Rimmel Scandal'eyes mascara review!

It's not often that I feel the need to to write a review about something so badly, but this mascara let me down so much that I felt I had to share it with you.

Rimmel claim that this mascara has "A Scandalous Brush that is So big yet so precise, our MaxDensity™ brush reveals lashes you never thought you had. 30% wider and denser, with more bristles to capture and coat even the smallest lashes. Combs through clumps for perfect definition Scandalous Formula: Triple collagen + keratin formula with shapes and plumps even the thinnest lashes Scandalous Look: More lashes revealed, corner-to-corner, who needs falsies? +300% instant eye opening impact. Reveals your natural assets like no other!"  and take it from someone who has very sad little lashes, this sounds appealing right? I thought so.

Before I carry on, let me just mention that I have a love/hate type of relationship with Rimmel makeup. I love their lipsticks (Rimmel spotlight beige is my all time favorite nude) and nail polishes, and I liked a few of their other items, but I can't help but feel like it's just not the kind of brand I would tend to gravitate towards, it's a little to "Teenage girl" for me.The last Rimmel mascara I had used before this one was the day to night one which I really didn't like and ended up giving it to my 14 years old sister to use. The fact that the main focus on this mascara is in fact the HUGE brush, I wouldn't normally go for this type of product because not only are my lashes tiny, but I also have zero lid space which means that I tend to go for a Smaller brush to help minimize the lid mess!

I was actually given this mascara, and was not really expecting much and as soon as I applied it I know it was not for me. The brush is just way to big and the formula is really wet but what I dislike the most is how it makes me lashes look. I want my lashes to look long, curled, slightly ticker and just generally fabulous! (I don't ask for much do I?) but sadly, this just didn't deliver......I don't like the orange packaging, but I really don't like the way it applies! it's hard to coat your lashes properly and it just leaves them look very......blah.

Some good things I can say about this is it is very reasonably priced at £6.99 and very easy to get hold of but I can't help but think that my dislike is down to the fact that it's just not what I would look for in a mascara and not really targeted at me anyway.

What do you guys think? have you used it? did you like it?

Yes, I have gain weight! (and no, i'm not happy about it!)

I know I should not feel like I need to address this issue because it's pretty personal and none of my lovely readers and subscribers have mentioned it to me, but i'm pretty sure you have all noticed that I have put weight on. I have actually put loads of weight on  (i'm not going to get into numbers because that would be over sharing) but it's safe to say I have put weight on, big time.


I'm not really going to go into the reason as to why, I think it was just a case of being really busy and not being as controlled as I normally would be that have caused the pounds to pile on. I have spent pretty much my hole life watching my weight and it does tent to fluctuate,but I feel like because when I started out on YouTube I was much slimmer, I now feel a little ashamed because I have put the weight on. I know that sounds really silly, but I feel like being in the "public eye" (ie, on YouTube) I do owe you a small explanation because i'm sure you have all been wondering but are all to kind to say so. Actually let me reword that, because some lovely guy on twitter recently had told me I need to lose weight (well he actually said I should loose weight, so we won't count that as he can't spell) and a few viewers on YouTube have left me comments saying what's up with weight loss and in a way, I wish I had never shared that side of me on my channel because I know feel I have failed people by letting myself go a little because I have been very public about my weight battles but that ship has sailed because I am what I like to call a "YouTube over-sharer" meaning, I find it hard to keep my mouth shut!


My weigh does effect me in most areas on my life, and YT is no exception because I can record a video, and then look back at it and think "Oh god I look huge" and it will bug me because i'm afraid someone will point it out, and that is also the main reason I am not doing many OTTD videos because I just don't feel comfortable and the weight also means that my fashion choices are not as chic as I would normally go for.


At this point you must be thinking "if your that down about, get off your ass woman!" and you would not be wrong. I am dealing with it and I KNOW I will lose the weight and feel better about myself but I also need to point out that i'm not really really upset by it because I don't feel down all the time, it's just every now and then......and it will change, I assure you. 

Get your body ready for summer with the help of a spa beauty insider!

Despite that fact that the weather is telling us otherwise (yes April showers, i'm talking to you) summer is fast approaching us, and we all know what that means: Goodbye forgiving winter clothes, hello revealing summer wear! If the idea of baring all this summer is enough to break you into a cold sweat, this is the post for you.


As you may know form watching my videos,I am a huge believer in daily maintenance, as appose to that pre-holiday panicked scrub down, the day before you need to slip in to your bikini. Here to second that motion, I have the lovely Corrine Jenner, who is going to answer a few beauty related questions to help get us ready for summer.It's time to cast off those winter layers and get gorgeous from head to toe!

Corrine, who has very kindly agreed to share her tips with us, has 20 years experience in  the beauty and spa Industry, and has worked for 5 years at Finders International, spa find head office, Kalmora Spa, in Kent, as a manager and supervisor.



1) With summer fast approaching, the idea of baring your body can seem slightly daunting to most women…….what are your top tips for getting your body looking ready for summer?


1) "Do a 3 day detox, drinking only fresh fruit smoothies and juice, fresh veg broth and filtered water and herbal teas to eliminate toxins and bloating. Continue with a healthy diet. Do 30 mins brisk exercise everyday. Exfoliate your skin from top to toe with a heavey duty body scrub and Apply fake tan for a golden glow!"


2) Speaking of getting your body beach ready, most women are worried about the dreaded cellulite! I know there are no magic cures for it, but is there anything we can do about it?


2) "Drink hot water and lemon every morning on an empty stomach to kick start your system.Drink cleansing herbal teas such as nettle and fennel and avoid caffeine and caffeinated drinks.  Dry body brush every day in upwards direction before you shower. Get plenty of exercise.  Apply a firming lotion daily."


3) After having your feet covered up in boots all winter, your feet will be needing a little TLC. Can you share your top tips for the perfect at-home pedicure? 


3) "Always treat yourself to a Spa Pedicure at the start of summer, and then continue at home. A pumice stone used with a foot scrub followed by a rich foot cream works wonders!"


4) A lot of women complain about their skin drying out during the cooler months, what are you tops tips for rehydrating your skin to give it that lovely summer glow?


4) "Gently exfoliating works wonders to brighten the skin, And applying a rich body lotion to finish will help to re-hydrate dry winter skin."


5) What little tweaks should we all be doing in our everyday routine that you think most women neglect?


5) "Be sure to include daily skin brushing and religious application of a good body moisturiser teamed with weekly exfoliation, to prevet your skin from drying out ."


6) Share your favourite ever beauty product.


6) "Spa Find Deep Peeling cream, it gently removes all dead skin by adhering to the skin, leaving skin radiantly glowing, hydrated and silky smooth. It also works wonders used on hands!"


7)Last but not least, what are your top beauty tips for busy women on a budget?


"Pick one evening when you always have your bathing beauty ritual, for instance every Friday night. Have a wonderful relaxing bath filled with mineral rich Dead Sea salts (Just a little sparkleicious tip here for you, if you suffer from bloating, try adding some Epsom salt in to your bath) and exfoliate your whole body, and rasp your feet, use a face mask , and a hair mask , soak and remove cuticles. Then continue when you out of the bath by applying body moisturisers, file and paint nails. This a lovely relaxing way to ensure you are in tip top condition and also have so much needed me time."


So there you have it, the best tips form a fellow beauty insider. We all feel a little worried about getting our bodies ready for summer but I hope this will help you get a little closer to getting your perfect summer body, and leave you looking and feeling fabulous.


*For those of you who are interested in treating yourself to a little pampering spa session, be sure to take a look at the Kalmora Spa website and see what treatments are right for you .

Collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer review!

Concealer is not the most exciting item in my makeup bag, but it's defiantly an essential. That being said,  I hardly ever use concealer on my face (ie, blemishes and redness) as I find my foundation is good enough to cover it and tend to only use concealer under my eye area.


Before I looked in to the collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer, I was using the amazing but oh so pricey (£18 worth of pricey to be exact )  Laura Mercier secret concealer. While both these concealers are in no way comparable in terms of texture and coverage, I have been using them both for a while and I pick and chose which ever one I feel like in the morning (or if I look really tired, apply them both)  but I have to say I adore the collection 200 concealer!


Collection 2000 describe it as a "Ultimate wear concealer which provides full coverage for up to 16 hour wear" and to be honest, that was one of the reasons I was unsure about it because I find most long lasting products tend to be very drying, and that's not a good idea on your already dry blemishes and delicate under eye area. This concealer comes in 4 shades and at first I bought it in the darkest shade, no 4. I then realized that I was sadly no longer that tanned, so I marched back in to boots and got in the lighter shade, no 3. The next morning I applied it with a fluffy brush under my eye area, and it was love at first sight! 

The good:
*The coverage of this concealer is amazing! I dot 3 dots under my area and them blend them in, and gone is my under-eye darkness.(I must point out however, that this is not a corrector, so it does not have any peachy-pink tones to counteract the darkness under your eyes, this just concealed it)
*The price of this concealer is pretty fab at £4.19, and can be found in any boots store, superdrug or supermarkets that stock natural collection.
*Collection 2000 claim this can last up to 16 hours, and while I can't say it last that long (no makeup does on me!)  it certainly lasts longer than any other concealer I have ever used.


The bad;
*I have found that when applied with a fluffy brush, it can crease. All the concealers I have ever used   crease on me,I blame the weird shape of my eyes) but if I apply it with my fingers I get minimal creasing.
*The shade selection is pretty poor with only 4 shades, and they are not grate for very fair skin.. 
*This is just me being really picky, but I don't love the packaging....I just feel like it looks a little cheap.


With so much fabulous makeup out there it can be hard to find true product love, but the collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer comes pretty close to it! If you have not tried it I strongly advice you get your lovely little asses down to boots and pick one up, because it truly is a fab product.


Do any of you love this as much as me? and have you tried the foundation in this range? 

Your opinion on starting a random second channel!

So as you may know if you follow me on Facebook and twitter  that I have been contemplating starting up a second YouTube channel  because lately I have been feeling like I have other things I like to talk about apart from beauty (yes, shocker I know!)  and feel like I don't want those types of videos on my beauty channel.


When I say random, I don't mean a  kind of  vlog/ day in the life channel because a) My life is not that interesting and b)  I don't feel comfortable "putting" my life out in the public eye, in any way. I know people, me included like to know everything about peoples life's, but that is not for me. I don't want people to know what my house looks like, or where I live or what I drive or who i'm seeing and so on. That being said, I do love a good ramble video and a tend to get a pretty good response from people when I do them. I think this channel would consist of things like ramble videos about diffident things, maybe a little food or cooking related  things, Books, TV shoes and films.....and just stuff like that basically! 


The other things i'm slightly worried about  is the i'll get stick for not updating it as often as my beauty channel, but I want to make it clear that my beauty channel would still be my "main" outlet and I will only update the second if and when i'm feeling like it.


I realize i'm not  selling this idea very well, but I hope you get the idea and I would love to know what you all think!

Smashbox photo finish oil free primer review

I have not always been a primer girl. For years I would relay on an oil-free moisturizer underneath my makeup, and never really felt the need to use a primer. Since discovering YouTube and beauty blogs however (what was my life about before?) I had started to become interested in facial primers.


For those of you who don't know, facial primers are used to crate a smooth canvas for your foundation and help refine any fine lines and open pores, along with helping your makeup last the little bit longer. One of the most famous primers in the beauty world is the SMASHBOX photo finish primer.(in the oil-free version ,essential for an oily girl like me) Now, this has been around for a while, and so many people love it so I wanted to see what the hype was about.

I have been using it on and off for almost a year now, so I have seriously put it to the test! it's a clear, silicon based primer that promises to create the perfect canvas for your makeup. I like the fact that's its oil-free, and it does have an extremely silky texture (I must point out at this point, that if you hate that silky, silicon texture this will not be for you!) that glides on to the skin beautifully. My issue with this is, I have really large pores around my nose (that are  much smaller now thanks for asking, thank you clarisonic) and I really wanted a product that would help minimize the size of the pores,or at least help them look less noticeable and this did not help with that at all. In fact, no primer I have ever used has helped the pore situation.


I do still think that a primer is not an absolute must-have item in your makeup bag, and this one in particular does not help my makeup last any longer than an oil-free moisturizer, and does not make my skin look instantly amazing al la Clarins beauty flash balm but what it does do a good job of is creating a really smooth base, that helps my foundation look more flawless, and apply easier.You can purchase this primer at debenhams for £26.10 so it's pretty pricey, and not something I think I would buy again once I finish using it.


What are your opinion on primers? are they a must-have or just a nice little extra?       

The Samantha Brick beauty syndrome!

For those of you living on planet  earth the past few days, you may have read a little article in the the daily mail called "Why women hate me for being beautiful" written by journalist Samantha Brick (if at this point you have not read it, I urge you  to now go and read it before continuing to read this post)  and has unsurprisingly proved to be quite a controversial topic to say the least.


Some people are convinced it's a PR stunt, while others say it was an April fools day joke or maybe just a case one woman's pure narcissism,  whatever it is it has certainly  made an impact. I must admit that the tittle of the article alone made me think "seriously?" but as I started reading it, I realized that there was more to it than that. We have all at some point in our life's been jealous of  another woman whether it was a stranger, someone we work with or a good friend. And we have all made an assumption about another woman we don't know just because of her looks, but what miss Brick is trying to say is that women hate her because of her beauty, see her as a treat because of her beauty, and find it hard to be friends with her because of her guess what yep, her beauty . At one point in the article, she says she has never been asked to be a brides maid at any of her female friends weddings, because she is a good looking woman.  


However self-obsessed the article may seem, she makes a few valid points and the one that made me stop and think was the part where she said "You'd think we women would applaud each other for taking pride in our appearances"  because that is so true! I do get jealous if I see someone I know looking fabulous, but not in your typical way. I tend to take it more as a sign that I need to make more of an effort to look good, and just leave it at that. But women do judge one another as if to say "There is such a thing as being to gorgeous" , and if you take care of yourself, ie, wear heels, dress up and always wear makeup, women who don't have the time or the money to, tend to turn their nose up at you and dub you as a shallow, self-centered woman . 
I never really knew what it felt like for someone to not like you for no reason, but last year I met a woman who was dating a friend of mine who was a quite a bit older than me, and from the first time I met her it was Crystal clear she didn't like me.And to be honest, I was baffled as to why that was (because I was on my best behavior, I promise!) and it did bother me.Later on when a mutual friend asked her why she didn't like me she said it was because I was "up myself" and because whenever I came round I was "all made up and dressed up" and at the time I felt bad for the woman! now looking back, I think since when is it a crime to want to make an effort to look nice?  women should look at other women who make an effort to look good and realize that it probably does not come easy to them, and that maybe, just maybe they are just as insecure as the shrinking violet in the corner in jeans and a T-shirt and are using the glamour to mask it?


There is that classic notion that women hate other beautiful women, and that idea has been put in our heads since we were little girls, reading fairy tales like snow white, where the queen wants snow white dead because she it more beautiful that her and as far fetched as that seems it does make sense, but it's sad. It is sad that we can't stick up for one another and celebrate each others fabulousness because of our own issues. Samantha Brick's article is pretty ridiculous by all accounts, and the worst part is it shows both  types of women at their worst, but it also teaches us something I think we all knew all along but could defiantly do with the occasional reminder and that is that it really is what on the inside that counts.






      

The world best lip gloss.....EVER!

Just like in life, the makeup world tends to belong to 2 camps in the lip department, lipstick vs lip gloss. I have always been on team lipstick because of a few little things that always bothered me about lip gloss:

*I have quite darkly pigmented lips, so the products I apply on them have to be pretty pigmented or they end up looking a weird shade, and lip gloss never seemed to provide enough lip-coverage for me. Oh and why not just wear lip gloss over my lipstick you ask? then it feels heavy on my lips of curse! 

*As you may have noticed (or may not, no judgment) I have seriously curly hair that goes everywhere. This is not a good thing for a lip gloss lover as they tend to be quite sticky and then my hair gets stuck on them.....ewww!

*The shimmer factor. Most lip glosses tend to have shimmer in them, and in the cheaper verities, its the cheap glitter that you can feel! and i'm not a fan of that.

So, now that i'm done sounding like a really picky cow, you are probably wondering why 

I would write a post called "The best lip gloss....EVER?" well, I have been slightly converted. I say slightly because I don't now love all glosses, just one in particular.

And the one is coral reef, by REVLON. 

Words can not describe my love for this, but i'll try. I was in my local superdrug and was casually looking at the REVLON makeup counter when their new lip glosses caught my eye because at the time (this was a year or so ago) they were the "IT" thing everyone on YouTube was raving about (particularly the shades   lilac pastelle and  peach petal) and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. That was when I spotted the shade called coral reef, a beautiful, vibrant true coral. It looked amazing, and it seemed to have no shimmer in it, so I tested it on my lips and it was love at first sight! It was so creamy and pigmented and not at all sticky! I bought it and put it on as soon as I left the shop (that's a true indication you really love something if there ever was one)  and every time I looked in a mirror, I could not believe how pretty it looked, because as much as I love lipstick, and god knows I do, it can make your face seem a little flat at times and gloss helps give your face that pretty, glossy look.

I love how it applies......

How it feel on the lips, how it smells (not like sickly vanilla, as most glosses these days do) and how creamy it is, and how pigmented it is.

 (This photo shoes how happy it makes me!)

For me, this really is the most amazing lip  gloss ever and I can honestly never see myself falling out of love with it, but then again, you never know...........

Have any of you tried it? did you love it as much as I do?

OOH LA SPA ultimate detox salt scrub review!

Sorry for being an absent blogger, I seem to forget at times that I do in fact have a blog, and that I need to update it more regularly.


I'm sure you all know  that i'm a huge fan of a "pamper night" and no such night would be complete without a good body scrub session. I have used so many and not once have repurchased a scrub, both high-end and low. I was in my local superdrug store a few weeks ago, just looking around as you do (and was then very surprised when a woman who worked there started talking to me in Spanish, and when I just mumbled    "Sorry, I don't speak Spanish" she said I looked it, and then walked off...strange people!) when I came across the OHH LA SPA scrub. I was interested as soon as I saw the word "detox" as i'm a sucker for anything that promises to detoxify your body and as it was £3.99 I picked it up. 


OHH LA SPA describe it as "A sumptuous blend of skin polishing salts and moisturising oils to leave skin soft and smooth." sounds promising right? so on my next pamper night I was excited to  give it a go (yes, I am a werido who gets excited about such things). I applied in circular motions on damp skin, and here is what I think of it:

The scent- It has a very hard to describe scent, and one i'm not 100% sure how pleasant it actually is. It's a kind of sweet, bubble bath smell.


The packaging- I love it!  the scrub come in a pretty heavy glass gar (that can be a little hard to close) but it provides a more lux feel to the product. I like it.


The texture- It has a very soft, creamy texture and the salt crystals are very, very fine and the oil in it does leave a light oily residue on the skin, so not grate for a pre-tan scrub.


All in all, this is a nice scrub and at £3.99 per 550 gr, grate value for money, but i'm the kind of girl who likes a good scrub! I like to feel like it has actually made a real difference to my skin and got rid of every dead skin cell, and this is just to creamy for me, I like it rough (no, get your head out of the gutter ladies, not in that way...) and this does not cut it for me i'm afraid. I thinks it safe to say this is the soft girl's scrub....


Have you used this? what did think of it?