Northern Light Soap -- LUSH

So, I touched on my spree in Lush the other day, but there was one purchase that really stuck out for me, and that's the Northern Lights Soap. I bought it just for the colour, I don't think I even smelled it until I got home!

It's part of their holiday collection (at least in the UK), it's flourescent green/yellow with a dark orange/red outer rim. It also has these white shreds of what I assume, soap. The scent description says lime and pine, and I definitely get that immediately, I don't have to spend ages trying to decipher the individual scents. It's a very distinct, and quite strong, but pleasing scent. I love citrus so I'm a little biased though.

When you wash your hands, the lather is lovely and smooth, a lot creamier than other soaps, but upon rinsing, like all soaps and my hands, as soon as I rinse, my hands feel... Not dry but kind of like there was a residue on my hands. However, the lather was a fun green colour, so that makes it up, I'll just use hand cream. When I put the soap on the side of the sink to rinse, then picked it up again, it had left a green residue mark on my sink, but that's what you get for flouro soap!

I love this soap, and the little things that are bad, I can just pile the good reasons; the gorgeous smell or the amazing colour, on and it's all good.

Also! I think it's quite large, so I'm cheap and have cut mine into quarters, and I'm going to wrap them individually up and give one to my mum, and one to my sister for Christmas (I only tested one quarter of the soap for washing my hands).

I got this from my local Lush store, and it cost me £3.42 as I got just over a little 100g, but the website says that per 100g it's £3.25 :)


Blurry picture to show the craziness of the flouro~

Available at Lush stores and online.

Rimmel Colour Rush Eye Quads

Rimmel Colour Rush Quads.

I found these on my computer, from a couple of months ago, so I thought I'd share. I don't have pictures of the actual products, but swatches are always good~


Smokey Brun. The lightest colour is a vanilla sheen kind of colour, perfect for when you're doing a simple look where you want the actual lid to look untouched, and all the work going on in the crease. The rest of the colours are all smooth and easy to work with. This was my favourite quad out of the bunch.


This is a better picture of the darkest brown. All of the other colours were showing true to life, apart from this one. Here you can see it's a darker golden brown with gold reflects.


State of Grace.
I was suprised at how easy this quad was to work with. Usually, blues are a b*tch to work with, but this was just fine. The only troubles came to the purpley-blue at the end which had a tendency to be a bit chalky and patchy.
All colours are true to life :)


Beauty Spells.
I'm not sure why I had such a hard time photographing this quad, but it annoyed the hell out of me. The colours look gorgeous in the pan, but this is a lilac quad, so I knew not to get my hopes up. I was right to. This quad is the one I was least impressed with. The light silver is ok, a little sheer, but ok. The lilac isn't really lilac with one swipe; it's glitter with a lilac sheen. The plummish colour is very powdery, I don't want to say chalky, but it's very... Clumpy, the black however, wins. It's a matte black with silver glitter, and it does the job just fine.


The black in Beauty Spells. Glitter!


Sun Safari.
This quad is a nice warm collections of brown/sand/golden tones. The light colour is similar to the light colour in Smokey Brun. The two middle colours are very close in person, and almost dupes of each other, but when they're built up, one has a more distinct orange tone. The darkest colour is gorgeous. It's an almost metallic burnt golden-bronze. I love this colour so much.


All of the shadows are nice and smooth to work with, and they're not bad to play with. I was expecting the dud to be Beauty Spells, but that's because purples/lilacs are so hard to get right. That's ok! Rimmel can be forgiven ;)

All eyeshadows were bought by me, a few months ago, so I couldn't tell you the price, but could be bought from Rimmellondon.com, Superdrug and Boots stores. It's Rimmel though, so I'd think around £5-8.

Quick post! Nail hauls

So... As a student, with no money, what do you do when you're tired, grumpy and have no money? You spend £30 in Lush and buy nail polish, that's what!


Art Deco Nail Art Lacquers in Black, Yellow, Baby Pink, Collection 2000 Hot Looks Fasty Dry polish in Wink, Art Deco in Gold Glitter, Silver Glitter and White, Collection 2000 Nail Care 2 in 1 Base Coat and a Glow in the Dark polish from Poundland.



All polishes apart from the Base Coat were found in my local Poundland, so I was very happy (I bought the Black and White Art Deco polish and the Hot Looks one yesterday and the remaining lot today) The base coat was in Superdrug for £2.99.

I like finding things in the Pound Shop that are good quality; the only problem is that you seldom find things in there two visits in a row. I was incredibly lucky that I managed to get the rest of the Art Deco polishes (I got all of the colours they had), because usually if I left it a day between, I wouldn't have gotten a chance!

P.S, I feel much better now, I think I might have a bath with a third of my Candy Mountain Bubble Bar :)

MUA Eyeshadows

I bought 2 new MUA eyeshadows a week ago, and I thought I'd share pictures of swatches of all the shadows I currently own (I'm going into town tomorrow to pick up some more and a few nail polishes, AND pretty much all of the I Love... Chocolate and Oranges range).

Unfortunately, I depotted them all into a tin before taking photos; it never crossed my mind that I should photo before swatching that day! Nevermind! I have a photo that I took a few months ago when I bought my first round of the shadows, and the packaging is still exactly the same.


Plain black casing with a clear plastic lid. The shadows aren't hard to open, so your nails will be intact after opening. They're also sturdy as I was able to do a whole move across the country without them shattering.


Back of the packaging. Each pan holds 2g worth of product, so £1 for 2g, deal right?


These are the swatches done in my room, under tungsten lighting, and all of the shadows are of the pearl texture. I think that number 26 is the wrong number, so we'll call it 2? from here on.



Shade 3: A pearl finish, it looks like tin foil when swatched on your hand. It's very smooth, almost creamy, and has pretty good pay off
Shade 9: A duochrome. The base colour is very pink, as you can see in the photo, but it flashes between blue and pinky purple. Needs to be built up though to work well
Shade 14: A darkened forest green. Soft, and better colour pay off than shade 9. Is a pearl finish
Shade 11: Metallic golden brown. This colour is gorgeous, kind of reminds me of Urban Decay's Toasted; maybe not so much in photos, but in person, yes.
Shade 12: Possibly the most talked about MUA shadow. This is the dupe for MAC's Club. Reddish brown base with a green duochrome, which you can just about see here. I love this colour, it's the ultimate 2 colours in one. Smokey eyes are effortless with this colour... Just be careful you don't end up looking bruised with all the red and brown.
Shade 13: Dark Royal Purple. I want to love this colour so much, and in the photos it's easy to see, but look, the pay off is bad. This swatch was done on top of Too Faced Shadow Insurance, and it was still patchy. I tried it on top of coloured bases too, and it's still patchtastic; and not in the good way.
Shade 2?: Golden Rose colour. Starts off sheer, when I swatched it initially, I thought I had finally come across a bad MUA pearl shadow. Naw, not by a long shot. It swatches beautifully, smooth. It's a pretty rose-y colour, and it makes me think of the transition from summer to fall when you don't want to darken it up, and you still want to cling to the roses/corals of summer.


All of these shadows are in Superdrug stores around the country, retailing at £1 each.

All purchased by me, with money that is my own :)

Khaki Force and a Raindrop

On my way home from uni I popped into my local Superdrug and picked up these.


Two Miss Sporty Lasting Nail Colours, in Raindrop, and Khaki Force.

These are two excellent fall/autumn colours; they come in the standard Miss Sporty rounded glass bottle, and are small enough to throw in your bag and for you to lose it in there.

Raindrop is a blackened blue heavy teal colour, which I am in love with, ever since swatching. The drawback with this colour is that the formula of the polish is actually very watery, and it takes around 3 coats for the colour to be fully opaque. Think dupe of OCC's Echo

Khaki Force is a yellow heavy khaki colour (funnily enough :P), and after one coat the colour is pretty gross. Ever seen baby poop? Yeah, it's that colour after one coat, but after two and three coats, it's a much nicer darkish yellow green. The formula is a little less watery.

I don't know the wear of these just yet, as I only bought them two days ago, and I have just put a fresh coat of Raindrop on my nails, but as soon as I know, I'll update this post.

Courtsey of my little nail swatch wheel thing, here are swatches of Khaki Force and Raindrop!



Here they're shown as they are after normal application. My favourite way to wear these though is with a matte top coat; I use Claire's matte top coat (£2.25), because I'm cheap like that. My camera subsequently died as I wrote that, so I can't post pictures right now of the polishes with the top coat; sorry!



Nail Polishes can be bought from Miss Sporty website or Superdrug stores. The polishes cost £1.99.

Purchased with my own money, from Superdrug.

Yet another hair post~

So, I felt it was time for a hair growth progress type post~


March '11. At this point, I had to straighten my hair everyday or the craziness that is my hair would be unleashed. The volume of my hair naturally is unreal and it's just so big. Straightening my hair is a very lengthy process because my hair's so thick, but to be honest, I do skimp a lot on the back sections of my hair.


As you can see, that purple colour is pretty much gone, apart from up in my roots. Sad times, but, I have a mid brown which I'll dye over with, because my hair seems to have patches of rose in it.


You can kind of see where the purple is at the roots, and where it fades out into a rose/brown. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the camera to capture the weirdness that is my hair colour, accurately, at the moment.



I've been religiously using a deep conditioning treatment once a week, and using Herbal Essences shampoos/conditioners, or the Dove ones, because I know my hair likes those, my hair is in good condition; it's soft, growing (which is rare for my side of the family, our hair grows out rather than down) and generally easy to work with.
I've not heat styled my hair in about 2 months now, I've just been lazy to tell the truth, but I think my hair has benefited from it.

But...

My hair is finally growing!

Cosmetic Kingdom

I'm suffering from Fresher's Flu at the moment (which as a second year is pretty depressing), so instead of sitting through Empirical Psychology today and infecting everyone, I decided to do a blog post. So without further ado...

Haul time!

I was browsing around the internet trying to find some cheap make up, because of course, as a struggling student, I need to find a way to find it discounted, and Cosmetic Kingdom seemed like a great place to start.

It looks like they stock mainly discontinued drugstore brands as well as a few higher end brands here and there. I spent £10.08 all together, and my order arrived within two days, so super happy :)




First is this Prestige Lip Balm in Strawberries and Cream for 99p



I can't tell you the smell, unfortunately, but it tastes slightly sugary when it's on your lips, and feels like a thicker version of the Little Red Tin from Superdrug



Second is a 17 Trio in Plum Dressing, which cost £1.49



Now, the lightest colour is a delicate but frosty cream/pink, the plum is a satin plum colour, almost verging on matte texture, and the grey is a gorgeous cool toned brown/grey; it reminds me of Copperplate by MAC



Maybelline quad in Sunlit Bronze, costs £1.99



The colours in this quad are all shimmers/frosts, which are ok, but I would've preferred the Outer Corner colour to be satin/matte to balance things out. Also, the texture of the eye shadows are... Almost gritty when you swatch it with your fingers. I tried swatching with the sponge tipped applicator it came with and results were much better. Must be used with a base!



Maybelline Moisture Extreme Lipsticks in Peach Colada and Cool Watermelon, costs 95p each



Taken with flash, the shimmerfest in the Peach Colada (on the left) is near impossible for me to photograph, but it's reminiscent in nail polishes that have the micro shimmer to create gorgeous metallic tones (Astro Gold by BYS). Cool Watermelon is a creamy coral pink which reminds me of Brighton Rocks by Topshop. There's no shimmer in it at all.



This picture shows a little of the shimmer in the Peach Colada



Maybelline Expertwear Eyeshadow in Silken Taupe. This colour errs more on the grey side of taupe, and is also quite sheer. It has more of a creamy texture than the quad above. Again, must be used with a base underneath for you to catch the best of this product. Costs 49p



17 Solo Eyeshadow in Mardi Gras. Now, I remember this colour in Boots as having more of a sheen to it, but it's not bad at all, in fact, it has a sheen, just not as much as I remember. It's similar to the grey in Plum Dressing, but more on the brown side of grey/taupe. Costs 99p



Collection 2000 Hot Looks Nail Polish in BMX Bandit. Pale blue heavy lavender. Shown with the Maybelline shadow to give an idea of sides. Opaque in 2 coats, costs 99p



Now for my last purchase. This is a Miss Kiss Lipgloss Glitz Ball. I got this because I wanted my order to be over £10 so I could get free shipping and this cost 75p



As you can see, the ball twists apart to show two sides of lipgloss, a blue side and a yellow. This product is pretty to look at, and will look nice on my dresser, but I can't say I'm fond of it at all. It's really sticky, and initially, I thought it'd be sheer, without a hint of the blue/yellow. This isn't the case. I've swatched it on my hand, and on my lips, and I just don't like the feel of it. It is funky looking, so I don't mind too much



The yellow side has glitter in it, but the glitter doesn't really translate when you swatch it.




All in all, I'm extremely happy with this haul, it was cheap, the customer service was good, and shipping was fast. Even the Miss Kiss lipgloss isn't that bad, just not to my taste. There are lots of obscure brands that I've never heard of, but they definitely interested me, so I think my next purchase will be of some of those, as well as the classic Rimmel/Maybelline.

Definitely ordering again!


Products were purchased from Cosmetic Kingdom with my own money.

Purple hair!

I've been busy this summer, and with painfully slow internet with a ridiculously low allowance on upload/download, I've not been able to upload all of the fantastic pictures that I've taken for the blog.

But, my new internet for my new flat is due to arrive tomorrow, so I thought I'd suck it up and upload a few pictures and show you how I went from blonde to purple in 30 minutes~




The hair dye I used was Schwarzkopf Live Colour XXL in 87 Mystic Violet from Superdrug, and I think it cost me £4.89, but don't quote me on that. I've used dyes from this line before, so I knew that they're reliable and also that my hair likes to hold on to these colours, and it doesn't damage my hair.


This was the colour I went from; it's pretty close to my natural colour, but my natural colour is a little darker, maybe half a shade darker. My hair had been put up in a mini ponytail all day and it had rained so my hair was all fluffy.



This is the picture I have of the actual dying process. When the dye goes on, initally it's not dark, and I had a mini panic and thought that I was going to have to send my brother back into town to fetch me another box, but as it started developing, it darkened up and my panic subsided :)


This is my hair towel dried and had a shower comb run through it to stop pesky tangling, and as you can see, it was pretty blue when it was wet, and looking through my hair like that, it was rather cool~

This is the final result! My skin is finally realising it's autumn, so all the moisture has disappeared, and as I get with every autumn/winter, I have dry patches on my cheeks, so I decided to spare you and hide under my polo neck.



I had just taken my hair out of a ponytail and shaken it up, excuse the flyaways at the front) I coloured my hair maybe two weeks ago, and it's still really vibrant, and looks gorgeous when the light catches it, my only problem is that it seems to be fading quiet fast, but I suppose that's because of the blue in it. I'm left with a kind of pink/brown tinge to my hair now. It's a nice colour! Don't get me wrong, but... It's not the colour I wanted.

End of Year 1

I'm in the process of moving my stuff from my dorm back home for the summer! I'm officially finished with my first year of university. I didn't do as well as I wanted, but that was because I had huge issues at the start of the year which trickled through and contaminated the rest of the year. I will say this though, I will not let that happen again.


Of all the things I gained though, the thing I'm most proud of is gaining my new best friends. It was an ok year until I met those people; then it turned great :D

Hope you guys all have a great summer!

New hair

Like many natural dark haired girls, I've tried to go blonde at least once, and they all ended in disaster.

Until this time :)

I had my hair done professionally at a salon for £63 to bleach/colour/trim my hair, the whole process took 2 hours because I already lightened it before I went in (and my hair went a delicious shade of orange as a result).

Not feeling photogenic today :/ so have an awkward side shot :D



The colour on my screen is pretty close to the colour of my hair now, so there we go! New hair!