax is particularly good for adding colour and the powder for setting. The kit also comes with tweezers and two brushes, the first for shaping and the other for blending, ensuring perfected brows! The product also comes in different shades, so having medium brown hair the medium shade was perfect for me, but I am sure anyone will be able to find a suitable match to their actual hair colour. Although the kit comes at a high price of £23.50, which compared to other eye brow pencils/ crayons/ powders and gels is very expensive, however I really do highly recommend this product even if you have to do some saving! The brows are left looking full, tamed, and shaped perfectly and most importantly, they look natural! :)

Benefit Browzings- £23.50- Boots

LONDON FASHION WEEKEND

This one is a super long post guys! But hey, I have a lot to talk about today! Sorry that this post is a little late, but I have been super busy in the past few days and haven't really had time to upload pictures and write this post so anyway, here it is. Last Friday I decided to go to London Fashion Weekend at Sommerset House, it was amazing. Honestly it really was one of the best days of my life, not only did I have the rare opportunity to go to London, but I got to take a look down Oxford Street, took a look around the sights, hiked across Soho, browsed some georgeous designer clothes AND attended a catwalk show! Busy day ey. Yup my train from Leeds was 8:45 am and I only got back into Leeds at midnight, so I was veryyyy tired, but it was really worth it. So to begin this post I thought I would share with you a few pictures of the day...

Below are some more pictures of the catwalk. The show featured 4 trends, (I covered these trends a earlier this month).

 

1. Precious Metals from Antonio Beradi, Balmain and Marni designers. This was my favourite trend as the models looked so amazing in their metallic, and it just showed that anyone can carry it off, depending whether you want a bold and daring look, or a quite subtle look, there is a way to wear metallic for everyone to try!

2. Flower power designed by Erdem, Jonathan Saunders and Preen. They designed vibrant floral printed garments which definitely got me excited for the spring.

3. Lace Embrace designed by Christopher Kane, Diane von Furstenberg and Oscar de la Renta. Gorgeously designed skirts, tops and dressed which had some gorgeous textures, such a wonderful trend, and so girly!

 

4. Finally,  the catwalk ended with a trend called Good Sport. It is a style designed by designers such as Alexander Wang, Peter Pilotto and Stella McCartney. The clothing style gave something very masculine a feminine feel, broad shoulders were created and big sport jackets were a highlight, keep your eyes peeled for rah rah skirts! 

 Next is some pictures of some of my favourite items I found while browsing the designer clothes. The event allowed us to look around Sommerset House to look at all sorts of designer clothing and accessories, which to be honest were very out of my price range, but hey, it was so much fun browsing very expensive garments! Some of my particular favourites where floral and tropical prints, metallic, pastel and bright colours and silks, as well as the huge array of bags, purses, sunglasses, shoes and jewellery!

 I should probably also mention my OOTD. One of my most favourite aspects of visiting London Fashion Weekend was that as soon as I walked in, there were people everywhere dressed in the most beautiful outfits I have ever seen, some outfits were perfectly styled and others were very daring, from huge head pieces to tiger head rucksacks, it was evident that everyone there had made a super big effort! As for me, the outfit I chose to there was not my idea outfit, as I had to travel all the way from Leeds to get there it firstly would not have been practical, secondly I really didn't have the time to get ready and thirdly, I think I would have felt a little bit silly wearing a fancy outfit on a train, tube and buses! So I finally decided to go with a monochrome look, my boxy top was cream with a zip back and textured material, my black jeans had a silky gloss finish, I wore my favourite cut out boots, beloved leather jacket as it was a little chilly, my big tan bag and finally accessorised with a chain and gem necklace and my trusty Michael Kors watch.

Leather jacket- Topshop/ cream zip back boxy top- New Look/ black jeans- New Look/ cut out boots- Ark/ necklace- Dorothy Perkins/ watch- Michael Kors/ bag- Topshop

 

So to end this post I am also going to share with you the bits and bobs I picked up while shopping, I couldn't go to London and come home empty handed now could I? Firstly with my London Fashion Weekend silver ticket I managed to get a free tote bag designed by Julien Macdonald, which was filled with all sorts of goodies. Firstly there were pamflets and cards for money off and discounts, then there was coffee from LFW sponsor Lavazza, free 'beauty bar' that tasted so nice (and was surprisingly healthy) from their other sponsor, and most importantly I got some free beauty products including a mini Essie nail polish which is a lovely glittery shade of green, a Maybelline baby lips lip balm in cherry, and some dry shampoo from the catwalk sponsor Label M, luckily I managed to get the one especially for brunettes, I am yet to try it! On entry I also received a free lanyard with a map and schedule of the catwalk which I will definitely use again!  If any of you went and got the gold ticket, I am intrigued as to what was included in the goodie bag for that ticket?

When shopping I also picked up an eos lip balm from Selfridges which I love. Seriously it definitely lives up to the hype. The scents are beautiful, the design is so cute and they are perfect to pop in your handbag, also they come in many different colours, being me I chose pink of course! And finally, I had a mini splurge and bought a Ted Baker purse which I picked up for £65, very expensive I know and being a student I definitely could not afford it, but hey it is my new favourite accessory! As this comes in many different colours I was torn between the nude pink and the mint green, as I am so indecisive after at least half an hour of consideration I went with pink, which has a cream leather interior and silk money pouch and such a cute clasp. Did you visit London Fashion Weekend? :)

 

Inside My Nail Polish Box....

I have been meaning to do one of these posts for a while now, but I have only just got round to getting a clear colour wheel to use, so anyways, in a half hour of boredness I decided to get on with this post! Basically, this post is about the contents of my nail polish box, and I have used the colour wheel to show you the colours, it's just not the same in the bottle! It may not be a huge collection, but honestly it was a lot bigger, unfortunately when I came to look through this box a lot of them had unfortunately dried out over time. As you can see from the pictures below, there is a distinct set of colours that I tend to go for when I am choosing my nail varnishes, when I am out shopping the colours that tend to catch my eye are pink, glitter, purple and red, and there a couple of blues thrown in there too! Anyway, I wasn't really sure how to edit the image so that I could display the nail polish brands and colour names, plus it would have taken forever considering that there are 18 of them, so I have included a mini list below with reference to the bottom right colour wheel, starting with the gold and working round to the right. What is your favourite nail varnish? Leave me a comment below, I love reading your comments! :)

(Bottom right image starting with the gold and working around to the right)
'suffuse'- Topshop/ 'blue moon'- Barry M/ 'cyan blue'- Barry M/ 'purple haze'- Models Own/ 'St James'- Nails Inc/ 'cobalt blue'- Barry M/ 'daredevil'- Topshop/ 'jem'- Topshop/ 'raspberry crush'- Models Own/ 'luna love' space dust- Rimmel London/ 'magenta divine'- Models Own/ 'toggle to the top'- Essie/ 'silver fox'- Models Own/ 'gold finger'- Models Own/ 'what's up'- Topshop/ 'peach melba'- Barry M/ 'pink flamingo'- Barry M/ 'pink flamingo' color show- Maybelline.

MAC Lipstick Collection...

Recently I have come to realise that I may in fact have a minor addiction for buying M.A.C lippies! I don't know what it is about them, but seeing row after row of beautiful lipsticks I can't help but try a few out, and of course, that leads to a purchase or too. What I love about MAC in particular is that they are such great quality, I love how they come in different textures such as matte, satin, and crème sheen. I currently have a small collection, the first, is viva glam 5, a shimmery lipstick which is designed to bring out your natural lip colour and leave them with a lovely gloss finish. Number 2 is crème sheen crème cup, which I have heard is very popular. For day to day use it is perfect, I am a massive fan of nude/pink lips and this one is just beautiful! For evening wear I have Ruby Woo, every girl needs a red lipstick in their make up bag and this one is so bold, the blue under tones also ensure your teeth look whiter too! The only thing with this one is that you do need to apply a lip balm before using to ensure a smooth application as the texture is matte, I use a Nivia lip balm or EOS balm, I would stay clear of Vaseline and carmex though as they are a bit runny and I find they can sometimes make the lipstick run a little. Finally is my most recent purchase, the satin Rebel lipstick. The colour is a deep purple/ pink colour which I love, I had never been too bold with lipsticks before and used to just stick to neutrals, but having bought Ruby Woo, I thought, why not?! Apart from the £15 price tag which is definitely very expensive, they are definitely worth it, I must admit I have not yet bought into the whole range of cosmetics as this would definitely be a dangerous buying addiction! Do you have any MAC lipsticks? Do you have a fave?

Matte 'Ruby Woo'- £15
Satin 'Rebel'- £15
crème sheen- 'Crème cup'- £15
Viva Glam- '5'- £15

PRODUCT REVIEW| essie nail varnish

I had never tried this brand of nail varnish before, for one of the main reasons that it is quite an expensive brand compared to others under £5 such as Maybelline and Barry M, Essie nail polishes tend to be £7.99. I couldn't resist. When I spotted this nail varnish I just fell in love with the colour, which is shade 'toggle to the top', it is a deep red colour and has a little bit of glitter in it also to add a touch of sparkle! I really love the appearance of this nail varnish, and it's application is so easy, Personally, I only think that you need to apply 1 coat of this nail polish as it is quite thick, it looks great! I also used my boots points to purchase this nail varnish so I just had to buy it! What do you think of this nail polish? What is your favourite nail polish brand? :)

Essie 'toggle to the top' nail polish- £7.99- Boots

PRODUCT REVIEW: Neutrogena pink gapefruit daily scrub

For me, I must admit I don't really have a "beauty regime", if I am honest I don't even know where to start. Face wipes, makeup and the occasional use of moisturizer are about as far as I go when it comes to caring for my skin. However, since I have been reading more and more beauty blogs I have started to realise how important it is to look after your skin and so last week I took a leap and bought a daily scrub. I didn't really know what I was looking for as I stared at the endless amounts of face washes and exfoliators on offer, if I am honest the only reason I bought this is because it was pink and smelt good! This product really is useful though, I tend to suffer from a few blackheads and spots here and there, and since using the exfoliator it has left my skin not only clearer, but so so soft! With some exfoliators the solution can sometimes feel a little 'grainy' and can be rough and harsh on the skin, but with this I didn't think it was too tough on my skin at all, yet has reduced my blemishes and dry skin patches within just a week of use. The product also smells so beautiful. The only downside of this product however is that I can sometimes suffer from oily skin, and have to powder my nose and chin areas half way through the day, and I have found that my skin has become more oily since using this product. I have however decided to stick with using this product morning and evening, twice a day as it smells & looks great, is effective and cheap! I would definitely recommend this... what's your favourite skin care product? Any recommendations? :)

Neutrogena Visibly clear pink grapefruit daily scrub- £3.99- ASDA