Skin Care Haul!

I haven't had a good look around Boots in ages and I fancied just spending ages browsing the shelves to see what was out at the moment! I am majorly in to skin care at the moment and I feel like having great skin does wonders for your makeup application. I have been trying out tonnes of new skin care items, I love purchasing things that will help me have more confidence in my skin, allowing me to reveal my freckles! I am so not confident about my freckles and although people tell me they love them, I just can't seem to brave my bare skin!

Anyway, I had heard great things about the Boots Botanics line of skin care. It is affordable and natural. I came across loads of things from them that looked exciting but decided to hold back and purchase two things from the range. The first being this, the Face Smoothing Cleansing Balm. It is made from 97% natural ingredients and reminded me a lot of two other cleansing balms, the Eve Lom one and one from Monu. Both much more expensive than this one! I have used it once and it's fab! Smells lovely and although it feels as if you're rubbing Vaseline all over your face, it certainly cleanses your skin! You remove it in the same way as my Liz Earle, with a hot muslin cloth (provided in the box).

Organic Soothing Cleansing Balm - £6.63

Also, from the Botanics line I picked up this lovely looking toner. I must admit, I love the packaing from this line of products, it's simple and organic looking. This next product is the Rosewater Toner and really does smell beautiful! It is so calming and just leaves your skin feeling squeeky clean!



Organic Rosewater Toner - £4.07

Next, an item that was recommend by the lovely and gorgeous Barbara of ThePersianbabe. Check her videos out here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ThePersianbabe

She has been mentioning the Effaclar M cream by La Roche-Posay a lot at the moment, it is aimed at slightly more oily skin types and is supposed to tighten up your pores over time, allowing for less and less oils to be released throughout the day. It regulates the amount of sebum that is released throughout your skin as well as mattifying your face. It also claims to be a great makeup base/primer. SOLD! It is around £14 (I couldn't find an exact price for this one as it wasn't on the Boots website!)

La Roche-Posay Effaclar M - £14 (ish!)

Then, another cleanser. I have been wanting to try this one out for a while too as it has been mentioned by Gemma (Gemsmaquillage) and also, Barbara (ThePersianbabe). They have talked about the Avene cleanser in videos before saying that it just a really simply formulated, gentle cleanser that gets everything off with no fuss. It hardly smells of anything and is great for getting your makeup off at the end of a long day. It markets itself as a 'No-Rinse Tissue-off formula', basically meaning that no water or post-face-washing is required! You simply apply it with cotton pads all over your face, wait for the makeup to melt away and then wipe it off with tissues. Now, personally I have really gotten in removing my makeup/cleansers with a hot muslin cloth so I think that is also what I would do with this. I feel like it would be far more effective to steam and wash the cleanser away rather than just rub it with a tissue! Anyway, up to you!

Avene Eau Thermale Extremely Gentle Cleanser - £8.00

All the items I have mentioned can be bought in store at Boots or at http://www.boots.com/

Let me know what your skin care must-haves are! I would love to try anything new out! :)

Hair Tutorial: Beyonce - Run The World (Girls)

My latest YouTube tutorial was a hair one. I was inspired after watching Beyonce's new video, 'Run The World (Girls). The video is all about female empowerment and it is extremely powerful! I loved the final scene where all the girls were dancing and Beyonce's hair was all curly and wispy! It looked so full of volume and deffinately something I'd like to wear myself.

The photo below shows the sort of curls I am talking about :) full of volume yet not perfectly tamed. Just my style!

Here is my recreation:

Click to watch the video below where I show how to get this look :)

Hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you decided to recreate this hairstyle!

You can now follow us on tumblr for some serious fashionable inspiration! Follow us here http://inspire-mag.tumblr.com/!

P.S Expect normal posting/blogging to resume after Monday when I hand the last piece of University work in...for life! Goodbye education!

Review: GlossyBox!

Here is my first GlossyBox parcel! Yay! So so excited about this new company - we finally have the UK's answer to Birchbox! Here is what the parcel and packaging looked like:

The packaging really was gorgeous! Such high quality and it deffinately made an impression on me. The companies customer service as a whole is really impeccable! The are friendly, helpful and deffinately think about what the customer wants! For just £10 a month, I will deffinately recommend that you sign up to GlossyBox and get yourself a lovely box of glamorous goodies like these!

What was inside my May package?

Click to watch the video below - this is my full in-depth review of GlossyBox!

Here is the link to the GlossyBox UK website :) do go and check it out and sign up! It's such a fab idea that I am very excited to share with you :D

http://tidd.ly/6229cad

Makeup Tutorial: Lady Gaga on The Graham Norton Show

The most recent makeup tutorial on SWalkerMakeup is a Lady Gaga one. This is the extravagant and arty look that she wore when on The Graham Norton Show:

It featured bleached out brows, thick winged eyeliner, under-eye liner, gold sparkly tears and bold red lips! I instantly fell in love with the makeup and couldn't wait to have a play around with my makeup and see what I could create! 

Here are a few pictures of my final look:

PRODUCTS USED:

Liz Earle Skin Repair Moisturiser
Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation - 15
Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer - 2 Light
MAC Studio Fix Powder - NC20
Barry M Foundation Cream - 1 White
L'Oreal Carbon Gloss Liquid Liner - Black
Illamasqua Precision Ink Liner - Gold
Jewels bought from Ebay
Rimmel Sexy Curves Mascara - Intense Black
MAC Blush - Cantaloup
Barry M Lip Liner - 25 Red
L'Oreal Moisture Renew Lipstick - True Red

THE EYES & BLEACHED OUT BROWS:

THE LIPS:

I really hope you enjoyed this look and for step by step instructions, please watch the video below:

See you soon! 

Giveaway Winner

First of all, apologies for not doing this yesterday, I got my dates completely mixed up and have been under so much stress with uni. Thank you all for all your entires and promotion, we now have over 50 followers which is a massive achievement for me! I understand I've lacked in blogging (again) lately but after next week I have finished education forever! So this blog will be my highest priority once all that is out of the way. Anyway, thank you again, I'll announce the winner below using some screen shots of the process (I'm sure you all know how it works!)

Sorry you can't see it very well, if you click on it you will see the full picture better where I have listed everybody's entries (in the order they were commented), with extra entries for those who entered extra steps.

Here is me using the random generator.

Here is the number being announced, entry number 2! Which is...

Jessica!

Well done Jessica for being the winner of my first ever giveaway! I will be in contact soon! And thank you again to everyone who entered and promoted, I've had an overwhelming response of entries and I hope you all like my writing so much that you stay followers! I will be announcing another giveaway in the near future!

Review: ColourB4

I had recently purchased this new product called ColourB4 by Scott Cornwall. I had heard a lot about it floating around within the beauty community so I thought I'd give it a good and try and get rid of the red!

 I bought mine in Superdrug for around £10. I'd heard that when you apply it, it supposedly lifts the previous colour molecules out of your hair so that you can wash it out, taking it back to your natural colour.

What they say on the website:

"Colour B4 hair colour remover is the safest and most effective way to reverse an undesirable hair colour application. Colour B4 shrinks the artificial dye molecules in the hair, enabling you to simply wash them away. What?s more Colour B4 does not touch your natural hair pigment so you are left with the colour which lay beneath your artificial shade."

It actually come's in regular strength and then a stronger version (usually used for people wanting to remove jet black dye!)

 I got out the contents and slapped the mixture all over my head! As it was developing I did actually notice that my hair looked less red. I also noticed that the smell was...well......eughhh. The only way I can describe is that you know when you are sat in the hairdressers and you happen to be in on the day that someone is having a perm! It's that. Perm smell. Very strong! Anyway, the time was up and it was time for the rinsing process. I won't go in to too much detail here but if you do end up buying this, make sure you follow the instructions rigidly. The rinsing and 'buffering' process is quite intense and there are plenty of steps that could easily get you confused!

Once the product was completely rinsed out I noticed that my hair felt like it needed a good condition so I put on a treatment to rescue my hair from any possible damage! I used one of the REDKEN Deep Fuel sachets.

Now, on to drying! This is the moment I almost fainted. As you know, my hair is extremely dark and although I do want to have it lighter and highlighted this summer, I wasn't prepared 

for what I saw! Ginger - pure brassy red-head Ginger! I will just show you a before picture to see what we were dealing with...a very dark red.

BEFORE: Excuse the cheesey smile but c'mon, I was playing on the slot machines!

AFTER: I never thought I would see myself having ginger hair, but there you go.

(excuse me, I was wearing the boyfriends shirt to protect mine! haha!) But hopefully, you can see the actual colour shocking bright colour! It was orange. Anyway, I began to style it and such, and actually got round to the idea of being a firey red head! However, just as I'd come to terms with it, the next day after a second wash, it had faded :( although now, I love the colour! I was getting ready for a night out and had set it in some massive Velcro rollers. It turned out that it had actually held on to some of my previous highlights from last summer so voila! Instant caramel highlights! Here are some posey pics of what it looked like once I was ready :)

AFTER DAY 2: Caramel/Auburn colour (Yum!)

AFTER DAY 2: Caramel/Auburn colour (Yum!)

I now love my accidental new barnet and might even use ColourB4 again to go another shade lighter! I think the auburn colour brings out the green in my eyes more so it's deffinately a keeper :) 

Let me know if you have tried ColourB4 and what your results were? Accidental ginge? Or natural brunette? Incase you are wondering, you can purchase it here:

http://www.boots.com/en/Colour-B4-Hair-Colour-Remover-by-Scott-Cornwall-hair-expert-_1000978/

Monthly Favourites: April 2011

Check out the video below to see what product's I have been loving over the month of April this year!

Hair Tutorial: Festival Fever!

Check out the video I made below to learn how to achieve that festival/hippy hair that is so in fashion this Spring!

Some photo's of the final look:

Here are a list of the products I used to create this fun hair style:

V05 Give Me Texture Spray - (available in Boots stores - not yet online!)
Schwarzkopf Guardian Angel Heat Protector - £4.07 - http://www.boots.com/en/Schwarzkopf-Got2b-Guardian-Angel-200ml_1116560/?CAWEL...
Babyliss Conical Wand - £25.49 - http://www.boots.com/en/BaByliss-Porcelain-Curling-Wand_863080/
Babyliss Glamorous Waves - £20.42 - http://www.boots.com/en/BaByliss-Glamour-Waves-Tong-2289U_1124244/
Vidal Sassoon Union Jack Straightener - £30.00 - http://www.very.co.uk/vidal-sassoon-union-jack-straightener/886439635.prd
TRESemme Volume & Lift Hairspray - £2.69 - http://www.boots.com/en/Tresemme-volume-and-lift-hairspray-250ml_1162462/?CAW...
TRESemme Salon Shine Glossing Spray - (available in Boots stores - not yet online!)

Really hope you enjoyed the look! The flower head was bought from Primark for £2! Bargain! See you soon! :)

Liz Earle Review

 I have been using the Liz Earle Hot Cloth Cleanser for quite a few months now and it has quickly become my go-to number 1 cleanser! I won't stray away from it and if I do, my skin wants it back! It completely clears up my skin and cleanses it much more thoroughly than anything else I have used.

In the photo below, it shows me using my little mini trial sized version that I got for Christmas - well it didn't take long for me to make a positive decision on the product! I used it all up and quickly bought a full sized bottle. Infact, I ordered a great Spring Time kit from the website that contained some excellent goodies!

I believe kit cost me £41, and for that much I got the following products:

First of all, there were 2 bottles of the infamous Hot Cloth Cleanser. My favourite! The bottles are full size (100ml). I cannot rave enough about this little baby! I have got friends and family using it and they all share the same passion and love for it as I do. I have even had to give up one of these bottles to my boyfriend - he has loved the way his skin has cleared up with it and commented on how much softer and smoother his skin was! He will soon be ordering the male version - result!

I have actually filmed a full review on the Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish on my YouTube channel which you can watch below:

Next up, we have the Instant Boost Skin Tonic. Basically, the toner of the kit. This is what the website claims it does, and also, how you use it:

"This heavenly floral-scented, non-drying toner refreshes, soothes and brightens your skin. Gentle and alcohol-free, it also adds a fine layer of moisture.

Pour onto a cotton wool pad and sweep over face and neck after using Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser. Alternatively spritz over face and body to revitalise at any time."

It really is lovely and smells so relaxing to smooth over your face after the cleanser. I haven't noticed an incredible difference after using this product, however I think that that is because the cleanser already delivers excellent results on it's own.

Then, the moisturiser :) this one, I really do like! I find that some moisturisers can feel a little oily on my skin and can often break me out when I try new ones. I was previously using Oilatum Natural Repair moisturiser (which I lurrrve!) so when I switched to this I was a little hestitant. Thankfully, my skin seems to just be greatful of Liz Earle products and drinks this moisturiser right up! Smells delicious too, which is also a bonus!

Then of course, you get 2 of the muslin cloths to remove the cleanser with. I explain all about this in the video review above.

As an added bonus, I also got this cute little makeup bag! Very nice! :) 

Unfortunately this was a spring time offer and is no longer available. However, they have just launched their new summer kit which is also fab, I recommend you check it out because you can always guarantee your self a great saving. Here is a link to the summer offer:

http://uk.lizearle.com/summer11nl-essentials-women

Thats all for this enormous post! I got a bit carried away with typing for this one! Hope you don't mind haha! I will clock off for the evening now but I will pop back on with another post tomorrow :) good bye!