Urban Decay Start Getting Naked kit

Morning lovelies!

It seems to be Urban Decay madness on here lately, not only do they seem to have some fabulous new products that I NEED they seem to be bringing out some great offers too.

When I picked up the Naked Skin foundation they had an offer on where you could buy this set for £5 after buying the Naked Skin foundation (review here)

I couldn't wait to snap this up but unfortunately for me...the only one available was the battered box hidden at the back of the drawer! As you can imaging, blogger priorities meant that I was horrified I would have to take photos of a battered box.
Nevertheless the deal was far too good for me to miss so I just had to get it, for £5 I picked up the travel sized All Nighter Setting Spray and a mini Optical Blurring brush.

Let's talk about the brush first; I've been lusting after this for a while and cannot stop touching it every time I walk past the counter. I know eventually  I will buy it but my funds at the moment are very restrictive.....a car service and a plethora of weddings, hen nights etc means that my bank balance for treats is non existent. Ah well, such is life!

Having blended the Naked Skin foundation onto the back of my hand (always a good place to start i think....) the finish was amazing. The brush is so densely packed with bristles that the foundation is buffed in all directions into your skin resulting in one of the most even finishes I've ever seen.

My only issue that I've had with the miniature version is that because it is so small and the bristles so densely packed that it can be hard to buff it in evenly without brushing it off. The brush is so short it can be difficult and during my 6am morning rush i don't have time for the time and effort it takes when my Real Techniques buffing brush does a similar job with less time. I still want the full size optical blurring brush though, the finish is unbelievable!

The next product included to help give you the best finish is the All Nighter Setting Spray. M bought me this for my birthday last year and you can read my review here.

I'm a fan of the setting spray and have been using it sparingly for nights out and weddings but I will certainly be using it more now that i have another!
I apply it in the T and X formation that they suggest and it does help your make up last longer.

The full size Optical blurring brush is priced at £20 and I believe the travel size Setting Spray is priced at £9 for the 30ml. 

So for £5 this was an absolute bargain yes? And I couldn't leave it behind right?

Good, that was the conclusion I came to as well.

L xxx

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Fitness Friday: Houmous

Hey lovelies!

I'v definitely got that Friday feeling today and cannot wait for the weekend to begin! I've been getting into baking recently and I'm a bit of an amateur so have been picking simple things that I eat on a regular basis and trying to make them from scratch by myself rather than buying them in. This saves money and also my body from preservatives, salts, sugars and other unnecessary ingredients.

My latest venture has been to create houmous. I love eating houmous but after a quick chat with a few colleagues the amount of sugar, salt and fats in shop bought houmous surprised me and I vowed to try and make my own. I've also been trying to get more veg as opposed to fruit in my diet and this was the perfect opportunity!

My mum is a slimming world member and showed me this recipe full of simple natural ingredients and I couldn't wait to try it.

All you need is a tin of chick peas, a red pepper, 2 cloves of garlic, some lemon juice, salt, water and one calorie spray.

First you need to slice up the pepper and roast it in the oven until it's soft. After slicing it and spraying it with the one cal spray this took about 10/15 mins.

Look how lush they look! The smell in my kitchen was amazing at this point, it was hard not to tuck into it on its own as i love red peppers!

Whilst they were in the oven I got everything else ready and it's so simple!

Just add the chickpeas and crushed garlic into a mixer, along with a tablespoon of lemon juice. I'm a bit of a haphazard cook and I like to just throw things in, so I was a rebel and just squeezed half of a real lemon into the mix and hoped for the best. It was actually perfect so I was pleased it wasn't too much!

Once the red pepper has been roasted and cooled down just add it to the mix and give it a whizz...

You can add water to loosen the mixture to your desired consistency throughout the blending. Don't forget to stop it and scoop everything into the middle and make sure its mixed and blended as much as possible. Then just add salt to taste.

Super easy and create a bigger amount of houmous than you would normally buy in a pot from the supermarket. It actually created more than shown in the bowl below but I'm afraid taste testing purposed meant that I'd taken a fair few spoonfuls of it 'just to check it' by the time I remembered to take a photo....

This was seriously yummy and I could honestly never buy shop bought again!

I think I'm going to be more adventurous next time and try adding caramelised onions to the mixture or maybe more lemon. The only thing I'd change about this is possibly only use one clove of garlic and although I love garlic my work colleagues probably won't appreciate me stinking of it all day!

Definitely try this out though! do you have any houmous recipes I can try? What vegetables have you added to it?

L xxx

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Urban Decay Triple Threat Travel Pencil Set-Smokey Matte Edition

Good morning!

Being the Urban Decay obsessive that I am, as soon as I wandered past our local counter and noticed this beautiful set I couldn't help myself but snap it up.

This travel pencil set was an absolutely bargainous £10. TEN POUNDS!!! For only three of the marvellous 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencils?? I had to investigate.

As mentioned in the picture above, this colours are three of the matte smoked out shades of their award winning liners.

Perversion is their blackest black and I have heard so many great things about this that it was definitely the main reason for picking up the travel pencil set.
Sabbath is a deep navy and one I will look forward to trying out, navy liner is very popular with some but I've never tried it.
Smoke is a deep grey and will be perfect for day wear; I've been told this goes very well with the Naked 3 palette.





I especially couldn't help but pick this up after the lovely Haddie on the UD counter in Debenhams tried out some of their gorgeous pencils on me. She used three separate colours; freak, LSD and junkie to create an amazing flash of greeny blue under my eyes and i just fell in love with how beautiful and creamy they were and how they can so easily change your look.






Aaaaaaaaaanyway back to the set. This is perversion:



It's a blacker than black absolutely essential pencil that every person needs in their lives, let alone an addict like myself. I should have picked this up a long time ago and I've barely put it down since buying it, it even accompanies me to work sometimes when i need that extra bit of eyeliner to get my through a tough day, you know the feeling?



Its amazing, super creamy, long lasting and smudges so that there isn't too harsh of a line. I'm a HUGE fan.



Next up is Sabbath, the blue of the bunch and a colour that I hadn't tried before.
This has been a great addition to my collection as I don't own anything like it, and for my daily work make up I wear a lot of nudes.The blue is the perfect colour to shake it up without being black, see below for proof!





I love the flash of colour you get on the upper lid but its still wearable to work, my new fave!


Lastly is Smoke, the deep grey of the set and another colour i hadn't used but was excited to. After hearing that it went so well with the Naked 3 palette which is also new to my collection it wasn't too hard to put it all on just for the sake of it and coo over how brilliantly it blends.



This creates a much softer look and truth be told, i should definitely be wearing this to work instead of Perversion. But screw it, black eyeliner is a necessary essential sometimes.

Smoke blends beautifully and true to their word the UD girls were right about it complementing the Naked 3 palette which contains a lot of rose gold colours. The grey is nowhere near as harsh and for most of the looks you can create with Naked 3 the grey is the first choice.







Here they are swatched on my hand without and then with flash. All of them are really wearable shades that can be worn day or night and can be blended out with their 24/7 blending brush (post coming soon!) for any kind of look.

I can see me lusting after many of the shades in the extensive collection. There are a number of green and blue coloured metallic pencils on my list and thats not even starting on the essentials; gold, silver and purples to go with my hazel eyes. With 49 currently available on the Debenhams website along with a whole host of other double ended and limited edition ones I can see this being an expensive addiction at £14/15 each which is why i was so attracted to this set to begin with.

Will you be snapping this set up as well? Which is your favourite coloured pencil?

I have no idea where to start with buying them al but I will have to begin soon!

L xxx

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Aveda Colour at Kamigata

Morning All

I've been experimenting lots with my hair lately so I thought I'd share with you. Especially for our South Wales followers as the salon I'm loving is a Cardiff one.

For ages I got my hair done in Guy Christian. I'm a believer in you get what you pay for and love a luxury salon as it feels like a feel treat. After telling myself I couldn't afford it I became a groupon gal and jumped from salon to salon. I convinced myself I was happy but after a few disasters when I saw Kamigata advertising on Facebook for colour models I jumped at the chance.

Kamigata is a salon in St David's 2 and whenever I've walked past I've wanted to try it. Anyone who knows me will know over the past 6 months I've experimented with my hair a lot but after a few disasters at the hairdressers (they died it pink but it didn't take to half my hair so looked fruit salad esque, when they 'fixed' it two weeks later with lilac again it didn't fully take!) after this I decided to do it myself. After the condition started to get bad in Jan I had a good 5 inches cut of my hair and it died brown to make it healthy.

As soon as the hair dye went on I wasn't happy. I didn't feel like my hair was me, I felt bland an unhappy with it and quickly ended up putting a blonde box dye on it.

The first transformation by Matthew!

Kamigata were asking for hair models to test out the new Aveda colours. Aveda were a brand that traditionally followed natural hair (you should check out Matthew's balayage skills. A natural ombre!) but due to the trends of bright colours have released some amazing pinks and blues which can be mixed to make other colours.

In daylight. I love the shade it came out.

After a chat with Matthew I felt in much more capable hands. He lifted my hair all over so it was an even base an applied the pink from the collection. We applied it wet at first so it had a toner effect and left my hair with a gorgeous rose pink effect (this is what I want for summer!) as we were playing around with colour we decided to go brighter! Here is the amazing effect.

As it started to fade it turned a lush rose colour!

The thing that has impressed me the most with the Aveda colours is the gorgeous way they fade. No patchy fades and washed out to a soft rose pink then back to basically blonde.

The faded effect!

After this we decided to play more. Let's go three colours. We used the pink mix from before, the blue and mixed the blue with bleach to give a purple colour. I love how mixable the colours are to get results you like. You can get totally different shades of pinks, purples and blues.

eeek it looks scary!

The finished result.

I love how the green and blue poke through.

Unfortunately my hair has to be normal for the next 8 weeks. I'm totally converted to Matthew. I totally trust him to do whatever to my hair as I feel like he already knows me. It's been ages since I trusted someone so much with my hair! I can't wait to let him play again once my brother's wedding is over!

Again it faded to lush icey tones!

and back to rose pink! I couldn't be happier with how it fades!

And here we are now. I can't wait till next Thursday for Matthew to work his magic! We are thinking blonde/ash toned next!

Are you someone that experiments with hair? If you're South Wales based I can't recommend Matthew enough. He's done some beautiful work.

Love M

xxx

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feel like I should say this isn't a sponsered post nor did kamigata know I was a blogger. I just struggle to find a hairdresser I trust and wanted to share when I have find a good one!

6 Vitamin Shot

Evening All

Hope you've had a great bank holiday weekend. Mine has been action packed with way too much drinking occuring.

Yesterday I shared some of my meal prep ideas with you. Something I've been enjoying over the past few weeks during stressful and lack of sleep times is 6 vitamin shots. You can find my review here. They are great supplement which is also a great pre gym workout.

Do you take supplements?

Love M

Xxx

Food Prep

Evening all

I thought I'd share what I've spent my evening doing. In 3 weeks time I'll be landing in Cyprus for my brother's wedding so it's time to step up the diet to match the exercise and lose the pooch! I love the quote 'failing to prepare is preparing to fail' I really do think it's true. If you don't have prepare you can be tempted when you're tired in the morning to just grab food in work and after a long day a quick ready meal may be too tempting.

I'm someone who loves cooking and experimenting with food. Lately I tend to go to the supermarket on a Sunday and get my weekly must haves and then see what is reduced and decide from there what I fancy cooking.

For me my essentials for the week are:

• Spinach
• Bananas
• Low Fat Fromage Frais (this has a lot more protein that natural yoghurt)
• Milk (if I've been paid I prefer to go for Almond milk
• Eggs

I'll also grab whatever fruit and veg is on offer for the week.

My favourite thing for breakfast is overnight oats. I tend to make them in batches of two or three as it's easier. I add a handful of oats and then milk and fromage frais. I'm not the type to measure it out but if you a ramekin full of each. These can be topped with anything, I use fruit and peanut butter or add nuts and seeds too. I do also add protein powder to boost my protein intake.

This week I grabbed chicken breast. I made a rub using herbs and spices. I literally just grab random spices out of the cupboard and then fry in a teaspoon of coconut oil. I cook everything with coconut oil now. I have this for lunch then with spinach, red cabbage and cherry tomatoes. If I don't fancy salad I'll grab soup out of my freezer and usually take a boiled egg.

Also reduced this week was beef stock. I decided to make a healthy cottage pie. I fry 4 onions in garlic, salt and pepper and a tea spoon of coconut oil. To that I added 500g of extra lean mince beef and carrots. When the mince had browned I add stock and red cabbage. Whilst this is cooking down I boiled cauliflower and carrots to make mash. I tend to make my mash out of any veg and just boil it down. Swede and parsnip also work. Once it's soft I mash it up and put it over the meet mix and cook in the oven for 30 minutes.

Today I also made egg fried cauliflower rice. This was the easiest thing to do. Just grate the cauliflower, melt the coconut oil in a frying pan. Then add the cauliflower to it and two eggs and fry. Such a quick tasty meal. I eat this on it's own or it's great for with curries.

I also made muffins from the recipe L posted on Friday. I made mine with lemon and coconut. They are amazing. You can find L's recipe here.

I also made some red cabbage with apple. I cooked an apple in a bit of sugar and reduced it down. I just added this too boiled cabbage and will freeze it. I've got veggie sausages so think it'll be great with them and swede.

Lastly I made sourdough bread. I absolutely love peanut butter and banana on toast so prefer to make my own bread. Sourdough is made from just flour and water so it's too bad for you. I use a mix of normal and wholegrain seeded flour. I also added protein powder this week so I can tell myself it's better for me.

So that's me prepped for the week. What do you eat when trying to be healthy?

Love M

xxx

Benefit: Gimme Brow

Morning all!

Hope you all had a good evening last night. L and I are probably rolling round in bed hungover!

Gimme brow is something I've wanted to try for ages. Especially since losing my Browzings. Unfortunately after visiting Cardiff's Brow Bar for Brow Arch March we were both left with one eyebrow a lot shorter than others. L and I have had our brows done at Benefit in Bristol, Swansea and Carnaby Street and have always been pleased so we were disappointed to have been left with noticeably uneven brows. Benefit always have amazing customer service and sent us a few bits to try as an apology. I couldn't wait to try Gimme Brow to try and extend the now slightly shorter brow.

I have the light/medium. I find having blonde brows is harder to make them look perfect without them looking drawn on and powdery. Gimme brow is an amazing little brow product. A tinted brow gel with fibres and a tiny brush to make application easy.

One of the things that put me off Maybelline brow drama was the impractical wand for brows. Benefit have created a easy to use wand that has a small tip to be able to fill in fine gaps. Gimme brow adheres to skin and hair to create full natural brows.

Here is my natural brows. They are fair and need filling in or it looks like I don't have them. As you'll have seen if you saw my post on Facebook photos earlier on in the week.



Below is one coat of gimme brow. I tend to wipe of the excess and quickly swipe over the brows for quick definition. This is perfect for those lazy mornings and when you want more natural make up. Brows are left defined, darker and not looking drawn on.



For me I do love a power brow! I like big full brows but not to dark for my skin tone. No scouse brows here. I find Gimme brow layers up really well but I find it's best to do a few light layers as it can go a little flaky if you do one thick coat.



The thing that has taken getting used to for me is that my brows are coated. They stay amazingly all day but they do feel a little hard sometimes.

I am absolutely loving gimme brow and it's been in my handbag since (I do my make up on the bus alot!). It's quick and easy to apply and great for everyday.

My downside is the price. At £17.50 it's not cheap. If it lasts a while I'm not complaining. So far so good so fingers crossed it lasts as I'm loving the convenience of it.

Love M
xxx

Hey there! 

As M has already mentioned were big fans of defined brows, as mine are black and my skin a rather white shade it can be really hard to define mine without going too far and giving myself the dreaded scouse brow or looking like I've drawn them on in permanent marker.

Gimme Brow caught my eye because everyone's brows seem to look so natural after using it.



As the packaging states, its a brush on fibre gel that adheres to skin and hair and has qualities including being water resistant, long wearing, buildable and most importantly natural looking.



The tube itself is tiny, similar in height to a mini They're Real but with the thickness of a pencil its a really dinky little product that has made its way into my make up bag as a firm favourite. 

It's just SO easy to use and defines and fills in the natural gaps that I have in my brows (thanks to my mum, we have the same gaps!)

The tiny mascara type brush fills in even the tiniest gap without any issues and looks perfectly natural. I was worried my brows would be a bit crispy after using something like this but I haven't had that problem at all

I really do love the little brush, so cute!

You can see Gimme Brow in the pictures below, I've got the medium deep colour. The first picture is without any brow product, second with one coat and the third with two coats. 

You can see how it so easily defines and fills in without looking too 'done' because were all natural beauties aren't we ladies??

The only downside for me is again, the price. I think £17.50 for a tiny tube is far too much. But hey ho, you do have to pay for good quality products!

What do you think of Gimme Brow? Are you a fan of natural looking brows or more defined and powerful?

L xxx