Green Tea?

 I have recently become a massive fan of green tea! I started my health kick around two weeks ago now, and on my journey, i've managed to adopt green tea too. I found it so hard to get into drinking it for the first 2-3 days, as the taste really is as vile as everyone thinks it is. But I now try to drink at least two cups of the stuff a day. I can't get over the amount of flavours and brands available, though I had never even looked in the green tea section before.

I have been absolutely loving the PG tips version of lemon flavoured green tea. It smells incredibly lemony, but it's a shame it doesn't actually taste of it. It's the only one I have tried at the minute, as my dad only just bought me the Knightsbridge version. He also picked up the plain green tea too, which i'm a bit unsure about, since theres not much taste with the added lemon to begin with. 

So lets see why green tea is a definite YES!

• It helps speed up your metabolism and energy levels
• Not to mention it helps to clear up your skin
• Helps lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels 
• Studies have shown it helps to prevent cancer and arthritis
• It raises your immunity to common illnesses 
• It also helps to fight allergies
• Helps lower blood sugar levels to protect from diabetes 

Need I go on?

I think this is such a must for us all, regardless of whether or not you are trying to lose weight or tone up for the summer. All of the benefits involved should be enough to push you to try it, and you wont be disappointed with the results either!

Foundation Mixing | Yes or No?

 So first off.. Is it even okay to mix two different liquid foundations together? Yes!

Even if they're not of the same consistency or brand? Yes!

Here's a nifty little trick for all you beginer beauty lovers!

I used to use Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation religiously before I started my blog. It was my go-to foundation and I didn't even question whether or not it was right for my skin type and colour. Although after searching around and realizing I do indeed want to try a bit more with my make-up and fashion, I then went out and bought Revlon Colorstay. 

I managed to find an old photo I took of what the two colours look like. They both claim to be Ivory- I'm just as confused as you are. So as you can tell, there was a massive difference- not even a 'tan will solve it' difference, it was huge. Obviously I had tried the Revlon in the shop against my skin prior to buying it. But I think I tripped up a bit because I bought it in the winter, when I had no natural tan left in me. Anyway, you can imagine how washed out it has made me look ever since. I've carried on using it for the past couple of months, but it doesn't help me at all- I may as well not be wearing any foundation at all. So I finally took it upon myself to sort out the colour, and decided to mix my foundations together. Luckily I still had just under a quarter of a bottle of Wake Me Up left, so have since added around a quarter of my Colorstay foundation to the bottle too. It took a little while for it to properly mix (it resulted in my shaking and stirring) but I eventually sorted it. 

 This is the finished product on the left, compared to the Colorstay foundation on the right. I'm aware the camera doesn't do it any justice (again), but there is a slight difference in the colour. Using the Colorstay has helped to lighten my other foundation a lot, and I've finally got it to the perfect consistency and colour that looks right on my face- hallelujah! 

Real Techniques Dupe | Budget Beauty

When I first started my blog, I really wanted to invest in buying some Real Techniques brushes, since everybody raves about them. But to be fair, I had never really looked at the price of them. I know a few of you will be thinking 'You can't put a price on beauty'. Well i'm sorry, but I can! I often browse through ebay to find beauty bargains (it never lets me down) and one day I came across these little beauties. Now obviously they don't have a name (if they did, it would probably be something similar to the real things), but after comparison, they are so similar! 

I first bought the rose gold blender brush for £1.99.. I kid you not! It came within the week and I couldn't get over how soft it was! Apart from the name, I couldn't tell the difference- I still can't after using it for a few months. The hairs don't shed at all, and it is super easy to clean too. The only difference I have found at all from this is the price.

I then went on to buy the pink blush brush for £2.49. Again I thought this was a bargain, and I use this for my setting powder since I don't use blusher. I just can't get over how good these brushes are. The only downfall to the blush brush is that it wasn't as high a quality as the first one. I brought it off another seller, and as you can tell, some of the hairs are far too long for the brush. I did have to spend around 10 minutes trimming it all to make it look better. But it can't be all that perfect for the price!

Obviously, I want to make it clear that i'm not slating Real Techniques at all- I actually think it's great that two girls have managed to create something great. But for someone on a small budget, I unfortunately had to look elsewhere. I just thought it would be a good idea to share my findings with other people on a budget.

Cheeky no make-up selfie.

St. Moriz Fake Tan Mist

Today I want to talk about fake tan. Now that the warmer weather is very very slowly approaching, i've been mulling over using fake tan to help me along before the sun finally appears. I only recently purchased this (as you can tell), and it was the first time in my whole 20 years that I had ever fake tanned. It was on offer in asda for £3.. is that good? So in the end I thought 'what could possibly go wrong?'. In all fairness, nothing actually did go wrong! I realised almost immediately after purchasing it that I had picked up the mist, rather than the mousse, which almost instantly made me think it was going to go awful. I took to my phone straight after to start reading reviews about the mist, and saw people comparing the mousse and mist against each other- the results were always that the mousse was better, which was putting me off even more! I will be doing my own comparison when I get round to buying and using the mousse myself.

In the end I realised I just had to jump in to it, I couldn't prolong it any longer- and i'm glad I didn't. I had read about the mist being streaky or drying the skin, but I experienced neither since I moisturise after showering anyway. It actually looked extremely natural, since my other concern was that I have stupidly pale skin. I ended up spraying on to the mitt and then applying it to my skin, which gave me more control over the amount I used. I don't feel like any of it is wasted either, and the nozzle didn't clog at all for me. These were other problems people had found with the mist. The only downfall I saw to the mist is that it is instant, whereas the mousse takes 4-5 hours to build. It worked out well for me because I put it on and went out the same day. It also allowed me to see straight away the exact colour of the tan, rather than having a grueling wait for the result. However, because of it being instant, it also instantly disappeared in the shower, whereas (from seeing friends use it) the mousse appears to stay and slowly fade for around a week afterwards. So with the mousse, the can overall would last longer, and even though you have to wait, it would be more worth it.

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take a picture of my skin before and after applying, though I will definitely be using it again, so photos will soon follow anyway.

Britain & Irelands Next Top Model | Mascara Set

Todays Budget Beauty is Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model Mascara set. Now before I begin, I did a bit of research this morning and found that you can't actually get these anymore, which is a shame because they are really good. I got these from Boots on a 3 for 2 offer around a year ago, and use them quite often. They came in a set of 3 for £9.99. So for any mascara, that it's ridiculously cheap anyway! They are my go-to mascara for lazy days, since it's easy to apply and easy to remove after.

There are three kinds- Curve, Long-Lash and Volume. 

The Long-lash mascara uses a straight brush, with thick hair (at least I think it's hair) bristles, which i'm guessing helps to lengthen? I don't know.. The mascara itself is quite a thick texture, which I prefer because you then don't have to apply many coats of the stuff. It doesn't make your eyelashes clump together though, as you would have probably thought. There is a really nice fruity smell to it too, and it dries super quick. Neither of the products are waterproof, however, which isn't an issue for me. But if you feel the need to wear mascara whilst swimming, crying or in the gym, all you would need to do is add a topcoat of waterproof mascara. I use the long-lash the least, because I don't really think it makes a difference to my lash length, so doesn't really work like the others. But it is good for a basic mascara. 

As you can see, the brush on this literally is a curve, which helps. The bristles are rubber, which I prefer. And again, there is a really nice fruity smell to the mascara. Obviously, for a cheap mascara, you can't really compare it to the upmarket mascaras that claim to add extra curve. However, I feel this one really does add curve, at least more curve than the long-lash or volume ones. So it doesn't fail in that sense. I usually use the long-lash mascara as a base, and the curve mascara as a top coat for best results from the two. Hopefully you've noticed that the bottles are all slightly different shapes too- this one is wider at the bottom, whereas the long-lash has a weird extra 'corner' (if you can call it that). The volume bottle was just bigger all round, but I thought this was a cute little touch to the design of them. I ended up running out of this, because it was really good.

It's a shame I can't seem to find these around anywhere online, because they really are worth the money.

Nail Art Tools

 Over the years, I have gained quite a large collection of nail polishes, which I will show in depth sometime soon. But i'm also always on the lookout for new art tools to use to make the nail designs look a lot more professional. I've already shown you some of my designs, so I thought today I would move on to the tools I use. All of these were extremely inexpensive- I literally brought all of these for around £10 off ebay, they're so cheap!

Okay, so obviously these weren't under £10, but I think they were only around £18 for 36 of them! They come in quite tall bottles too, which all started off full to the brim. I bought these unbranded colours simply because the brush is a fine tip for extreme nail art designs. I use these for most of my designs because they are so easy to use, and the colour ranges are incredible. 

I'll start left to right with these ones! When I first brought the finger for my false nails, I thought it was the scariest thing I had ever seen! But it has come in handy so much. I now use this every time instead of getting the paint on me or anywhere else. It was only around £2 too! 

Secondly are the extra fine brushes. These are just paint brushes that I cut down to the sizes I wanted. The white/pen-like brushes are actual nail art brushes, but i've only used them a few times. I don't use the brushes as much though, since I can't really get on with them. They are a lot harder to use than I thought. Each set was around £2-£3 depending on the seller.

The black and white 'wheel' kind of things are literally stickers. I've used these quite a bit for when I want straight lines, as they are easy to pull off, or even to give straight/thin lines to a nail design. Once a top coat is added, they last for quite a while. Again these were dead cheap (2 for £1).

The wooden sticks are basically cuticle pushers/cleaners or whatever they are called. I got them in a nail set for christmas quite a while ago, they're extremely cheap to buy though. I use these to help add gems or touch up a design without having to use big brushes. They are mainly used when I do water marbling though. (Post soon to follow).

Lastly are my dotting tools. Hopefully most of you will know what these are already. They are literally just plastic tools with different sized balls on either end. I bought a pack of 5 for around £2, if that! These are a must for anybody wanting to do even simple nail designs. They help to easily add layers of paint or spread the colour easily. I really can't praise these enough, and they're so simple to use too!

So the close up of my brushes don't make them look very good at all, but they are. You can pretty clearly see that I cut the first three myself, since they look more staggered- I know I didn't really do a good job of it, but they still work fine. I needed them shorter! The last three are still the original size, which is probably why I find them so hard to use, since they are so long. I've also found (as you can see above) the small hairs tend to part, which makes it even harder to create the thin/neat lines.

I hope you all enjoy my nail art obsession. I'll more then happily show you techniques, tips and tricks on how to use these tools too!