Superfacialist by Una Brennan Vitamin C+ Brighten Skin Renew Cleansing Oil

When a product promises to remove makeup, brighten and renew whilst helping the skin in the anti-ageing process.. well let's just say there's no holding me back! Enter the Superfacialist by Una Brennan Vitamin C+ Brighten Skin Renew Cleansing Oil. What a mouthful! 

My dry skin and I are a huge fan of cleansing oils, balms and butters. I just love the feeling of applying a product straight to a face full of makeup, watching it remove said makeup and rinse off all in one step. After reading lots about Una Brennan's Superfacialist range, I knew it was time to give it a try, so when my most recent cleanser (The Body Shop's Camomile Cleansing Butter) ran out, I tottled off to Boots to pick up this bad boy to see how it compared. 

This lightweight oil has an extremely strong orangey scent, which isn't a deal breaker for me, I quite like it, but I know a lot of people are put off by strong scents so it's something to note. When massaged straight onto dry skin, it works in really well and removes makeup (including waterproof mascara) with ease. With most products like this, I like to take a damp cloth to remove, as opposed to rinsing. When done in this way, it leaves my skin feeling clean and nourished, with no trace of grease or oil left behind. I've been really impressed with this oil, and my skin definitely looks and feels healthier since using it. At £10.99 for 200ml, you'd think it seemed quite steep for a highstreet brand, but this is literally going to last months, as I've only been using the tiniest drop to do my whole face.

Have you tried anything from Una Brennan?

 
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Recent Budget Beauty Find: Essence Lip Liners

They're back! Lip liners are no longer considered something that only women in their 50's use to overdraw their lips. I think we can all thank Kylie Jenner for this one. I know people (probably a lot of makeup artists) were using them before she burst onto the scene with her amazing matte lip, but she's definitely helped in bringing them back big style. If 2 years ago you handed me a lip liner, I wouldn't have had a clue what to do with it, as I always thought they just made my lips look ridiculously false and I just never seemed to understand a need for them. Little did I know that they are actually amazing in reshaping the lips, making them appear fuller, make lipstick last a whole lot longer and can even be worn alone.

If, like me, you're still new to the whole lip liner thing and don't fancy spending £12.50 on a single MAC lip liner, then look no further. Essence Lip Liners come in at just £1 each and have totally transformed my feelings towards lip liners. I first read about them on the lovely Andrea's blog; Rosy Chic and I knew I had to run out and try a few.

Essence as a brand can be found on the highstreet/drugstore in Wilko, as well as Essence's own website. I popped to Wilko and picked up 4 shades to try, and WOW was I impressed. They're so unbelievably creamy and pigmented, making them glide onto the lips with ease, without drying them out in the slightest. When worn alone, they leave a creamy-satin finish which I personally adore.  Considering how creamy they are, they're relatively long lasting when worn alone (perhaps a good 3 hours). There's currently 9 shades in the range, and the 4 I have are all so wearable;

05 Soft Berry - A Brownish Berry Nude

06 Satin Mauve - A Mid Toned Natural Nude

07 Cute Pink - An Everyday Rosy Pink

12 - Wish Me A Rose - Pale Rosy Pink

My favourite of the 4 has to be Satin Mauve, it's the most perfect nude that looks amazing worn alone and really gives that Kylie Jenner look. I think it's fair to say I'll be popping back to Wilko to have a little swatch of the other shades in the range. Can't believe they're only £1.

Have you tried any of these amazing lip liners? 

What budget beauty finds have you found recently?

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Lush Mother's Day 2015

Ok, so technically not every product in this little haul is from the Mother's Day Line, but I've got a few to show you and talk about. If you read my blog at the weekend you'll know I was invited to Lush Middlesbrough's first ever Blogger's event for the launch of their new Gorilla perfumes, as well as getting demos of the new products from their Mother's Day line. We got a goody bag with a few products in and I also picked up a few bits so I thought I'd put them all into a haul kinda post, as well as give a mention to some of the other new products available that I didn't get (yet).

Lush Ultraviolet BubbleBar*. £4.75

Part of the Mother's Day line, we were lucky enough to receive one of these in our goody bag after receiving a demonstration on just how many bubbles this bad boy can produce. As the name and colour might suggest, it's a violet scented product which reminds me very much of Parma Violets (one of my favourites sweets might I add), as well as including Jasmine, Ylang Ylang and Rosewood Oils. Bubble bars are my favourite products from Lush, so I'm excited to get some baths out of this, and apparently I should be able to manage 4 baths from the one bar. Bonus.

Mother Superior Bubble Bar. £3.75

Another from the new Mother's Day line is the Mother Superior Bubble Bar. This is one of the products I picked up myself, as it smells absolutely AMAZING (very citrussy and fresh) and as I said, bubble bars are my fave so I couldn't resist. Hey, I could give birth any day now, I'm allowed!

Secret Garden Bath Bomb. £2.95

Another from the new Mother's Day line, this is one of the products we got a demo of at the event. It makes the most amazing colours in the water and is very heavily floral scented (mainly roses). It has lots of soothing and calming properties so I think I'll save this until after I've given birth as a little treat!

Rose Bubble Bar. £2.95 

Again, from the Mother's Day line, it's another that I couldn't resist picking up for myself. Just look at it! This bubble bar is packed with Rose Absolute, Rosehip Oil & Cocoa Butter, so it'll make the skin soft and smooth. Yummehhh!

Phoenix Rising Bath Bomb*. £3.35

This one's not from the new Mother's Day Line, but it was included in our goody bag (I think to go along with the purple theme). This has a very rich cinnamon scent, which I wasn't sure about on first sniff, but the more sniffs I have, the more I warm to it. It's very different to what I'd normally go for but I do think I'm gonna enjoy this bath. With it's blend of cocoa and shea butters, it will leave the skin soft and smooth, whilst uplifting the mood with it's strong scent.

Dorothy Bubble Bar. £3.25

Another one that's part of their permanent line (I think), but I picked this up purely because of the name and how pretty it is (and the fact it's another bubble bar, hehe). Obviously it's based on The Wizard of Oz, with the rainbow and the blue sky, but my Nan's name was Dorothy so obviously I had to pick one up! It smells so fresh, both floral and citrussy and I think it'll be a good one.

Catastrophe Cosmetic Face Mask*. £6.75 / 75g

Another product from the goody bag, this is what we all got to help make at the event last week. Getting those blue gloves on and squishing those blueberries felt very strange. This face mask is absolutely perfect for my skin at the moment. I dunno if it's pregnancy but my face has completely freaked out in loads of little sore patches and tiny little red rashes all over. With blueberries, calomine and chamomile, rose and almond oils, I have a feeling this will help calm my face down a bit.

Also in the goody bag we received a sample of the new Yummy Mummy Shower gel, as well as a bonus little packet of parma violets to keep in with the theme. Loveeee it! Thanks again Lush Middlesbrough!

Other products from the Mother's Day Range include:

Love You Mum Soap

Rose Bombshell Bath Bomb

Bubblegrub Bubbleroon

Yummy Mummy Body Conditioner

Sorry for the picture heavy post!

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Lush Middlesbrough Blogger's Event

I was lucky enough to be invited to Lush Middlesbrough's first ever blogger's event on Thursday evening and I had such a great time. The only thing is I'm now obsessed with their new Mother's Day line and pretty much want everything in store!! The main reason for the event was to give us a sneak peak at their brand new Volume 3 Gorilla Perfumes which were ready to launch in store the next day (Friday 20th February), as well as demonstrating the new products in their Mother's Day line.

The 3 new perfumes they had to show us were;

Kerbside Violet - Sweet & Floral (reminding me very much of Parma Violets)

All Good Things - Dark, Woody & Smoky

Death & Decay - Sweet & Floral with a hint of Darkness

After having a good sniff, we then got demos of their brand new Mother's Day products, including the Ultraviolet Bubble Bar, Yummy Mummy Shower Gel & the Secret Garden Bath Bomb.

The lovely Victoria also talked us through Lush's amazing Charity Pot Body Lotion Scheme, but I'll let Lush explain better than I can...

With every purchase of Charity Pot, we donate 100% of the price (minus the taxes) to small, grassroots organisations that could use the helping hand to continue the incredible work that they do. Charity Pot supports organisations that align with our ethics in the areas of environmental conservation, animal welfare and human rights.

After the talk and demos, we got to get our hands dirty and get stuck into helping make a big batch of the Catastrophe Cosmetic Face mask to take home with us. It felt very strange but slightly therapeutic at the same time.

All in all, I had a fantastic time. Got to see some familiar blogger faces as well as meeting some wonderful new ladies. We got to take a lovely goody bag home and they also kept the tills on so we could make a few cheeky purchases whilst there (well it'd be rude not to). I'll be doing a seperate post on the things in my bag so keep your eyes peeled.

I just wanna say a massive thank you to Lush Middlesbrough for the invite, and to say it was their first blogger's event I thought they did absolutely amazing! Looking forward to seeing what else they have lined up for the future.

Twitter: @LushMiddlesbro

Facebook: Lush MIDDLESBROUGH

Instagram: @lushmiddlesbrough

 
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The Nail Holy Grail: Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream

I've found it, the nail holy grail! Enter the Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream!

Burt's Bee's Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream. £5.99

After suffering with dry, flakey cuticles for so long, I took to the interweb to see if I could find a decent cuticle oil/cream to combat this. I have a habit of picking at my cuticles like they're going out of fashion and it needed to stop! I've tried plenty of oils before and didn't really notice much of a difference. I'd seen this offering from Burt's Bees pop up a couple of times as I was looking, and as it's sold in Boots I thought I'd pick it up and give it a go. The name is actually a bit misleading, as this is most certainly a balm as opposed to a cream, but what a wonderful little balm it is. 

A heavily scented (of lemons, obviously) dense balm which turns into more of an oil when in contact with the warmth of the fingertips, this product works into the cuticles wonderfully without leaving a horrible oily residue behind. It leaves the skin around the nail bed so soft, smooth and looking so much healthier. I've been trying to apply this every day and I've noticed a huge difference in the overall appearance of my nails already and it's only been about a fortnight. I honestly think the health of my nails has improved as a whole, but it might just be in my head. Surely a healthy cuticle means a healthy nail bed? I'm going with that. At £5.99, this is an absolute must for anyone who suffers from the dreaded dry cuticles and wicklows & think it might possibly last forever.

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Benefit Roller Lash with Elle Magazine

You've probably already heard (and read loads of blog posts about this) but if you haven't then here's a treat for ya! In March's edition of Elle Magazine, they're offering an amazing sample of the new mascara from Benefit, their Roller Lash Mascara. I know you're probably thinking 'big wow' they've done this type of thing before, but this time is different as it's a brand new launch that's only been available in shops for a day or two. So when this copy of Elle Magazine launched it was an exclusive. The magazine costs £4 and should be available until the end of February so grab a copy now if you can get your hands on it!

Now to the mascara itself. I've always been a bit let down by Benefit Mascaras to be honest. I found the BADgal Lash was far too clumpy as the wand was just far too chunky for my liking, then they launched They're Real, which was definitely better but I still didn't get that 'WOW' factor that everyone else seemed to get, I just thought it was ok! Here's where Benefit redeem themselves. This mascara is honestly absolutely AMAZING.

Benefit's Roller Lash Mascara (£19.50) is marketed as a 'curling and lifting' mascara (hence the whole roller theme). The plastic wand is slightly curved and features tiny little hooks, just like hair rollers, which grab each individual lash and lift them from the root to add length, whilst the curved element sets the curl and separates the lashes to give a fanned out effect. Literally everything you want in a mascara basically. Anything that can give me a curl without having to use eyelash curlers (which I always forget to do) is a winner in my eyes. This is absolutely the best mascara I've tried in a long time, and once this sample runs out I'll be popping out and treating myself to the full size version for sure.

Have you tried Benefit's latest offering?

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Recent Beauty Haulin'

Ahhh, I feel as though I haven't written a haul post in so long. But I realised that this month I had quite a few new products in my stash so I thought whyy not! I need to just add that I didn't buy this all in one go, My mam actually got me a few of them, and the MAC goodies were bought using a gift card I won from the lovely Olivia over at Beauty from the Fjord, (I had to add that little disclaimer in, just incase the Hubby reads it and thinks I've been frantically spending all of his hard earned pennies on makeup when we have a baby on the way, hehe).

So the first things I picked up were actually lip bargains from the Pound Shop. If you didn't know, Pound Land do some branded makeup now, and sometimes there's some great little finds to be had. They're randomly hanging in clear plastic packets around where they keep their own makeup line, and I picked up a Rimmel Colour Rush Balm in the shade Make Me Blush. I was really chuffed to find this, as they're £5.99 in Boots and I'd been meaning to give them a try. Loving that they smell like MAC lippies too. Whilst browsing I also picked up a limited edition Vaseline Pink Bubbly. I know I have far too many lip balms, but I can't resist a special vaseline, especially when it's a quid!

Next up are some absolutely amazing bargain lip liners from essence (at Wilko)! I first read about these on the lovely Andrea's blog; Rosy Chic and I knew I had to give them a go. My Mam was with me at the time and she jumped in and got me them, whilst also grabbing herself a couple, can't resist a bargain. I don't wanna say too much on them yet though, as I've got a review coming soon.

The next place I headed was MAC online, as I had my £30 gift voucher to spend! I instantly added their Mineralize Skinfinish in Soft & Gentle into my basket, as I'd been lusting atfer it for so long, and then I had the ridiculous task of choosing which lipstick to go for. After much (much, much, much) deliberating and watching of YouTube Videos, I decided on the shade Syrup, a Lustre finish which is a perfect, everyday browny nude. I've been loving this lippie but the only thing I'll say is that it doesn't smell like my other MAC lipsticks (the classic vanilla), but instead it smells like an 'old woman' lippie scent, strange! Has anyone else found this with MAC?

I was browsing Boots and noticed they were doing 2 for £12 on all L'Oreal cosmetics, which is an absolute bargain as I'd been wanting to try their Lumi Magique Primer for so long and it costs £9.99 on it's own. So I thought for another £2 I'll grab myself something else, so I went for the Lumi Magique Foundation to see how they worked together. Reviews coming soon.

Last but not least, I grabbed a few bits from Superdrug.  I don't know whether it's because I'm 38 weeks pregnant and my hormones are going cray cray or what, but for the past few weeks my skin has completely freaked out on me and nothing I do seems to calm it down. I've got 3 rashes on my face and they're really sore. One little patch around my eye, one on my cheek and one on my chin. Absolute nightmare tbh! I thought I'd give their Vitamin E range a try and see if it helped as I'd heard good things about the range. It's really affordable and currently on buy one get one half price, so I picked up the Vitamin E Leave-On Moisture Mask, along with the Vitamin E Nourishing Eye Cream. Rashes - be gone! I'll report back on whether or not the range helped. I'm hoping as soon as I've had the baby my skin will settle itself down. #prayforkate haha. Whilst in there, I grabbed an MUA eyebrow pencil for £1 (like I haven't got enough eyebrow products). I think it's really intense and applies quite dark so I'll have to learn to use a light hand with this one. When I got to the till I noticed they were selling off the Rimmel Moisture Renew Lipsticks in their old packaging (and perhaps old formula?) for 63p. Obviously at 63p I couldn't resist so I picked up the shade Notting Hill Nude, which I remember Lily Pebbles raving about a while back.

What have you picked up lately?

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Currently Loving: Yes to Skincare

Being a beauty blogger means I'm constantly on the lookout for 'the one' when it comes to skincare, and I very rarely find something I wanna stick to forever. I'm constantly changing up my skincare routine and trying out new products I read about on bloglovin' or in the latest magazines. I don't think I'll ever find a set of products that I'll stick with as there's always new products coming out that I need want to try. Plus all you enablers out there don't help! I've found a couple of little gems recently that I'm really enjoying using together, one of which is actually a repurchase (I know, right?).

Yes to Skincare is a brand that's relatively new to the UK highstreet (I think). I first heard about their products from Lily Pebbles a few months back and I knew I had to give them a go, so off I toddled to Boots where I picked up a packet of the Yes to Grapefruit Exfoliating Brightening Facial Wipes (£3.99). I knowwwww, wipes are frowned upon, but these aren't like your regular 'makeup removing' wipes (no thanks), they're designed to exfoliate and brighten the skin after cleansing. I began using these as a quick wake me up / toner on a morning and absolutely loved the results. Fast forward a couple of months and I'm back into them big style and onto my 2nd packet. Each wipe is a generous size and really soaked which I like, as I hate wipes that feel dry and irritate the skin. They're not greasy or oily and they don't leave any kind of residue behind. I find they really make a difference to my skin and I definitely notice when I don't use one on a morning.

When I was on the lookout for a rich moisturiser for the winter (my dry skin freaks out) I once again took to the aisles of Boots and thought I'd give another product from the Yes to line a try. I picked up the Yes to Carrots Rich Moisture Day Cream (£9.99) and I haven't been disappointed. What I love about this moisturiser is that it's not as heavy or greasy as your usual rich day creams. It feels lightweight, yet really hydrating on the skin. It takes about 5 or 10 minutes to fully sink in and I find my makeup applies really well over the top of it. It comes in with a pump (my favourite kind) and I find that half a pump is ample so it's definitely gonna last a while.

Have you tried anything from Yes to? 

 
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