September Favourites

September was the first month of Autumn, and so out come the berry lips, the dark nails and the OOTD's filled with hats and scarves.

Body shop Tea Tree cleanser £5

+creamy cleanser that leave skin squeaky clean

+not too stripping

+tea tree acts as anti-bacterial and works 

AMAZING for clearing up blemishes

MAC amplified creme finish in CRAVING £15.50

+super creamy and smooth

+not drying (good for the cold)

+gorgeous warm plum colour

Rimmel Match Perfection Foundation £6.99

+old favourite

+light to medium coverage

+stays on with dewey finish

Benefit Boi-ing concealer £17.50

+heavy coverage but looks natural

+stays on all day 

+creamy, great pigment

Bourjois Healthy Balance Powder £8.99

+keeps you matte all day

+looks natural

+blends concealer and foundation nicely

together

+neat, sturdy compact with mirror

Zoeva Rose Gold Brushes

+gorgeous packaging

+great selection

(did post on thursday, here)

and into October we go...

Lots of Love,

Sophie

xxx

Had Me Sold at "Rose Gold"

Woah, okay. 

Can we all just take a minute to admire these brushes in all their rose-golden glory.

When I saw these on the zoeva website, I grew rather wide-eyed at the rose gold handles and the elegant leather pouch, and I followed them all the way to the checkout whereupon I splurged £50 in a mindless instant...

These are the ROSE GOLDEN luxury set with 8 beautifully soft brushes. The Zoeva brushes are great quality and I didn't just buy this set for gorgeous colours, this is an all round great collection that covers all the bases of everyday makeup. There is not one brush that i wouldn't use.

Some of my favourites are the powder brush for, well, powder; the face shape brush for contouring and the concealer buffing brush for blending concealer. I like these because I've never had such a dense and rounded contour brush and never such a precise buffing brush, solely used for concealer.

These brushes are a dream to use and i really want to try some more from Zoeva.

Let me know what your favourites are...

Lots of Love,

Sophie

xxx

Clinique Anti-Blemish | Skincare

So I went in to Boots, as one does, in search of a new cleanser, and I was approached by one of those Clinique counter girls in their immaculate white coats. They asked me if I wanted to take a skin quiz and find out what Clinique recommends, and i thought " why not? "

It was really quick, about 2 minutes and basically asked me things like: what's your biggest concern for your skin? (acne blemishes) how often do you get blemishes? how does your skin feel in the morning/after a shower/ throughout the day? etc...

As I said, acne is one of my concerns for my skin, especially those red irritated spots and whiteheads. (I might do a post on the different types of breakouts) And so it only made sense for me to try the anti-blemish solutions. They actually have a 3 step-system but the "questionnaire" said that I don't actually need step 2, the toner/exfoliant. Anyway, enough rambling, this is what I bought on the recommendation of the "questionnaire"

This is the anti-blemish solution cleansing foam. £17.00 I have to say that I wasn't overly impressed with this. In fact, when I first started using this, I swear it made my skin more blemish-y but after about two weeks, my skin started to clear up and haven't had any major breakouts since. This is a nice foam that leaves the skin nice and clean. (this is step 1 in their 3 step system)

This is the anti-blemish solutions all over clearing treatment. £19.00

This is step 3 for this treatment and so, you're not supposed to put anything on top of this, but after using this and the other products day and night, my skin felt really dry and dehydrated. Under makeup, this takes all excess oil off my face and at night, makes sure that the skin stays clean and bacteria-free at night. This is okay, but I don't know if I'm going to purchase this again.

Clinical clearing gel £14.00

This is my top favourite from their range, even though, technically this is outside of the "3 step system" that I've not really been following anyway. The lady said that I should take some of this and put it all over my face to treat spots but also to prevent spots. This kind of stings my skin, so maybe just concentrate it on the forehead and nose and not the cheeks. I also use this in the mornings because it sits really well under makeup and does have that weird peeling texture that you get with other spot treatments. With this, I have noticed a definite difference and improvement in my skin and would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for spot treatments or prevention. 

I really want to try more Clinique products and I think their new skin-type questionnaire is genius so I suggest that you all try it. Just casually stroll into a Boots, and see what you end up buying.

Lots of Love,

Sophie

xxx

Lost and Found #3- Cleansing butter

Well hello and welcome to another of my LOST AND FOUND posts.

In case you're new around these parts, this is a chance for me to explain to you what I'm looking for and what I've found. 

In the last edition, I mentioned I was looking for a cleansing butter because I was trying to get into them without splurging on the expensive ones. 

This is the Body Shop Camomile Cleansing Butter. £12 This is one of the first I tried so it took a bit of getting used to. The idea is that you take some of clean fingers and massage into a dry face. You can immediately see it breaking down your makeup and I think it does a pretty good job at removing mascara too. I suppose if you're using EXTRA waterproof mascara then something like BIODERMA might be useful as this requires you to rub at you eyes and lashes. 

I really like this because it's a good one step makeup remover and doesn't strip the skin of any moisture. If you're a heavy makeup wearer, you might like to repeat the steps. Of course, after this, i still use an astringent or deep cleanser to keep my blemishes at bay.

Overall I really like this and would definitely repurchase until I found another one. Any suggestions?

Lots of love,

Sophie

xxx

Goat Milk Brush Shampoo

NATURAL BRUSH SHAMPOO £16.00

Don't worry, we aren't brushing goats or any of that type of thing- just merely a new discovery for me. Now, in terms of Brush Cleaning, i had never been much of a fan, until I heard a few beauty bloggers talk about this.

This is £16 if you purchase from Liberty online, is this expensive for a brush shampoo? I wouldn't really know, but at least this is more expensive than I expected. Anyway, I accepted the small splurge to try and test this out. 

This says it is a pure goat milk solid shampoo. The basic idea is that you wet the brush, swirl it round in here and work it into the brush, then, you just rinse it off. Simple, easy and quick. I find that this really cleans the makeup of my brushes and even my forever foundation stained, used-to-be white brushes have shown their true colours again- and boy, is it satisfying...

The goat milk is meant to soften the brushes and keep the bristles conditioned and strong and I use this for spot cleaning she I need a clean brush, or a whole day of brush cleaning. Either way this is great to use.

I recommend cleaning your brushes often: obviously it depends on the type of brush- foundation brushes probably need to be cleaned at least once a week and then maybe powder or eye brushes once every two weeks.

I think I might want to try a liquid cleanser. Any suggestions?

Lots of Love,

sophie

xxx

Body Shop Haul

It seems I haven't done a haul in a while, and so, here we go...

Camomile Cleansing butter £12.00
I haven't really heard much about this
but I bought this because I've
been looking to
get into cleansing butters and I just
wanted to try it out.
If it works, I'll DEFINITELY be doing
a post on this.

TEA TREE COOL & CREAMY WASH
£5.00 I've heard Essiebutton talk about
this and in the past my skin has reacted
well to tea tree so I thought that I'd give
it a try. I'm definitely glad that I went
for the creamy one instead on the
stronger astringent because this already
feels quite harsh on my sensitive skin.
But I'll try it out and let you know.

Camomile cleansing oil £10This, I have heard a lot about, on blogs,
youtube, everywhere. I have used this already
and I think this already compares to the
Bobbi Brown Cleansing oil even thought
it's double the price.

Vineyard Peach body butter £13If you haven't tried a body shop body butter,
where have you been? Every man and his
dog loves this, all round great butter,
makes skin soft and smooth. I have never tried
this scent before though and I have to say that it
smells AMAZING.

Monthly Thoughts #1

I've had a thought, many thoughts in fact, about my blog, where it's going and where I'm taking it. 

That is why I've introduced MONTHLY THOUGHTS to my blog. And these posts will happen at the start of each month, they may be a reflection of the last month, or an insight into the month to come. Either way, I feel that it's a way for me to express my thoughts and views and then, I welcome you to comment constructive criticisms, ideas or just endless friendliness which I have already received from the blogging community.

I've been blogging on and off for a while but only start blogging properly, consistently in April. It is now September, and I've learnt so much and I feel like my posts have evolved from those photo-less, black and white rambles to colourful, interesting posts that people like to read (or at least I hope)...

Another thing I wanted to address was that, when I took a short break in the summer (that consisted of about one week) I saw the amount of followers that I lost, even though i explained that I was going on holiday. I just felt that was shallow and unfair of those people because, I take pride in my blog posts and I am not going to force myself to write posts in a rush, just for the sake of publishing something. It doesn't work like that, not for me anyway, does anybody else feel this way?

Well, that's the end of this month's monthly thoughts. 

I just feel like this is a way of really connecting with people because, one cannot tell my thoughts and views through just my beauty reviews.

Love or hate this?

Lots of Love,

Sophie

xxx