February Favourites

Models Own nail polishes in Top Turquoise, Lilac Dream, Soda Pop Pink and Beth's Blue. 

Real Techniques stippling brush. 

Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer.

Bourjois blush in Rose Coup De Foudre.

Maybelline Eye Studio Lasting Drama Gel Liner.

My bird print scarf.

Just a few of my favourite things in February. Some things I bought ages ago (the Gel Liner) but I've only just started using and appreciating it. I love the nail polish colours, Beth's Blue and Soda Pop Pink haven't left my fingernails since I bought them online. The Bourjois blush is gorgeous. It's a delicate pinky coral which has a subtle golden sheen. I'm sure every blogger has heard someone or another rave about the Collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer, so I'm sure I don't need to say more on that! I recently bought the Real Techniques Stippling Brush from my local Boots and I love it. It buffs my foundation perfectly into my skin and it looks like I have naturally flawless skin. Lastly, my bird print scarf which I received for Christmas. I have a huge collection of scarves but most have a floral print, so it's always nice to add somethin different to the collection! 

In other news, it's been unusually warm in the UK. I know you American souls out there will probably scoff when I mention the temperature, but it's almost a mini heatwave for this time of year at 17°C, so I've been trying to enjoy the weather as much as possible. I've also changed the conditions of my ad swap. For those of you who are already involved, I have sent you an e-mail. Ad swaps will now run for one month, with a chance to renew at the end of the month. The conditions have changed simply because I'm getting more people want to take part than I expected, and I didn't want a huge list of ad swaps on my page as it wouldn't benefit you. For those who haven't responded to the e-mail announcing the changes and asking if you wanted to stay on, I will just assume that you do not want to continue. If you actually do want to stay on, please e-mail me. 

What are your favourite products this month? 

EDIT: As of 29/2/2012 at 4.29pm all ad swap places for march are full. If you want to ad swap for April please get in touch.

Benefit Dandelion brightening face powder review

 Benefit dandelion brightening face powder £23.50 7g net weight. 

You guys must think I am a total Benefit junkie but I have to admit that I am not at all. Benefit were the first 'high end' brand I tried and they lured me in with their kitsch packaging. I have to admit though, their products are overpriced and if you're willing to look past the cute packaging I'm sure you will find this for yourself as well.  On the topic of packaging, I have heard a few people complain that the box gets destroyed easily in handbags. I would tend to agree however I'm not one to take make up out of the house so I cannot give my opinion there. I love the design on the front and I love the mirror, but the brush is completely useless and to include it means that the design is much more bulky than what it could be. I know the inclusion of a brush may be seen as a good thing, but for me, I don't apply my blusher with a rectangular brush.

This product is described as a 'sheer ballerina pink finishing powder' and I agree, it is sheer. On the website it says you can either dust it all over your face or just on your cheeks. For cheeks I have to swipe my blusher brush at least twice across my cheek before I get a hint of colour. This means that I use a lot of product and to be honest for £23.50 I expected it to be more pigmented. I can only surmise that this is because it is also meant to be an all over facial powder and it wouldn't work effectively if it was well pigmented. My thoughts on that argument would be that then the product should either be one or the other. At the moment it tries to be both a blush and a facial brightening powder but it fails to deliver on both counts.

 (after three swipes on each cheek, please note I have naturally quite rosy cheeks to begin with).

I think the lack of pigmentation is my main gripe with this product, as the powder seems to be of quite good quality, although it feels slightly more chalky and less finely milled compared to my Nars blush. It has a nice scent, but again if you are bothered by scented products then you might want to steer clear of this. Overall I get about four hours wear but then it is difficult to know because I barely notice it on my face to begin with.

Overall I much prefer my Nars blush compared to the Benefit blush. Although the Nars blush is now £21.00 for 4.5g I feel as though I use much less of the product to get a similar result, so in turn it will last me longer.  I am a bit confused with the Benefit website as well as apparently the blush is 8g Net weight on there, whereas mine is 7g. Maybe they increased the size of the product...

Have you ever tried a Benefit blusher?

Happy Valentine's Day

How could I not post today? I just wanted to wish everyone a lovely Valentine's Day, whether you are spending it with a significant other or family and friends. I even used my photoshop skills to make a special photo card thing! (I'm not very creative, I know...)

I got the Sigma F80 brush today too! I'm quite excited to use it and I'm sure I will get a review up about it soon. It ties in with the theme of today's post as the packaging matches the colour of the rose.

Does anyone have any plans for today, or is it just a normal day for you? I'm off out later for a pub dinner and cocktails with the boyfriend. Nothing too fancy schmancy but it should be fun.

My thoughts on blogging

 Image source

Sorry for the huge wall of text this post is going to be. I hope that you guys will enjoy this post though as it's certainly more different to what I usually post. I was going to post this one my blog's one year anniversary but I guess I wanted to become a little more involved in the community before I formed opinions. First and foremost, blogging is for the most part absolutely wonderful. I never thought I would meet so many lovely people through blogging and that so many people would take a part out of their day to read and comment on my posts. Your comments give me happiness, and I also love to check out your posts to see what you're doing. I get inspiration from so many of your blogs and to be perfectly honest I don't think I would have continued blogging had it not been for the community and your continuous support. So a huge thank you! 

I really hate negativity to permeate my blog so I promise I will be back in the next couple of days with a positive and happy post. But I guess although happiness on a blog is inspiring, a blogger has to be real. To show my feelings sometimes in a hope that others can relate is something I am trying to get better at. So I digress, blogging does have an ugly side. Of course the negative should not overshadow the positive, as the positive side is vastly more apparent, but that does not mean that the negative does not exist. Throughout my just-over-a-year of blogging and using social media, I have noticed the negative and it does sometimes sadden me. 

1. There are blogging 'cliques'. I was actually wondering whether to include this point. I am sure that most people have noticed, and I do acknowledge that if you have met bloggers numerous times you will probably talk to them more via social media than what you would to a stranger. However some bloggers out there do outright ignore 'tweets' or e-mails from some whilst seemingly chatting away to their best blogger buddy about what they ate for tea.

2. Someone out there will take a disliking to you. It's pretty impossible when you are putting yourself on the internet for everyone to love you. Someone will take a disliking and maybe publish negative comments sometimes that are designed to only cause hurt and offence to the blogger. It's a shame as these often overshadow the hundreds of positive comments. Thankfully you can disable anonymous comments, and by doing so I'm sure you will see a sharp decrease in negative comments.

3. Negativity seems to be intensified in the blogging community. My main aim of this post is not to point fingers, so I will not mention specific events, but because most bloggers seem to use a wide range of media, if someone says anything remotely negative or controversial it is easier for others to get involved. I've seen on numerous occasions a minor incident turn into days of divide in the blogging world because of one tweet, comment or blog post that people disagree with, that ends up in an argument and is prolonged by those wanting to be in the know of what has happened.

4. Sort of an extension of point three, but you will find that sometimes if you happen to disagree with a blogger, their followers will rally around them and try to defend them. Sometimes this causes arguments and upset. Generally I feel as though if one has a disagreement with a blogger it is between them and the blogger only. 

5. Blogging can be competitive and some people do get jealous of others. Whether it be from number of readers to number of sponsors.

6. Bloggers sometimes get e-mails from companies, (some of whom haven't even looked at the blog properly) who attempt to almost take advantage of the blogger and persuade them into featuring clients or allowing them to publish generic guest posts with the blogger reaping no benefit from the deal.

7. My last point would be that not everyone is going to like every post published, and sometimes people unfollow. This is fine. It is difficult to produce content that every single reader enjoys and opinions shouldn't be omitted in an attempt to preserve reader count.

In the end, the positivity does outweigh the negativity in every single way, but that's not to say that the negativity isn't there. I hope that you enjoyed reading this post. I've been thinking of publishing a post like this for a while however I was unsure of how to word it, that being said I'm sorry if this post is not for you. I was even dithering over whether or not to hit the publish button, but I guess it's good to get my thoughts out there every once in a while. In other news I did write a guest post for A Gypsy's Journal which you can read here, and also a huge thank you to Ship Shape and Bristol Fashion for being mentioned in the Rock The Week post. 

Last but not least, thank you for all your continous support. I don't say this much but I really do appreciate it. 

Pearly queen

Ps - The title of this post isn't meant to be me being up myself, it's just the name of the nail polish sitting next to me. Just a quick video for you guys today! I'm sorry about the light, it is natural light but I filmed it on my webcam so I had the light from the computer screen in my face. This video is my first one ever for my blog, so please say if you like it and I will try and do some more. It's an accent tag video, and you can check out more on youtube. Ps - I am originally from Cambridge in the UK, but I've lived in London, Bristol and Northern Ireland.

 

The words I was saying were:

garage
herb
schedule
figure
jaguar
lieutenant
water
advertisement
vase
route
ballet
tomato
leisure
address
ate
buoy
aluminum
aunt
wash
oil
theater
iron
salmon
caramel
fire
sure
data
ruin
crayon
toilet
New Orleans
pecan
boat
again
probably
spitting image
Alabama
lawyer
coupon
mayonnaise
syrup
pajamas
caught
QUESTIONS:
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the name of the bug that when touched rolls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call a spider with an oval shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry your groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What do you call the thing you use to change the TV channels?

I hope that some of you will do it, if you do please leave a link in your comment so I can see how you talk!

"That Gal" brightening face primer review

I received this primer also for Christmas. It retails for £21.50 and you get 11ml of product. The tube (which to my amusement looks much like a glue stick) is deceptively large as it is only slightly smaller than the POREfessional yet it holds half the amount. Luckily you do not need a lot to make this work. 

The primer comes out a pinky colour and has a creamy texture. Like all Benefit products it is fragranced, it smells sweet but lacks the fruity element that the POREfessional has. I apply my moisturiser first, wait a while and apply this to my face. I have to admit, that this does even out skin tone and brighten my face well, probably because of the pinky colour. I could wear this alone with a bit of concealer if I wanted to, as it certainly makes my face look very 'glowy'.  It provides a nice base for my foundation, and allows it to glide easily over problem areas, something which I found the POREfessional unable to do.

There's not much to say on this product. It does what it says it will do very well, however I found that it does not do much else. On me, my make up did not stay on for longer than it would usually, and pores are still visable after using this. It just evens out skin tone, gives your face a nice glow and provides a nice base for your make up. Anyone looking for a primer that will hold your make up in place should probably try out other primers. 

The price is an issue for me. I can see this product lasting a while because of how little is needed, but the packaging design means that sometimes the product leaks through the holes, for £21.50 I wouldn't have expected this to happen, sort it out Benefit! If they sort out the packaging I may consider repurchasing this product again, because I do like the results and even though it is expensive it means that I can sometimes skip on the foundation! Have any of you tried this product? What did you think of it? 

It's no problem

Guess what? We got snow here in England over the weekend! I love snow and it was so pretty to look at. Unfortunately it was dark by the time the snow had really settled and built up, and on sunday a lot of it had melted and wasn't very pleasant to look at, so I wasn't able to take any landscape photos and had to be a bit more creative with my photography. 

Apart from the snow, I don't have much to say at the moment. If you are following me on twitter you may have seen my excited tweets over the Six Nations. Are any of you following it? My boyfriend and I really like rugby (he plays it), and I guess I know a bit about it! I wont go into too much detail on here though. In other news I set up a youtube channel with a few other girls on the FBL facebook group and hopefully will publish a few beauty review videos on there. I bought a webcam the other day too so hopefully I may get a video or two up here as well! Be warned, I seem really shy, I find it really awkward to talk to a camera but hopefully I will get better in time. How was your weekend? 

Benefit The POREfessional review

I am doing the reviews in the same order that people asked for them in this post. I asked for this for Christmas and my boyfriend's mum bought it for me. It came in a gift set with a few other Benefit pieces but I can't remember what they were now. At first I thought that it was a sample size because it is tiny, but it is full size. This product retails at £23.50 for 22ml of the product, so the size of the tube for what you pay for is tiny! On the box it says that the product is a PRO balm to minimize the appearance of pores. It says it's oil-free, lightweight, translucent and silky.

There has been a lot of debate as to whether this is a primer or not. Some use it all over their face and treat it as they would a primer, and others argue that it is only to reduce the look of pores and should only be used on problem areas. I tend to use this with another primer because to me it does not do all of what I want a primer to do. I find that using this product alone under my make up does not make my make up stay on longer. I use this on and near my nose, as I feel those are my problem areas. I find it fills pores reasonably well, but my pores are relatively small anyway. If you have bigger pores you may find this will not fill them completely. Like all Benefit products, it is frangranced. The fragrance to me is slightly fruity and not unpleasant, but I do question as to whether using scented products to fill in pores may aggravate breakouts.

The colour of the product is a beige, but once it is rubbed into the skin I can report that it is translucent and it did not tint my skin at all. I found that the oil-free formula worked for me. My skin isn't completely oily but in the places that it is (t-zone) the POREfessional didn't make greasy. I didn't find that the condition of my skin improved or worsened upon use of this product, but it does provide a nice base for my foundation. 

To summarise, a nice product but one that I can take or leave. It's definitely overpriced for the amount you get, but I think that those with more noticable pores will appreciate it more than I do.