My Before Make-Up Bag

I've recently been feeling really shit and this feeling like shit period of my life threw me back into loving make-up products again. Unfortunately, a few of these products are not cruelty-free/vegan because I bought them before I was really aware or completely on board of buying cruelty-free/vegan make-up products. I thought I would show you what I have in there anyway, because money was already spent on them so I might as well use them instead of throwing them away and not re-purchase. The "after" make-up bag is going to be full of vegan and/or cruelty-free starter products only. Some of them may have parent companies that test on animals, though.

First of all, I have this Jimmy Choo make-up bag which I adore so much. I've had it for years. My mother bought a perfume and this came free with it, I can't see myself ever changing my make-up bag because it's made of that kind of material where you can wipe it down and it's black. Most of the wipe-down make-up bags you can purchase nowadays are super "girly" (I'm not into gender roles, I just don't know what else I can call it) with pink and fluffy animals and pokka-dots and things like that, and it's just not my thing. It's also nice and squishy. :3 

Disclaimer: (ish) I don't use all of these products on my face at once. I'm nineteen, I'm old enough to live all on my own but I don't like wearing a lot of make-up because I'm not confident in doing so yet. And I'm still testing out what looks good on me and what doesn't and what works with me and what doesn't, hence why this is a starter kit. Continue! 

Let's start with the moisturiser''s first.

I use this Simple Replenishing Rich Moisturiser (currently on sale) which I do love quite a lot. It's quite cheap at £3.99, smells of summer and is nice and creamy and not too oily like my Nivea pots are. I have quite dry skin so it works pretty well for me. My only oily parts are my nose and parts of my cheeks. I love Simple products so much. According to the FAQ, their products are suitable for vegans and don't test on animals but their parent company does who are trying to invest in non-animal testing methods.

Next is something I haven't used much but I got for Christmas from a family friend, it's a Shea lip butter from Marks and Spencers Nature's Ingredients range. The website said that it's not testing on animals and their products are vegetarian. It's creamy, it smells delicious. It doesn't have a colour tint so it's good to put underneath other lip colours. The packaging is really nice. The only thing I don't like is that it's in a pot and not in a stick.

The third one I have is by ELF.  I believe ELF doesn't test on animals but I'm unsure about it's vegetarian/vegan status. This is the Elf Conditioning Lip Balm SPF 15 in Blissful Berry. I've had this for what feels like forever. Certainly over a year. It still smells good, it still works, so I don't see reason for getting rid of it. The tint might have changed a bit over time (on the website, it hasn't in my pot). It's just a dark pink/nude colour. I bought it to put under lip colours, but it works pretty well on it's own too. It's not super moisturising but it's pretty good.

Not really a face product but it's on the before list for sure is my ever so loved Elf Zit Zapper. I don't think they sell it anymore (and I'm fairly sure it's bad for your skin anyway), but they do sell this and this as similar products. I do love is so very much, though, as it does it's job. Not as affectively as it used to, but on small spots they can be gone overnight and on the bigger one it dulls down the redness and their size.

Now onto face products, I have this Garnier BB Cream Miracle Skin Perfecter for Sensitive Skin in Light. As you can see from the image above, it's certainly not light. It's quite dark. It's currently on sale for half price, which is what I got for it because I wouldn't pay full price for it and probably wouldn't buy it again. There's nothing wrong with it, I'm just too pale and not the right skin tone but otherwise it works fine. It kind of turns orange on my skin after a short while. I don't want to waste it so I'm going to use it all up and maybe by the time I've finished with it, I'll have a different opinion on it. Otherwise, it's very creamy and not too thick but certainly thicker then other BB creams that I've tried.

I couldn't find it online, but you can find it in stores and if you want to find the rest of it's collection, it's called Undress Your Skin.  This is called the MUA Undress Your Skin Illuminating Foundation. It's a great dupe for another foundation I have, the Rimmel London Wake Me Up Foundation. I own both of those shades in Porcelain, but obviously even though it's such a good foundation they do test on animals and the dupe is cheaper too so there's a plus. MUA does not test on animals. Which should be obvious, considering Superdrug is against animal-testing and all products by Superdrug are not testing on animals (but not all of them are vegan). 

As far as the actual product is, it's great. It's a bit too liquid-y, though, it gets everywhere. It dries slowly, too. It's build able, though. It matches my skin tone (as much as a high street brand can match your skin tone). It does make me look a little less dead. I do like it a lot. It retails for about £5, but in stores is very often on sale for £3. It's an awesome foundation if you're just starting off with make-up so you don't have to go through the I'm-Orange stage.

Next I have this highly hyped powder, Rimmel London Stay Matte in Transparent. Like I said in the introduction, I did not know this brand tested on animals and it was bought before I was informed about it. I do hope Rimmel goes to the cruelty-free side in my lifetime because this powder is amazing. It's thick, it does what it says on the tin. I love it very much. And it's very cheap and good as a starter powder, it retails for about £4 so it's cheap too. I don't wear make-up very often and when I do I wear a light layer, so it's going to take a while to get through it. It's going to be fairly difficult to find a dupe for it too that's cruelty-free/vegan (but I did have one by Elf that was amazing so maybe I should make another purchase from their store soon...).

I went on their website and was very happy to know that Collection does not test on animals and I love love love their products. I adore them. They work so well, they're cheap and they have such a variety and they're always long lasting, whether it says so on the product or not. Because I needed a concealer and it was raved about on YouTube so much, I bought a Collection Lasting Perfection Ultimate Wear Concealer in Fair. I've only used this once, it was a purchase from yesterday. I love it a lot, as you can see from the pictures it does hide my dark under-eye circles and rids of red spots. Because I don't want to waste it, I won't use it on my red cheeks and hope that foundation will do that for me but if not I will be on the hunt for make-up to hide my red cheeks. 

I have been eye-ing this one up for a while and was thrilled in myself to finally purchase it. It's the Collection Matt Lip Butter in Marshmallow Pink. I was originally going to go for the coral colour, but it wasn't close to my lip colour and it's a lot more orange then it is coral. It might have looked different on my lips, I don't know, I might get it though because again I've only used this once but I adore it. The colour is so good. It's drying, considering that it's a matte lip colour, but it doesn't bother me much. It looks a little bright for me only because I'm not comfortable in calling attention to myself, but because I do like my lips a lot I'll be fine with that. I wore it in the rain yesterday and it didn't come off at all. I love it a lot. The packaging is cute but, because it's so cheap, the lipstick broke off from the actual tube thing inside and now I have to be really careful with it which is a huge bummer but I love the colour so I'm going to try to make it work. Maybe it was me not being careful or buying a faulty product.

Another product that is tested on animals but was bought before I knew that is the Maybelline Baby Lips in Electric Pink. The colour looks vibrant in the packaging but obviously is not because of what it's used for and I do like that. I like how it adds a little bit of colour without being too bright. I wear this with concealer and that's about it, just to make me feel good. I won't be re-purchasing because, obviously, I don't want to buy a product tested on animals due to my personal morals.

I don't really wear blush because I'm not a huge fan of blush, but I do own a nice glittery coral colour by MUA in the shade Lolly. It's very pretty, and if I use a very light brushing of this I will use it. I also don't want to waste it. I know now that I don't really like using blusher so I won't use it in the future. But once all my make-up is on and my red is gone from my face, I do look pale and without colour but I notice that when I use lip colours it's fine and I actually like the pale complexion look. I'm still trying stuff out, so I'm certainly no pro at this. It's very...oh words, why do you abandon me so. The powder goes everywhere is what I'm trying to say. It makes a bloody mess!

I only have two products left, they're both brushes. I don't have a mascara because I haven't found a mascara that I like yet. All the recommendations have been from brands that test on animals so if you have one that you like that is also cruelty-free, please do direct my way.

First, I have my ever so adored Elf Kabuki Face Brush. I bought this so long ago and it needs a wash but otherwise it's wonderful and soft and does the job, and it looks so nice. I can't imagine using a brush of any other. It's fantastic. My second brush is a stippling brush from Wilkinson's new brush range. It's okay, it does the job and it was a cheap brush but the hairs do come out. I tried this once on the back of my hand and it blends it out nicely but I don't want brush hairs on my face. Sorry! I'm going to use it anyway and see what I can do or if it improves in time, but it's getting replaced. Which is a shame because I bought another brush from them (which is lost) that I absolutely loved and now I can't find. 

So that's all I have in my make-up bag. Thank you so much for reading, and I'll see you in my next post. 

Small Haul! -

~ Superdrug, The Works, Wilkinson's, Tesco ~ 

On Tuesday, there were a few things I needed to get (hardly none, of which, I had bought) and I was bored just sitting around the house all day so instead of studying for my upcoming exam like I should have been doing, and really what I should have been doing now, I went out instead and ended up spending literally all the money that I had - and I think I actually got quite a lot considering I didn't have much on me.

I'm going to start with the items I didn't have individual photos for, my new shower gels from Original Source! If you didn't already know, they're one of my favorite brands (vegan, environmentally friendly, tested on humans and made in the UK) so you can probably imagine my delight seeing these on sale for £1 each. They're not on the online version of Superdrug, so you can get them on their website here. I got the scents in "raspberry and cocoa" as well as "vanilla and raspberry" - yes, they do smell divine and yes I did indeed smell them as I typed that.

This strawberry lace hand sanitizer was indeed an impulse buy, mostly because it was on sale in the store for 99p but also because I had never seen a good smelling hand gel before - it might compel me to actually use it, you never know! I'm just not a huge fan of these and prefer washing with soap and water. Plus, it's pink! It smells like candy mixed with alcohol and some may hate that kind of smell, but I personally adore it.

 You may have heard me talk about this in a previous blog post about how I needed a new bottle and so I got it on sale at Superdrug for under £2. They usually do smell funky anyway, but when I compare how much better this bottle smells to my previous bottle, I can see that there was certainly something up with that! This one is in rich instead of light so I might do a first impressions post on how well I thought it did and how much it compared to my last bottle of Simple.

Kind of an impulse buy, but kind of not. I have gone into this store a lot, usually with my mother, and I constantly find myself sampling the lip balms from MUA. They're only £2 so even if they don't work very well, it wouldn't be a huge loss. I got the Sweet Sheen lip balm in 'coral reef'. Also, does anyone else have way too many lip balms that they don't even use? I know I do.

My next buy were these seeds from Wilkinson's, which...I don't know if they'll be amazing quality, because they are very, very cheap but if they're not, it's not a huge loss because next time I get some money, I will be buying some more good quality seeds I hope (I found a couple of cat related seeds, so even though they're £2.05 each...cats. My cat would probably poop on them anyway but it's worth a try). They were 90p, and then I bought a tray of fifteen cells for £1 which you can find here for a slightly different colour.

Probably my personal favourite of the haul was finding these books in The Works. It was £7 for all of them, can you believe that? Because it's a discount store, it's unlikely that you will be able to find them online but Amazon will be sure to have them!

You may know, you may not know, but I am a huge fan of anything Alice in Wonderland relating, I also really love zombies - yep, these books sound perfect! A couple friends of mine on Goodreads recently read these books, actually, and therefore my fear that these books will not live up to their expectations isn't as strong as it was. Book one is "Alice in Zombieland" (with that really cool quote from the original underneath, "Off with their heads"!), book two is "Alice through the zombie glass" (Curiouser and curiouser!), and then the what I think is the final one, book three is "The Queen of Zombie Hearts" (We're all mad here), by Gena Showalter. 

 

Then, the books I adored in my younger teenage years, the diaries of Georgia Nicoleson (sorry if I spelt that wrong)! I got "...then he ate my boy entrancers" and "...and that's when they fell off in my hand" by Louise Renninson!

 

My mother got me the water bottle from a local store in town for £10, but because they were buy one get one free, my sister also has one in green. I already have a cheap plastic bottle at home, but the problem with them is that I keep hearing about how re-using them is bad for you and I still haven't made my mind on whether I believe that or not, but this water bottle was really cool so why not. I'm using it today and I like it a lot. You don't have to tilt the bottle to get water out, because of the handy straw, and when you shut the bit at the top, it doesn't spill out like I thought it would. Unfortunately, you can't have much water in it when you add the ice pack but hey, it's not too hard to refill the bottle anyway.

I didn't buy this yesterday, I bought it about two weeks ago and I am over halfway through (if you want to see my progress and my current thoughts on this book, you can do so here, and yes I am shamelessly promoting) for about £4 from Tesco. It's a pretty good book so far, so if you haven't read it and you were thinking about it, go right ahead, you won't regret it.

Lastly, I thought I would show you some unhealthy snacks I bought. If you're thinking of doing a British taste test soon, by the way, the crisps are Monster Munch in roast beef flavor, and one of those chocolate bars is called Dairy Milk Oreo, the other one is a toffee crisp. The Tesco own probably isn't available online and the Reese's are obviously American and not British - which, by the way, I am very exited about. £3 for them is quite expensive but they are delicious. 

Anyway, that's all I got, sorry it was super long, I think my next post is going to be the second half of my nail polish collection or a review on the book I am currently reading, so thank you for reading and I'll see you next time!

Travelling: My Make-Up Bag

Hey guys!

So, not long ago I said I was going to England soon and it's only a week away, so I assume it isn't going to be cancelled this time and I've already packed up my make-up bag. I'm not too fond of make-up and really, I only wear it when I'm going out, taking a photo with other people where if I can't decide what I look like I can at least make myself the best version of me, and...I think those are the only two reasons really...plus, I don't want my dad picking on me about spots or anything like that and I am rambling, let's just start with the post, shall we? Yes...

This is also going to be a really long post. I'm writing this after I have finished and just before I post. You may want to get a snack. 

I don't own high-end make-up, this is all high street (or, drugstore for American readers) so if that's the kind of thing you're looking for, don't look here!

                

1. My moisturizer by Simple, I think it's called the Simple Face Moisturizer but I stupidly long-ago tore the label from it. It comes in a box and can be found anywhere that sells Simple, usually! It's pretty cheap, I think it's about £5.

2. ELF Kabuki Brush, bought from the website for £6.99, I do believe.

3. MUA mosaic bronzer in "Natural Glow: Shade 1". It's much too dark for me, I made a bad choice in buying it, but it was only £2 so it's not a huge waste!

4. Kate Middleton lipstick in Shade 19, I bought it on sale a long time ago for £3.99 and along with others, I'll show the lipstick colour down below (getting naughty there).

5.  ELF Conditioning Lip Balm SPF 15, in a shade that has rose in it, but again, the tag has seen been torn of. It's lovely, I like it a lot and it smells like suncream. Even though I hate the sun and summer and the feel of suncream, the smell is delightful. It was about £2 from the studio range on the UK website.

6. Garnier BB Cream Miracle Skin Perfector for Sensitive Skin in "Light". I bought this for half price at Superdrug, £4.99, and it's only been in that bag for a week! I have just written a first impression blog post on this, though, which should have been up a short while before this post, so if you're curious on my thoughts about that, the link will be here - Hey, I'm the link!

7. ELF Tone Correcting Concealer in "Light beige" and, yes, it's too dark for me and it smells really funky, like peppermint and plastic. It also doesn't do too well at being tone correcting or being a concealer but it evens my skin tone pretty well, which is why I still carry it around and I also really want to use it up and never purchase it again. £1 from the cheapest range on the UK website.

8. ELF (yes, more ELF...I never make small purchases seeing as I'm from the UK and I always spend £30 for the free shipping) lip stain in "lucky lady". I really like this now. I never used to use it but it's actually pretty amazing, even if it doesn't do the most amazing lip stain job...I would love to buy some more in different shades once I have money to spare and I'm all out of this one. It was £1 from the studio range on the UK website.

9. MUA (also a really cheap brand I often purchase from, I'm not hugely into make-up like I said and I mostly just want to experiment) Professional Extreme Volume Mascara, £2 from Superdrug. Not an amazing mascara, but much better then the one I was currently using (number sixteen) so it'll do until I can get myself a better one.

10. MUA Undress Your Skin illuminating foundation in "porcelain", originally £5 from Superdrug, but I got it for £3. It matches my skin tone perfectly, makes my face glow faintly so I don't look dead, and lasts decently long with my powder, so for the price, I'll probably buy it again...it's also on sale quite often!

11. The photo is very reflecting and I'm sorry about that, but this is the Rimmel Stay Matte pressed powder in "001 transparent" and I absolutely adore this powder. It's £5.99 (I think, I got it for £4.99 at Savers, though), and it's very thick so you can't really use it for touch ups, but ... I would still buy it again, it's wonderful.

12. ELF Complete Coverage Concealer in "light", and I don't think any of these shades perfectly match my skin tone, but they're creamy and they blend in very well, they do the job...I like them. I think this was £3 from the UK studio section on the website, correct me if I am wrong.

13. Often named a dupe for the first Naked palette, this is MUA's "heaven and earth" eyeshadow palette, and it's much cheaper too at £4 from Superdrug. Despite none of the shades being matte, it's beautiful and I highly recommend it.

14. ELF zit zapper, a pound from the website, and it's amazing! Basically just alcohol, though, so probably not the healthiest thing to use on your skin.

15. Wilko's double ended eye brush, £3 from Wilkinson's. They're highly fluffy, the bristles don't fall out, it's cheap...I love it.

16. Collection Super Size Fat Lash Mascara, £3.99 from Superdrug. It's okay...it doesn't really do anything, and it's kind of clumpy, but it's very black so I like to use it with my other mascara just to make them look more interesting, really.

Thank you for reading this post, from here on it's just going to be close up photos of some of the above mentioned products and the actual make-up bag itself, but this is the point where the blog technically finishes. Haha...I feel awkward. See ya!

          

My mother a very long time ago (at least a year or two now) bought a perfume clearly by Jimmy Choo and with that, she received this bag...which I made clear I really liked and by some coincidence, she gave it to me! ;) I have this weird love for the texture of this bag, very smooth on the outside but it's also really floppy and not stiff at all, which I love, it's a great make-up bag and really small which is what I want for travelling. It's also got way more room inside then what it looks like it has so there's that!

                    

Number 13 on the list, this was MUA's "Heaven and Earth" eyeshadow palette and £4 for ten different shades is a pretty cool deal, right? As I have already said, I'm just new with the whole make-up thing and I figured starting out with neutral shades might be the way to go. My favourite is the lighter shade in the bottom left of the second picture just because I can use it as a base and also just on it's own to give my eyes a shimmer without anything being noticeable and it's pretty!

            

               

As you can see, this is VERY shimmery! Which is great for summer but because my summer foundation is shimmery, my blush is shimmery, my eyeshadow is shimmery...starting to think all that shimmer might be a bit too much, so adding a shimmery bronzer on top is not needed, and it's too dark on my skin anyway, but I will keep it until I can find a way to make it work as something else or as a bronzer! It's pretty nice packaging too.

             

As clear, I've experimented and used all four of these quite a lot. My favourite is the far right one, I don't know why...I guess it's because it does the best job at hiding those bright red spots. The pink one (second to the left) is also really nice for hiding spots on my cheeks because I feel like it gives me a little extra flush as the pink doesn't really cancel out any shade on my skin, but still shows up as faintly pink. The other two shades are my least used just because they just don't seem as good at the other two so no point in using them yet, although they help hide the veins in my eyelids, so I can appreciate that!

                     

I absolutely love this and it shows up way darker then what it actually is...it's more of a dark nude colour, in real life. It's super moisturizing, it smells of sun cream, it gives my lips colour on days where they have none but something I am not too fond of is the bulky packaging. It's really hard to fit into places like my pocket or the small pockets of my bag and just...yeah. I don't like it.

                     

This is one of the first (actually, it is the first) lipsticks I've ever owned. It's a good colour and it lasts quite a long time, but it's really drying on me and it's quite expensive for someone like me...who has no job and therefore no money, hence all the very cheap drugstore products! I love the black packaging though.

                      

 

     Although very small, it's beautiful! I don't like the shimmery aspect but for the price, it's really lovely, lasts a long time and...yeah, nothing really to say about this. I also love the name "lolly" for this.

     

OKAAAAY, now I am officially done with this really long blog post! Do you have any of these products, do you like them, do you not? I would also like any drugstore recommendations (UK, of course) for people who are like me and are a complete noob at make-up. If you got this far, thank you for reading and I'll see you next time, which will hopefully be my travelling toiletries bag.