Autumn Lips: Revlon's Balm Stain in 'Crush'

Autumn is by far my favourite season. In my opinion, the best fashion, and make up and nail polish colours always come out for Autumn. This year I am determined to find the perfect lipstick in a deep plum colour. Now, I haven't found my dream product just yet, but until I do I bought the second best thing from Revlon - their Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in the shade 'Crush'.

I've already reviewed another of these balm stains here, and know that I completely love these products. They're incredibly moisturising, and people might be surprised to know that they actually have a mint scent.

I have absolutely fallen in love with this colour, and you can also build it up for a richer pigmentation. This product retails for £7.99 from Superdrug.

What is your signature colour for this Autumn?

Halloween Outfit Inspiration: My Attempts

Those that know me well, will know that I *love* Halloween. I love any festivity that involves people cracking out the fancy dress and embracing something so fun! As I'm a big fan of making my own Halloween costumes (as of the past 2 Halloweens), I thought I'd share with you some of my ventures into ideas I've used, and people/things that I have previously dressed up as for Halloween. You'll have to excuse some of the poor camera work on these images as they're all from my personal collection, and I didn't take them with the thought that I'd ever use them on here!

Rag Doll

In 2009, my friend and I decided to go for a children's toy theme. After um-ing and ah-ing over ridiculous amounts of toy costumes that weren't at all feasible, we finally settled on the Rag Doll. This one was super easy and fun; I bought a floral shift dress (New Look), some matching ribbons from the local haberdashery, and some children's frilly school socks teamed with a low-heel court shoe. My favourite part of this costume was the make up! I shamelessly got the rosiest pink lipstick I could find in my make up stash and drew huge, round dolly cheeks on myself.

Nurse

This one doesn't need so much talking about, we all know that the slutty nurse costume comes out at Halloween. This costume was actually for a Fetish-themed night at my student union, but it's fancy dress so I had to include it (c/o my local fancy dress shop)! My favourite part is always going to be the sheer, white heart-print tights (Primark) - I think they're adorable!

Zombie Schoolgirl 

I had to include a picture of my outfit and make-up for this one as this was the first Halloween that I dabbled in fake blood. If you follow me on Twitter you'll probably recognise the "Dewaaa" from my Twitter handle, as it's just a nickname I picked up in secondary school - I couldn't think of a decent fictional school name, so just named one after yours truly and created a simple crest logo. All was done free-hand on a basic vest top (H&M) and using felt tips. I even used the school skirt that actually saw me through school! Team that with some Poundland face paints and seriously back-combed hair, and you've got yourself a Zombie Schoolgirl.

Dead Barbie

As you can see, I fell in love with using fake blood, so even though I went as Barbie for last Halloween, it of course had to be Dead Barbie. I simply copied the Barbie design from an image on my laptop onto a basic vest top (Primark) using a pink highlighter, and outlined it using a gold glitter liquid eye liner (student supplies!), and the skirt is from ASOS. I followed a Michelle Phan make up tutorial to get the Barbie look around my eyes (sorry there's no close up), but you can watch that video here.

Sugar Skull Skeleton

So far this year I have only gone out once, and dressed up as a Sugar Skull Skeleton. If you follow Topshop on Twitter you will have seen them posting tonnes of pictures of different variations of this face paint design. I simply applied white face paint with a make up sponge for the base, and black face paint with a gel liner brush for the finer details. For my outfit I wore a white lace buttoned crop top (Primark) and my disco pant dupes (Boohoo).

I hope I've given some of you some inspiration for some last-minute Halloween outfits, all of these were left to about 2 days before Halloween/the event!

Mallzee: Join the Revolution!

If you (like me) were born before the ongoing technological age that we now live in, I'd imagine that you still feel impressed by the new advances that are happening every day. Now, today I am presenting to you another advancement - one that I'm sure us blogging type will appreciate very much, and it's called Mallzee. As you will know from reading previous posts, I am an absolute online shopping addict. Even when I know I have absolutely no funds to my name, I still can't resist browsing page after page of clothes, shoes, bags, make up - pretty much anything that is sold online! So when I was contacted by Mallzee to raise awareness of their upcoming website launch, I was happy to get involved.

In their own words: "Mallzee is all about creating a new experience for shopping online. Users create their own personalized shopping mall (Mallzee) by picking their favourite brands and stores. Our fancy software then finds products matching their personal style and showcases them in their Mallzee!" There is also opportunities to earn money whenever someone else purchases something from your Mallzee! Not only this, but Mallzee also integrates a very social role in online shopping by adding Facebook chat, polls and the ability to browse what your friends have been perusing whilst on the site, all as additional features. 

As this is a very new website that is still yet to launch fully, (before I was told otherwise) I would have doubted the types of retail stores that you would encounter on Mallzee, but there are already over 200 brands signed up, including the likes of Urban Outfitters and New Look! 

Mallzee is set to launch later this year, and to sign up for the pre-launch (and to receive email updates about the website's progress) all you have to do is go to www.Mallzee.com and enter your email address. As an extra added incentive, everyone that signs up to the website will be added into a £100 ($155) prize draw, what more could you want?!

Let me know if you sign up, you'll soon be able to browse my wishlists and chat about fashion in a much more direct way :)

E.L.F. Mineral Booster: A Review

I mentioned in my August Haul post that I had recently taken advantage of a very generous E.L.F. offer, and bought myself a number of things. One of these products was the large Mineral Booster facial powder (£5) in shade 'sheer', as I had seen many incredible reviews from beauty bloggers across the internet. With regards to day-to-day make up, I usually opt for my Maybelline or Garnier BB Cream, which are very good, but tend to leave a shine finish, so I bought this product to combat that.

When I first opened the package, I was initially disappointed with the product as it doesn't come with any means of applying it. I hadn't anticipated this, and as a girl who has never used setting powder before, I also had to go out and buy a powder brush before I could use it. However, now I am over that minor setback, I cannot sing this product's praises enough. It is incredibly sheer, so at no point have I ever experienced the unwanted chalky finish, and although the product looks incredibly pigmented in the pot, it actually goes on to be completely translucent. It doesn't push your make up to look over-done, it simply absorbs the shine to leave a matte finish on the face.

With this product I have been using the Real Techniques powder brush (review post on that soon!) which I absolutely adore, so of course my amazing results with this product could also be partly down to it being applied with an incredible brush!

Have you tried this product? How did you get on?

Cutex Nourishing Nail Polish Remover: A Review

Although I am currently on a much tighter budget for my third year being a student, I am still a girl in need of essentials! As a self-confessed nail polish addict, one of those essentials is of course nail polish remover. I have never branched out to high-end polish removers, and only buy them from my high street Superdrug or Boots, staying in a budget of around £2 to £4. Now, I always always buy from Cutex as they are just amazingly affordable and great value for money, but I have never tried this Nourishing Remover for Weak Nails. 

Cutex Nourishing Nail Polish Remover for weak nails (200ml): Superdrug  £2.15

I was intrigued when I first saw it in Superdrug because as you can only just tell, the liquid is opaque and milky, rather than translucent. When I got it home and used it for the first time the surprises just kept on coming because although it's not mentioned on the bottle, the product is scented. Now, I don't know if I've just missed an entire movement of scented polish removers, but this is certainly news to me! It smells gorgeous - it still has that chemical hint, but it is mostly disguised by a beautiful scent of shea and cocoa butter. 

For those of you who want a welcome change from the standard nail polish removers I would highly recommend this product, especially if you want beautiful smelling nails!