What Makes You Beautiful: MUA One Direction Makeup

I can really imagine my friends faces when this post gets shared automatically onto my Facebook. One Direction Jessica, are you serious? It will be followed by a mass of questions as to why I like the band - which I don't really (only the odd song) and then suddenly someone will declare their love too and think I'm some kind of die hard. When I walked into Superdrug yesterday, I was searching for a bright blusher and a new lipstick. At the moment, I'm on a tight budget so I headed over to the place I knew I could get high quality makeup for a very affordable price - MUA.

I've been looking around for the last two weeks for affordable, good quality blushers and I came across this. The What Makes You Beautiful cheek tint is highly pigmented, in the perfect shade of pink for my skin tone and was 2 for £5 when I bought the One Direction lipstick. The packaging is quite pretty, although it does like ever so 'teenageish' and I'm probably a little bit too old, but it makes a cute item for my makeup case. When I have a little bit more money, I'm very tempted to go and buy a few more products.

When I was looking for products to buy, the first one that really caught my attention was the Kiss You lipstick in the shade 'I Wish' designed by Zayn. Bright lipsticks have always been my thing, I'm a little bit too obsessed with wearing them and I also have a slight obsession with collecting lipsticks from MUA. Combining the two, I knew I had to buy this.

This lipstick is for the bubble gum pink, girly lovers out there. It is lovely to wear, has quite a nice fragrance and applies really well. In fact, I don't think it smudged whilst I was wearing it and it definitely lasted a good few hours.

The lipstick itself is beautiful embossed with a naughts and crosses style pattern and the container is embedded with Zayn's signature, very similar to when MAC bring out collections. The container may feel cheap ( but what do you expect for paying £3?) but the product itself rivals some of biggest contenders in the lipstick market. In fact, I like this more than one of my MAC pink lipsticks.

Have you tried any of the One Direction MUA collection?

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In Love With Fashion: Blogger Challenge

It's incredibly rare that I ever take part in any blogger challenges, however the recent In Love with Fashion monthly challenge grabbed my attention. Each of their bloggers have been asked to create an outfit on a budget surrounding one of their sale dresses. After skimming through their sale items, I fell in love with this Love Red Gathered Sleeve Tea Dress at the bargainous price of £22. I could easily see myself wearing this dress to work, to go shopping and dressing it up for a night out, it's so versatile. The colour is really bright, sticking to my New Years Resolution of adding brighter colours to my wardrobe and it also looks sophisticated, following my plans to go for a more demure wardrobe for when I'm married next year.

I'm teamed the In love With Fashion dress with an affordable £1 pinkish red lip from MUA, a pair of kitten heels from Everything5pounds.com, a pearl inspired necklace from ASDA at £6 and a beautiful vintage inspired bag from Ebay at around £18. This outfit comes in at £52 (excluding shipping) and I think that's a perfect price for a complete outfit. After all in some high street stores you can't even get a t-shirt for less than £30.

Overall, I love this outfit. It's great for adding a burst of colour this January and will also see you through to Valentines Day in February, after all red is the colour of love.  If I wasn't on a spending ban I'd probably rush out and buy each item straight away. This doesn't stop you though, I recommend going over to the In Love With Fashion website and checking out their sale items, there's so many beautiful pieces for you to snap up, especially if you're trying to reinvent your style this season.

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Makeup Haul

Welcome to my new blog layout, I hope you like it!

The weather outside is dull, cold and somewhat resembling Narnia. The golf course near me has a soft sheen of snow that has finally been trampled on by little children and my road is like an assault course putting me to the test as I trek to Uni. My clothing of choice has been thick jumpers, a scarf stolen from my mother and thick walking boots, subsequently following my 'slobby' sense of clothing has been a natural makeup free face. Going through the effort of applying makeup when embarking on such long, hazardous snow journeys has not been worth it. By the time I've got to the university doors, I've had bright red cheeks from the cold air and my hair has been sticking out at strange angles due to the climate. When I finally reached my town centre earlier today, I felt the urge to reward myself by purchasing some makeup and here's what I bought today. Be aware, there's many unflattering photographs of me wearing no makeup at all...

MUA Pro Base Palette - £2.50

I'm useless when it comes to applying primers and potions before foundation, I'm usually in such a hurry that some basic skin care steps can often be missed. This leads to my foundation looking rather drab at times and  although it has amazing coverage, it doesn't stand out as much as I'd like. I've heard a lot of positive reviews in regards to the new MUA Pro-Base palette so I thought for £2.50 it would be worth picking it up. The trio set includes: two concealers and a highlighter. The product helps set your makeup, hide the blemishes and define your facial contours. I went for the porcelain palette due to having really fair skin and I found that the concealer covered rather well. 

Here's a picture of me with my foundation applied. As you can see, my cheeks are looking rosy due to the highlighter and although I have slight darkening under my eyes it isn't so bad compared to the previous image.

B Groomed Eyebrow Kit (£2.50)  and B Longer Eye Mascara (£7.99)

B cosmetics is a new range for Superdrug with fantastic introductory offers. The packaging looks really sleek and elegant and there's so many products to choose from. Having long for a new eyebrow pencil, but not being able to currently afford my beloved MAC, I decided to choose from this new range. The eyebrow pencil comes complete with a mini brush to tidy all your stray hairs, a brown pencil and a wax counterpart. The product is simple to use and blends really well. I'm really impressed with this product as it matches the exact colour of my hair and makes my eyebrows really stand out. The mascara is equally as fabulous. It has been a long time since I've found a mascara that gives me dramatically long eyelashes. I've always suffered from short embarrassing eyelashes, especially when you compare them to my fiances. The B longer eye mascara made my eyelashes look so dramatic and literally eye popping. I will have to give it a few weeks to see if the novelty wears off, but it's definitely in line for being my holy grail of eye mascaras. 

Miners Colour Kohl Eyeliners £1.99 each

I love eyeliners, but I'm boring and always stick to black. I was sent these little beauties in the post to review and they arrived today. Miners cosmetics are the official makeup brand for Dancing on Ice, therefore you can expect their products to be bold, daring and very colourful.   The eyeliners come in four different shades for you to choose and cost only £1.99 each. The colours available are: Brown, Black, Blue and Gold. For this little review I decided to shade in my eyelid using the gold pencil,  draw a cat flick eye pattern with the black eyeliner and finally finish off using the gold eyeliner again for my under eye. 

And here's the finished result:

My new makeup is really affordable and easy to use, I don't regret any of the purchases so far. Hopefully buying this new makeup will get me out of my lazy habit of going makeup free during the winter weather and challenge me to create additional makeup looks.

What do you think of the products?

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YSL, MUA and Jubilee Spirit.

The Jubilee may be over, but there's no need for you ditch the red, white and blue colour scheme. There's lots of amazing Jubilee style colours still on the high street and with block colours being a summer essential, there's no reason why you can't carry on the blue, red and white trend. During the weekend, I managed to do a little shopping and couldn't resist buying these two beauties.

This is the YSL Rouge Pur Couture in shade 1. On Saturday, me and my fiance will be hosting our vintage inspired engagement party and the saleswoman at House of Fraser managed to convince me that this lipstick is a timeless classic, adding a vintage scarlet appeal to any outfit. At £23, YSL is a premium brand lipstick, but does it live up to expectations?

Firstly I love the detailing on the shiny gold packaging. Shiny gold evokes a sense of luxury and with the embedded YSL logo, the packaging looks classy and timeless. The lipstick itself also has the logo engraved. You can really admire craftsmanship gone into the detailing of the lipstick.

The YSL lipstick glides on like a dream. Coupled with the YSL Touche Eclat, this lipstick is an essential for the perfect pout. Simply highlight around your lips and then cover with this beautiful siren red. The product has SPF 15 and really helps moisturise my lips. As for the colour, it managed to last almost 24 hours without re-application, making this perfect for those summer celebrations and BBQ's. 

Sticking to the Red, White and Blue colour scheme, I managed to pick up this new MUA eyeshadow for £1 at Superdrug. Many bloggers have raved about MUA products and I'm definitely joining the cult. MUA offers such fantastic cosmetics at a bargain price, making them affordable to everyone. This baby blue colour known as 'PEARL' is a perfect shade for summer beach frolicking. The powder applies incredibly easy, but as with most eyeshadows, it is always best to use a primer if you want the colour to show its true potential. 

So here is my Jubilee inspired makeup, ready to hit the town and celebrate all things British.

How did you celebrate the Jubilee?

♥♥♥

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