Autumn Loves

Well, we are very much in to this lovely season, my favourite of all, so I thought I'd share with you guys my most beloved things of the Autumn period.

Seasonal Scented Candles

Cosy Spice Candle and Warm Apple and Cinnamon Candle: Tesco

There's nothing more comforting than a warm and cosy scent in your home at this time of year. Having some candles lit in my bedroom makes me so relaxed, and the scent from each of these candles are stunning individually, and a burst of Autumn freshness when you light them together. These candles both burn for up to 30 hours and were only £2 each, a simple way to add a comforting touch to your Autumn home.

Cosy Bedding

Double Bed Sheet: Asda, Throw: Primark

Now, as I have a single bed in my humble student accommodation, I always add to the cosy-ness with a double quilt. There's nothing better than getting in to bed after a long day and rolling yourself up like a little burrito and falling to sleep in your own little cocoon, well not for me anyway. To add some Autumnal charm I found my old Primark throw and added it in, and when it's extra cold I snuggle up in that before I wrap myself up in my quilt. Pure bliss!

Snuggly Slippers

Slipper Boots: Asda

Especially with the cold laminate floor of my house, we are all in need of snuggly slippers at this time of year, every year I have a different pair of these, and, sorry if I offend, I will never go back to floppy slippers, boots all the way since 2009. I've always been of the belief that if your feet are cold, then your entire body will be as well, so the most simple way to keep warm in these colder months are a lovely snuggly pair of slippers in my opinion, I'd be lost this time of year without them.

Winter Coats

Coat: Zara, Scarf: Vintage

I am such a lover of big coats, I was looking for the perfect coats in magazines while I was on holiday, in the 40 degree in Gran Canaria, believe it or not. I love my salmon pink boyfriend style cost, easily wearable, and layering up in this weather just makes you so cosy and warm. It's one of my favourite things about the season, coats mainly but the Autumn style in general.

Autumnal Nails

Barry M Matte Nail Paint in Rhossili, Barry M Gelly Hi Shine Nail Paint in Mustard, Barry M Matte Nail Paint in Crush

Being a massive polish and nail art lover, Autumnal shades in nail polish are so perfect. They suit all the colours of the nature around you, so why not plop that colour on your nails as well? Well that's my thinking on the matter anyway. The Barry M colour selection is incredible as well, so if you're on the hunt for these kinds of shades, then Barry M is the way to go, in my opinion.

HALLOWEEN!

Liquid Latex: Amazon, Blood Pellets: Poundland

As you may be aware, Halloween is my favourite time of Autumn. The dress up and the escape is so freeing, and of course, Halloween make up! I've already done a post on the kind of look I'm going to be doing for this year, of course there'll probably be some changes, upgrades and different styles, I tend to make things up as I go along half the time. But I'm so excited to break out the zombie look tomorrow night, and I'll be doing a full post on my make up and costume tomorrow.

Dark Lipstick

Rimmel Kate Moss Lipstick: Shade 107, Rimmel Moisture Renew Lipstick: Shade 380 Dark Knight, New Look Pure Colour Lipstick: Shade 67 Burgundy, Old Avon Lipstick: Dark Cherry, Revolution Amazing Care Lipstick: Love Nude

Now, I never used to wear lipstick in any capacity this time last year, that was mainly due to the fact that I have been self conscious of my teeth for a few years now which have come under damage due to some health issues, but I am currently whitening my teeth (a post coming up about this in the near future!) so my confidence about them has skyrocketed, so over the past few weeks I have been picking up new shades perfect for the Autumnal look. It suits the colours of nature as well, and I'm rather pale so a dark lip against my skin is quite the look, and I was always jealous of the people who could rock lipstick, and now I'm working up the confidence to, I shall be joining those people!

I hope you enjoyed reading, and we can all enjoy this Autumnal season together. Do you guys have any Autumn posts, I'd love a good read of them.

Superdrug 3 for 2 Cosmetics Offer

So I was food shopping this evening and may have stumbled in to Superdrug (as you do) and to my absolute delight their in store offer was 3 for 2 on all cosmetics! Meaning any brand and any 3 and the cheapest product would be free! Of course I jumped at the chance, and it just so happened that I was in need of some new bits, what timing eh?

So first off, I'd like to just express my love for Revolution's eyeshadow palettes, if you don't know what these beautiful things are you are missing out! They contain 18 shadows (12 shimmer and 6 matte shades), I've already got the Dia De Los Muertos palette and the Run Boy Run palette. But I really needed some gold tones for this wonderful autumn/winter season. So I found the What You Waiting For palette, which looks a little something like this:

I also realised I have no plum/purple lipstick (what???!) I have endless amounts of red berry and deep red shades, but no plum, and in this season, it's pretty much required! So I picked up a lovely shade from Rimmel's moisture renew range in shade 380 Dark Knight, and that looks like this:

And finally I have been hearing so many wonderful things about the Maybelline Colour Tattoos, I know I'm a little late to the party here but you'll get over that, so I picked up the lovely purpley shade that will be perfect this autumn/winter season and that is metallic pomegranate, and here it is:

I'm excited about these lovely products, so perfect for the warmer tones of the autumn/winter colour chart, and even though I'm pale, I've got no issue rocking the dark make up! Hopefully I'll be doing some autumnal looks with all these goodies in the near future, so be sure to check them out.

Zombie Look

Hey lovelies! So Halloween is coming around, and I am a massive lover of this holiday (can you tell?) so I thought I'd do a sneak peak of the make up I shall be sporting on the spookiest night of the year! I'm off to my lovely classmates' joint birthday party, which is obviously Halloween themed and falls on the day! I became massively obsessed with Halloween/horror make up/SFX in my first year of university and ever since then have been creating these looks, by teaching myself through YouTube videos, and here is the result this year.

I have made this in to a video tutorial, so once I rack up a decent enough blog I will be putting every video (which is also racking up as I do a lot of videos of looks I haven't even posted here) on to my YouTube channel, which is under construction, so fingers crossed you guys enjoy my blog enough to head on over there and subscribe.

But until that all happens, here's a little step to step on how I got this awesome scary look.

    1. The first step is to make yourself look all emaciated and skinny, I did this by applying a reddy/purply toned lipstick to the dip at the bottom of the neck and then blending upwards, do this also to the collar bones, top of the ribs and essentially any dips or bumps on your chest area, and then over the top of the lipstick, blend in a brown eyeshadow to define these areas more. Do this to any exposed area, the top I'm going to be wearing on Halloween is going to have a gaping hole in the side, so I'll be defining my ribs this way (and probably adding some wounds and gore too!)

    2. Use the same lipstick and shading technique on your face as well, define the eyes and eye sockets, the cheek bones and around the forehead too, basically anywhere you would normally contour.

    3. Next I added some spider veins throughout the look, do this by taking a thin liner brush, or an angled brush which I used, and taking the lipstick you used earlier to create jagged lines to look like veins.

    4. Next it's time to apply your liquid latex, build up the layers about 10 times to make sure it's a thick enough patch to work with, make sure you let the liquid dry fully before you apply the next layer.

    5. Then take some tweezers and pull a hole in the latex and then ease it apart until you're happy with the shape of your wounds.

    6. Fill the wound in with the lipstick from before, then you can use blacks, browns or purples to enhance the bruises/deep wound look. You're also going to want to go around the edges of the wound with a light concealer to make sure it blends in to your skin.

    7. Next I decided I wanted my lips to look dry and sore, I did this my putting a thin layer of concealer over them, and then used the lipstick and an angled brush to created small cracks in the lips, and I extended them off to the side as well.

    8. Next I added a few droplets of blood to the wounds, just under my eyes and around my mouth as well. And that's the look complete!

Link me to any Halloween looks you're doing this year, and we can all bask in the glory that is Halloween! Lots of love.

Primark Brush Review

Now I'm always on the hunt for all things affordable. Being a student the funds are, obviously, limited for things such as make up brushes. I own a variation of brushes, ones I've acquired back when there was time to have a job, or birthday/Christmas presents, so I'm used to some good quality brushes (I own Real Technique, Revlon, MAC and Smashbox brushes). But alas, where money lacks, I need to find cheaper alternatives.

I'm never opposed to the low end options, in fact my make up collection is full of them, and if I find cheaper products that do the same job, then that's all my boxes ticked!

On to these specific brushes, I picked up the three I was in dyer need of, which were The Stippling Brush, The Double-Ended Concealer Brush and The Liquid Foundation Brush. Let's jump straight in to the review.

The Stippling Brush

The Good

Obviously, as it's from Primark, it was a steal! I paid £1.50 for a make up brush, that's incredible to me. I've been using this to apply my contouring and bronzing powders as it's the perfect size. The look of is product is lovely as well, simple black with a nice pop of pink. As it has synthetic bristles, the brush is a dream to clean, product doesn't stick and it dries pretty quick, so no lay over day of having to use a random spare brush!

The Okay

When applying with a light hand, it does the job, albeit not as well as my trusty Revlon brush (RIP, I lost it way back in first year, and made the difficult decision to do without, which now seems impossible) as you have to literally have to use the lightest touch, slight heavy-handedness of any kind will result in random splotches of brown on your face, not a great look, regardless of what Jodie Marsh may try to have you believe.

The Bad

The stippling brush is a great product, I have nothing completely negative to say.

The Double-Ended Concealer Brush

The Good

Again, an absolutely bargain, I believe this one was £2, makes sense as it's two brushes in one. I prefer the larger end, and that's the only end I use for concealer. Again it's a dream to clean due to its synthetic bristles, and the subtle but eye catching presentation.

The Okay

It tends to retain a lot of the product, which isn't ideal for wastage but it's not dramatic so it's an Okay not a Bad at the moment.

The Bad

I do NOT use the smaller ended brush, it's useless. I used this end to begin with for concealer, and the product clumped up throughout the brush, so I was ending up with huge globjules of congealed concealer underneath my eyes, not attractive and certainly not happening again.

The Liquid Foundation Brush

The Good

I'll keep repeating how good these prices are, £1.50! Really can't go too wrong there, and another note on the look of the product, a total lover of pink here! (Can you tell?) 

The Okay

I'm not sure why, but the bristles are a bit more prone to breaking off on this specific brush, which is a bit annoying when you're applying foundation and you discover a black bristle suffocating underneath your foundation.

The Bad

This product retains the most ridiculous amount of product, such is making it the most horrendous thing to clean, I spent 25 minutes just waiting for the water to run clean with the amount of product. I tend to use this while my Smashbox brush is drying, so it does a pretty substandard job compared to my beloved Smashbox.

On a whole, they really are not bad, and for what you pay, actually, they're pretty spectacular. Compared to my higher end brushes they're obviously not as good quality, but for a cheaper alternative when you just can't afford those ridiculous prices, I wouldn't mind recommending them to you.