What I Took To Paris

I have just returned from a lovely trip to Paris. I went with my best friend/flat mate to celebrate the fact that we've been friends for fifteen years.

As we were only going for four days I took a tiny suitcase with me. And that meant a tiny soap bag, which meant not much make up at all! It was actually kind of a struggle, but an interesting challenge. I normally take loads of stuff with me on holiday and then never use even half of it. So I tried really hard to think about what I would actually need and use.

For a base I took the Laura Mercier tinted moisturiser and primer. I've fallen in love with this product. I bought it last summer and wasn't wowed, but this summer I've worn it almost daily! I also took Benefit's Powder Time Lover for blush and bronzer. This has Hoola bronzer, and Coralista and Dandelion blushes. My Bobbi Brown corrector and concealers were also pretty essential, we had a few late nights (one involving closed metro stations, the Eiffel Tower and  police officers).

I took my Bobbi Brown gel liner, and the Bobbi Brown Bronze Tortoiseshell pallet. And the only other eye shadow I took was the Maybelline Colour Tattoo in On and On Bronze. I LOVE this. I do love a good bronze eyeshadow. Mascara wise I took the No. 7 Lash Adapt (favourite ever? Probably), Lancome Hypnose and the Clinique bottom lash.

I knew I wanted to wear bright lips in Paris (that feels very Parisian to me, am I the only one?) so I took both my YSL Glossy stains, in a fuchsia pink and bright red. I also took a Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain which I am in love with.

I also took my customised Laura Mercier pallet with me, which has in two blushes, three matte eyeshadows which I used for my eyebrows as well as shadows, and a cake liner.

Overall I'm pretty happy with what I took. I used almost everything at least once. But I did splurge on a few things which will be featured in an upcoming post. 

Meeting SprinkleofGlitter and Zoella

Today I went to my first ever YouTube meet up. It was all very surreal, but lots of fun. I'd been packing up my things all day (I'm moving to London tomorrow!!!!) and lost track of time and arrived a bit late.

It was very weird seeing two people you normall watch on a flat screen all in the flesh and 3D, but like I said lots of fun. Louise and Zoe were lovely, and both gorgeous! You can really obviously tell what great friends they are, just from the way they interact. And Baby Glitter was there. I was overcome with cute, she is adorable!!

We all talked about what make up things we'd bought, comments they get on YouTube, how you can accidentally spend a fortune in Boots without noticing (I've done this SO many times!) and people who don't collect Boots points. Yes, there are people in the world who don't collect Boots points. Louise and I both said that we hoard ours. I occasionally get vouchers in the post offering me more points if I spend a certain amount of money and then I go mad! I love Boots points!

I was quite nervous but very quickly relaxed. Thanks to Louise and Zoe for organising the meet up, for being so lovely and friendly and for making awesome videos.

Make up storage

Make up storage posts are possibly my favourite kind of posts. Maybe it's because I'm nosey, or maybe it's because I like good storage. Muji is one of my favourite shops.

I'm moving to London very very soon. Technically I'm there right now, but none of my stuff is. Anyway, I thought I'd show you my current make up storage set up. Then I can show off the new storage set up I have planned. I've literally been planning this storage for months, which is probably quite pathetic of me but oh well!

At my parent's house I have a chest of drawers and on top of them sits my light up mirror, and my make up storage drawers. These are in fact old CD storage drawers, back from ye old days when people actually bought CDs. This set up is far from perfect, and I can't wait to get it all properly organised.

On top in the left hand side drawer I keep face products. In here is all of my foundations, blush, concealer, powder and bronzer. This is the drawer I probably empty out the most looking for things, it drives me crazy. It looks a bit sparse in these pictures, because I have some things packed to bring to London with me. On the right hand side I have lip products. Lipsticks, balms and glosses.

On the bottom left I have single eyeshadows, so things from MAC, my NARS duos, and various other eyeshadows. On the bottom right I have eyeliners and mascaras and eyebrow things.

On top of the CD boxes I keep my brushes. In the Tinkerbelle pencil holder I have my face brushes. I love this holder because it spins round! In the other pot are my eye brushes.

I also have this make up storage thing which was a Christmas present. In here I keep my most used things, so my top two foundations and my under-eye concealer. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep this storage thing. It has loads of room for lipsticks, and not much room for anything else. I also have a bunch of kabuki brushes up here too. There are also some sharpeners, and some other random bits and bobs. Like a loose Illamasqua pigment which leaked all over the inside of a drawer.

In the little cubby hole of my chest of drawers I keep a whole load of stuff, but in these two old glossy boxes are all my eyeshadow pallets. I'm going to depot a lot of these and get rid of the ones I don't use and all the bulky packaging.

And then there is the drawer of doom. I hate this drawer. It's so unorganised. It has all sorts of stuff in it. And every time I try to tidy it up I can then never find anything and it all gets shoved around anyway. Never again will I be this unorganised!!

Soon, I hope, I'll be able to show you my new super organised, super tidy storage set up.

Karma Kream

The end of the school year is always more than a little crazy. I went and spent two weeks training and observing at my new school. The children have finished now and I spent last week sorting out my new classroom. Anyway, now it's the holidays I'll have more time for blogging! I want to develop a habit so I can keep it up when school starts up again.

 Anyway. On to the subject of this post. Lush's Karma Kream. I hate writing the word Kream, it makes me feel like a Kardashian. This cream is a thick, white, moisturising body cream. As far as body lotions go it's not exactly unique.

But the smell. Oh my lord the smell. Words cannot describe the smell. Lush try when they claim this cream will "perfume [the skin] with orange, patchouli and pine". But this does not begin to do this scent justice. I'm not a fan of sickly, sweet things. Lush's Snow Fairy actually makes me gag. Karma Kream smells sophisticated, adult and intoxicating. It's not like anything I've smelled before.

 I'm incredibly lax when it comes to body moisturiser. But this cream makes me better at it purely because I want to sniff myself.


 Lush also have several other varieties of this scent, including a solid perfume (a post on this will be coming up soon), a spritzer perfume, a bubble bar, soap and something called Karma Komba which is a solid shampoo.  I can confidently say I will probably own all of them by the end of the year.

 Karma Kream is £12.95 for 225g.

Urban Decay 24/7 Glide on Eye Pencils

There are probably already about 33 thousand posts on the internet about these pencils. But hey ho. I think they're worth talking about. Today I'm specifically talking about the shades 'Binge' (the blue) and 'Rockstar'.




Now I have loads of these pencils. About 20. Excessive? Probably. I bought the 15th anniversary set when it came out (last year I think?) which had 15 pencils in. I think both of these were in that set.

Binge is the blue and it's gorgeous. I love a navy blue pencil and this is a lovely one. Obviously the formula is great, it lasts well on my top lash line and it lasts okay on my waterline. I'll be honest, nothing really lasts well on my waterline. I've learned to accept this fact.

It has a nice shimmer in it but it doesn't look totally garishly glittery, just nicely metallic.




Rockstar is the purple. There's a story behind my falling in love with this pencil. Obviously getting a set of 15 pencils, some are going to become favourite faster than others. I overlooked Rockstar, in fact I forgot I even owned a dark purple pencil. Then I was getting a make over at the Bobbi Brown counter and the artist put one of their new long wear pencils on me, in a beautiful purple shade. It looked lovely. For financial reasons (aka being a poor student) I didn't buy it. Instead I came home and looked through my stash and found Rockstar. Cue my falling in love with it! Rockstar looks quite brown here, but it is definitely more purple in real life. And it's not as metallic as Binge.  




So yay for saving money and shopping my stash!

7 Things

The ever so lovely Louise over at Sprinkle of Glitter has a regular feature called 7 things in 7 days. She posts 7 things she's aiming to do in the next week. I think it's a fab idea, a great way of keeping motivated!

I've got a massively busy few months ahead. At the end of June I finish my 2 month teaching practice. In July I have all of my induction and training in my new job. I've just found out I'll be teaching nursery, which I've never done before, so that'll be a learning curve. And the not-so-small matter of moving out of my parent's house and into my flat in London!!

So here are my 7 things for June.

1. Buy some nice, thoughtful gifts for my class and teachers as goodbye presents. 
2. Exercise at least 3 times a week. 
3. Save money. My bestie and I are planning a trip to Paris. The list of things I'm planning to buy is already quite long. 
4. Find some good books about nursery teaching to read. (Although, how to do this without ruining point three. Hmm. Tricky!) 
5. Cook dinner more often. 
6. Spend more time with my parents. They drive me crazy but no doubt I will miss them when I become a grown up move out. 
7. Sort through my clothes and get rid of some things that don't fit/won't ever fit/are hideous/are being kept for purely sentimental reasons.

 

Inglot Matte Collection Gel Eyeliner

This post will be me waxing lyrical about my love/hate relationship with this product.