Firstly - a big thank you to everyone for entering the Christmas giveaways! Winners have been emailed and if you visit the relevant posts, announced on the widget. Thanks again to all for entering.

On to the post...behold my latest complete and utter impulse buy (as ever)

I basically picked this up because it looks very very similar to the Real Techniques brushes, a few of which I actually own.



Verdict? Well, it's incredibly soft. Absolutely no shedding when washed, which I was pleasantly surprised about as it was so cheap. However, this particular brush is far too large to be properly used on my face, really - my own fault for not checking. There is a smaller version on sale which I was planning to investigate before I bought a set of Sigma dupes from eBay. Can't comment on whether this brush is a Real Techniques dupe as I don't own this specific one from them, but they seem fairly similar.

Anyone else tried Wilkinson's brush range?

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For reference, Primark had dabbled in the whole beauty line when I first got into blogging. I had a few of their brightly coloured kohl liners (those things were genuinely quite good as well) but I seem to remember they gave up fairly soon afterwards, someone correct me if I'm wrong? I hadn't realise they'd started up their makeup line again until recently.
In the store, there were plenty of lip liners (four or five shades, £1 each) one other type of beeswax lip balm (pomegranate) some lipsticks, nail polishes, bronzers and other bits and bobs. It all looked quite new but I could sense hoardes of Year Nines just waiting to destroy the stand as soon as I'd moved on so I made my choices and left.


The pencil is okay. Very creamy, a little too creamy as it wears off quicker than I'm used to. Still, lovely colour, and only a quid.




I was actually a little disappointed that this wasn't tinted - not sure why I expected it to be coloured, but yeah. This was my first experience with a beeswax lipbalm and I'm not sure whether it's this particular balm or all beeswax lipbalms that I won't be particularly compatible with. It feels nice on my lips but just doesn't deliver any moisture. I have ridiculously dry lips which only get worse in the winter so I need fairly moisturising balms unfortunately. I quite like this under a drying lipstick though.

Lip balm - £2
Lip liner - £1

Thoughts on beeswax lipbalms?

This is me floating a new idea for the blog; Ever since I experienced the joys of a Saturday job (and consequently, disposable income for what feels like the first time in my life) many of the posts on here have been leaning towards hauls rather than the (questionable) nail art and looks this blog used to feature more heavily. The long and short of it is that I feel I should give products that I currently own some more love, as well as rushing to invest in the latest and greatest.

Combining this love (beauty/cosmetic blogging) with just one of my other great loves (science) led me to this, The Cosmetic Table of the Elements. At least wait for me to explain before you click that big red X button!
'Elements' refers to the individual items of makeup that I would wear to give a certain 'look', and the whole name is a play on the Periodic Table, obviously. Call it a Lenten challenge, but if it takes off and I collect enough of these 'sets' I would organise them into some sort of table so that if I were ever stuck for inspiration, I could go and have a look.

It'd run like so: I'd pick a theme, say, 'peachy keen sixth former', and come up with this:


 

This would include a short description of how they were applied, what inspired me to group that particular collection of products together etc.

At the end of the day, if I wanted a blog with no readers I'd be keeping a diary, which is why I'm asking you guys what you think? Good idea? Leave it? If you would prefer to comment anonymously, feel free! As ever, I don't mind :)

The second makeup item in my E.L.F order, I was pretty curious as to whether this would actually resemble the website's photographs at all. That's the problem with E.L.F not having a physical store presence - you have to, for the most part, rely blindly on online swatches. Luckily, this fit me really well.



For a physical colour comparison that you can actually swatch in store, I'd suggest Sleek 'Hide It' concealer in shade 4. I own both and the colours are almost dupes (I'd say Sleek has ever so slightly darker red undertones) but the E.L.F is a lot cheaper and the mechanism is less prone to breaking. On the flipside, the Sleek is unscented, whereas the Cover Stick has a sort of orangey, sugary smell? Not sure how to feel about that. It's not unpleasant, just an interesting choice for a face product.



The way I like to use this is as a concealer. I dip my finger in and just put it over some dark spots on my face, rubbing slightly. I then go over with powder, and it stays all day. I think this is a bit too thick to use under the eyes, but for concealing blemishes it's great. It's quite creamy, so blends well, and doesn't dry your skin out.



Recently, this has been my 'go to' face makeup. Conceal with this, light dusting of powder, and I'm off to school. Takes almost no time in the morning and looks effective. Another winner from E.L.F, in my opinion. I like it when you can finally understand the hype about a company.


Applied thickly.


Blended in - you can barely see it!

This is actually a repurchase.



89p at Wilko will get you this fabulous four way nail buffer. Complete with handy instructions on the back!


Start with black, to take down length (though I find the grit on it is really rough - practically sandpaper! So I use my own files instead) move onto blue, to smooth out ridges. Pink begins to produce a shine while still evening out the nail plate - a sort of intermediate stage - and the grey makes everything wonderful and shiny. Can't say much fairer than that.



I've been using this for my buffing purposes for a while now, though I'm tempted to try out No7's offering when the vouchers roll around again. What are your favourite nail buffers?

I won a giveaway over at The Phalanges Files and the generous ChaosButterfly added some extra polishes in!



The glitter is intense. Thanks so much, ChaosButterfly!



Who knew Tesco's did contact lens solution? I spotted this on MakeupSavvy's blog and promptly picked some up myself - way cheaper than buying from an optician - and it can also be used as eyedrops or as a foiling medium.

Over at TJ Hughes they were selling Rimmel cuticle oil for £.99. I picked some up and it's seriously good. I approve.
I forgot to photograph this but TJ Hughes were also doing alcohol hand gel in spray bottles, two for 69p. I like this for sanitising brushes after washing, or quickly if I'm doing makeup on other people.

This was meant to be a birthday present, but because of the postal delays and the usual Christmas rush, I've only just recieved them.

 Check them out. These were about £2.05, I think, and they shipped from Hong Kong.
There are actually quite a few (about fifteen) and they come in this handy plastic wallet for storage, which I approved of. It just makes it easier to keep all of the brushes together.
 I see some of these brushes doubling up for makeup application, too. The fan brushes, definitely, and these brushes pictured look good for gel eyeliner. The one brush in my brush roll is complete and utter crap, but that's another post.
Some of the brushes were really long stripers! I liked this. No idea what I'll use them for, but they're cool nonetheless. It also came with a dotting tool (pictured) which again, is useful as I don't actually own one.
The eBay seller included this little strip of paper, so I'll check the website out. As I've said, I'm really pleased with this purchase for only £2.05. Next time I need nail art supplies, I'll keep them in mind.

As the title suggests, these are the spoils from my latest jaunt at Poundland. Glass files? Little gem thingies for nail art? Count me in!

I knew you didn't think it was possible...but it is. I'd be ashamed if the colour wasn't so great.

My sister recieved a set of four, small, generic nail polishes from Boots for a birthday party when she was, I dunno, eight or something. She was tidying up her room and decided to give them to me as she never used them and I love doing my nails.

You see the little rings on the top? Those are so cute :P
Anyway, I didn't hold much hope for them until I tried the the second to last shimmery glittery one with the purple ring over Nails Inc Sloane Mews to go to school. Not only was it totally school friendly, but it looked great. And today, I tried out the hot pink one at the beginning, and WOW.


Yum.
I assure you that these pictures do not do this baby justice. It is GORGEOUS. It's such a hot pink that it's almost neon, and it's majorly shiny without a topcoat. I want to eat it. It's great.
I noticed a few bubbles after I put the topcoat on, though, which was disapointing. And the formula is quite runny, you do have to work to stop it flooding your cuticles. Still, this was only two coats and it had reached bottle colour. I think I can overlook the rest of the annoyances just for the colour :P I don't know how you'd buy this though. I'm under the impression it's aimed at seven year olds wanting to play dressup or something. Sigh. Boots No7 is good though, I doubt you'd find this colour there. So, a breakdown of the set:

First, this is the only opaque one and the one featured in the pictures. It has a hint of bluey shimmer to it and is just generally gorgeous. Like I said, there's some bubbling but the colour...yum. So much better in real life, I promise. These are all 5 ml so three of them are equal to one bottle of OPI but as I see it, I'll get through it faster and then can franken with the empty bottles, haha :P Plus, the cute rings on top can be painted the colour of the franken so I'll have matching rings like I've seen so many other bloggers do! Yey!

This is also really good. It's silver glitter suspended in a "pink" mixture, but when worn as a standalone polish (as they recommend, which I've only done once for school) it was practically clear. I wore this over a very unopaque white (Sloane Mews, which I reviewed in the link) and it was slightly noticeable, but not much. The glitter was good, though. It's very fine and gives it that mysterious shine.


Bleuch. Disapointment. This confetti thing was horrendous. I couldn't even get any! Only one or two pieces would end up on my brush and the confetti looked like an accident on my nails. What a shame, because it looked nice in the bottle.
I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but this has long strands of silver glitter in it, though they are quite sparse. I haven't tried this yet but I assume it'll work like the blackcurranty coloured one above, which would be a disapointment. Still, I have hope.

I think the hot pink colour is so great I can't bear to draw over it! Sorry to keep going on about the colour but seriously, in real life it is gorgeous. Also, I'd just like to say thank you to everyone that has commented recently! (Susie, WizardsOfBling, Crystaliciousss) It makes me really happy :P

EDIT: You guys know I'm on the Easter holidays at the moment? I forgot to mention :P In the UK we get about two weeks off for Easter, so that's why I'm having very brightly coloured nails at the moment. When we go back to school, I'll have to go back to sheers and subtle nail art (grr) until the weekend. I'm thinking of swatching stuff on my toes instead to show it to you guys, though I feel kind of weird flashing my feet online...what do you guys think?

Lena
xxx

Oh wow. So today, (Good Friday) I went to Superdrug, which is a good relatively cheap UK drugstore, similar to Boots (and it's basically the HOME of Barry M, haha). I wanted to get some new polish colours and I knew exactly what I had in mind - Barry M. Headed straight for the cosmetics aisle and scoured the shelves...there it was! All sorts of Barry M goodness. However, the polishes were £2.95 and Miss Sporty were doing a sale on their own colours - (three for two) so instead of getting the Barry M yellow, I bought the Miss Sporty yellow (they looked fairly similar, not dupes but close) and got Barry M Mint Green instead. I was in polish heaven :P The choice was truly mind boggling - there was almost every nail paint there apart from the very new Ice Cream ones for summer! Even the glitters were there! Also, there was all sorts of Rimmel, Maybelline and GOSH. I did look interestedly at the GOSH having seen it featured in some other nail polish blogs - a gorgeous holo silver - but quickly backed away when I saw it was £5. Wtf? I'm a student! Why pay £5 for a limited range of colours when I could get two or even three nice ones for that type of money?

They look so pretty all lined up!


The Miss Sporty brands claim to dry in 60 seconds. I'll have to test that claim.
The black claims to last for up to 7 days. For a cheap nail polish that's really quite good but again, I'll have to see for myself.
 My gorgeous Barry M :)
I have waited so long to own thee.

I've had bad experiences with the Miss Sporty Black in the past - one completely thickened up beyond belief and seized manically after about three years or so. I had to throw the whole bottle away. Still, they've changed the bottle design since then and if the formula has changed to allow it to stay on for 7 days...there's hope. I think it feels better knowing that your colours were cheapass. Bye for now.