Barry M Natural Glow Palette | Shadows & Primer

I was gifted this gorgeous little Barry M eyeshadow palette for Christmas. I adore neutral colours as they are so easy to wear; a subtle, natural look for daytime or a heavy, deep combination of colours for the evening. This palette features three matte shades and three shimmer shades so there is a lovely range of colours and textures in there. 

I am so excited to use the third shade, which is a beautiful, matte almost-plum colour. I think it would look gorgeous in the crease, possibly as a transition shade. I also think the fourth shade - a shimmery champagne colour with a slight gold undertone - would look stunning as a highlight!

Personally, I would use the three matte shades for a daytime look and the shimmery colours for a nighttime look as I think the last three eyeshadows are much deeper and the shimmer makes them seem so much more glamorous!

As for the pigmentation, when I swatched the colours, I had to swatch them a couple of times for them to really show and, as you can see by the photograph, the first matte shade doesn't show up on my arm so I'm not too sure how that will apply. The darker shades were slightly more pigmented but they didn't really amaze me. However, as they aren't that pigmented - but they are buildable - this palette would be perfect for beginners who are only just starting to dabble in eyeshadows because it would be much easier to gradually build up the colours and I suspect they will be very easy to blend!

I haven't tried the primer out on my eyes yet, but I did do a slight swatch and it feels very creamy so it will be nice to apply as a base. I'm not sure if it will make the eyeshadows appear more pigmented, but if not, I can always use my usual Elf eyelid primer in the future.

I think this palette is very sleek and professional looking - the packaging reminds me of the Naked basics palettes. As it comes with a primer, it will be super handy for travelling as I wouldn't need to take a separate eyeshadow primer or any loose shadows. I can't wait to try the eyeshadows out!

What's your opinion of this palette if you own it? If you don't, would you go out and buy it?

October Favourites! | 2014

It feels like I haven't blogged in so long... I've been so busy with school - what with Spanish assessments and tons of Drama work. Today, I finished my ten hour drama exam! In total, we did six hours of acting and four hours of writing notes and beginning our portfolios (which we mainly get marked on). Obviously this was spread over two school days so I missed two days worth of lessons - aka, heaven. Drama is my favourite lesson so it literally didn't even feel like an exam and I was genuinely excited for it. I could do Drama all day every day for the rest of the school year, until I leave!

Anyway, lets talk about my favourites for this month. My November favourites that I posted last year is one of my most popular blog posts so I thought I might as well do an October favourites for 2014, if that's what you guys like the most. I haven't got too many 'physical' favourites (products etc); most of my favourites for this month are TV programmes and music.

Clothing!

I have literally been obsessing over my low white Converse throughout the last part of the month of October. My boyfriend actually bought me these for my birthday - which was on the 21st - and I am so grateful for them! I've been wanting them for so long and, once I got them, I wore them with everything. They're so easy to pair with outfits because they are so simple but they're really difficult to keep clean - I have to get the baby wipes out every time I wear them! At first they gave me super bad blisters but now they're becoming so comfortable and ahhh, I'm in love. :)

I've had these trainers for so long but I absolutely adore them. They're called Nike Satire trainers and as I have small feet, I can still buy Junior trainers from JD so these were only £30! I'm not sure if they do them in adult sizes because I can't seem to find anything like that on their website. Also, I can't find the same colour of these on the JD website either so they might've stopped doing them in these colours? However, like I said, I love these trainers so much and I tend to wear these with jeans and jumpers. They are one of the comfiest pairs of shoes I own! I wish I'd got them in all black because I think they would match more outfits but I do like having them in grey and mint because it livens up an outfit a little, especially if I want the main focus to be the shoes. I am such a trainer person - I find it difficult to find boots and pumps that I really like - so these are perfect for me.

Makeup!

I used to use this foundation all the time when I was around thirteen or fourteen but I stopped using it for a while because of the colour range. I use 100 ivory and it can be quite orange - I'm extremely pale so it's difficult to find foundations that match my skin tone but still make me look decent and doesn't make me look like I'm half dead. I can only really make this foundation work when I've got fake tan on, which is a lot of the time so it's not too difficult to use. I just need to say though that I love this foundation (apart from the fact it makes me look like an oompa-loompa). It has a good, full coverage and it really does last for a very long time. I'm not too sure about 25 hours as I tend to not leave makeup on my face for that long but it always stays put throughout the day and doesn't go patchy - which I've found with a couple of different foundations. It can feel quite heavy on the skin as it's so thick but as it has such a high coverage, a little can go a long way. If you'd like a seperate review on this, I'd be happy to do it!

Music!

I recently jumped on the Spotify bandwagon and my, oh my, why did I not download it sooner? It's the perfect platform to listen to a wide range of music - for free! Recently, I've been loving 5 Seconds of Summer's album - of course - and, in particular, the song Long Way Home. I don't know why but that song does something to me; it's so perfect. 

I've also been enjoying Ariana Grande's My Everything album. I have to say, I'm not a fan of some of the songs but I really like the majority of them and I've listened to a couple so many times, I'm actually sick of them now! I just think Ariana is perfect and her voice is mind-blowing. It's honestly such a great album.

Finally, I've been listening to Fantasy by Alina Baraz non-stop recently. It's such a relaxing, easy to listen to song and it's perfect to put on while I'm working as I'm someone who easily gets distracted by music so I prefer to work in silence, but this song is so soft so it creates the perfect amount of background noise!

Youtubers!

I've been watching Sophie Foster's videos for weeks now and she is literally the best! I love her style and she's so real in her videos - you can tell that she isn't putting an act on, like a lot of Youtubers tend to do. She's so funny - I follow her on Snapchat and the things she sends out are hilarious! She's one of those people who you wish you could meet and you think that if you did meet you'd click really well and you'd have so much fun! Is that weird? Maybe... I don't know. :)

I discovered Emily's channel through glitteralittle and I'm so glad I did. I'm in love with her videos; they're always so interesting and they don't last for half an hour, they're always short but sweet. I love to keep up to date with her vlog channel - I think vlogs are so fun, even if the person isn't doing anything particularly interesting. She just seems like such a lovely, funny person and oh my goodness, she's gorgeous too!

 I only discovered Rclbeauty101 about half way through October and literally binge-watched her videos. They're so unique and funny; she doesn't do the usual run-of-the-mill beauty tutorials or hauls every other video. Also, when she advertises products in her video, she doesn't do a long review, she subtly incorporates them into the video. For example, instead of stopping the video and speaking about Audible.com for a good five minutes (like a lot of Youtubers do), she'll show herself using it instead for a short amount of time.  I just feel like this is so much more effective than someone droning on about the product and how much they like it.

Television!

I recently re-watched Skins (series 3 and 4, aka the best generation) and afterwards I had nothing to watch so I started watching Gossip Girl because I heard a few people raving about it a while ago but never got round to watching it. I'm near the end of the first season and I'm hooked already! I absolutely adore Dan, I think he's the cutest but I think Serena takes him for granted sometimes... Again, I'm still on the first series so I'm not sure what unfolds in the later seasons so no spoilers please! I love Blair as well, she can be such a bitch but there are times when I really empathise with her and I just want to give her a hug. I can't wait to carry on watching but as I've been so busy with coursework in general, I haven't gotten round to it!

Other Favourites!

On the 15th October, my drama group and I went to watch the Blood Brothers musical at the Hippodrome in Birmingham. As I live in Nottingham, the journey took a while but I didn't mind it because my drama class is so amazing, I get on with everyone so well and we have such a laugh together!

We started reading the play in September and did bits of drama work on it but then we finally got to see it in the theatre! Our exam (which we did yesterday and today) was based on the themes and issues which are shown in the play and actually going to watch it helped so much, especially as, in parts of the exam, I had to act like Mickey when he was seven years old. Watching Sean Jones do such an amazing job, pretending to be a young child, really inspired me so I was much better portraying Mickey than I was when we first started studying the play. At first, I was so stiff and played with my hair a lot but today, I jumped around, pretended to shoot people, fell on the floor, mimed spitting and wiping it off my own face...I loved it! 

The play is absolutely fantastic and I would love to go somewhere like Manchester next year to see it again. I've been watching parts of the play from a couple of years ago - I watched the ending again on Youtube last night and I was in floods of tears, just like I was when I watched it at the theatre. There's so much tension throughout the play and I just think it's a must-see, whether you study it for drama or not. I can't express how much I enjoyed watching it - I wish I could go and watch it every day!

That's all my favourites from this month! Leave a comment letting me know what your favourite things from the month of October were. :)

Trip to Town! | OOTD

 I went to town today and I did a bit of shopping - despite already placing two orders online a couple of days ago... Today wasn't that cold so I didn't feel the need to wear my big coat from Topshop (which I am going to be doing a blogpost on very soon!) so a simple jumper kept me warm enough. I want to branch out more when it comes to outfits as myself and a jeans-and-tshirt combination have a very strong relationship but I feel like I never step out of my comfort zone often enough. That's why I decided to wear a very casual skater skirt. I paired this outfit with some boots I recently bought. Fun fact - I was going to send these boots back because they're nothing like I usually wear so I talked myself into thinking they aren't my style. I hate to admit it but the main reason I was going to take these back was because I was too worried about what people would think, especially because everyone is used to seeing me in trainers and flat shoes. However, today I felt brave and so I decided to wear them and I actually really like them; I think they are very suitable for the current season and so easy to wear. My feet did start to get quite sore though after walking around all day!

My jumper is from H&M: HERE - I really recommend these jumpers, I practically live in them!
My skirt is from H&M: HERE
My boots are from New Look: I couldn't find them anywhere on the website but they are called "black leather-look knitted cuff lace up boots"
My elephant necklace was gifted to me by my best friend for my birthday.
My flower necklace was gifted to me by my boyfriend.
All my Pandora charms were gifted to me by my family and my boyfriend.
My nose ring is from Ice Nine.

I kept my makeup fairly simple on my eyes. I used my Naked 3 palette: Strange all over my eyelid and brow bone, Dust in the inner corners and inner half of my eyelids and Limit through my crease. I used the L'Oreal Super Liner Blackbuster eyeliner - I wouldn't normally use this because it creates too thick of a line for my liking but I've ran out of my Elf liquid liner, which is actually my holy grail eyeliner. Pray for Georgia! I applied Benefit's Bad Gal Lash and Soap & Glory: Thick & Fast mascara to my upper eyelashes and Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless mascara to my bottom lashes. I smudged a small amount of a W7 eyeliner pencil on my lower lashline to make my eyes stand out more.

If you'd like more fashion/outfit based blog posts, don't forget to leave a comment! Hope everyone has had a good day. :)

I Have An Excuse!

Long time no see!
My last blog post was back in December of last year! No one understands how much I have wanted to blog. However, around the end of December, my laptop completely broke. The screen was smashed and the software didn't work. I gave it to my uncle and he wasn't able to fix it.
Hopefully, I am going to get a new laptop for my birthday which is next month! This means that I will be able to blog more regularly, which I am super excited to do.
I am uploading this via my brother's laptop but I wasn't able to use this to blog before because his also broke. What can I say, we aren't very good with technology!
Anyway, I am really sorry for not posting in almost a year; I will definitely make it up to you guys by posting as much as I can next month and onwards.
I'd really appreciate it if you could leave me some ideas in the comments of blog posts you'd like to see (like my favourite products of the month, Autumn fashion ideas, specific makeup products I am loving or even just a general life update).
I hope everyone is well and keep your eyes peeled for my next blog post!

My Top 5 Drugstore Must-Haves!

I love drugstore products. Don't get me wrong, I do love going into MAC or visiting Benefit's make-up counter in Boots on a Saturday afternoon to see how much money I can spend there until I realise what that money could have been saved up and put towards. However, there are so many amazing products in places like Boots and Superdrug which are practically identical to the quality of high-end make-up for about fifteen pounds cheaper! These are just a few of my favourites; I have many more so it was extremely difficult to shorten my list down to my top five.

1. The first product is my all time holy-grail powder and that is Stay Matte by Rimmel. Powder was always one of the most difficult things for me to find when I was first starting to wear make-up. Some powders I tried had a horrible colour range so I would walk out the house completely orange and others used to wear off and go patchy throughout the day. Not a good look! Then I came across Stay Matte. I'd heard about it quite a lot on Youtube and I'm so glad I finally got round to buying it because I go back and repurchase these all the time. I've got mine in translucent - I never buy coloured powders as my foundation matches my natural skin colour almost perfectly so any added colour on top makes my face look cakey and orange; if I have used fake tan, I bronze my face up to get it to match my neck and the rest of my body. This powder is only £3.99 from Boots - a bargain considering how amazing it is!

2. Bronzer is my best friend and after hearing so many good reviews about the Bourjois 'chocolate' bronzing powder, I had to go out and buy it. My mum bought this before me so I'd previously used hers to see if I liked it. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you can buy this in two shades: 51 and 52. I have mine in 51, which is considerably lighter than the other one. This bronzer has quite an orange/red-ish undertone - if you are super pale, I wouldn't recommend this, as it can come up quite harsh. I have really pale skin so I don't wear as much as this unless I've done my fake tan. It also has shimmer throughout it so if you don't like that, this bronzer isn't for you. It's priced at £6.99, incredible for the amount of product you get. I usually use this to contour with and then go on to use my MAC Mineralize Skin Finish Natural in Medium Dark to bronze up my face, where the light would naturally hit it.

3. This next product is a new favourite for me: Scandaleyes Retro Glam by Rimmel. The brush on this mascara is immense! The bristles are longer at both ends of the brush and shorter in the middle. The way the bristles are set out ensures your lashes don't look clumpy and that the product is distributed nicely onto each individual lash. My eyelashes are quite long anyway but when I wear this, it does give a false-lash effect which I like because I don't think a make-up look is complete without full, thick lashes. Again, I bought this from Boots for £6.99. I tend to get quite a lot of product on the end of the brush so I do have to make sure I've wiped it off onto the inside of the tube otherwise things get a bit messy.

4. The second to last must-have drugstore product is the Collection Intense Colour Supersoft Kohl pencil eyeliner. My best friend actually gave me this because she didn't want it nor use it which I'm very thankful for because I love it! I have mine in 02 Birdy Song which is a dark brown. I don't tend to wear brown eyeliners although I have started to accumulate quite a few. I prefer to wear black eyeliner as it makes my eyes appear bigger and makes the colour of my eyes stand out considerably more. However, I love wearing this eyeliner to school because it's very subtle and not as harsh as if I was to wear black. The formulation is perfect; it glides on my eye so smoothly and it's very easy to blend despite being so pigmented! I wear this right in my lash line to create an illusion of thicker lashes. I'm not quite sure how much this was because, like I said, it was given to me but it probably doesn't cost much as it's by Collection but I do love this product so much!

5. I'm not quite sure if this last product qualifies as a drugstore product as you can't buy it in places like Boots in the UK. It is one of the Elf Studio line mineral lipsticks in Nicely Nude. A couple of weeks ago, I went online and ordered a ridiculous amount of makeup off the Elf website - I might do a top 5 Elf products post soon! Luckily, they had a half price off everything on there and I ended up buying sixty pounds worth of make-up for only £30! This lipstick is a gorgeous pink shade. It does have 'Nude' in it's name but this is a lot more on the pink side. It isn't highly pigmented but it does give a really nice colour pay-off. It can be blended out with a bit of lipbalm until it is quite sheer. It can feel slightly drying on my lips sometimes but mostly, it feels fine. It gives a matte finish which I like in a lipstick because I always put a bit of lip gloss over the top. I like to wear Elf's Plumping Lip Glaze in Wink Pink (£1.50) with it. When you swatch it, it has a subtle shimmer throughout it but it isn't noticeable when worn. However, it doesn't have an amazing lasting power and I have to top it up a lot during the day which I normally don't have time to do. This lipstick cost me five pounds - not too bad seeing as it is a gorgeous colour and you get a lot of product!

Another cheeky must-have I'm going to include (but unfortunately forgot to photograph) is Revlon's Lip Butters. I have one in 045 Cotton Candy which is a gorgeous, sheer baby pink. They are very moisturising and natural-looking so great to wear to school if you aren't allowed to wear anything bright on your lips. The Lip Butters come in gorgeous packaging and I can't wait to buy more. I don't want to write lots here because once I've bought a few more, I might do a big review on them so keep an eye out!

That concludes my top 5 drugstore must-haves! I do recommend going out and trying, possibly buying, these products as I do think they are worth it, especially for the low prices! Who doesn't love a good quality yet cheap make-up product?
If you have any of these, let me know what you think! Also, if you know of any more good drugstore must-haves, you'll have to tell me. :)

Are Baby Lips Really Worth the Hype?

Recently, I went out and purchased 5 of Maybelline's Baby Lips lip balms which have been raved and spoken about a lot in the beauty community, since they were released a while ago. I suffer from very dry lips and I'm always on the lookout for brand new lip balms. After seeing so many people speaking about Baby Lips, I ending up caving and bought them; I was super excited to try them! I was going to pick up all six but Boots didn't have Cherry Me, which is a very pigmented, deep pink colour, when I went in so I only bought the five pictured above. In the UK, you can buy them from Boots and Superdrug for £2.99. I think that is a reasonable price, maybe not for the clear balms but the ones with a good colour pay off are worth the three pounds. I'm a big sucker for nice packaging and while I wouldn't say this is the best, for a lip balm, it's very practical. All of the lip balms are quite small so they're good to throw in your handbag or pocket and you know they won't take up too much space. Maybelline claim that you get 8 hours of moisture from Baby Lips which sounds very unrealistic, if you ask me. I can't go a full 8 hours without having to reapply, my lips start feeling dry again after about thirty minutes.

My favourite is Pink Punch. This smells amazing; this one has the nicest scent out of the other four I own, but I have smelt Cherry Me and, in my opinion, that one is the best with Pink Punch a close second. Pink Punch is quite pigmented but can be blended out or easily built up so it appears brighter on your lips. This is a great product to wear to school if you aren't allowed to wear a lot of make up seeing as this is a tinted lip balm and not a full blown, bright pink lipstick.

This is Peach Kiss. I don't wear this one as much because it's very similar to the others, but with a slightly different taste. It has a very subtle scent and when I swatched it on my arm, it gave a sheer peach-y coloured pay off with slight shimmers running throughout it. However, when I have it on my lips, it doesn't give any colour at all. It does feel slightly more moisturising than Pink Punch though.

The yellow baby lips is called Intense Care. A few seconds after I put this on, I get a strong taste of suncream. Not that I go around eating suncream but you know what I mean... I do like this because it has no colour to it and does help my lips feel less chapped. It doesn't heal them completely but it does the job of making them feel a lot more moisturised. It has a very subtle scent but sometimes smells a little bit like marzipan. Weird.

Mint Fresh smells and tastes delicious. Just like the name suggests, it has a strong smell of mint. It feels very refreshing on the lips and glides on so smoothly, like most of these products do. This is practically just the same as the other clear Baby Lips but the taste and scent is the thing I do like the most. The packaging is a very vibrant green - it helps to prevent losing it in your handbag!

The final Baby Lips I have is called Hydrate and comes in a light blue packaging. It basically does the same thing as all the other clear ones. It doesn't have a particularly nice scent or taste and it seems to be formulated exactly the same as the others mentioned above. This causes me to think have Maybelline just decided to sell the exact same product with slightly different scents just to make more money? Personally, I'd prefer them to bring out two or three amazing products which were completely different than bring out all the same thing. They've done a good job of promoting them though, seeing as so many people have brought them which caused me to buy them too.

(please excuse the dark shadow, I've only just realised and it's too dark right now to take another picture)

The first swatch is of Pink Punch - I swatched this a few times over itself, to create a brighter pink so it is slightly sheer at first but it is buildable.

The second swatch is of Peach Kiss - very sheer, I swatched this about 5 times over itself. It seems a lot more pigmented on my arm than on my lips.

Overall, I'm disappointed with most of the Baby Lips as they don't make my lips as soft as I'd like and I do have to reapply a lot during the day, understandable, of course, but not with a lip balm which claims to have eight hours of moisture. I do like a couple for the colour pay off and the scent but apart from that, I actually wouldn't recommend these products. This is obviously all my opinion and if you love them, I'm glad, but I just don't think they're for me.

Do you like Baby Lips? If so, which one is your favourite?

Georgia xo