Apothecary Essentials Kit

I know that palettes and gift sets aren't the most portable things, but there's something really nice about a gleaming, beautifully packaged box of pretty colours and multiple products. I was in House of Fraser the other day, and I had heard of their Apothecary range, and they had this set reduced to £10.40 from£26.00!

It's like an old-fashioned book, complete with a massive mirror, and there are pages inside with makeup related history snippets. This one made me laugh:

If you can't read it properly it says "In 1770, England's parliament passed a law against lipstick, stating that women who seduced men into mariage by means of make up could be tried as witches". Brilliant! Better get on my broomstick then...So I love this set already, the packaging is amazing! Cute, quirky and well made, and then look what you get inside!

12 individual eyeshadows, great neutral shades and some darker shades for smokey eyes, fake eyelashes, eyeliner, highlighter. And that's just the top level, you get a lipgloss and liquid lipstick underneath!

These shades are so versatile, as you can see I have tried a couple of the shades when creating a day to day neutral eye look, the shades are highly pigmented, there is more fall-out than you would like but for the price you can't complain. The highlighter is really nice, and you know how I love false lashes!

All in all I'm delighted with this, they have a couple of other sets in the sale which I'm pretty tempted by. I just think it's so cute, and as a book geek the look of this totally appealed to me. I also like the portable size of the highlighter, eyeliner and lip products for nights out. Will save my losing any more MAC lipsticks drunkenly (yes this has happened several times, boo). Nice little sale bargain :)