Make It Yourself - Oatmeal Face mask

Hey guys!  Embracing the theme of 'no-buy October' I've decided to start a series on homemade beauty , exciting I know!  This is the first in the series and it's how to make an Oat Face mask.

Benefits of Oatmeal Face masks

Oatmeal contains 18 different amino acids, which is one of the reasons why it's such a popular ingredient in face masks.  It's suitable for people with sensitive skin, or even skin allergies.  When you add other ingredients to Oatmeal, it helps keep moisture in your skin too, and due to it's texture (quite coarse), it makes a great exfoliant.  As far as I'm concerned, all great reasons to give it a go :)

You'll need:
1 tablespoon of rolled oats,
1 tablespoon of organic natural live yoghurt,
a few drops (half teaspoon) honey (preferably runny, but if you don't have runny, any will do)

 You'll also need a bowl for mixing, a tablespoon for measuring, and a facecloth to wash the mask off.

How to make the mask

(You'll notice I changed my bowl, I opted for a smaller one) First of all, add the rolled oats and yoghurt to the bowl and mix.  When it's all mixed, add the honey (tip: if you're using set honey, soak the spoon in hot water first, it'll help to melt the honey) and mix until you can't see the honey any more.

Once it's all mixed, apply to the face.  You can do this however you prefer, either by using a foundation brush (generally better for smooth face masks), a spatula or your hands.  I used my hands as I massaged it in at the same time to help exfoliate.  Once your face is covered, leave it for 10 mins (you can leave it for 20 mins if you prefer).

Tip:  Things you can do in 10 mins

• Listen to your top 3 favourite songs
• Meditate
• Unload/load the dishwasher
• Clean out all the old food from your fridge
• Make a cup of tea and flick through a magazine
• 10 mins of Wii-Fit

Now you're ready to take your face mask off!  Fill your skin with hot water.  Once that's done, take your facecloth (I used the muslin cloth that comes with Liz Earle cleanse and polish) soak it in the hot water, and wipe the mask off your face.

Finally, after patting your face dry with a clean towel, apply your favourite moisturiser and let your skin rest.  Voila - your first homemade fase mask is done!

I don't know about you, but my skin looks pretty radiant after that, and feels amazing!  It feels very soft, exfoliated and so so clean.  It's also worth noting that for me, there was enough left over to do a second mask, so that amount would be enough for you and a friend, or you could just apply it a lot more generously than I did :)

Other things you can add:

• Mashed up strawberries (for this quantity, use 1 or 2)
• Mashed up banana (about 1/4 of a banana)
• Tablespoon of lemon (great for oily skin)
• Cucumber (diced and blended)
• Egg white (helps bind it together)
• 2 teaspoons of olive oil (great for dry skin)

Have you ever made a homemade face mask?

Anniversary Day 2012

If you follow me on twitter, you'll know that on the 27th September it was my 4th wedding anniversary :)  These are usually a complete disaster... for some reason, we plan lots in or something special, and end up bickering all day, which is weird, because we don't really bicker any other time!  I know, strange.  So we tried not to make too much of a big deal out of this one and you know what?  It was perfect!  We started off by spending the day at Dyffryn Gardens in the Vale of Glamorgan.  It's this beautiful stately home (which you can't go in at the moment as it's being restored) and formal gardens.

We went for a long walk around the gardens (formal gardens, room gardens, reflection pool... lots more!) which took up a good 2-3 hours.  Then we headed to the cafe there and hade a bit to eat (cup of tea for me with tomato and basil soup (was ok) Chris had a full 'Welsh' breakfast and tea).  At this point, we were knackered!  Chris has had a cold all week so hasn't been feeling great, so we headed home and chilled out infront of the TV for a couple of hours.

Here's some pics of our day at Dyffryn Gardens.

In the evening then we just went for a nice meal, sadly the place we went only had ONE vegetarian option for a main course on the menu, and it didn't agree with me :(  But even so, we had a lovely night coupled with a lovely day :)  Who knows if we'll plan anything for the next one :p

Accessorize Lip Gloss

Hey guys, 

I have another Accessorize lip product for you today!  You know how lip products are my nemesis!  Pics below and my thoughts (as usual!)

From L-R The Accessorize lip gloss, the Accessorize lipstick and lipgloss, the Accessorize lipstick*

My Thoughts

I really like this lip gloss :)  Again, cute packaging as with all the Accessorize beauty products (I love a brand that does different things with packaging, like Paul & Joe).  The scent is amazing!  It smells like ice cream, NOM!  It really reminds me of the lip gloss with the MUA Lip BOOM's, I love them too :p But I do prefer a creme gloss as opposed to a glitter gloss (tell that to my crazy glitter collection!).  I love the colour too, that's one thing I'm really lacking in my collection, corals.  I have near to none, and considering I'm so pale, you'd think I'd have a decent amount of them, wrong!  I'm impressed with the amount of product you get too, often with these squeezy tubes you tend not to get as much, but in these you get for £2.95 14ml.  I really like it, and honestly can't find anything bad to say about it :)  

Question - do you prefer the white background to my photo's or the coloured/patterned backgrounds?

Haul

Hey guys!  Hope you're all having a great day!  So after a wonderful anniversary day with the other half, we popped into town and did a bit of shopping :)

I'd been owed some vouchers from my old job for quite a while (nearly a year!) so I took the opportunity to get two sets of things.  The first in my collecting for my next giveaway (500 subscribers) and a few high end things I'd been desperate to over the last few months.  Just in time for 'no-buy October' and what's better, I didn't have to spend any of my own money, wahoo!  So, here's a quick haul for you, I'll be doing full on reviews of all the items over the next month or so to let you know what I thought :)  It's mostly high end - with some high street stuff thrown in for good measure :)

Here's some close ups of some of the items

It's only a few hours after buying them, but so far I've tried the Maybelline Fit Me concealer and powder, the Chanel eye shadow (stunning!) and the NARS blusher - love them all so far :)  So, watch this space for full on reviews - can't wait to try the Liz Earle cleanse and polish tonight :)

September Blogger Loves

Hey guys!  How is everyone?

If you recall, I previously had a series called Monday Blogger Loves which I decided to change and make it a monthly event.  This is kinda like the monthly favourites we all do, but focussed on bloggers, so which blogs I've read the most and enjoyed over the month.  You may find that some of the same bloggers will appear more than once (featuring in several months), but that just means I really really enjoy their blog ;)  So without further ado I give you the lovely blogs I've been enjoying :)

What I look for in a blog

For me the first thing is how the blog looks, as it's my first impression.  So I like to see something other than a standard unchanged blogger template.  Decent photo's and of a 'larger' size - but the size isn't a deal breaker.  Not too much clutter on the blog, the posts need to be the bit that stands out the most.  I generally don't like having to click to read the rest of the post either - it's just another barrier to someone actually reading the post, not a fan of that.  The writing style has to be warm, friendly, with a lot of personality and be professional :)

Pampered Prince

This one I only discovered recently, so I haven't been reading his blog for the whole of Sept, but I have been checking it every day since I discovered it :)  Pampered Prince is a male beauty blogger (we need more of these!) focussed on male skincare.  He's got a friendly and professional writing style and writes great reviews - you should go check him out :)

A Day in the life of a Scottish Lass

This girl is amazing, she's the sweetest, loveliest person and is really new to blogging.  She's already amassed over 70 followers and this is only the second month she's been blogging, awesome.  Clearly she's doing something right!

Natalie Roseanne's Nail and Beauty blog

I've featured Natalie in a Monday Blogger Love before, but I wanted to give her another mention - for one, she's awesome, and if you love nails, you need to check her out!  She does loads and loads of different nail looks and lots of beauty posts too :)

Lady Million

I found her blog when I was looking for tutorials on how to create social sharing buttons, she's created a great series on how to do this, and customise your blog without having to pay someone to do it.  Great stuff!  She's a great blogger, with a beautiful blog (no surprise!).

Who's been your blogging favourites this last month?

FashionistA Brow Kit

Hey lovelies :)  So, a couple of new brow kits have hit the shelves recently (FashionistA and MUA), I have the FashionistA one - here's my thoughts :D

FashionistA Brow Kit £7* in Superdrug

My Thoughts

First impressions are it's a lovely little kit.  Good mirror, brush and tweezers.  For the photo you can see above, I used the little angled brush to apply the darkest brown to my brows.  Now, bear in mind, I have dyed black hair, so I tend to need to have a very dark brown on my brows for them to look more... normal.  That's my main disappointment with this kit, there isn't a brown dark enough for my hair colour.  The darkest brown in the palette is nearly passable for me, but I feel it does need to be darker.  So I'm afraid I'll be sticking with my Chanel brow palette purely because of the colour.  However, there's also a lot to be said for this kit.

A little goes a long way - if you pick up a little bit of product on the brush, it can do nearly the whole brow.  You also get gel in the palette for shaping and definition.  The tweezers... well... they didn't so much 'pluck' my eyebrows as chop them where they gripped (very sharp!).  I love the little compact and the packaging and if I had slightly ligher hair, this would be perfect!  

Do you have dark hair and have the same problem as me?

No-buy October

Hey guys!

So, I'm super broke right now so I'm making October no-buy month!  I can't foresee needing anything (other than maybe conditioner etc - but that I'm allowing as it's a necessity), if I run out of my Chanel eyeliner I'll... well, it'll be tough, but I'll just have to use my others (maybelline, l'oreal, mua etc).  So on the back of that, other than whatever turns up in my SheSaid beauty box I won't be having anything new to review, so I'll need to be creative.

I have a few ideas of bits and bobs I'd like to do, but I'd also like your input :)  What would you like to see?  Any requests, TAG's etc?  Specifics would be good, like... what's in my bag, purple eyeshadow, how to change your blog background etc etc :)  Lifestyle posts, whatever!  So tell me what you want to see, and I'll get to work on making it all happen :)

Favourite Foundations

Hello lovelies!  This is a post I've been wanting to write for a while, and today I decided to actually get myself together, and do it!  I've also done a video on it on my YouTube channel :)

So I went through my collection and thought about what I've been using, enjoying, why I liked it, and ultimately, what I was reaching for most.  Here's the two I picked.

YSL Touch Eclat Foundation

Here's what they claim "A bold, unique formula to target shadowy areas and define contours. A magic light infused within a weightless fluid. A texture that has no mask-like effect. A formula free of opaque powders that evens the complexion and erases imperfections, enhancing the face’s natural features."  It's available in 22 shades so the chances are, you'll find a colour that matches your skin tone.

Now, I've already done a review on this, so I'm not going to go on about it for ages, but the reason it's made the coveted #1 spot for high end foundations for me, is because of the beautiful luminosity and radiance it gives your skin.  It's lovely, natural looking, and has just enough coverage.  It's got a lovely colour to it too (rose-ness).  It gives light-medium coverage, and lasts really well throughout the day (I'll get a good 8 hours out of it before it could do with re-touching).  It's £28 so not cheap, but it is cheaper than the Chanel Vitalumiere aqua which is around £34 I think.  This also isn't pore-clogging :)

Rimmel Wake Me Up Foundation

Here's what they claim "Rimmel's first liquid foundation that instantly reawakens skin with a healthy, radiant glow.  The light smooth texture, glides on easily to give 100% pore-less and flawless complexion.  Spoil yourself with SPF 15 sun protection and illuminating radiance pearls for a natural glow."

This I bought for £5 in Sainsburys (it was half price).  It's also non-pore clogging, a big thing for me.  It's medium coverage, smells fresh and lasts all day.  For £5 it's not far off the quality of some high end foundations.  If you don't have the best part of £30 to spend on foundation, this is a great replacement.

What's your favourite high end and high streed foundations?

Accessorize Lipstick

Hey guys!

I've seen that Accessorize have branched out into makeup for a while now but I've been a bit hesitant to try it because... well... I'll be honest, as much as I really love their jewellery, stunning designs, I find them to be a bit overpriced for the quality... there, I said it!  And I was worried the makeup would be the same :(  However, if I'm right (this is just me guessing and putting two and two together, perhaps to make 11) then I think the people that make Accessorize makeup, might also be the people who make MUA and lets face it, I rave about MUA - so here goes :)  Pics and review at the bottom :)

Accessorize lipsticks can be bought in Superdrug for just under £5*

My Thoughts

Matt lipsticks are really on trend right now, I also think they're more versatile.  They work great with lip pencils (same sort of consistency), adding gloss really changes the look and just by itself, it looks great too.  The only downside with these is that they aren't hydrating at all, so it's either the look you're going for, or you need to add a gloss/balm over the top.  Or like a lot of other people do, they start with a balm - personally I can't do that, the lipstick bleeds if I do that and trust me, that isn't a good look!

Ok, on to the product.  First impressions, I love the packaging!  Super pretty, I love that they've done something different, I can really get on board with that.  When you see their stand in Superdrug, it's hard not to be drawn to it because of how pretty all the products are :)

The colour I have is Shade 2 - Love Sick.  It's a beautiful blush colour and doesn't seem quite as dark when it's on your lips as it is in the packaging.  That might be because of my colouring and lip colour, and isn't a slant on the product - it's very highly pigmented - a great colour :)  It lasts well, of course if you add a gloss over the top it won't last as long, same as any lipstick :)

What I'm not so keen on is the extra 'pot' of product you get with it.  The pot is on the lid, which is strange, it feels like it should be the bottom, so I keep pulling the wrong end off, then the pot comes with it... I think the packet would look much more pretty without it, it just doesn't need it.  Also, it's not very hydrating, but it's a matt lipstick and none of them are, so I don't hold it against it :)  It's a beautiful product and isn't expensive.  In my opinion, the packaging alone is worth it :)  I really like it and it's becoming my go-to lipstick :) I've just realised how much I've rambled on about something I didn't think I had much to say about :p

What do you think of Accessorize makeup?  What's your favourite bit of their packaging?

Shop the Stash - halfway

Hey guys!  Very quick update for you - as you know, last week I decided to do 'Shop the Stash' until the end of September, so here's a quick update for you :) Initial post is here.

Here's a reminder of what I shopped!

Over the last week, out of the selection above, I've been mostly using the Fashionista custom palette, the Maybelline One by One mascara, the Maybelline colour tattoos and quad and that's about it.  I haven't been as adventurous as I thought I would have been with eyeshadows and looks, but, I have been very adventurous with lipstick!  Just as I vowed I would :)  Here's some pics of the looks I created over this last week :)

I didn't take pictures every day, as you can imagine, in the morning's I'm often in a rush to get to work, as I'm terrible at getting out of bed in the morning, hate it!  This week, I'm going to try and embrase matte eyeshadows and experiment with lighter lipstick - but make sure I'm wearing some every day :)  

I'm debating whether to buy the Maybelline Fit Me foundation/powder etc - I've been dying for it to come out over here, but I'm super skint... I think, this week Superdrug are going to have it on offer too, so I might have to pop in... hmm... we'll see - I'll keep you posted :)

My week

Hey guys, I know these are quite unpopular types of post, but I really like them, I wanted to do one, so I thought 'What they hay' lets do it :)

It's been a good week.  I've played around with different lipsticks/products, making myself wear different colours and go out of my comfort zone, which usually pays off :)  I snapped Matilda with crazy green eyes!  Amazing timing, she looked at me just as the flash went off - awesome.  She also discovered Videos for Cats on YouTube - she chills and zones out watching the aquarium, but when I put the birds on, o-m-g, she goes mental!  She tries to catch the birds, and when they fly off the screen, she's looking behind it to find where they are - so I don't put that on much :)

Our roses in the garden have come back bigger and better than before!  They were being strangled with ivy, so we chopped that back a few weeks ago, and I 'pruned' the roses - by 'pruned' I mean, hacked them back with shears so they were about 1ft tall and they've responded really well to it, they're thriving :)  I've also had a weekend fuelled by Tassimo - I had a machine for my birthday in April and I can't get enough of them!  The coffee is amazing, especially the milk pods they do, nom!

Weight-loss wise, I lost 1lb this week, but I'm ok with that, it's all going off, wooo!  Just in case you didn't know, I do have a weight loss blog if you want to check it out. I've not long started it, I'm going to try and put vegetarian / slimming world friendly recipes up on there over the weeks too :)  

How's your week been?  Good/bad/indifferent? 

Blog Redesign

Hey guys!  Super excited today!  I've literally spent ALL day redesigning my blog, and I think, it's pretty much done, wahoo!

There's still a couple of little bits I want to work on - like adding an advertising bar, which I'll hopefully sort tomorrow (Sunday), but other than that it's pretty much done :)

If you're new to my blog, or if you don't remember what it looked like, here's a pic to jog your memory ;)

How did I do it?

Good question!  So, something you may not know about me, is that I'm an artist/designer and on my portfolio site, I hand painted all the elements, and it suddenly dawned on me the other day, that it would be really nice to do that on my blog too :)  I've been thinking of changing to a white background for a few weeks, and thought this was the perfect opportunity, so I got up this morning, made myself a cuppa, grabbed my watercolours and got to work :)  After chopping bits up after scanning it in, this is how it all turned out :)  I'm really happy with it and hope you all love it as much as me (there are some voting buttons on the side - I'd love it if you voted to let me know what you think)  :)

Fashionista custom palette

Hey guys!  How's your day going today?  So today's post is all about the FashionistA custom palette (by the way people who work at FashionistA if you're reading this, you really need to get a proper website:) ).   

I first saw these in Superdrug months ago and was quite intrigued, I thought it was nice to a budget brand doing something different.  I actually gave away a FashionistA single eyeshadow in my first giveaway, it was a really pretty lilac shade (I was so tempted to keep it for me :p).  Well months have passed, and now I have my own palette and some beautiful shades to put in it :)

Oooh pretty arrangement :)

FashionistA custom design palette each shadow/blush etc is £4* each

Wearing the blusher and eyeshadow :)

My Thoughts

Of these four, the blusher is my favourite, it's a beautiful coral colour, something I've been looking for in a blusher for a long time, and now I have it, yay :)  The shadow is lovely too, it has a beautiful shimmer as do most of their 'baked' products.  I don't tend to use bronzer every day, it depends if I'm going for a 'pale' look or actually want to look like I've seen a glimmer of sun this year.  I tend to lean towards embracing my paleness :)  Oh, you'll have to excuse my dodgy eyeliner too - for some reason I did it after mascara which made it hard :p  All these colours are really pretty and I'm finding it hard to find a negative... maybe the cost - £12 for for a 4 shadow palette is quite steep, but I also always say you get what you pay for and I'm a strong believer of that and the quality of these is brilliant.

EDIT: 17/01/12 After using the blusher for several months now I can report back that this is pretty much my favourite blusher ever.  I love it!  Best £4 you'll spend :)

Have you tried FashionistA products yet?  What did you think of them?

Pixi3 out

xXx

Maybelline Colour Tattoos USA edition

Hey guys!  So I called this post 'USA edition' because I wasn't sure what to call it... I recently did a makeup swap as you know, and 4 of the products I got (I'd requested these) were the limited edition colour tattoos that Maybelline have launched for Autumn/Fall.  First off, I love them! Second off, here's the pics and review at the bottom ;)

My Thoughts

I've found the colour tattoo's to be a bit hit and miss... the turquoise one creased on me like a mf'er, others don't blend well (the grey one), but I really loved these colours so I really wanted to try them, and boy am I glad I did!

I have the full collection (Mossy Green, Gold Shimmer, Barely Beige, Rich Mahogany <-- hello Anchorman!) - first thing that strikes me is that Barely Beige is really similar to the MAC Painterly paint pot, it's a good base colour for pretty much any colour/powder you want to put on top.

They all blend well, and you can wear all 4 colours at the same time starting with barely beige in the inner corner and 1/3rd, then Gold shimmer in the middle, then rich mahogany on the outer third, then, use the mossy green on the outer corner and taking it into the crease :)  The Maybelline quad in Smokey Cinnamon goes really well over the top if you want the tattoo's to last longer :) (yes, I got that too, which I might add, is equally awesome!).  As for their longevity, they've been lasting for about... 6-8 hours before they really start creasing and to be fair, that's about as long as normal eye shadows last with me so I'm pretty happy with that :)  Overall I love them, super happy with the colours, especially the mossy green :)

Pixi3 out
xXx

Fashionista Double Collection Mascara

Hey guys!  Today's post is on FashionistA's Double Collection mascara.  Here's some pics, and a review at the bottom :)  Super excited, never tried anything like this before :)  

FashionistA Double Collection Mascara £8.00*

My Thoughts

As I said before, I've never tried anything funky like this before so I was a bit apprehensive.  I have fairly long eyelashes anyway so lengthening isn't something I would naturally go for, I'd tend to go for volume but the problem with them is that they often clump your lashes, which trust me, isn't a good look!

I like the 2 step system, it's definitely made for some pretty sweet lashes :)  The white lengthening mascara part is really easy to apply and it dries quite quickly.  The black top coat applies just as easily, neither have a strong scent (unlike the covergirl lash blast).  My lashes didn't stick together and they were definitely longer, yay :)  All in all I really liked it, it's something I would recommend to a friend, the only negatives were that it took a while to coat all the white, and the brushes weren't the best, they didn't grip my lashes amazingly, but they weren't terrible, certainly not enough to put me off, and I'd be inclined to either reach for another mascara if you're in a rush, or just use the step 2 part (the black end) if you're in a hurry :)  I'm looking forward to using it more as it makes for a nice dramatic look (which you all know I like for the eyes)  :)

UPDATE:  I've used it a lot more now and I'm definitely getting quicker with it.  The black end works well by itself but for the full effect I'd always say to use it properly with the full process :)

Pixi3 out

xXx

The Cost of a Blog

Hey guys!  Slightly different post for you today - a bit more wordy :)

The other night I was thinking about how much I love blogging, which led me to think about how much time I spend blogging, which in turn led me to think about how much money I spend on my blog (domain name, buying products to review, advertising etc) and it dawned on me that, it's a pretty darn expensive hobby!

I don't know about any of you, but for me I have a goal for my blog (combined with my YouTube channel), I want to be able to do it full time, within the next 2 years.  That's a pretty big goal, and one I might not be able to achieve, but I'm going to try my hardest to achieve it :)  

So, along the lines of 'how much is your face worth', I thought I'd do a 'how much is your blog worth' post.  Now, this is in no means bragging, far from it, I think on looking at this, I'll actually be more embarrassed by how much I spend on my blog... I also think that a lot of people who read blogs, don't necessarily think about what goes into them, whether that's the time, money or effort etc.  So, here I attempt to put all of that together... lets see what happens!

The Cost of a Blog

Basic regular costs

Domain name:  £10 a year (£0.83p pm)

Advertising: £15 pm on Sprinkleofglitter

Total: £15.83 pm

Time spent (hrs)

Weekends: Typically I spend 6-12 hours each day (Sat & Sun) working on my blog, so we'll split the difference and say 9 hours on Sat and 9 hrs on Sun, taking the weekend total to 18 hours.

Weekdays:  Realistically I spend about 2 hours a day on my blog (sometimes more, sometimes less), so that's 10 hours a week, taking the total to 28 hours a week, which I'm sure you'll agree, is pretty much a full time job (bear in mind, I have a full time day job, doing a 40 hour week)

Total: 28 hours

Pay:  None.

If I were to get minimum wage for people over 21 in the UK is £6.08, so X that by 28 = £170.24 (per week) or £680.96 per month.

Products

The big one!  How much do I spend on makeup each month?  This is a hard one to estimate, because it's different amounts each month... looking back over my bank statements, it's realistically (and shamefully) about £100 per month.  I know... that often consists of 1 high end item for like £30, and then maybe 2-3 shopping trips during lunch of about £20-£30 - seems innocent enough on each trip... but holy moley do they add up!

So if we add up all those figures....

Regular costs: £15.83pm

Time spent £680.96 pm

Products £100 pm

Total: £796.79

If we don't factor my time into it, it's a more manageable £115.83 pm... still a lot of money!  And that isn't counting the time spent on twitter talking to people, promoting my blog, the human cost - so is there a cost to my marriage for the amount of time I'm spending on my hobby, blogging... 

So the big question is, if you're a blogger/YouTuber, how much is yours worth?

Pixi3 out

xXx

NYX Blusher in Pinched

Hey guys, another one here as a result of my makeup swap with the lovely WheatenBeauty1 :)

So, this was a request I made as a result of seeing MissGlamorazzi's wonderful video on the Products she would repurchase which you can find here.  She was wearing a beautiful pink blush by NYX and since it was time for a swap, I added it to my list :)  So without further ado, here's the pics, and my thoughts below :)

My Thoughts

I love, love, love it!  Such a great recommendation (on that note, she also recommended the Maybelline One by One, which she'd seen in someone elses video, which I then bought, and now love!) - it's such a pretty pink and has a subtle gold shimmer.  It isn't too soft, so it doesn't splodge all over your face, which I hate, it's really blendable and gives a really beautiful soft glow.  I can see this making it into my September favourites :)

What's your favourite NYX product?

Pixi3 out

xXx