Collection of Makeup Looks

I thought I'd just post a few photographs of recent makeup looks that I have done for myself and for friends. Enjoy! x

Done with netting, Urban Decay's Electric Palette and Primer Potion

Done with Nyx white liquid liner and Natural Collection liquid liner

Done with Urban Decay's Electric palette, Nyx white liquid liner and Too Faced melted chocolate liquid lipstick in Chocolate Milkshake

Done with Nyx white liquid liner, Jeffree Star Liquid lipstick in Jawbreaker, Lime Crime Velvetines in Squash, Beet it and Pumpkin

Natural look using Too Faced's semi sweet chocolate bar palette, and Too Faced's melted chocolate lipstick in chocolate milkshake.

Fawn Eye using Too Faced's semi sweet chocolate bar palette and Bourjois' liquid  lipstick in nudeist

Bright eyes and brows using Urban Decay's Electric Palette, Nyx white liquid liner and Urban decay's Gwen Stefani Lipstick in Firebird.

Too Faced SemiSweet Chocolate Bar Palette Review

If I could marry a palette I would marry this one. I would take it off into the sunset and spend the rest of my life with it, every day in bliss. 

I was very hesitant to buy the semisweet palette as I already own more neutral palette than any one face needs, but as I STILL can't get hold of the sweet peach palette (seriously if anyone knows anywhere I can get hold of it please PLEASE let me know) I thought I'd give it a go...

First impressions wise, I love the novelty packaging and it comes with a really handy 'how to' guide, ideal for some inspiration.

But the smell... Oh god the smell. Having not owned anything by TooFaced before I was nervous that it would smell like that nauseating fake chocolate smell that you get in cheap candles and other things that are meant to be chocolate scented, but it's lovely. It doesn't smell exactly like chocolate in my opinion, but it is lovely and sweet and it makes me happy when I open it up. 

It consists of sixteen different shadow shades, mostly neutral browns and oranges, with a few pops of pink and blue. There is a good mixture of matte and shimmer shades, with a couple of glitters too.

I absolutely love that you get larger pans of the light, highlighting colours, as these tend to be the colours that you use most of. It's simple but well thought out and was definitely a push factor in buying the palette.

Swatches over Urban Decay Primer Potion in Original and over nothing. Excuse the patchy swatches... I'm impatient and didn't wait for the primer to dry.

The colours in this are great and you can do SO much with them. They are all lovely and creamy, except Coconut Creme which is a tiny bit chalky. The pigmentation is absolutely amazing. With the Naked palettes I find I have to load up my brush quite a bit, but I barely have to touch these shadows to get great colour payoff. In fact I got caught out the first time I used it and ended up swiping a big, thick, dark brown line across my eyelid as I completely wasn't expecting it. 

I've been looking everywhere for a palette with great peachy oranges and totally wasn't expecting it from a chocolate bar palette, but Bon Bon, Caramel and Peanut Butter are exactly what I was looking for. 

I would recommend this to anyone. Especially as a first time buy or if you are on a limited budget. This palette will do everything you need and more.

This palette is available here for £37

New Bedroom Lights!

It was Student Loan day on Monday, otherwise known as Treat Yo Self day (Parks and Rec anyone?)
I gathered quite a stash of new things, including a lot of fantastic new makeup to be reviewed shortly, but I thought I'd make a quick post about some adorable lights I found super cheap in Primark.

Tiny butterfly fairy lights - £2.50

I feel like these were a huge bargain, as they are so so delicate and pretty, yet super super bright. As they're strung on wire it was really easy to wrap them round the horns of my deer head. I think it makes him look great. (Lights take 3xAA batteries)

Flamingo Standing Light - £10

I'm a bit obsessed with flamingos at the moment,so this was mine from the moment I saw it. It's a bit more expensive but I think it's still cheap for what it is. (Light takes 2xAA batteries)

Moroccan style gold fairy lights - £6

I love the patterns these project onto my walls, they make my little bed and book nook very cosy. (Lights take 2xAA batteries).

I love the huge difference all these lights have made to my room at a very low cost, and Primark have loads more to choose from so go and have a look! Happy Thursday!

Urban Decay Gwen Stefani Eyeshadow Palette Review and Swatches

The Eyeshadow Palette was the first piece of the Urban Decay Gwen Stefani collection to be released. It's currently out of stock on the Urban Decay site, but is available on Feel Unique for £40 with the option to use a student discount or other voucher codes that can be found online to reduce the price ( I love Feel Unique). 

I've had this palette for a few months and whilst I was counting down the days for it to be released, I'm a little disappointed by it. 

The Palette contains fifteen 1.4g shadows, three of which are permanent shades (Skimp, Stark and Blackout) with the remaining twelve being limited to this palette. The palette contains a mixture of matte and shimmer shadows in both neutral and bright colours. 

The shadows themselves are a fantastic formula, as with pretty much all Urban Decay shadows. All are creamy and pretty pigmented, though 1987 is a little creamier than the rest. 

Swatches over Urban Decay's Primer Potion in Original on the left, no primer on the right.

What bothers me about this palette is the range of colours you get. I felt like a palette with fifteen shades was great value, but it doesn't feel like you get as many as that as a lot of them are incredibly similar. Most of the shades are neutrals and a large chunk of those are very light. Once on the eye, I find it pretty difficult to distinguish between Skimp, Bathwater, Blonde and Pop.

The only colour in this palette that I actually use regularly is Punk. Punk is a gorgeous, warm, dark brown shade and is great in a warm toned smokey eye look. I use this pretty much every day and am pretty disappointed that this isn't one of the permanent shades as I'd love to be able to buy it separately. I'd love to hear about any good dupes for this shade in the comments!

I'm not usually one for pink eyeshadow, but Harajuku mixes very nicely with 1987 for a rose gold eye look, these are the only other two shades I use fairly frequently. 

When I ordered this, it came with samples of four of the Gwen Stefani lipsticks which was a nice surprise. I'm not sure if it still comes with these but they are a pretty great bonus as the lipsticks are fantastic and I've since bought a few. 

All in all, I'd say this palette probably isn't worth purchasing in my opinion. There are better neutral palettes out there for less money that I feel you would get more use out of. It's a shame as there are a few great shades but they alone don't feel worth the hefty £40 price tag!

Let me know what you thought of the palette in the comments!

Removing my half and half hair dye

Anyone who knows me knows how often I dye my hair. I get bored within weeks and am always trying interesting new colours.

Last December I went for half black, half white blonde hair.

I loved it, and over the next few months played about with different colours on the white side. As is always the case, I got bored and decided I wanted to one colour all over again. I massively underestimated how difficult this would be to do. 

By the time I went to start, my hair was a pretty big mess of colours as the half and half was difficult to maintain on my own. 

The blonde side was a mess of pink and blue, and the black had chunks of red and green. Yet I still reckoned it would be easy enough to just bleach it all and start again. I used LOreal Preference Extreme Platinum, which I've previously had good results with when going brunette to white blonde. 

Except apparently if you're going from black and red to blonde, it doesn't work like that. As can be seen by the disaster pieces below.

My hair was green and orange, and the ends were absolutely fried. So I booked a haircut and hoped they wouldn't comment on the colour too much as I couldn't afford to get it fixed there.. 

Nope. 

"What the hell have you done now? Why? What on earth did you use? Why do you do this? Just please let me do the colour..." 

After being told off, I had more of my hair cut off than I've lost in years, I was pretty ready to cry, but at least it felt slightly better..? As can be seen in this candid post trauma shot;

I've always had hair way down my back and am still slightly gutted. I went home and my next set of dye had arrived. When doing my crazy colours I tend to use La Riche Directions dye, as it's conditioning so doesn't damage my hair, and the results are always really vibrant. It's also available on eBay for less than £3 a pot and can be added to conditioner for pastel colours or to spread it further. I put the shade violet on and set it for about two hours and here it the end result. 

It's still much darker on the left, but I'm looking more purple allover, it's going to be a long process to get back I think but I'm happy for now. If you're after going half and half, do. It's great and reasonably easy to do with the help of a friend, but do bear in mind how you'll get it out after. I would very much recommend having it professionally recoloured if you can afford it.

Lime Crime Velvetines and Jeffree Star Velour Liquid Lipstick Review

Lime Crime have had a lot of bad press and as a self professed lover of drama, I have spent longer than I'd care to admit reading over blogs and tumblrs dedicated to reporting all the failings of this brand.

I am however weak and easily swayed when it comes to pretty lipstick, so forgetting momentarily that I have no money I ordered some velvetines and a Jeffree Star liquid lipstick to see what the fuss was about. I ordered them from DollsKill at about $15 each, after import costs and postage it came to around £90 for all six.

From Left to Right; Jawbreaker, Jinx, Wicked, Pumpkin, Squash and Beet it

The packaging is lovely and I've kept all the boxes, but when it comes to the tubes themselves, the velvetines feel very light and kind of cheap when compared to the Jeffree Star. The Jeffree Star is also contains considerably more product and feels better value for the price. 

(Messy) swatches, I'm clumsy. From Left to Right; Jawbreaker, Squash, Pumpkin, Beet it, Wicked and Jinx

After a very good scrub with a makeup wipe

They are all incredibly pigmented and are fairly difficult to remove once applied. I'm still sporting coloured stripes on my arm a good few hours later. The velvetines also have a strong and slightly unpleasant scent that reminds me a lot of playdoh.

They are still incredibly pigmented on the lips and I found them very easy to apply with the doe foot applicator, I find that I don't really need to use a lip liner to get a clean edge. 

Lime Crime Velvetine in Jinx

Lime Crime Velvetine in Wicked

Lime Crime Velvetine in Beet it

Lime Crime Velvetine in Pumpkin

Lime Crime Velvetine in Squash

Jeffree Star Velour Liquid Lipstick in Jawbreaker

I found that Jinx applied slightly more patchy and had a thinner formula than the others, but this was easily rectified by adding another coat. Out of all of the shades I like Pumpkin best, I find it to be the most wearable and have had many compliments on it while out and about. All six last fairly well, though I did find that I had to reapply a few times throughout the day and after eating as they did lose colour in the center of my lips. 

You would definitely need to use a lip scrub before and probably after using any of these as they are fairly drying, the velvetines considerably more so than the Jeffree Star. They do become fairly uncomfortable and I feel very conscious of how dry my lips look. The Jeffree Star feels far more moist and I feel it looks a little less matte than the velvetines. 

Overall I think they're good lipsticks, but I'm not sure how worth the hefty price tag they are. If I was to buy more I think I'd probably go for more of the Jeffree Star Liquid lipsticks as they're more comfortable, It's just that Lime Crime seem to offer a better range of colours at the moment. 

Let me know what you've thought of your Lime Crime or Jeffree Star Lipsticks in the comments! 

Yves Saint Laurent Touché Eclat!

     I thought it was definitely time that I shared one of my absolute favourite products with you. As you can see from the rather fetching photo below, I suffer with very dark under eye circles (much worse than they look in the photo, I promise!).

        Even under full make up they tend to show up and I have always struggled to find anything that conceals them properly. Everything I tried either barely covered anything, or was so thick and pigmented that it stuck out like a nun in a porn shop . I have been desperate to find something subtle enough that I can pop a bit on and go without any other make up, and my prayers have been answered in the form of Yves Saint Laurent's Touché Eclat.
     
        It is a highlighter and concealer and is fabulous in many many ways. It retails at about £20 but you get the occasional bargain - I found mine in the amazon lightning deals after Christmas for £13. Like all high end products, it looks and feels lovely. It comes packaged in gold, which I admit I'm a sucker for, and feels... good. It feels like a nice product.

Being pretty pale, I went for the lightest shade, 1 Luminous Radiance, but there are about nine shades to choose from. You click the bottom, and spread it on with the brush at the top. Below is the swatch and next to it, the product blended.

       

 It feels quite thin and as you can see blends to virtually invisible, so  I wasn't particularly optimistic that I would get great coverage from it, but I was pleasantly surprised. I dabbed a thin layer on in the darkest areas of my eyes and blended with a finger - I'd get a better finish from a brush I think, but I'm still pretty happy. You can see a side by side comparison on my wonky eyes below, I have the touché Eclat on the right eye, nothing on the left.

I've finally found something I can pop on and go out without bothering with a full face o' slap. And I get to have my freckles on display, yay freckles! 

Christmas Cupcakes for the ward!

With Christmas approaching, I decided to make some Christmas cupcakes for the nurses and other staff on my ward. I had so much fun with these. I made 12 chocolate and 12 vanilla cupcakes and piped them all with buttercream frosting. I used the recipes I got from the Angel Food Kitchen - I will share these at some point soon as they truly create the perfect cupcake.

I had so much fun with these, using Mexican Paste to model festive sugar shapes, the chocolate pretzel reindeer were my favourite though! 

I'm very pleased with how these turned out and all 24 were gone in moments!

Feel free to ask any questions about how I made anything. Did you create any festive bakes over Christmas? Let me know! 

CB x

Making Macaroons : Attempt 1

After way too many sofa days watching The Great British Bake Off, I got a real itching to give macaroons a go.

"It'll be easy" I said.

"What's the worst that could happen?"

I decided to make rose macaroons with a white chocolate ganache and as is often the case with last minute bakes, I only had about half of the ingredients. I nipped round to my corner shop in hope of getting some white chocolate, but alas - none in stock. I figured I could shuffled the recipe around a bit and bought some galaxy instead.

I got to work with the macaroons, I used the BBC recipe, which you can find here: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/macaroons_04669

All was going smoothly, macaroons in the oven - now mint instead of rose, so I went to get started on the ganache. Only I had absent mindedly snaffled more than half of the chocolate! Oops! Back to the shop for another bar.

It was then that I realised I'd forgotten to leave the macaroons to sit - no smooth tops for me! The sitting is a vital part of making the perfect macaroon, it allows air bubbles to rise and a skin to form on top, this is what creates the smooth and shiny dome that macaroons are so famous for. 

I got impatient with the ganache and tried to sandwich the macaroons way before it had set. Its still very runny once cooled, so I assumed that this was as thick as it was going to get, but be patient, it thickens up considerably if you give it even give minutes more.

 For a first attempt, I don't think they look all too bad!

My trip to the Angel Food Kitchen!

For my most recent birthday I got to take a cupcake course at the Angel Food Kitchen in Brighton! It was such a fantastic day and I learnt so many skills that I've used plenty of times since.

It was a two hour course, run by such a friendly and helpful lady in the most gorgeous kitchen. As there were only five of us taking the class there were plenty of opportunities to get one on one assistance with some of the trickier skills, like the palette knife swirl (which I am still yet to master)!

We got to play around in a candy dream land, with jars full of sweets and sprinkles, sugarcraft moulds galore, enormous bowls of frosting and twelve cupcakes to get creative with! I have to say, I'm quite proud of the end result!

They were beyond delicious and I would absolutely recommend the course to anyone and everyone. Beginners and experts alike.

Have you had any experiences with similar courses? I'd love to hear about it.

CB x

A little about me!

Hello! I'm Charys and I thought I'd create a blog so I could share the things I love. I'm currently living in Brighton - one of the most vibrant cities on earth - while I train to be a nurse.

I use the majority of my spare time and spare money on baking, crafts and cosmetics, despite not really having any of either!

I hope to use this blog to share reviews of my favourite products, some of my favourite recipes and anything else really that I fancy.

Thank you for taking the time to read and I hope you enjoy!

CB x