Sunday 30 November 2014

I've got a secret



Hello Everyone!

Yes, I've got a secret to tell you all. It's pretty shocking, so I suggest that you should sit down for this one...


I'm a LUSH VIRGIN!
(gasp!)
Well, not anymore... 

I've actually been meaning to go into my local lush store, but whenever I've gone to the shopping centre where it is, it's a tiny shop that's always rammed with customers. My worst nightmare! I don't really like tiny spaces filled with tonnes of people. So this lush store is literally smaller than the bathroom in my parents house. It's teeny tiny!
Today however, I jumped right in, not literally though because that would look so strange. I walked in and was surrounded by amazing smells and gorgeous looking bath bombs and soaps. I didn't buy tonnes of things as to be honest, I don't have the money to right now leading up to christmas so I bought myself a couple of things to try out.

I was looking at all the cleansers and beauty products that they had and came across a product called 'Ultra Bland' it's a cleanser that removes dirt and makeup. I didn't actually buy this as the sales assistant saw I was unsure about it.She gave me a sample size of this, it's a little pot and she actually filled it to the brim which I was really surprised about. I'm looking forward to using this as a cleanser, I've had to go back to using make up remover wipes - hands head in shame. The wipes seem to have created more problems than solved so I'm looking for a good cleanser thats worth the money I pay for. So I'm going to give this a try out and maybe treat myself to a large pot for christmas! Look out for a review on this product in the next week! 
You can buy a pot of ultrabland from your local lush store or online here, there are two prices for the different size pots.
This purple beauty is the Twilight bath bomb. This one is meant to help you sleep as it has a lavender fragance which is meant to be a soothing, mind clearing and calming fragrance. I loved the smell of this one and it's got a really pretty purple colour to it. I can't wait to pop this into my bath after a long day at work. I've been struggling to sleep recently so I'm hoping that this will help me out.
You can buy the twilight bath bomb here for £3.35



This is the Sakura Bath Bomb. It looks so cute and pretty. It's very different to the Twilight bath bomb I bought, it's fairly plain apart from the splodge on the top where it's really colourful and looks like a crystal. It smells a little floral and doesn't smell overpowering, it's quite sweet so I think I'm going to enjoy this one.
You can buy the Sakura Bath Bomb here for £3.35


This little cutie is the Butterbear!
It's so cute I just couldn't resist picking this little teddy up! It's made from cocoa butter and has a vanilla fragrance to it so I was pretty much sold from the word cocoa. I love the smell of vanilla and think this will make my skin feel and smell amazing! I picked this one up right by the till as I was paying for the other two bath bombs - damn those sneaky sales people trying to make me buy more stuff just because its so incredibly cute!
You can buy the Butterbear here for £1.95

So there you have it! My FIRST mini Lush haul for you guys.
I really can't wait to try all four of these items and I will definitely be writing a review of the Ultrabland cleanser.

What products do you recommend from Lush?

Sophie

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Saturday 29 November 2014

Toner - hydrate your skin

Hello Everyone!

So as it's now officially getting very cold, we really need to start looking after our skin. With the cold weather our skin will start to dry out very quickly and will be more prone to cracking. It's not good for your skin to be dehyrdated and when you try top cover it up with make up I think it looks worse as your foundation will stick to the dry patch and makes it stand out. It's important to keep dry skin under control in the cold months as it can make it worse and can make the problem 100x worse.
This is the Toner that I currently use. It's the Elemis Rehydrating Ginseng Toner. I first bought this after having a facial at my local Dove Spa. My beautician used quite a few products on my face and I really loved how they made my face feel. So I bought three of the products which were; the cleanser, toner and a face balm. I have run out of the cleanser unfortunately but I will do a seperate post of the face balm as its an anti ageing product.

This product is available from most Dove Spa's and you can buy it online here at Feel Unique for £22.00.


I love this product so much, on the back of the bottle it says it 'effectively tones the skin, rebalances the pH level and preserves natural oils, without the use of alcohol or harsh detergents.' It really does hydrate your skin, you're meant to apply this using a cotton wool pad and dabbing it on your face but I usually just spritze it on my face and leave it to soak into my skin. 

I use this twice daily, in the morning before applying my makeup and I also use it in the evening after taking all my makeup off. It's great as a revitalising face spray. It feels so fresh when you spray it on your face and in the morning it helps me to wake up. It's like a little boost to get my face to wake up.

One more thing that I love about this product, well actually Elemis as a brand, is that they don't test any of their products on animals. This is really important to me as I know that animals haven't been harmed to make their products.

Sophie

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Reached 50 followers through Bloglovin'!

50 Followers might not mean a lot to pretty much everyone who is reading this, but to me, this means a hell of a lot. To have at least 50 people who are interested in what I'm writing is incredible! 
So Thank-you. To everyone reading my blog and following it.
If you're not yet following I have a link just on the right hand side that will link you to Bloglovin' so you can follow me.

I didn't think I'd actually be this excited over this but yeah, thank you :)


Sophie

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Black Friday - UK Version

Hello Everyone!

So today I thought I'd talk about something a little different to what I've done before. I thought I'd write about my opinion on whats been happening across the UK for Black Friday.
Again, this is my own opinion, I'm just saying how I feel in regards to what has been happening, I'm not writing this to start an argument with anyone.

What started as a simple sale that was brought over from America where everyone would get excited over the chance of snapping up a bargain for christmas time, has actually turned into what looks like a brutal scramble to grab as much as you can no matter what it is.


I've seen horrific videos on youtube that have been shared all over facebook of people fighting - yes you heard me fighting, over TV's, Kettles, Xbox's etc. Considering that over in the UK we have Boxing Day sales and January sales I have never seen a site as bad as this. I'm all for grabbing a bargain, but only for things I need. I don't see the point in buying a brand new TV just because it's like £100 less than what it should even though I have a perfectly good one at home.


I think it just shows us what some people have come to and it outlines the greed in people. Mindlessly pushing and shoving people out the way just so you can get your hands on a shiny new kettle. I think that the people who did go to stores on Black Friday should have been a lot more mindful of people surrounding them. Especially around Christmas when there are thousands of people who don't own a TV or any electrical items for that matter, I think it really does show that people are greedy and selfish just buying things for the sake of buying.


Sophie


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Wednesday 26 November 2014

The Kylie Jenner lip

Hello Everyone!
So over the past month, I think? Everyone has been obsessing over Kylie Jenner's mysterious lips. Is it liner? Is it fillers? Either way everyone is pretty much loving them, me included!  Now normally I don't go past my normal lip line when doing my lipstick but the past few days I've been experimenting with it. I wanted my lips to look a bit bigger but not so much that I ended up looking like a clown. 
I haven't used lip liner for this look as I don't currently have a light enough lip liner :( it ran out just before September and I got into darker lipsticks. So lighter colours were sent to the back of my mind. Silly me!


For this look I am using the Bourjois Paris Rouge Edition in 04 Rose Tweed. It's sort of a nude pale pink/red. I think this is a perfect colour for this look, it's a matte lipstick with a bit of shine. It's also really smooth when you apply it.
Now you don't want to go too overboard when going over your lip line. The only girl I know who can pull this off is Miranda. I love her videos she makes me laugh so much.
So, for this look I literally went slightly above my lip line on my upper lip and made my cupid's bow a little bit bigger. On my lower lip I only went a tiny bit over my lip line as I think it would look terrible if I went over anymore! 

So there you go guys!
My version of the Kylie Jenner lip look!


Sophie


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Saturday 22 November 2014

Christmas Sparkle: Nails

Hello Everyone!

Coming up to the Christmas party time us girls like to get our glitter polishes out. I've just done my nails using the Loreal Paris Colour Riche in 836 over the top of the Barry M matte in 336 which I've used for my accent nail (I've used that so much the name of the colour has rubbed off!)

 
I know my nails aren't exactly perfect right now, I'm trying to strengthen them as they keep breaking off, then they're too short for me to try and shape. Trying to grow them first before shaping. Also my nail painting isn't exactly on point but I'm not a professional!

 So these are my favourite glitter/sparkle nail varnishes right now.
My top one is the Loreal Paris Colour Riche in 836 Scarlet Tinsel.

 Loreal Colour Riche - 836 Scarlet Tinsel - £4.99
I love this colour, its so pretty and gives a good amount of coverage over a base colour. I used a deep burgundy colour underneath. It also dries really well and fairly fast. It doesn't leave your nails feeling tacky or sticky even after leaving them to dry for 5/10 minutes.
This colour is a pretty pink, its has a light glitter to it so it's not so in your face as other glitter polishes. I like to use this for a little glitter for work. It's quite nice to have a little sparkle but not too much. It gives good coverage but needs two coats to give a good colour.



I like this polish as its a little different to the usual gold and red polish that you can wear over the party season. It's a nice colour and you will need two coats to get the full colour out of it. I'm not really too fussed about the texture of the nail polish as I go over all polish with a clear top coat.
I love a good gold glitter for an accent nail for nights out. Pair it with a matte black polish and your set for a perfect look! You'll need a couple of coats of this as it's not fully loaded with glitter there's quite a bit of clear polish to get through.


This colour is so pretty! It goes so well with a plain red polish and looks so christmassy I love it! Hello Festive nails! It gives really good coverage, you'll probably only need a single coat of it.

Barry M Nail Paint - Red Glitter - £2.99
Unfortunately I can't get a link for this polish through boots. I don't know if they've discontinued this colour but it is lovely. I like having this on for Christmas as obviously red is the signature colour for Christmas time!

So those are my favourite glitters for any Christmas parties/nights out!


Sophie

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Growing up

Hello Everyone!

You know the feeling when you do something fairly 'grown up'? Yeah well, I had a lot of that feeling today. Me and my boyfriend have been talking about it for the past month or so and we finally decided to have a look around. 
Okay so that sounded a bit cryptic... We decided to go have a look at some new build homes in our area today. 

I'm 22 and my boyfriend is 21, we've been together now for two years. About a month ago we had a chat about what we want in the next two/three years and the main thing was that we both wanted to have moved out of both of our parents houses. Seeing as neither of us know anything about buying a house we decided to book an appointment at a new development.

When we arrived at the development sales center we were greeted by a lovely sales representative who showed us around several show homes. She told us everything we needed to know and got us in touch with financial/mortgage advisors who talked us through the whole process of buying a house. The man we spoke to explained how much we would be able to borrow, how much our repayments would be and explained the help to buy scheme to us. 


We really liked the three bedroom houses that they had there,for us to own that we both need to be in a job which pays a little more than what we currently earn. This is so that we can live comfortably, paying bills off as well as being able to put money away into savings each month. 

So today we both felt rather grown up, finding out what we really want and making plans in order to get what we want. It was quite scary but it felt right doing it. It was an insight into what we could afford, I enjoyed looking around the show homes too, my god they're so pretty!

Sorry if this was a bit of a boring post for you guys but this has really excited me today. I absolutely love making big plans!


Sophie


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Friday 21 November 2014

New things!

Hello Everyone!

I've just made the leap onto Twitter!
For some strange reason I was actually terrified to go onto Twitter. I don't know why but I did it.
I've been meaning to do it for ages now but I've done it.

You can now follow me on there: @bysophielouise1

I'm still getting to grips with it, so I'll posting on there fairly soon. 

If you're on twitter please leave your username for me :)

Sophie 


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Home Decor Hack - Tea Lights

Hello Everyone!

As we are now in the cooler months and the candles have made their appearance in our homes I've managed to dig out a gigantic box full of scented tea lights! Mmmmm!
I absolutely adore scented candles and I really am itching to get my hands on the Yankee Candle Christmas Collection. However, I've decided that it was about time that I used up at least some of my little tiny tea lights before investing in yet another candle. My Yankee Candle obsessed mind is telling me off right now for not buying any BUT my financial mind is thinking hold up lady! You need to use up what you already have first.

So, I've set myself a little challenge - Use up at least half of the tea lights and I can treat myself to a Yankee Candle.

The only problem with this is, I hate having tea lights just set on tables on their own. I like having candles in glass containers. I don't know why, I just like how they look. Yes, I'm slightly weird. So I've just managed to whittle down four glass contained candles. Two were from The Disney Store and two were from Glade. I cleaned them all out and removed the end of the wicks from all of them.


Once I had cleaned them out I removed the tea lights out of their foil containers and popped them into each glass.


By removing the original packaging you allow the wax to melt into the shape of the container, which will make sure that the wax will go down. Minimal clearing out for the next candle! 

These are the Imagination Winter Candle Glasses that I got for Christmas last year. I love these glasses as they're so pretty, they're slightly cloudy so they give a nice glow out of them when the candle is lit. When all my lights are out it also gives a nice shadow too. 

These are the Glad candles that I bought last Christmas, I kept the glasses because I thought they were really pretty and would come in use someday. They look so nice lit up and the colours and patterns on them are so christmassy it gets me all festive and happy.



I love how pretty they look in the dark and lit up. 

As an extra hack with the glade glasses, as they are quite wide containers you could chop up the candle wax and pop it around the original candle. 
So there you have a very quick but cute home decor hack to use up your old tea lights.

Sophie


X

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Get Ready With Me: Anniversary Meal




 Hello Everyone!
So today was my second anniversary with my boyfriend. Aww! We had planned to go out for a really nice meal in a posh restaurant as last year we couldn't really afford to go out anywhere. So, I bought myself a really pretty dress as I thought I'd make myself look really nice for a special occasion. 

Here is how I got ready! Prior to this I had washed my face and removed my makeup using normal soap - I never usually use soap on my face it's a one off  as I've ran out of my normal cleanser : (





Oh hello bare faced me! 



First off - foundation.
I use the Bourjois Paris healthy mix foundation in Light Vanilla. 
  



Next I use my Concealer brush to blend my foundation over my dark circles.


Next up - Pressed powder and Blusher.
I use Rimmels Stay Matte Pressed powder in Pink Blossom and I use Rimmel's Lasting finish soft colour blush in pink rose.  






 Then I pencil in my eyebrows using Rimmel's Eyebrow pencil in Dark Brown.



 For my eyes I went for a light smokey grey look to match the colour of my dress - clever me!
I used the Bourjois Paris Smokey Eye palette in 01 gris dandy.



Normally with my eyeliner I tend to go for a thick line, but as I had done a light smokey eye I thought it would be more fitting for a thin eyeliner. I'm using the Revlon Colourstay Liquid Eyeliner in Blackest Black.


For my mascara I'm currently loving Rimmel's Accelorator Endless Mascara. I also use an old spoule from Rimmel's Scandaleyes to help seperate my lashes and give them a little volume.








Lip liner is so important when using a darker lipstick. Darker Lipsticks tend to bleed into your skin which is not a good look. I'm using Maybelline's lip liner pencil in 338 Midnight plum. I'm going slightly over my lip line to prevent any slip ups, I also go over my lips lightly in the pencil just to give my lipstick some base.





The finished face and hair! :)
To see my blog post about all of my make up brushes that I currently use click here



This is the dress I wore tonight. I bought it off another girl on an app called Vinted - I'll be doing a post about this app after christmas for you guys so keep an eye out!


My boyfriend and I after we left the restaurant.


Sophie


X

Monday 17 November 2014

Winter Warmers - The Wish List

Hello Everyone!

It's definitely getting colder in the Midlands right now and I've just looked into my wardrobe to find that I hardly have any winter wear! This is not good for me as I quite like going out for walks during winter and wrapping up without warm clothes is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
So I've compiled a wishlist of winter warmers that I really really would love to have right now. I hope it gives you some inspiration for what to wear over the next few chilly months!

All of these items are from New Look. It's definitely one of my favourite high street stores and I think it's very affordable for us girlies who havent got an extremely tight budget but don't want to push the boat out too much!

Here come the coats!
Left to Right

Camel Faux Fur Collar Boyfriend Coat £59.99

I think this one is my favourite out of the three, it looks really smart and looks a lot more high end rather than high street. I love that the faux fur end half way down the coat rather than just the top collar around your neck. It just looks so cosy! At almost £60 I actually wouldn't mind spending this amount of money because the quality looks really good.

Fashion Union Burgundy Faux Fur Coat £55.00

I really like the look of this coat, it would be perfect with a black top underneath with leggings and ankle boots. Definitely a great statement item to add a splash of colour to your outfit!

Mink Leather-Look Faux Fur Collar Jacket £44.99

This coat would be perfect for everyday use, I think it would go really well with a pair of black jeans and boots. I'd probably wear this just as a casual coat as even though it looks pretty smart I'd wear it just to go round a friends house to keep me warm.

Next up, keep calm now guys, it's time for the FLUFFY JUMPERS!


Left to Right



I would team all of these up with a pair of leggings or a pair of jeans with some cute ankle boots. I was never one for wearing pink in winter,  I'm a monochrome winter girl. So for me to like these items its quite a shock! I really like the Pink fluffy t-shirt the most, it just looks so comfy!


To finish the looks I picked out these three accessories.


Left to Right


I would love to have all three of these! I think I like the white fluffy hat the most. I think it would look really good with wavy hair and a plain coat. Having a fluffy coat and fluffy hat would be too much faux fur. I think you should stick to just one statement item in an outfit.

So there you guys go, that's my winter warmer wishlist for you guys!
I hope you liked this post, let me know if you did and I'll do more of this style post.

Sophie

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