High Street Beauty Purchases!

Hello everyone! It's been 2 months and I seriously apologise for that.. I've had SO much going on and my life has been chockablock with changes, from work to other more serious things! But I'm back and hopefully here to stay :-)

I've got myself a job and been treating myself to a few little splurges with my new wages... Haven't been going all out because saving for Manchester is my number one priority.. I need money for PARTYING! 

Real Techniques Blush Brush & Powder Brush

I've been looking for these babies for a while, but everytime I go to Superdrug they've sold out! I found them in a local chemist and they were £1 than in Boots or Superdrug! Not much but every little makes a difference!

I also picked up a new MUA bronzer in Shade 1! This is my everyday bronzer and it's so cheap! Can't say no to something thats £1!!
Also grabbed a MUA Cream Blush in the shade 'Lush'.. It's a gorgeous barbie pink! Swatches further below!

L-R - Cream Blush in 'Sneakpeek' & Lipstick in 'Bombshell'

On a little trip with my bestie to Belfast I picked up some Topshop Lipstick and another Cream Blush in the sale! I know these babies were a limited edition collection at the beginning of their lives! The Lipstick was £9 originally and the Blush was £10 but I got these both for £3 each! The Lipstick is super barbie pink and I love it! The blush is a corally shade of pink and lovely as well! They also had the blush in an orange shade and a orange lipgloss! Worth looking out for if your in Topshop, bargains are hiding in the sale section somewhere! Swatches below!

 I noticed the Kate Moss Lasting Finish Range for Rimmel was on offer at £3.99 on a recent trip to Superdrug so decided to pick up my first lipstick! This has been the hardest colour to photograph! Its a vivid orangey red but comes out pink on camera! It's Shade 22!

Theres a poor attempt at a swatch below!

L-R - Swatches
Rimmel Lasting Finish by Kate Moss Shade 22
Topshop Cream Blush in 'Sneakpeek'
Topshop Lipstick in 'Bombshell'
MUA Cream Blush in 'Lush'

I hope you all enjoyed this quick little post! I'll try and get into the swing of things again on my blog! 

It's been a busy few months but I'm in the mood again to get my blogging hat on!

Talk soon lovelies!

xxx 

Quick FOTD!

Getting a call from your mother at 8.30am to say you've to take your little brother to the doctors for half9 is not the best start to any day, especially after a bad nights sleep! My priorities were to stay in bed as long as possible and sacrificing any chance of looking nicely made up! 

With only 10 mins to get ready, I stuck on a little concealer on my blemishes (which there are a lot of recently!!) and under my eyes to hide any dark circles! I filled in my eyebrows with just the powder of Benefit's Browzings to save time! A few coats of Rimmel London's Endless Lash Accelerator and a coating of MUA's Power Pout I'm 'Crazy in Love' on my lips! 

My hair was a mess, the only downside to short hair is that when you wake up it generally resembles a crow's nest, so I stuck on a beanie.. A comfy tee and a black skater shirt (because it's still warm in Northern Ireland!) and I was ready to go!!

Not the greatest look but easy for running about being Big Sis Taxi's and doing any messages that I had.. How grown up do I sound?? ;-) it actually felt nice to let my skin breathe in the nice weather without layers of makeup clogging up my skin!

Do you have any quick-fix makeup tricks? Let me know in the comments, or drop me a tweet @RachelVennard :-) I'd love to hear from you! 

Until next time! Mwahhhh xx

Multi-use blushes?!

Heyyyyyyyy! 

It's been such a nice week! Summer has finally arrived! So jealous of my friends getting to go to Parklife in Manchester this weekend, I totally regret not buying tickets now :( SAD RACHEL!

Anywooo, my boyfriend dozed off on me when we were sitting in the living room watching TV the other day,  without anyone to talk to I got a little distracted and picked up 'Bon Bon', one of MUA's 2013 blushes!

There is a range of 6 which have been released and for a change they have names!! I love the fact MUA ae starting to name their products, it gives so much more character to the product!

The little beauties are all named after sweeties or munchies.. and they're £1 each! Bargain :)

You can find all 6 shades HERE!

Bon Bon is a gorgeous apricot colour, and a lovely creamy consistency! 

All of MUA's blushers are so easy to blend and I love that, makes it so easy to use!

Due to my boredom I decided to whack some of this beauty on my lips to see what it looked like.. And oh my goodness I was so surprised!! It was gorgeous on, and totally different to any lipstick shade I've ever had!

It sits really well on the lips and blends in lovely! It really doesn't take a lot of product to cover the whole lips, but with the price tag at £1 you can afford to use as much as you like!

I like a very matte lipstick so this is perfect for me, but if you prefer a sheen or a more moisturising finish I'm afraid this alone won't be enough for you! However if you used a lip balm before putting this on it would stop it being such a cakey finish and slightly more forgiving on the lips! This is the result I ended up with when I tried with some Vaseline underneath! A darker shade but still loooovely!

Definitely going to try and use this method with some of my other blushes! It's automatically increased my possible lip colour options dramatically!

What do you think of blusher as a lip product?
Do you like the finish it gives?

Let me know in the comments :)

I've a lot of MUA products floating around in my new product inbox so expect to see that name pop up regularly on the blog in the next few weeks!

Chat soon you beauties! x

Nails Of The Day!

Hi guys! Just a quick post on my current nail look! I'm a bit of an acrylics fiend but because I'm home and can't afford to keep up my addiction I've tried to go cold turkey!! My nails are in such poor condition because of the acrylics, so please excuse their disgustingness! 

This is a very simple nail look but I think it's quite an effective one! If you used other colours you could have the other 4 fingers painted the other colour, but unfortunately the white wasnt strong enough to cover the blue!

I just used Sellotape to cover over the white and give me a straight line for the blue! Easy peasy!! 

I used Miss Sporty's Cool Clubbing Colours in the bright blue shade, but it doesn't have a name unfortunately :( I think you can find this cheap as chips in Superdrug, probably around the £3 mark!!

The white is an Essie polish in Waltz! It's not the strongest white and you do need a few layers to make it opaque.. But it was a bargain! I got this on Fragrance Direct at £1.99!! Definitely worth checking it out to see if they're still at this bargain price! I got 4 Essie polishes for the price of one in Boots!!

Finally the top coat I used was MUA's Clear Top Coat.. As per usual with the majority of their products it was £1! Can't beat that :-) I think it's a good top coat, and if you use it every other day it really does keep your nails looking shiny! I had Seche Vite's top coat but it went gloopy far too quickly and the brush was too short, so half the polish went to waste! I wouldn't spend £8 on Seche Vite when you can buy one I find just as good for £1!

Let me know of any other simple nail art, I really struggle and any ideas would be appreciated!!

Rachel x 

My Make-Up Storage!

Hi again!!! It's been a week since Radio 1's One Big Weekend.. I have festival blues (major sad face) and I'm potentially dying from a combination of the flu/kidney infection and a throat infection.. I think this is my body's way of saying I need to take it a little bit easier after such a big weekend!!

This is just a little post about how I store my makeup! I don't have a HUGE collection, but compared to this time last year my makeup collection has about quadrupled in size! I was the girl that had one of everything and didn't use blush, primer, powder or much lipstick... So I'm basically a completely different person now :)

Most of these items are bargains from 'Pound World' in The Quays shopping centre in Newry!!

These are two little stacked drawers which I have blu-tacked together to keep them together! They were £1 each.. Total bargain!! Each set has 2 drawers each.. I have mine separated into... 

1. Base Products
2. Face Products
3. Eye Products 
4. Lip Products

They don't hold alll of the makeup I own but the majority of it! Any extra gets stored in the drawer under my mirror and I check it about once a week to see if there's anything else I fancy swapping :)

                                                             

I keep my smaller brushes (eyeshadow brushes, lip brushes and concealer brushes) in the little flower watering can.. Another £1 steal from Pound World! My bigger brushes, like my Real Techniques buffing brush and expert face brush, alongside my brow gel and tweezers stay in my mum's beautiful crystal vase! I think this was potentially a wedding gift and probably very expensive so I'm kind of looking for something less valuable to keep my bigger brushes in! Too afraid of breaking this!

My lipsticks get kept in my newest purchase! This is a 24 lipstick holder I found on eBay! You can buy it here! It's a bargain at £2.99! It comes from Hong Kong so there could potentially be long delivery times but mine was pretty speedy!! The only problem is I now feel the urge to fill the rest of the slots, and truth be told I do NOT need anymore lipsticks!

Finally, after seeing some inspiration from the lovely Faye on her nail polish storage I decided I wanted some glass containers! I have two of these huge jars and you'll never guess how much I paid for them.. £1 each :) All of my nail varnishes nearly fit into one, that's how big they are! Mind you I've newly discovered Barry M's Gelly Hi Shine Nail Paints (yes I know I'm late to that party) so my 2nd jar will probably fill up soon!!

Hope this maybe gave you a little help with ideas for how to store your makeup!

Chat soon!

Rachel, x.  

Outfit Of The Night! Summer drinks :)

Helllooooooooo!

Last Friday, we were actually blessed with some summer type weather! It was warm, well above 10 degrees so I decided to break out a few summer pieces! I was going round to my friends for some pizza and drinks, so wanted to make a bit of an effort! :)

My outfit was basically all from Primark! I know people can feel that Primark is cheap and badly made.. But for items I'm gonna wear a few times during the season I don't mind not having the best quality! Cheap and cheerful is the way forward for any fashion addicted student, there's no way you can afford to rock Topshop or Zara every day!

• My trousers were £9! Absolute bargain and I'm in love with the pattern on them! 
• The crop top was £3, you can't say no to that! I bought it in a fluorescent pink as well but it was just a little early to break out that colour haha. I'm no skinny minny and I know crop tops can look a little dodgy on those on the bigger side of the clothing scale but the trousers were pretty high waisted so I felt I could get away with flashing just a hint of skin! 
• The necklace is ancientttttt and has been floating around in my wardrobe for at least 3 years! It was a bargain, £1 from Dorothy Perkins! I never buy full price jewellery, it doesn't stay in style long enough to spend loads of money on it, I'm a sale junkie!!
• I teamed this outfit with my favourite Dorothy Perkins wedged trainers! Another sale bargain at £15, and I've worn them to death! So comfy but yet give a nice bit of height :)
• I also stuck on my sleeveless denim jacket just for a slight bit of extra protection against the evening chill! This is a Topshop bargain and I think it was £15, such a steal :)

It was the first time seeing my friends since I got my hair done so I was looking forward to showing off a bit ;-)
My makeup was my basic look, strong eyebrows, nude eyes, lots of mascara and my new favourite lipstick! It's MUA's Shade 3, and in my opinion it's a complete dupe for Topshop's Brighton Rock that I posted about last week.. And the best thing is, it's £1!! A gorgeous bright pink, that unfortunately this pic doesn't do justice to! I'll have a blog post coming up on my recent MUA purchases that I'll share soon!

Hope you enjoyed this little outfit post, hopefully I'll be able to do a few more soon :)
Happy Sunday guys :)
Rachel. x