Birchbox: June 2017

I was lucky to receive the June Birchbox as a late birthday present this month. I love the concept of this brand, delivering new and upcoming, or well loved beauty products to try and test. This months Birchbox came in a bag, which is perfect for days at the beach as the material of the bag is easy to clean and very durable.

The first thing that popped out of this bag was the Scrub Love Coconut Mango Body Scrub (£12.95/200g). This product is so ideal for summer, I feel like sometimes we worry about facial skincare rather than body care! Still I was prepared to dismiss this product, as who wants to spend a lot of money on a scrub that you wash away right? When I used this product, I was completely blown away, I used around a tablespoon of the scrub and that was enough to scrub my whole body. The scrub itself is mostly particles with no gel or liquid which makes the scrub really do its job properly. It does have oil in it, so it's not all just grit. The smell is incredible, it did not overtly smell of coconut nor mango, but just a nice tropical scent, enough to make you wish you were in a tropical paradise!  The scrub was vigorous, but the coconut oil left behind just made me love this product even more, as my body was just ready for the day once I stepped out of the shower. For anyone who is looking for a real scrub, this is honestly the best product I have tried! 

I was also so happy to receive the Cowshed Cowpat Moisturising Hand Cream (£8.00/50ml), just because I haven't tried anything from the brand before, and I've heard such good things about it. This hand cream is a good staple for any handbag, it absorbs well into the skin and doesn't leave any greasy residue. The scent is really different, this product strives to be unisex which I find refreshing! This product contains Grapefruit oil and Coriander oil to help circulation and also Shea and Cocoa butter to help to nourish dry skin. In terms of texture, this feels like a lotion, however has the power of a heavy duty cream! I actually stick this product on my feet too because it really is good at hydrating dry skin. 

The amika Perk Up Dry Shampoo (£20.00/232ml), is a product I didn't think I would get much use out of. However, a week after the box arrived, I slept in after my alarm went off, and only had less than half an hour to get ready and this product literally saved my hair. I don't really use dry shampoo as I was my hair every day. I know, it's so bad for my hair. But what I especially liked about this dry shampoo was that it didn't leave a build up of product in my hair, and it just added an extra few hours of wear back into my hair. This would be great for anyone who likes to use dry shampoo period, but also those who like to use it over a period of days, as this is such a light spray.

The last few bits that were in the Birchbox was an Eyebrow Pencil from Meech and Mia (£12.99/1g), I haven't heard of this brand before but I was sceptical of trying an eyebrow pencil as I hadn't tried one in a few years! Once I tried this one though, I was sold. It's lightly pigmented, and has a slightly waxy feel to it, and just looks natural on the brows. It's weird, it's like a new generation of eyebrow pencils, that accentuates brows rather than drawing them on! This pencil is designed for sparse brows, and so if you are like me, and are not naturally gifted with full brows this pencil could be a game changer for you!

Another interesting product was the Arrow Enhance Waterproof Eyeliner + Brightener (£12.00/0.8g), which is a light pink eyeliner, which is perfect masking tired, red eyes! So although I love the concept of this eyeliner, and the longevity is also brilliant, the product itself slightly balls up on my eyes, and leaves residue in my eyelashes, which isn't ideal. Also I probably should address that on my eyes, the colour is quite noticeable, just because of how tanned my skin is. I think on lighter skin this product might look more natural! What I have been doing with this product is using this on my waterline and then adding my eyeliner of choice over it, as it extenuates the colour of my eyeliner, as it's such a light colour. So if I am wearing brown or green eyeliner, priming my waterline with this eyeliner is perfect as the colour just looks more vibrant and the eyeliner actually has something to stick to too, and so doesn't disintegrate as easily!

I was super happy with this Birchbox, as I just think the selection was things I needed but just didn't buy for myself! I would love to know if you have tried Birchbox and your experiences of it! Also be sure to follow me on Bloglovin to stay up to date with my posts!

Brand Focus: L'Oréal

Ain't gonna lie, it took me by surprise to know how little acquainted I was with L'Oréal, I've always known what they had to offer but just never really gravitated towards it. That all changed in the past three months when I finally bought my first L'Oréal product, which lead to my second... and now I have accumulated quite a few products that I really think deserve a mention! I'll talk you through my favourites...

The L'Oréal Infallible Primer Matte Base (£7.99/35ml) was one of the first few products that I purchased, and this is a silicone feeling primer, that leaves your skin smooth and ready for make-up. For me and my massive pores, this is a must! If I had to compare it, I would describe it as a mix between The Body Shop's Instablur and the Make Up Forever Step 1 Mattifying primer, it's more smooth than the former and more thcker than the latter! On the other end of the spectrum the L'Oréal Infallible Fixing Mist (£7.99/120g) is a recent addition to my collection, and I have to say I've been loving it so far! This does actually set and hold your make-up, and I have noticed that my make-up is fresher for longer and my face is less oiler throughout the day. One tip I want to share is that you shake the product properly before using it so that the powder in the bottom gets distributed in the solution!

A new product that I have been testing out is the L'Oréal Brow Artiste Genius Kit (£9.99) in the shade 'Medium to Dark' and I have been blown away by this, it's a duo that contains a wax and powder, and the colour match is pretty great for my eyebrows, as my eyebrows are a cool-toned ash brown shade The wax controls my eyebrow shape pretty nicely, and then it's easy to just fill in the gaps with the powder! Also it comes with a tweezer and a brush and spooly so you are pretty much set! After filling in my brows I set them with the L'Oréal Brow Artist Plumper (£5.99/7ml), which helps tint the eyebrows slightly and set everything in place, I love using just this product on my lazy days as it just makes everything in the eyebrow department look a lot better.

Moving onto eye's, I've mentioned the L'Oréal Volume Million Lashes Waterproof (£9.99/2ml) in a previous blog, and I am still loving this! It's great at lengthening and fanning out the eyelashes and has a great hold! On day's where I want more Oomph however, I reach for my L'Oréal Superliner (£6.99), I love how black it is! It's got a flexible nib so it's great at getting close into the lash line. I need more practice with this though! I haven't used a liquid liner in months which makes me feel like a beginner again, on the plus side, if you do make mistakes this isn't such a hassle to wipe off!

I think you can see what kinds of products I go for in this post, I love long lasting make-up and I think L'Oréal has done really well with all of these products! I really want to try their new sculpt range, so if you have any recommendations let me know in the comments!

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Long Lasting Make-up tip? Yes Please

For some reason when I think of long-lasting make-up I envision a model with a ton of matte make-up on her face. This post is not going to be that. Instead this post is based on a more realistic and accessible way to get make-up to look as though it hasn't melted away during the day. 

I want to say, and this is from my personal experience, that less make-up is better if you want to look semi-decent at the end of the day as you did in the start. I find that if I wear less eyeshadow, less blush, less foundation, I look more like the woman who left the door at 8am. If I put more make-up on then when I come back 9 hours later, you can really see how much I tried in the early hours of the morning. 

I really have been encompassing this idea into my daily life, on Mondays I have a 9-6 day at uni, and so I am out the door at 8am and back home at 6.30pm, so I really try to use a minimal amount because God knows my head will be in my hands at the end of the day!

My Monday make-up routine consists of me firstly priming my face with the L'Oréal Infallible Primer (£7.99/45g), then I go in with my NARS All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation (£32.00/30g) - I add half a pump to my face, trying to just even out my complexion rather than masking my face. I then fill in the sparse areas of my eyebrows with the Mono Eyeshadow 'MMMM' from Makeup Revolution (£1.00/2.3g), (this is quite warm toned, and it does a good job but I've recently discovered a new favourite!). My next step is to add mascara, my currrent one is the Loreal Million Lashes Waterproof (£9.99/2ml) and it's awesome! I then proceed to set my make-up with the Chanel Natural Finish Loose Powder (£36.00/30g), and then add a bit of the bareMinerals Pop of Passion Lip-Oil Balms (£16.00/3.1g) - these are great because they reduce down into a stain and so actually do great for making your lips look naturally pigmented! 

For some reason, this sounded like a lot of steps, but I swear I can do it all in around 5 minutes! Also I try to make things as sheer as possible! 

I would love for you all to try to minimise the make-up that you have on on your crazy busy days, I can guarantee that you will notice that you don't look quite as worn down by the day, because you didn't look so done up at the start of the day! It's about reducing that gap. To me, when I look at the mirror when the day is almost over, I don't have to deal with creased eyeshadow, smudged liner, or blush that is half way down my face and although I love make-up, I don't enjoy looking like that!
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Budget Eyebrows and Routine

So I know I talk a lot about beauty and skin-care but despite this I am actually a low maintenance girl. I like to spend around 10 minutes doing my make-up, you know making some effort but I don't exactly want to spend an hour perfecting my make-up. 

My eyebrows are not really something that I care about too much, I get them threaded once or twice a month and usually just fill them in with a pencil, however I have recently changed my 'routine', making them look more natural but still not spending any more than a minute on them.

I have sparse brows and although I loved using a pencil to fill them in, it's very easy to overdo your brows, or make them uneven especially if you don't have all the time in the world. I really wanted to try and use a powder to fill in my eyebrows instead since make-up artists think powder is better for longevity and I thought that using a powder might work for me too. This is usually the bit where I would head to Superdrug or Boots to buy the powder that would be exactly what I was looking for however I decided to 'shop my own stash' to see if I actually owned an eyeshadow colour that would work for my eyebrows; Surprisingly enough I own the Revlon ColourStay ShadowLinks (£2.99/1.4g) a single eyeshadow which is a matte, cool toned, dark brown colour called Coca. 

This is actually perfect for eyebrows, it's not crazily pigmented meaning that you can't apply too much and the formula is more powdery than buttery. I love the fact it's so small too, making it easy to travel with and also since it's a single eyeshadow there are no unnecessary colours that I will never use. It lasts the entire day, I'm so happy I actually found this rather than buying something that may not have worked as well for me. For the price, I think this is amazing, I know Revlon does quite a few shades in these ShadowLinks so hopefully they have some that suit other hair types! 

My Routine

Like I said earlier, my routine is really fast and more like a quick fix than an actual routine. I start by brushing my brows with a spooly, which is a mascara like brush, and then I start filling in my brows from the tail first using the Revlon Colourstay ShadowLink, this way the end of my brows will be the darkest and starts to fade out at the beginning, making it look more natural.

I use an angled brush to fill in my brows but one which is quite flexible, a stiff brush means that it will pack colour on more heavily and I prefer the opposite. You can use any angled brush and spooly you want, I've had my brushes for years and perhaps they need replacing, but for now I am happy with this routine. At the end I just brush my brows again and that's it! Just one product and two brushes.

Before

After

My brows are far from perfect, but I'm happy with them and that's all that really matters, I know they won't ever look like Cara Delevingne but you gotta play with the cards you've been dealt right? I think I should purchase a brow gel, to tame my brows some more so recommendations are welcome! :) Check out the Revlon ColourStay ShadowLinks here!

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What products do you use for your brows?? I would love to know :)