Wardrobe weekly

Monday

 I had so many meeting on Monday that I decided to dress smartly. This autumnal top seem appropriate considering how mild this winter currently is (there is blossom on the trees near work... IN JANUARY?!)

 Top 24 - George

Skirt 20 - Primark

Tights XL 100 den - Primark

Shoes - New look

I was inspired by this post by Stephanie Zwicky (she ALWAYS inspires me actually, not just this post!) to try a dark lipstick, something I haven't worn since I was a teenager. I can't pull of one as purple as Stephanie is wearing because purple lipstick makes me look like a corpse, but I found a nice brown/ red toned one from MUA that went well with this top.

This is one of their £1 matte lipsticks, in 'wild berry'. It's no way near as dark as it looks in the tube, but it's ideal for me and my skin tone!

Tuesday

Tried it out at home, then wore it to work (as is my way!)

I really love this dress, which is why I got the pink version too. In my mind I will wear this one buttoned all the way up, and the pink one unbuttoned because it reminds me of American waitresses in 50's diners!

Jacket 20 - Primark

Dress 24 - Lovedrobe

Leggings 20 & boots - Primark

Wednesday

When I look through my pictures, I realise that I nearly always put this dress on when I'm tired and feel a bit rubbish.... generally having not had enough sleep the night before work, and failing to choose an outfit for the morning!

It's just so cute and easy to wear that I always feel safe and comfy in it. I also like how it looks so it saves me from a day thinking 'what the hell am I wearing?!' This is my old George graduate fashion week cardi, warm and unusual!

Cardi 24 - Geroge

Dress 20 - Asos Curve

Leggings XL - H&M

Boots - Matalan mens

On my way home I noticed a new make up store next to Oxford Circus tube, so I went in for a snoop. I could have spent a fortune but I resisted and got two things that I've been on the hunt for.... a long lasting stick eyeshadow in lavanda - an intense pastel purple, and a smoky look eyeshadow in heroic brown. I have had to accept that my skin and face is changing with age, and I now don't like the way that grey / black smoky eyes look on me. It was one of my favourite looks so I was a bit sad, but I've decided to try a warmer brown smoky eye to see if that suits me better. It's also to do with my hair being so dark again I guess. Looking forward to wearing these, have any of you ever used Kiko makup?

Thursday

This was going to be my birthday dress for Tuesday, but having decided to take a couple of days leave for my 32nd I thought I'd wear it for lunch with my best mate (and her scrumptious chubby cheeked daughter!)

I cut my fringe specially! What this dress made me realise is that I don't have any black shoes or boots that go with it this kind of thing. I wanted something pointy that looked a bit like heels from the front, but were definitely not heels, because I can't be on my feet all day in heels! I went real-life shopping after work in search of boots!

Dress 26 - Asos Curve

Leggings 20 & boots - Primark

Friday

Ooooohhh more new stuff! My search for shoe boots resulted in me getting this rather fetching shirt from H&M and these ridiculous boots from Dorothy Perkins. I don't normally go in for bondage shoes 'cause they remind me of porn stars(!) but there was something about the shape of these that called to me! I tried them with the crazy asos dress and they worked, so I was like yep, fuck it, I'm 'avin' 'em! I think they look like heels from the front, what do you think?!

I spotted this shirt in the H&M sale rack for £7, and despite this apparently being a size 12 its is a great fit on me, still oversized as it should be.... a size 12 would be utterly swamped in this!

Earrings - Superdrug

Shirt 12(!) - H&M

Jeggings 22 - Dorothy Perkins

Boots - Dorothy Perkins £30 in store btw!

So glad I got these earrings from Superdrug, they go with lots of things I own! Wearing MUA £1 matte lippy in 'scarlet siren'.

Elf mineral make up review

I've been wanting to try some mineral foundation for ages - not sure why, it just seemed like a nice Idea! I like a semi sheer foundation, I've never been a fan of the thick stuff that feels like a mask, but I have quite good skin generally speaking so I don't need thick makeup. I've used all kinds of foundation over the years but unfortunately for my bank balance I've landed on Yves Saint Laurent Le Teint Touche Éclat Illuminating Foundation. This is a particularly expensive item because as I get older I've found that my skin colour changes throughout the year much more than it used to, and my face is at least one shade darker during the summer months so I have two foundations that I use, with the option of mixing them throughout the year.

 I've seen lots of bloggers wearing e.l.f makeup, and when I realised they sold mineral foundation for £5 per pot, and were offering £10 off a £20+ spend (amazing!) I thought I'd try some. To give you an idea about my skin tone I wear YSL Beige Rose 40 in the winter and Beige Rose 50 in the summer. I'm not exactly olive skined, but I'm also not as pale skined as I was a few years ago & am now able to tan slightly (which just didn't happen until a couple of years ago!) so I'm sort of a hint of olive with a pink overtone.

This lot (plus the brush) was what I went for. I have to say that I was a bit surprised by the colours of the foundations. They are far less pink as well as darker in real life than they look on the site. It's so important to have a reliable colour chart of your buying this sort of thing online so I was a bit annoyed! Anyway, I compared them to my YSL's before opening them and they weren't a million miles off so I tested them out. Additionally the 'sheer' booster powder is so pink that I figured it might balance out the yellowness of the foundations! I chose the eye brightener deliberately because it's quite yellow, and my under eye circles are normally dark with a bluish / purple tone so I was hoping that would balance them out!

Here is my face! I have to say that my camera (as it turns out!) is not really up to daylight close ups. My skin is a bit more blotchy and ruddy than this, particularly with the winds we've had recently! Anyway, it's the best I have so lets get to it! I had just showered, moisturised (blue Nivia forever!) and I've got a bit of Garnier tinted caffeine eye roll on under my eyes. Ready to go!

I used a kabui brush to apply the foundation, this one is from MUA (£5)

This is the beige foundation (£5) and it's a little bit darker than my skin but not too disturbing. As much as I appreciate bieng able to pay just a fiver for a small pot of foundation (to try), the size does make this a bit fiddly to use. The brush is bigger than the lid so it goes everywhere, and takes quite a long time to apply because you have to keep going back. I think this would be much easier to use if it were the size of the booster!

Foundation done (eventually!) and it's quite a nice sheer coverage. I think to get thick coverage you'd either have to have quite greasy skin or use tons of this! 

My stupid camera decided to change it's white balance slightly in this shot (argh!) but I then added the eye brightener (£3.50) under my eyes all over my eye bags. It's hard to see but this actually worked rather well, I think it might be my favourite item in this order! As you can see it's a bit darker and more yellow than my normal skin tone, so on goes the Mineral booser....

This is the last of the e.l.f products I tried. The pinkness of the mineral booster certainly equalled out the yellow of the foundation a bit. The idea of this powder is to 'absorb oil and minimises the appearance of wrinkles, fine lines and pores for a beautiful even finish' which it sort of does. I have to say that I'm always a bit freaked out by very matte skin though, so for me this over all look was just tooooo powdery and needed a touch of sheen!

MUA undress your skin highlighter to the rescue! I love this stuff, but it may be too frosted for some peoples liking!

Ahhh that's better! I like to be a bit shiny - not glittery, just a subtle sheen!

I finished my make up with my normal favorites and this is the final look. 

Gosh bronzing shimmer powder (002 pink) on my cheeks (I normally use this all over my face and MUA 1D 'oh my blush' on the apple of my cheeks fyi).

My everyday mascara nowadays is Gosh growth mascara. Not because I like the texture or brush (I don't, I much prefer Max Factor masterpiece mascara!) but because it actually works and has improved my eyelashes loads since I got it! L'Oreal superliner (the original) which in my humble opinion is the easiest liquid liner to use and can do both thin & fat lines. Then a nice sheer slick of lip colour in the form of my beloved NYC appleicious glossy lip balm in 'big apple red'. I have so much love for the appleicious balms, I've got 5 of them!

The final apperance is nice I think, but in all honesty there is no way that this foundation is going to replace my YSL liquid one. It's a bit a pain in the bum to use and I know i'd make such a mess using all this powder first thing in the morning! I also think that my skin is too dry for powder foundation to really work well on. I just feel like I'm wearing so much more make up than usual, but have ended up with the same effect as normal, albeit a little drier! I think this would be much better for ladies with greasy skin. Having said all that I think it will come into it's own when I have posh functions and need a more matte, polished look & have time to take a while applying thick layers. I also think it'll be good in summer when I don't want to slather my face with liquids. I wear less make up in the summer months so a thin layer of this on a hot day with just a bit of mascara will be great I think, plus lets just say it, this will cope better with my sweaty face than a liquid foundation I think!. The booster powder will be handy when I need to tone down shine or to even out the yellowness of the foundations. I think the product I'll use most will be the eye brigthener, which for everyday use I'd just put a thin layer of right on top of my under eye concealer (flips between Garnier caffeine roll on and YSL touche eclat fyi!) and leave it at that, because as you can see from the picture above, too much powder tends to emphasise the plump bags I always have under my plump eyes!

Plump Parsnip out!

Red or dead

My love affair with Red lipstick has been a long one, but recently I realised that most of my favourite red lipsticks are very drying. Generally I wear tinted balms because I hate having dry lips, but sometimes I want an intense colour, so I've been buying buying buying! I've been taking advantage of the Superdrug 3 for 2 mix & match deal (across loads of makeup brands, it's very good!) so here are some of my purchases....

 I had a lovely matte red lipstick from Dior (velvet rather than matte really) but the perfume in Dior make-up makes me feel sick so I got rid. I got the £1 MUA matte red lippy to try, along with the matte nude. As it was 3 for 2 I also lost my mind and got this super frosted coral colour from the MUA One Direction range.... basically it is just like one I had when I was first allowed to wear make-up. I remember it very clearly, it was from Avon, it was from a Christmas range, it had a white case and there was a icy ridge shape around the base of the actual lipstick. I adored it, even though I never wore it out!

 I love the Red matte, for £1 it's a bargain and I like the clean white packaging too! The nude is a bit too light for me (they always are!) but I think it might come in handy as a base for other colours or gloss. I have no idea when I'm ever going to wear the coral one.... it has the look and texture of an old ladies lipstick, but it still love it!

It's hard to show the colours 100% accurately, but you get the gist I hope! The fact the 1D lipstick is called 'I want Liam' makes me sick.... I might not have bought it had i realised. Just for the record, I don't 'want' any of the children in One Direction!

 I've got a couple of things from Miss Sporty (dunno what's sporty about their make-up but whatever!) and I've never been blown away by their lip products until I found these. I've got a couple of 'perfect colour' lipsticks (plain blue tubes) and the texture is not great in my opinion; a tad dry, but these new lipsticks (annoyingly also called 'perfect colour') have a better texture, a much more extensive range of colours (including black) and nicer packaging than their predecessors. It seems that they're so new that even the Miss Sporty website doesn't have them yet! Luckily for me Superdrug have them in store and online, so at £2.59 each I had fun trying them all out!

I'm loving the cheap and cheerful packaging with the little windows making them easy to find in my makeup drawers, but I wish Superdrug would stop using sticker alarms that destroy the packaging; so much sticky shit all over them, it's totally ruined the tubes! Anyway, back to the bit inside the tube....It's hard to show the subtle differences between the tones but wowzers they have a good range of reds!

I'm not sure how to describe the texture? It feels moisturising and has a bit of a sheen when first applied, but isn't too glossy and dries into a more matte look. It's almost 100% flat colour, not at all frosted thank goodness! I think a lipliner would be helpful with them for a really polished look. I always think Miss Sporty lipsticks and balms have a watermelon candy smell & taste...not sure if that is the aim, but that's how it comes across to me.... I much prefer fruit to powdery or floral scents!

Again it's tricky to get a 100% accurate image of the colours, but I'll describe them in my own particular makup (well... food!) language and hope that you get it! On Fire is a bright orange toned scarlet. It's the sheerest of the batch, but looks juicy and sexy on.... blood orange! Malaga is what I think of as a classic Hollywood red; bright, rich and luscious with a bit of fire..... strawberry! High Red is what I would describe as a burlesque red, deep and sultry..... red cherry!. Sweet Berry is almost pink, but still works as a beautiful berry red.... raspberry!

Looks like I'll will be wearing lots of red lippy this autumn / winter. To top all this off Ms Danielle Vanier has reviewed one of the best looking reds I've seen in years - Clarins Red, which I now want of course!

MUA makeup haul

I don't normally do beauty posts, but sometimes I want to rave about new products so here goes!

I think I have a few things from MUA. Nothing of note, maybe a nail varnish or two. Recently though I bought a lip balm and blusher that I have fallen head over heals with. So much so that I went back in for more yesterday! Here is what I got..........

You may have seen the power pout tinted lip balm I was raving about on twitter, but I'm really impressed with the quality of these £3 balms. 

As you can see, I have many coloured balms (this is just one drawer, I have another with smaller ones from Burt's bees etc!), I've been wearing them for over 10 years (Lancome Juicy Crayons started me off really!) so I feel like I know what I'm talking about here. Most make up companies make their own versions now, and I pretty much try every variety. I recently lost my favourite red balm (chit chat 'Firey Red' from Poundland would you believe?!) and I miss it terribly, I just can't find a deep red that compares :(. Anyway, back to the review!

Above is 'crazy in love'. The colour pay off is very good considering they're balms, and after my sad discovery that my new Bourjois coral crayon (basically an identical product but more than twice the price may I add) tastes like antiseptic I'm even more joyous about these. I'll probably end up with every colour variation of them as I collect products like this, which is why I have WAY more than any sane person could actually use! The texture is good (not greasy, not sticky, just balmy!) and there is a very subtle minty smell / taste - it goes away really quickly if that sort of thing bothers you!. It's also easy to apply, and you can build the colours in layers.

I've got the nude balm 'Rendezvous' on above. MUA have succeeded in producing a berry colour and a nude that I can pull off, quite an achievement as I look bloody awful in any lipsticks that have even the slightest hint of red or brown! The nail varnish is MUA 'pistachio ice cream', it comes in a little bottle and only cost £1. I really wanted a pastel mint green and this one is lovely. I'm so bad at putting nail varnish on, so this is 3 coats, but anyone who is better at application would probably only need 2 coats!

Now then. I love the blushers below, but there is something super cringe-worthy about them.... they are MUA's makeup collaboration with One Direction (the boy band who make Take That sound like the Beatles) so they are covered in hideous slogans from the bands dreadful songs. Of course this doesn't change the fact that the product is excellent.

I've tried many blushers, and generally I get on much better with ones that come in stick-form. powders with brushes are fiddly, and I had so many accidents and spills with benetint that I just stopped wearing it! For ages I've been wearing Eyeko fatbalms, but as they're designed for lip & cheek they're a bit sticky. I love them (great for holidays & handbags and come in great shades) but they've been discontinued and besides, I could never get an orange shade. Step in MUA & 1D! 

The creamy (not at all sticky) texture means it goes on and blends really well. the colour is pretty intense so you don't need much if you want it subtle, but if you want mega rosy cheeks then you could easily do it with these!

The first blush I got from this range was the orange / coral one called 'coral cutie'. It is perfect. The colour is lovely, in fact I knew I'd have to go back for the others as soon as I tried it! It's so hard to photograph makeup, but I had coral cutie on yesterday and in the picture above. I'll use this one with orange / coral and terracotta lipsticks, as well as reds with an orange tone.

I hope you can see the diffence in shade / tone. Rose Riot will be the colour I'll use for an everyday rosy cheek when I'm lipstickless or if I want to wear red lippy of pretty much any tone aswell as pinks with an orange / red tone. It probably goes without saying that I'll wear Pink Explosion with bright pink lipsticks.... it has a slightly purple tone which will match perfectly with neon pinks. I'm chuffed about that as I seem to have accumulated more dresses with purple toned pink accents since I got rid of my fire-red hair!

You can't get the One direction range from MUA online for some reason but all MUA products are available in Superdrug stores and superdrug online.

Again, not a sponsored post, I'm just so impressed with the quality and colour pay-off from these relatively cheap make up products. I'm officially a MUA fan now!

Frida Friday

 JOY!

Today's outfit revolves around one of my most prized possessions; my Frida Kahlo swing dress.

I love a pinup style swing dress at the best of times, but a plus size stretch dress with a Frida Kahlo print is just so exciting!

 The Print is delicious!

I've had this Queen of Holloway dress for a couple of years and I will never ever part with it.... EVER! I hope you'll be happy to know that you can still get this dress (I'm wearing a size 24 here btw, but would probably have fitted the 22 in this particular dress if your wondering about the sizing!) and the best thing is it's only £29.99 via ebay.... for a dress this lovely, with so much fabric that is a fantastic bargain!

Frida Dress - Queen of Holloway

Cardi - Primark

Necklace - Primark

Sandals - Ipanema

 Primark necklace from my last post, and a lipstain from Gosh to finish the outfit! I'm also wearing my new favourite blusher from MUA, but I'll tell you about that in another post 'cause I've got loads of lush new makeup recently!

So that was Fridays outfit. Below are some snaps from the rest of the week!

Thursday

Top - H&M Mama

Trousers - Dorothy Perkins

Sandals - Ipanema

Necklace - Holiday gift from a friend YEARS ago. Coins on it. Love it!

Wednesday

Dress - Vintage (another favourite of mine!)

Tuesday

Dress - Anna Scholz (black and red version here)

Neon Earrings - H&M

Sandals - Primark

Monday

Dress - Asos

Leggings - H&M

Shoes - Crocs 

Lip balm (exactly the same colour as this dress!) - MUA 'crazy in love' power pout.