Sharing The Love

I don't watch as many Youtube tutorials as I used to, but one person I still continue to watch and enjoy is xsparkage. 


Yesterday she uploaded a tutorial on the eye makeup Nicki Minaj was wearing at the VMA's on Sunday. I absolutely adore Nicki Minaj and I really liked this simple yet gorgeous and bright look she wore, so I thought I would share the tutorial with you guys!









Now excuse me whilst I desperately try and piece an outfit together that won't clash with this look...

Review: Sleek - The Original i-Divine Palette

In the past couple of months Sleek Cosmetics seem to have dramatically increased in popularity amongst the blogging/youtube community. I have seen endless reviews of the latest palettes - several of which seemed to be released in quick succession of one another - and the amazing pout paints I have yet to try. Instead of reviewing one of these in line with others, I decided to look back at an old favourite of mine. 


I received The Original i-Divine palette (No. 594) for Christmas last year and fell in love with it instantly. 

Without flash

With flash

It can be purchased in Superdrug - although not all apparently, only one store in my city stock Sleek - or from Sleek Makeup for £6.49.


This was my second palette from Sleek and by far my favourite of the lot. It tends to be my go to palette and the one that is in the make up bag I use regularly and take with me almost everywhere. 


I'm not the type to wear neutral make up on a daily basis, preferring to mix up relatively neutral colours with a little bit of colour, making this palette perfect for me. There is good balance of the type of colours I'm looking for. 


All sleek eyeshadows are mineral based and prize themselves on being highly pigmented and velvet smooth. The majority of palettes contain a mixture of both shimmery and matte colours. 

Top row without flash

Top row with flash

The top row contains a mix of bright coloured shimmery eyeshadows and one matte black eyeshadow.  As you can see, the black is not a very pigmented shade, it took me 3 swipes to achieve this level of pigmentation in my swatch. I also find that it is not as smooth a formula as the others. The dark blue shade was also not very pigmented and again it took 3 swipes to achieve this swatch. The rest however are brilliantly smooth, velvet textured, highly pigmented eyeshadows. All of these swatches - as well as the ones from the bottom row - were achieved with one swipe from the pan. 

Bottom row with flash

Bottom row without flash (sorry for bad lighting)

My favourite combination to create using this palette has to be: 

• the very light yellow (first on the left, bottom row) in the inner corner
• light green (last on the right, top row) across the lid
• bronze (third from the right, bottom row) in the outer corner and blended out into the crease 

Then I normally put a little bit of each on the bottom lash line in the same position. 

I wish I had taken a picture of this the last time I did it but unfortunately, I don't think about these things at the time! 

Disclaimer: This palette WAS a gift given to me, however it was from a family member and I have in no way been compensated for the use/review of the product.

Review: Avon Nail Experts - Liquid Freeze Quick Dry Spray

My boyfriend's sister has recently become an Avon representative meaning there is always a brochure roaming around their house somewhere, enticing me to purchase all kinds of inexpensive items I don't really need. I placed an order from her very first campaign as a rep - not only out of kindness but because there was an item that caught my eye. 

The Nail Experts Quick Dry Spray:

I purchased this spray for £3 (50ml) when it was on offer. It is normally £6 but has been on sale since I bought it - not entirely sure what's going on there. There is also an offer on at the moment in which you can get 4 selected nail products for £10. 

Having always lusted after the Seche Vite drops, I purchased this spray in the hopes it would be just as good a product. In all fairness I cannot say either way how it compares, having never used the Seche Vite (but one day...!). In my eyes it works almost as good. 

Notice the word 'almost' there? 

I say that because there is one major downfall to this product. Although it does exactly what you'd expect - it dries your polish in record timing with no adverse effect on the polish itself - it gets absolutely EVERYWHERE. Whereas Seche Vite is a top coat that you paint directly onto the nail, this is a spray that you spray onto the nail.... and the cuticles, and your fingers, and the table/floor/leg etc. It is messy and oily. But nothing a quick hand wash can't solve and so I am willing to live with this.

So, if you're looking for a cheaper alternative to the Seche Vite (or any other quick dry nail product) I would say definitely try out this product. 

Review: E.L.F. Studio Matte Lip Colour

What better thing to do at 9pm on a cold, dreary English evening than review your latest favourite make up product? 

This is my first review of anything on my blog so please be gentle with me! I'm still practising :).

Recently ELF did a 50% off sale and not one to pass up an opportunity this amazing, I decided to place a substantially large order. I got quite a few products but I think by far this is my favourite out the lot. It's a product that I think is quite new to the Studio range and one that caught my eye straight away. 

If you have not heard of ELF, they are an online only (unless you live in the USA in which case I think their products can be purchased from somewhere like Walgreens or CVS or something.) based cosmetics company selling a wide variety of cosmetics for between £1 and £20 - although the majority of their products are either £1.50 or £3.50. Their products are generally quite brilliant quality and I have only ever had one fault with a product I have purchased from them.

Back to the review:

I've never been a keen lipstick wearer. I wear glasses that have a dark frame and have a very pale complexion, so I tend to find that a lot of the time when I apply something to my lips it looks really strange. This may all just be in my head but I don't know. I feel like I'm missing out on owning so many pretty lipsticks because of this so I'm attempting to ease myself into wearing them more often.

I chose this product as my first lip colour for two reasons:

1. It's a matte lip product. The product will sit nicer on my lips and the lack of shine will ensure that not much attention is drawn to them. I wanted my first foray into lip products to be a subtle change. 

2. The colour. It's what you might refer to as a "my lips but better" kind of shade. So again, it's going to be a subtle transition into wearing lip colour. 

Image courtesy of www.eyeslipsface.co.uk

This particular product is taken from the Studio line and is priced at £3.50. There are a few other colours available on their website: LINK

Here are some swatches I took:

Taken with my iPhone without flash

Taken with my iPhone with flash.

The flash on my phone makes the colour appear very different to what it actually is like in real life. The top picture clearly shows what I mean about the "my lips but better" shade. It barely even looks like I have anything on my lips - some might say this is disappointing but I love it! 

The product itself has a really creamy consistency and glides onto the lips easily. It also has a lot of pigmentation and provides a good coverage of colour. You get a lot of product for your money too and don't need to use a lot on your lips for it to look good.

My only issue would be that the actual pencil of product has a fair bit of room to wobble around inside the tube. This means that when you're applying it to your lips it's quite easy to press up against the top of the tube causing it to make a dent in the product and make the tube messy.

I would definitely recommend this product to anybody looking for something like it and am looking forward to trying out some of the other colours they have! 

Friday Night Manicure

Every Friday night - unless I'm busy - I redo my manicure without fail. After a hectic week at work I like to just chill and pamper myself all night whilst watching a film or some crap tv :) 

This week for my manicure I decided to try out a technique I have seen a few people do within the blogging community. It varies from design to design but it basically is a manicure involving make up sponges at some point. 

I started by painting a white base coat on each nail. I used a random one from my collection by NYC. I think these retail at around £2/3 in Boots and Superdrug - don't quote me on that, I've had mine for ages!

I then used a grey nail polish by Barry M (excuse the bad picture) and a black polish with small specks of silver glitter by W7 with...

...these make up sponges from Asda, to create:

This look. I cleaned up the excess round the edges once I had finished BTW. I don't walk around with nails like that lol! 

To achieve this look I poured out a tiny bit of the grey and black nail polishes onto a piece of tissue paper. Using one corner of the make up sponge at the thinnest end, I dipped it into the grey first and dabbed onto my nail, covering half to 3/4 of the nail. I then dipped the opposite corner into the black nail polish and applied over half (ish) the grey. 

Not many people have liked how I have done my nails haha but I do :) And that's all that matters!

A Week In Pictures #2

Just a quick little update on some thing's that have happened/I've done during the past week (ish).

My cousin turned 18 yesterday! She is the cute little baby on the left - I'm on the right. It's so weird seeing her turn 18! Especially knowing I'm 21 in the blink of an eye - literally in like 2 months. I can still remember the silly games we used to play at our grandparents and being all tiny and cute. Now we're old (but still cute)! *boo hoo* 

Decided to start on some reading for my FINAL year at university. I don't start again till the first week in October but I hate the amount of reading we have to do on our course so I need to get some out the way.

Cooking! I'm a terrible cook and a very fussy eater, so it's rare to find things I do cook and enjoy. This meal was one of those random thrown together last minute kind of meals - and it was delicious.

Strange skies. This picture does the sky no justice whatsoever. It looked like a 3d cartoon! So weird. 

Latest manicure. Looks messy but I kind of like it! Separate post to follow :) 

My sunflowers! They've grown so quickly thanks to the abnormal British weather this past month.

I won a competition! I randomly received this package of benefit stuff in the post the other day. Totally unexpected but brilliant. Going to do some reviews shortly once I've had a chance to use them all properly.