Post Holiday Blues

Hello you lot, have you missed me? I've missed you. I got back from France last night, and am currently in limbo all out of sync with the weather and holiday frame of mind. Sigh. We had an amazing time, and a week wasn't enough. I nearly cried like a small child when we arrived in Edinburgh to see people bundled up in coats and the rain drizzling around us. But I did get some amazing French goodies, so I will apologise in advance for the onslaught of reviews that is heading your way. First up though, a picture of some patisseries, just because.

YUM. Every second street has a patisserie or boulangerie that puts our bakeries to shame. They are like works of art, and taste amazing. I'm making myself want to go back just looking at this picture. So lets move on. As I'm sure you will be surprised to hear, I managed to control myself at Duty Free and only bought from the MAC counter. I was trying not to spend a fortune before even getting on the plane, so decided to just buy a lipstick...then an eyeshadow blending brush.

So I figured, everyone bangs on about Mac Angel, I really need to see what the fuss is all about. It's a Frost Finish, which I didn't know as it's always portrayed as a perfect nude shade. Also Kim K's favourite (YAWN). As a beauty blogger of sorts, I really should own some of these cult shades to see what I think about them, contrary to following the hype I tend to want to disprove it, maybe my little inner rebel coming out!

As I'm unable to keep things for long without using them, I only waited to get on the plane before taking pics of this. You can only image what I'm like on Christmas Day. Yep, I'm basically an overgrown child. In the bullet this looks like a dusky rose pink with brown undertones. I wouldn't say that the frost finish is very obvious for this shade at all, you really have to peer at the bullet to see the shimmer and it isn't obvious at all on.

This is pretty heavily swatched as I found that it wasn't very highly pigmented on the skin.

Am I blown away by this? No, not really. It's a pretty colour, very wearable but doesn't pack enough of a punch for me. It's a bit too...vanilla. But I'll add it to the collection and I'm sure it will get used at some point. The brush I bought was another Pixiwoo inspired purchase, those girls are no good for my bank balance. A lot of my eyebrow brushes are from various sets, and tend to be smaller in size. I had seen this brush being used by Sam in a couple of smokey eye videos and liked how it softened out the look.

This is the MAC 217 Blending brush, the Pixiwoo girls always seem to keep theirs very clean but looking at these bristles I don't see myself managing to keep this clean at all. In France the weather was so warm that all my eyeshadow and other makeup seemed to slide down my face so I ended up wearing just BB cream and mascara, so I will need to try this out and get back to you on it!

Speaking of the weather, I had a couple of little sun tan lotions to try out while I was away, so just wanted to mention these briefly.

We have Hawaiian Tropic Silk Hydration and Green People sun lotion with tan accelerator. These are both SPF 15, which is what I would normally use. The Hawaiian Tropic has "ribbons" of hydration throughout the product. The packaging is lovely and you can see the swirled effect through the plastic. It smells delicious, as do all their products, although this is floral rather than fruity. Your skin is indeed left soft and protected but I got rather annoyed at this products as it separated if you didn't use it for over 6 hours or so, meaning that you squirted out a sort of yellow oil and the cream separately. It was fine if you just shook it back together but I wasn't a fan overall. This is £14.99 for 180ml.

The Green People's packaging is dull as ditchwater, but the product is 98% natural in origin and smells of essential oils. It was just a bog standard white cream but certainly did the job. I put this on my legs to attempt to get them to change colour at all as they are very stubborn, and did see a slight difference, but nothing major. If you are into natural products I would definitely recommend this product. It is £17.95 for 200ml.

Anyway guys, it's good to be back, you will be hearing about France for the next couple of posts then I promise to shut up about it! If you want to know, I was in the Limousin region near Limoges :)
xx

Glossybox June 2012

Good day one and all! Now that the formalities are over, how've you been? I've been away at a wedding and my phone was being an IDIOT, and I've not been able to post or read blogs. I literally felt like I'd lost a limb. No joke. So anyway I'm baaaack, and ready to ramble at will. The only picture of Richard and I from the wedding isn't massively flattering but here it is anyway! For the record I am not that wide!!

As you can see we have our priorities right and are next to the bar, the cake, and the sweet table. Yes there was a big pic and mix table with paper bags to take away goodies with you! I stole all the Haribo eggs and hearts at the end of the night mmmm. ANYWAY, I got back to find my June Glossybox outside the flat door. Naughty postman, anyone could have stolen it!

Richard thought I said it was for him, I said the word "review" and he thought I said "for you", he was so disappointed when he realised otherwise. I was like REALLY? It's a big PINK box! Come on now. Last month's Glossybox was a massive hit with me, if you haven't read it you can do so here. I always knew it would be a hard act to follow, but to be honest I'm a little underwhelmed by this month's box. Let's see what I got:

It looks a little bare doesn't it :(

I have seen these Dermablend concealers before, I have a birthmark on my neck which looks a lot like a lovebite, when I was a teenager I was pretty embarrassed by it so tried everything to cover it up. A friend has this to cover her acne scarring and I used it, it is brilliant but just so thick. I'll use it for stubborn spots maybe but I don't really have a use for this anymore, might try to cover my birthmark and do a post for interest's sake.

We also got a brush, which is meant to be £15.00 full price. I hate to be cynical, but as it's made for Glossybox, they could really say it costs anything. I have a lot of high quality brushes and whilst not cheap looking, it doesn't strike me as a high end product.

If I didn't know these were made of 100% goat hair I would say they were synthetic, something about the plasticy gleam or the splaying of the brushes just shouts fake to me. It could be the way the hair has been treated as my MAC and Bobbi Brown brushes don't look so messy when they are brand new. I do like the fact that Glossybox are giving us products we can use and keep, this and the mirror from last month will be used, but I'd rather have quality over quantity.

I have wanted to try the Agent Provocateur perfumes for  a while so for me this set was a good additon. I do however think perfumes aren't the best thing to include as everyone's taste is so different! I have the original one on just now and I really like it. It smells very flowery and sensual, although (please bear with me) it does smell like a grown-up version of the "perfume" you used to get free with Barbies. Does anyone remember that? Nevermind, that's what it smells like and you get three fragrances, each 1.5ml.

Next up, a mineral bronzer from new cosmetics company BM Beauty, one of the founders of which is Pussycat Doll Kimberley Wyatt! Like her or not, she is a bit of a glamourpuss, and I am a latecomer to the world of mineral makeup so I am quite excited to give this a shot. The only thing is it does look a bit muddy! I'm very worried I will look awfully dark, will need to update you once I've tried it.

Last but not least, we have a Yves Rocher "Sexy Pulp" mascara which has a huuuuge curvaceous, sexy looking brush to match its name. I would have hoped for a full size one of these as this is a very small sample, but it's currently half price on their website here, so if I like it I might purchase the large one. The large one is normally over sixteen pounds so this should be a good product (totally on the you-get-what-you-pay-for premise).

Now I've written this review, I'm slightly more excited about the products I received but it still feels a little sparse, if you know what I mean. The only full size item was Glossybox branded so it seems like a bit of a cop-out and while the other items look good, they are all little testers. I don't feel like this box is particularly good value for money. I've just seen that Top Cashback are offering 15% discount on the monthly subscription, and I got £7.00 back on my first box, so I might need to cancel then resubscribe to get the best deal.

Sorry Glossybox this month you'd get a score of 5/10. What did you get in your box? Were you happy with it? xxx