Bow Manicure from The Illustrated Nail

This is super old, but I just realised that I never posted it! A few months ago, a new Lola and Grace store opened at Westfield Stratford, and had loads of things going on the day they opened. There was champagne and cupcakes, a jewelry swap, free manicures and a DJ and party in the evening I think.

My friend Leonie and I went to check it out, and we arrived just as the girls from The Illustrated Nail turned up! We booked in for the first appointment and went to shop while they got set up. When we came back there was a huge queue, but as we had booked in we got to slot right in! She created a beautiful bow design on my nails and used Essie Mint Candy Apple as a base colour. I wish I had the skills to do nail art like this!

Muji/Travel Haul!

I know that this isn't strictly beauty related, but I love watching travel videos from beauty gurus on youtube, and I'm so excited about my trip that I couldn't resist posting this!

When I'm packing for a trip I love to organise all of my stuff, I'm a bit of an organisation freak! I have loads of different little pouches that I use for all kinds of stuff, from makeup to medicines.

The big white case is a medium Tarpaulin Cosmeic Case from Muji (£3.95, here) which I'm planning to use to transport my shower gel and conditioner just in case they leak in transit, as this is waterproof. It should also be pretty useful for transporting wet clothes/bikinis after trips to the lake and stuff. There is a custom in Uganda of never allowing people to see your underwear (even when you're not wearing it!), so once you have washed your clothes, there is a definite possibility of having to wait a while to dry them. 

These flat pouches are useful for so many things. The mesh ones I will probably use for my first aid and sterile kits, which are pretty huge. The kids at the school I am going to be working in often always have health problems, and trips to hospital with your students are frequent. Last time I was there I was one of the only qualified first aiders, and ended up taking about 10 children to hospital in 7 weeks. Having my kit to treat minor problems in these mesh pouches means that I can see easily what is in there, and makes everything quicker. They are Large Nylon Mesh Cases, also from Muji (£2.95 each, here). The floral pouch was £1.50 from Primark and will probably end up being used to transport my Tangle Teezer and hairbands.

I bought the Large Hanging Travel Washbag (£11.95, here) because I realised that despite having loads of pouches I don't actually own a washbag! We won't actually have bathrooms in Uganda per-se, but there is a little shower cubicle in the corner of each room, with a few nails in the wall, so this should be really useful as I will be able to keep all of my stuff off the floor, and at eye level. this has loads of compartments so I should be able to further organise everything as I pack! 

I learned some good lessons about travelling when I went to Uganda last summer, and many of those lessons related to what you should and shouldn't bring! As I was flying alone for the first time I was very conscious of the fact that I needed to look after my passport and travel documents. I had a little cardboard folder that was provided by the agent I booked my flights through, which I kept everything in. The problem was that it was only really designed to hold a couple of sheets of paper, not a bulky passport and other important documents! This Muji Purple Passport Case (£9.95, here) should be much more suitable, and has enough room for my passport, tickets, cash, cards, even my keys and a pen!

The last thing I bought in my little travel accessories spree is a free standing mirror from good ol' Poundland. Last year the only makeup I took with me was a limited edition Sleek palette that wouldn't be availible when I got back that I bought on the way to the airport. I thought that as I was doing charity work it wasn't a holiday and I wouldnt have any reason to get glammed up. Was I ever wrong! Every friday saw us go out to a local club to dance, and when I was staying with my cousin in the capital I went to some of the most glamorous places I've ever been! I ended up buying eyeliner and mascara while I was there as I didn't want to be walking into casinos and posh restaurants looking like a scruffy backpacker! Anyway, lesson learned. This time, I'm definitely bringing some makeup!! So I bought this mirror as they were in seriously short supply at the lodge, and they were not free standing. For £1, this will do the job nicely! 

LOOOONG overdue IMATS London haul!!

hey girls!! i'm SO sorry this has taken me so long, but i was super busy with my job and family stuff, so i took a little break from blogging. i have now quit my job (YAY!) and so i' hoping to get back to my regular blogging schedule.

anyway, i promised to do a haul from IMATS which was last month, as i bought quite a lot of stuff! before i go into this i just want to give a little disclaimer, i am in no way trying to brag or show off about how much money i have or how much stuff i have, i saved up for months proir to IMATS to enable me to make some big purchases at reduced prices, which is really a money saving way to buy.

anyway, into the haul!!

when i got home, before i played with or opened anything, i had to take lots and lots of pictures!! these are all of the bags i came back with, i was so excited!!

this is eveything i came back with all laid out. it looks like more than it actually is because i included all of the bags and literature. come on, i love that stuff!!

first of all i got quite a few new tools. crown brush was really well priced and inexpensive, so i picked up a few brushes there. i also got some disposable plastic spatulas. i think this entire bundle cost around £20, so really good value!

i picked up (from left to right) a small fan bush, a tiny little blending brush, a fine detailer brush, a badger (so soft!) flat shader brush, a HUGE natural hair shader brush, a badger crease brush, a tiny synthetic smudger brush, a square liner brush, and a badger anglpenil brush. let me just say that these brushes are LOVELY. i have had zero shedding (unlikemy 3 MAC brushes!!) and they are all super soft.

i really wanted a big flat-topped kabuki brush, and Royal and langnickel were having a big sale on their kabuki's, selling them at only £6 each.  

this brush as been a bit of an obsession of mine! it's so soft, and absoutely brilliant for buffing mineral and powder based products into the skin.

sleek had a big stall shaped like one fo their iconic eyeshadow palettes, and they also had some great discounts!

they were doing pout paints at 3 for £10, and lipsticks at 4 for £10, which was a complete bargain, considering pount paints are usually around the £6 mark and lipsticks aound £5!

the i-Divines were discounted, but only by about 50p individually. you could buy all of them for a bigger discount but i already had most of them, so i just got the PPQ palette, which i haven't seen before.

 as always, the shadows are super pigmented, and are a mixture of shimmery and matte formulas.

the lipsticks i got. they are (L-R) cherry, mystic (matte), candy cane and baby doll. baby doll is FAR too pale for me to actually wear, but it looked nice in the tube!! the colours here are really washed out, but i just couldnt get a true picture. to give you an idea, candy cane (3rd from left) is actually a super bright pink toned red, but it comes out here looking like a pastel pink. and cherry is really dark and vampy, but here looks more like candy cane does in real life. i'll put swatches up eventually, as i really like the formula of these lipsticks.

i also picked up some pout paints, so that i now have the complete collection.

i stopped off at Beatuy So Clean to get some cosmetic sanitiser, as i'm a bit of a germ freak!! the other day i told one of my friends that she coud help herself to use any of my makeup, and then i nearly freaked out when i saw her sticking an eye pencil in her eye! i was very glad for this spray that day.

i cant actually remember what stall i bought this at, i just remember they were selling beauty blenders and BEAUTIFUL foundation palettes which i was sorely tempted by, but it was the nd of the day by then and i'd already gone over my budget! this palette is lovely though, even though the surface of each shade is quite small, they go down quite deep and the coverage is great. i managed to snag this for a cheeky tenner as the show was closing, which i was so excited about!!

i actually bought these at the first stand i visited, i belive it was 3 for £5, and they are super soft because they're human hair.

i also bought some lash adhesive from there, but i havent tried it yet so i can't tell you much about that one!!

NYX had a HUGE line the whole ime i was there, so i went back just before the show closed to get what i wanted. it was slim pickings, so i just got 2 lipliners in dolly pink (front) and pinky (back) 

there was a stand called backstageshop.com which i was SO attracted to. it had the usual cosmetic stuff, but also quite a lot of theatrical and stage makeup too. i bought quite a bit from there and went back several times!!

the pack in th back of this shot was like a special effects starter set, and was a bargain at only £15! it contains: a lip colour/balm, liquid latex, arterial blood, spirit gum, and wound wax, all made by makerm and all in clear plastic cosmetic bag. i think the individual items had about a £35 value, so it was a great price for the bundle. i also picked up from this stand the ben nye mist and set (which unfortunately i had a bad experience with!) a ben nye concealer quad and a lipbalm they gave me for free because i bought so much!

i also picked up at this stall my biggest and most exciting purchase.... an airbrush system!! i decided not to go for one of the big brand systems because A) theyare very expensive compared to generic systems and B) a generic system will be easier to sell on if i decide i want to invest in a branded system, as a generic compessor has more practical uses.

the whole bundle, including 2 types of cleaner, airbrush and compressor cost only £100, compared to the £280 benchmark of the big brand names! so far i'm loving airbrush makeup and application, it just looks so flawless!

after i bought my compressor i was super excited, and went out looking for some makeup to go in it. OCC was my first port of call, and they fulfilled my needs perfectly.

i got a full sized bottle of foundation in my own colour, which is Y0, and then sample packs of all the yellow and red based shades, plus the blush, bronzer and highlight shades.

that about wraps it up for this haul, hope you enjoyed!

whats on YOUR whishlist?

The IMATS Experience

Hey girls!

I went to IMATS yesterday and had the most amazing time, and i have so much to tell you all that i'm splitting the IMATS London posts into two, this one will be only about the actual experiene, and the other will be a huge haul of all the stuff i bought!

the event itsself is held over 2 days, and i chose to go on the saturday, which is the first day. i would reccomend going on a saturday for a few reasons, but mainly because lots of stalls were sold out of the best deals by the middle of saturday, and had no plans to re-stock, so i imagine that sunday shopping would be slim pickings! it was held int he grand hall in Alexandra Palace in north london, which is a beautiful building and had more than enough space to fit everything in.

When i first arrived i was completely overawed, and kind of nervous of even looking at stalls because there were so many people who all seemed very driven and knew what they wanted, whereas i just felt a bit lost!

i spent some time just looking around, and soon got used to competing for space at stalls. i sadly didn't get too many pictures of the actual makeup and stalls, i was far to distracted by the amazing demos happening all around me!

the event itsself was so much fun, which i kind of didn't expect it to be. i thought it would be quite fasat paced, stressful, driven shopping for bargains, but i found that i was actually going at a reasonably slow pace and taking time to really look at and appreciate everything. there were a couple of things i knew i wanted to get, mainly a compressor, and looking for that was a bit stressful but i bought one early on (and left it at the stall to be collected later) and then i was so pleased to just be able to shop for things that simply caught my eye, and of course some new airbase makeup to go with my compressor!

the nyx stall was SOOO tempting but the queue was HUGE. another tip is to check out what you want and then come back nearer to closing time. i returned to nyx later on and there wa no line at all, because the show was due to close in half an hour.

i would advise keeping your phone to hand too, especially if it has a web browser. maybe i'm just a bit cynical but i wanted to price check everything, and i found that some things were being advertised as 50% off when in reality they werent reduced at all. even if it doesn't have internet keep it close at hand even for the calculator, to keep your budget in check and to make sure that you're getting a good deal. on one stall (i wont say which) they had a deal on airbrush stuff where if you paid £200 you got the compressor and 2 mini sets of makeup, but if you paid £250 you got 4 mini sets with it. what they didn't tell you was that separately the mini sets were only £15, so if you bought the £200 set plus the other 2 minis separately, it would only have cost £230!
overall i had a great day, spent far too much money and got some great deals, i throughly reccomend it to everyone!

i'll leave you with some more photos of the amazing demos!

warwick davis was there having goblin makeup from harry potter being re-created on him. his kids were there too, and seemed to be having a wicked time playing with presthetics and wounds!

the wonderful EnKore at the crown brush stand creating and awsome airbrush look to be viewed with 3D glasses!

Some New Goodies!

Hey girls! I know I just posted saying that I wasn't going to post but I got a LOAD of work done in not very much time so I thought I could write a post so.....

I went shopping the other day and I went again yesterday, (though I blame my sister for that one) and I got some new stuff, so I thought I’d show you.

Both times I went to the new Westfield centre in Stratford, which I really like. The first place I went to was MAC, which is fast becoming my favourite place, where I checked out the new Glitter and Ice collection. I picked up a paint pot in Morning Frost and an eyeshadow in Satin Taupe from their regular line.

 Top: Satin Taupe, Bottom: Morning Frost

Next I went off to Superdrug where I got most of the other stuff. I got 3 MUA lipglosses in shades 1, 4, and 5. I’m really impressed with the pigmentation of shade number 4, it comes off really opaque and pretty. I actually bought 4 of these, but when I opened the red one I got (can’t remember the shade, sorry!) the lid broke and I had to throw it away, or it would have spewed lipgloss everywhere. Thankfully they were 3 for 2 so I didn’t actually pay anything for that one!

 Shades 4,5,1

Clockwise from top: 4,5,1

I also got a new foundation, powder and concealer. I have been wanting to try a highstreet foundation for a while now, as currently I’m using Bobbi Brown, which is pretty pricey! I got Rimmel Stay Matte as I’m also wanting something with a bit more coverage and shine. I haven’t tried it yet, but when swatched it feels really creamy and nice, which is a plus. I’ll post again soon and let you know how I’m getting on with it. I got their Clear Complexion powder in transparent to go with it, which I’m loving so far. I also picked up a Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer which is so worth the hype, and I picked up the Barry M Lash Modelling mascara, which is a great and cheaper alternative to Maxfactor False Lash Effect fusion, which is what I was previously using.

Lastly I went to Boots where I got a set of 3 jumbo lip balms, which I thought I could break up and give to my sisters as little extra Christmas presents.

And that’s my haul! Have YOU finished your Christmas shopping yet?

Lovely boots from....clarks?

hey ladies!

i'm so sorry i broke my schedule and didn't post yesterday, i've not been feeling well and this post is being written from my sick bed :(

does anyone remember being dragged to Clarks as a child? once a year my mum would have to buy us school shoes and we would make the dreaded trip there, where your feet would be measured and then you would be forced to try on pair after pair of 'sensible' shoes.

this is how i remember Clarks, but the other day i walked past the store on the Isle of Wight, where my parents live, and noticed a big rack of rather nice looking boots outside. i went to their website and i now have a growing list of shoes i like in there!! i'm wondering if i've got very old very quickly or if they are aiming at a younger demographic these days.

Neeve Ella GTX £120

Magician Class £120

Licorice Candy, £140 (LOVE these!!)

Orinoco Jazz, £79.99

Orinoco Club, £49.99
 i actually bought the above boots the other day, to replace my topshop chelsea boots that broke, and i love them! they are so comfy and i hate to say it, 'sensible'!! they should last a long time and they are real leather. i'm so surprised at myself for likeing their boots.

what do you think? would YOU buy boots from clarks?

Judy's affordable vintage fair

hey ladies, last saturday me and my flatmate rhianna went to Judy's affordable vintage fair which was being held in york hall at bethnal green.

i've never been to an event like this and it was a lot of fun, though i felt a bit out of place in my jeans and crew jumper, most people there looked like they'd walked straight out of the 40's!

i was after some jewlery, mainly a vintage ring, a scarf that i could tie around my head or onto my bag, and a big chunky knit jumper.

sadly, i didn't find many rings at all, and those that i did find tended to be modern, but it did find a pair of very pretty earrings.

a lot fo the clothes seemed to be quite expensive, especially given that they were second hand. i feel this about a lot of places that sell clothes with the 'vintage' tag attached. some of the stuff we found was dinfintely NOT vintage, like a dress from last year from primark! i've wanted for ages a chunky fair isle or cable knit jumper to wear with leggings, and this one that i fell in love with had a starting price of £20! thats a lot for a second hand jumper...

i didnt buy a jumper owning to the prices, but there were lots of lovely denim shorts on offer too, but i didnt find any that fitted.

what i DID get was a pair of lovely vintage scarves, which i love as headscarves at the moment.

here are a couple of shots of them on....

these actually were pretty good value, and most stalls were offereing one for £3 or 2 for £5, whish is what i got mine for.

towards the back of the fair were a couple of stalls selling vintage items that werent clothes, and i snapped up some lovely antique photographs, and some interesting old keys, which i want to hang from my celing at home (dont judge me, it looks cool!) and which also look nice on a long ribbon or chain as a pendant. i did get one other thing which i was excited to show you guys but i cant because it's a christmas present for someone in my family, and i know they have been looking at my blog recently, so i cant show you!

the keys and one of the photographs i bought.

i would reccomend going to a Judy's event if there is one near you, its fun even if you don't buy anything, and there are definitely some bargains to be found! you can find details of their upcoming events here

what do you think of vintage clothes?

Love, Lucy xxx