Fragrance Direct | Lipstick Haul

I recently found a website called Fragrance Direct- it's basically a discount website full of male and female beauty products. I'm not sure whether it's well known or not, but I stumbled across it one day and I've been adding things to my basket since. As far as I can see, the company sells off old or discontinued stock at a fraction of the price. They have quite a few brands I've never heard of, like Technic (which I decided to try), but they also have a great selection of high end products like MAC! I just want to add straight away that in no way am I being sponsored for this post, I just really wanted to share my new find with you guys! Anyway.. take a look at what I bought!.. 

The first thing I added to my basket was a Bourjois Ombre eye shadow in Raffine. This little compact shadow packs a punch and has a crazy amount of pigment! It's a golden orange colour and very shimmery, I've been using this colour a lot since I bought it as it is so easy to apply and lasts all day. The shadow came with a tiny sponge applicator, which is pretty cute if you're out and about. But seriously, does anyone even use those things? The RRP for this is £9.99. How much did I pay? £1.99!

Looking for some cheaper lipsticks, I found Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Suede in shade It Girl. It's a really pretty coral colour and I thought it would be really cute for the summer, since I don't already have one. I'm not used to such a wide and round application, so I felt a bit weird applying it at first. I will say, the lipstick is more like a tinted lipbarm rather than an actual lipstick. It's very glossy and wet, and you have to apply around 2-3 layers of the colour to really get a nice coral colour. With an RRP of £8.99, I'm glad I only paid £2.99, as it's not worth the hefty price tag. 

I've never heard of the Technic brand, so thought I would give it a try. The lipstick promises to give a matte finish, and although it dries slower than others, it doesn't disappoint. The stick itself is a very vibrant red with a nice orange tone to it, however again, it's very poorly pigmented and you have to apply quite a few coats to get anything of a red colour. The RRP for this is £2.75, however I only paid £0.99. 

Bellapierre lipstick retails at £20 each, so when I found the Burlesque lipstick on Fragrance Direct for £2.99, I snapped it up. You know I love a bright colour! This was my best purchase of the bunch! It is extremely pigmented and is a really nice pink colour that also has a hint of plum. It is really moisturizing and I would probably even pay full price for it! The only downfall is the packaging is extremely tacky as it is a thin plastic. Eww. But if you can get past that, you'll be fine!

My last purchase was the Revlon Just Bitten Kissable lip stain. This retails at £7.99, but I got my mittens on it for just £0.99. I think this was maybe a less popular or discontinued colour, and I can't seem to find it on the website anymore. But whatever the reason, it's a really beautiful light pink/purple colour. I have loads of lip stains and this sits firmly with the rest. It's highly pigmented and leaves a long lasting stain on your lips. It's a lot lighter than I usually go for, but would really suit people who don't quite dare to go fully bold!

I hope this has inspired you in some way to check out Fragrance Direct. I really think they have some good quality products at such good prices. If you're somebody stuck in your usual routine, it's probably not best for you, since a lot of these products are discontinued or less popular products. But if you fancy a smooch at some of their stock, click here! Again, I wasn't sponsored to do this, I just wanted to share this amazing find with you all! 

Have you ever shopped here?

Budget Eyebrow Kit | Collection

Filling in my eyebrows has only recently been a thing for me. I'm quite lucky in the fact my eyebrows are pretty full anyway. I've never been really conscious about my brows, and the only reason I felt I needed to fill them in is because they're a lot lighter than my current hair colour. When I was out shopping, I knew I didn't want to spend a lot of money buying a premium eyebrow kit, purely because I knew I wouldn't be using it every day. I like to fall back on Collection or Makeup Revolution products because they really are such good value for money. So when I saw the Collection Eyebrow Kit on offer, I picked it straight up. 

Considering the kit is only £3.99, you get a generous amount. I picked up the brunette palette, which has three pretty dark colours to suit any dark tone. The palette also comes in blonde, with a lot lighter colours. The kit also comes with a clear brow mascara, which does the job at setting your brows. I've also tried waxes to seal my brows, but I think the tube of mascara will last longer and it doesn't leave your eyebrows hard or clumpy. I have no complaints for the small brush either, one side it sloped to get a nice arch, whilst the other is rounded which helped me to fill quicker. The palette even has a mirror in, which I haven't needed to use, but Collection has clearly thought of everything for this! 

The colours themselves are ridiculously pigmented. Trust me- a little goes a long way with this kit, especially with the darker colours. I've been using this for the past two months and I've hardly made a dent in the product. I was worried at first that I was buying three colours when I only really wanted the one, but after realizing how pigmented they are, I would happily use the other colours as eye shadow. I think the darkest colour would make a really nice smokey eye. 

Overall, I'm really impressed with this kit. It's definitely a budget find that would have probably been overlooked. I'm surprised with how pigmented the colours are compared to the price, and this has stayed firmly in my make-up bag since I purchased it. The matte colours are so easy to mix, I think it's worth any beauty lover to give it a go at least once!

Have you tried this kit? What is your favourite budget product?

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.

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!

Make-up Store Sets | Budget Beauty

I thought I would try a different 'Beauty Budget' buy (wow what a tongue twister) and I bought a few make-up sets instead. How cute are they though! I must admit, i'm unable to use the bronzers.. well you've seen how pale I am. They are far too dark for my skin colour. But I have been using them as eye shadow palettes instead, which work just as well. These sets would both make cute presents for any tanned/dark skinned make-up fanatic. They are just so ridiculously pigmented, considering they are unbranded and inexpensive.

I've been using the eye shadow palette the most (at least i think thats what it's meant to be). These are also super pigmented and last for ages. They also have a hint of glitter in each colour too, since they're meant to be used on toned skin. I use the white the most to brighten up around my eyes. The tiny brush is pretty cute too. I don't wear eye shadow, in fact, this is now the first and only palette I own, but it's small enough to fit in my make-up bag, and is neutral enough to keep me happy.

I've only used the mascara a few times. It's a super tiny, compact mascara, which is surprisingly really good. There is no smell to it whatsoever, not even a horrible chemically smell that sometimes taints mascaras. Overall, it's actually a really good product too- not too thick or thin, quick to dry and although it doesn't really make your lashes look much longer/thicker, it does make them extremely black. C'mon, what do you expect for a make-up set?

Lastly, like I said, I use the bronzer as another eye shadow. Obviously this palette is far too big for me to carry around though to top up my eyes, so I haven't really used it that much as off yet. I did think the brush was ideal for my setting powder though.. until I tried it. I guess I should really have expected cheaper brushes to fall apart on your face, but I wanted to remain optimistic throughout. Well at least I tried!

Budget Beauty

First of all, i'm sorry for the week off. I've been ill, so took the week to recover and start to feel like myself again. So let me begin...

I know not everybody can afford the expensive make-up purchases that many blogs are able to have, and although it's nice to see their reviews even though you will probably never have a chance to purchase them anyway, I rarely see any 'budget' make-up posts. So with that being said, I have taken it upon myself to start off a weekly 'Budget Beauty' post. I even went to the trouble of creating the stamp above!

I won't spend too long mentioning the Collection 2000 concealer, as by now I hope everyone owns this. For £4.19, it's the best concealer I have ever used. I remember back in the day, when I first purchased this (I was about 16) and it was only around £2.99 for the tube. Just shows how good it is, that people are still buying it even with the price raise! I've seen many posts about this concealer, and many have even said it's better than MAC concealers. There's not much more to say about the concealer, it does what you expect it to do any has very little flaws. It provides full coverage, lasts all day, and is just any girls necessity. 

Next is Natural Collection pressed powder. Natural Collection always seems to get pushed to the side for some reason. I personally think it's because of how cheap their make-up is. You pay for what you get and all of that. Though I could be wrong. But I know i'm one of those people that tend to walk straight past the Natural Collection station when i'm out shopping, and it's sad to think we could all be walking past a really good product. I have used their pressed powder for as long as I can remember. Granted, it doesn't come in many shades (3 to be precise) but at £1.99 it does it's job perfectly. I use the powder every day to set my foundation, and it lasts all day. It also gives enough coverage for your lazy days when you don't want to go all out with your make-up. Considering I do literally brush a thin layer of the powder all over my face every single day, I have had this tub of the stuff for around 8-9 months. Which is crazy considering the price. I think this is the perfect powder/setter for anybody getting in to beauty or who are on a tight budget. 

Let me know your thoughts on Natural Collection products, and how do you like the 'Budget Beauty' posts?