Finished! The January Edition

Finally, January is over. Is it just me or did it feel like the longest month ever? I was really willing it to be over for a few reasons. Firstly, I want spring to come. I've had enough of the dark afternoons and mornings, I want it to be daylight when I get up and daylight when I'm cooking dinner by my south-west facing kitchen window. I want flowers in the garden, cherry blossoms on the trees down the street. Secondly, I couldn't wait for Guerlain's spring collection to be finally released. And thirdly, I'd already exceeded my monthly beauty budget by the middle of the month and I desperately needed it to be February to start again. Sadly it has turned really cold in the UK, so there's no sign of spring yet unfortunately.

At least, with January being such a long month (or at least it felt like it), I've managed to finish a few products, so there are some positives there too. A lot of the products I finished this month I have reviewed on here at some point, so I will just link them to the reviews instead of repeating myself.

First though here's something I've not reviewed before, this is Avon Skin So Soft Signature Silk Nourishing Body Cream. I used to buy lots of Avon products a while ago, and I'm still finishing some of them off. This particular body cream sadly isn't a good example of Avon's good quality products. Very pretty packaging, nice scent, but a pretty rubbish moisturiser. It sort of feels like body butter, at least it's texture, but it's not at all that creamy and doesn't really spread well, so you actually use up quite a lot of cream, and it's not even that moisturising. So it's a no from me I'm afraid.

See what other products I used up after the jump!

Finished! The December Edition

Another month over, another post about products I've finished. There are a few included that I have reviewed a few times on here, so I will just link them to some earlier reviews instead of repeating myself.

First up - a confession. I'm probably the only person in the blogesphere that doesn't know what the big fuss is about Clarisonic. I got a Clarisonic Mia a couple of months ago and I've been using it religiously, but in all fairness, I just can't see what it does to my skin. My skin isn't clearer, my pores are still clogged up, nothing has really changed to be honest. I don't hate it, but I do wonder what on earth I spent all the money on. Okay, there, I said it. Let the stone thowing commence. Right, onto the products. I got this cleanser with my Clarisonic and I didn't like it. Luckily it was only a small sample, so I used it up, but it smelled funny and it did nothing to my skin. Won't repurchase (I don't even know if you can).

 See what other products I finished after the jump!

Buy Benefit Moon Beam for just £11 plus £1.50 p&p from BuyaPowa!

Have you always fancied trying out Benefit's Moon Beam highlighter but didn't feel like forking out £18.50? Now you can get one for just £11 plus £1.50 postage and packaging from BuyaPowa. They have 50 Benefit Moon Beams and the more people join in, the less it will cost, and it can go as low as £11. It is currently at £13 with 22 buyers, but no matter where you join in, everyone pays the lowest price. (Just a quick clarification, if you choose to buy, you will have to authorise the trasaction at the amount it's currently on, but you will only be charged for the lowest price, so don't worry about it. Also delivery is pretty quick and I have not had any problems buying from BuyaPowa.)

So come and join me, let's bring the price down and get ourselves some much needed glow! You don't have to, but if you decide to join the co-buy, I would appreciate it if you could click on me (Anita James) as the person who referred you. Let me know in the comments if you decide to buy!

Click HERE to buy your Benefit Moon Beam!

*I'm not in any way affiliated with BuyaPowa, just like to spend my money on make up and find great bargains on the way! :)

The Great 30 Day Lipstick Challenge - Week 1

Once again thank you to everyone who voted for which box of lipsticks I should be using for the next 30 days (you can see the "winner" box here). It's now been over a week and I have 7 lipsticks to show you. I have to say, it was a very good idea of mine to start this challenge as I often reach for the same lipsticks despite owning over 300 of them, so being restricted to choose from "just" 58 lipsticks is actually quite liberating. I also consciously trying to choose lipsticks I don't normally go for, there are quite a few unused lipsticks sitting in each box, so it's a great opportunity to try them out as well as rediscover forgotten favourites. Ah, the curse of having too much make up.

So here they are, the first 7 lipsticks. As you can see I managed to choose from a variety of brands and if you scroll down, you will see that I also managed to use a variety of shades. So shall we see which lipsticks I used this week? Find out after the jump!

The Great 30 Day Lipstick Challenge Starts Tomorrow

Thank you to all of you who took the time to vote in my poll. It was very close, but Mixed Up Magic won, so I will be choosing a different lipstick every day to wear from that box for the next 30 days. I will try to do a weekly post on which lipsticks I wore and hope to show you some swatches and looks featuring some of them. So once again here's a picture of the winning box.

I'm quite excited about this because it contains my most recent Mac lipsticks, other new-ish purchases that I haven't really worn much and some old favourites as well. So let the challenge commence...

My amazing US haul

Hello! I'm back! In case you didn't guess from my post a week or so ago, I was in Orlando with my family. We did loads of fun stuff, Disney's Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon Water Park, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Sea World, Aquatica... and some shopping! There are some amazing outlets in Orlando as well as the massive Florida mall, so I ended up buying a LOT of stuff. I was also interested in checking out some drugstore brands we don't get in the UK like Physicians Formula, and finally managed to buy myself the lovely Revlon lipgloss I'd been eyeing up for weeks - for much less as well! I know I went a bit crazy. I haven't actually added up how much I've spent, but you can tell it was a lot.

My entire beauty haul

However, I did find some amazing buys, including 3 Mac Volcanic Ash Exfoliators (there were actually a lot more in one of the CCOs, but I couldn't really pick up more), the Tom Ford Black Orchid set, and there was an excellent freebie offer at Lancome with 6 free samples and a gorgeous make up bag, so I couldn't resist.

Details will follow shortly. For now, here are some more pictures of my haul. Let me know if there are any particular brands or products you'd like me to show you in details.

Benefit Prrrowl double ended mascara topcoat and lipgloss review

I'm not a huge fan of Benefit cosmetics for several reasons, including the fact that I often find their sales assistants a bit in your face and pushy, but I have come across a product lately that I really like, so I thought I'd show you. It's called Prrrowl and it's basically a double ended mascara topcoat and lipgloss duo. I bought it when I went shopping to Boots the other day and there were no sales assistants at the counter, so I could browse happily. What caught my eye first is the gorgeous teal-blue colour of the mascara topcoat. It is just so beautiful. The lipgloss is also pretty, although it probably suit someone with cooler skintone better especially as not only it's light pink, it also has blue shimmer to it. Good for a smokey eye though!

I love the packaging, it comes in a leopard-skin print box and it's really fun to look at. Inside the box you have a very generously sized double ended wand (very similar in shape to Guerlain's Le 2 Mascaras by the way). You get 7.5 g of mascara and 6.5 ml of lipgloss for £19.50 which is pretty good value for money. Both ends have very good applicators, the mascara wand is a really nice size and picks up just the right amount of product, and the lipgloss applicator is nicely curved on one side to make application easier. The lipgloss is non-sticky and has the same fruity scent as other Benefit glosses (not my favourite to be honest). The mascara topcoat (which could also be applied alone) is a beautiful peacock blue shade with lots of sparkles. Once it's applied it doesn't flake or smudge at all, and there's no glitter fallout either.

See more product pictures and swatches after the jump!