April & May 2013 Random Favourites

Hey Everyone,

Here is the video for my April & May Random Favourites, as I skipped April. I decided to put these into a seperate video this time because one video would have been just too long to sit and watch with everything in it. I might start doing them as seperate videos in future months if you think that it's better that way- let me know in a comment either here or under the video :) 

As always, the links (and in this case videos) I mentioned are included in the description box of the video on YouTube so I'm not going to post them all here and get really repetitive! I hope you enjoy my random faves this month as I know I got a bit rambling and tongue tied trying to describe a few things so I hope I got my point across alright you check them out! 

Thanks for watching!!

Lauren 

xx

My Links- 

Twitter- https://twitter.com/LaurenM26

Instagram- LaurenM262

Blog- http://laurenm26.blogspot.co.uk/

Glipho- http://glipho.com/laurenm26

April & May 2013 Beauty Favourites

Hey Everyone,

So... it is now June, somehow the year is going faster and faster with each month that goes by, so that means that it's time for my monthly favourites video. This is a bit of a long one, so I've split it into two videos with this being all the beauty items and another video with my random things I've been loving which is coming up in a seperate post or you can find it on my channel. 

If you manage to make it all the way to the end of the video then well done! I know lots of people don't like to watch really long videos but I think it's allowed with favourites, especially when there's really two months rolled into one! So before I babble on anymore as per usual, here is the video!

As always, the products and links to all of them are listed in the description box under the video on YouTube and leave me a comment with what your favourite products have been this month! 

Thanks for watching!

Lauren

xx

My Links- 

Twitter- https://twitter.com/LaurenM26

Instagram- LaurenM262

Blog- http://laurenm26.blogspot.co.uk/

Glipho- http://glipho.com/laurenm26

Youtube Video- Primark Haul May 2013

Hey Everyone,

So I recently went to the Livingston Primark, which is the first time I have physically been in any Primark store for about four and a half/five years (and the time before that was a year even further back!!) and so I will admit that I went on a bit of a spree and bought...well... a lot!! That's the problem/wonderful thing about Primark- because the prices are so low you just keep adding things into your basket and before you know it you are £125 down your purse feels a lot lighter than when you went in!!



I try to get videos posted as often as I can as I prefer being able to talk about products rather than blogging about them as I find it easier than writing but I'm hoping to find a balance between the two!

I hope you enjoyed this video and feel free to like, subscribe and check out my other uploads if you want!

Thanks for watching

Lauren
xx

My Links-
 My Links
TwitterInstagram

Neve Cosmetics Elegantissimi Eyeshadow Palette Review

Hey Everyone, 

So, I know I have been terrible at blogging recently because I've been making quite a few videos and I find those easier than blogging but I've decided to take a break from videos for the next little while and try and focus mostly on my blog, which can be found both on Blogger/Blogspot and on Glipho but the posts will be pretty much be the same. 

Ok, so now I have that out of the way, onto the main point of this post. I had been looking for an eyeshadow palette of pretty neutral/browny colours that were all matte or had very slight shimmer in them. I had gotten into the habit of only using my MUA Undressed and Heaven and Earth palettes and they are all neutral shades but packed with shimmer and I felt that I was just in a bit of a rutt with that eye look but I also wanted something that I knew I would get a lot of use out of as well. After some research and a lot of debating I decided that the Neve Cosmetics Elegantissimi palette looked the best and I think I've proven myself right! 

Inside the palette

The packaging

I found this palette on the Cute Cosmetics website which is fast becoming one of my favourite beauty sites, not least because all of their products are animal friendly and in some cases vegan. I swithered over it for a while because it does cost £21.95 but even after only a few uses I would say that it was definitely worth the price as it is exactly what I was on the hunt for. 

For a palette it is quite big compared to say the MUA palettes but you do get a lot of product in each pan as you will see in a second and one of the main reasons I chose this palette over some others is that it is magnetic and you can buy each pan and quite a few other colours (including blushes) and swap them around to make your own palette or replace ones as you use them up rather than having to buy a whole new palette for just those few colours that you use most often. 

At first glance and online the packaging looks black but is actually a deep purple colour with the rainbow like design that all of the Neve palettes have I think. Also, I should have mentioned before that Neve Cosmetics is an Italian brand (in casse you hadn't guessed from the name) and I'm not sure if it's available any where else in the UK other than Cute Cosmetics but there will be a link included at the end. 

Like I mentioned previously, the pans inside the palette are a lot bigger than any other palette that I own which could make it tricky to fit into a make up bag for instance but it is quite a slim palette and clicks properly shut so would be suitable for travelling with. I think that the size of the pans and their customisable-ness (new word as always in my posts) make them well worth the higher cost. Also, you only have to replace one pan at a time which spreads out future costs with it. 

The size difference between the pans of the Neve Palette and  my MUA  Heaven and Earth palette- you can see that the Neve pans look giant in comparison! Also you can see the big difference between how shimmery the MUA eyeshadows are compared to the Neve one!

 Lastly, I'm going to talk about the pigmentation of the shadows and a bit more about the colours which as you can see are all neutrally and brown, except for the matte white and matte black and a grey on the second row which I really love. 

The colours named on the back of the palette

swatches without flash from L-R T-B of the palette

First row swatches L-R

Bottom Row Swatches L-R

The pigmentation of the eyeshadows is quite good but is buildable if you want a stronger colour. Also the eyeshadows can all be used dry or wet, which would give an even stronger effect. I'm thinking about doing this with the black as an alternative to eyeliner which I suck at applying! The darker the colour the more pigmented it is which is useful to bear in mind especially with the black one or you can get in a bit of a mess with it! My favourite colours would have be 'smoking' the grey and 'etoile' which is a really pretty shimmery creamy coloured highlight/inner corner colour as well as 'butterfly' which is a really nice matte all over colour, which I use as a base before blending one of the darker colours like 'peluche' or 'croissant' into the crease. Like I briefly mentioned before, the Neve eyeshadows are mostly vegan but all animal cruelty free and I'm pretty sure all of the colours that come in this palette are vegan but they are clearly marked on the website if they aren't. It wasn't something I was specifically looking for buying this palette to be honest but it's nice to know and now I've found this site, it's much easier to know what goes into the products. 

Overall, I would highly reccomend this palette and am definitely going to be looking into purchasing more of the colours which can be moved into this palette or they have the option to buy empty palettes, which all of the pans fit into too. Also I would reccomend checking out the website Cute Cosmetics as they have so many different make up brands, some of which are well known and some of which were totally new to me and might be hard to find in other places!

Links
Cute Cosmetics Website

Neve Elegantissimi Palette 

All of the Neve Products on Cute Cosmetics

Thanks for reading this very long post!!

Lauren
xx

 My Links
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Instagram

Mint Nail Polish Collection/Review

Hey Everyone, 

After featuring Essie Mint Candy Apple Nail Polish in my January Favourites video (which you can find here) I realised that I had quite a few nail polishes that fell into the mint category and, as I said in the video, it took me quite a long time to find my perfect mint. So I decided to do a blog post on all my mint polishes and a mini review of them so hopefully if you've been searching for the perfect mint too, then this might help! 

Without flash in lamplight

The four that I have in my ridiculously large extensive and varied nail polish collection are from left to right/top to bottom- MUA Nail Varnish in Pistachio Ice Cream, Lacura Beauty Nail Polish in Number 520 (I think this brand is only available in Aldi supermarkets so I couldn't find a link!), Essie Nail Colour in Mint Candy Apple and finally, E.L.F Nail Polish in Mint Cream. They vary in colour from very green mint to more blue mint and they vary greatly in price from £1 for the MUA polish to £9.95 for the Essie Polish. 

With flash

(Also, I know the edges of my nails here are atrocious but I tried my best to apply it neatly, but really, this is only so you can see the colours on nails instead of in the bottle and next to each other for better comparison!)

My least favourite and the one I would use the least is the Lacura Beauty Polish because it's a very dark green colour and almost can't be included as a mint colour but I did just for green comparison with the others. It's only been recently that I've branched into mint/greeny toned anything because I have such a dislike for the colour green (I won't even use green pens if I can help it!) so when my mum picked me this up, I would have much preferred a different colour! I can't fault the application or opacity but it's just not for me! 

The E.L.F nail polish and the MUA nail varnish are the two more green toned mints but because they are much paler in green than the Lacura I can trick myself into pretending they aren't green at all! The E.L.F polish is slightly darker toned but I prefer it as it has a better opacity and application on the nails than the MUA polish. I've mentioned a few E.L.F  polishes on my blog before and I really love them. They aren't too expensive (I think £2.50 if my memory serves me right) which is a total bargain given how nicely they apply, the chipping is about the same as any other brand but a good top coat always helps a lot and they come in a load of different colours so even if you don't want mint, there's bound to be something you'll love! The MUA polish can be a bit streaky and needs a good few coats to make it look opaque, I would say about three or more whereas the other polishes you could get away with only two coats. Having said that, for a nail polish that only costs a pound there are lots of colours (although disappointingly like with most MUA things, most of the shades are numbered rather than named) and with a bit of patience and time the finish can be decent at the end. 

With Flash

Without Flash

The star nail polish of these four and I'm definitely saving the best for last here is the Essie Mint Candy Apple. When I got the E.L.F and MUA polishes back in September/October time, I liked them and knew I would wear them but I was slightly disappointed that they weren't more bluey toned, because of my dislike of anything green. I'd heard absolutely everyone raving about the Essie but I'd never bothered to buy it because it looked so green toned on all the websites and because it used to be quite difficult to buy Essie polishes in the UK. Now, I wish I'd bought the Essie one first and then I wouldn't have bothered buying the other two even though I do love them now. In the bottle and even on the nails, the Essie and MUA polishes do look very similar but when you look closely you can see the more blue tones in the Essie Mint Candy apple. Now, £9.95 is definitely in the higher end bracket of nail polish prices/brands but personally now I've tried Essie polishes I totally think they're worth every penny, plus the fact that they're more readily available in the Boots diffusion line and online makes it easier. One thing I can never have enough of is nail polishes, judging by the ammount that I have in my nail polish drawer (yes, I've got that many they need their own drawer!) of every colour and finish and varying degrees of glitter and shimmer but I have to say Essie is now one of my favourite brands. They last for ages with no chipping, they're easy to apply and opaque with two coats, there's such a huge range of colours with such cute and quirky names, which I am always a sucker for (on more than one occasion I have bought a nail polish purely because of it's name, or at least it helped a lot in the deciding process!)... I could go on!! I am a total convert to Essie-ism basically. Essie's Good To Go also needs to get a special mention here for glossiness and keeping chippage at bay... is chippage a word?... well, it is now!! 

Well... that turned into a bit of an Essie fangirl moment there didn't it? Oops, didn't mean for that happen!! But hopefully this has helped with any green and blue toned mint nail polish dilemas you may have been having... I bet it's just me that's so picky!! Anyways, leave me a comment if you own any of these polishes or have them on your wish list. Also leave me a comment if you know of any other blue toned or pale green mint polishes that you reccomend because, lets face it three bottles of nearly the same colour of nail polish is never enough hehe...

Thanks for reading!!

Lauren
xx

What's In My Bag Feb '13

Hey everyone, 

Not much to say about this except I filmed a new video! The good old What's In My Bag video, which you might like if you're as nosy about stuff like this as I am!! 

(Could I be pulling a more pouty face in the thumbnail if I tried... I doubt it!!)

Thanks for watching and reading this very poor excuse of a blog post!! 

Lauren 
Xx

January '13 Favourites

Hey Everyone,

So, it's monthly favourites time again and this month I decided to do things a little differently and film a video instead of my usual blog post. It's the first one I've uploaded so it might not be the best but hopefully I did alright!

Products Featured

MUA Eyeshadow Palettes- http://www.muastore.co.uk/index.php/eyes/eye-shadow?cat=21 (they've recently had a huge sale so may be sold out of most things just now but they'll be back in stock soon hopefully!)

Nails Inc Nail Polish in Baker Street- http://www.nailsinc.com/nailpolish/baker-street-polish/1102/

Essie Nail Colour in Mint Candy Apple- http://www.feelunique.com/p/Essie-Nail-Colour

Essie Good To Go Top Coat- http://www.feelunique.com/p/Essie-Good-To-Go-Top-Coat-15ml

Lush Popcorn Lip Scrub- https://www.lush.co.uk/product/6080/Popcorn---25g

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Honey- http://www.boots.com/en/Revlon-Just-Bitten%C2%99-Kissable-Lip-Balm-Stain_1208067/

Rimmel Apocalips in Galaxy- http://www.boots.com/en/Rimmel-London-Apocalips-Lip-Laquer_1296026/

Scunci Bun Maker- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scunci-490702U-Bun-Maker/dp/B00A0N2OPQ

Scunci Perfect Pony- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scunci-490698U-Perfect-Pony/dp/B00A0N2OKG/ref=sr_1_1?s=beauty&ie=UTF8&qid=1359663160&sr=1-1

So, that's all of this month's favourites. Hopefully you enjoyed the video instead of a regular post from me- let me know in the comments either here or on YouTube what you thought and if I should make more or stick to writing! Also leave a comment or a video response if you want, about your favourites this month or anything about the products I mentioned.

Thanks for reading/watching!!

Lauren
Xx