Collective Haul: January 2012

We're finally at the end of January. I have to say this felt like the longest month ever. It's not that I hate January like some people but it just really feels much longer than a month since Christmas and New Years!

This month turned out to be pricer than usual due to the splurge on a Clarisonic. I've been using it for just over 2 weeks, and whilst that is definitely no proper timespan for a review, I do feel that it is making a difference:) 

Check out this post and to see more pictures of the skincare items and this one for the hair products.

Face Stuff

Vichy Aera Teint Foundation, Chanel Perfection Lumiere Foundation.

Mac eyeshadows in Black Tied and Contrast, Bare Minerals Well Dressed, Benefit Hoola.

Mac 109 Brush

Lip Stuff

Mac Lipstick in Creme Cup and Impassioned.

Revlon Colourburst Lipgloss in Gold Dust and Hot Pink.

Nail Varnish

No 7 Milani, Totally Teal, Tangy, Highland Mist (All bought with No7 Vouchers!:)) Chanel June, China Glaze Atlantis, For Audrey and OPI Glove You So Much.

I have a feeling that next month is going to be a bad one as well due to new MAC collections and new OPI and China Glaze collections:/ March will have to be a quiet month I think!!

Benefit Hoola Bronzer

I tend to go through phases of using bronzer. I am a naturally pale person, so bronzer can be a dodgy area. I always use it when I am going out at night. My chosen night ones are Nars Laguna or a Chanel one. However, during the day if I want to contour my face, neither of these are really appropriate due to the slight shimmer in them.

Step up Hoola by Benefit. While doing research I discovered the Hoola seems to be favoured by a lot of people due to its' matte finish. 

The one I got is one of the newer editions with the flip up lid and mirror. In all honesty I prefer the old box ones. I know well I'll never use the mirror.

Hoola was true to form and is indeed a matte bronzer.

Another thing that I adore about this bronzer is that it is quite a soft, light coloured bronzer. Ideal for my pasty daytime tones.

Anybody else use Hoola? Which Benefit style box do you prefer - flip-up lid or old-style?

Nail Polish Collection: Breakdown Part 4

I can't believe it's the last Saturday in January already! We can start looking forward to Spring soon!:D

In today's breakdown I will be showing you my Essence and Revlon nail polishes.

Essence

L-R Shocking Blue, Shining Star, Blue Addicted, Cherry Kiss, Pool Party, Grand-Plié in Black, Blue Ray, Gagalectric, Matte Topcoat, Make Me Holo, My Sparkling Acrobat.  

Revlon

L-R No Name Gold, Grey Suede, Minted, Plum Night, Beach, Passion Fruit, Ocean Breeze, Blue Lagoon, Facets of Fuschia, Star, Galaxy.  

Purple Panic!

At this stage I have nearly all my nail varnishes swatched. I was up to date but then I bought more and I haven't gotten around to getting photos of them yet! Anyway, I thought every so often I would to a post on a certain colour but mish-mash of brands. Also as I've been doing the swatches for a while my nail length varies as does my polish painting skills and my photography abilities!
Today it's the turn of some purples. Enjoy!

Wet n Wild No Name Purple

Revlon Purple Night

Claire's No Name Purple

Sephora Wanna Be A Star

Catrice Dirty Berry

Sally Hansen HD DVD

Catrice Forget Me Not

Nubar Violet Sparkle

Any favourites? I think mine have to be the 2 Catrice ones and the Claire's one.

Overnight Hand Treatment

I don't know about you but the winter weather always causes havoc on my hands. This year hasn't been as bad as others (one year my knuckles cracked and bled - em, eww) but they have felt dry, including my cuticles. (I've learnt so much this past year, before I would have been like - dry cuticles? you wha?) 

When this occurs I like to carry out what I like to call my intensive handcare routine....overnight. I've actually done this every year during the winter but before it only would have involved a thick hand cream as I wasn't as protective or knowledgeable of my cuticles back then. I tend to do this once a week but if I feel they need an extra quick-fire treat, I'll do it for a few nights in a row.

So what does the Intensive Hand Care Treatment involve? The original counterparts are the white MJ style gloves and hand cream. Newer additions include cuticle oil, cuticle cream and a hand salve.

Step 1

I use this hand salve as an extra intense hydration/soothing balm. I dig my finger into the tub and smear a decent amount over my knuckles. I don't rub it in properly yet.

Step 2

My chosen cuticle cream is the Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream. It is a lemon scented one and not too greasy.  I run each nail through the cuticle cream until there is a good blob of it at the tip of each nail. I don't rub it in just yet.

Step 3

My current night hand cream is a Crabtree & Evelyn Hand Therapy one. It is 'specially formulated with natural shea butter to soothe and help protect hands.' I adore the smell of this and while it is thick you could still get away with using it as a day hand cream as well. Another bonus of this hand cream is that it comes with a pump style top (which I somwhow managed to cut out of both pictures?!)

I pump 2-3 pumps on the back of each hand. Again I let it sit there and move on to the next step.

Step 4

Next we have the 2 cuticle oils I use. The first one is my main one. It's an Oro Gold one that I got in a giftset. It's a thicker oil than the China Glaze one. I really just use the China Glaze one for the smell. Again it could probably be used during the day or in the evening if you were just watching tv. It's not greasy enough to cause too much damage. Firstly I paint a thin strip of the China Glaze cuticle oil around my entire cuticle/nail bed. The I add a drop of the Oro Gold cuticle oil to the base of each nail.

Finally I am ready to mix it all up. I begin by massaging the cuticle cream and oils into my cuticles and nail beds. Then I rub in the salve and hand cream. Finally, I put on the white cotton gloves to help it all sink in and moisturise throughout the night. 

So there we go. When you type it out step by step it seems like loads to do, but in reality it is done in a minute. This is just the way I like to keep my hand soft and well conditoned during the winter time. 

Anybody have any other tips or suggestions?

Illamasqua Raindrops

Ever since I bought my first Illamasqua nail varnish Load, I have been lusting after more. Raindrops caught my eye and I think it is a stunning colour. It is a light blue grey base with a delicate, nearly iridescent flake in it. Not a flakie polish but an ode to one.

These pictures are just Raindrops by themselves, 3 coats I believe. However I think it would just come to life layered over the perfect blue grey shade. Alas, I am at a loss to what colour that would be. Any suggestions?

Review: Catrice Perfect Resist Foundation

Unlike yesterdays Catrice post, this one isn't as favourable

One word: Horrendous.

Allow me to expand. My foundation ran out and while I was waiting for the new Chanel Perfection Lumiere foundation to launch I needed something to tide me over. Seeing as the Chanel one was going to cost €44 I didn't particularly want to spend too much on another foundation that I might only use for a couple of weeks.

One of my favourite budget nail polish comes from Catrice and as I'd only ever used their concealer (and liked it)  I decided I may as well give their foundation a try. At €6.99 for the 'Perfect Resist' one, it was worth a shot.

I picked the shade 010 Perfect Nude as it was lightest shade and I am quite pale. It is orange. Not just a bit dark. Proper orange orange. I decided to compare some other foundations that I was about to throw out and some my mum had.

L-R Vichy Aera Teint in 35, Catrice Perfect Resist in 010 Perfect Nude, Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation in Porcelain, Revlon PhotoReady in 003 Shell Coquillage and Bourjois 10 Hour Sleep Effect in 72.  

It's hard to see in the photos but the Catrice one is a lot oranger than any of the darker ones in real life

The orange is a bit more obvious here. (2nd from top).

Next is the scent. It is a very heavily perfumed product. It's not that I don't like the smell - it is a kind of comforting scent, kind of like your granny but it also reminded me a lot of the heavy stage make-up I used to wear when I was younger in drama plays and stuff. I think it's more that the product scent lingers and nearly overpowers.

The coverage was great, the formula fine albeit I felt the consistency was just a bit too sticky for my liking. Wear time was very long-lasting.

So what's wrong with it apart from the colour you ask? Well after 4-5 days of usage, it pretty much savaged my skin. Yes, my skin is dry and sometimes can feel a bit 'tight' after using some products but never have I experienced the reaction this created.

It basically burned the skin on my cheeks over the few days until I had two raw sore patches up high on my cheekbones. My left cheek and eye swelled up. When I removed my eye make-up and all my face make-up you could quite clearly see the faint burn mark rings going above my eyebrows and down around my cheeks.

It took about a week for the patches to heal and smooth over. This involved using a thick soothing moisturiser, sudocream, copious amounts of olive oil and bio-oil. I used to dread taking off my make-up in the evening as my cleanser made it sting and even water made it sting. I always ended up gritting my teeth while removing it! (And I had to go to work every day so there was no way I could go make-up free to let my skin breathe and heal during the day).

I suppose I should have been quicker off the mark and stopped using it sooner but to be honest my skin has being going ape on me the last while with breakouts etc. that I just thought it was an extension of that. However, once I figured out it was the new foundation I stopped using it, obviously.

This isn't going to happen everybody I assume, I'm sure for some people it is their holy grail foundation. I really don't know why my skin took such a reaction to it (And I'm assuming it was the foundation because nothing else changed and it started to heal when I stopped using it) as my skin has never taken a reaction that bad to a product before but I suppose there's a first for everything. I just know I'll be weary of using any of their foundations again! On a positive note, the foundation that I picked up to replace it (I still wasn't able to get the Chanel one) is Aera Teint by Vichy and I found it really soothing and nice to use on my sore skin. I will probably do a full review on it.

Anybody else experience anything like this with a Catrice foundation?

Catrice Welcome to the Jungle

Happy Monday all! At least the first day of the week is out of the way:)

I love this golden green colour. This is one of my trusty Catrice nail varnishes and it was a dream to apply. The photo itself was taken a while ago and I can't get over how short my nails were then! I hope they don't all badly break on me anytime soon!

Lunch Hour Shopping Dash!

This past week at work was pretty hectic so I made the most of my lunch hour on 2 of the days by doing a little bit of shopping. I usually buy most of my make-up and stuff online so I hardly ever just go into the shops any more.  I've put myself on an online shopping ban since last week though (about time too, I went a little overboard the week previous) and it's going to last the next 2 weeks as I'm visiting friends in Dublin then so I want to save for that:)

Firstly I went to Penney's. I only had time to look through the accessories section but I had a quick glance over at the clothes and there seemed to be a few nice bits in. Anybody pick anything up recently?

                   
                                                       

I saw this bag (€13) and even though it's relatively similar to the one featured in my 'what's in my bag' post, it is larger and more structured.

I love scarves  and I don't have many with designs or imprints on them so I thought this cream scarf (€11) with navy anchors will be perfect for spring. The bracelets (€5) caught my eye because of the larger ones delicate floral pattern.

I went into Boots needing some dry shampoo and a volumising root spray. There was an offer on Umberto Giannini products (3 for €14) so I got what I needed as well as a hair mask which certainly won't do any harm!

Also in Boots I got another of my favourite lip glosses, Revlon's Gold Dust. (€7 on offer from €11). I also wanted to use up another No7 voucher so I got a nail varnish in Milani (€1.95) I still have 2 vouchers to use! I also stopped by the Chanel counter to get the new foundation, Perfection Lumiére (€44) The Spring collection was also there and I couldn't help but get a nail varnish in June (€21.50) Thankfully I had a voucher that covered the bulk of the Chanel purchases!

Anybody else do a little shopping during their lunch break?:)