Pestle and Mortar Skincare Deals

Hey all

When we were contacted to see if we fancied trying some Pestle and Mortar skincare items we of course said yes. We have both taken care of our skin with full skincare routines started from our early 20s in the hope prevention is better than cure.

We couldn't wait to get out hands on the Pestle and Mortar products as not only are they cruelty free (a must for me now), they are suitable for all skin types, both of our skin needs seem to be changing so a product suitable for all is great, they also free from parabens, mineral oil, silcones, sulphates and propylene. When we first started the blog we wrote about parabens, sulphates and silcones in products and what it means, you can find these posts here.

Pestle and Mortar is an Irish beauty brand that have a great range of skincare products all in gorgeous packaging. I love the simplicity of the packaging and the monochrome it looks great on my bedside table.

We were lucky enough to be sent the Hyaluronic Serum. I'm so excited to give this a proper try. L has tried the alpha h liquid gold before which contain hyaluronic acid so was excited to try this to see how it compares.

The serum is formulated from the salt of hyaluronic acid. This is a smaller molecule and is said to be even more penetrative than hylauronic acid. I can't wait to give this a proper trial and see the results. As I'm getting older even though I have oily skin I'm still finding my skin dehydrated. Serums such as this one are great for getting moisture in my skin without drying it out. 

It leaves the skin feeling really soft and the perfect base for makeup. We will be doing a full review once we've been able to try it for a while but wanted to go on and share it as with Black Friday and Cyber Monday just around the corner Pestle and Mortar are offering some great deals. It's worth signing up to the mailing list as you get 20% off. Non-subscribers still get 15% off thought.

Have you heard of Pestle and Mortar? Will you be taking advantage of the deals? They can be purchased from pestleandmortarcosmetics.com.

Love M

xxx

Sleek Matte Me in Old Hollywood

Hey All

Lately I've been very spendy so expect a few hauls coming up!! I was meeting some friends in town the other day and have 30 minutes before they arrived and accidently ended up in boots and superdrug and before I knew it I'd bought 2 lipsticks, a lipstick palette, an eyeshadow palette, a contour palette and a nail varnish. Clearly a lack of self control that day ha!

I tend to go to Superdrug more these days as they have a great selection of cruelty free brands (NYX keeps me going to boots though!). With the weather getting colder I'm getting drawn back into the darker shades and can't seem to resist the liquid lipsticks everyone is loving at the moment. As soon as I swatched old hollywood on my hand I knew I was going to buy it. It's such a deep red colour and perfect for the colder weather.

It comes in the traditional lip gloss packaging with the doe foot applicator you would expect for a liquid lipstick, It's really easy to apply direct from the applicator and get that straight line to the lips. It dries really quickly. I love the colour and love how easy it is to apply but it's not my favourite formula. For me it's too drying and does the flaking off the lips from the middle and leaves staining around the lip line. I prefer more mouse like formulas like the NYX lip lingeries and the liquid satins. 

Even though I'm not sold on the formula the colour is so amazing I will definitely keep wearing it. It just needs reapplying throughout the day to keep the colour looking it's best.

Have you tried the Sleek Matte Me lip products? Any tips on stopping it being so drying?

Love M

xxx

MUA Luxe Enchanted Palette

Morning all!

I've been testing out some new palettes recently and the first one I've decided to share is the MUA Luxe Enchanted palette.

I'm sure you have seen these palettes before over on Instagram and Pinterest, or the original ombre type palette that was released by Hourglass. However with the Hourglass Modernist eyeshadow palette costing £56, this isn't affordable for most people and MUA Luxe have released their own version, which is always exciting when an affordable dupe comes along!

The Enchanted palette contains 5 silk eyeshadow shades in a variety of soft pink shades.

On a first glance the palette is so pretty - everyone loves a marble effect and this is beautiful. You can see way there is such a hype surrounding them, and not even starting on the dupe factor!

The outer packaging is quite simple and obviously a lot cheaper than the Hourglass counterpart. Sometimes I think that the cheaper brands could put a bit more into their packaging than making everything black and basic, but I am certainly not complaining about the range of products on the market now that are much more affordable than before.

Looking at the shades, they look very similar and I wasn't sure how wearable they would be nor how pigmented and therefore whether they would even show up properly. My first thought was that the palettes will at least be great for pretty pictures!

You can see the colours swatched below, without and with flash:

How pigmented are they???!!!

I was so impressed! They are very pretty and the colour is so intense, they are perfect rose gold colours ideal for day wear especially weddings.

The only downside I can see to this palette is the colours are very similar and I do wish there was one less lighter shade and one more darker shade to help with creating an entire look. It means I need to use another palette for a dark shade to line my eyes - I look really weird if I don't do this!

I've been really impressed with this palette and how pigmented the colours are.

Unfortunately the pictures I took of me wearing these shades were too blurry to share, not sure what happened to my camera that day but I don't have any more to share right now. I will put some on our Instagram though, you can see them by looking for @thecsigirls

Have you tried the MUA Luxe palettes? Which one do you prefer?

Check back for my thoughts on the other palette, called Enrapture

L xxx

Cruelty Free Skincare Holiday Essentials

Hey All

As I've just got back from holiday there will definitely be a few holiday based posts coming up. I'll be sharing what I got up to soon but as well took over 2500 photos across 4 cameras there are a lot of photos to sort through.

This was my first holiday since moving to cruelty free beauty so I knew I needed to pick up a few bits and find substitutes for old favourites.