February Favourites

I am going to try and start doing monthly favourites, although if two months have practically the same items I won't bore you guys with two of the same blog posts and I'll just fit them in somewhere or tweet about them! I also might be trying out Birchbox when the March box comes out, so keep your eyes peeled!

They're not just beauty favourites, it's a bit of everything! But I'll start with beauty because that's probably what you guys are looking forward to the most.

Now I used to have a really big obsession with MAC. I have now come to realise (which my bank balance is thankful for!) that yes there are some bits that are really good and worth the money, but there are some bits that you can actually find dupes for with similar quality for a much cheaper price.

This blush is from the style warriors collection and I actually got it at a CCO (Yes you can find them here in the UK, they are generally at outlet villages. I found mine at Cheshire Oaks), it's in shade 'On a mission' and is a beauty powder blush, I will be completely honest and say I have no idea what the difference is between a beauty powder blush and a regular blush but I will say this is a really nice mauve-y pink colour with very slight hint of shimmer which I never actually see when I've got it on! Now don't be put off by the colour thinking it's too dark for you, I am the palest of the pale (e.g. barely NC15!) and I think this blush looks beautiful on paler skintones and I will definitely be purchasing more this colour, that being said you can build it up or mute it down till your hearts content!

Next up is the lovely Soap and Glory Thick and Fast mascara, I've got the shade Super Jet Black. This mascara actually comes in two different forms which I just recently learnt, Super Volume False Lash Effect (in the tube above) and Lengthing and Volumising mascara with collagen for doll-like lashes (in the gold tube). I have been using this mascara for about a month after I'd used and abused by Bourjois one till it was old and flaky, this has a similar brush although it does take some getting used to. You can buy it from Boots for £10, I'm not entirely sure on where you could get it outside the UK but you can always get in touch with the lovely ladies and gents at Soap and Glory and they can point you in the best direction. 

I've noticed that this mascara really helps to keep the curl in my lashes all day, before that they had a habit of dropping down whenever they felt like it and I find it comes off pretty easily with my Body Shop eye makeup remover. No more scrubbing at your eyes to get that great mascara off! It also doesn't stain my eyelashes, if you have blonde eyelashes like me you know what I'm taking about. If you don't, well sometimes the colouring in the mascaras can stain your eyelashes so when you actually take it off at night it looks like there's still some left on your eyelashes. It does generally come off with a couple of tries with a good eye makeup remover. In the whole month I've had this and been wearing it, I've not had any mascara flaking off and falling underneath my eyes at all, definitely worth a try!

If you have been living under a beauty rock you will not have heard of these, but I am officially on the beauty bandwagon and fully understand why! These 'Lip Lacquers' have the pigmentation and lasting power of a lipstick, but in the ease and glossiness of a lipgloss. I did buy two shades, but this month I have become obsessed with one in particular.....Celestial. I find its the perfect everyday shade, that is just a glossier version of my current lip colour and it literally goes with EVERY single eye look you could put together. Although the flash in the picture below is making it look very bright!

I love that it doesn't have that offensive lipgloss scent that you find with some, it just has a fruity scent! It costs £5.99 for 5.5ml and let me tell you this little baby goes a very long way. I have worn it at least 5 times a week with one top-up after lunch (to replace the glossiness, the colour stays there) every single week and I feel like I've barely touched the sides with this product, it feels like it will go on and on and on! Also one last but probably most important point, I do not find this sticky at all, when it's on your lips it just feel really moisterising and I haven't found my hair sticking to my lipgloss once!

Now this baby I actually picked up as part of the 3 for 2 at boots with the 'Oh you can never have too many lip balms' train of thought. However this one packs a punch, the shade is in Juicy Peach and it actually smells like peaches and is a gorgeous corally pink. This will be a major staple come summer. Now the scent is quite strong, although once you apply it onto your lips it's not overwhelming at all and after a little while you don't even notice the scent. 

This product actually has mango and apricot butter, lingonberry oil and pomegranate extract to help protect, moisterise and renew your lips. To me I find this more like a great lip gloss in tin form as appose to in a tube with a doe foot applicator.

Let's get onto the less makeup related beauty products now! I've just recently got into Essie products and I must say I can see the hype, at the moment I only have the Nourish Me base coat and the No Chips Ahead top coat. I find the combination of both makes my nail polish stay on longer, especially seen as I work as a till person and refunder in work and have to tap touchscreen tills for hours each shift.

These both retail for £8.99 in Superdrug who have only just started stocking Essie, before Christmas I think it was!

My top perfume of the month is the new Juicy Couture 'Couture La La', I actually got this as a birthday present for my 20th birthday off my mother and I was actually debating between this and the Viva La Juicy scent. This comes in at £46.50 for 50ml which is the version I have, so it is one of the more expensive perfumes so you have to make sure you like it before you buy it or get it as a gift (Debenhams now do a Try Me Guarantee where if you buy certain perfumes you also get a little sample of the perfume and if you don't like it you just return the unopened full size product back!).

The bottle itself actually has a pink tint to it, which is new for this Spring not to mention the bright pink bow and the 'necklace' for the bottle because whats nicer than looking at a nice display of pretty perfume bottles when your trying to pick out your scent for the day! I think this perfume is great for spring and summer as it's not really heavy or has particularly musky scents, but nice floral scents with notes of lillies (which I love!) and green apple. I would say that the scent overall is a great flirty and feminine fragrance.

I will admit it, I do have a history of staying up late watching youtube videos and reading blogs. However that my friends has changed. Yes I still do read blogs and youtube videos before bed to wind down (beauty addict or what?!), but before I do that as part of my night time routine I spray this onto my pillows and it really helps me drift off to sleep and particularly helps when I feel like I can't sleep.

Now I HATE with quite a passion those lavender pillow sprays because personally they smell very old lady, perfume-y smell to me. No offence if you like them, but they're just not me! This spray is a combination of jojoba and rosehip oil, which helps drift you off to sleep without that horrid smell. I unfortunately don't know the exact price of this as I got it in a gift set for christmas off my mum's boyfriend, but I will find out and add it in as an edit. The brand I believe is exclusively to Asda, but I couldn't find it on their online shopping thing!

Now onto the less beauty favourites! I got this candle from Primark for £1, yes you saw that right! £1 in the sale, so I bought two. One for my bedside table and one as a back-up. Primark call it the White Tea scented candle and it normally retails for £3.50, so really affordable which is great if you have a bit of a candle addiction like me!

For this 'fat' candle you are supposed to get 30 burning hours out of it, I haven't burnt mine that much yet so I couldn't tell you if that's true or not. It is a great display piece even when it isn't being burnt, my only quiff is it's got one of those funny lids. The ones that make a funny scraping noise against your nails when you got to put it back on and give you the nails down a blackboard feeling, so be warned put it back on by picking it up from the sides! All in all it has a really nice sweet scent, nothing florally or anything and it's one of those scents that you don't particularly notice when you burning it, it just builds gradually and then if you blow it out leave the room and come back or walk into a room where it's been burning it leaves that nice subtle sweet scent behind!

And the last one is a book favourite, now I only recently got this book but I have read a fairly large chunk considering I only got it about the start of the week and have been reading it on the way to work. I had seen people saying how good this movie was and I quite like reading the books before seeing the movie as they don't have everything word for word in the movie that's in the book, so it gives you a great background on it and you know why a certain characters feeling that way, even when the movie hasn't exactly said it!

That being said Nicholas Sparks is a great writer and I can see why some many people love his books as they have that easy read appeal, in respect that you don't have to force yourself to finish the book. When you read it you get into the book and you kinda feel like your looking in on the scene. Now I won't say too much about the book, in case there are some of your that are currently reading it. I will say though it is definitely worth a read!

Elle

xoxo