The Pasty Twist

Hello & Good Evening to you all!

Just a quick hair style post for you today!

Soft straightener curls (first use of heat in 2 months!) & what I like to call the Pasty Twist (because it looks like a pasty!)

I wore this hair style out shopping on Wednesday so I will have a Haul blog coming soon!

Nice mix of cute sleepy-time-p-j's, books and beauty, so look out for that!

This hairstyle is super easy to create.

The Straightener/FlatIron Curls:

Make sure you have liberally applied your heat protector, currently I am using Tresemme, then comb through and let dry. 

Then taking your Straightener/FlatIron, I used my beloved ghd's section off a piece of hair and gently clamp vertically, then slightly twisting inwards or outwards, pull gently down the length of your hair. The further around you twist the tighter your curl will be. Repeat around your head.

The Pasty Twist:

Take a section of hair near your face and split in 2, pass the bottom section over the top section, then add a little bit of hair to the new bottom section, then pass up and over the top, and repeat. I did this round to the middle back of my head then pinned in to place with to large slides (when twisted my hair is rather thick!).

To finish off I sprayed a little glossing spray on my hands, I used one by Inecto-Pure Coconut Spray and just rubbed through my curls to separate them.

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Voila!

Nice and simple!

Hope you enjoyed

Jeni x

Natural Collection

Hi guy's!

Today I bring to you Boot's own brand of super budget makeup - Natural Collection.

The whole range is under £2! Which is amazing and a perfect for beginners brand.

The range covers Foundations, Concealers/Corrector's, Blushers, Bronzer's, Powders, Tinted Moisuriser's, Mascaras, Eye shadow Duo's & Solo's, pencils, Lip Glosses, Lipsticks and Nail Polishes. Phew!

Sorry if I've missed anything out!
They also have a Natural Collection range of bathroom bits and bobs such as hair & face mask sachets, water-body sprays, moisturiser's and shower gels. 

So if your just starting out with makeup and you don't want to spend too much this range is perfect because you can get a whole basic range for £10!

I have a small collection of this brand and today I'm sharing it with you along with my thoughts.

I have a few nail polishes too but I haven't included those.

So lets start with the FACE!

Foundation

So this is the Colour Foundation in Fair £1.99

This foundation is medium coverage, and covers over pores and imperfections quite well. The colour is OK not fantastic still quite dark I think for it to be classed as Fair. It blends in OK with finger tips but I would definitely advise using a foundation brush with this stuff. It works much better. The consistency is medium thickness and a little jelly like, I know that sounds weird. And can some times get stuck in creases like the nose area so pay particular attention to blending that area out. The scent is the typical 'Fragrance Free' scent that come with fragrance free stuff. On a whole it isn't a totally bad foundation considering you are paying £1.99 for the stuff and its better than some of the other foundations I have used!

Concealer

CoverUp Cream in Fair £1.99

This concealer has a medium thick consistency and the application brush is pretty soft which feels nice on the skin. If like me you tend to dot your foundation round your face before blending it in you'll soon notice that:

1. It dries up on your skin pretty quickly which makes it hard to blend out.

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2. It doesn't blend out very well even if it is wet. Don't bother trying with your finger tips! Brushes are better but not by much!

The coverage itself isn't bad it does hide pores and reduces the appearance of redness, but it has a weird sticky-ness to it. So in my opinion opt for a better quality concealer.

Blusher

Blushed Cheeks in Sweet Cheeks £1.99

Ahh blusher my nemesis. Now I don't know what it is about me & blusher but we don't get on, I swear its determined to make me look like Coco the Clown. Almost everyone I try, I end up looking like a blushing lobster. Now I'm not blaming the blushers it could just be my lack of blusher-putting-on skills! Now on to the review.

It has a nice soft feel to it and isn't too powdery. Its very pigmented so this is where I probably go wrong, swirling my brush like 80 times then dusting my cheeks. Maybe is should limit the swirling to like 20 - no I am kidding. I think where it is so pigmented its very easy to put too much on your blush brush and end up with too much on. Needless to say it blends out quite well and is a sweet pink colour. Going over with face powder helps dampen down the colour or gently rubbing with finger tips.

Cream Blush

Cream Blusher in Rosy Pink £1.99

I haven't had this blush for more than a couple weeks and let me tell you Oh My Gosh! I freaking LOVE this stuff. Gone forever are my clown days! 

This stuff blends in like a dream, its so subtle and natural looking and leaves you with a healthy glow. I pop a little bit on the back of my hand and using 2 finger swirl it out on my hand then gently pat on to my cheeks and blend out - I do this last after all the other facial renovations so's not to smudge any out. 

So verdict - AMAZING! and for £1.99 can't beat it!

Le Swatches

So now we move on to the EYES.

Mascara

LashLength Mascara in Brown/Black £1.99

Now call me crazy but I would say that this is one of the best mascara's I have used! The brush is tapered so you can reach easy in to corners and the brush spirals are close together allowing lashes to separate. This is super build-able as well. So you can easily go from a barely there natural look with one sweep to a thicker fuller lash with a few extra coats. I really do love this mascara!

Eyeshadow

Duo's are £1.99 & Solo's are £1.79

Starlight/Midnight

A pale grey and matte black 

Asteroid 

A shimmery brown 

Willow

A pale golden natural colour

Snow Storm 

Looks pale grey but actually has a pearlesant purple sheen to it

As you can propably see in the photo's these eyeshadow's are pretty crumbly and easy to break - well like most eyeshadow's. 

The colours are pretty nice although not a huge-mungous range. With the more shimmery shadows your do get a lot of fall out so you can end up with eyeshadow on your cheek - keep a brush on hand to sweep it away.

Swatches!

And so finally we move on to LIPS

Lipstick

Sheer Natural Lip Colour in Sandcastle £1.99

This lipstick glides on easy enough and feels soft on the lips with a nice sheer natural cover, however its not overly moisturising and lips feel dry fairly quickly so a sweep of lip balm before hand helps to add extra moisture.

Juicy Lips Lip Gloss in Turkish Delight £1.99

This smell delightful! So yummy! The shade again is a pretty and natural with a slight sheen to it which is to shiny. The applicator brush however needs some work its hard and scratchy making application sometimes unpleasant - all they need to do is used the same brush applicator as the cream concealer and happy days! Again this isn't very moisturiseing and feels a bit dry on the lips but again using lip balm before does help considerably.

Sheer Natural Lip Colour in Sand Castle

Juicy Lips in Turkish Delight

I did a quick natural look using the concealer, foundation, cream blush for my face. The mascara, Asteroid solo and matte black to line my eye and finished with the Sand Castle lip colour.

Hope you've liked!

Jeni x

Oh la la! Freebie!

Everyone loves a freebie!

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My most recent freebie came from the August issue of Marie Claire.

An eyeko liquid eyeliner known as SKINNY MINI worth £10! Whoop! :)

So I've been testing it out for a few days and here's what I thought.

So the liner itself comes in a little blue box telling you everything you need to know about its liquidy-linery-goodness.

Long Lasting, Glossy Colour, Easy Application, Precision Point Perfection...

"SKINNY MINI LIQUID EYELINER. Our easy-to-control pen delivers precision point perfection for thick or thing lines and long-lasting colour. With a paraben-free formula with key ingredients Sodium Hyaluronate to ensure colour glides and stays on. Smudge-proof, fade-proof, and above all foolproof."

 

So I get pretty excited about eyeliners for some daft reason and as you can imagine I was excited about trying this, especially as it was free! And I was not disappointed! It glides on real easy, the colour is super black which makes a nice change and has quite a glossy finish.

The nib is nice a skinny which makes application easy and diverse. You can mix it up between a natural slim line just to create a fuller lash line or a thicker kitty cat flick. It has a mild scent but nothing you really pick up on. The colour stays black all day long and on myself its fairly smudge-proof, not 100%. I endure oily skin so its tough for anything to stay put when rubbed on my skin. I found if I rubbed my eye only the end flicks would smudge out the rest seemed fairly stable. But I'm sure if you didn't have oily skin and maybe wore a primer underneath it should stay put.

Yup, for the swatch I drew an eye, it is for eyeko after all!

One of the good things about this liner is that if you need to top up your line because you missed a tiny bit, when going over your line it doesn't take any of the other liner with it, which I have found with the other felt liners I've used in the past.

So all in all I'm impressed with this bad boy!

Checkout the website for find out more about what other eye-beautifying lovely's they do

http://www.eyeko.com/

Hope you've enjoyed!

Jeni x

Mini Double French Braid

Hi!

Here's a cute double braided fringe look I wore to work the other day.

The second longer braid I ended up pinning round my head, would make a great boho look with wavy hair! But I'm still on my no heat run! So making do with my naffy straight flicky-ness! Missing my ghd's but the end's of my hair are happier!

When french braiding the easiest thing to remember is pass the outer strands OVER the middle strand, rather than under that way your braid will lay flat to your head & use little sections of hair.

p.s sorry about the quality of the 4th photo, blurry much?!

Hope you like!

Jeni x

B.Naked-Lightly Hydrating Foundation

Hello again!

Today I bring to you my thoughts on B.'s Naked Foundation £8.99 now £5.99 from Superdrug.

I've been using this foundation on off now for about 5 months. I was after a light coverage foundation and this is very light coverage. It comes in a glass bottle with a plastic pump that you have to be a bit weary of. If your not too careful you'll end up with foundation on the floor. The pump is a bit stiff -  well on my one it is - and as you push it sort of shoots out! So keep your hand tilted and close to the pump when pumping some product on to the back of your hand.

It has a quite a strong perfumy scent that you may or may not like - reminds me of talc and something else.

The colour I have is number 020 Rose Ivory which is the palest shade I believe, it actually matches pretty well with my skin tone. 

Evidence of its shooting capability, and yes it did end up on the floor.

Looking incredibly pale on my tanned hand, but...

...it blends in pretty well, but does lighten the skin slightly.

This does blend in quite well and lightly covers any redness and pimples, however if you have flaking or dry patches this foundation will highlight that, so keep that in mind when applying this. I tend to avoid putting lots of product on any flaking skin and just use the residue that is left on my fingers or foundation brush to hide the imperfection.

Its consistency is very light and watery.So if your after something a little more concealing I wouldn't suggest this. Its great in hot weather because of its light consistency and doesn't leave the skin feeling sticky or heavy.

For me I find it works best with finger tip application, as it can look a bit streaky with the use of a brush. I haven't used a beauty blender or sponge applicator with this but I'm sure that would work well with the patting/rolling motion. 

I do really like this foundation and will continue to use it. It doesn't feel heavy on the skin, skin feels able to breath and does feel hydrated. I'm not sure if I would buy it again, I don't very often go back to the same foundations, I love trying out new products and it takes me so long to actually finish up a bottle, I'm talking up to a year! That by the time I'm finished with it I'm ready to move on!

Thanks for reading!

Jeni x