Massive Beauty Hall

Hey Guys, 

Today I thought I would share with you everything I bought in February, if you follow me on Instagram you may have seen me post a quick shot of stuff I bought that day, but here is everything from the last month. Yes I did go a little beauty buying mad but because I'm moving out from my parents in the next month or so, I thought I'd enjoy a full pay check while I had it. 

First up foundations and concealers, I have been on the hunt for a new foundation for a while now so I bought these few: Maybelline Super Stay Better Skin Concealer, Rimmel Stay Matte Foundation, Mac Pro Longwear Foundation and LOréal True Match Foundation. I'm still trying and testing to see if I really like them, but I do have a review of the True Match, which went up Thursday (here).

Next face powders all from MAC: Studio Fix Powder, Matte Bronzer, Soft & Gentle Highlighter. It's my first time buying these types of products from MAC and lets just say so far so good..

Natural Collection Blush in Sweet Checks, Natural Collection Crushed Walnut Eyeshadow, MAC 206 Angle Brush and ECO Tools Domed Bronzer Brush. I recently did a review on the Natural Collection Blushes and I simply love them (see here), I've also written a review about the eyeshadows ages ago (here), so these are to add to my collection.
The MAC brush I'm in love with and also the bronzer brush..there amazing..so far.

Lips, now I've been looking for a pinky nude for ages but I just can't seen to find one which is a little disappointing but I'm still trialling these three above: Revlon Colourburst Matte Balm in Complex, Natural Collection Lip Gloss in Raspberry Ripple and LOréal in 102.

Eyeliners: MAC Coffe Eye Pencil, MAC Engraved Eye Pencil, LOréal Gelmatic Super Liner, Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Kohl in Bronze and Rimmel Eyebrow Pencil in Blonde.

Hair products, the hairspray is a repurchase and is the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to hairspray. LOréal TXT texture spray, this was bought actually in January but I thought I'd still add it in and finally Tresemmé Argan Oil Salon Sleek, review coming soon.

Couple of basics: Primark Tanning mitt and St Ives Apricot Scrub, I've heard good things about this so it's got to be worth a try.

Now these I think are one of my favourite purchases, there basically fake converse from Primark and at £4 I love them. I've never been a converse wearer but always liked the way they looked, so I thought I'd buy a cheap pair before investing in proper ones. I love these, I love the colour and I love the look.

So that's it for my massive haul, I know it's pretty big but from now on spending is going to be minimal. The only things I'm planning on buying this month is an eyeshadow palette from my previous wishlist (here) and the Rihanna MAC lipstick..it looks to die for and I need it in my life to feel complete haha.

If you see anything from above that you would like me to review then please leave me a comment and let me know! Otherwise I'll be back Monday for the next instalment of My Weight Loss Journey.

:)

My Weight Loss Journey: Food

Hey Guys

So this is the third instalment my weight loss journey to you all. If you missed the last two you can catch up here (Part 1 & Part 2), Ive also created a page which will filter all the posts about my weight loss, so there all together. The last two posts were all about my personal history with my weight, starting out, planning and goals, so all you need to get going, in my opinion anyway.

As this title suggests this post is about my relationship with food and what I eat. Although I'm sure your'll be happy to know, even though this post is about what I eat to loose weight, I am currently sat in bed eating a bag on mini eggs and incredibly hungover. Sigh of relief that I'm not just going to talk about eating rabbit food?

From my previous posts I've always said I don't want to go on a diet and simply loose the weight I want to change my lifestyle and my relationship with food. Otherwise I feel once I've got to my goal weight I'll slip back into the bad habits and pile on the pounds, any weight losers worst nightmare. So it's about the choices you make and the easy, realistic adjustments you can change to your lifestyle in able to maintain these changes. I'm trying to make life long changes so I avoid this feeling:

I've now been doing this for about 8 months and in total I've lost 2.5 stone, it's quite a slow process but that's because I'm not just strict dieting. I now live by a rule of Monday-Friday I eat a healthy balanced diet, then when it comes to the weekend I'll treat myself and I refuse to feel guilty about it, kind of a backwards 5:2 diet. I do this because I love chocolate, I love coca-cola, I love cheese, I love bread, my list could go on forever but I feel if I was to just cut all my favourite foods out, I just wouldn't keep the momentum to carry on. By setting my days where I allow myself treats I don't crave them through the week, I look forward to them at the weekend. With me so far?

So let me break it down how I do this:

Monday-Friday
As I said during the week I have a healthy balanced diet, I eat three meals a day and 2 snacks. Now I'll explain a few tricks which work for me:

• Planning what your going to eat 
• Try and make set times when your going to eat 
• Little changes in what you eat  

Let me break it into each meal time changes.

Breakfast: 7:15am: I never used to eat breakfast so I almost had to train myself into eating it every day but now I can't go a day without it. The healthy changes I made for breakfast time is simple, I have 40g of high fibre cereal with 60ml skimmed milk. Changing my milk from the green top to red was hard at first and took me a while to get used to but now drinking semi-skimmed taste like cream to me. I also have a cup of coffee, skimmed milk and no sugar. I used to always have sugar so I slowly reduced it and started replacing it with a sprinkle of cinnamon as it's a natural sweetener and fat burner, bonus. Although after about 2 months I've completely stopped and just have coffee and milk. Now I'm not sure if changing milk has made a huge difference but every little helps right?

Am Snack: 11am: A Banana or a piece of fruit to keep me going till lunch.

Lunch: 2pm: This time does vary depending how busy I am at work but it's around that time. The main change here is stop the sandwich and have something a lot lighter, I feel lunch time is the easiest one to make a change and cut the calories. So lunch time for me is either a salad or left overs from the night before. However my salad consist of spinach, cucumber and radish's just because I don't like that many salad components haha. I always have some sort of protein with my salad either tuna or chicken, then a drizzle of balsamic vinegar to finish it off, tasty.

Pm Snack: 4:30pm: This is the time of day when my energy levels really drop and I get so hungry so I have 35g of mixed nuts and dried fruit, at the moment my favourite is a mix of walnuts, pumpkin seeds and dates.

Dinner: 7pm: Dinner changes every day and varies week to week, this is my favourite meal so I don't want to get bored. The main adjustments I've made is stripping out the white carbs, now that sounds a lot harder than it really is. I no longer eat bread, white potatoes, white rice, pasta etc I eat brown rice, green beans and sweet potato. I've also taken out unnecessary fats like butter and oil. I make substitutions where I can like Olive Oil for Coconut oil and Creme Fraiche instead of cream. I love cooking so I had so much fun discovering new ways to cook, in a healthy way, it's about being clever and looking at foods thinking how can I make this healthy. I did want to put a weeks meal plan in pictures, but I kept forgetting :(. I will try again this week to remember and update, but I'll repeat I'll TRY haha. However heres some of my favourites meals I now cook:
Healthy Fish Pie
Thai Red Coconut and Tomato Curry
Creamy Thai Green Curry
Lime Chicken
BBQ Chicken
Teriyaki Beef Stir Fry

If you see anything above you want to try then drop me an email and I can send you over the recipe. Most my recipes have been from BBC Good Food website, but I'm also a monthly subscriber over here, however I have altered them to my tastes and dietary requirements. All my meals above only take 1hour to prepare and cook, honestly I don't have time to slave at the stove so I limit 1 hour for cooking and prep.

So that's it, I hope that helps any of you diet strugglers out there and it gives an insight into what I eat and how I go about food nowadays. Like I said before the approach I take to loosing weight is to make adjustments which are easy to stick too for years ahead, because once I loose the weight I have no intention to put it back on again! I'm in this for the long run.

If anyone has any more questions or would like a little bit of advice from what I do or some friendly motivation then please feel free to email me, tweet me, comment whatever!

Otherwise other than that I'll see you Thursday for a beauty review :)

Review Thursday: Bourjois Blush Exclusif

Hey Guys,

Today I am going to review a blusher, this blusher is a stable in my everyday makeup bag for the last few months and I thought it was worth a mention, this blush is the Blush Exclusif by Bourjois. It retails at £7.99 and you can find it here.

The blush itself contains pH reactive pigments and is suppose to adjust to the perfect blush for your skin tone. A self adjusting blusher I hear you say? now that is something I had to try!

The tin itself has very little information about the product so after a bit of research online I instantly had a few queries. 1. Would the colour adjust differently from wearing foundation to bare skin and 2. Wouldn't the pH in the air effect the colour in the pot?.

As you can see from the image above the top of my blusher has reacted to the pH in the air, so when you scratch away the top surface it's white.
The formula itself is a cream to powder texture with a fairly matte finish. Although its not incredibly cream like some blushes can be, it's quite a dry cream, if you know what I mean. As it's not a wet creamy consistency I find it lasts for ages on the skin and stays in place all day.

I apply mine with the Real Techniques Blush Brush and finds it applies really easily and it's super blend-able, which is good because as it does adjust to your skin you don't want to risk putting too much on. The swatch below shows how the colour can change from my hand to my finger tips and how on my fingers it's a really deep fuchsia however on my hand it's more what I would call soft Barbie Pink.

The bottom line is I really like this blusher and I love wearing it on a daily basis for a fresh natural flush to the cheeks. It's especially good because I'm quite fair so most blushes can be a bit bright. I would definitely suggest this to anyone who may be in school and can't wear too much make-up or someone who may struggle to find the perfect blush!

I hope you've enjoyed this post, I've also uploaded a picture of me wearing this blush on my Instagram here (see me). I'd like to just quickly thank everyone who's followed me or read my blog I've hit over 150 followers and omg it's amazing! so thank you thank you thank you!

Don't forget to come back Monday for the next post on my weight loss journey where I'll be talking about what food I eat! If you've missed the previous posts you can catch up here: Part 1: Part 2.

Monthly Wishlist: The Mac Edition

Hey Guys,

Happy Monday! Today I am going to show you my Mac Make-up Wishlist. 

(I got the pictures from Google, so sorry if there a bit naff.)

Matte Bronser/ Select Cover Up Foundation/ 266 Small Angle Brush/ Coffee Eye Liner/ Black Ice Eye Liner/ Russian Red Lipstick/ Showstopper Eyeshadow Quad/ Soft and Gentle Mineralising Skin Finish/ Viva Glam 1/

I'm thinking next pay day I'm going to do a big Mac shop because I don't own much Mac products but know I have a job I can afford it yay!

I really want to make my own quads for different looks like a brown, grey and black smokey eye so if anyone has any suggestions of colour please let me know in the comments :)
Or any general Mac products you'd recommend?


See you Thursday for Review Thursday!