Bling Brow Benefit blogger & press event

 

Back a few days ago I was invited to a blogger & PR event by the lovely people at Benefit.  They were doing a road show with the lovely @lisa_benefit (head makeup artist, trend and brow expert for Benefit UK) and Jared Bailey (global brow expert).

I've met Lisa at a Benefit event before, she's super lovely and such an experienced makeup artist, so I was really honoured for her to give me the full Benefit brow treatment.  Don't forget, this woman has done Cara Delevingne's makeup - needless to say, I felt special ;)

So to begin with Jared showed us how to find your perfect arch and define your brows perfectly, this I did already know, thanks to previous Benefit tuition but it's good to have it refreshed.  Between Lisa, Jarad and some experienced Benebabes we had the full Benefit treatment on our brows including a tint.  

The purpose of the event was also to showcase a new product they have coming out called BlingBrow.  They've teamed up with Swarovski crystal elements to make a kit (pictured above) ready for the festive season to add self-adhesive crystals to your brows.

There's 3 suggested ways to wear them, 3 in a row just past the arch (Touch O'Bling) this will cost £4 a brow or £8 for both.  Then there's having the crystals above the brows (Over the top Bling) - £8. Then having the crystals actually over your brows (Big time bling) £16.  They're self-adhesive and reusable.  You can leave them on for up to 3 days too.

They're also selling a kit (pictured) which is officially out on the 1st November 2014 and will cost £19.50 which has the crystal and rose gold coloured gems inside.  However, if you have Benefit apply them for you, you can pick from up to 8 different colours.

This (for me) is perfect for Christmas party's and New Years partys - but I'm sure that across the UK (and World) for glam nights out girls will be donning these on their brows for extra sparkle and bling!

Will you be Blinging out your brows?

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*This post contains PR samples

A spring meetup in Cardiff

 Carrots!!!

Strawberry massage bar

Gorgeous scented Lush bath bombs

Our lovely new friend, Alice :)

The ever-stunning Charli

The gorgeous Laura

The lovely Claire and Leanne

Rosie - the lovely organiser :)

e.l.f have a 'selfie' mirror, so we took a big camera selfie :)

A gorgeous eye shadow palette, love the shapes!

Pretty containers with pink ribbons dotted about the shop

 Our goodies - lip shine, eyebrow lifter & filler, 2 nail polishes & an eye shadow dust in sweet

A mini e.l.f haul - face wipes, brush cleaner and the small stipple brush

Yesterday myself and 6 other lovely bloggers descended on The Brewhouse in Cardiff for a casual meetup in the name of charity (Give & Make Up).

I got there a little late as I just couldn't drag myself out of bed in the morning, and the traffic was terrible, taking us the best part of an hour to get in (usually a 20 min drive).  When I got to the Brewhouse Rose and Claire were both there snapping away some lovely products that Lush were on-site selling (see pics above).

A few minutes after I got there, Leanne and Chari arrived too, and after a bit of a catch-up, we went and ordered some food.  Because of the pregnancy I'm craving really plain food at the moment, so I opted for a 'Classic Pizza' which is just mozzarella and fresh basil (I think you needed a microscope to find the basil!) - it was a little rich for me so I ended up leaving some, it was only luke warm too, and I'm not good with cold pizza.

After we'd all had some food, we headed over to the e.l.f store for a bit of a blogger event.  They'd prepared some lovely goody bags for us (pic above & my mini-haul).  They talked us through and demonstrated the different products that were in our bags.  It was lovely to see the e.l.f girls, they're really lovely and passionate about the store :)

After that Charli and I headed off, I was getting really tired and needed a bit of a recharge before heading over to my friends house in the evening.

All in all a really lovely day - I love small meetups, you actually get time to chat to people and catch-up, and hopefully meet some new people too (I'm looking at you Alice!).

This months Biggest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Casey from A Topsy Turvy blog

 

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Clogau gold launch their flagship store in Cardiff

Back on the 23rd January, it was a life changing day for me.  I was invited to a wonderful event at the new Clogau flagship store here in Cardiff, it was a beautiful and elegant evening that I was privileged to be a part of.  The reason it was life changing, whilst the founder was giving a lovely speech about how far Clogau has come, my brother over in France was suffering from a massive heart attack, which he didn't survive.  So, that's why it's taken me a while to write this post, I keep thinking about what I was doing when it happened, and feeling guilty for not knowing.  Anyway, enough of that, lets focus back on Clogau, it's a brand you need to know about.

The shop itself is gorgeous, it's not cluttered, all the jewellery is elegantly displayed and the staff are really friendly.  The decor echo's their brand logo with cutouts in the ceiling, and at the back of the store there is a coffee & champagne bar so they can spoil their customers.

When we arrived we were serenaded by a former royal harpist, Claire Jones, her dress was amazing, she looked like a mermaid!  She gave us a speech later on where she talked about how she's performed for the royal family over 180 times, even performing for the Queen personally, with just her and the Queen in a room together, I felt so honored to have been there to hear her play for us in such an intimate setting.  Clogau have supported her in the launch of her new album with Classic.fm too, which if you're interested, you can find details of it here.

As well as been greeted by a royal harpist, we were also offered bubbly and canapes on arrival, at the time I was doing what would end up being the last day of dry January for me, so I declined the champs and focussed on taking lots of pictures instead.  After mingling with other bloggers for a while, I noticed two very well dressed men had come in, they were no less than two of our Welsh rugby players (Clogau works with the WRU).

The founder of Clogau then gave us a speech about how he started up the company by buying the gold mine, not knowing if he'd even find gold in it.  25 years later and here we are, opening their first flagship store here in the capital of Wales.  Before the girls and I headed off for dinner (sushi) we were given some goody bags (I seriously didn't expect anything!) and I really can't believe what was in them, there was a 50ml bottle of their Am Byth perfume (pictured below), and a charm carrier pendant made up of silver, rose gold and a diamond.  The idea is that you hang a charm off it, but personally, I think it's delicate and beautiful as a necklace in it's own right too.

If like me, you're a bit obsessed with rose gold, you should really check out Clogau, they build a lot of rose gold into their designs and have a fantastic collection of both classic and contemporary jewellery.

A big thanks to Clogau for inviting me to such a wonderful evening.

This months Biggest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Ash from A Beauty Moment

 

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Urban Decay event

These cupcakes were seriously yummy!

Helen getting her makeup done - she looked fantastic!

 Taking notes down :)

How beautiful is that glitter eyeshadow!

** The seriously epic goody bag! Holy moley!  In case you're wondering, the lipstick and lip liner are in the same shade (Native) **

If you're a long time reader of mine you should know that Urban Decay are one of my all time favourite makeup brands, not only that, but they're one of the main accelerators that got me into makeup, and thus blogging.

Go back about 8 years ago, I was on a ferry going to Ireland for Christmas and browsing the duty free. I saw the Ammo 2 palette and it was on sale, so I treated myself.  Before this, I didn't really wear much makeup, I'd never heard of eye shadow primer, and on me eye shadow would only last for about an hour before creasing, so I tended not to wear much makeup.  Buying this palette changed my life.  Not only did I now have a way to make eyeshadow last hours on my face, but the shadows themselves were really high quality and great to work with.  This palette (which I still have, and no I don't use it anymore) started my love affair with makeup.

Fast forward 8 years, I've been blogging and YouTubing for the last two and Urban Decay are still pretty much my favourite makeup brand, of course there's others I love, but Urban Decay will always hold a special place in my heart, as over the last few years they've played a big part of my life.  When I received the invite to attend an event at my local Urban Decay counter in Debenhams, it was hard to contain my excitement!

There was 6 of us there all together from 5 different blogs, we were greeted with pretty epic cupcakes and sparkling drinks that resembled the 3 naked palettes (love that!).  The event was for them to demonstrate the Naked 3 palette and some of their other new products like the B6 vitamin skin prep (the first stabalised form of B6 for the face) you use it before moisturising and applying foundation.

After having a rough few weeks (if you don't know about why, see here, and here) it was lovely having this to look forward to.  The only downside is this was the day I started getting flu, my cough was at it's peak and I was feeling really rough, in fact, I nearly didn't go, but I'm so glad I did, I had a lovely evening and got to see other lovely bloggers, and even meet a new one :)

This months Biggest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Ash from A Beauty Moment

 

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e.l.f shop Cardiff - launch event

 This statement wall/pillar greets you when you walk in

 One of many e.l.f palettes you can buy in the shop

 ** Trying ** to be an artistic shot :P

Some of their mineral lipsticks - swatched one on my hand and felt soft & buttery

It wouldn't be a real event if they didn't have cake pops :P  How amazing do they look!?

Monday evening saw the official launch of the first European store e.l.f have launched here in the UK, in my very own home city, Cardiff.  Home to the Royal arcade, for anyone local, that's the one with Wally's delicatessen in.

Greeted with edgy DJ's booming out music, and barman from Mokka lounge whipping up cocktails in style, I was in awe of the store.  My colleague who I'd gone with asked me what the price range was, she thought they were priced the same as MAC, because that's how good the packaging looked, and more to the point, how stylish the store was.  When I showed her the prices of the products she couldn't believe it.  

This must be the first dedicated makeup shop in Cardiff that isn't the MAC freestanding store.  That's a sad thought, it would be so lovely for there to be more dedicated makeup shops here.  I absolutely love the location of the shop too - I love that they've stayed away from the clinical starchy units they could have had in St Davids 2, but they've set up shop in one of Cardiff's famous arcades where you'll find non-chain shops and little independant gems (Rules of Play and Clare's Buttons being some of my favs, oh and Madame Fromage!).

The downstairs is dedicated to makeup & nails featuring both their mineral line (black packaging) and their more budget line (white packaging).  Head upstairs and you'll find yourself in a studio - one that will see YouTube videos being filmed in, and a space for makeovers.

When I was chatting to Neil (director of Distribeauty who own the e.l.f Europe franchise) about his visions for the future of the store - he sees a future of customers coming in and having 'swatch days' where they swatch palettes and lipstick on their arms to be feature in their blog posts or YouTube videos - their products featured on 'normal' people, not necessarily models, but involving makeup fanatics regardless of whether they're just a fan of makeup, or a blogger etc.

All of the 6 girls who work in the store are fully trained makeup artists too, so you know when you're getting your makeup done there, you're not going to look like you've been shot in the face with Homer's makeup gun like 99% of the department store reps.

I love what e.l.f have achieved here, it's a beautiful cheek shop that's a pleasure to be in, I highly recommend making the trip to see it, it won't disappoint. 

** It's my best blogging friends 30th birthday today (A Scottish Lass), so why not head over and with her a happy birthday on her blog ** :)

This months Biggest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Amy from Srslylou

 

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A week of events

So what a week it's been!  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I'm very lucky to get invited to events, but this week saw 3 in one day, which was quite tiring :)  So here's what I got up to this week:

Lush (Weds evening)

The lovely people at Cardiff Lush treated us to a blogger evening where we made a lovely Catastrophe Cosmetic face cleanser which is jam packed with blueberries, lovely!  This is now sitting pretty in my fridge!  They also gave us a lovely goody bag with the new santa lip scrub in it, which by the way, smells amazing (cola bottles), and they gave us a sweet popcorn smelling face mask called Let the good times roll - supposed to be very good for hormonal breakouts.

Japonesque (Thursday lunchtime)

This lovely brand has just opened up in Cardiff John Lewis, sitting right next to Estee Lauder.  A lot of people know them for their makeup brushes, but they've now ventured into makeup too (high end). For me, my favourite bit by far is the unique packaging, and when I say unique, I really mean that every single product is different from eachother.  When the palettes/blushers/powders etc are made, they have a gel that fills the lid, then people drop 3 different coloured inks into the lid (different colour schemes for each type of product), then it's set/baked to bring the colours out, which is why every lid is different.

Paul (celebrity makeup artist) was there to do our makeup, I opted for a lime green/brown combo for a pop of colour.  They're also linked to Kheils, so when I was there waiting for Paul to do my makeup, they gave me a mini facial.  The shadows seemed nice and pigmented, but sadly they don't have a primer, so the shadow's didn't pop on my lids (or last) quite as well as they could have done.  Each blogger that was invited for a makeover left with a couple of goodies (I had a translucent setting powder and an angled eyeshadow brush) and a face chart.

St Davids Christmas shopping event (Thurs evening)

This was just a little VIP event for the launch of the St Davids shopping evening.  A few other bloggers/press were invited to a little roped off area of the mall for flavoured vodka and little goody bags before the shopping commenced.  But, since I'm on a spending ban I didn't buy anything. Chantelle from Daizy Dayz and I sat around and waited for the next event, Vivienne Westwood.

Vivienne Westwood (Thurs evening)

Next up we headed to the new-ish Vivienne Westwood shop in Cardiff, it's been open for a year now and is home to clothes, bags, jewellery and other accessories from the well known fashion house.

We were greeted and talked through some of the new pieces from the winter line, and offered champagne.  There were some really beautiful pieces in the shop, some lovely skull necklaces, beautiful bags, and I really fell in love with some of the scarves and shoes!  But, there was one line in particular that caught our attention, a range of.... penis jewellery... yes, you read that right, a pair of earrings with a penis and balls on, necklaces the same and a clutch bag (pictured) - VW likes to shock and be different, that we know, but I didn't expect that!

All in all and event filled week, the best part, as always, was catching up with other local bloggers, it's so lovely to sit and have a chat/coffee with them :)

This months Biggest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Amy from Srslylou

 

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