Battle of the Brands| Save-VS-Splurge Mascara Edition

Ever wondered whether its worth buying a mascara that's worth a bit more money over one that's just a couple of quid? Well I decided to take 2 of my mascara's and have them battle in out to see what one was better.

Our Contenders

Save
Brand| Natural Collection Lash Length
Price| £1.99
Colour| Black
Purchased at| Boots

Splurge
Brand| L'Oreal Volume Million Lashes
Price| £10.99
Colour| Extra Black
Purchased at| Superdrug

So between the two there is a £9 difference, and I know that £10.99 isn't a massive splurge but I think of L'Oreal as one of the 'premium' drug store brands, and to some people it is kind of a splurge.

So to make my test fair I curled my lashes twice before application using the same lash curler and applied my mascara in the same way - wiggles and rolls and sweeps - and applied the same number of coats - 2.

The lash curler I use is a super cheapo £1 jobby from ASDA and its amazing.

The brushes are very different. The Lash Length spoolie is tapered and what I think of as the more traditional brush type, and the Volume Million Lashes spoolie is a bit fatter and made with plastic brush bristles, great for combing through lashes.

For such a cheap budget mascara I think the Natural Collection Lash Length is AMAZING. It gives my lashes great curl, length and volume, and does a real good job of separating them, although the end result isn't necessarily smooth looking. 

I made sure that after 8 hours of wear to check back with both mascaras to see if they had kept their curl by taking a little photo and comparing, and I'm pleased to report there was no drooping or loss of curl or volume for 8+ hours with this mascara. (sorry I don't have the photo's)

The L'Oreal Volume Million Lashes, again has great curl, length and volume with nice lash separation. The mascara is a little darker and a finer quality, not having any little clumps or fuzziness on the lashes creating a nice smooth lash finish. When you compare the 2 images you may see what I mean. But I'd say over all they a near on par, sort of, and again this mascara lasted 8+ hours without wilting. 

Granted I have done my little experiment in the cooler months and the out come may be different if it was much warmer and humid, so maybe we should take that in to account.

At the end of this experiment/battle-of-brands I think I'm far more likely to re-purchase the Natural Collection mascara simply for the fact I can buy 5 of them for the price of 1 of the Volume Million Lashes and the overall end result is its a pretty similar and in general life no one stops to really stare at your eye lashes. 

Give this little experiment ago if you can because you may find your presently surprised, that sometimes you could be paying more for something that essentially something cheaper can do the same! But then again it could be a flop!

Hope this helped!

Jeni x

Get Ready With Me: Christmas Party

Christmas is getting closer and closer guys!

Sunday just gone (15th) I had my work Christmas Party, and so I thought it would be fun to have a go at a 'Get Ready With Me' post. I love watching these sort of videos and thought I'd give a go at translating it in to a post!

So here it is!

So lets start out with the face!

To start out I primed my face with my Garnier 5sec Perfect Blur. Once all lovely and blurred I applied a thin covering of my Avon Ideal Flawless foundation, then a thin layer of my B. Naked  foundation to keep my colouring as natural as possible. Once dry I used my Mac Pro Longwear concealer brought out for special occasions or when my skin is particularly bad, to just hide any blemishes. Finally I set all this with a sweep of my Maybelline Fit Me! powder. 

To colour my cheeks I used my MUA blush in shade 1 on the apples of my cheeks. For lips I used one of my favourite lipsticks the Barry M Magic Lipstick, I also topped this with a NYC lip gloss in a bright pink shade that I forgot to photograph. This was the perfect lip combo for the evening as the lipstick doesn't budge and to keep it looking vibrant all that is needed is a slick of gloss to brighten it up. Perfect!

My eyes I kept really simple as I was pushed for time. To start I filled in my brows using my Maybelline brow pencil, then added my NXY Eyebrow Cake on top to add more depth and definition. Finally finishing with a sweep of my Maybelline Browdrama to keep it all in place. 

To give my eyes a little bit of sparkle I used one of my favourite eye shadow/shimmers by Collection, Dazzle Me! in Magical - its amazing like fairy dust. It has a slight gold undertone, so pretty.

Once all lightly sparkeld I added a thick sweeping cat line of my Revlon Colour Stay liner and a generous helping of Natural Collection Lash Length mascara. 

And then my makeup was done!

Annoyingly your can't see the shimmer! But its there I promise just too subtle I guess!

Love this pretty combination!

Hair again is super simple I used my faithful ghd's to give my hair soft curls. Once cool I love to comb through my curls to give them a soft, fluffy, natural finish. Then using a pump of argon oil I rub this through the curls to keep them shiny and hydrated.

The completed hair and makeup. 

I wanted to keep it simple and flawless look as my dress is sparkly!

For nails I picked a contrasting yellow to go with my blue dress, this ones by Miss Sporty.

My dress is from Lipsy, Shoes and Bag both from New Look and Necklace George at Asda.

I don't have a full photo of the outfit, but I do have this rather sassy picture taken on the night!

Suits me no?

Hope this post wasn't too long for you!

Let me know what you think :)

8 More Days!

Jeni x

Bonfire Night!

Remember, remember the 5th of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot!

Yup its Bonfire night y'all!

So throw on a coat, grab your scarf and go set fire 'guy'

Oh!

&

watch some pretty, sparkly fireworks!

I put together a little eye look inspired by the super pretty awesome fireworks.

It 'aint nothing too fancy but there's sparkle's

Products used:

+ Soap & Glory Its About Prime Eye Shadow Underbase in Bright Light

+ Natural Collection Eye Shadow in Snowstorm - All over the lid

+ MUA Glamour Days Eye Shadow Pallet: 

Purple from the mid 3rd of eye out to the corner

Blue last 3rd of eye

Light Gold inner 3rd

+ George Velvet Eye Shadow in no.28 Paparazzi - Outter V

+ NXY Liquid Crystal Liner in Crystal Pewter - Lining top and bottom lash line

+ Revlon Colour Stay Liquid Liner in Black 

+ Natural Collection Eye Shadow in Midnight - to line water line

+ Maybelline NY The Falsies Flare Mascara in Black

This look was much more sparkly in the flesh, the Crystal liner is sooo spraklicious!

It didn't turn out quite as I had hoped but hey! I'm no make-up artiste!

Hope you like and have a fantastic bonfire night!

Jeni x

Happy Halloween!

I

Love 

Halloween!

But sadly I have no Halloween party to go to

&

I'm a tad old for trick or treating!

So I decided to put together this dark, vampy look.

Which I sort of love!

I've never been good at selfies!

My eyes are dark and smokey but I used a pearlesant white shade to add a soft glow.

I used brown to create a depth in the outer hollows of my eyes and a black shadow to line my upper and lower lashes and my outer V, gently smoking. I thinly lined my eyes with liquid liner, carrying the liner out rather than into a cat-eye flick.

To finish a slick of mascara to the top and lower lashes and lining my tight line with my liquid liner.

I used a dark red lip liner and dark plumb lipstick on the whole of my lips and a deep red lip gloss to in the inner section of my lips to add a lil something something!

For nails I've been rocking a black & white crackle look that kinda looks like skulls..maybe!

List O' Products:

+ Boujois Healthy Mix Serum Gel Foundation in no.52 Vanilla

+ Natural Collection Cover Up Cream in Fair

+ Maybelline Fit Me Pressed powder in no.125

+ NXY Eyebrow Cake Powder in Blonde

+ Soap & Glory It's About Prime Eye Shadow Underbase in Bright Light

+ Natural Collection Eyeshadow in Snow Storm

+ Natural Collection Eyeshadow in Asteroid

+ Natural Collection Eyeshadow in Midnight

+ Revlon Colour Stay Liquid Liner in Blackest Black

+ Natural Collection Lash Length Mascara in Black

+ Rimmel Lasting Finish 1000 Kisses Lip Pencil in no.063 Black Tulip

+ Collection Gothic Glam Lipstick in no.2 Scorned

+ NXY Mega Shine Lipgloss in no.133 Burgundy

+ Barry M Nail Paint in Matt White

+ Barry M Nail Paint Instant Nail Effects in Black

Hope you like!

Happy Halloween!

Jeni x

Summer Favourite's 2013

Aloha!

Today its Summer Favourite's!

I have whittled down my fave's to just a few beauty products and thrown in a few extra non-beauty related things.

Hope you enjoy!

Do you like my suns? ^^

So from left to right:

Garnier Body-Summer Body | Batiste Dry Shampoo-Tropical | Aussie Miracle Moist Shampoo-for dry hair | Natural Collection-Vanilla Body Spray | MUA Power Pout-Irreplaceable | Skin79-Super BB mini | Natural Collection Cream Blush-Rosy Pink | Carmex Moisturising Lip Balm | Natural Pearl Bead Bracelet

Garnier Summer Body 400ml £3.56 currently at Superdrug: In Light Sun-Kissed. Such a good gradual tanner. Smells of Apricot and tans gradually to a light natural looking tan - Just make sure you wash your hands after you apply!

Batiste Dry Shampoo Tropical Flavour 400ml £4.99: This is the best dry shampoo I have used! You do get a white cast but with some scalp massage and a brush all is good, it works amazing and I love this tropical scent!

Aussie Miracle Moist Shampoo 500ml £5.99: I absolutely love how this smells! Lathers up really well leave my hair soft and feeling clean!

Natural Collection Vanilla Body Spray 150ml £2 only at Boots: Smells so nice leave's skin with a subtle scent of vanilla or clothes for that matter!

MUA Power Pout in Irreplaceable £3.00 at Superdrug: This has been my go to lip colour all summer long and I'm still loving the peppermint scent!

Skin79 BB mini bought as a set from ebay: If you follow my post you'll know I bought a gift set of Skin79 BB creams to try out and my review will follow soon (still using them up!) But I loved this! Such a natural colour and finish!

Natural Collection Cream Blush in Rosy Pink 9ml £1.99 only at Boots: Again if you follow my post you would have seen my post on the Natural Collection range and how much I love this blush it has been a staple in my makeup bag ever since I bought this little bargain!

Carmex Moisturising Lip Balm 7.5g £2.69: Love it! I always have chapped lips wish I knew why and this stuff is amazing with it. Has a scent that I can only describe as menthol and has a slight tingle on the lips but works wonders! My favourite lip balm.

Natural Pearl Bead Bracelet: This was a gift from my Dad from when he went on holiday to the South of France and I house sat for him looking after he's nutty doggies. I've loved it since I've had it :)

Mixed Bag Favourites

Adorkable by Sarra Manning | Lana Del Rey-Born to Die | Working Stiff by Rachel Caine | 2 Weeks Notice by Rachel Cain | Imagine Dragons-Night Visions | Taylor Swift-Red | Blogilates with Cassey Ho

The other's are self explanatory but just a quick chat about Blogilates.

Earlier this summer I decided now was the time to get in shape, I found Cassey on youtube by watching Bubzbeauty. Cassey Ho is incredible! She is so motivating, sunny and just plain awesome!

All her videos you can do in the comfort of your own home, with little to no equipment. She offers monthly workout calenders (for free!) food plans & recipes!

I've always been the sort of person who starts working out for a few months then looses interest then stops. But thanks to the insane motivation Cassey offers I just couldn't not stop! My body is slowly changing from a skinny frame with wobbly thighs (yup that's where all my fat ends up!) to little Miss Muscle! But not in that scary she muscle way! haha

So if you want to get in shape but don't want to join a gym check out Blogilates! I garentee you'll be glad you did!

http://www.youtube.com/user/blogilates

http://www.blogilates.com/

So hope you liked my summer favourites

:)

enjoy your day

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.

&

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