My favourite lush products!

Hello my lovelies.

I thought I'd do a lovely lush post today, as you may well know I am obsesses with lush. I was unsure of what to do, so I thought I'd do my favourites. I've tried to narrow it down to one thing from each subject, e.g. one bubble bar, but I appreciate I have perhaps over-run on some of the categories. Some of the things from lush I haven't really dabbled in either, so there may not be some types of products such as hair care. I hope you enjoy this post!

Bubble bar


Bubble bars are arguably my favourite product from lush. They are the bath product I use the most often, and probably enjoy the most too. I found it incredibly hard to narrow down to one, but these are the creme de la creme for me.

My favourite has to be Rose Jam. This is a macaroon-shaped, sweet, rosy, jamy bar of wonder. Although it's slightly more expensive than most bubble bars of it's size, it is worth every penny since it's so lovely and it is packed full of expensive rose oils and other doo-das. You get two baths of sweet, silky, fragrant, bubbly wonder. Honestly, if you haven't tried this already, please do!






My second favourite is a tear-up between Magic Mushrooms (Valentines day LE) and Marzibain (retro.) Marzibain is a gorgeous, marzipan scent which leaves a lovely feeling to the skin. It is my comfort bath. Magic mushroom is utterly amazing, leaving the bath a red delight. My dad also loves this one.
























Bath Ballistic

Undoubtedly my favourite ballistic from lush is twilight. It is a relaxing, purple and blue bomb packed full of lavender to help me sleep. I love having this in a steaming bath right before bed and watching the colours change and glitters swirl. Often I'll buy a twilight and leave it in my room next to my bed for a few days before I use it, to comfort me and help me sleep.

Also I do love a dragons egg - it's rather spectacular!

Soap

Now this category is very easy for me: Porridge is the only real love of mine! The scent is to die for; especially when fresh. I do prefer when the oats are just in a layer on the top rather than all the way through, as I do find them a little too scrubby sometimes. Oh, you need to try this!

Face product (cleanser)

I don't often use anything apart from cleansers and face masks from lush, so this was quite an easy choice for me. Aqua marina is so amazing, perfect for my dry and sensitive skin. I just love this.

Shower Gel

I have tried not to mention too many Limited Edition products, but there's only one real fav shower gel of mine from lush: Fruity Beauty. It was a forum party product in 2011 (or perhaps very early 2012) and smells of gorgeousness. It's pineapple, raspberry, and vodka. Please someone tell me what's not to love?! Ugh this is to die for. In the regular line it'd have to be happy hippy for me, which is also amazing but not quite up to the FB standard.


And those are all my favourite products! I love lush and it's ethics and products. I hope you enjoyed this post, and please comment and follow if you like my posts!

What are your favourite lush products?

Thankyou for reading.


P.s My thanks to google images for providing me with my images used in this post!

Maybelline Color Tattoo cream shadows

Hello lovelies.

So, sorry for the fact I've been MIA lately. I've been a little under the weather with illness and also had family visiting this week, and haven't really found the time or indeed felt like blogging. I went shopping today though, and picked up some of the new shadows. It's currently 3 for 2 in Boots across all makeup, and 3 for 2 on maybelline products in Superdrug. These products have been hailed as the drugstore alternative to MAC paint pots, which I've yet to try. Some have even said they're better, so I knew I had to try them. 

The 3 shades I brought are (If I don't have the shades you want to see, my friend has a great blog post with some of the other colours here) : 

(L-R)

Eternal Gold (05)

Permanent taupe (40)

On and on Bronze (35)

Left - heavily swatched, Right-blended out.

Starting with my favourite is On and on Bronze. Firstly, can I express my immense anger that currently in the Uk we only have 6 shades? I envy you Americans, I want to try Tenacious teal and too cool. Anyway, this colour is absolutely amazing. It is a highly pigmented, smooth, creamy formula which blends easily and WILL NOT budge. As you can see it is a shimmery brown. 

On the right was blended out ALOT, this photo makes it
appear more sheer then it is.

Next is a matte shade called Permanent taupe. As you may have guessed, it's a brown-grey with slight purple undertones. This shade proved the most difficult for me to find, and I had to hunt through 3 shops before I found it tucked away in my Superdrug. However, it was worth it. It's not often you find a matte cream eyeshadow from the high street, so this is very unusual Again, it's highly pigmented. I find this one is slightly more patchy on the first swipe, so I would definently feel I had to build the colour more than the Bronze shade. Still very pretty though. 

Lastly is Eternal Gold (this swatch is terrible, but it is honestly very pigmented and closer to the pan colour). This is very pretty, and my 2 year old nephew picked this as his favourite. He loves make-up. This one got quite sheer when blended, but is very nice for a wash of glittery gold or to be packed on to make an intense gold. It's beautiful.

These are just some photos of the products in the pots, to give you an idea of what they look like before swatched.

        Eternal gold   

 Permanent taupe

On and on Bronze

Have you tried any of the Color tattoo's?
Which is your favourite?

Thankyou for reading.

Mini Lush haul!

Hello lovelies. 

So, with the valentines product soon-to-be-gone I decided to do a small order with lush. As some of you may know I am a huge fan of lush and their products.

The first things I got were 2 magic mushrooms. And no, not the kind you're thinking of! These are strawberry and cream scented bubble bars. You crumble half or the whole one, if you're feeling luxurious, under running water and you get huge fluffy bubbles. I love this so much and it goes perfectly with the (discontinued) Strawberry feels forever massage bar. They are £2.45 each.

Next, I got 2 leap frogs. These are bath bombs which smell like jasmine, sandalwood and rose. To me they smell like a gorgeous, powdery, jasmine. They are just the perfect relaxing bath scent for me! Also I love how they look in the bath, the little surprise inside and also the bath melt lips. They are just so cute! They are £2.75 each.

I also got a hot milk bubble bar. This is a limited edition, January retro product. This means it is only available in January (although they are usually sold until they run out of stock, hence why they're still being sold now!) online at lush.co.uk . It is supposed to smell like hot milk and orange, but honestly it just smells like chamomile to me. If you have ever used the aqua marina face cleanser from lush, it smells exactly the same to me. I have heard from other people that they smell orange though, but to be honest I'm a teeny bit disappointed with this. I'll see how it is in the bath though! It is £3.20. 

 

Next is 100g of Daddy-O shampoo. This is for my mum for her mothers day gift box, as she wanted some purple shampoo and of course I turned straight to lush. Not much to report on this, it just is supposed to keep the brassiness from blonde, bleached hair. It smells like violets, and the same as the disconned bathos bubble bar! This is £4.75 for 100g.

Lastly, is the retro marzibain bubble bar. This is so yummy! It smells just like almond marzipan, but so much better. It is supposed to smell like the snowcake soap, but honestly it is just so much nicer to me. Makes lovely creamy bubbles too. I wish this was available in stores so I could always have one in my stash. This retails for £3.25. 

They also gave me the little Ro's Argan body conditioner sample which I requested. It is so nice and smells just like my favourite, Rose jam. I am so pleased with my whole order and they packaged it so nicely. 

Have you tried any of these products? 

What's your favourite lush product?

Thankyou for reading.

Sleek blush by 3 - lace

Hello lovelies.

The usual sleek packaging. 

L - R: Chantilly, Guipure, Crochet.

So today I went to superdrug, and as I walked past the sleek stand I saw they had the blush by 3's. I have seen the blog posts about these 'blush by 3's' and I knew that lace was the most hard to come by, and it was also my favourite. I also really liked sugar and pumpkin, but I thought I'd get the most wear out of the lace.

It contains 3 shades, and all together they have 20g of product. It contains 2 matte shades - Crochet and Chantilly, and 1 shimmer - Guipure. It also comes in a nice 'sleek' compact (get the joke?) and has a very nice mirror. I wish I could have got more of these palettes!

Left: Very heavy swatch, Right: Blended

My favourite from the palette is Crochet. I would describe it as a bright, warm toned pink. I'm rubbish at describing colours though, so the photo is probably a better representation. It is amazingly pigmented and blends like butter. I am not sure if it is from the regular sleek blush line, but I looked online and could not find a similar match.

Left: Heavy swatch, Right: Blended

Next is Chantilly. It is a peachy orange. It looks a little scary, for me anyway, and I was unsure, but once blended is such a pretty colour. It's great as well because when you have acne like me, pink blushes can be a disaster and make acne look worse. With colours like this they just give the look of a nice flush instead of mild skin failure.





Lastly is Guipure. This is rose gold from the regular line, and also probably the most famous Nars Orgasm dupe out there. It is a rose colour with gold sparkles, as suggested by the name. It is so smooth and buttery, but I am just not a huge fan of shimmer. I would go light with this one though as it is so pigmented, but again once blended looks amazing. If I had known that this colour was rose gold, I probably would have went for  the sugar palette as I already own this. Doesn't hurt to have a spare in palette form I suppose! It's quite hard to capture a photo, but it's a little more shimmery in sunlight than shown here.

Overall, I am very pleased with this palette and am hoping to buy more! It retails for £10 from superdrug and stockists of Sleek.

Do you own any of the palettes?
What's your favourite blush?

Thankyou for reading.

Mac Plink! lipstick- swatches and review.

Hello my lovelies.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I have been so busy with work and haven't found the time to post alot. I am hoping to change that soon though!

So Plink was my first ever mac lipstick, and I purchased it as a recommendation in an ancient video of juicystar07's. It is described on the mac website as a warm seashell pink and I think that's pretty accurate.
 It is a very light, 'juicy' looking pink.

It is rather sheer being a lustre finish but I really do like the subtle colour and sheen it gives to the lips. I have gotten so much wear out of this lipstick because it goes with everything and requires no effort at all.


This is the most accurate photo I could capture!

If you are not such a fan of sheer lipsticks however, this may not be for you.

Plink! and the other permanent Mac lipsticks retail for £13.50 for 3g of product.

Do you like Plink?
What's your favourite Mac lipstick?

Thankyou for reading!

Roaccutane diary - Week 2.

Hello lovelies!

So, I finally went to the dermatologist after waiting for over 3 months for my appointment. I researched lots and lots in the waiting time as I wanted to be able to ask about Roaccutane because quite honestly I've tried a lot of antibiotics and prescription medicines, and none have worked. So when the appointment finally came around and I was prescribed Roaccutane. It is somewhat of a wonder drug judging from other's experiences.

I wasn't expecting to be prescribed straight away as after being on 2 different oral antibiotics (tetracyclines and something else) and numerous face products. I'm on 3 20mg capsules a day.

My mum and dad were fully supportive of me taking Roaccutane as they know how much having acne bothers me and they want me to be happy. I told them of the side effects and we were given a booklet too. I was quite surprised as I was given the tablets before having a blood test and took them for a day. I went back the following day to have my blood taken and haven't heard anything back so I am assuming that either the results aren't back (likely) or it's good news. They have to take the blood to monitor liver enzyme levels, triglyceride's (fats), cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

I was so thrilled to be given the drug. My skin really is a large factor in my life and I don't think anyone can truly understand how it effects someone until they've experienced it themselves. I often feel incredibly self-concious and hold back because I am embarrassed about my skin. I don't really talk to anyone about it but I know that I could if I ever feel the need. I would say my acne is moderate, definitely not mild but not quite severe. I'm not confident enough to post any photos yet, but if you would like one with the update next week then please comment and let me know.

So, if you're reading this you are most likely on Roaccutane (called accutane in the states), and you know that the side effects are pretty damn bad. The most common are extremely dry skin and lips, inflamed skin, muscle ache, and your acne getting worse at first. At the most extreme there are cases of suicide. You CAN'T get pregnant whilst on Roaccutane. There is a huge chance of deformities in your baby and when you get prescribed you have to either sign a form saying you aren't sexually active or you have to use/take 2 types of contraception. You can look up online the entire list of side effects online.

Personally, after 2 weeks I have noticed some changes, although none in the state of my acne. I've been getting very dry lips and skin around the acne itself and my nose too. I've been using some Avene extremely rich compensating cream for around the nose and just the rich compensating cream for my actual face. I went into boots and asked the guy to help me, and luckily he had used Roaccutane before and recommended it. He gave me a couple of samples so perhaps you could ask in your local store. It's a bit of a dilemma as I don't want to be adding a ton of product to my face and clogging it up, but if the product is non-comodegenic than  it's pretty much fine. The Avene products have been working very well. For my lips I've been using carmex and Burt's bees, but it hasn't been working. I need to try and find a good lip balm! I use cream regularly on them.  They are suffering the worst. It's hard to explain the tight feeling, but you know those fake tattoos you'd have as a kid, and they'd be all tight and horrible? It's a little like that. If I move my mouth I can feel it stretching and chapping. I've been adding some of the Avene cream to my lips too, and it's been helping a little. They are beginning to crack in the middle and especially the sides. I hope I don't end up with a joker mouth!
The muscle pain hasn't been too bad, just a bit more achey and creaky than usual but nothing I can't handle.

I think that's pretty much it! I apologise for the huge amount of words and distinct lack of photos but I hoped you enjoyed this post never the less.

Are you on Roaccutane?
What was your experience?
Thankyou for reading.

Book lusts

Hello my lovelies!
I don't know if you guys know, but I'm pretty obsessed with reading. I can easily read a book a night so I'm always on the look-out for some new ones to read. I've compiled a list, and these are at the top.

The time travellers wife by Audrey Niffenegger


Now, I'm not usually one for sci-fi but judging from the reviews this is more a love story. I've heard that this has a very sad ending which I personally love. It's received rave reviews, and there has also been a movie made. This is a quick summary of the plot: When Henry meets Clare, he is twenty-eight and she is twenty. Henry has never met Clare before; Clare has known Henry since she was six. Impossible but true, because Henry finds himself periodically displaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. Henry and Clare's attempts to live normal lives are threatened by a force they can neither prevent nor control, making their passionate love story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable. The Time Traveller's Wife is a story of fate, hope and belief, and more than that, it's about the power of love to endure beyond the bounds of time.

1984 by George Orwell


This was written in 1948 and it makes predictions about the future, which pretty much turn out to be true. I think this sounds really interesting and the term 'big brother' was taken from this book. This is a quick summary:
Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell's narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.


Unweaving the rainbow by Richard Dawkins
This isn't a fiction book like the others I've picked. It sounds really interesting and is certainly one of those books which will make me think. This is too advanced for me to explain so I'm just going to insert the summary to explain:
Did Newton "unweave the rainbow" by reducing it to its prismatic colors, as Keats contended? Did he, in other words, diminish beauty? Far from it, says acclaimed scientist Richard Dawkins; Newton's unweaving is the key to much of modern astronomy and to the breathtaking poetry of modern cosmology. Mysteries don't lose their poetry because they are solved: the solution often is more beautiful than the puzzle, uncovering deeper mysteries. With the wit, insight, and spellbinding prose that have made him a best-selling author, Dawkins takes up the most important and compelling topics in modern science, from astronomy and genetics to language and virtual reality, combining them in a landmark statement of the human appetite for wonder. This is the book Richard Dawkins was meant to write: a brilliant assessment of what science is (and isn't), a tribute to science not because it is useful but because it is uplifting.





Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Lastly, we have Crank. This is about how drugs grip one girls life and change her whole personality as she struggles to gain control. I love the cover too! This is part of a series, and here is a quick summary:

Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father, Kristina disappears and Bree takes her place. Bree is the exact opposite of Kristina - she's fearless.
Through a boy, Bree meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild, ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul - her life.







So, that was my quick lust list. I had plenty of others too, but these were the highest on my list. I'll let you know how I like these books if and when I buy them. I've been really wanting a kindle lately, as I'm running out of storage space for my books and also it's so much more convenient to have an E-reader. As I'm still in school though I don't just have £80 laying around to buy it, so I'd have to save up. I'm still undivided.

Do you have any book recommendations or have you read any of these?
Thankyou for reading.