2015 | September Favourites!

September's nearly over, which means? It's almost my birthday month! (and also, there's another favourites post coming for you!).

Beauty

My first beauty favourite is one from Benefit, and it's their 'Gimmie Brow' gel!

This is in the lighter shade of the two available, and what it does is add fibres to your eyebrow to give them the Cara Delasagne effect... Okay it's not actually described as that, but it makes them fuller and thicker, and just all out brow-tastic.

I've never quite worked out how to properly give my eyebrows that bit of oomph. Other people's are easy, but it's always worse when it's your own! This stuff is so easy to use, and you can see the tutorial on the Benefit website here.

It's more at the high end scale price wise, coming in at £18.50, but it's the perfect thing to treat your brows to!

Next up, we have a late addition to my favourites. I only bought this yesterday, (and immediately bought another on online after trying it), but it's amazing! It goes on so smoothly, and from past lip gloss experience I expected to need a few applications before the colour I wanted showed through, but one was all I needed! The colours are so bold and pigmented, and the wearability is amazing! I put this on, and 10 minutes later  I consumed a pizza... and the colour was still there! Barely any loss at all! It's not sticky, it just feels smooth, and gives your lips the perfect colour, and with the uniquely shaped want, if you're only using it on yourself, you don't  even need to worry about getting it right to the line of your lips, it does it all by itself!

This colour is called Aphrodite, and it priced at £5.99... I've got 'Lunch Date' on it's way to me in the post!

Skincare

I don't know what has happened, but recently my face has been a nightmare! Usually my normal Liz Earle products have done the trick to keep acne at bay, but this time, it hasn't even touched it! My face has been a plethora of acne, blackheads, and red patches, so it was time to take some drastic action.

I've been to my doctors before, but whatever they gave me just hasn't worked for longer than two weeks...

I decided to splurge and pick up some products from Perricone MD. I won't talk too much about them, because there's another blog post coming with a full review, but one week in and i'm very impressed, so keep your eye's peeled! 

They do come in at the higher end of the price tag, and yes my purse did suffer! But when it comes to my face, I will spend as much as it takes to give me that extra confidence boost when needed!

Experiences

September has been a month of spontaneity and awesome opportunities! As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I had the chance to be on set as a make up artist with SKEW magazine, and this weekend, I was asked to take part in a Hair Show with Toni And Guy! 

8 Models, in 3 hours... it was knackering, but so worth it!

Also this month, I decided to get some more tattoos! (Which you may have seen already on my Instagram).

I chose to get this one because the last time I had a tattoo, Donna my tattooist, insisted that I get something with some colour! So obviously, I went all out! Donna loved the artist that was the original inspiration for this image, so she loved doing it. Could this be the start of a full sleeve?

And for those of you that know me, know that I am completely and utterly obsessed with Harry Potter. So much so that I thought what better way to always have it in my life than to have him tattooed on my arm? (Judge me all you want, I don't even care!).

So that's it for another month! And just a word of warning, as next month is my birthday month, it's going to be jam packed full of favourites!

Happy reading!

2015 | August Favourites!

Another month down, already! August has been so busy, but i've still managed to pull together all my favourite things from this month!

So, some of you may know this, but earlier this month we had a bath reinstalled at the house! We've been living with one of those massive walk in showers, and some days, it just didn't suffice with the relaxing factor! So obviously, when the bath was put back in, I had to get myself some bath bombs from Lush!

My favourite is definitely Frozen! (The blue one) It fizzes like a mad woman and has glitter in it. Play the frozen soundtrack in the background and you're basically Queen Elsa!

The larger pink one is a bubble bar. A little less fancy than the bath bombs, but they provide so many bubbles, it's brilliant!

Now, I've been on some adventures down south earlier this week, so I thought i'd treat myself to a few beauty bits i've wanted for ages but held back on buying.

There will be further reviews on these products, but for a first impression, they're pretty great!

The Collection eyebrow palette comes in Brown and Blonde, as I have fair hair, I chose the blonde. Inside each, there are 3 different shades, an angled brush and a 'clear brow mascara'. I usually go for the middle shade for day-to-day make up, and set it with the mascara, and it really does last all day!

I also purchased Benefits They're Real Mascara in Brown. I love the original, and I've been wanting to try a brown mascara for ages too. Brown mascaras really work to bring out your eyes, especially if your eyes are green, hazel, or brown (obvs). While i've been wearing this, I haven't needed to wear any eye liner, as it really opens up my eyes, where as a black mascara can make my eyes look quite small! It cost £19.50, but I definitely think it's worth the price tag!

Earlier this month, I received an email from Topshop saying they had added more items to the sale. I didn't want to buy anything in particular, but I thought, as I'd just been paid I might have a quick look.

I found these! They were £45 originally, but in the sale I think they were £15?! I'm a sucker for a bargain! They're a perfect fit, so if you buy them, you should go for your normal size. I wore them out the other night, and I had them on from 6pm - 2am, and my feet didn't begin to ache once! I could walk normally, no one had to wait for me to catch up because I was going too slow, and to say they're caged, my feet never got cold!

You go Topshop!

Now, the most exciting part of this month (which will be talked about on the blog in due course), was my visit to the Harry Potter Studio tour with my sister. I won't spoil it, (although, in my next post there will be plenty of pictures!), but I picked up this Pygmypuff keyring to go on my car keys, and I just love it! A fluffy pink key ring to go with my pink car!

So there's not many, but they are my favourite things from this month! Let me know in the comments anything you've been loving that you would recommend!

Beauty | Make-Up, Specs, and all that comes with it!

Here I am sat in be at precisely 10pm, with a full face of make up, writing this post for you, because that's what it's like having 2 jobs. I'm a support worker by day, (and sometimes by night), and a blogger/make-up artist/hairdresser by night, and on my days off.... and sometimes when there's a lul at work and I can quickly write down a draft for a blog or snapshot a picture from Pinterest of a look I want to re-create...

That aside! As a member of the visually impaired party, I thought I'd share with you my top tips on how I wear my make up, to complement my glasses. 

Do you ever find yourself looking in the mirror in that moment between finishing your make up and putting your glasses on, thinking 'do you know what? I actually look alright today. I've got that doe-eyed look down, and my eyeliner flicks are on point!' ...Yeah me neither.... Kidding! So you're sat, really pleased with your face, then the glasses go back on, and your eyes look tiny, dark circles like you haven't slept in weeks, you question whether or not you've actually remembered to put mascara on, and that smokey eye look you went for makes it look like you've been bashed in the face with the wrong end of your Naked 3 pallette. (This is obviously a joke, there is no bad end of the Naked 3 pallette, every last bit of it is glorious!).

Well my friends, call me your Fairy God Mother (or just Em is fine...), because I am about to tell you about how you can fix all of these problems.

Step 1) Make sure you have a strong base.

Any dark circles, fine lines, or wrinkles you have around your eyes are about to be maximised by your face furnature. Make sure you're using a primer specifically designed for eyes, and those dark circles need to be neutralised with a yellow/orange based concealer. The darker the circles, the oranger the shade.

NB: Do not, absolutely never, BY NO MEANS use a red lipstick to conceal your dark circles. It doesn't blend. It suffocated your skin as it's designed for lips, not the thinner, sensitive skin around your eyes. Your foundation will not cover it all day/night. The make-up you put on over the top will definitely come of, and you will look like an idiot. An idiot!

Step 2) Use a bold eye line.

Keep it close to the waterline of the eye, but gradually getting thicker towards the outer corner of the eye. And if you're feeling daring, flick that liner! 

Step 3) Big Bold Brows.

A well defined brow is absolutely essential when it comes to wearing glasses. The bolder the brow, the more attention that will be drawn away from your frames, that way, it'll be your brows that frame your face, and not your glasses.

Step 4) Stick to neutral colours for your eye shadow.

Remember when your granny used to have massive specs, and all you could think about was how disasterous her blue eyeshadow looked? Yeah. That. Don't be that person! Stick to the neutrals. If you want to go smokey, use browns/pinks instead of blacks and greys. These colours will make your eyes look even smaller, and a bit like you've let your 7 year old sister play with your face. 

Step 5) Lashes - Go big or go home!

Even though glasses magnify things for you, one think they are great at, is making it look like the 3 coats of mascara you've just put on, may as well have been water. Out of all of these steps, this one is the most important for me. You must invest in a volumising mascara! Having longer/bigger lashes opens up your eyes. Add that to the magnifying you're already getting from your gigs and you actually will have that doe eyed look down to a T!

You could even push the boat out and go for some falsies if it's a special occasion. Word of warning though, if you go too long with the false lashes, you will end up pushing your frames further down your nise with them!

So that's it, my top 5 tips on how to wear eye make up when you wear glasses. Embrace the frames!

These are just the few I follow, but if you have any more, feel free to add a comment, or tweet me on @em_scissorhands !