DKNY Designer Handbag

Recently my older brother gifted me with a designer handbag from DKNY. He brought it from Bicester Village. 

All About The Bag:

Price: Around £215 (as expected for a designer handbag)

Basics: Two small handles and straps.

Features: Two way zip, zipped pocket inside and two small open mouthed pockets. 

Appearance: Black and gold. Oval shaped with a flat bottom. Reasonable large. Stylish with the DKNY logo imprinted into the bag inside and out, and it has a little logo that has been sewn to the bags front. The zips are like a trapeze shape with a hole in them and have the logo on each side. 

 

Overview: l love how classy this bag looks: it is very basic in design but so stylish at the same time. It is definitely one for everyday use and is a reasonable size. I personally think that this is the perfect designer hand bag to get for first timers- as it is a great price, great designer brand and great style. I love this bag and every time I look at it, my eyes light up! 

Final Conclusion: Buy it if it is within your price range and you are in need of a designer bag as it has unlimited ways to make it your own and is generally the kind of size you would go for. I love this bag and as it is my first designer handbag, there are no complains therefore giving this handbag a 5/5 for Apperance, reliability and wear. 

It's a perfect start to a beautiful collection...

Eyes Lips Face

Recently, I decided that it was high time that I purchased products from Elf (eyes,lips,face). I have been hearing so many good things about their products that it was time I put them to the test. There are two hauls in this that I decided to co-join into one to make it easier for you. For my first haul I was quite reluctant to buy anything that was over the £2 mark and therefore it was a simple haul. I also managed to snag an amazing deal where if you spend more than £15, you will also receive a free 100 eye-shadow palette which in it self is £15. Another deal is that if you spend more than £20, you get free delivery so yeah, why not! My second haul was more flexible than the first, I was experimenting with a variety of products and I absolutely love them. 

When it comes to Elf, it really is a hot or not kind of game- there are many products that you'll and many that you might hate. I think the majority of the products gets a very big tick from me. You honestly can not go wrong with them. This second haul came with a free festive bag which would have cost £18 initially and I also got free delivery. On my first order, I spent  £36.45 which then reduced to £21.45 because of the free palette. My second order was £42.25 but was then reduced to just £24.25. Total spent: £45.70. 

First haul:                                   Second haul:

I will be talking about both hauls into different make up categories.

Lips: 

There are five products which I brought from the first haul which include two lipsticks, two lip glosses and one lip liner. I also received two lip products from my second haul in the festive mystery package. 

The long wear lip liner is in the shade Bitter and is my favourite lip liner to date. It's a pink and red toned lip liner that glides on easy. It also come with it's own sharper which for £1.95 is a bargain. 

The two lipsticks that I had chosen were Charming and Seductive. I have done swatches on these and I promise you that they are not the same shade as it shows in the picture. Charming is has more of a nude undertone as opposed to Seductive's pink. 

The last two lip products  of the first haul are the Luscious Liquid Lipstick (shade Baby Lips) and the Plumbing Lip Glaze (Plum Pout) - as you can see from the images, they are alright looking however I don't like the taste of it and sometimes, whenever I wear them, my lips tingle. These two products are a no from me but you can still use them over a lipstick to enhance the colour.

From my second haul, the festive mystery bag gave me two lip products: the first is the Luscious Liquid Lipstick and the second is a Jumbo Lip Gloss Stick. I really like the jumbo stick as it applies nicely and is the perfect light red shade in Movie Star. 

Eyes: 

The first product I want to talk about is the Elf Mineral Eyeshadow in the shade Confident. I absolutely love this product- it's very pigmented and the perfect shade of gold for the festive season coming up. 

I also received this Elf eye liner and shadow stick from the Festive mystery bag and I really liked the colours. They paired a skyish blue with a midnight eye-liner- perfect for a night out. 

 

Eyebrow:

I've recently been getting the hang of this whole Eyebrow game and therefore wanted to try out the elf brow kit. I think it's a good duo- I personally love the powder more than the gel formula. 

Finally we have the 100 Piece eye-shadow Palette which came free in the first haul. I love this palette as it is pigmented and works well. I'm loving the neutral shades in this palette. 

Face: 

I have five items for this caterogy- all of which I liked or loved. The first is the mother of all concealers- The Complete Coverage Concealer. I adore this concealer and love how well it works with my skin colour. Not only that but there are four shades! This is definitely one of my favourite purchases and for the price, you'd be crazy to miss out. 

I have never tried Tinted Moisturizer that I decided to try out Elf's one. I got in the shade Almond which I believe the perfect shade for me. You can blend this in with your fingers or a brush. I like this product for those days where I'm just to lazy to put make up on.   

I brought the pressed powder and to be honest, I'm not sure if it works or if i just got the wrong or right shade. 

Finally, we have a Tone Correcting Concealer and an All Over Cover Stick. I don't like the cover stick however it can still be used with another foundation. I like the concealer but if I was to recommend any it would be the complete coverage concealer- beats this one, hands down. 

I also purchased a contour kit which includes a blusher. I like this kit and I think St. Lucia works well with my skin tone. 

Nails:

In the Festive Mystery bag, I also received two nail polishes. I don't really wear nail polishes but I love the colours they sent me. They are called Fairy Dust and Dark Navy. 

Others: 

I haven't used an eyelash curler in so long that when I saw that the Elf mechanical eyelash curler was only £1.95, I just had to get it. It works great and does the job. I also brought a zip zapper and I feel like it does work when you use it before you apply make up. Sometimes I put it on my blemishes before I go to sleep.

Last but not least are these two beauties. The lock and seal was brought because I have a lot of lose pigments at home that I really want to wear without it falling onto my cheeks that I just had to try this out. I haven't used it yet but when I do, I'm sure I'll love it. I also got a makeup mist and set to set my makeup when I have to go out for a long time. I'm hoping it works as it would be a great alternative for the Urban Decay setting spray. 

I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for reading. 

Links: http://www.eyeslipsface.com/

Real Techniques- The Travel Essentials

I'm huge fans of pixiwoo's Sam Chapman and Nic Haste. I absolutely love their YouTube account and could basically spend hours watching them do amazing make up tutorials and give the best make up advice possible. I think it's been about a year or so that they brought out the make up brush collection. Currently there are lots to choose from and they also have brought out their limited edition make up kits that are superb. I recently purchased the Night Owl Makeupkit and you shall see a tutorial and a review on it. Don't expect anything but amazing things for me to say about that! 

But today, I want to talk about their Travel Essentials. There is the original sized one and the mini trio. I knew from YouTube videos that the brushes looked amazing and seems to be really good but I was still slightly sceptical and decided that buying the mini trio was a good idea to test the products out. 

The Package:

Each collection comes with either a case or a wallet for travelling and holds the real techniques name tag and has the brushes name on the opposite side. 

The Mini Brush Trio is as expected by the title, three small brushes- all with different purposes. All these brushes have a little ring around the holder at the top to help keep a grip on it. 

The face brush has a beautiful baby pink metallic holder/handle (not sure what its actual title is. Sorry). This little brush is amazing. The brush size is perfect; it isn't too big to travel with and it isn't too small that it takes forever to apply make up with. 

The  foundation brush has a golden finish to it. The shaping of the brush works well for concealer as well as foundation and also would work well for blusher as the brush shape fits with cheek bone.

The shadow brush has a purple based handle. The shadow brush works well in the crease and is the right size to apply eyeshadow with. 

The Travel Essentials is slightly different from the mini trio. The first thing is the size but I'm sure you could see that for yourself. The second is the black wrap package at the end of the handle which is used to keep a firm grip on it. 

The face brush: 

The foundation brush: 

The shadow brush: 

The Products:

The hugest thing that I absolutely love about these brushes is the fact that the hairs don't fall off and get stuck to your face. I mean the amount of times that I have had to keep brushing the hairs off my face while using other make up brushes is actually ridiculous. This is one of the reasons why I love these brushes. 

The purpose of the face brush (pink) is: 

• To apply foundation 

• To apply power 

•To apply blusher or bronzer

The purpose of the foundation brush (gold) is: 

•To apply concealer 

•To apply foundation

•To contour 

The purpose of the shadow brush (purple) is:

•To apply eye shadow

•To apply lip products (if you are using the travel kit)

 I will never regret buying or trying these products out. They're amazing. 

I give them a rate of 5/5. I think everything I've mentioned is a good enough reason for that rate. No disappointments and these products are completely affordable. 

Thanks for reading. 

Links: 

Real techniques Travel Essentials: http://realtechniques.com/travel-essentials
Real techniques Mini Brush Trio: http://realtechniques.com/mini-brush-trio

Instagram: realtechniquesbeauty,    nixiepixi1,     pixiwoos.

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/realtechniques
                  https://www.youtube.com/user/pixiwoo 

My Links: 
Instagram:@sharin.hussain www.instagram.com/sharin.hussain
Twitter: @sharinhussain  https://twitter.com/SharinHussain

Nails & Henna

So recently, I've been keeping my nails long and now that it is long enough I've decided to do a manicure. As I'm a Muslim, I need to be able to pray and recently they have brought out breathable  nail polishes. I have researched it quiet a bit and it seems very legit. 

The breathable nail polish is created by a company called Inglot. So my cousin did the manicure on my hand using their products and it looks great. I absolutely love that I can wear nail polish as it is refreshing and just makes your hands look beautiful. 

Before I got my nails painted. Don't they just look Wow? A day after being put on.

Just an update on how they look right now.

Another thing I did was get my henna done. I think the last time I did it was like 4 years ago so it's nice to finally have some on and make my hands look more alive. 

After it was put on my hand.

During the drying time (an hour later)- it began to crumble.

At a wedding- the day after I had the henna done. 

The left hand. 

The right hand. 

Thank you for reading. 

The Links are: 

Inglot: http://inglotcosmetics.com/o2m.nail.enamel/products/141/565

Henna By Aisha Abid: https://m.facebook.com/hennabyaishaabid?refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F&_rdr 

Money On My Mind

So recently, I had an epiphany and I have basically thought of a great way to save money. It is something that everyone knows but people have got it all wrong. To really and truly save money, you cannot be tempted to open it everytime you want to splash some cash so the only way for you to feel like you're making progress is by getting a tin can. The great thing about this is that there is no way to open it unless you actually take apart of the lid using a can opener- and you wouldn't want to open it unless you are sure there's enough money in there for it to be worth opening.

I went and got my tin can from the 99p store. Cheap and no hassle. I hope this tin bank makes me at least £10, becuase to be fair it's better than nothing. I went for a Winne The Pooh one- which I find adorably cute. So be quiet! But to be honest, it was the only decent one I(as a girl) could get. As expected these tins are targeted at younger children but do I care? No, I don't and you shouldn't either. 

So far I have been adding in pennies to my collection. Mostly just 1p's and 2p's but there are a few 5p's, 10p's and 20p's. Another thing that people have got wrong is the logic of 1p's and
2p's. It all adds up. You only need 10 1p's to make 10p and 5 2p's to make 10p. It's not much but every penny counts.

For this bank, I have no motive with the money, however you might want to pursue one such as 'I want to buy a new game' or 'I want to buy new clothes' to stimulate and encourage you to save your money and remind you of your purpose.

Whenever you find yourself with coins, part some for your safe and
keep some for yourself. So what I do is keep money such as £1 and 50p's in my purse and give away my pennies however if I have more than just one of the 50p and £1, I have to at least put in one for my bank otherwise I'm still spending far too much. When it comes to notes, I don't put it in this because I have a savers account with Barclays and use that to save a bucket load.

Thank you for reading this and I hope you take my advice and start saving like I do.

P.S. I shall report back once I've opened it and calculated how much I've made.

Urban Decay Naked 3

Name: Naked Palette 3

Brand: Urban Decay

Product Type: 12 Eye shadows with double ended brush

Price: Ranges from £30-£50

Package: The package of this product is simply beautiful. It comes in a box which features the obvious, being the name, brand, and other information but they had smartly added the eye shadows product at the bottom of the package to help people see whether they wish to buy the product that consists of a range of golds, pinks, browns and blacks. 

Product: As you can see from the image below, the colours goes from light to dark. There are six eye shadows that have a shimmer to it and the other six are matted. 

I sampled the eye shadows on my arm and as you can see it didn't come out as great as I hoped it would but nevertheless, I hope it still helps. (Maybe it's my phone that didn't allow it to come out so well.) This image shows the dark colours on the right hand side of the palette.

The colours on the left hand side are mainly pinks of a variety and therefore it was hard to show on my arm but I will still add the image, in case you wish to see it. 

Brush: The palette includes a double sided brush. One side is what you would call a Tapered Blending Brush and the other side is known as Flat Eye shadow Brush. 

 To be fair, I didn't really like the brush and instead I apply the eye shadow using my MAC 219. I felt like the brush was far too soft and therefore wasn't able to hold the product in, as well as when applying the product, i could only manage to get the middle of my eye lid done and was having a hard time getting the product on the left and right side of my lid. Or maybe, I'm just using it all wrong. *sigh*

Disadvantages: Reasons a person may not wish to purchase this product is because: 

1. They already have one of their Naked Palettes and don't wish to splash more cash.
2. The price-  this particular item is between £30- £50. This product is most likely to be cheaper in other countries such as the USA, but in the UK, this is price range it is in... unfortunately.
3. You can find dupes of this product on most websites... so why not?
4. Not their kind of colours. You may be someone who likes more vibrant colours than just the natural ones. 
5. You might have looked at reviews such as this one and hear things that put you off from buying it. 

My Rate: I give this product an 8/10. The reason being that the brush isn't up to par with the whole product and because I felt like I would have preferred the first Naked palette as it has more naturals colours, but nonetheless I am still immensely pleased with this product. 

Recommended Site: Feel Unique- Urban Decay Naked Palette 3