4 Moisturising Lip Picks for Winter

Come winter, chapped lips seem inevitable, meaning you can forget about applying drying lipsticks. For days when you want to add colour but lipstick just feels uncomfortable to wear or too full on, try reaching for one of these instead. They range from most pigmented and opaque (#happy lips, lip butters) to sheer (TBS Born Lippy.)

The Body Shop Born Lippy in Plum
This gives a subtle berry tint to the lips and is very moisturising. There are other shades in the range but this is the darkest, I chose the darkest assuming it would have more colour pay off and it doesn't disappoint. It's doesn't look odd when it wears off either. I prefer the Born Lippy lip balm in stick form rather than the pots because I find the formula more moisturising and hygienic. This lip balm smells slightly of plum and prunes and tastes a little like plums. As always with The Body shop this tinted lip balm isn't tested on animals and is priced reasonably at £3. You can get this from The Body Shop here 

Clinque Chubby Stick Moisturising Lip Balms
This is the one that started a revolution in the make up world. The twist up form was easy to apply and didn't need sharpening. It became so popular it started a copycat trend amongst other cosmetic brands. These Clinque chubby stick lips have a perfect formula for they are not sticky, tacky or waxy in anyway. Clinque Chubby Stick balms are not scented and have no taste which is great for those with allergies. They are very comfortable to wear. Full review and swatches see here. If you are after a more opaque colour then Clinque also do a Chubby Stick Intense line.They are available at Clinque Online here , Boots, Superdrug and department store for £17.

Revlon Colourburst Lip Butters
I have four of these sheer but moisturising lipsticks, in Macaroon, Berry Smoothie,Tutti Frutti and Raspberry Pie and reckon they're worth the hype.They smell of vanilla but it's fairly subtle. The wear time of these aren't great but I found them to last a bit longer than the No 7 version, Sheer Temptations lipstick which is similar. A swatch of the Raspberry Pie can be found here. Revlon Colourburst Lip Butters are priced at £7,99 at Superdrug here and Boots here £7.99

Make Up Revolution Amazing Care #Happylips in Love Red
This has a moisturising outer layer containing argan oil. Because of this I expected that it would be sheer like a tinted lip balm, but I was pleasantly surprised that this can be built up to a bright red colour (although it looks pink in the swatch below it's actually a cool toned red.) and is a lot more pigmented. These happylips are perfect to wear in the winter when your lips tend to feel drier because this is really very moisturising and so comfortable to wear. It can last through a drink but not eating. There is no noticeable smell but it does taste like vanilla. Altogether there are 5 shades in the line. £3 Make Up Revolution here

I Heart Make Up Palette in GO! Review

This aptly named I Heart Make Up Go Palette is a compact eye shadow, blush and highlighter travel palette that fits into one hand. It contains 6 eye shadows (5 shimmer and one matte finish) and
two blushes and a highlighter. This was part of the bundle of products from a Make Up Revolution's Black Friday deal (I Heart Makeup is a sister brand)

The shades of the eye shadows are neutral and wearable browns, copper and pinks. The palest cream shadow is a little chalky and almost all the eye shadows (apart from the last two) needed a couple of swipes for the photos. I expected the last shadow on the left to be a dark plum but it's actually a dark brown. Without primer the eye shadows half disappeared after 7 hours of wear (the same as most other eye shadows my slightly oily lids) with a good primer underneath these last all day.

For me the best part if this palette were the blushes they both look so natural on the face. I don't mean natural as in sheer where the hell is it? But rather part of your face's natural beauty. The bright pink blush looks neon in the pan but actually applies to give a fairly natural colour. I was wondering if the other blush could be used as a contour on either my skin or someone much paler but it's more of a peach colour than a brown and appears very much as a blush. They were velvety and easy to swatch compared to the eye shadows. The colour of the peach blusher reminded me of Urban Decay's blusher Fetish from the Limited Edition Anarchy Face palette.The highlighter is on the silvery pink side and is pretty finely milled and almost an exact dupe for the highlighter in the discontinued Benefit Perfect 10 Duo (Make Up Revolution is ever so slightly warmer although this is barely noticeable.) Personally I suit golden highlighters but the quality is pretty good.

This is the first palette I've tried from I Heart Make Up and to be honest I think I prefer the palettes in the Make Up Revolution range, although I've yet to try I Heart Make Up's Chocolate palettes. It's convenient to have your blushes, hight lighter and eye shadows all together in a compact and portal palette. The blushes (6.5g) and highlighter (4.5g) are fairly generously sized in such a small palette. The eye shadows can easily fit a brush or a finger and add up to 5g of product.  I feel the selling point of the palette are the blushes and the high lighter,especially as they are near dupes from discontinued shades. At the reduced price below it might be worth it for these three things alone.
The full price of these are £6.49 but it is currently priced at £3.99 on the Make Up Revolution website here

MakeUp Revolution Amazing Curl Mascara Review

The packaging of Make Up Revolution Amazing Curl Mascara in Brown Black is plain and basic, though the tube is bronze to distinguish it from the black mascara,  I did sometimes find it difficult to push the curved wand back into the tube after use but this may just be the one I bought- a wider opening would be easier to use though, has anyone else found this  too? However this has got to be the cheapest mascara I've ever tried so for £2 you can't really expect fancy packaging.

The wand is a slim curved bristle brush to give lashes 'an amazing curl.' I've only used a curved mascara wand once before and found it helps to lift the lashes so they appear curled for an hour or two but the effect is temporary and that you need to use an eyelash curler for longer lasting results. Just for the record I have long black but straight eye lashes The curled brush of this mascara makes it really easy to apply mascara from right from the root of the eyelash to the tip of the lashes and does a great job of separating them. This does hold a curl (with eye lash curlers) that lasts most if not all of the the day. This mascara can be built up to lengthen lashes a little too, which is a bonus! However it doesn't add any volume to the lashes. I also also wear contact lenses and found that it did not flake or irritate my eyes at all. Make Up Revolution also have a waterproof version of this mascara for the same price. As I've only recently opened this mascara I don't know if it will dry up after a few months.

To sum up this up this wouldn't be my HG (Holy Grail) mascara. I'd like more volume but for just £2 this is pretty good and does what it says: it curls lashes and adds a little length. I would say Make up Revolution Amazing Curl Mascara would be good for bargain hunters, students, teenagers or those who are skint towards the end of the month and they should check this out.

Available at Superdrug here Make Up Revolution Online £2 here

Finish 5 by Cinco De Mayo Challenge Intro

The Finish 5 by Cinco De Mayo is a challenge started by Megan +megsmakeup8. This is a challenge where you choose 5 products to finish by May 5th 2015. I wasn't sure whether to do this or the Finish 7 by Spring (March 20th) but as I would have started a month late I decided on this challenge instead. The reasons why I've decided to take on the Finish 5 by Cinco De Mayo Challenge are that I thought it would be fun- I've never done one of these challenges before, and lately I've realised that my cream and liquid products were being neglected and really they need to be used much more frequently
due to the shorter expiration date. I will do quick updates on the 5th of the each month to show you how I'm doing.  I have tried to pick products that are hopefully realistic to finish- wish me luck!

ELF cream Blusher (duo)
I've used this about 3 times so there's about 98% product left. I love the Nars lookalike palette but I find the bronzer too orange so I only use the blush. Because the blush isn't long wearing it's not my favourite but since it's cream I feel like I need to use it up fairly quickly.

No. 7 Cream Eye Shadow in Fudge
I tend to favour my Maybelline cream tattoos or the Mac cream eye shadows and this falls by the wayside- from what I remember this is fairly long lasting and a lovely bronze/brown colour. I reckon there's about 99-98% product left.

No. 7 Eye Shadow and Blush Palette by Lisa Elderidge
I've had this palette for years and although I love it-it's a great size, with a big mirror and shades I wear regularity (apart from the mint green.) However I feel I have lots of palettes and would like to use this up. It's taken me years to hit pan on the gold shadow and I want to try to finish it, there's about 55% left of the pan. I also want to use up the pink shadow and I think there's about 80% of shadow remaining. These are colours I wear frequently but tend to use them from lots of different palettes.

Revlon Super Lustrous Lipgloss in Pink Crystals 21
I have never used up a lip gloss before - I used to keep them for years (eww) and now I keep them until they smell bad or I bin them after having a cough, cold or flu to prevent re-infection. This is a nice everyday peach/clear shade that I've had for ages so needs to be used up and it will go with everything. Currently there's 80% of product left.

Sleek Foundation in Barley 
It's taken me about 5 months to use up 33% of the product, and I hope to use it up before spring as this is actually not the right shade for me, it's a little too dark and orange for my skin tone. I can get away with wearing this in the winter and at night time but not for the light sunny days of spring.

5 Cool Beauty Instagrammers

What I love about make up is the power to transform yourself, whether it's from feeling sad and unloved to attractive and vibrant, from changing appearances from natural to glamorous and even extraordinary costume face painting. It's definitely a skill that can be learnt and improved on, but some people have an amazing talent for it, these are my 6 coolest beauty instagrammers. Not all of these looks are wearable day to day, but they are amazing works of art and inspiration. Instagram is a visual social media tool that showcases these looks well, for free and at your fingertips.

1. Jewshopalot
A make up artist based in New York, Jewshopalot creates extraordinary theatrical looks that are just breathtaking. Check out her other make up looks on instagram @Jewshopalot. 

Photos courtesy of Jewshopalot

                                                                                  
2) Tag Peleg
Tal Peleg is a visual artist whose professional make up skills helped to create incredibly detailed eye looks, literally the eye lid becomes a canvas painting. Her inspiration comes from fairy tales, poetry, animals and films. One of  her designs 'window to the soul' with the words 'words can be dangerous so use them wisely' was created to draw attention to bullying and anti bullying campaigns. Her designs can take up to 3 hours to create and she has been featured in the Daily Mail here . She is such a talented artist- go check her out on instagram @Tal-Peleg and Facebook page here


3) Nailuminium
   Margee C. is a nail blogger from the Czech Republic. Her designs are mostly hand drawn in acrylic paint. She started her blog Nailuminium to display her fantastic nail designs and her amazing talent. Her blog also has lots of tutorials and nail polish reviews of the polishes she's tried. Follow her at  @nailuminium

Photos Courtesy of Nailuminium

                                                                                                       
4) The Bookish Manicurist
Mands from Sydney Australia, is a certified nail technician who paints her nails to match the books she reads and reviews. You can see her young adult book reviews on her blog The Bookish Manicurist. Catch her latest nails and reads on instagram @thebookishmanicurist.

5) Dress Up Box                                                                                                                             
Hannah Concannon could almost be mistaken for Lady Gaga's make up artist. She is an artist, writer, and costume designer hailing from Oregon, USA. When she moved to San Francisco she ended up living with 24 artists in The Convent Collective, one of these friends challenged her to create one piece of art everyday. So everyday since January 2013 she has been painting her face and her instagram has been documenting the results! Her looks are very dramatic and theatrical. Her blog also features tutorials, videos and reviews - which you can find here. Follow her on instagram @dressupbox

Blogging Tips: Free Resources for bloggers and creatives

This is my last post of my blogging series- it's a little later than I planned so sorry about that. In this post I wanted to put together all the free blogging resources like printable calendars and blogging planners, free stock photo websites, editing programmes and samples together in one place. Updated April 2020

1) Free Pretty Printable Calendars

 These are good to use as a content calender to schedule posts and stay organised. Monthly calendars are great to print out when there are only a few months left of the year.

Haute Stock

Lucid Press has templates that you can customise with your own photos and images. They have both weekly and monthly calendars.

Short Stop Designs has a 12 page monthly 2020 calendar which you can download in portrait or landscape.

Botantical Paperworks have six different 2020 calendar designs ranging from geometric, colour in, boho floral, chalkboard, inspirational and one with eco tips on them.

A piece of Rainbow has a 12 page 2020 calendar with a cute floral design.

Shining Mom has a 12 page 2020 calendar with notes to write on the bottom.

On Sutton Place has a gorgeous floral 12 page calendar.

2. Free Printable Blogging Planner sheets
There's so much to keep track when blogging from post ideas, schedules, promting posts using social media and tracking stastistics so having a planner helps. Below are some free printable pages you can keep in a ringbinder.

Image by melinda257 from Pixabay

Designer Blogs
A classic black and gold 9 page planner that includes a 2020 calendar, undated monthly calendar and undated monthy editorial calendar. There's a page for a post brainstorming guide, weekly to do list, cover page, contacts page and a blank planner page. To download them you need to sign up to Designer blogs

Angela Giles 
This is a pink and white 35 page blogging planner. It contains a brain storming page, blogging stats page, a weekly to do list and calendar and much more.

Carpenter Girl
This a 17 page Blog and Youtube Planner. It includes a passwords page, a monthy stats tracker, a social media planner, an email campaign page, a blog post planner and a youtube video planner. It was created in 2019 but the monthly planner pages are undated so you can use them for any month in the year.

Homeschool Creations
Free 60 page blog planner which includes a page for notes and ideas, a page to track reviews and giveaways, a monthly social media tracker, affilate programme information and more.


3. Free images and Fonts
The websites below have a search facility where you can type in what photo you're looking for and filter through the results and find a photo that meets your needs. Ivory mix and Haute Stock are photo subscription services where you need to sign up first  (for free) to get access to the stock photos.

Kaboompics

Unsplash

My go to for stock images, Unsplash has over 1 million free high resolution photos. No attribution required but a credit will be appreciated.

Pixabay
Pixabay is huge catalogue of 1.7 million high quality free photos including vector graphics, illustrations and videos.  The Pixabay licence means you don't have to give credit to the photographer (but you are encouraged to link the photo and you can donate the price of a coffee via paypal if you'd like to.) The credit link is a HMTL text which you can copy and paste near the image on the HTML text page. The images are available in different sizes. There are some sponsored images from Shutterstock that are watermarked to let you know that they need to be paid for. Overall though a fantastic library of free images.

Kaboompics 
There are over 17,000 images on Kaboompics and the photos are taken by Karolina Grabowska. Photos are free for commercial and noncommercial use. Attribution (credit) is not required but always appreciated. You can modify the photos.

Pexels
Pexels has over 4,900 stock photos and 290 videos. You can use these free photos for personal and commerical use. It's not required to give credit (attribution) it's encouraged to credit the photographer using a copy and paste caption. They often show results from Pixabay and Unsplash as well.

PNG Guru 

A vast array of Free png clip art images with transparent backgrounds.

Ivory Mix
Founded by Kayla Marie Butler this is a stock photo subscription service.  You need to sign up first (it's free) to access the 550 free stock photos on the site. They will also send you 4 free photos a month. The 550 photos are ordered by date so they are harder to search through. They are suitable for personal and commercial use online and in print. Ivory Mix/ Kayla Bulter own the images but credit/attribition is not required but appreciated. You can also become a paying stock photo Member and take out a subscription for $52 for 3 months acess to 4,500 photos, 100 photos sent each month on top, 15 canva templates and members only rewards and Facebook group.

Haute Stock 
This is another stock photos subscription service. You can sign up for free for their mailing list to receive 21 free stock photo images (such as the second photo in this post) and then they will send more images with their newsletter. The photos are copywrited by Hautestock but you do not need to give credit/attribution for the photos but it is always appreciated (#hautestock or #hautestockco) You can use this for personal or business marketing but not for clients or people who are not signed up to Haute Stock. You don't need to give any credit card details unless you want to become a member. This will give you access to the library of 4,000 high quality stock photos which you can access for $29 a month.

PhotoPin
Another vast stock free photo library. You can filter photos by licence to see which images are eligible to be used in commercial or non-commercial ways. Both commercial and non-commercial images need to have attribution.  You can do this by copy and pasting the Html code or caption provided. On every result page, the first two rows are 'sponsored' images from Shutterstock. So, if you are interesting in browsing through Shutterstock's options, click one of those images. The rows underneath are free and not sponsored. These results use Flickr's API so there will be non professional looking pictures as well as professional ones.

Freepik

Freepik is a  massive database of free vectors and stock photos. Most images are free for commercial and personal use but attrinution is required by copying and pasting a link. If you join the premium download option which starts from 7.50 Euros a month you do not need to attribute the images you use. 

Morguefile
Morguefile has 350,000 free stock photos for commercial and personal use. There no attribution needed. They also have a search page for istock, Getty, Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Dreamtime and Bigstock photos which you will have to pay for.

Canva
Photos and graphics in Canva are tagged free or  'premium' which cost $1 (75p approx.) You pay the amount when you publish/finished what you're making. This programme is good for creating graphics for blog posts, pintrest, instagram, infographics, diagrams, posters etc.

DaFont

Free fonts to download and use

4. Free Editing Programmes
To make your photos look as good as they can, a photo editor is your friend. From cropping out things you don't want in your image, brightening up photos taken in winter when it can be too dark, colour correcting colours, erasing blemishes or simply changing the image size, check out the free photo editing programmes below.

Kaboompics 

Befunky See here I use this the most it's really easy to use. You can also do custom/ freestyle collages.You can also pay to access some of the featues like clarity, extra fonts etc. 

Pixlr See here and here. There are many different versions most are free. This is a more sophisicated editing software with lots of options. It is similar to photoshop but simplified.

ipiccy see here The programme design looks more basic than Befunky but it actually has a few more tools such as the erase tool which I like to erase background tool to give pictures a crisp picture.

Below is a list of Free Downloadable Photo Editing Programmes

• Photopea (free photoshop)
• Lightroom 
• GIMP
• fotoflexer
• Photoscape

Video Editing Software

I haven't used it but Davinci Resolve has been recommended as a good free software option.

5. Free Samples 
If it's awhile until pay day, or your favourite sales assistant at the beauty counter has left or you're saving up for something else in your life making use of freebie sites and samples can plug that gap and broaden the range of brands you can try out and review.

Image by gonghuimin468 from Pixabay

Feel Unique have a Pick and Mix Sample Service where you can choose 5 samples (skincare, makeup, fragrance, body care, hair) for £3.95 postage and packaging. Then you will recieve a £3.95 voucher once you've confirmed that the order arrived. The brands are sold on Feel Unique's website so they are all pretty much well known brands. See my posts Feel Unique Pick and Mix 1 here   and Feel unique Pick and Mix Samples 2 here to see the type of things you can expect.

Join Debenhams Beauty Club. As well as their beauty loyalty card where you can accrue points they also sometimes give complimentary samples of new products. The beauty club community is a place to chat about makeup and skincare and they also host beauty challenges where you can win prizes.

Another way of obtaining samples is too use freebie sites. In exchange for raising a brands social network profiles (likes on Facebook page etc), competitions or a filling in a form on the brands website that freebie will be yours. I prefer to fill out forms direct on a brands website, then I know what I am getting and that they are the only ones with my details (click no for sharing information to third party websites.) Also I try and use shops I usually shop in and websites and apps I will use or trust (such as Boots, Asos etc.)

• Magic Freebies This is up to the minute and in my experience they're reliable. The homepage has the latest offers which is updated daily. Then there's the free health and beauty and free fashion clothes and accessories categories.
• Latest Free stuff   Look under free health and beauty, free make up. free perfume. free fashion stuff, free women's samples and top 20 freebies.
• Freestuff look under fashion freebies, perfume samples, make up free stuff, hair and beauty free stuff and health and fitness free stuff.
• Money Saving Expert Created by Martin Lewis this website is full of advice and offers. I sign up for the weekly emails as I find the web page a bit confusing and busy, but don't let that put you off. The offers are updated daily and information about them and people's experiences of obtaining them are shared in a forum. It's also good at giving a heads up on magazine freebies and Boots/Superdrug/Supermarket offers.

5 Shades Of Berry Lipstick

1. Bright but Sheer Revlon lip butter in Raspberry Pie
You may have this hanging over from the summer but don't banish this to the back of your summer makeup, keep it for the days you want to inject some colour in your life on dull grey days. This is lightweight and really moisturising. It's good for those who hate wearing lipstick or those who want to experiment with bright colours as its basically a tinted lip balm that gives a sheer pop of colour.

2. Dark & Dramatic Stay Put Max Factor in Blackcurrant
this is discontinued shade but still widely available on eBay. it's almost a dupe for MAC's media and Revlon's Black Cherry. This is deep, dark, sexy and very vampy-this makes a bold statement so not for the faint hearted.

3. Budget Makeup revolution Vamp limited collection Rebel with A Cause.
This lipstick is a dupe for MAC's Rebel one of their popular shades. This shade is definitely Vampy, bright but wearable. It smells and taste like vanilla, a smell I can now tolerate (unlike mint flavoured lipstick.) It has a fair bit of slip and for a matte lipstick its not particularly dying and feels pretty comfortable to wear. Longevity is not the best but for a only a pound it's a bargain!

4.  Luxury Nars Pure Matte lipstick in Valparasio
Nars do very pigmented lipsticks, and this is matte lipstick is on trend. This matte lipstick isn't drying and sits fairly comfortably on the lips. It lasts through drinking but not a meal.

5. Wearable Helen E Long lasting lip colour in Raspberry.
This is the perfect raspberry colour, on the lips the colour looks more vampy and berry-like. It's moisturising and comfortable to wear and isn't drying on the lips. On the website the packaging looks basic and dare I say it ugly. In person the packaging looks much more sophisticated and looks as if the lipstick bullet suspended in mid air.