Thursday, 29 May 2014

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.

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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.


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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.

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Aaaaaaaaaanyway back to the set. This is perversion:

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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?

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

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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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Wednesday, 28 May 2014

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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eeek it looks scary!

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The finished result.

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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!

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Again it faded to lush icey tones!

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

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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!
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Tuesday, 27 May 2014

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



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Monday, 26 May 2014

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

Love M

xxx


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