Valentine's Day Wishlist

Hey ladies, hope you all had a lovely weekend. January is finally over, although you wouldn't think it with the rotten weather that we've been having. Seriously, what is with all this rain?? Anyway, it now being February means that a lot of people are already thinking about Valentine's day and gift giving and all the rest. Me, not so much, because I told my other half not to get me anything because we're going to New York in April so I figured we could just save any money we would spend on presents for our holiday. Sensible me eh! However, it has definitely not stopped me eyeing up a few bits online.. So am.... Paul, if you are reading this.... Wink Wink.... ;)

I have really gotten into my statement jewelry in the last few weeks, and this neck piece from The Button And Bow Factory has really caught my eye! Its has such beautiful pastel shades in it that would really stand out in the Summer with a plain white tshirt and jeans and pumps... Ah... I don't know what else to say except I REALLY WANT IT!! Its 21 euro HERE and they also offer free shipping worldwide! Yay!

I know I'm seriously late to the party with this one, but I've been so close to buying it on so many occasions, even today I nearly did but the angel on my shoulder just holds me back! The colours are so pretty in it and this one is just way more appealing to me than either of the other Naked palettes. Unless someone buys this for me, or MUA bring out a dupe for it, I think I shall be picking it up in the US OF A. 

Our house has always been a Yankee Candle house, and there's always some fragrance burning in nearly every room! I've really gotten into burning the wax tarts in my bedroom lately, but I would love to try some of the large jars. I'm more into the fruity sweeter scents, but this Strawberry Buttercream one just sounds divine! Although it will probably make me hungry! 

 Pandora are renowned for their charms, and anyone that knows me knows how important a role my family play in my life. I am yet to have something to represent that on my Pandora so it would be nice to get a little charm like this to put on it! 

Ah good old LUSH! You really can't beat them for gift's for any occasion! This Lots Of Love gift set is made up of 5 of Lush's most well known products which are perfect for your loved one this Valentines. It contains Prince Charming Shower Gel, Sex Bomb Bath Bomb, Ro's Argan Body Conditioner, Neon Love Soap, and Tender is The Night massage bar. 

These are just a couple of things that caught my eye so far, I'm sure there's plenty more to come! However, just to be clear, although it has become quite a tradition to give gifts for Valentine's day, presents aren't the most important thing! Whether it be your mother, your granny, your best friend or your boyfriend, you don't need gifts to show them you love them! Who knows, maybe I'll just buy some of these myself... ;) 

Any of these catch your eyes? 

Thanks for reading,

Alisha xxx

Wet N' Wild Sweet As Candy Trio

I have tried to restrain myself from writing this post too early, but I can't help it. I have fallen head over heel's for these eye shadow's so I may aswell just be upfront about it and admit the truth! I have been lusting after the Naked 3 Palette as soon as I heard about it, there's something about the pink hues in it that are calling out to me! It is possible that it will eventually be mine, but when I spotted this trio I thought it would be a good alternative for the moment. OK I KNOW all the shades aren't pink, but I figured that it will give me a fair idea if the colours in the Urban Decay offering will actually suit me.

So as you can see from the picture (and from the description on the actual eyeshadows, there's a highlight for the browbone, a brown crease shade, and then a pink for all over the eyelid!

I have to admit that the name of the actual trio kind of encouraged me to buy it aswell, I'm a sucker for sweeties! 

Everyone and their next door neighbour raved about the quality of Wet N' Wild eyeshadows, and I understand why. They are some of the best quality eyeshadows I've ever used. Soft, creamy, easy to use with little or no fallout, and lots of pigmentation. I mean look at the picture below with just one swipe of my finger!

I'm not usually one for effort with my eyeshadow, its usually just one colour over the lid and that's it. But this year I am going to attempt to get a bit better at my eye makeup and doing more blending etc. 

I have tried to take a picture of how this looks on my eyes, but the only thing I can see is the big line across my nose from my glasses! :(

But really I do quite like how it looks on my eyes, and although you can't see the highlight in the picture, it does look really nice. I'm so impressed with the quality of Wet N Wild make up so far. Everything seems to be such good quality for such incredible prices! 

Have you tried anything from Wet N Wild yet?

What are your thoughts?

Thanks for reading,

Alisha xxx

January Favourites!

So thankfully January has come to a close! I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds January to be so long and boring and basically just a fairly depressing month. But to cheer you all up I decided to come along and tell you all what I've been absolutely loving this past month, and maybe encourage you to try some of these during the months ahead...

Soap and Glory The Righteous Butter: I had used this constantly for a couple of years, and then I just got distracted by other products in my collection and forgot how good this was!s. The consistency is amazing its nice and light and melts into the skin almost instantly, and leaves your skin feeling soft and hydrated for the day. And the smell! Its the typical Soap and Glory smell, so if you generally like that smell then you'll be happy with this. On some days after using the Clean On Me shower gel teamed with this, I haven't needed any perfume at all, the scent just lingers for the day! The scent is made up of beautiful  fruity scents such as bergamot and mandarin, and some more grown up slightly musky scents such as oakmoss and amber. I'm glad I rediscovered this and I'm never going to let it out of my sight again! 

No 7 Beautiful Skin Hydration Mask for Dry/Very Dry Skin: This has been an absolute saviour for my skin this month, and to some that may sound like a very large claim to make. But after the Christmas and the excess food and drink, and the cold weather my skin was feeling excessively dry. I had got this before Christmas as part of a gift set I treated to, and can't believe how well it worked on my dry skin. It does say to leave on for 3 minutes or else 10, so I tend to pop it on when I'm heading in the shower and letting it really sink in! I have mentioned this before in previous posts so I won't go into too much detail, but if you do suffer from dry skin I think its worth giving this a shot! 

CK IN2U Perfume: I have been a fan of Calvin Klein perfume's for a few years now, and I think this one is quite possibly my favourite out of all the scents I've had. Its a very sweet and girly scent, but yet very grown up all at the same time. It contains notes from pink grapefruit fizz to bergamot to vanilla souffle so there's a bit of everything in there! This bottle is a 150 ml size which will last me for ages, but its my second time buying this perfume, and I don't think I'll ever be sick of it! 

Benefit 'Dandelion' Blush: I have a feeling I've mentioned this in a favourite's post before, and if I have I'm very sorry but I can't help how deeply I've fallen for this blush, really. It's the most beautiful shade of pink with a slight shimmer going through it, and it just adds a nice pop of colour to the cheeks without going over board. I've really been loving it for days when I'm going for the really natural looking make up look. 

Benefit 'Sun Beam': Everybody raves about Benefit liquid highlighter 'High Beam' but I have never heard Sun Beam get a lot of love. Well let me tell you, its getting it now, from me! OK so I only have a teeny tiny size bottle, but its going to last me for ages, because a little goes a long way with this bottle of gold liquid goodness! I dab a little bit on to the highest point of my cheeks and blend it in with my Real Techniques Stippling Brush. It just gives the most beautiful effect to my cheeks, it almost makes me feel like a supermodel. If only I was really tall with legs that go on forever. I can dream I guess!

Rimmel Lash Accelerator Mascara: I have mentioned this in a Make Up Monday, so I'm not going to go into huge much detail again, but seriously this stuff is amazing! It makes my eyelashes look so long and fluttery and gorgeous! (May be a bit bigheaded, but seriously just try it and you'll understand). This mascara also contains 'Grow Lash Complex', which claims to help lashes grow and appear up to 117 percent longer in just 30 days! I'll keep ye posted.. ;)

So there you have it ladies and gents, 

this months top picks. I know there's not a lot of make up in there, but sometimes its nice to have a break from the norm isn't it? 

What have you all been loving?

Thanks for reading,

Alisha xxx

Make Up Monday: Rimmel Lash Accelerator Mascara

Hey ladies, hope you all had an amazing weekend, and did lots of wonderful things. I unfortunately didn't have such a great few days myself, and without going in to do much detail here I've been very down in the dumps the last couple of days, but as all my lovely family and friends have told me, things will work out and things will work out for the best. However it does mean I will have more free time to work on the blog, so hopefully I can do wonderful magical make up things with it. Fingers crossed!
Onto today's task however, and that is telling you about this week's must have product.
 I recently finished up the mascara I was using, and so I decided to try one that I knew I had in a drawer somewhere, and I've heard numerous people raving about it, including Miss Budget Beauty, so I knew I was onto a good thing!

The blurb for this product says that 'Rimmel's advanced ultra lengthening formula delivers up to 80% longer looking lashes instantly'. It really really does! My eyelashes are naturally quite fair, and because of this I find it makes them look shorter and stumpier than they really are. But just one coat of this and they instantly look much longer. I generally use black mascara because my eyelashes are so fair, but I somehow ended up with this in brown, but I really can't tell the difference once it's on my lashes.
Rimmel also claim that if its 'used daily over 30 days, our innovative Grow-Lash Complex helps to strengthen, renew and nourish lashes, promoting natural lash growth to create lashes that appear fuller, lusher and up to 117% longer.

Now I haven't been using that long, I've been using it maybe 10 to 12 days at the most, but I'm looking forward to seeing if it does live up to these claims, as I would only love to have longer lashes, because to be honest, I'm not too good with falsies!
Its not badly priced at 10.99, considering a lot of other drugstore mascara's are now up around the 15 euro mark!

Have any of you tried this mascara?
Does it make your lashes grow?

Thanks for reading,
Alisha

Wet N Wild Haul!

So every beauty obsessed lady in Ireland were delighted to hear that Wet N Wild had crept into some Dunnes Stores in Dublin unknown to us. I had given up hope of finding it in Galway for another few weeks, (the official launch is next week), so I'd resigned myself to waiting patiently. Until last night!
After work myself and my better half headed into get dinner in the city, and after stuffing ourselves with chicken in KFC, we went for a romantic stroll in Dunnes. The first aisle we headed for was the beauty aisle, but no sign of it there so just incase we headed upstairs. (My other half was just dragging his heals behind me, can't blame him really). After a bit of wandering I came across Rimmel, and there was a stand the far side which I thought was Catrice, until I walked around and nearly jumped out of my pants, WET N WILD WAS HERE!!!! Needless to say I picked up a couple of bits, so I thought I'd show you all what I got, incase like me you want to hotfoot it down there straight away! ;)

                                                  My stash of Wet'nWild

Wet'n'Wild's best known products are probably the eyeshadow palettes. So of course I had to pick up 3! Comfort Zone is probably the most well known, so even though I definitely did not need another neutral palette I picked up anyway. The right hand side appealed to me more because I don't really have any green colours for my eyes, so thought it would be nice to try. The next one I bought was Poster Child, which is made up of 8 bright and fun shades. I really stick to the same colour eyeshadows all the time, so I thought this palette would be a nice way of trying bright looks for my eyes once the warmer weather hits. The yellow and turquoise look like a really interesting combo! These are great value at only 6.49 each!

I also picked up one the trio's of eyeshadow's because I just thought the colours were so pretty. I have actually used this today and it seems lovely so far! Its called Sweet As Candy. The name alone just sold it to me! The price of these again was so reasonable at only 4.49!

 I had heard that the blushes were also very good, so I picked up the shade Heather Silk. Again I tried this today, and all I can say is, go easy with your brush! Its so so pigmented, and I had a lot of work to do to try and tone it down after application because I went in to hard with my brush! Oops.. But don't make my mistake and you'll get along just grand! There was a great selection of colours and it didn't break the bank, again at only 4.49!

 Another thing I had heard a lot about were the lipsticks, so I had it in my head when I heard Wet'n'Wild were in Ireland to try them. I picked up two colours in the MegaLast Lip Colour, Mauve Outta Here and Rose Bud. I couldn't not really try them, they were only 2.99!! They both seem like really natural every day colours, so when my lips heal up a bit as they are very cracked on both sides, I'll definitely be trying them out.

And of course I had to try the Megaslicks Balm Stain. I don't know what it is with me and lip crayons! This was the only thing I didn't swatch on my hand, so I don't really know what it'll be like, but it just like it'll be a nice fun Barbie pink! It was only 3.99, so not the end of the world if I don't like it!

So that's all I got! I was so delighted to see it in Galway I got slightly excited and wasn't really sure what I wanted, but in the end I calmed myself and picked out what seem to be the stand out products! It was great to see the stand pretty much full, and no products opened and tested bar the actual testers, which always gets on my nerves! I picked up my bits in the Dunnes in Briarhill, so I would assume it would be in the other stores in town now, or else soon enough!

Thanks for reading,
Alisha xxx

Lip Lovin!!

A lot of the time we often overlook our lips when it comes to our skincare routine. Its only when our lips get so dry that they start to crack, (mine at the minute, ouch), or when we apply a matte formula lipstick that we see just how badly our lips suffer, and perhaps regret not looking after them aswell as we should have.
Which is why from now until Spring creeps in, (and Valentines day, wink wink,) I'm going to aiming to give my lips some serious looking after, which will make it much easier when it comes to applying lipstick, the only thing it won't help with is deciding which one to wear...

                                  Picture taken from oneclickbeautycare.com

Exfoliating: This is probably the key thing when looking after your lips. We all exfoliate our bodies and faces using varying exfoliators, so the lips aren't any different. Obviously the lips are more sensitive than the rest of the body, so a less abrasive scrub is ideal. You can go out and buy a ready made one, or you can make one yourself!!

• If you really don't want to spend money on a lip scrub, then it is quite easy to do it yourself. The easiest way to do it is with a toothbrush and some Vaseline, which lets face it, everyone has in their house. Dab a bit of Vaseline onto the brush and rub the toothbrush on your lips in circular motions. Lovely soft lips in an instant without spending any money! 
• Make your own! This is simple, and again its not going to cost you anything, because pretty much everything you need should be in your kitchen. The basic ingredients for a lip scrub are sugar, (brown works best but ordinary sugar will work aswell,) and olive oil. You just have to mix the two ingredients together and rub onto the lips. You could rub it on with a face cloth if you wanted to really give them a good vigorous scrub! When your done all you have to do is wash it off, and apply a lip balm of some sort because your lips will be slightly dry afterwards. (But super soft). You can add other ingredients to it if you so choose, such as honey, or lemon, or coconut oil. Its amazing what you can find in the kitchen!
• Buy one. The most likely option for us all, because lets face it most of us don't have the time for all these DIY beauty products. If we had the time I don't think we'd need to buy another beauty product again! The most well known lip scrub that can be bought on the high street are definitely the Lush ones. They come in a variety of flavours, Bubblegum, Pop Corn and Mint Julips. All of them smell equally as tasty as the other, and depending on your taste you'll definitely find one to suit. My personal favourite is the Bubblegum one, it smells like sweets, or the pink Hubba Bubba from back in the day! It works well, and it lasts for ages!! I'm still using a pot that I got back in February last year! And if you're so inclined to eat it, you can! Although I don't think eating dead skin from your lips mixed in with sugar would be too tasty... For what it is, its slightly expensive. Its around 6 euro, and if you can get past paying that for a tub of sugar then you're sure to love it!
  

                                                    Picture taken from Lush.com

Moisturise: Again this is common sense when it comes to our face and body, but we somehow over look it when it comes to lips. Once you've exfoliated your lips they will be super smooth, but slightly dry. The next step is to use a good moisturising lip balm to put some moisture back into your lips, which will give you a great base for whatever lipstick you may choose to wear. I currently have a few on rotation, one for my handbag, one for my bedroom, and then  another just for the sake of it! Its personal preference really, but I am loving a Lush one that I got for Christmas by the name of Honey Trap. Its by far the most moisturising Lip Balm I have ever used. Its no surprise really considering its made of up of ingredients like Shea Butter, Almond Oil,Beeswax and Honey! Oh and it also smells like chocolate... ;) 

The next step after that then is to try and decide which lipstick you want to wear.. .Which my friends I'm afraid I can't help with! 

So do you look after your lips, or do are they as dry as the Sahara desert?

Thanks for reading,

Alisha xxx

Make Up Monday!

Hey lovelies, hope you all had a good weekend! I didn't do too much, I spent Saturday at work, I spent Saturday night with my boyfriend and we just got a load of rubbish food and wine and sat in watching TV! Then Sunday I went shopping eager to see had Wet N Wild made its way to Galway yet, but it hasn't so I came home without anything! But I don't mind too much because I'm saving much needed shopping money for NYC!
Because of this little holiday, I've been good on the make up front too, and haven't bought any, and have really decided to try and use up as much of the bits I have at the moment.
Which led to the rediscovery of this week's much loved product
 It is in fact my Maybelline 24 Hour Colour Tattoo in Permanent Taupe.

I love these guys so much! I have 7 if not 8 colours in them which is more or less the whole collection! I do have a post on them already.
If you have been reading the blog for the last while, you will know that I am obsessed with the On and On Bronze shade which is just a beautiful shimmery bronze colour.
This one is the complete opposite and is a matte muddy grey. I know it doesn't sound, or look all that interesting, but its when its actually applied to the eyes that it really comes into its own! It just looks so gorgeous on the eyes, and it looks like you've put in a lot more effort with your eye make up than you actually have. (Its OK I won't tell, I promise).
These little lads are brilliant because they can be used in either of two ways: as a base for powder shadows, or just on their own as a cream eyeshadow. Now I have used On and On Bronze on its own a million and one times, and it stays on forever and a day, but Permanent Taupe seems to crease a lot more for some reason. It could be because of the matte texture, but either way I'd recommend using a primer underneath it if you are using it on its own, or else using it as a base for another eyeshadow.
I use mine under an MUA eyeshadow from the Undress Me Too palette, which is the exact same colour but with shimmer, so it really helps it last all day.

What have you been loving this week? Have you rediscovered any of your old favourites?
Thanks for reading and have a good week,
Alisha
xxx