£15 High Street Challenge | May

That's right, it's May and that means I get to buy more makeup, woooo! As you know, in an effort to have fewer PR samples in the blog, I set myself a challenge to spend £15 a month on the high street and try to get at least 3 products for my money.

This month I bought 5! How did I do that you might ask? By blowing the effing budget that's how :P Basically, for a while now I've kept going onto the Beauty Crowd website and filling my virtual basket with loads of awesome looking products, then closing the tab. Well, I decided to make Beauty Crowd the source of this month's challenge, but I just couldn't decide what to buy, so I bought lots, hahaha.

Nicka K New York

This is one of many brands on Beauty Crowd I'd never heard of, but that I thought looked lovely and intrigued me.  They're priced for the high street with both products costing £4.95.  The first product I picked up is the eye shadow quad in the shade Sierra - this is a warm, berry-toned neutral palette. I've used it once, it's nicely pigmented and blends well, and the packaging is lovely! The other product is an eye shadow base/primer in Pearl.  I'm not sure if it's right for me, I did get some major creasing yesterday after just 4ish hours, but I do have terribly oily & hooded lids, so it could be that :)

Milani Cosmetics

Yep, Beauty Crowd sells Milani!!!!! This excited me a LOT! There was still a couple of things I didn't buy, like their eye shadow foils, baked blusher and mascara, but what I did end up with is pretty epic.  First up the Rose Powder blusher in Coral Cove - £8. The first thing that struck me about these is the high quality packaging, you'd never know they were high-street priced, such high quality. The pigmentation is great, you really don't need much product to create a flushed look, and it's completely matte.  Then there's the illuminating powder in the shade Beauty's Touch - £8 - now this is an odd one, to look at it, I can hardly see any shimmer, and when I've tried to use it as a highlighter I've failed - I think I need to use it as a proper blusher to see if I can see a pretty shimmer - I almost don't want to use them because they're so beautiful though!

Finally, I also picked up the Eye Tech eyeliner - £6 - now this I like. It's not without fault, it's not easy to create a thin line on the inner corner of your eye, and if you have slightly aging skin, you might find it's hard to create a straight line, but I have managed it :) It's lovely, jet black and stays put all day, as well as being nice and compact.

All together this little lot was £31.90, so 2 months worth of budget went into this, lol, I'm such a failure... but I just couldn't help myself! I blame Beauty Crowd for having too many beautiful products, I could literally spend another £100-200 there on all the things that have caught my eye, how I've managed to stop myself so far I'll never know!

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YoSo Compact | Deep Cleansing System

A few weeks ago a lovely parcel landed on my doorstep.  Inside were skincare treats (I talk about them in my winter skincare routine video here) and this little beauty, the YoSo Compact. I'd never seen, or heard, of anything like this before. It uses ionic technology to draw out any dirt or impurities that have been left on your skin after cleaning it. 

Things you'll need to get going:

2 x AAA batteries

A clear cleanser (It works best with a water based cleanser as opposed to a cream based one)

Cotton pads

How it works

Ok, so depending on how old you are, if you remember buying blank cassette tapes to record your favourite songs off the radio, they'll you'll probably have bought Maxell tapes? Well, they're the good people behind the YoSo.  It used positively and negatively charged ions to draw out the impurities and dirt in your skin, resulting in a deeper and better cleanse, and cleaner skin.  Now, I must admit, I was dubious over this, I had no idea how effective it was going to be.  I did expect a sound, or vibration, something to let me know it was doing it's thing, but it's a silent technology.  You make sure that your hand is gripping both the metal bars that adorn the sides of it for it to work, select the level you want it on (I have it on the highest setting (4)).  

You take the cover off, place a cotton pad on the black rubber disc, squirt some of your cleanser onto the pad, grab the YoSo Compact by both metal bars and move the cotton pad over your skin.  Beauty Crowd have actually uploaded a really good 2 min demo video on how to use it (that's where I learned what to do with it) just in case my description was confusing!

What did I think about it?

Here's the bit that surprised me.  It really worked! Despite it not making a sound, giving me any real indication that it was on or working, it did work!  After taking my makeup off and ensuring my skin was 'clean', I'd use this, and low and behold, there would be dirt on the cotton pad after going over my skin with the YoSo Compact, dirt that would have remained there otherwise, possibly turning into spots or blackheads.  It didn't break me out, it only left my skin feeling soft and very clean :)

If you're interested in buying one yourself, you can pick them up from Beauty Crowd for £59.99.

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*Post contains a PR sample

Beauty Crowd wish list

Milani illuminating powder £8 // Little Ondine nail polish in shades Waltz, Pop Rocks and Morning Glory £9 for glitter, £7.80 for cream // Milani eye tech liquid liner £7 // LA Girl pro concealer £5 // Milani easy liner for lips in Most Natural £4 // LA Girl USA Brick Eye shadow in Ultra £6 // Milani baked blusher in Berry Amore £6 // Milani Fierce Foil eyeliner in Black Gold £7

After hearing a rumour that Beauty Crowd stock Milani, I swiftly headed there and filled up a shopping basket.  Then I saw a cute little ad for some nail polish, clicked onto that and swiftly found myself filling my basket with Little Ondine nail polish.  Then I remembered seeing Beauty Crowd share some images of their LA Girl makeup lines, specifically some lovely eye shadow palettes that I immediately started lusting after, and subsequently adding to my virtual basket.  At that point I realised I'd put far too much into my basket and had trouble narrowing it down - so I thought I'd create a bit of a wishlist in the hope that it'd help me decide what to pick :)

If I did buy everything I'd picked, that'd be a whopping £68.80 - I was hoping to keep it to £15 as part of my £15 High Street Challenge - for the challenge I aim for 3 pieces too - which would you pick?

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Discover new brand with Beauty Crowd

First off - the designer in me LOVES this logo, it's so clean and crisp, and love the colour :)  Beauty Crowd recently had a pop up shop here in Cardiff above the Elf store, where they were selling products like the ones below - they're championing discovering new fantastic and unique brands that you might not have heard of before.  So without further ado, here's some of the great products you can buy there.

Flint & Flint

I love the packaging on these, the coloured + signs cut into the packaging is a really nice touch, and their logo is lovely too - all very classy.  There's two products here, their Everyday Wash £27*, and their Eye Hero £37*.  The Everyday Wash contains Glycolic acid (2%), Moringa Oil and Vital ET (form of vitamin E) - combined they help to protect your skin from the sun's harmful rays and help to cleanse and clean the skin.  A really lovely product, one I've been using with my Soniclear.  Then we have the Eye Hero - it's a treatment that you dab around the eye area, it contains eyeseryl, beautifeye and Gransil DMCM-5 - all very strange sounding stuff, but the eyeseryl helps to reduce puffyness around eyes, the beautifeye works by working to reduce wrinkles, dark circles and bags by lifting the upper eyelids, and finally the Gransil DMCM-5 helps to blur wrinkles.  It's soft, refreshing on the eye and helps to hydrate - I found that it really did help to reduce puffyness (wish I'd taken before and after pics here!) and keep the area hydrated - it really felt like a good quality product.

Teen-skin actives

 A little more 'affordable' than the Flint & Flint - this is aimed at troubled skin - I haven't had the best opportunity for trialing these recently as my skin has been in really good condition - so I can't comment on the Spot Clearing Gel £6.99 - however, what I can tell you is that it's an on-spot treatment and has lots of good natural ingredients in it like ether oils, lavender and lemongrass.  Then we come to the Restoring Skin Mask £9.99 - this you leave on for 15 mins, it works by absorbing excess oil that causes blackheads and spots, so is great to use as a preventative measure.  I used this a few times and had lovely soft skin afterwards, and it didn't break me out - which I was expecting given the type of product it is :)

Lola's Apothecary

** For a limited time Beauty Crowd are doing a free 10ml roller ball (the one pictured below) of this product when you buy a full size (100 ml - £32) one **

This is their Rose & Neroli body oil, complete with an actual rose inside the bottle, how fab!? Neroli is really the wonderful ingredient in here, when used it can help to reduce thread veins, improve the elasticity of the skin, and encourage cell renewal - all good stuff.  I used this after a bath, and it not only left my skin smelling really lovely and luxurious, but incredibly soft - I really do love using a body oil as opposed to a lotion after a bath as I find it makes my skin much softer and hydrates more effectively.  A really lovely product, and so beautiful. 

Latherly Shower Experience

Now Latherly is a different kind of product - it's a shower gel in it's true form - it sprays out as a thick gel, but in a can so you expect a mousse, strange!  It's made for men and women, so a unisex product, although, I will say that for me, the scent was more geared towards men than women - however on discussion with the hubby, he thinks the opposite.  I used this a couple of times, but told the hubby to use it, and he's loved it!  What I really like this is that it's made from organic rice milk (how cool!?), and it's free from parabens, alcohol, artificial colours and soap.  It costs £4.99, so not expensive, but slightly more than your average supermarket shower gel.

LAY/N/GO Cosmo

This is a pretty nifty take on a makeup bag or wash bag, or jewellery bag, or anything bag :)  The LAY/N/GO cosmo £20* is perfect for travelling you can put anything you like in there - it lays flat as a circle and the drawstring does up tight, turning it into a neat bag.  There's a special lip around the edge which stops things rolling off, so perfect for makeup (think lipsticks, glosses, eye liners etc).  It's also water repellant, and easy to wash and dry - a great alternative to your typical makeup bag (that's what I used it for) as when you open it, everything is accessible and on display, so you don't have to go rooting through your bag to look for different bits and bobs.

I've loved discovering some brands I'd never heard of, and some truly lovely products, even down to the LAY/N/GO makeup bag.  If my nails were longer and worth painting, I'd be eyeing up their 'Del Sol' nail polish collection - some gorgeous colours perfect for spring (check them out here). If you'd like to discover some new products, you can visit their site here.

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*Post contains PR samples