So first of all lets just clear up the fact that I found some cute purple flowers in vase in the house and went a bit 'blogger' crazy and had them in the background of the next million photos that you're going to see on my blog! But now that's cleared up...lets get back to the good stuff!

So I've been a lover of the original pro longwear foundation for a while, so it was a given I was going to have to try this. First off, I really love the packaging of this, its so sleek and professional looking. I can't really see much difference between this and the original foundation apart from the fact it seems slightly thicker; which I will admit at first is hard to get used to as it is such a thick formulation, it is blendable, but you do need to get used to how it feels on your skin the first few times you use it. I really didn't reckon much to this at first, but I've turned back to it and decided to use a few different brushes/application techniques and I'm beginning to like it again...I just love Loreal Infallible foundation too much! I've been blending this into my skin in a stippling motion with the Real Techniques Expert Face Brush. I've found it best to warm the foundation up a bit and blend it slightly onto the back of my hand first; I find that makes it so much easier to work with as this foundation is uber thick!

The coverage is really great, and I agree with the nourishing part, it gives my skin a really healthy glow which is rare, and pretty nice for a long wearing foundation. I have fairly oily skin recently and although I do always powder through out the day, this does stay in place pretty well. Sounds pretty weird too but I'm really happy with the fact this doesn't wear off horribly on my nose! I always have such a problem with that! I think my favourite thing so far about this foundation is the finish of it, its a really nice flawless natural finish. I'll do a follow up review when I've been using this for a little longer. 

I've never actually thought to blog about anything but beauty on here, but here we go! I'm a pretty keen baker, and having The Great British Bake Off on Tv every Wednesday really brings it out in me! I thought I would share with you all what I made today. These are actually made from a recipe by the lovely Paul Hollywood *swoon*, and my goodness they are pretty tasty if I do say so myself, they were super easy to bake too! I put way more blueberries in than I probably should, but I love cakes and muffins when they're bursting with fruit! 

So all you need:

2 free range eggs

65 grams of caster sugar

110 grams of butter at room temp.

110 grams of plain flour

1 and a half teaspoons of baking powder

A pinch of cinnamon (Paul's recipe said Nutmeg, but sadly I didn't have any!)

And bake at 200 degrees/Gas Mark 6 for 20 minutes...and they'll turn out yum! 

Let me know if you try these and how you get on! 

Vital Stats

Colour: Fair

Brand: Sleek

Price £10

Bought from: Superdrug

This is a pretty old product now but I've rekindled my love for it so, since I've been getting a fair amount of use out of this as of late; I thought it would be rude not to give it a little review! 

From the swatches, this little thing looks like Napoleon ice cream, which you have to admit, in itself is great! But I have to say it's a pretty good product. The (MATTE..yay!) bronzer is ever, ever so slightly too warm for my pale skin tone. But...it's matte, and thats a pretty tricky thing to find in lower end makeup, a bronzer you can actually contour with. Although I did find the colour a little warm for me, I have still been able to manage a pretty decent contour with it, as well as an overall bronze. The products don't seem to be too 'powdery' in consistency; the blush and highlight are pretty creamy actually. I'm pretty sure this has become my new favourite highlighter; at the moment I'm reaching for this over Mac's Soft and Gentle. It just gives the most gorgeous subtle glow, and its completely glitter free which is a massive thing in my opinion, and it's lasts rather well too!

Overall, I'd say this is a really decent buy, its perfect for on the go and travelling as you literally have most of your face makeup in one tiny compact; which by my standards is pretty darn nifty! And for only £10 for a bronzer, blush and highlight, you can't really complain! 

At the moment, these are the two exfoliators that I've been using to rid my face of all things nasty...as well as the odd patches of dry skin! First things first (I'm the realest) and secondly, pinning these two against each other, I probably have to say that I prefer the Vitamin C 'Microdermabrasion' exfoliator. The great thing about that one is that you can really feel it getting to work and scrubbing away any crap and the dead skin cells you really don't want on your face. I would say I have slightly sensitive skin, more so to products; so I only use this once a week, twice at the most, as it is a pretty harsh product; not so much ingredients wise; all the body shop products are full of lush ingredients, but more so physically, you can tell those exfoliating beads are in there! Pop into a Body Shop and squidge some out for yourself, those beads are certainly unmissable! 

I purchased the sea weed exfoliator on a whim as I'm always up for trying some new skin care here and there. It is a nice product, I'm not going to deny that, it doesn't smell too funky either, but really, it doesn't exactly do too much. Its nice, its okay; but I won't be repurchasing it, its just meh. 

I have a few marks left on my skin from previous breakouts and what not, so I'll be excited to see if the microdermabrasion exfoliator does what it says on the tin and gets rid of them in the long run, I have to say, so far so good! I've noticed a pretty welcome change in the texture of my skin. I had a pretty pesky forehead malfunction after a week away, which mainly consisted of sun, food, drinks...more drinks then falling asleep with my makeup on. Since I've been back I've been scrubbing my forehead every now and again with the Vitamin C exfoliator and its slowly but surely digging out all the crap I really don't need on my forehead! 

To summarise, I'd 100% repurchase the Vitamin E exfoliator, the Sea Weed one is nice, but thats about it!

Whats your favourite facial exfoliator? I'd love to know so I can try it out for myself!

I've never really been one to use a shaving soap or foam (sorry not sorry...) but I had heard a few good things about this stuff, so when the lovely day that is pay day came around, I decided to give it a go, I was rather impressed!

 This did make my legs (and everywhere else) much softer after shaving; adding the moisture back that you loose from shaving... which I presume is the main reason for using a shaving cream, that and to avoid cutting yourself! The thing is liked the most about this, is that it made it so much quicker to shave, I don't know whether its because it gave my razor something to glide along, or some wonderful thing like that, but it certainly did work.

 Although you can obviously buy shaving soaps that are much cheaper than this, I'll be buying this again for sure! It smells pretty lovely too, and of course; I think we all know that everything from Lush is always going to be great, I feel like it's just one of those brands that literally gets everything right! 

I'm still really wanting to try a few new things for my skincare routine but as of now, this is what I'm using on ma face! 

I start with my Garnier Micellar water and follow with The Body Shop Camomile cleanser, I've done a review of this cleanser, at the moment its one of my favourites, its so lovely and gentle!

Lush's Tea Tree Toner comes next, I've only had this for a month or two but so far so good, considering it does contain Tea Tree, it's pretty gentle on the skin and I have noticed a pretty big difference in my skin recently. The camomile cleanser, toner and spot treatment have been a very good thing for me! 

I use both the Body Shop Vitamin C exfoliator and more so recently the Seaweed Pore Cleansing exfoliator, both are pretty yummy and I'll have a review of these pinned up to each other in the next few days!

I forgot to feature my favourite face mask of the moment in the picture but I'm currently loving Lush's Cosmetic Warrior mask, I'm sure i'll get round to doing a review of that soon too!

For treatments, at the moment I'm using Lush's Grease Lightening Spot Treatment (heres a review I wrote earlier...) and The Body Shop Vitamin E Overnight Serum (here's a review too!)

Whats your skincare routine at the moment? 

I'm really impressed with this spot treatment, I normally see products like this as being pretty useless and a waste of money as nothing I've tried has ever seemed to work for me. It's got great skin ingredients in it like tea tree oil and witch hazel, which is great for antibacterial and anti inflammatory work; which ideally is what a spot needs! I'm starting to get into Lush skin care as of late, I always knew the face masks were lush (pun intended) but I'd never really explored the other skin care departments, but at the moment I'm really enjoying trying some new things. 

I think a great idea is to use this after a nice hot shower or after holding your head over a bowl of hot water for a while to open up those pesky pores! This is a really nice treatment, it does sting a tiny bit on those pesky fresh ones, however over all I haven't found it to be too irritating on my skin; which annoyingly is pretty sensitive. And the best part of this treatment is it treats spots without over drying them, yay! It gets to work quick too, I really recommended this one! 

This is a really lovely product. Obviously as it's a serum, it does have a pretty greasy consistency, but for me thats not really a massive issue as it's an overnight treatment so it's not as if you have to slap your makeup on top of a greasy film. I have slightly oily skin recently but I can't really say this oily product bothers me. 

After using this when I wake up in the morning my skin does feel lovely and refreshed, I'd agree with the fact is claims to be an '8 hour sleep' for your skin. Obviously Vitamin E is a really great ingredient for your skin, leaving it super lush and soft! The smell is really lovely too, nothing too offensive and its nice and clean; which when it comes to skin care is right up my street.

 I can't really say if I wake up with my skin still feeling greasy as I feel like my skin usually drinks this all up, but in the morning I usually go over with some micellar water or my Lush Tea Tree Toner which will work a treat to get any excess product off. 

This is one of those little luxurious that I keep in my bathroom cupboard, doesn't really do much; it makes my skin feel lovely, looks nice and shiny and blah blah...but oh my goodness the best thing, and the thing that jumps out to me is the smell! That's probably the best thing about this product. I only ever buy from The Body Shop in the sale as it can get pretty pricey full price. I chose this on a whim as I remember it being super cheap in the sale. It literally smells like the best chocolate in the world, I'm pretty interested in trying something else from this 'smell range'. I think this is something as a little treat, when you simply want to smell like chocolate! 

Have you tried anything from the Chocomania range from The Body Shop?

I was debating on buying Mac Strobe Cream when I saw Lisa Eldridge use this in one of her videos and I had to give it a go for myself. I've used this all over my skin underneath my foundation, as well as adding it to the places on my face that I want to have a bit of a glow after I've finished applying all my makeup; such as my cheek bones, nose, eyebrow bone etc; and it works pretty well both ways. I think it works best when applied subtly before your foundation all over, and then again on the high points of your face after wards. It gives this a pretty, natural glow.

It has a really lovely creamy texture, and doesn't sit in my pores which is the main thing I hate about cream products! As you can see from the swatch, it's a different colour tone to Mac's strobe cream, (which is more of a white, silvery highlight) and to be honest, I think I prefer the champagne tone to this one, I presume it'll look far from natural and give you that bronzed glowy look, which is pretty neat for summer! I think this is a pretty good drugstore find at only £4.99; and is one of the only cream products I've got along with in a very long time. If I decide to buy Mac's strobe cream, it will be interesting to see how these two fair up when compared!

This was another gem I picked up for a crazy bargain in TKMAXX, at £2.99 I just grabbed it and ran to the tills. The colour is admittedly super dark for me, but I've got around that small bump in the road by using this for the times I want to use a cream contour. Its a really lovely creamy formulation so it blends like a dream, the finish is lovely and glowy too. I think this concealer would work wonderfully as an under eye product as the consistency is just perfect for it as I really think you'd struggle to cake this one! I'm really hoping I can find this in the right shade for my skin tone so I can see what it's like under my eyes, I'm on the hunt! I'm hoping to pick a few more of these up if they come back into stock in my local TKMAXX as I think they'd be perfect for my kit to use on clients with darker skin tones.

Have you tried any Stila base makeup before? Let me know what you thought of it in the comment section below!

I picked this up when I was disgusted that a concealer from Loreal was nearlly £10, since when did the high street get so expensive...!? Considering that Mac Pro Long wear is £17.50 *sigh*

But on to the nice stuff, I picked this up for only £1.99, so I really wasn't too fussed if I didn't get on with it well, but I was pleasantly surprised, especially since I'm such a high end makeup lover. The coverage is actually pretty decent and it makes for a fab under eye concealer as the consistency is really lovely and sheer, making it nicely blend able and smooth for under the eyes; I used a Real Techniques Deluxe Crease Brush to blend my concealer around my eyes. The colour isn't orangey either which is a plus for us pale girls! I'm going to do a little more exploring in natural collection as I was mighty impressed with this, and for £1.99 you really can't go wrong! 

Are there any really cheap makeup products that you've found on the high street that you want to rave out? I'd love it if you let me know! This has shown me I need to explore the high street more! 

 

I've had my eye on this palette ever since it was released last year, I just love the combination of colours! And as always with the limited edition Mac collections, the packagings fab! I do love Mac shadows, they have nothing on urban decay but I am a fan. As you can see from the swatches, the matte shades in this palette have a lot better pay off than the shimmery colours, which is usually the case with most brands. As always with Mac shadows, they are really lovely and creamy and pretty long wearing even without a primer.

I didn't actually realise when I bought the palette, but it has charcoal brown in, which amoung many bloggers and makeup artist is a stable, its a great crease colour I have to say! The lime green is a bit of a scary colour to me but I'm going to try to fit it in somewhere at some point (maybe...) I've managed to make a few cute looks with this palette though so I'm happy with that. But...if you're anything like me, having this in your collection, regardless of its use is fab, Mac just seem to always get it so on point with their collections, my poor, poor bank balance! 

I'm starting to sell a few unwanted makeup/skincare items on here so they're not so lonely sat in my bathroom cupboard! Everything is in perfect condition and mostly unused, I'm simply having a clear out! Go over and check it out!

I'll start off by saying the best part of this palette is 100% the packaging, which to be honest is the main reason I bought this! I found this in TKMAXX and got it for a super bargain at just £5.99! Which for any eyeshadow palette is pretty neat, let alone a pretty high end one, I'd highly recommended having a snoop around TKMAXX, they stock some pretty good makeup when they do get it in and it's always really discounted. 

The colour pay off on the paler shadows isn't great as you can see, but the colour range is pretty and I can see myself being able to make a few diverse looks out of these shadows. They are quite dry feeling which isn't a massive problem for me, but just something to note! 

They all have a hint of shimmer in them so this isn't the thing for you if you're a lover of mattes. I think my favourite colour is the nice warm cranberry, reminds me loads of Mac's Cranberry. Overall, I think the packaging is really ornate and beautiful, and will really shine out on my makeup cabinet and the colours are pretty too!

Who else loves this packaging? Let me know what you think! 

RRP: £32.00

I took a little (massive) break from blogging but I've finally got my arse in gear and I'm going to be back for good *sings take that to myself*  I'm not a professional and qualified makeup artist and I'm ready to build this thing up and start blogging again, I really do hope you've all been keeping well and thanks for still following! I've had a little blog revamp, tweeked a few things here and there, including a new logo and new name change, let me know what you guys think!

Formally: The Fairest Of Them

New Name: Little Makeup Ramblings

Alice xxx

So lets get started by stating the obvious, this stuff is so super gentle on your skin it's divine, so if a bit like me and tend to be a little sensitive to some harsh products sometimes, keep on reading! This cleaner is in the form of a really creamy, almost butter like formula that literally melts your makeup away when you warm it up with your hands and massage it into your skin. This has left my skin feeling really fresh and clean. A slight downside for some, might be the fact that this cleaner does feel slightly greasy on the skin as it is SO buttery and soft, but I haven't found it to leave a greasy film on my face when I wash it off; which I do so just by running over my face with some face pads or a face cloth. I've found this to be great at removing all sorts of makeup, even Double Wear and They're Real mascara washed away; two products which I find notoriously hard to remove! The smell of this is super gentle too, it doesn't really smell of much; which personally for me is nice, I'm not a massive fan of having anything too offensive smelling on my face. 

This cleanser retails at £12, which is a mid range price point in my opinion, not too pricey but not too cheap so that may be something to bare in mind. I've found this cleaner to last me a good few months though at a time as a little does go a long way. Overall this cleaner has really helped in the effort to calm down my skin and help keep as many breakouts at bay as possible! 

Pros: Great at removing makeup

Very calming and nourishing, buttery consistency

Suitable (in my opinion) to use on the eyes for removing eye makeup too

Clean, simple smell

Doesn't dry out the skin

Cons: Slightly on the pricey side if you're used to paying £5/6 for your cleanser

Does feel slightly greasy on the skin, I can't really comment as my skin isn't overly oily but due to this, it might not be the most comfortable for you if you've got really oily skin 

Would need to follow up with a toner for super heavy makeup.

Hope you're well, Alice xxx

This week my favourite products are pretty much all makeup, surprise, surprise... but there are a few little other things thrown in. AND a £3 primer that you'd all be silly to not buy and try out for yourself, I'll be popping a review up of it later in the week! I'll also be popping a review on sometime soon of my new face cream, holy moly it's good!

But this week the products I've been loving are:
Smoothing light reflecting face primer, Wilkos
MAC Velvet Teddy matte lipstick
Arbonne FC5 day lotion
Mac Studio Fix Powder Foundation
Palmers Coco Butter
and finally, Aussie deep repair conditioner

 On my quest for the perfect 90's lip, I have finally found it!

I can't believe I have only just got round to trying Kiko Products, I'm so impressed with the stuff I have tried so far, I can't believe how cheap the brand is. They really are on to something good, especially with their lip products.
Velvet Teddy from MAC
It's a matte lipstick, which for me is great because it's super opaque and long wearing. If a matte finish is too drying for you, or just isn't your thing, MAC Viva Glam 5 is a great pick too, and my favourite!

So the first things first, the perfect 90's lip (in my opinion) is a pretty muted brown/nude lip, think Gwen Stefani and Jennifer Aniston in friends and you're there!

I think a brown nude suits both fair and darker complexions, and humble brag but I love it on me! I'm a mac lipstick fiend but I know they are pretty pricey...so if Mac isn't quite within your budget or if Velvet Teddy is out of stock as usual, here are some other suggestions:

MAC Viva Glam 5
Clinique Bamboo Pink
Kiko 300 lip liner worn alone with a bit of lip balm on top of prevent it from being super drying
Kiko Rosy Beige (which are on sale at the moment!)
Rimmel Colour Show off in 'Have fun'

Alice xxx