Wilko Haul - Essence and Kiss

Wilko is one of those places that just draw you in with their amazing prices and you can't ever leave without at least one very full bag of stuff that you don't need.  It happens to me every time I go in there, and this weekend's visit was certainly no exception! The ridiculous thing is how much I bought and that the whole lot only cost me £14.49! It's ridiculous, there are hardly any places where you can get this much stuff and have a bill of less than £20, its mental.  I picked up some bits from Essence because I've found it hard to find fault with their products, and I also picked up some bits from their skincare range that goes by the name 'Kiss x' which I had never heard of before! The pretty packaging drew me in and I was intrigued so I couldn't help it!

Starting with the Kiss x bits, I bought 2 things from them which were £2 each which is amazing! The first thing that caught my eye was the Light Reflecting Primer. It claims to be smoothing, mattifying and light reflecting so it was right up my alley! It feels like a more runny version of the porefessional and feels very silky on the skin whilst giving an ever so slight glow.  I'm not sure how I feel about it yet so I will report back on those once I have formed a proper opinion.  I then went straight for the 3 in 1 Cleansing Water as this was again, right up my alley. I love micellar water's and go on about them all the time so I am always up for trying different brands to see how they compare.  Though I don't think this has micells, it does a similar thing to all of the big branded cleansing waters and does a perfectly adequate job of removing makeup from what I can tell. I will report back on the effect that it has on my skin after prolonged usage!

Then I got carried away at the essence counter, and after a lot of deliberation I managed to whittle down my huge stack of products in my basket to these 5 products. The first thing I went for was the Longlasting Lipstick in the shade 'On the Catwalk'. I'm a huge fan of this line of lipsticks, (full review here) and wanted to try some more shades.  When looking, none of the colours really appealed to me and most of them were very similar to colours I already own from other brands apart from this one.  It is a muted dark reddish-brown which if you watch Once Upon a Time (its on netflix, watch it and you won't regret it) it s very similar to the shade that Regina usually wears! It would look amazing on olive skin tones especially though I think it would suit most skin tones.  I picked up a few of their eyeshadows to try, the first being a single eyeshadow in the shade Dance Mauve.  The pigmentation is not quite as much as I would have hoped but for the price, it is pretty good! It is a lovely graphite colour with a hint of a purple/blue which would make an amazing smokey eye. I am yet to try this on my eyes so I will let you know what I think. I also picked up the All About Nude Palette as I thought it would be good for travelling.  As you can see from the swatches, some shades are better than others but I will do an in depth post once I have had a chance to properly try them. Lastly I got 2 lip products that go together nicely.  Their lip liners are my favourite range of lipliners and this was the 3rd addition to my growing collection from this range. The shade Wish me a Rose is a beautiful peachy pink and goes perfectly with the XXXL Longlasting Matte Lipgloss in Velvet Rose which is very similar to the Creme puff lip cream's from Collection which were a hit with me! I think I will be getting good use out of these this summer, again I will be doing an in depth post in the future.

Phew! Thats it! If you have tried any of these or have any other recommendations feel free to leave me a comment, and I will be back on Wednesday with a Boots/Superdrug haul which is my penultimate post in my little haul series!

Emily xx

The Sunday Edit #63

Sneak Peek of things to come!

This week has been pretty busy for me, I’v been working pretty much non stop so that I have everything done for when I go on holiday.  Apart from Thursday, I have been getting all my college work and blogposts done so that I can have a proper break next week.

Thursday we went down to Paignton on the train for the day which was really nice.  I love long train journeys and it was such a lovely day so it was quite pleasant, chilling on the train in the sun with my cup of tea, my mini shortbreads and my puzzle book just looking out at the sea! It is something that I would definitely like to do again soon!

This weekend I have done no work as I was exhausted and fancied a break.  We have wandered to a few shops and have also been to Weston this morning for a walk along the front.  We wandered around the pier for a bit and had an ice cream which was really nice.  I also bought myself an adult’s colouring book because I have heard so many good reviews of them and it definitely appeals to me, I’ll let you know how I get on with those!

The last thing I wanted to say is that I apologise for not having a July Favourites post up.  It is the first time ever that I haven’t had a favourites post up, but there hasn’t been anything new that I have been living this month and I have absolutely nothing to include in the post! Hopefully next month’s will be jam packed to make up for it!

That is it for today, I will have another haul up for you tomorrow so make sure you come back for that!

Emily xx

Makeup Revolution Haul

If I'm being completely honest, I think it was the rose gold packaging that drew me in here.  You may have seen my tweet about how pleased I was to find a Makeup Revolution Counter in a random Superdrug that I happened to find myself in over the weekend. I originally went in for a Gosh Eyeshadow pencil which will be in my other haul next Wednesday, but ended up leaving with 4 Makeup Revolution Products as well....oops.  My excuse is that I'm on holiday so I should treat myself! I'm going to stop trying to convince myself that it was an acceptable thing to do and get on with the haul haha!

The first product that I picked up the second I saw it was the Radiance Palette. I had heard that this was a dupe of the extremely popular Ambient Lighting Palette by Hourglass for just a tiny percentage of the price. I was so excited to try this and I don't think I am at all disappointed.  I sweep the first shade all over the face lightly with a duo fibre brush from real techniques and I use the light and dark shade as a highlight and subtle bronze.  The darkest shade seems to be a little too radiant as a bronzer and I find it can look odd so it may be better suited for darker skin tones. I love the formula of these powders, they aren't massively pigmented so you don't look ridiculously shiny and they give you a very subtle, natural glow which I really like.  The only issue I would say is that it can make problem areas stand out a bit more in which case this wouldn't be a good product for someone with more problematic skin, I can just about get away with it on good skin days.

The next product is their blush in the shade 'Love'. I picked this up randomly because I don't own a nude coloured blush so this really caught my eye. I dropped it in the shop and didn't realise that it had cracked until I got it home, however it is still useable. It has the right amount of pigment in that you can't over do it but it is still fairly noticeable and can easily be built up. It is the perfect neutral colour to wear on the daily and it goes with pretty much everything. I aimed to use it for bold makeup looks where I wanted the cheeks to be fairly understated but I've been using it with minimal makeup looks too and it works perfectly.  My only issue would be the rubbish packaging, but to be fair I can't expect much more for £1!

Next I decided to try the Focus & Fix Eye Primer in Original. I don't actually own an eye primer at the moment that I like so I thought I would give this one a go. I've used it a few times so far so I haven't really tried it enough to give a solid review, however the shade means that all darkness and veins are covered to create a flawless base for eyeshadow which is amazing, but I haven't really noticed my eyeshadow grip to it and stick around longer before it creases. I think some more experimentation is needed with this one.

Lastly I picked up the Salvation Velvet Lip Lacquer in the shade 'Keep Trying For You'. I am yet to find a liquid lipstick that I like as the MUA ones just weren't up to scratch so I thought I would give these a go to see how they compare. I am yet to use this so I will update you in a full review that will be up in the future so keep your eye out for that if this is a product that you are interested in.

That concludes my Makeup Revolution Haul! I will be back on Monday with a Wilkinsons haul featuring products from Essence and their own skincare brand that goes by the name 'Kiss x'. Let me know if you have tried any of these products and let me know what you think!

Emily xx

High End Haul

 Left to Right: Gilded Ganache, White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Black Forest Truffle, Triple Fudge.

 Left to Right: Salted Caramel, Marzipan, Semi Sweet, Strawberry Bon Bon, Candied Violet, Amaretto.

Hazelnut, Créme Brulee, Haute Chocolate, Cherry Cordial, Champagne Truffle

I think we all have those moments when we are looking at obscenely expensive products and just say 'what the hell' and purchase it without even thinking about it, don't we? Well I had one of those moments on Saturday when shopping in Plymouth. I bought so much stuff that I have to split my hauls into 5 parts.... yes you read that right, 5 parts! This is the smallest out of all of them, so if you like hauls then you are certainly in for a treat over the next 2 weeks!

The first product I actually planned to get....well kind of. I went into MAC with the intention of Velvet Teddy, and as per usual it was sold out! I couldn't bear to leave without it so I bought a lipstick that is sort of similar in the shade 'Hug Me' which is a lustre finish. As you can tell from the swatch above, it is a kind of sheer browny nude, with a subtle hint of pink. I think it really is a beautiful lipstick and I've found myself reaching for it a lot since I purchased it.  I will be posting a full review on this in the future so keep an eye out for that if you are interested.

Lastly I bought the much coveted Chocolate Bar Palette from Too Faced.  I hadn't ever tried anything from Too Faced, I think the prices put me off a bit because they are extortionate but I had heard a lot of hype around the brand so I have been intrigued about their products for a while.  My only issue was deciding which product I wanted to get as an introduction to the brand, seeing as pretty much all of their products have been very popular.  When I was in Debenhams and browsing the Too Faced stand, the smell of this palette alone sold me! Then I swatched the shadows and immediately realised that this had to come home with me!  They are seriously the most gorgeous eyeshadows I own, dare I say it better than my Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette.  They are so buttery and soft and the pigmentation is phenomonal! Surprisingly, I have had very little fall out with these which I was almost convinced would be an issue due to their crumbly texture. They go on and blend like a dream and the shade range provides you with everything you could ever need! I will be doing a thorough review on this and going into detail about each shade, as well as putting together a few looks for you seeing as my last tutorial was such a hit.

That was all of the high end products that I purchased, not as much as I could have done but there were so many drugstore products that I wanted that I realised I could get a lot more bang for my buck! Come back Friday for my next instalment of my haul series, where I will be sharing the bits that I picked up from Makeup Revolution!

Emily xx

The Sunday Edit #62

This week I have been helping with the summer school again which meant that I learnt even more money which I was extremely glad of!

This weekend I have been away in Devon with my grandparents. They have got a fancy pants caravan down here, not that it’s really a caravan, more like a ridiculously plush lodge! The kitchen is bigger than my living room at home which is pretty large, it’s slightly mental! We have been all over the place and  done one hell of a lot of shopping so I have a huge haul coming up at some point next week! I may have already posted pictures on twitter, instagram and snapchat so go and have a look at those if you haven’t already.  We have been to Paignton this morning and had lunch and we are all packed up and currently in the car on the way home.  Mobile wifi is just fabulous, it takes my mind off the fact that we are going to be stuck in traffic for about 3 hours!

I have finished work completely for 2 weeks before we go on holiday for 2 weeks so I aim to get all of my college work and blogposts written for that period so that I can have the full 2 weeks away off the internet and with no work to do that is weighing me down so I can truly enjoy it! I will continue to post sunday edit’s though just because I find them so much easier to do and require a lot less preparation and work! 

That is it for today, I’m hoping I can get a beauty haul up for you tomorrow so make sure you come back! I hope you have all had a lovely week!

Emily xx