Amazing!!

Now, as you may already know from my other posts, I am a HUGE fan of Clinique. Their mascara and makeup remover are two things I simply could not live without! So, can you imagine how happy I was when with this months Marie Claire I found you get a free 7ml sample bottle of their repairwear laser focus serum!

This, I'm guessing, is the new formula they have brought out to update the existing version of the serum (which I was already a fan of, but haven't used in about 6 months) which is quite expensive. I mean you're looking at between £30 and £40 for a 30ml bottle. But it was pretty good. It claimed to help reduce the effects of sun, pollution, stress and late nights, and also smooth wrinkles, even skin tone, moisturise and hydrate. Now that's a lot to expect from such a little bottle. I'm not sure if it really did all that, but using a couple of drops twice a day did leave my skin feeling soft and smooth, and maybe a little brighter.

This new sample that you get, however, claims to be the new and improved formula. So as it was a free sample in a magazine I buy anyway, I was more than happy to give it a go.

I've only been using it for 4 days, and if I'm honest, I have seen a huge improvement in the skin on my face. Even my other half (who is normally completely oblivious to such things) said this morning how good the skin on my face looked. Not only is it smoother and softer, but the skin tone looks more even and the shadows I always have under my eyes in the mornings were virtually non-existent. I was absolutely amazed!

The tiny sample pot of only 7ml is even lasting me well, and I reckon that if I use it twice a day, every day, it will last me around 2 weeks, maybe a bit more. You only need a really small amount to cover your whole face.

It feels thin and lightweight, completely non-greasy, and yet deeply hydrating all at the same time, and I'm not normally a fan of serums! I'm even trying to persuade the other half to let me buy a full sized bottle of the stuff.

Once again, I have been fully converted to a Clinique product. I know they tend to be on the pricey side, but I do believe that for that you get an amazing quality of product, that lasts long enough to make it more than worth it. I'm a dedicated fan!

Review time.....

The original formula: 4 stars

New and improved formula: (an amazing!) 5 stars!!

That's all from me tonight, so once again thank you for reading!

Love to you all x

My MUA Trial....

The other day, I asked a few people, and put a tweet out, asking whether MUA make up was worth a try. I've read a couple of reviews on it, and everyone seems to love it, but for £1 for most products (the most you will pay for a make up item is £4) I was skeptical that you could actually get any kind of quality for that. But, I did decide to give it a go, so I went and bought a few items and figured that if i didn't like it I'd only wasted a few pound.

I can't give you a photo at the moment, as my camera broke, but what I got was MUA face powder, 2 eye shadows in dark grey and silver, a glittery black eyeliner, and a shimmery pink lipstick. All together, this came to £6.50. Not bad is it! Less than I pay for a foundation!

First, I'll start with the face powder. This comes in 4 shades, although the darkest of these looked more like a bronzer to me. I picked shade 3 for my medium skin tone. I honestly expected it to be thin and, if I'm honest, almost pointless. It wasn't.

I only tend to use face powder on my nose and under my eyes to stop shine. That it did. It also made my foundation stay put longer, and gave a smoother appearance to my skin tone. What more could you ask for from a powder? Now I have to say that it may be a tad too dark for me, but that is my fault for buying the wrong shade (there wasn't any testers), but it is still more than wearable when blended with my foundation.

Second, I'm going to talk about the eye shadows. I bought the grey and silver as a pair to see if they would make a good smokey eye effect. Alone, the grey is a good deep shade. For something that only cost £1, the colour you get is deep (same with the silver) and it doesn't smudge or fade. You get no creases, and it goes on with ease. I used the dark grey shadow all over the lid, and the silver close to the lash line, then blended, and put a thin line of the grey under the lower lash line. It did give me a good smokey eye. I had to add a touch of black eyeliner to the mix, but that isn't really a hardship.

My only complaint was that, oddly, the colour was hard to clean off my make up brushes.... I've never known that before, but at least you could say it has staying power!

Thirdly, the glittery black eyeliner. This was also £1, but this I wasn't as pleased with. Like all their eyeliners, it comes with a sharpener in the lid which I think is a brilliant idea, and it does give you great depth of colour. But the glitter in it isn't very visible, and comes out as big random clumps around your eye, which drifts down your cheeks. I will go back and try one of their coloured eyeliners, as the pigment in them is amazing for the price, it was simply the glitter that I wasn't impressed with.

Finally, the lipstick. What I was going for was a light pink shimmery colour, something light and summery. That is what I got. The colour glides on and feels soft on your lips. The colour pigment isn't as strong as what you might get with a more expensive brand, but it just means you may have to re-apply half way through the day. No real issue. However, what I really loved was that at the bottom of the lipstick container, you get a little clear pot displaying the colour, and this you can unscrew and it gives you a little pot of the same colour to apply as lip balm with a lip brush (it's too small to get your fingers in). It's simple little clever ideas like this that make me smile. Those extra touches.

To be honest, the only downside of this product was that it can dry your lips slightly after a while, so I would suggest applying a touch of lip balm before you put it on. That should solve all your problems, and again for £1, you aren't really going to complain.

Overall, I have to say I'm impressed with MUA as a brand. It's cheap, good quality, and they have a decent range of products. They are a bit hard to source (In the UK its available from Superdrug, outside of the UK, I think you will need to shop online). But even so, if you add delivery charges, it still works out pretty cheap. I will definitely be going back to try more of their products, and I promise that next time, I will give you pictures (stupid camera!!!)

As always, here are the reviews:

MUA Face Powder: 3.5 stars

MUA eyeshadows (grey and silver): Both 3 stars

MUA eyeliner: 1 star (sorry!)

MUA lipstick: 4 stars

Thank you for reading :) sorry for the lack of pictures. I will try and fix this asap. Promise!

Love to you all x

Moisturisers V Oils....

Hello again,

Right, last time I wrote about my face mask obsession of the moment, and I did promise that I would follow that up by talking about the moisturisers I used to follow that. Well, rather than just talking about that, I thought I'd do a review of the few products I've been trying lately, and what I think of them. We have two moisturisers and two oils, which keeps things nice and even!

We will start with the one that I actually used after the facial, which I took a photo of last time.

This Balance Me face cream is something I've been using for about a month now. Prices vary widely, from £3.99 if you want the cream on it's own from ebay, up to around £29.99 if you want it as part of a face wash set. I got mine as a present from a friend, so I'm not sure how much it was, but I would honestly say its worth paying quite a bit for. 

To start off, it smells really fresh and clean, and has quite a floral scent. This is something I wouldn't necessarily have chosen, but after a bit of pampering when you want to relax, it's perfect. It claims to be made from 99% natural ingredients, which I can believe, as you get no hint of that chemical tightening when you put it on. It's thick and creamy, and leaves your skin feeling fully hydrated for hours afterwards. Normally, I would suggest applying it at night, as it is quite greasy and so it tends to be a bit difficult to put make up on afterwards, but you could use it as a day cream if you weren't too bothered about make up, or if you have the time to apply it around half an hour before you put your make up on. 

Overall, I LOVE this product. It actually makes you feel healthier when you put it on, if that is even possible for a face cream! 

Next, I'm going to talk about an old favorite of mine. Before I discovered the Balance Me face cream, this was my go to facial moisturiser for day or night. 

This Clinique moisturiser comes with a built in SPF making it perfect for use every morning, and It also works as an anti-wrinkle cream. I know I'm only 22, and don't actually have any wrinkles yet, but I believe in fighting them before they even appear! Now, last time I bought this (around 8 months ago) it was around £20 for a 15ml pot, however it will last you quite a while. As I said, I've had mine 8 months and still have a bit left. It is virtually unscented, so you don't need to be in the right mood to use it, and It's lightweight texture make it perfect to use before applying your make up. 

In my opinion, its worth the price, and it always made my skin feel smooth and soft, and if it lasts that long, you can't really argue. Although I may be biased, as Clinique has always been one of my favorite brands for skin care and make up! 

Next, I'm going to write about a couple of body oils I've tried. 

There has been a lot of hype lately around the whole body oil thing, so I thought, all in the name of research, I best give them a try. 

First off we have a product by an all time favorite, Garnier. 

Now this product has received rave reviews in a lot of magazines lately, so I thought I'd give it a go. I bought it from boots for £7.99 (although I believe you can get it a bit cheaper from places like feelunique.com) and for that you get 150ml. Now the bottle promises that the product will illuminate, nourish and perfect. This part I don't fully agree with. It smells lovely, kind of like a cocoa/vanilla scent, and it comes with a spray top which means the oil lightly diffuses over you rather than covers you, so you don't feel too greasy wearing it.

I'd never used a body oil before, so I was expecting to feel a bit sticky wearing it, but, I'll give credit where credits due, you don't. You do feel healthy with a bit of a glow. However, for me, I felt that this feeling only lasted around an hour, then my skin started to dry out a bit, and I had to go put some moisturiser on. This may just be my skin type, but I'll report on what I experienced. 

It's a nice little lightweight product, smells lovely, and is reasonably priced for the amount you get, but If I'm honest, I don't think I'll be buying it again. 

Now finally, we come to my last product of the day. Stretch marks are a common thing. But being 22 and a size 8, I didn't expect to get them quite yet. But, when I got them on the inside of my thighs, everyone said to try Bio Oil. Then, I went shopping, and found a little gem. 

For only £2.99, I just had to give this a try. For that price, you get 50ml of the product, and I've been using it on my legs only, and a bottle will last me around a month. It smells lovely, like pure chocolate, and I have to say, it's one of the best things I've ever tried. My stretch marks have started to fade from purple to white, my skin feels smooth and healthy, and It's perfect for people who get the odd patch of dry skin. 

I will say, that it is a bit messy to use. You have to pour it into your hand (and its almost as runny as water) and then somehow manage to put it down and rub it onto your skin without spilling it on the carpet, but once you get it onto your skin, it glides on, soaks in, and leaves you feeling hydrated all day. It does a lot for the price. To be honest, I'd buy it if it was £20. It actually works, and is a lot more effective than the Garnier Oil.

So there you go. In terms of reviews, here are the all important score: 

Balance Me Face Cream: an amazing 5 stars! 

Clinique Youth Surge: 3 stars 

Garnier Ultimate Body Oil: 1 star (sorry!) 

Cocoa Skin Therapy Oil: 4 Stars 

Thank you for reading everyone! 

Love to you all x

Mask of the Moment....

Hello :)

I thought I'd start my first proper blog post with something which I am absolutely loving at the moment, and which is also cheap to get hold of. It's a win win. 

It annoys me when people say that to get quality, you need to spend a lot of money. It's not true. I'll admit that when it comes to certain things, it is worth spending that extra bit of cash, for example with me, I will always pay extra for mascara, but that's because its the most important thing in my make up bag, and I love clinique and Chanel for it. Some cheap things do just tend to feel like water with some colouring in, but you can also find a few little gems. 

Today, I'm here to talk to you about my face mask of the moment..... 

This Glorious Mud face mask has been my obsession as of late. It cost somewhere in the region of £2.99, and has so far lasted me over a month, and I think I still have over half left. You can't argue with that for value can you! 

My skin type is quite sensitive, so I do have to be careful about what I use on it, but this just glides on and off with absolutely no irritation, and leaves my skin feeling smooth, soft and hydrated. I used it earlier this evening, and now, 5 hours ish later, I still have that just cleaned feeling that using a face mask gives you, and I know from experience that I will still have that feeling when I get up tomorrow. 

I often get a bit of irritation around my cheeks when I use face products, but this just tends to even out my skin tone (please ignore the lack of makeup :P) and gives it a slight natural glow.

I do follow my face mask with a wipe of tea tree oil to stop me getting spots, and after around half an hour, a light moisturiser to stop around my nose drying out. In the next few days I'm going to write a post based around my top face creams of the moment, so I'll talk about which one I used then. 

But today, I just wanted to get the message across that you don't need to spend a lot of money to get the result you want. By all means, treat yourself to a few high end purchases now and then if you can afford it, but for the day to day basics, this is my favorite. 

My product rating = 4 stars!

Thank you for reading...

Love to you all x

Just a little intro......

Hello there everyone!

Right, so I thought I'd start with just a quick little introduction to get things started.... So here goes....

First of all, my names Amy, and I am in LOVE with all things fashion, beauty and make up related. I've been known to dabble in a bit of freelance fashion writing (which I can honestly say is one of the best jobs ever!) and I am now doing my level 3 in beauty therapy.

I started this blog as I spend most of my time either reading about, or trying, new beauty products, make up trends, nail art, hair styles or clothes, and I just figured, why not write about all this too. In a way, I guess it's also kind of a way for me to justify the sheer amount of time I spend doing all of the above.

Whatever products or styles you are into, I promise to try and get everything that I can covered here, and if I have to go shopping for products more often, just to write about them on here... well... that's just the way it has to be (and I wont secretly love it at all, honestly!).

That's pretty much it then,

Lets get down to business :)

Love to you all x