40 Questions - Beauty Tag

I do love a good tag! I saw this on Stacey's blog over at Journey of a Thousand Miles and thought I'd give it a go :)


SKINCARE

-How many times do you wash your face daily?
Twice, because I'm a good little b-blogger!

-What skin type do you have? (dry,oily,combo) 
It's a combination of normal/oily but with a few cheeky dry patches here and there.

-What is your current facial wash?
Superdrug's Naturally Radiant Hot Cloth Cleanser and I also use Clarins Water Purify One-Step Cleanser for removing make-up.

-Do you exfoliate?
Yes, I exfoliate every other day.

-What brand do you use?
For...exfoliating? Body Shop, quite a lot of my skincare comes from the Body Shop.

-What moisturiser do you use?
I use No.7 Moisturiser for Oily Skin. Can't mind the full title :P

-Do you have freckles?

I do indeed! Lucky me, my mum always mistakes them for smudges and tries to get them off... til she realises it's my skin.

-Do you use eye cream?
Yes, I use Body Shop's Elderflower Gel. So light and refreshing on the eyes :)

-Do you or did you have acne prone skin?


Not really, I had a few spots but I never had full-blown acne.

-Did you ever have to use Pro-activ?
Nope... what's that?

 
MAKE-UP

-What foundation do you use?
I use a few, GOSH BB Cream, 17 Miracle Matte, Benefit's Hello Flawless, Dior Forever Flawless.

-How about concealer?
Rimmel Match Perfection Concealer.
 
-Do you know your undertone colour?
I think it's pink.
 
-What do you think of fake eyelashes?
I've only worn them once or twice. I don't mind them but I wouldn't use them often.
 
-Did you know that you are suppose to change your mascara every 3 months?
Yes, but I never do, I'm a lazy blogger :P
 
-What brand of mascara do you use?
I use Max Factor and Benefit mainly, but I use quite a few different ones.
 
-Sephora or MAC?
MAC, I've never tried any Sephora. Would be nice though... *hint hint*
 
-Do you have a MAC Pro-card?
... Is it bad I have no idea what that is?

-What makeup tools do you use in make up application?
I use Real Techniques and ELF brushes.

-Do you use make-up base/primer for the eyes?
I use either an MUA primer or I've just started using an Urban Decay one too.
 
-For the face?
I use either L'Oreal Studio Secrets, or Benefit's Porefessional.

-What is your favourite eyeshadow (colour or shade)?
I love a good green shade :)

-Do you use pencil or liquid eyeliner?
Both!
 
-How often do you poke your eyes with an eyeliner pencil?
Not at all actually, though now I've said that I probably will lol!
 
-What do you think of pigment eyeshadows?
If I had a more deft hand I'd be fine, but I find them a bit messy.
 
-Do you use mineral makeup?
No, I've been told I should though, but I hate mineral powder foundations.
 
-What is your favourite lipstick?
I love my Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet. It is my absolute favourite!

-How about lipgloss?
I'm loving my Stila Lip Glazes at the moment :)

-What is your favourite blush to use?
Benefit's Hervana.

-Do you buy your makeup on ebay?
Never, I wouldn't mind though, but it's hard to check the quality and the validity of the product so that makes me wary...
 
-Do you like drugstore makeup?
Absolutely!

-Do you go to CCO's? (cosmetic company outlets)
Nope, we don't have one of them in Fife.

-Did you ever consider taking make-up classes?
Nope.
 
-Are you clumsy in putting on makeup?
Yes, particularly with eyeliner!
 
-Name a makeup crime that you hate?
Wearing the wrong foundation shade, going too dark. The Wotsit look is not a good one ladies...
 
-Do you like colourful shades of makeup (lipstick,eyeshadow) or neutral ones?
I love it! Would wear bright colours more often if I could.
 
-Which celebrity always has great make up?
Blake Lively. My god she is so beautiful!
 
-If you could leave the house using just ONE make up item,what would you use?
Primer. On the days I can't be bothered it's all I'll put on.

-Could you ever leave the house without any makeup on?
Yes, I do it all the time :)

-Do you think you look good even without any makeup on?
You'd be better asking my boyfriend that :P

-In your opinion, what is the BEST makeup line?
For drug-store, MUA, for high-end I'd go for either Chanel or Benefit.

-What do you think of Makeup??
  I can't get enough of it! Love it love it love it!

If you want to do this tag, go forth and do it!

Christina xo

100 Day Spending Ban - Week 1 Update

Is that 1 week of 2013 gone already? Time flies when you're... stuck in the house with the flu for most of it! Yes, this has been a pretty successful 1st week of my spending ban, if only because I've only left the house to go to the corner shop for supplies whilst I was ill, and then to work when I was feeling better. I haven't bought a single thing, and I've even held off on using the vouchers I got for Christmas so far (after a bit of humming and hawing on Twitter about it.)

I have been eyeing up several things though, so I thought I'd share my little wish-list with you:

1. Dr Jart Premium Beauty Balm.

I used up some samples of this recently and I really love it. When I finish my current BB cream (GOSH if you're interested, really good), and when the ban is finished, I think I will invest in this.

2. MUA Pro Base Fixing Mist.

I've never tried a make-up fixer before, and since MUA are consistently pretty good, I think I'd like to give this a try.

3. Clarins Rouge Eclat Eye Quartet.

I saw this a while ago on British Beauty Blog and I instantly thought it was beautiful. This is the product that has been testing my resolve the most this week, mainly because it's a limited edition product and I have no idea how long it will be available for. I don't want to miss my chance!

4. MAC Lipstick in Chatterbox.

I've been wanting to treat myself to another MAC lippie for a while, and after seeing Chatterbox over on Tattoed Tealady's blog, this has been the shade I'm craving. I love pinks, and this just looks beautiful!

Overall, the 1st 7 days of no-buy have gone well, if only due to staying inside. Hope everyone else is doing well too! :)

Christina xo

Urban Decay - Smoked Palette

WARNING: This post contains pictures of my face. Close up. *Shudders*

UPDATE: I just noticed, this is my 50th post! Wooooo! And what a post I have for you...

You may remember (if you read my posts consistently, if you don't, why not?? :P) that for Christmas, my boyfriend Kris gave me the Urban Decay Smoked Palette. This is a palette I swooned over for months, so to finally own it was a joyous moment indeed! I literally squeaked when I opened it, that's how much I'd coveted it (and how much of a sad case I am.).

Each Smoked Palette comes in this lovely neoprene, scuba-suit-type feeling case, and is accompanied by a 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in Perversion (Black), a travel sized Primer Potion and a handy little look book, which contains tutorials on how to use the shades to create different smoky-eyed looks.

The shades are, in order from L-R then top-bottom:

• Kinky – Light natural peach with a matte finish.
• Freestyle – Medium tan with a matte finish.
• Mushroom – Warm grey shimmer with taupe undertones.
• Backdoor – Matte dark brown.
• Blackout – Matte blackest black.
• Barlust – Metallic deep golden brown.
• Rockstar – Deep purple shimmer.
• Evidence – Navy blue shimmer.
• Loaded – Deep metallic emerald green.
• Asphalt – Shimmering gunmetal grey.

Sorry, I forgot to watch the eye pencil. Suffice to say it's extremely good quality; it is light, creamy, applies well, and comes in Perversion (black). So far I've only tried some light smokiness with this, but in the spirit of full reviewing, I tried one of the looks from the little tutorial guide. I went for a look titled: "Iconic with Colour."

Yeah it doesn't look much like the book, but I tried!! I do like the way it turned out though; smoky but subtle enough it doesn't look terrifying against my pale visage. I used Kinky, Freestyle, Loaded and Backdoor to create this look. Let me know what you think of the look!

Overall, I am so impressed with this palette. This is my first piece from Urban Decay, and it appears their eye products are of a very high quality, in keeping with the hype that surrounds them. I would definitely buy more products from their range. Not right now though, I am determined to stick to this no-buy come hell or high water! I think you can still buy the Smoked Palette online from a number of retailers, including Beauty Bay and House of Fraser.

Do you own/want to own the Smoked Palette? Any Urban Decay recommendations for me?

Christina xo

Skincare: Home and Away Part 2

On Friday I shared with you the skincare routine I follow while I'm at home. Some of you may know that I am a support worker for adults with autism, and that job sometimes involves staying overnight at work on night-shifts and sleepover shifts. In addition to that, I also travel home to Glasgow often, so having a good travel skincare routine is crucial. I thought it might be interesting to show you guys what I use on the go as well, since people seem to have enjoyed my first post!

Yes I use face-wipes. So sue me. For some reason, quite a lot of beauty bloggers have a problem with face-wipes (I don't know what or why), and they seem to look down upon using wipes. For me, these T-Zone Shine Control Cleansing Wipes are brilliant at taking all my make-up off fast, reduces shine and also have tea-tree oil so it means they help a bit with breakouts. The reason I use face-wipes is that in my line of work, you never know when something might happen, or when someone might need you, so there's not always enough time to do a full cleanse-tone-etc. routine, so these wipes come in handy for that. The link will take you to an online retailer, but if you live near a Home Bargains store, they sell these for 49p a pack. BARGAIN!!

If I have time to do a full routine, whether at work or if I'm away, I start by cleansing with DHC Deep Cleansing Oil. This was the infamous mini given away with a Glossybox and I'm still working my way through it. Self explanatory: rub into face, leave for 1 minute, then rinse. Done! This bottle is nearly finished, and as much as I like it I can't rebuy it (Damn you no-buy!). Next up, I have a travel size bottle of my favourite Body Shop Seaweed Clarifying Toner, because it's the one product I can't travel without! After toning, I use a serum, No.7 Pore Refining Serum. I use this in my travel bag for 2 reasons: 1. My pores are craterous and 2. It's the only serum I have that's travel friendly (i.e. it's not a sachet.). It's good for reducing the size of my pores, but I should really try to use it more often to reap the benefits. Because it's currently winter, I'm using Body Shop's Vitamin E Moisture Cream for moisturising, which is doing wonders for balancing out the dry and oily parts of my skin, leaving it more evenly matched. And for spots, my trusted T-Zone Spot Zapping Stick, from Home Bargains.

There are some similar products in here and in my home routine, but my general rule for travel skincare is don't let it take up too much bag space. Which is why I take as many minis as possible. Body Shop are particularly good for offering travel sizes of their best skincare products, and whenever you can, ask at counters for sample sizes. If you don't ask, you don't get so it's always worth a shot!

That's my travel skincare routine and my tips; how do you take care of your skin when you travel? What products can you simply not travel without?

Christina xo

Skincare - Home and Away!

Since the bells rang in 2013 I have not worn a single ounce of make-up! No base, no mascara, not one single piece of make-up has graced my skin. Mainly because I've had the flu since New Year and have barely left the house, lucky me. Today, since the only thing I've been using since then is skincare, I would take you through my daily skincare routine, what I use and why. Also, since I do overnight shifts at work quite frequently, I thought I would show you what skincare I use when I travel too! So here we go...

HOME

For cleansing I like to begin with Superdrug's Naturally Radiant Brightening Hot Cloth Cleanser. This is my first foray into using such cleansers, but I really like this, it has a very light fragrance, and it cleanses well, leaving my skin feeling refreshed and looking bright. If I'm removing make-up first however, I will use Clarins Water Purify One Step Cleanser with a cotton wool pad. This is great at removing all traces of make-up (though for mascara I tend to just use water, I don't like eye make-up removers).

Next: exfoliation. I use Body Shop's Pore Cleansing Facial Exfoliator. This a great scrub for me; I like scrubs that are quite chunky and scrubby (know what I mean?), and this fits the bill. My skin always feels extra smooth after using this.

Some people don't like to use toners, but I feel I need to in order to reduce the amount of oil and open pores on my face, so for that I use Body Shop's Seaweed Clarifying Toner. It's light, not harsh on the skin, but does the job I need it to do. And it does it well too!

My next step is to use a serum/facial oil. At the moment, I am working through some samples of Lancome Genefique. It is amazing, my skin is smoother, more radiant when I use it. If only it didn't cost £56 for the smallest bottle! Even though I've managed to stretch out a 5 day sample pack into nearly 3 weeks worth of usage, I'm still not entirely convinced that this is worth so much money. My preferred option for this step is Antipodes Avocado Oil and Rosehip Divine Facial Oil. This is very rich, and it does take some time to fully sink into the skin, but it has helped so much with my spots (when I have them) and it smells divine, as the name would suggest!

Moisturiser is my next step, and at the moment I'm using No.7 Beautiful Skin Day Cream for Oily Skin. For a moisturiser designed for oily skin, this is actually quite thick, more akin to a moisturiser for drier skin types, however it doesn't make my skin feel greasy, and it provides the right amount of moisture for my skin. At this point I also like to use an eye cream/gel. I know some people don't really see the point of these, but the one I use at the moment, Body Shop's Elderflower Cooling Eye Gel has made the skin under my eyes feel firmer and, I might be having some kind of placebo effect here, it appears to have reduced the dark circles under my eyes. For added benefit, I keep this in my fridge; this keeps it cool and means you get an extra boost of freshness when you apply it, great for a kick on those early rises!

When my skin needs a deep clean, instead of cleansing I'll start off with a face mask instead. The two I use at the moment are Eve Lom's Rescue Mask (which is lovely, but smells weird and doesn't seem to do much) and Lush's Cupcake Fresh Face Mask (which smells like chocolate, reduces shine and redness, and leaves my skin fresh and non-oily.).

Also, an extra product I use when I get spots is T-Zone Spot Zapping Stick. This is a little rollerball with tea-tree oil which you rub over your spots and this will reduce redness, swelling and keep the area cleam. This always yields results for me and I've used this for years. I usually buy this from my local Home Bargains, so if you have a store near you, have a look because it's usually much cheaper there than elsewhere.

That's my skincare routine in a nut-shell! What products do you use in your routines?

Christina xo

My 2013 Goals

Now, I don't normally keep resolutions... so I'm calling them goals to make them sound a little less terrifying! I've read quite a few posts from other bloggers about their aims for 2013 and I've seen folk setting themselves more than 30 goals for 2013. I'm a lazy bum, so no way will I make that many, so here are my goals for 2013:

1. Save up enough money to move back to Glasgow - I'm currently living in Fife (in Kirkcaldy, a town that is 63 miles east of Glasgow and roughly 2 decades behind the rest of humanity) with my boyfriend, but we both miss living in Glasgow, where the majority of our friends and family reside. Also, Kris has so few chances for full-time work up here so living in Glasgow would actually give both of us a chance at a career. For those reasons, we're saving up enough money to move into a flat back home. This is also one of the reasons behind my spending ban, which you can read about here. 

2. Blog more. Essentially, I just need to schedule some time at least 3-4 times a week where I can sit and blog. I love writing for this, but sometimes when I'm working a lot I just don't have the blogging mojo. I'm going to be positive and try more! I'd also like to get to know some of my fellow bloggers a bit more. Everyone I've spoken to has been lovely and welcoming, and I want to keep chatting away and making new friends where possible. And maybe one day I'll get to a meet-up too, that'd be lovely!

3. Be healthier. There are a few goals under the heading of being healthier: Drink less alcohol (let's see how well I do with THAT one!), eat less junk foods and more veg, and exercise more. I keep putting my unhealthy eating and laziness down to working so much, but it really is just me being bone idle. I love long walks and swimming, so I'm going to do that more, and try to cut out eating so much junk. Hopefully losing some weight will be a happy by-product of this, but I'm more interested in being healthy and less of a boozer. I definitely need to stop drinking so much, I am so hungover right now it is painful. My healthy eating isn't going too well yet but that's because the hangover munchies have kicked in. Pass the bacon...

So those are my goals for 2013. I'm hoping that now it's typed up and on the internet I will stick to it, know what I mean? Feel free to share your goals for the year too!

And to sign off, here's a picture of my favourite grumpy cat, Tardar Sauce!

Christina xo

100 Day Spending Ban... and beyond?

Good morning, and as I write this, it is now the first (sunny) morning of 2013, so Happy New Year! In my next post, I'm going to discuss my general resolutions/goals for the year, but I wanted to go into more detail on this one: I'm going on a 100 day spending ban. I'm not the only beauty blogger who's going for it, here are some other lovely ladies who are giving this a try too:

Sandra from the Black Pearl Blog.
Georgina from Make-up Pixi3
Grace from All That Slap
Linsay from Pandora's Beauty Basket
Kelly from Kel Loves
Melissa from Son and Star

I've known for a while that I spend too much of my hard-earned cash on buying inordinate amounts of lipsticks, eyeshadows, foundations and so on. But I tried other ways of saving money and stopping myself first and they haven't worked, so it's cold turkey time (ooh some cold turkey wouldn't be so bad right now, got killer hangover munchies...)

(These are my piggie banks for saving up spare change , aren't they cute!)

My rules/guidelines are:

1. I can't buy any new make-up, skincare, body or haircare unless I run out of something I need and have no alternatives. For example, I only use one primer so if I run out I will rebuy it only if I've used it all and have no samples of primer lying around.
2. If I get the urge to buy anything, I have to talk to Kris (he's good at talking me out of it). And Kris can't buy me anything either.
3. I can't buy any new clothes, shoes, bags etc. unless it's really essential, such as new underwear, or new jeans for when I inevitably ruin my next pair (I'm not good with jeans for some reason...)
4. In general, I must stop and ask myself: "Do I need this?" before buying anything.
5. I can spend vouchers that are gifted to me.
6. All money saved will be going towards the moving fund (more on that in my resolutions/goals post.)

20th February should be about 50 days, and if I've counted properly, 11th April is 100 days? Correct me if I'm wrong on that one, I'm crap at counting. I will keep you updated on my progress throughout! As I said in the title, I intend to do this for at least 100 days, but if I do well, I will probably keep going. I need to save a lot of money this year so if this helps I'll keep trying it! Am I mad? Probably.

Let me know if you're also doing a spending ban, I'll link to any posts sent to me and we can all help cheer each other on. Best of luck for 2013 ladies!

Christina xo