Final Haul of 2013!

This IS my final haul of the year, I know I always make these claims but seriously - have faith in me!

This is not a review, as I've literally just purchased these items, but I have included swatches that I think are relevant. Some are repeat buys and normal basics, so I won't get into them - but for now can I just say - I love MAC's facial wipes! They are amazing (never thought I'd say that about wipes lol)

Starting with the basics, on the left, is my Lancôme which I have mentioned quite a lot on my blog so I won't really get into that, but if you wan't to see one of my previous reviews, please click here and here.

The Clinique Stay Matte foundation is another nice one, it's very long wearing and makes you look airbrushed, I would recommend it to you if you have oily skin, this was my summer go-to foundation! The great thing about Clinique is that you can go to their counter and get a little sample before you make a purchase. 

I've been using MAC's studio fix fluid on and off for years now, I have a love-hate relationship with it, but I always end up going back! 

Lastly, on the right, also from MAC is the pro longwear concealer. I sometimes use the studio finish concealer which comes in a little black pot, identical to the eyeshadow packaging - but it depends on what look I'm going for. This foundation is more lightweight and long wearing, definitely one I'd recommend. 

Moving onto lips now and starting with the lip-glosses is 'Right Image' from MAC - now, I'm not really a lip gloss person, I love my lips to look matte and crisp (NOT DRY lol, crisp and well finished) but this one is a favourite of mine, it lookS cute when worn with Lovelorn, which is also from MAC.

Life Update.

Hi all!

Sorry for going AWOL, I've been so consumed by everything around me that I've barely had any time for myself.

More than two years ago I created this Blogspot with the aim of having a little outlet for my thoughts and also as a platform to not only voice my views but to share with you all what I’m loving, wanting and loathing. Whilst it has kind of been bombarded with hauls, revealing the shopaholic I am 'haha', you have all been so kind and supportive to me and I appreciate you for that, especially when it came down to my trails in University and the struggle of finding clarity when it came to my career.
One of my fav posts so far was my “End of an Era...” post, where I not only detailed my struggle, but how I overcame it. What I LOVE the most was the fact that so many of you were going though similar things and my testimony kind of gave you that hope to push through. 

So I guess I have decided to do something similar again!

Before I go into where I am so far, lets take it back to my first post “New to blogspot.com” in 2011:

“Because of my inner fear I decided to settle for what would give me job security and study something that didn't have my heart in it. I then decided to head off to Uni whilst getting internships on the side.

Here I am, with only a year left of Uni and I'm still biting my nails out of confusion....

But I have officially decided to take a leap of faith... follow me on my journey :)”

Getting into PR has been a tiresome journey, whilst I have been blessed with some amazing Internships and experiences, I had to also go through a lot in order to realise what I did and didn’t want – fashion is and was a BIG no, hence why I stopped blogging about fashion. I do encourage you not to let other people’s attitudes and poor behaviour to put you off something you love but the things I experienced whilst working in fashion made realise I didn't love fashion as much as I thought I did. To be honest, I think I was a bit deluded after seeing my teenage idol Lauren Conrad from ‘The Hills” work in Teen Vogue and Kelly Cutrone's PR firm People's Revolution, making me desire a similar lifestyle lol. I then thought that working in either music or beauty PR as they are both things i'm passionate about, were ideal roads to go down. My new role presented itself first so now I'm in music PR! 

It's Official... He's My FAV!

I got tired of tweeting my love for J. Cole and writing obsessive whatsapp statuses telling the whole of my contact list what song I'm currently humming along to and why, so I decided to blog about him! (Last mention... I promise, and then I'll retire)

J. Cole keeps Hip Hop alive!

I have always been quite a big fan of J.Cole, I first got introduced to him during my time at University by a follower of mine on Twitter. When I first heard his voice, his flow, and his words... I fell in love, no exaggeration; I was infatuated by his voice, was smitten with his lyrics and besotted by his passion and poetical content. He had no flaws in my eyes. If you have been following my online footsteps, you may remember a point in 2010 where his track "Higher" was the theme song to my tumblr La Bella VIta 9 which was from his third mixtape 'Friday Night Lights' with songs such as "Cost Me a Lot”,” Premeditated Murder", "Home for the Holidays", "Love Me Not" and "In the Morning" featuring Drake (which I used to fall asleep to HASHTAG - cringe). I was the one in my Uni house who loved music so I would play the mixtape out loud, open the doors, windows and I had all my housemates fake rapping in our corridor.

Then he disappeared... </3

I moved on and went back to Drake, I almost lost faith in him but saw him pop up a few times like in Beyonce's "We Like To Party" replacing Andre 3000....

... But that wasn't enough for me, if you know me I love music just as much as I love beauty, I'm always trying to hear whats new and I like a variety. So when J. Cole went missing (to record this album of course) it's like I kinda forced myself to get bored of him.

June &July FAVZ

It's nearly the end of July now, some of these products were my absolute favs in June, but I wanted to give it enough time and really try the products before I just put it out there. 

(From left to right)

1. OPI Rapidry - It's an amazing spray that drys your nails in seconds; a bit on the pricey side, but so worth it! I use it in cojunction with the OPI Rapidry top coat.

2. Soap and Glory Sugar Crush Body Wash - it's fresh, fruity and feels lovely on the skin

3. Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturiser - I loved this in Morocco, when it was too hot to wear makeup I slapped this on!

4. Clinique's Super City Block SPF 40 - With this product, a little goes a long way and it's great under foundation and keeps my make-up on for longer, especially in this heat. (if you are dark like me, when you first put it on, it's white, do not be alarmed, it disappears when you apply your foundation)

Elf Bits oxo

A while ago I purchased two bits that I'd heard so many positive things about from Elf's website. I was looking for the perfect brush for my makeup, after falling in love with the real techniques buffing brush, it was time for me to look for something similar for when I couldn't be bothered to clean the latter.

I heard A LOT of positive things about the face powder brush, ironically, none of the girls doing the reviews actually used the brush for powder! Elf is cheap so one evening I thought - why not? They also had an offer on where if you purchased from them you got a free lipstick; and I did. I did do a few swatches but the colour wasn't clear so I decided not to include it. 

Firstly, can I just testify that this brush is amazing?! It's so good and such good value for money, only down sides are that the head has actually fallen off and I haven't had it for long :s I can still use it though, I do need to look into purchasing some superglue to stick it back on though and also, it is quite hard to clean, that is expected since the brush is quite dense and full. It is however a very good brush!

7/10

Next is the Elf mist and set spray, I love this, it's better than the MAC one and the Ben Nye (I think) lol, I'm going to wear all three this week and do a comparison post! I'm not going to talk about it any further until I'm 100% sure, but do expect a post towards the end of this week. x

Morocco 2013!!!

Hey guys! So you may be aware of the fact that I went to Morocco this month and it was amazing - literally one of the highlights of my life (slight exaggeration maybe). But seriously it was so fun, it felt good not having to worry about anything, about clients, about wearing makeup and most importantly about wearing a bra all day, lol! It was chilled and relaxed at most points, but me and my friends did the right thing and explored like real tourists. We did everything from climbing a mountain and riding camels to watching entertaining films till the early morning and laying by the pool sipping on fizzy drinks all afternoon at our all inclusive hotel.

The flight on the way there was absolutely terrible, I was almost in tears, it felt like I was going up a ride at a ridiculous speed (anyone who knows me will be aware of the fact that I do NOT like rides, lol, hence the fact that I have never gone to Thorpe Park, Alton Towers and all that jazz), take off wasn't gentle at all; not to mention that my ears popped and didn't fully open or a further two days. AND I had a terrible cold, so my nose was blocked but running at the same time - but enough moaning, look how beautiful the clouds were, God is really great....

We arrived in Morocco, Marrakesh at approximately 10pm in the evening, it was beautiful, the roads, the water fountains on the roads, the palm trees, it was just so nice to see something worlds apart from London for a change. We were picked up by our Thomson rep and got in a coach to our hotel. We landed so late that when we got to the hotel they had stopped serving food, we were too exhausted to hit the town so we went to bed starving :(

... This is the hotel we stayed at, it was called Riu Tikida Garden, it was so lovely, it had a spa on site, was all inclusive with a bar on site and three meals a day. It was very clean, had a beautiful but extremely cold pool and we played tennis and got involved with some of the evening activities.

One of my favourite parts of the holiday was definitely the camels! I was petrified at first, they were so huge and so noisy but you get used to them. My camel was quite calm and sweet. We rode the camels around the dessert for about an hour, it felt like forever, it was hurting all of our bums and thighs! lol

This is the guy who owned the camels, forgot this name but he said I was his wife *cringe*

A Moroccan restaurant...

Belly dancing...

Another man who said I was his wife...

The people in Morocco were such romantics, the men were terrible lol, in the markets they would call us 'The Obamas' 'Beyonce' 'Toni Braxton' 'Nicki Minaj' and 'Halle Berry' it was hilarious, they'd be in your face, look you up and down like you're a piece of meat and say 'wow' loooool. They love their black girls - well, black English girls.

Some more signs of affection from the Moroccans...

We climbed to the top of this mountain! It was an amazing experience, very hard, at points I felt that I felt I was going to slip and fall, but God was by my side, lol... if I fell you would not be reading this right now, that's how high we were up!

We did shisha at a bar called highway, the service was poor even though it looked nice, so I really wouldn't recommend it. As we were making a complaint the waiter walked off to serve someone else it was hilarious. We couldn't even complain to anyone else as all the other staff couldn't really speak English.

We purchased herbs, oil and incense from this lady and enjoyed some complimentary mint tea.

Nikki Beach, wasn't a beach, it was just a fancy pool with an overpriced bar and food. It looked so lovely though, it would be best to go at night. If you are going to Morocco and you want to visit a beach, I recommend you go to Agadir instead.

Me :-)

My favourite holiday shades, the first two are from ASOS, bottom two are Rayban.

I loved my holiday! It was amazing, we had a driver that took us everywhere and recommend really good places to go. If you would like his details, let me know.

I will be going back, most certainly, in a few years!

Looking forward to the next holiday ;)

Freeeeeebies!

June is so far so good! £306 worth of goodies so I can't complain - I'm also thinking about doing a giveaway soon too ;) my room is seriously getting cluttered with all this stuff and I love to share so... you know! Anyway, this post is slightly different from my haul posts, but I'll still try and give you the prices and product information and how I got it hold of the items where I can.

The first few items are from a seminar I attended with Clinique at the Royal Courthouse Hotel for the launch of their new 'Dramatically Different moisturising lotion+' which will be launching in July! We all also got a full size bottle to try out before the launch and the rest of their '3 Step' which they are best known for.

I have oily combination skin and it works fine on me, its lightweight and hydrating so it gives my skin that drink it needs. I would still recommend that if you have oily skin that you use their gel instead, but I still an get away with using it on my drier days!

We all also received their most recent foundation, the Even Better cream to compact powder, which is too dark for me but I will use it on my holiday and also two of their new nail polishes. 

 

Cliniques liquid facial soap, clarifying lotion, dramatically different moisturising lotion +, foundation and two nail polishes, £112

I entered a competition with Rayjeweled Beauty and won!!! I knew I had to enter because I have wanted to try Sleek lipsticks for a while but never got round to purchasing! I am officially in loveeeee with Vamp one of their shades, if you follow me on Instagram, the last picture of me with red lipstick is Vamp. It's amazing, like a very deep and rusty red, yum... New fave?

Five Sleek lipsticks and one pout paint, £30 - she did purchase when it was 3 for 2 so she technically got it for £20

Last but not least, all these products below from MAC, Clinique and Jo Malone... all received by winning an incentive from work... HAPPY DAYS!

Three MAC brushes, three refill shadows, facial wipes, number 48 lashes, fascinating eye kohl, studio finish concealer, pro palette case and Clinique's anti-blemish spot treatment gel, total £125 

Jo Malone, Red Roses candle, £39