My New Tattoo

At this point it's pretty obvious to all who know me that I really love Harry Potter. 

I could go into great detail about why I love it and all the various bits and pieces of props I own as a result of this but instead I want to talk about why it was my obvious choice for my latest tattoo.

The symbol of the Deathly Hallows stands for the Cloak of Invisibilty, the Ressurection Stone and the Elder Wand, 3 Hallows that when combined, make one the master of Death. 

It's a very common tattoo amongst Harry Potter fans which was part of the charm for me, its instantly recognisable to Potterheads but most importantly its reference to Death and the idea that one can greet it well prepared and without fear is an idea that's comforting to me after dealing with certain losses in my family .

I also love this as a tattoo because it's so simple. I'm not a fan of colour tattoos so this is something nice and basic to wear on my wrist thats not too in your face .

Definitely looking forward to showing this one off, even though this is now my third tattoo, the rest  are on my back so I don't really get to look at them so it's nice to get reminded of Harry Potter everytime I see it. 

Let me know what you think and feel free to share any Harry Potter tattoos you have!

My Top 5 Nude Lipsticks

Recently I've been loving my nude lipsticks, especially for work because I like to try and keep my make up looking nice and clean, nothing too crazy and so I've decided to share with you my current top 5 nude lipsticks. 

Now I didn't follow any kind of criteria when picking these I just picked my favourite 5, the nude lipsticks I find myself reaching for the most in day-to-day life.

The lipsticks aren't listed in order of preference because I love them all so I'll list them how they appear in the photographs and will tell you why I wear them and what I like about them. 

1.

First up in this top 5 is MAC Myth, a lipstick I ended up buying when I was in London at Fashion Week and therefore has a little sentimental value to it. 

This lipstick smells amazing, as does all lipstick from MAC and the colour is fantastic for someone with pale skin like myself. However, when I have a tan this lipstick makes my lips look so much lighter than the rest of my face- the dreaded 'foundation lips'- so in that regard it's not as diverse as the rest of the nude colours on this list.

As for the texture of this lipstick it isn't as smooth as some of the others to apply in this list but it is very durable as a result and I've had no problems with it coming off as the day progresses. 

In terms of cost and packaging I've always had a problem with the canister MAC lipsticks come in. I know a lot of you out there love to collect MAC lippies but something about the packaging seems quite cheap to me, maybe its the matte platic container but it's just never appealed to me in a big way like my YSL lipsticks do. The price of MAC lipsticks is much more affordable though and most importantly they are one brand that is super easy to get a hold of, especially in the UK. 

2.

I have a small obsession with Urban Decay lipsticks and I'm amazed that this particular nude was one of the last I bought instead of one of the first. 

Urban Decay lipsticks have fantastic coverage, each lipstick is smooth and this is no exception. 

Out of all these lipsticks this is one that I reach for more often than the others simply because I think the colour is extremely pretty for a nude, it's less beige and more pinky which makes it really quite feminine and perfect for wearing to work.

The colour itself is bold and stays on really well but remains creamy on the lips unlike MAC myth which is durable because its a drier texture. 

In terms of cost this lipstick is really affordable for a brand that is forever increasing in popularity and the packaging is really sleek and pretty and these lipsticks in particular are the ones I'd recommend to someone getting into make up and wanting to expand into more expensive brands. 

3.

This Estee Lauder lipstick was a free gift as part of a big purchase I done at the Estee Lauder counter for my sister and as it was the first ever one I bought I naturally bought a nude. 

Now this colour is stunning, it's extremely beige and the colour pay off is amazing which is what you'd expect from £24 lipstick. The formula is extremely creamy, probably on par with the YSL lipsticks except this lipstick isn't as durable as a result. I've also found that the lipstick itself moves around in the tube after being used a few times because the formula is so soft and therefore I have to poke at it to move it back into the middle to stop it rubbing off against the sides of the tube. Bad times. 

The packaging for this is stunning, probably my second favourite after the YSL again because it has this lovely sleek navy blue tube and a magnetic clasp that keeps both parts of the canister together. 

4.

Ah YSL Rouge Volupte lipsticks, anyone who has followed this blog for a long time will know I am in LOVE with these, in my eyes they just can't do anything wrong and their Nude Beige was my first high end make up purchase. 

YSL lipsticks are super creamy and have this lovely mango smell to them which makes them an absolute dream to apply to the lips. The colour pay off on these lipsticks is also amazing and one coat is really all you need to set you up for the day ahead. 

As for the canister it is honestly one of the prettiest on the market and is a reason why so many people love to collect them. The only downside to a YSL lipstick is the price which can be pretty steep depending on what colour you're getting, if I'm speaking candidly I would think twice before buying these if I didn't have my discount from work and I owe my collection to the fact I'm lucky to get 20% off.

This lipstick doesn't have amazing staying power but to be honest you wouldn't mind because there's something really nice about pulling out your YSL and reapplying it throughout the day. 

5.

And now for the cheapest lipstick on this list.

Well, actually it's not a lipstick but a lip lacquer that is applied to the lips and dries a matte colour but at a mere £3 it is the cheapest nude in the top 5. 

As you can see from the swatch photo below it is the darkest nude and extremely beige in colour but because of this is works well on both tanned skin and pale skin. 

The trick with these lip lacquers is to only apply one layer. The colour pay off with these is brilliant considering the price but with these formulas its natural to want to apply more than one layer to really build up a bold looking lip. However, more than one layer of this product and you could literally pick it off your lips. 

The good news is that just one layer of this on your lips is enough to last all day because it has amazing staying power. 

This product doesn't really have a smell to it but amazingly for the £3 they cost to buy the canister doesn't look particularly cheap. Indeed I have 3 of these now and when they're side by side there is something quite high end about them because of the sleek long tubes and matte black lids, of course it is all made of plastic but still...!

 Starting from left to right: 

mac myth - £15.50

urban decay native - £13.95

estee lauder pure colour envy sculpting lipstick in insatiable ivory - £24

ysl rouge volupte no1 nude beige - £22.50-£26 

mua luxe velvet lip lacquer - £3 

Each of these nude lipsticks has a certain quality about it and different areas in which one will perform better than the other but all in all these nude lipsticks are all stunning shades and a good addition to anyones collection. 

If you have any nudes you are really loyal to feel free to share them in the comments below because I'm always in the market for a new purchase!! 

Make Up Atelier Paris - Waterproof Liquid Foundation Review

If you've been following my blog for a while you may have come across a review I done for the Make Up Atelier Paris Waterproof Gel Foundation.
(http://broonylou.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/make-up-atelier-paris-waterproof-gel.html)

I was so impressed by the foundation that I've decided to try out and review their new Waterproof Liquid Foundation and luckily if you head over to the website (http://www.makeupatelierparis.co.uk/) you can buy samples for a mere £0.75!

My relationship with this brand was built entirely from the one product but after spending some time looking through the products there's actually so many different things I want to buy and I'm really impressed with how they deal with their customers.

The only problem I have is that I can never find many reviews of the products online before I decide to buy them so I'm kind of going in blind here. The benefit of that however is that it gives me a chance to take it upon myself to provide everyone else with good reviews of their products.

So here's what the company has to say about this new foundation:

Our long lasting water resistant makeup, available in a sample jar for the purpose of colour matching to your skintone. The foundation settles on the skin to a near matte finish and is almost full coverage.

First of all the sample I ordered arrived after only a few days which was great because when I order make up I get so keen for it to arrive and I hate when it takes weeks to come through the door. I think these only took 2 or 3 days to get to me and as you can see the company gave me a tester in the colour I wanted and another tester a shade darker just in case.

I love the initiative of a company to do this. If you buy a tester in the wrong shade it can be easy to just give up and move onto something else, especially when the brand can only be bought online and you have to spend days waiting on it arriving so they try and stop this from happening by providing a second option to ensure that you find what colour matches you and ensure you buy the full sized product.

Now, onto the foundation itself. I used the lighter shade of the two testers they gave me, colour FLW2B and the shade actually matched me really well. I'm really pale and therefore tend to just go for the lightest colour offered in any foundation range/brand and this seemed as close to my natural skin colour as possible on the site.

My skin before. As you can see I have a few red spots and blemishes at the moment but nothing too crazy.

And my skin after!

As you can see the foundation has really good coverage which is consistent with the old gel foundation I had from them before and is extremely matte looking. These photos are just of the foundation on my face, no powder so you can see that there is very little shine to it.

I really like this foundation, there isn't any smell to it and in contrast to the gel foundation it feels much less cakey on the skin. I've applied this with a brush and then used a beauty blender over it to give a nice even finish and I'm happy with how it sits on my skin. It provides a really good base for the rest of my make up and after wearing it for a few hours I found it to hold up really well.

I would suggest this to anyone wanting to try out Make Up Atelier. The gel foundation was something I was dying to have because I was sick of getting shiny skin after a few hours of applying make up and this is a much more ...daily foundation in that it does the same thing without the thickness that the gel had. The gel was a nightmare to remove due to its thickness and this is much easier as well so you don't have to fight with it at the end of every day.

This is how the product appears on the website. It's packaging is nice, I've always liked being able to see the shade and most importantly it comes with a pump so you're not going to end up using more than you need and having to somehow spread the foundation all down your neck to try and stop it looking cakey (I've committed this sin before and I speak from experience.) I also like the silver around the top of the tube but the clear top puts me off, I manage to break to many of these and hate seeing all the foundation smeared around the pump after a few uses. I wish this was silver to like the Urban Decay foundation bottles you can get.

Price wise this foundation comes in at a very affordable £22 which is great considering that the gel is now priced at £28 so it's worth the price for a well-performing product that you can wear daily both to worth or a night out. To put it into perspective the NARS brightening concealer is £22 and you're getting way more product with this.

On payday I'll definitely be placing the order for mine and what's even better is that the cost of postage for the samples can be redeemed and taken off the price of a full bottle so you don't lose out on any money due to testing the product first. It's little things like that which make me really like Make Up Atelier Paris as a whole, they are really considerate towards the customer.  

Payday Pickings!

Ah Payday!

As a typical 22 year old female I am guilty of living payday like a queen and spending the following 30 days in complete squalor but I think everybody my age feels that when the wages come in they really deserve a little splurge on themselves and as of late I have not splurged. 

So last payday I was going through to Hamilton for a night out and was with my friend Melissa when she decided to go to Superdrug and get her eyebrows tinted for the occasion. 

Naturally whilst she was doing that I ended up browsing and came back laden down with a whole load of stuff but for this post I'm going to focus predominantly on what I got from Make Up Revolution.  

Personally I love Make Up Revolution, I know there's a lot of debate about the number of products they produce that are similar to those by other brands, for example they have their own version of the too faced chocolate palette, but for the price I really like the quality of what you're getting.

I know there are many people out there who seem to almost...frown upon really cheap make up but I see no reason why I cant spend £19 on a high end concealer and then £8 on a whole palette of concealers as long as they do the job and I feel great about myself wearing them.

So I got a few things for myself, some MUA, some Rimmel but the Make Up Revolution products definitely made up the bulk of my purchase so lets concentrate on that. 

I got the blush palette seen in the photo above at Christmas time but had to get another, both of these palettes were £8 in total and I'll admit right away that I freaking LOVE the packaging. It's very sleek and thin which is what I want from my products really because I like to store them all upright and this makes it so much easier. 

The concealer palette is creamy and quite thick, my only gripe is that I wish the colour range was a tad more diverse, I like to have a darker colour to aid in cream contouring but overall for £8 this is an awesome product. 

Same goes for the blush palette, I love that it has some matte shades and some more shinier shades along with a highlight colour. Again for the price you pay it's £1 a blush/concealer which is awesome, I can't complain. 

I also picked up the Benefit Roller Lash Mascara which debuted in my store the day before Payday, it felt good to be one of the early birds buying a new product for once. The review of this product is also in my MARCH posts so go and check that out. This mascara was my biggest purchase of the day and is a great product. 

Now I am a huge eye product fan. In my make up stand the mascara and eyeliner box is the second most jam packed after lipstick and recently I had been loving this Maybeline felt tip liner that could draw really thin lines and then be dragged to make thicker and this liner is similar. 

At either end is a thick felt tip and a thin felt tip and oh my gosh it's my new go-to! Don't be fooled, the eyeliner is very durable and also pigmented. It also goes on like an absolute dream and from now on it will probably be one of my staples. One advantage this has over the Maybeline is that the felt tips are finer whereas the other had a very boxy shape. 

Highlighters weren't products I reached for very often but this one is so pretty. 

Being a girl with a greasy complexion I like most of my face products to be in powder form if possible to help fight shininess and so this is a fantastic product. 

It's very pigmented and very highlighting. My Urban Decay highlighters are probably just a little bit more reflective but again for the price it is a fantastic product.

Finally the matte bronzer, You can't tell from the picture but this is quite a big product which is brilliant for getting your bronzing brush into (I hate it with Hoola when you try and get the brush in and it's bending off the side because the packaging is tiny.) 

Again, this product is a powder and so is great for my skin and I have no complaints about it. If applied properly you get this stunning glow, it's more brown in tone instead of some of the horrible orange bronzers you can come across from the cheaper drug store brands. 

I don't know if I'll stay loyal to the bronzer from this brand purely because with things like bronzers/finishing powders they're so cheap and there's so many you can have access to that I like to have loads of different ones but for now this is what I'm applying in the morning and I really like the bronze glow it gives me. 

After trying all of these products I was starting to wonder why people weren't going mental for the brand. The packaging isn't what I would refer to as cheap or anything either and the only products I would really not buy as the eyeshadow palettes because I don't like the colour combinations and love my Urban Decay Naked palettes. 

I'm not sure if it is because people are so loyal to the higher end brands that they avoid these because they are at some points blatantly copying other brands but I see no reason why they can't try to create more affordable dupes that are more accessible to the mass market.

Judging purely off what I bought this day I will 100% be buying from this brand again, especially the bronzers and blushes it has to offer. I also haven't tried any lip products or mascaras from the brand so next time these will be at the top of my list. 

Mascara Review - Benefit Roller Lash

Woo! Another mascara review! Yes my addiction to all things lash lengthening is still as rife as ever so it's just as well Benefit have decided to grace their counters with a new mascara for me to own!

Now I'll admit when I heard that they were bringing out a new mascara I was totally confused. 'They're Real!' was a huge success. I don't know a single beauty guru on YouTube who didn't review the mascara and it is a personal favourite for myself as well. 

First thing you'll notice about the mascara is the packaging. It's not as sleek looking as 'They're Real!' but it is a really pretty looking canister. The top (I believe) is meant to look like a hair roller to fit in with their campaign describing the mascara as a means of getting flirty, fluttering and curled lashes without the need for actual eyelash curlers themselves. 

Personally I like the packaging, whilst it is slightly bulkier on the lid than 'They're Real' it's easy to hold and apply mascara with plus it totally fits in with Benefit's aesthetic. Most of the products they produce have a quirky theme running through them to help marketing.

I hadn't tried a sample of this before buying it so I had no idea what to expect but the first thing I noticed with this product is that the formula inside the tube feels quite thick. After you apply the mascara you start to understand why this is. The wand curls your lashes and the formula holds the lash at that angle, creating the "no need for an eyelash curler" look. 

Below are photos of my eye before and after applying the mascara so I'll let you judge for yourself! 

Apologies for my eye being slightly red but you get the idea!

I actually love this mascara and probably more than 'They're Real' if I'm being honest with you, if you look at the outer part of my eye in both pictures you can see that the lashes are definitely more curled. I've used this mascara everyday since I got it and I don't find that it can smudge onto my upper eyelid like 'They're Real!' sometimes does and whilst I find it a little hard to get off, it's easier to remove than 'They're Real' as well. Although you can of course use the Benefit 'They're Real' remover and save yourself having any problems removing either of the mascaras.

Overall this is a fantastic addition to the Benefit mascara range. Whilst I was confused at first about why Benefit had decided to add another mascara to their range when their existing products were doing so well it's now clear that this is a product that can stand on it's own and works in a completely different way.

Gonna be hard to top this mascara!! 

Another Pastel Hair Product Review

So a month later and my obsession with dying my hair pastel colours hasn't let up. 

After a little research into all the ways I could dye my hair I came across a little wonder called hair chalk and immediately bought a pack off amazon for about £8.

The first thing you'll notice is the variety of colours you get with hair chalk. In this pack alone I got 24 various shades and colours with which to style my hair and they're set out in a gradient style which is really helpful because in most cases if you were to pick 4 colours beside each other you'd get really complimentary colours to put through your hair.

My personal favourite 4 colour combo in this photo is the top right 4 which are lovely purples and pinks. 

So the one thing you need to know is that hair chalk is not a permanent hair colouring process. On average if you do your best to keep it in the hair chalk should last about 48 hours and by keeping it in I mean that you do not wash your hair at the end of the day as this washes most of the colour out. 

Application

Putting hair chalk in is best done when wet, I don't know why but the chalk glides onto the hair easier and the colour is more vibrant when the hair is wet. The wetter the hair the better the result as far as Im concerned. 

In the picture below you can see what my hair looked like after I applied 6 or 7 different shades of green, grey, pink and purple. I got my sister to apply the colours to the back. 

I wouldn't be too fussy about where you apply the colour if you decide you want to do your entire head, its better to have the colours blend into one another and for it not to look like a Mcfly 5 colours in her Hair video because you want it to look as though it's natural (even though it blatantly isn't!)

Once you've applied all the colours you want and are happy with how your hair looks, blowdry it to seal the colour. If you sleep with your hair wet your pillow will be an absolute riot the next morning and your parents will not thank you!

Below was my hair after I dried it. 

Now my one criticism with hair chalk which you will probably guess from the picture is that it dries your hair out like crazy. Texture-wise it's very similar to taking talcum powder and going to town with it on your hair.

It doesn't move the same as it would normally either and if you have thick hair like mine good luck trying to get it up into a ponytail. 

However what you need to remember is that it's only really for a 24-48 hour period so it's worth it to look cool and have mermaid coloured hair. I would however advise you to use a good hair mask after and maybe don't use hair chalk on a daily basis because on the end of your hair in particular it can cause a lot of damage. 

Hair chalk is by far my favourite way so far of getting pastel hair, I like the dyes but they just don't do justice when it comes to the length they stay in your hair. At least with chalk you get variety and there's loads in a pack to last you a decent amount of time so value wise I feel this is best way to go. 

I hope this was helpful to those of you reading this who have an interest in hair chalk and pastel dying your hair, I've included a link to amazon for this product if you're interested and I'd love to hear your thoughts on hair chalk and if you've tried it yourselves!

Buy it for Yourself!

Nyx Macaron Lippies Review and Swatches

Hello again! Day 2 of what I'm hoping will be a 7 day period of make up product reviews for you all whilst I'm off recovering.

Today I want to share with you all my Nyx Macaron Lippies that I got imported over from America and for this review I want to follow criteria that I would usually look for when buying lipstick.

As you will all know my love of lipstick is extreme and there isn't really a brand I wouldn't be willing to at least try. So, when Shaaanxo put up a blog post about these Nyx Macaron Lippies and all the crazy colours they come in I couldn't help myself, I had to have them!

In order to get the lipsticks I had to order from the Nyx website and have them sent to a warehouse ran by an international shipping campany in Florida called MyUS and then get them shipped over here to Scotland and I have to say the service was really fast and relatively stress free. I would recommend MyUS to anyone and again, I found out about it through Shannon. 

So onto the review!