Wednesday, 28 January 2015

Life Style: New Years Resolutions

I never really gave it a thought to actually jot down my New Year's Resolutions but to be completely honest, I don't actually ever make any resolutions but this year I want to follow some ideas and plans that I definitely want to stick to.

1. Blog/YouTube: 
Share more experiences and personal opinions on both my blog and my YouTube account (which I have yet to make- I've been planning this since 2012). Do tutorials and reviews and just get into the internet spirit. 

2. Staying Healthy:
This is a tough one for me. I love food(who doesn't?)  but I love all junk foods- fizzy drinks, chocolate and crisps! One of the things I want to do this year is cut down on my snacks. I've also downloaded some apps which help with yoga and are 5/10 minutes work outs. 

3. Writing:
Another thing that I love doing is story writing. It's a hobby that I don't think will ever be lost to me. This year, I hope to have completed at least 5 novels that have been incomplete for a long while. I promise to get it done. 

4. Be More Organized: 
I love being organised but sometimes, it gets too messy for me to handle. That's why I want to follow through with everything I need to do and stick to my schedule. This is also for cleaning my room and organising it. 

5. Letting My Creative Side Run Wild:  
I'm currently studying Fashion in college and I love it but I need to do projects outside of the course to better myself and really just see how far I can take my creative side. I have already started some projects that I already completed but wanted to improve and I am in the process of working some new fun and exciting projects. It will all add up and look great for my fashion portfolio. 

6. Learning Henna & Nail Art: 
I really feel like learning how to do henna and nail art will enhance my skills as a fashion designer. It will provide me to be more creative and works well with the fact that it relates to beauty and I feel it is essential I learn and practice. Truth be told, I've always wanted to learn how to do henna. I've recently become obsessed with nail art and want to learn different ways to style my nails. 

Thursday, 15 January 2015

Original Beauty Blender

I've always wanted to try out the biggest talk in the world of beauty. The Beauty Blender. All the tutorials that I have watched have shown how amazingly it works and I hope it does the same for me. 

I have a problem with getting my foundation to look flawless on my skin. Now I don't know if it's my foundation or my moisturiser but it's been bugging the crap out of me. I hoping that this will help make my foundation look smoother and more flawless. 
The beauty blender comes with a blender cleanser which is a soap you use to clean the beauty blender. I personally don't know whether you have to get the cleanser in order to clean your blender however I do know that a lot of people had been complaining about it staining, so maybe it's a good thing, I got the cleanser too. 
I know that a lot of people complain about the blender being small but to me it's quite average and I don't hate that. It's been made to fit into the corner of your eyes and be able to blend in a diagonal motion. 

So I've just used it for the first time and what you have to do is wet the blender and then squeeze the access water:
  

(It barely fit back into the box! Plus I had to take out the cleanser!) 

Overall I think the beauty blender works just a little bit better than brushes because you don't see harsh lines and it doesn't look to cakey, but that's just how I feel. 

Let me know how you feel about the Beauty Blender. 

Wednesday, 14 January 2015

Ciate Nail Polishes

     Welcome back. So recently Ciate London were having a sale on their website and I just couldn't resist. I brought the Mini Mani Manor which was priced at only £14.70, from £49. That's an amazing bargain as you get 24 amazing nail products.  It's a cute little advent calendar. 


      Here are some of the swatches I did. I love numbers 1, 5, and 7, they're gorgeous! All the nail varnishes genuinely dry in 30 seconds if not less and I love that as I did the swatches one after the other with no problem of smudges or mishaps. 

Check out my Instagram page to view more!

Sunday, 21 December 2014

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...

Sunday, 30 November 2014

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. 

Tuesday, 16 September 2014

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