The best of The Body Shop...

First up we have skincare - something that I'm quite minimal with as my skin is extremely oily so doesn't need too much fuss and product overload. My most recent purchase is the Camomile Silky Cleansing Oil. I'd been using cream cleansers previously and found they were a real struggle to take off makeup with. This is an absolute dream; just one pump for eyes, another for skin, massage into dry skin until it turns milky and rinse off. Another night time product I've been loving is the Serum in Oil. I love using both serum AND oil on my face at night time but the combination of the two sometimes freaks my skin out, so finding this really light weight oil that combines the benefits of a serum was a dream! 

My favourite face mask of all time, in the history of face masks, is the Warming Mineral Clay mask. This warms up as you apply it and doesn't dry hard like a lot of clay masks tend to do, so there's non of that dry, tight feeling after you've taken this off. I've been through about 4 tubes of the Vitamin E eye cream (which I have a review on here), I love this stuff! It doesn't try to do everything, it just keeps the area hydrated and makes eye makeup apply so much smoother. Finally, another much re-purchased product is the Mattifying Seaweed Day Cream. Oh lord I love this stuff. I can sometimes even just use this without a primer and my makeup just sits so much better. Any oily skinned girls out there… you need this one in your life!

For makeup, I recently caved in to the hype and bought the Honey Bronzer in shade 03 medium matte. I love it almost as much as Benefit Hoola, and lord knows I'm a big fan of that bad boy! It doesn't have any shimmer, and is a very natural bronze colour - you won't see any nasty orange face streaks with this one! I also love that they come in such light shades, perfect for the paler ones among us! My Nan picked up the Body Shop Shimmer Waves highlighter in Blush for me as a present when I came back from Australia and, whenever I've been sporting a pale to mid toned pink blush, I'm also wearing this without fail. It's a gorgeous subtle shimmery highlighter that can be built up to look quite dramatic, and can even be worn without a blush underneath if you take the colour from the top of the palette. The Body Shop Shimmer Cubes are a bit of a cult product and for very good reason. I mentioned them in my recent shopping my stash post and have used them almost every day since - especially the copper colour all over the lid and underneath the lower lash line. 

Lastly are the Body Shop Lightening Touch pens; an absolute gem of a products and one that I think should be talked about a lot more. I have shade 03 which is perfect as a highlighter anywhere on the face, and my new discover in 01 which is a peach colour that I find counteracts my dark eye circles like a dream. 

What other products should I try from The Body Shop? Any other cult products or underdogs that I need to get my hands on?

Loves

xxx 

April favourites….

Unsurprisingly, my April favourites is fairly lip product heavy. April also saw some resurrections from makeup favourites past…. one good thing about being on a budget is being more aware of raiding old makeup and digging into the long forgotten stash!

Bright lips have been the order of the day, particularly in shades of orange. First up is the Mac Pro Longwear lip pencil in What A Blast…I love this under almost every orange lip I wear, it makes it super long wearing and the colour so vivid. On top of this I've either been wearing my Napolian Perdis Set lipstick in Noosa. I don't actually think this is available in the UK but for any Aussie readers I have on here…..if you don't own this then WHY NOT? If I want something less matte and with a bit of sheen for the day time I'll pop on the Rimmel Moisture Renew lipstick in In Love With Ginger. If you saw my last post you'll see my other favourite lip colour is purple, so of course my favourite (and cheapest!) purple lipstick of the month has to be the Collection Little Mix lipstick in the shade Perrie. Lastly for lips, my neutral lip shade of choice has been the Benefit lip gloss in Sugarbomb, a beautiful pink with some shimmer running through it. 

Eye favourites have been all about the old faithfuls. You'll almost definitely have seen me talk about The Balm What's Your Type Volumising mascara over the past 18 months and it's still up there as one of the best mascara's I've ever used. I've been going back to basics on eyes with just a sweep of the Rimmel Scandaleyes eyeshadow stick in Bulletproof Beige over my eyes with loads of mascara, or a sweep of neutral shadow from my very old and very faithful Sleek Oh So Special palette. I love the pink shades in here for spring/summer, and the black is one of the best I've tried. As my eyelids are, and will forever be, particularly oily, I've re-discovered Benefit Stay Don't Stray eyelid primer which, I'll admit, I was not a fan of to start with. I still think the pump dispenser is wasteful but I've learnt that less is more with this one and I've really been loving it. 

Just a couple of face products, both from one of my favourite brands, NYX. First off is something that I'm sure has been in the last 3 months favourites and I'm almost certain everyone is fed up of hearing me harp on about; the NYX matte bronzing powder in light. And for a splash of colour I've been loving the NYX Rouge Cream Blush in Hot Pink blended (VERY lightly….this product has some serious pigment to it) into the apples of my cheeks and up lightly onto the cheekbones.

What are everyone else's favourites from April?

Loves

xxx

Twice baked....

I woke up to a lovely surprise this morning, my Body Shop parcel came, which was brilliant considering it only got dispatched yesterday! So first of, YAY for The Body Shop!

Secondly, YAY for their amazing makeup which, until I spent a good ten minutes discussing the merits of a shimmer versus a matt bronzer with the lady in my local store on Thursday, I'd never really been bothered about before. Whilst it's true that I am what could only be described as addicted to their all in one face base (I've been using this for forever and a day!) I only ever walk in, grab it and walk out again. I kind of just wandered into The Body Shop out of boredom on my lunch break and discovered their Baked To Last Range which is just stunning! I didn't actually get any there and then, and instead came home and popped on their website to see if they happened to have any offers on. And let me tell you, oh yes they did!! If you spent over £40, you got £20 off your order, and free delivery on orders over £20, which I had a feeling wouldn't be a problem. This is what I got....

They had two bronzers, this one was the lighter of the two and was actually a lot lighter than I'd ever buy. I think it would be OK as a bit of an extra colour over my face when I have a tan, a bit like a powder, or even a bronzing highlighter. I'd definitely pick up the darker bronzer next time I'm in The Body Shop, it's not too shimmery to be used all over the face, and the colour stays all day! This one was in Warm Glow. 

I'm not very experimental (as you may know) when it comes to eyeshadows, but they had some gorgeous colours in their baked eyeshadows. They have two tones to them, a dark and a light. They are SO pigmented, I haven't actually tried this yet but they look like they'll go on amazingly! This one was in  Moonstone, but I also liked the look of Copper and Starlight. 

This was easily my favourite buy, their baked blusher in Petal. Again like the eyeshadow it has two colours to it, but swirling a big brush across the two of these gives a lovely colour. The pale colour on the right makes a great highlighter, I wore the pink as a blusher with a sweep of the highlighter today and it has stayed put all day, it's such a beautiful pinky colour that really matches my skin tone. 

The last think I bought was one of their cult products, their shimmer cube palettes. Not much needs to be said about these, gorgeous colours, really pigmented, and work well alone or together to create a smokey eye. 

Has anyone else tried anything from the Baked range from The Body Shop? Do you recommend any other colours/shades?

Loves

xxx 

Face of the day...

I absolutely had to do this one, I usually take pictures of my makeup in the morning and then instantly delete them when I see how rough/tired I look. It wasn't too bad this morning so I though I'd get it on here....

Foundation: Mac studio fix fluid NW22

Concealer: Sleek luminaire L03

Bronzer: Soap and Glory Solar Powder

Blusher: Sleek Mediterranean collection in Santorini

Eyebrows: Rimmer pencil in 002 Hazel

Mascara: Bourjois volume clubbing ultra black

Eyeliner: Gosh liquid eye liner pen in 008 carbon black

Lipstick: mememe in pashmina pink