Lou Lou's Vintage Fair in Cardiff

Morning!

If you hadn't heard, Lou Lou's Vintage Fair are one of the biggest vintage fairs in the UK and they regularly visit Cardiff's City Hall. I was meant to go a few months ago but last minute plans changed things, so this weekend i was determined to go.

I had no idea what to expect, how much things would be, if I could haggle etc. It was a whole new experience and I loved every second. I picked up some lovely things so here they are:

Both of these bags were from the same stall, they were from the 1980s and cost £25 each. They have a few marks on them from small wear and tear but are in really good condition, especially the black one. I'm hoping with a bit of leather treatment they will come up good as new.

I'm hoping the black bag will be my new work bag, it's perfect for keeping A4 paper in and has compartments in.

I absolutely love emerald green and have been looking for a coat this colour for a while. It seems to be a rare colour though as I've only seen them for £160. This one is from C&A all those years ago and is actually a size or 2 too big for me. However it's a gorgeous warm coat and seems to look better oversized. It has a button missing but I think I'll take off the top button and move it to the bottom to replace the missing one and it will be good as new. It cost me £35 which is a bargain!

Another stall had leather jackets on sale for £10......TEN POUND! They were all genuine leather too, and this one was in really good condition. Its in the style of a blazer and has pockets which are always handy. The tie at the waist also make it more flattering on me, I always need to be cinched in at the waist and can even swap this out for a waist belt.

This beautiful ring was so pretty I couldn't leave it behind. It fitted my finger perfectly and it's real silver. i don't wear many rings but I've recently been wearing ones that look similar to this, I think they make a really nice statement piece.

The earrings below were also a bargain find. I rarely wear earrings as all of my small ones have been cheap and have therefore broken and I just haven't replaced them. Normally I wear diamond looking ones but pearl ones are also just as classic and for £6 i couldn't resist.

What do you think? 

I think they're my new favourites!

I have to wait for some of these as my mum got me them for Christmas presents, though I am allowed to fix them up with the treatments and new buttons.

What do you think of vintage fairs? Do you love hunting out a bargain?

The next fair is in January and I will definitely be saving some Christmas money for it!

L xxx

Laura Mercier Brow Definer

Hey All

It's been a while since I've done a post on my own! Massive thanks to L for holding the fort while my life seems to have been getting busier and busier! After the rather excess Space NK haul and quite a few other purchase I've had loads I've wanted to write about but no time to write them.

Brows are something I can't leave the house without and always want to try and find the latest new product to give them great definition without looking scouse brow esque! My previous favourite was either Gimme Brow (review here!) or the Elf brow kit (review here). I've wanted to try a brow gel type product for ages since seeing lots of great things about the Anastasia brow range. The Laura Mercier Brow Definer caught my eye and was quickly added to my basket!

I went for the shade fair. With my ever changing hair colour it's always hard to know what colour to go for but I tend to keep my brows as the latest shade as possible. 

As with most higher end products it comes boxed. Laura Mercier keep classic colours and the range never looks tacky!

The little pot holds a lot of product! I can't imagine this running out any time soon. Having used it for over a month it doesn't even have a little dent in it. I was concerned at first I would need to buy new brushes as I seem to be lacking a good quality brow brush but I've actually found my H and M brush works perfectly. Where the bristles are a bit longer it doesn't take up too much product. The slanted edge makes it easy to apply and the thin bristles mean definition is easy to achieve! The brush is a bargain £1.99 and double ended!!

Pre brows

Post brows

I love how they look! The brows look soft, not powdering and well defined! It also lasts all day as a gel it helps hold the brow down without leaving them stiff like some brow mascaras can. There isn't any faults I can find with this. I also got the other half to admit my brows look better with make up on (he's always saying natural and no make up is better!) I also think for a higher end product it comes in at a reasonable £16.50.

What's your top brow product? 

Love M

xxx

Nars Satin Lip Pencil in Hyde Park

Hello there!

It's no secret that I'm newly obsessed with Nars having kept my wishlist at bay for such a long time, the flood gates seem to have been opened. I can't even begin to tell you how many blushes I now want, not to mention their Virtual Domination palette and their lip products are also highly rated by myself. You can see my previous review on the infamous Cruella lip pencil here, and this review is on the Satin lip pencil Hyde Park.

I bought this from the Space NK website; I'd never seen it in reality and pretty much bought it because the shade looked like something I'd like and get a lot of wear out of and the name was appealing. Who doesn't love a London named product??

Hype Park is described as a 'cardinal red' which to me sounds a lot more red than this. I would say it's more of a berry toned red and whilst I haven't tried other lip pencils from the Satin range to compare it to, I loved the more hydrating and lip balm feel to it than was expected. you could easily wear this pencil as a wash of colour and top it up with lip balm, or layer it up which is my preferred way of wearing it.

It's a gorgeous colour for almost any skin tone and for me personally with my dark hair and pale skin it's an absolute winner for the upcoming winter season.

The pencil style is super easy to use especially on the go, you just need to make sure you have sharpened it recently as otherwise you'll be a bit stuck! It;s the only downside I can find to the pencils as a whole as on the go it can be difficult to find a sharpener and this is where a traditional lipstick would have a major advantage.

That said, they're easy to apply and the colour can be built up with a few layers leaving a lovely stain after a few hours of wear and I didn't find that it settled into lines too badly either, though this does always happen eventually.

The photo above shows the berry colour and below is the lip pencil on my lips:






In my personal opinion sometimes I feel I need an actual lip pencil to line and fill my lips as something this can be a bit translucent as you can see in the image above. I just feel this kind of colour and look requires a clean and defined line.
The colour however is one of my favourites and it's now one product that always seems to live in my handbag. I wore it to a wedding recently and loved it, was so easy to apply and was even appropriate in the day time:

In short, I love it. I definitely want more of the lip pencils from Nars now I know where I stand with finishes. The set from Space NK for Christmas, the Digital World Lip Pencil Coffret holds 5 of the lip pencils in a smaller size and I've definitely got my eye on it. 

It contains Cruella and also Iberico(intense matte coral), Yu (shocking pink with cool undertones), Descanso (tea rose with satin finish) and Torres del Paine (peach coral with satin finish). Cruella and Yu are part of their normal range whilst the others are limited edition. I need to get my hands on this set as Torres del Paine looks beautiful! 

Have you tried any of the Nars lip pencils? Is the gift set on your wishlist? What colour is your favourite?

L xxx

Things I've Learnt This Week

Hi!

After loving writing my quick posts of 'Things I've Learnt This Week' previously, I've decided to make it a regular feature (ish). Its a great easy way for me to communicate what I've been up to, what I've been trialling and what has interested me. Let me know if you like the new series or if you have any ideas how it could be made better, essentially i love lists and always have too much to say so it's a great way for me to tell you more about my extremely exciting life...!

1) Vice 3. Not much else is necessary to say but the strips either side of the palette have been PERFECTION for work make up. Nude colours in matte and shimmer, it's love.

I love the colours! So much fun to be had in future :)

2) Making big choices can be completely terrifying but can be the best choice you've ever made.
I was terrified to leave my job and give up the career that I'd worked so hard for. I'm lucky that I've found another job in a related field but in a completely different way and so far it has worked out for the best for me.

Sometimes I look back and can't believe how unhappy I was nor how i managed to get the strength to leave a job I'd worked for 8 years to get.
It's funny how things work out but I'm keeping everything crossed that this is all moving in the right direction and 2015 is going to be SUPER

3) Beauty Boxes never lose their appeal! Whichever one is in current favour with the blogging world, there is certainly one to tickle your fancy (ooh err!).

I recently snapped up these two - they really are like unwrapping presents to yourself;







I plan to do reviews on individual products rather than the boxes themselves as they are no longer available.

These were from Latest in Beauty and I can tell you that they have never disappointed me yet. Their Christmas ranges are even better too, £24.95 and there are three separate boxes available for almost every kind of female in your life! Perfect presents for hard to buy for people.

4) It doesn't matter what you're doing on the weekend; if the rugby is on and you're Welsh it's game over for everything else! I'm off to the Wales v Fiji match in the Millenium Stadium tomorrow - excited doesn't cover it! If you're Welsh, you're watching it and i love the family culture around it all. It's nothing like that with football and I much prefer feeling safe in a stadium! fingers crossed we can pull it out the bag this week for a successful family trip out.


5) Drawing spider diagrams and reading text books does not end when you finish uni. I thought it was just me but actually quite a lot of my friends also end up doing extra reading late into the night with a pad of A3 paper and coloured pens to go crazy with the annotations. Just shows you never really stop learning when you leave education!

6) I spent the weekend eating llama, horse, crocodile, ostrich, kangaroo and venison. It was lots of fun and whilst I did have some moral dilemmas I got over them to try new things; the end result was that I loved it all apart from kangaroo so at least I learnt something there!

What do you think of trying new foods? Would you try any of the meats that I did?


Let me know what you've been up to recently :)

L xxx