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!