My Top Drugstore Beauty Products

In my last post, I spoke about some of my favourite high-end beauty products so I thought it was about time I spoke about some of my favourite cheaper alternatives. The drugstore seems to be getting better and better and there is a handful of products I couldn’t live without. I’ve rounded up my top 6 products from the drugstore that I rate to be the best out there.

Max Factor Excess Shimmer Cream Eyeshadows

I am not the biggest wearer of cream eyeshadows but these are incredible. The formula is super creamy and easy to blend as well as having amazing pigmentation. The shade range isn’t the best and I do think this is something Max Factor could work on but nevertheless the shades Copper and Bronze are two beautiful wearable colours that could work on many skin tones. I haven’t tried a lot of cream eyeshadows but I think these could rival many high end options!

L’Oreal Infallible Matte Foundation

I say it all the time but I do struggle with a lot of drugstore foundation formulations (tongue twister right there!). That was until I tried this matte offering from L’Oreal and was pretty much blown away by how good it is. This is my go-to everyday foundation and it just works so well on my skin. Matte foundations aren’t what I usually go for but this isn’t drying in the slightest and it’s not overly matte either offering a bit of natural shine to come through. It blends and applies nicely and also has such a nice finish and lasting power. What more could I need, oh and it’s affordable! Full review here.

Maybelline Colour Tattoos 

Another cream eyeshadow that I love. These Maybelline offerings come at a price under £5 and could rival the likes of Mac Paint Pots. In a similar style, these are more of stiffer consistency particularly compared to the Max Factor ones which are more creamy and whipped in texture. For an amazing price, there is a pretty decent shade range to choose from with my favourites including Metallic Pomegranate and Creamy Beige which makes a really nice base shade. These work great as a base colour or even as a one wash wonder type of eye look and they also stay put really well too!

NYX Soft Matte Lip Creams 

A more recent favourite since NYX finally hit the UK. I had been desperate to try out these lip creams for such a long time and I was not disappointed when I finally got my hands on them. At £5.50 they come super cheap and the shade range is very impressive. The formula is super creamy and comfortable on the lips with a pretty decent lasting power. My favourite shade probably has to be Prague. See more here.

Max Factor Creme Puff Blushes

A product you’ve probably heard me talk about countless times! These are by far the best drugstore blushes I’ve ever tried.  These swirly effect blushes act as a strong rival to the Hourglass blushes which are stunning but super pricey! At just a fraction of the price, these are so similar with a highlighting effect on the skin and a pretty range of shades to pick from. My favourite shade has to be Lavish Mauve which is a pretty good dupe for Hourglass Mood Exposure.

The Body Shop Honey Bronzer

Last but not least, in fact probably my all time favourite drugstore product. I was never really into bronzers until I tried this Body Shop offering. As someone with pale skin I always have the problem in bronzer shades that are too dark and muddy on my complexion. Enter this range of honey bronzers from The Body Shop with a shade range perfectly suitable for fairer skin tones. Seriously, if you are a pale milk bottle like me and haven’t tried this then go try it! This bronzer adds a beautiful amount of warmth to the skin that isn’t too much as well as adding a bit of definition and sculpting the face. Amazing!

What are your favourite drugstore products?

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The Best Places to Buy Beauty Products

What can I say, I love to shop! Being a student and an all round makeup hoarder, I like to search out the best deals on beauty products to make the spending that little less painful. I have quite a few go-to stores/websites for buying new beauty products that I thought I would share with you with an emphasis on some of the great deals that you can pick up on too! Obviously all of my picks are UK based although many of these options do ship internationally.

Feel Unique

Probably one of the best online beauty retailers around.

+ Feel Unique have an incredible range of products and brands and pretty much stock all of the big mainstream globally recognised beauty brands.

+ In the UK, Free shipping when you spend over £15!

+ Ships internationally to many worldwide locations.

+ Regular discounts and sales – I picked up so many great deals through Feel Unique!

+ Occurring Student Discount via Unidays which is usually 10% off however can rise up to 20% occasionally.

Boots

Of course I couldn’t go without mentioning the home of the drugstore in the UK.

+ Houses all of the main drugstore brands in the UK and many exclusive brands such as Soap & Glory, No7 etc.

+ Both online/physical stores.

+ Free Click and Collect in stores.

+ Also has great range of luxury brands too.

+ Advantage card loyalty scheme (more details here) – the chance to be rewarded.

+ Regular great offers – such as 3 for 2! (Classic!)

Space NK

The home of unique luxury beauty brands.

+ Has many exclusive brands that are hard to source elsewhere

+ Online and physical stores

+ Free Click and Collect in stores

+ Great N.dulge reward scheme (mentioned here again)

+ Occasional offers/sales great for when getting spendy!

+ Free samples online and in store

+ Really helpful in-store staff

+ International delivery

ASOS

The popular fashion retailer often overlooked for beauty!

+ Small but good range of beauty brands including Nars, Benefit, Rimmel etc.

+ Free delivery over £20 in the UK.

+ Worldwide shipping.

+ Student discount

+ Regular discounts e.g. 20% off

Cult Beauty

A online retailer I have only used once but I really recommend!

+ Many exclusive hard to find brands, many similar brands to Space NK.

+ Free worldwide shipping over £50.

+ Really quick efficient shipping.

+ Free samples.

+ Occasional discounts/sales.

Fragrance Direct 

An underrated discount beauty retailer for both fragrance and makeup.

+ Sells great range of brands from drugstore to high end.

+ Sells many discontinued/hard to find products.

+ Great lower discounted prices on many popular brands.

+ Cheap delivery/also free over certain amount.

+ International shipping.

House of Fraser

The department store overflowing with all the best luxury beauty brands.

+ Stocks many popular mid-range to high-end brands from Mac, Urban Decay, Chanel, Tom Ford etc.

+ In store/Online.

+ Free delivery over £50.

 + Free Click and Collect in stores.

+ 10% student discount

+ Beauty Reward card – offering £5 reward for every 500 points

+ International shipping.

+ Occasional offers/sales.

Look Fantastic

An online retailer always bursting with discounts. 

+ Great range of brands from Benefit to Illamasqua.

+ Free worldwide shipping to many locations!

+ Regular discount codes e.g. 20% off.

+ 10% Student discount.

Escentual 

One of my favourites for a bargain, totally underrated!

+ Good range of luxury brands.

+ Cheap UK delivery or free over £30.

+ Worldwide shipping.

+ Regular discounts e.g 20/25% off.

+ Regular offers e.g. 1/3rd off.

+ Low Special prices across many top brands!

+ Pretty pennies reward scheme – earn on each purchase and money off on the next.

+ Free gift wrapping for present buying.

Where do you like to shop for beauty products?

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Contouring and Highlighting With Seventeen

Contouring and Highlighting has took the beauty world by storm in the last year. Whilst it’s been a popular technique with make-up artists for years, it’s only now became a mainstream method with most major beauty brands launching their own products to help give that chiseled look. Whilst many higher end brands seemed to latch on to the contour/highlighting trend pretty quickly it took the drugstore a little while to really catch on with the latest beauty trend. Although one drugstore brand has served up a duo of products to help you nail the look. Seventeen have a couple of products from their range that I’ve been trying out, both of which can help create that sculpted and glowy look on a budget.

I am without a doubt a lover of the glowy look. The Seventeen Skin Wow 3 Way Highlighter* is definitely a product well up my street. Essentially a three-in-one liquid highlighter, it works as an illuminating primer for under foundation, an extra glow mixed in with foundation or a highlighter to add to the tops of the cheekbones. Personally I prefer this as a highlighter over the top of foundation to add that extra glow. The highlighter is super lightweight and blends beautifully on the skin. It isn’t overly shimmery or glittery but appears as a natural glow on the skin. At £5.99 it is such a bargain especially considering the 30ml size. A easy convenient product that I will love for a long time to come and a product that could easily rival many high end counterparts.

Whilst the contouring trend may conjure scary thoughts, there is no reason to be afraid of a little contour. The Seventeen Define and Conquer Contour Kit* is the perfect everyday contour kit. The kit comes with a contour shade and a highlight shade both with a matte finish. As a pale skinned gal, I only need to use the contour powder light-handedly to create a sculpted look on the cheeks. The powders are super fine though and blend really flawlessly. As I do prefer a more sheen-y finish highlighter, I prefer using the liquid highlighter for highlighting on the cheekbones rather than using the matte formula. Although the matte highlight shade works really well to add a little glow all over the face and under the eyes rather than a full-on highlighter. Again at £5.99 it is a bargain and the contour shade alone is worth a lot more.

*pr samples

Are you a fan of Seventeen products?

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5 Beauty Products Under £10

You may recall my 5 Beauty Products under £5 post? Well now its time for another, although this time with a slightly bigger budget at £10. The drugstore really have some gems and these particular products are favourites of mine and best of all they can be each be purchased with just one £10 note.

First up are the gorgeous Max Factor Creme Puff blushes. I have one in the shade Gorgeous Berries and gorgeous really does sum it up. These swirly baked blushes are said to be a dupe of the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blushes which are stunning but expensive so these make a great alternative. Drugstore blushes are never really that appealing if I’m honest but Max Factor have really delivered with these blushes making them one of the best drugstore launches in a long time! Great quality, gorgeous and affordable!

Another great pick from Max Factor is their Excess Shimmer Eyeshadows. These are the perfect drugstore cream eyeshadow with a whipped like creamy texture and bold pigment. Similar to the Maybelline Colour Tattoos but with a much easier and creamier formula. I have two shades, Bronze and Copper which are two gorgeous shimmery shades. The name ‘excess shimmer’ may put people off but seriously there is nothing overly shimmery here, just the perfect amount of shimmer that can be worn on an everyday basis. A really beautiful formula worth picking up!

The Queen of Drugstore Eyebrow Products is of course Soap and Glory. They have a great selection of brow products that could easily rival Benefit and put other drugstore brands to shame. My favourite is of course the Archery pencil which is supposedly a dupe for the Anastasia Brow Wiz? This pencil comes with a pencil end (obviously) and a spoolie end. It is a super quick and easy product to use and creates a much fuller brow but still leaves your brows looking natural and soft.

I finally caved into buying one of the much hyped Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet Lipsticks a while back and I am forever lusting after more. As liquid lipsticks really have their moment, Bourjois stole the show with their affordable but quality version. I picked up the shade Hot Pepper, a bright red which has strong pigment and superb lasting power. These have a really nice formula too which glide on smoothly without any stickiness and dry down to a smooth matte finish. Now what shade to get next…

Lastly, I couldn’t do this post without mentioning one of my favourites. The Topshop Glow Pot Highlighter in Polished. Highlighters are one thing that the drugstore has been rather slow at delivering but Topshop have set the bar high and really have produced some glowy gems. This is my favourite from the collection, a creamy based pearly coloured highlighter that gives such a fresh radiant glow. Pressed along the cheekbones, this is just perfect and one you need in your collection.

Are you a fan of any of these products?

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Loyalty Cards

There is no denying we all love a bargain, a freebie and just a bit of love from our favourite retailers after spending countless amounts of times browsing their shelves, menus etc and of course parting with our “well earned” cash on their products. As the retail industry is bigger than ever and consumers now have more rights, its the retailers responsibility to deliver the best service and give a little back to their customers. There is no better way to do this than a good loyalty card. I have gathered quite a selection of loyalty cards, some good and some not so great…

Costa Coffee Club – Now this is one of my most used loyalty cards… despite hating coffee. For every £1 spent you get 5 points with each point worth a penny. Costa also occasionally do double points events so the card is always worth while. When I said I hate coffee, I do love Costa’s hot chocolate and most of all their Red Berry Fruit Cooler *heart-eyed emoji* and I have used my loyalty card quite a few times to pay for my drinks so if you enjoy a drink or snack from Costa once in a while its worth picking up a card!

Boots Advantage Card – Now this is the one. If you are from the UK I would be a tad surprised if you didn’t own this card already. For every £1 spent you get 4 points with each point worth a penny. Boots always have a variety of offers on with 100/200 point events or even 500 point offers on purchases which can be put towards treating yourself to a new product such as a Chanel lipstick. However only downside is that you need to have enough points to cover the cost of an item if you were to use your points to pay as they do not accept paying part of the cost with points. Nevertheless its a very worthy card to have and who wouldn’t want a Chanel lipstick payed for with points. After all points make prizes!

Nandos Card – One for the chicken lovers *slowly raises hand*. For every £7 spent in Nandos you receive a chilli… a virtual chilli that is! If you get 3 chillies you can get a 1/4 chicken or appeteaser. 6 chilies equal to a 1/2 chicken or a wrap, burger or pitta and if you collect 10 chillies you can get a WHOLE chicken or single combo meal. Come on who doesn’t love chicken!

Superdrug Beauty Card – Now is where things get a little less exciting. Well I will start with the benefits, a card with a mirror how handy! Anyway for every 100 points earned is £1 to spend in store. The good thing is unlike Boots you can pay partly by cash and partly with points. Now there is nothing bad about this card in fact it is great like the boots card if you shop in Superdrug. However for me its pretty useless because I now only shop in boots because they sell more brands and I can get everything in the one place aswell as having points in the one store is more beneficial than between two.

Paperchase Treat Me – Now this is quite an unusual card. There is no points, just perks. You scan this with each purchase and you get closer to a new perk. I haven’t used it too often but I did manage to get a 15% off in my first usage so not too bad. I believe this card is only a trial so it may not be available in all stores. Other perks are said to include money off on birthdays and free coffee.

Space NK N.dulge card – Now in terms of premium beauty this is your top dog. This is my most recent loyalty card and it could be becoming one of my faves. Its very simple 1 point for every £1 spent and when you reach 100 points (£100) you get a £5 incentive. With Nars and Hourglass filling the counters it can be fairly easy to blow £100 in the space of a year so this card is pretty useful for making you feel that bit better about buying that pricey Hourglass blush palette.

What is your favourite loyalty card?

 

Benefit Stocking Fillers

Hey everyone, *warning* I am going to go all ‘Christmassy’ on y’all. Sorry but that’s what happens at this time of the year. Anyway I was in Boots not too long ago and spotted a cute little stand of pink jars (think the sweet shop kind) full of Benefit goodies. These products were all miniatures of the full sized products and were advertised as being a good stocking filler, and lets all agree we would love to see these products in our stockings at Christmas! Anyway the deal was that you could get any 4 for £15 which in my opinion was pretty good as they are Benefit products and are good quality and it also lets you try out some products that you may have never tried before. So anyway here is what I got:

‘The Porefessional’ – A good favourite of mine! I already have this product in full size version so I am already familiar with its amazingness. It aims to minimise the appearance of pores and boy does it! This is by far the best ‘pore-minimising’ product I’ve ever used. I picked up this so I could just have that little bit extra of amazingness 🙂

‘That Gal’ – This is another primer to add to my collection. Its quite different from any primer I’ve used, its got brightening qualities in it so brightens up your appearance which is always a plus! It is a soft pink liquid which blends in really well, I’ve only used this once but from this I could be looking at something good here!

‘Triple Performing Facial Emulsion’ – or in other words – a moisturiser. This is my first time in trying Benefit’s skincare products and so far, not too bad. I love the smell of this, its very fresh and cucumber-y. I am just not sure if it makes any difference to my skin compared to my usual skincare products.. still unsure on this one.

‘Bad Gal Lash’ – I’ve always been lusting over They’re real mascara but its always good to try them all I guess, right? Anyway I picked this up and it has a nice thick brush and is pretty good in volumising and lengthening lashes. Only issue is that because of the thick brush it can be a little messy on the lower lashes but other than that its pretty decent.

What’s your fave Benefit product?

September Favourites

I can’t be the only one who is struggling to believe that its October already! Where does time go!? Anyway here are my favourites from last month.

River Island Dark Red Mini Satchel – I adore this bag! I picked it up from River Island for £20 in this very autumnal red colour and its the perfect size for going to gigs and places where I don’t need a lot of things to carry about. River Island also have a few other colours of this bag as well as the larger versions which are all to die for.

Urban Decay Naked Palette – There is no surprise here! I picked up this incredibly raved about palette a while back on a special offer that I couldn’t refuse and like everyone else I fell in love. The shades are all amazingly pigmented and all wearable. I have the 3rd one as well now and I now only need the second one to complete my collection. A palette you NEED in your collection!

Mac Shy Girl – Believe it or not but this was my first Mac lipstick ever and the best lipstick I can put my name to. It is a beautiful creamy nude pink shade and the perfect nude lipstick which doesn’t wash you out. If you don’t have this in your collection its a must, the perfect day time lipstick that goes with everything and perfect with a bit of clear gloss 🙂

New Look Brown Chelsea Boots – If you read my Chelsea Boots edit then you would have seen these boots in which I mentioned that I already owned and I love them! Chelsea boots are a huge trend this season and I love the style of them. I usually purchase black boots so I thought I would take a change and go for brown this time and I am loving it, its the perfect fall look and is great for everyday wear with jeans and a flannel shirt. Also at £24.99 you can’t go wrong! 🙂

 

 

 

 

Fall 2014: Chelsea Boots

 

 

It is getting quite cold now so the Fall feeling is very much so kicking in! Another one of my favourite trends for this season is the Chelsea Boot. Again like the Boyfriend coat, Chelsea boots have been everywhere recently so I would be surprised if you haven’t seen them about. Chelsea boots were huge back in the 1960s (which is a major trend this season!) and they are distinguished by their typical elastic side panel and the tabs on the back. I recently purchased a lovely brown pair from New Look which I have listed below, and also some of my other favourites. The boots above are also both from New Look.

ASOS – Jack Wills

New Look

ASOS – New Look

River Island

Topshop

Credit to New Look, ASOS, Topshop and River Island for images.

Beauty Haul: YSL, Mac, Barry M

Happy weekend everyone 🙂 So yesterday I got up to a little shopping and I wanted to share with you what I bought. Firstly I went into House of Fraser as I had to return a Mac lipstick. If you read my post on the Naked 3 palette you may have seen I mentioned that I bought a lipstick to receive the deal.. well after buying Mac Cyber I was quite unimpressed with the colour which was far too dark so I went into Mac to exchange it for another one; Mac Twig which is the perfect fall colour, its of a brownish pink/light red shade and is in a satin finish. Paired with lip liner the Kylie Jenner look is nailed!

I then noticed a deal at YSL which had 20% off everything and also a great deal on their iconic Touche Eclat highlighters which were selling for £15 each rather than its usual £25. So i thought it was well worth the investment into such a raved about product however lets just say they have very good sales people who persuaded me to purchase 2 as it would only be £30 and after having quite the makeover I was incredibly drawn by their beautiful gold packaged Rouge Volupte Shine lipstick. I picked up shade 13 Pink in Paris for a discounted £20, but it is one of those items you need in your collection.

And last but not least I went to Boots and picked up two Gelly Barry M Nail polishes in the shades Cocoa and Paprika. There was a buy one get one half price offer so I picked up these two which are the perfect autumn shades. Hopefully once I do my nails I will make a blog post so stay tuned! All I can think of when I look at these shades is hot chocolate and autumn leaves .. bliss 🙂