Lets be honest, how many of us love going to a wedding or special occasion because it gives you a chance to crack out the make up you reserve for such occasions...

When thinking about my make up for the wedding we attended last weekend, my go to foundation is Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation. It was my foundation of choice for my wedding day after reading a lot of reviews and is always my go to if I know I am going to be wearing my foundation all day and night. It also photographs amazingly well.
I saw an advert pop up on my Facebook a couple of days before the wedding for a free 10 day sample of double wear and since I was going to the day before the wedding I figured I would get matched and pick up a sample since I had heard that sometimes during your pregnancy your skin pigmentation can change...
I went to the Estee Lauder Counter at my local debenhams and got chatting to the lovely lady who chatted to me not only about the double wear but also the newest in the double wear family, the double wear light. I decided to give the double wear light a go which offers a sheer to medium coverage which is buildable and is available in 10 shades - not quite the 50 offered by the double wear original however the wonderful lady on the counter soon took to trying the different shades on my face to find the perfect match. After trying a few shades, we decided on intensity 3.0 and away I came with my 10 day sample. Straight away I was impressed with how the sample felt on my skin so decided to give it a go for the wedding. I'll do a better review when I've used my 10 day sample properly.

Little late to the ol' band wagon - but heck, its still only the first week in February! January seems to have flown by in the blink of an eye? Weren't we just dancing round to the chimes of Big Ben like 5 minutes ago??

January has been a funny month, your still in the come down from Christmas, the sales are EVERYWHERE and your longing for the spring to hurry it’s ass up and make an apperence (seriously I am SO done with winter now)

Seriously how quickly did January go? Im not going to lie January was a pretty crappy month as starts to the year go... a lot of shit went down.. a couple of friends have been diagnosed with Cancer and work has just been crazzzzzy. Onwards and upwards though.. and before we totally push January to the back of my mind, I thought I would share with you my favourites of January...

This is the third time I have attempted to write this blog post! I write 1/2 last week on my way to work and somehow the app on my phone decided it was going to delete it! How rude!

Ive mentioned before what an absolutely nightmare foundation shopping is for me. I don't know what it is, I always end up being between 2 shades. Some seem to look too light while others look too orange. I think this is one of the reasons I fell in love with foundations from brands which have a counter attached to them because you don't have to rely on your own ability to match the foundation and can have match it for you. Again another reason that I fell in love with the No7 match made foundation service. Again taylor made for your face.

I had read a lot of things about the Match Perfection Foundation and when my foundation was starting to come to an end, I decided to have a mooch at my local stand in Boots. I swatched the shades (of which there are 10) and got down to the shade Classic Beige. I popped in my basket but to be honest I wasn't really optimistic, so many foundations have followed in its footsteps - made it home, been applied one or twice and gone into the 'why did i buy that' draw.

Well Ive been using this foundation for a little under 3 weeks now and I have to say I am in LOVVEEEEE!!! This shade is perfect! It blends beautifully and offers a great coverage! Also in the range they do a concealer which i may eventually try and a powder.

Have you tried any of this range? Were you sold???

So as promised I thought I would share with you what make up I wore for the Christmas party on Saturday night.


Excuse the very blurry photo - and this was before I'd had a drink!!!

So what did I use?

It is probably one of the most debated questions in the blogesphere? High end or High Street??? Do you get what you pay for or are you just paying for a name.

When it comes to both beauty and fashion, I have always very much been on the side of the high street. Maybe it is because I don't live in a town where high end stores are widely available... we have no Mac, no Illamasqua, no Nars! So I have always used high street and drug store products when it came to beauty. The same could be said for Fashion, even the stores we have here are very limited - roll on the new shopping centre being built!

Only recently over the past couple of years did I start to add a few High end products into my make up collection with a few benefit products and then a few Mac products but I made sure that before splashing out on these products I did a hell of a lot reading up about what products to pick up.

More and more we see the introduction of dupes for the high end products appearing in the market. Clinique the chubby sticks and Revlon were not far behind with their own offering, Maybelline brought out their 24 colour tattoo pots to rival Mac paint pots and even recently they brought out their Baby Skin Pore eraser - a dupe for Benefits Porefessional.

So do you really get what you pay for when it comes to high end beauty products. There are certain products in my make up box that I wouldn't dream of going to high end. I love the Rimmel stay matte powder and wouldn't even think about spending more than the £5 on a powder. However I have to say I am totally in love with the high end eye shadows which I have in my collection - I really love my Urban Decay palettes (Now 1, 2 and 3) and find the colour pay off on these is brilliant, as with the Mac eye shadows. Now that I have discovered the Maybelline Baby Skin I would think twice about buying the Benefit Porefessional but I wouldn't be without my Benefit Hoola Bronzer.

I think high end vs high street is always going to be one of those debates that will forever go on! There is always going to be those who love the high end and those who stick to the high street. For me I like to think that I lie somewhere in the middle. I think it is about finding the perfect balance for yourself.

What do you think? Which end of the scale do you sit on? Which High Street and High end products could you not live without??


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First of all Happy December!!! Can you believe it is only 24 days until Christmas! Woooo!

This weeks British Blogger Selection is all about make up and the topic is what is you favourite make up brand and why?
Now you now me, I love to try different things and different brands and if you have followed this blog a while, you will know that I dont tend to stay loyal to any particular make up brand. To be honest I think it would be quite hard to pinpoint 1 brand that I was completely in love with 100% of their products. There are some brands out there, I love their foundations or blushes but their mascaras or eyeshadows are not as good or others that do amazing lip products. Thats why I tend to use quite a few different brands. Heres my pick of my favourites.




 Ive blogged about the mineral perfection powder foundation a couple of times this year. It seems to have been a staple in my make up bag during the hot summer we had and used it in the hope it was a bit of a dupe for Bare Minerals foundations. The Essentially natural foundation is one I brought and was colour matched too. I like No 7 foundations because they offer the colour match service as I always struggle to match a foundation to myself. The bronzer has been one of my make up bag staples for a long time. I used to love it when it was in the previous style/packaging and is great for sweeping across for a simple look.


 I know for a fact I have mentioned both of these product. I love love love the 24H colour tattoo's. I have extended my collection since I took this photo. I love the formula of them, the colours are great and they really do last all day. They look fab on their own or teamed up with other eye shadows. I love the Master drama pencils too - the colour give off on them is fantastic and again they last all day! I love to team these up with just a neutral eye shadow.

 Rimmel is another brand I have a great love of and have been a fan for many years. I find that it is a great high street brand which has a lot of fantastic products in their range. I have a lot of love for many Rimmel products but apparently this is the only I have ever taken a picture of.
I absolutely love this concealer and is my go to concealer which I always grab but I have so many Rimmel which I love. I am a massive fan (as I know many other beauty bloggers are) of the Stay Matte powder which is the best powder I have ever used and no matter which other ones I try, this is always the one I go back to. I also love their lip products! I have gone through a massive love affair with the Acropalips and have recently brought one of their Kate Moss lipsticks to try.

Any those are some of my favourite make up brands. There are a lot of brands which I like 1 or 2 products of but these 4 brands are ones which I love a lot of their products!

What is your favourite make up brand??

Ok, so look outside, I know technically now it is probably more like Winter but its a bit of a tradition to share with you my favourite nail colours from the season! You know how much I love nail polish and so here are my top picks for Autumn/winter 2013 - Usually when I do these posts I stick to my top 10 but I thought hey, its only 4 weeks until christmas so a little early present for you! I am treating you to my Top 18 polishes instead! (Be warned I am hopeless at describing polishes)

 This has been one of my newest additions to my collection and is part of the Fall duo which Essie currently has on offer. I think it was around £12.99. I really love this colour. It is a beautiful dark raspberry purple colour! Great for Winter!

 This colour is absolutely GORGEOUS! It is the perfect colour for the party season. The best way to describe it is probably a rose gold colour. It catches the light beautifully.

 This is the other shade available in the Essie Fall Duo - This is a gorgeous grey/brown colour which I absolutely love.

 This is one I picked up when I was subscribed to Glossy box. It isnt a shade I reach for very often but I love teaming it with other colours, like over the top of a darker red at this time of year to glitter it up a bit. I think if memory serves me correctly these polishes are around the £14 mark which I wouldnt pay as the bottle is quite small and when you consider other high end brands such as OPI are not that much I am sure you could find a similar colour in another brand.

 This is one of my go to glitter polishes and has been a firm favourite of mine for a long time. Its name 'disco ball' serves it perfectly as that is exactly what it looks like when it is on your finger. It has small flecks of Blue and Purple as well as silver which means it goes perfectly with lots of different colours.

 To me this is the perfect red colour. When you think of double decker bus or phone box in London red, its like Rimmel has bottled that in a this bottle. This is just the perfect red shade without being too far on the orange or pinky part of the spectrum.

 Small chucks of gold goodness packed into a beautiful polish - Barry M sure now how to do a good glitter polish and this one is no exception! I love Barry M polishes and when you think of the quality and the price - you really cant go wrong! This one is perfect for teaming over the top of your favourite colour for a quick flash of sparkle.

 You cant do christmas without a bit of gold polish and if you have read my blog a while you will know that this is my all time favourite gold nail polish! To me this really is like gold in a bottle! It does take a few coats to get completely opaque but it is definately worth it when you do.

Again this one has had a lot of press on my blog over the years. This is my favourite all time glitter polish! I think this is probably one of the few polishes that I have had to repurchase! It is perfect for christmas time because it is just so darn glittery!! If you are looking for some serious glitter to bling up your nails over the festive period then this is defiantly the one to go for!

This is a shade I picked up in this months Glamour magazine (which I assume is still on sale) - £2 for a nails inc polish - certainly cant complain. Again with the gold - silver is another must have polish for the festive season. I always think silver (and gold) seem to be quite hard to get right in a nail polish but nails inc seem to have nailed it here (haha see what i did there)

Another favourite from Barry M. I know this is a well loved Autumn winter shade across the blogging community (as you can see my bottle is a little worn). This shade always gets me compliments when I wear it on my nails. It is the perfect raspberry colour which is brilliant for the cold months!

Not a colour you usually see knocking around at Christmas time but I wanted to include this blue polish from OPI because there seems to be a lot of Navy party wear knocking about on the high street at the moment and this would go perfectly with a little navy dress. The swatch here is one coat but it goes darker if you add another coat.

This is my most recent nail polish purchase that I picked up from TK Max (seriously in love with that place for beauty bargains) I swatched this and wanted to include it because the colour is gorgeous for christmas time when there always seems to be a lot of purple knocking around. The liquid sand effect makes the polish a bit grainy - as I havent worn it on my fingers yet I cant really pass comment but I love the colour!

This along with the Rimmel one is my favourite red - this being my slightly darker more glittery favourite. The picture really does do this one justice as it has a really gorgeous ever so slight glittery shimmer in it without being glittery - if that makes sense.

The swatch of this actually does not do anything for this at all. This is more of a dusky pink colour rather than the brighter colour it looks here. Perfect for wearing with those autumn nudes and pinks.

And that sums up my top colours for Autumn/Winter 2013. Which of these are your favourites? Any you will be rushing out to pick up??

I spotted this tag over on one of the regular bloggers I follow and thought I would give it a go after all we are well and truly in the throws of Autumn.