Ooooh. How exciting is this? Not very, you could argue... But please don't. I'm going to take you through my top five all time favourite products! Surely you're at least a little excited now...?


Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer
Yes. Surprise surprise. Ha. I know absolutely EVERYBODY talks about this and adores it, so I won't go into great detail. Suffice to say, I've been using this for years and it's seriously the best concealer I can get my hands on (that isn't too orange) in high street stores.

I buy the lightest shade which is 1 Fair. I mainly use it to conceal the dark circles under my eyes, and I'll let you into a secret: The older I get, the more of this I seem to get through. It's quite depressing really.

This miracle product retails for £4.19, but Boots have it on offer every now and again. The fact that it's quite often out of stock is a testament to how good this is (and how much everybody already knows about it...)

It also covers up spots wonderfully and seems to last pretty much all day. I don't know where I'd be without it.

Max Factor False Lash Effect Mascara
I'm getting better at balancing mascara, aren't I?
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that this is my favourite EVER mascara. Again, I've been using this for years. Since I was about 17/18 and I'm still using it now at 23. (Yeah, I'm old, I know...)

I know it's not to everyone's taste, but I love this mascara. It gives my eyelashes a dramatic lift and volume to make my eyes noticeable, without making them look too 'spidery'. I normally use Black/Brown because I have blue eyes and I don't want to emphasise them too much for daytime wear. However, the Black is great too.

Granted, at £10.99, it's quite expensive for a high street mascara. However, I'll also let you into another secret, Fragrance Direct are selling it for £7.99... You can thank me later...

Max Factor also offer waterproof and 24 hour versions* of this mascara, but I still tend to opt for the bog-standard one.
*Who's wearing mascara for 24 hours in one go anyway?


Vitapointe Leave-In Conditioner

I really need to buy some more, don't I?
I'm not sure that many people will have heard of this. It's a bit of a hidden gem; tucked away on bottom shelves in Boots.
It costs £2.09 or £2.29, depending on where you shop. You can use this during the day, but I prefer to use it at night as a 'hair mask'. It's a white cream that smells quite 'soapy' to me and it just makes your hair look a lot healthier whilst making it feel softer too.
If you suffer from frizzy hair, this is such a great product to tame it with! It's so understated, but it's honestly a brilliant product and it won't break the bank either!

Palmer's Cocoa Butter Body Lotion
Yellow, gooey bliss in a bottle.
I adore this. It's more of a treat for me, because my daily body lotion is a Boots £1.49 one, on account of me being a cheapskate.
It's bright yellow, super-nourishing and smells gorgeous; quite chocolatey.  As someone who's quite picky when it comes to body lotion, I'm always after a good all-round product and this is probably my favourite 'cheaper' one. One problem is that it's quite difficult to get out of the bottle towards the end, because it's just so gloopy.
It's also supposed to be quite good at reducing the appearance of stretch marks and it's much cheaper than other alternatives which boast about having mark-reducing qualities.

The price normally ranges from about £4-£6, depending on what size bottle you buy.

Anatomicals Body Washes
Sud the Lot of You...
I'm a huge fan of Anatomicals. With their tagline: 'We only want you for your body', they're a comical brand who don't really take themselves too seriously. 
I have a bit of an obsession with their body washes, which I use every day. I've built up quite a collection of them over the past year or so, from 'Sud the Lot of You' and 'You Should Be So Mucky (Mucky, Mucky, Mucky)' to 'Shower to the People'.
They put a great deal of effort in to ensure that the names are funny and the packaging is littered with jokes too. All of the body washes that I've tried smell amazing and they also lather up really well too.

A little goes a long way and a bottle costs between £2 and £3. You can buy them from ASOS, Superdrug and selected Morrisons stores, I believe.

Have you tried any of the above products? Do you love them as much as I do?

Thanks for reading!
Katie
x

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that a couple of months ago, I reviewed Max Factor's Whipped Cream Foundation in shade 40 Light Ivory. Which you can find, by clicking here.

I remarked upon the fact that it was a tad too dark for my very pale skin. I also remarked that it would be SO good if Max Factor created a lighter shade, and lo and behold, my prayers were soon answered.

I stumbled across a new lighter shade of this foundation on Fragrance Direct (a budget beauty and fragrance website, for those who aren't aware); which was 30 Porcelain. You'd think though, wouldn't you, that this would be ever so slightly lighter? However, to me, it doesn't really appear to be.

30 Porcelain. I thought Porcelain was really white? Not... Orange?
40 Light Ivory. It doesn't look Ivory-coloured, does it?
You'd think that Ivory and Porcelain would translate as just off-white, wouldn't you? But a great number of cosmetics companies seem to continue churning out '50 Shades of Orange' under the guise of 'Porcelain' and 'Ivory'.

I'm gutted. I applied it yesterday and realised quite quickly that I looked like I'd been tangoed... Just the same as with the Light Ivory. If you compare the two pots, they look like the same shade, or at least, uncannily similar.

Boots and Superdrug don't sell the new Porcelain shade, which puzzles me. As I said before, I really like this foundation and I would seriously consider adopting it as my main foundation if Max Factor got their act together and created noticeably lighter shades.
Left: 40 Light Ivory, on the Right: 30 Porcelain.
They look so similar. I can see a slight difference in colour, but only very slight. I'd say that 40 Light Ivory looks 'brown-er' whereas 30 Porcelain looks a bit 'pink-er'. Either way, they're both too dark for my skin. The above photograph actually makes the two shades look more distinguished from each other than they do in real life.

The foundation normally retails for £9.99 and when I bought it last week, Fragrance Direct were selling it for £5.99. I really like the texture and finish of this foundation, so I thought by finding a 'paler' shade which might actually match my almost deathly pallor, I'd struck lucky. Perhaps not, eh?

Have you bought this foundation? Have you found the two shades to be the same? If so, drop me a comment!

Thanks for reading!
Katie
x

Is it really that time again? Here are my faves from July!

Sleek Contouring Kit
Teddies need to contour too, you know.

I bought this in light, because I'm so pale... (It's genuinely becoming a catchphrase now...)

It's a fantastic product. Admittedly, I've not really used the bronzer section of this kit, just using the highlighter instead at the moment. I really like it, but I only use it on days where I need a little more sparkle.

The highlighter is sparkly, obviously... The bronzer is a matte one. I'm opting for a shimmery Natural Collection £1.99 bronzer instead at the moment. (Which has lasted absolutely ages and it does seem like it might well outlive me at this point...)

At £6.49 it's a really great value version of contouring kits made by other (much more expensive) brands.

Inecto Coconut Glossing Spray

I LOVE this! I'm not sure if it's readily available. I've been buying it every now and again from Bodycare. It smells amazing. Really coconut-ty. (Obviously.)

I also love this because it makes my hair really shiny. If I'm having a bad hair day, a spritz of this before blow-drying seems to help me to look a little bit less disheveled than usual.

I'd definitely recommend this to people who suffer from the dreaded frizz!


Bourjois Little Round Pot - Shade 54
This is after months of use and there's still loads left!
I've had this for absolutely ages, probably to the point where it's not even hygienic any more? Months. Anyway, I adore this. It's probably my favourite eyeshadow and shade at the moment . I'm really not the most experimental of people when it comes to eyeshadows. (Too dark and my eyes look to small, too light and they just look weird... So I'm picky.)

It's shimmery, but not too much. It's perfect for day and night wear.

The pot has a little mirror and also a little applicator that bends over the mound of product. It closes with a magnet as well, so it ensures that it won't open by accident in your make-up bag, break into a powder and then go everywhere...

Bourjois offer loads of different shades and this product retails at £6.99.

 Palmer's Coco Butter Lip Balm
No, I couldn't be bothered to take it out of the packaging.
This is lovely. I don't know about you, but my lips often dry out quite quickly when the weather's really hot or really cold. I always keep one of these in my coat pocket in the winter and often carry another in my handbag too. They're super moisturising and it tastes amazing! Quite like coconut/chocolate and that's only got to be a good thing, hasn't it?

At £1.89 it's not pricey and they're easily picked up in Boots or other 'drugstores'.

Boots DermaCare Daily Moisturising Lotion
Teddies need moisturising too.

This one's really only for those who suffer from the dreaded dry skin or eczema, like me. It's wonderful. A bottle will easily last me a fortnight or so.

There are different types of this that you can buy which are priced slightly differently. They're coloured-coded though, which helps! Yellow is cheaper than green... About a pound cheaper. It is more watery, but it's much cheaper, so bear that in mind.

The one pictured (green one) currently retails at £3.89, which is why I prefer the yellow one at £2.59.

It's a really well-hidden product. Boots seem to hide their own brand products (which are often really good) on bottom shelves.

Thanks for reading!
Katie
x
I am so sorry it's been such a long time since I last blogged, it's just I've been a bit ill (if you hadn't already guessed that from the title)... It was my birthday at the start of the month and I was busy celebrating but... just after that I came down with a horrid cold, which I'm only just managing to shift. Urgh.

So, here are some of my best methods of dealing with a pesky cold:

TEA. OBVIOUSLY.
Yes, I like tea. No, you're not having any.
Like a quintessentially English person, one remedy that I wholeheartedly recommend for dealing with a cold is to drink tea. Of course... Herbal teas. Green teas. I'd avoid anything milky though, because it could increase your catarrh levels.

You need plenty of fluids, which you probably already knew and you definitely need to ensure that you keep on eating too, even if you don't really feel like it.

For a sore throat, guzzle a tea with lemon, ginger or honey in it. It'll soothe your throat and the warmth with do you good too.

MOISTURISE.
Yes, that's a Cath Kidston purse. No, I won't lend you a fiver.
Lots, if you can be bothered in your cold-ridden state. I always feel like my skin dries out completely when I've got a cold; but I also get spotty (thanks, skin...) It pays to nourish your skin if it's crying out for moisture. 

I also, like a bit of a weirdo, smear super-moisturising products over my nose, because that's where it dries out the most. With this cold, I opted for Superdrug's Little Soothing Green Tin (which is basically a cheap version of Vaseline's green tin with Aloe Vera). With previous colds, I've used Moa's The Green Balm, which is still relatively unheard of, I think... 

...I bought if from Feel Unique a few months back and it's one of those products where you're not sure exactly what it does... Until I used it around my nose when I had a cold. That's when it really came into its own. It was wonderful. It's quite a bit pricier than the Little Green Tin*, but it's a really nice product. AND, AND, apparently you can drink it as a tea as well! Two problems solved in one!

*£4.99 as opposed to 99p for the Little Soothing Green Tin.

REST.
Yes, that's my bed. No, you may not join me.
Rest, rest, rest. Yes, you have my permission to be as lazy as humanly possible while you've got a cold; because it'll help you recover quicker.

It pays not to push yourself to carry on as normal, which I normally try to do when I'm ill. Just give in a little and give your body a bit of a break. Let your body fight the virus without having to fight you as well.

HAVE A GIGGLE.
Yes, I'm a comedy junkie. No, I'm not ashamed.
Find cats funny? Watch them on YouTube. Adore The Inbetweeners? Get the box set out. It'll do you the world of good. When they said that laughter's the best medicine, they weren't joking. (Cringe.)

So, go on... Pop the kettle on, whip your moisturiser out and relax, snifflebums.
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