No Money March: The Budget Contouring Palette

I know "strobing" is the latest makeup trend but I still think contouring is the most effective way to chisel out some cheek bones and add dimension to the face. I've seen the more high-end contouring palettes and while they look pretty I just couldn't justify dropping the cash on them since I wasn't sure how much use I'd get out of them. Then I found out NYX had one so I figured I'd have a look at it, and here's what I think.

So the palette is £18 in the UK and it's made up of 8 shades. My breakdown of the functions of those shades breaks down to 3 contouring colours, 1 bronzer, 1 banana-powder type shade, 2 shimmer highlights and 1 matte highlight/light face powder. This is currently available in the UK from Boots, Selfridges, Very.com and FeelUnique.com.

I'm really pale and I find most of these shades workable for my skin. Both of the shimmer highlights are lovely on me, the top left corner "Ice Queen" is a lovely pale pinky shimmer that looks lovely on the cheek bones and "Nectar" (top right) is an orangey peach shimmer that I use as a blush topper but I can see this working well on deeper skin tones as well. The formula on the shimmer highlights is the best in the palette, these are really soft and buttery.

The matte highlight "Soft Light" (second from the left) is slightly more powdery feeling. I use this as an all over face powder but it could work as a highlight on darker skins. "Cream" (the yellow shade) is really interesting because I though it would be too dark to work on my skin but I find it blends out great and really brightens the centre of the face. With it being another matter powder it's not as creamy as the shimmers but it's definitely not what I'd call chalky either.

For the bronze-y shades I find I can only really use the two centre shades. "Tan" (bottom left) is too dark to bronze with and too warm to use as a contour and "Hollow" (bottom right) is just way too dark but the formula is pigmented and blendable on both. "Sculpt" (centre right) is my perfect contour shade and "Toffee" makes a nice pale bronzer.

The packaging isn't the most glam looking and it feels a bit cheap, but it's really functional. It seems to be marketed as a pro product so the clear lid makes sense and the hard plastic is durable so I can see this traveling well. I also like that the pans are removable so if you just wanted to travel with one of two shades you could easily pop them out and put them in another palette.

In terms of bang for your buck, it works out at £2.25 per pan and each of the pans is 2.7g. For value it works out similar to their other bronzing products which run for £8 for 9g. I think these are really reasonably priced for what you get.

I also wanted to make an honourable mention to the Spectrum Collection Tapered Finishing Brush, for budget contouring, this brush is amazing. The pink handle and blue bristles is fun and the tapered cut makes it really easy to apply contour where you want it. It's a lovely soft brush that picks up product well and blends it seamlessly and it's a synthetic brush so its cruelty free.

Skint-tember Begins! Top 10 Under £10 - Eyes

So in light of many of you that are jetting off to begin (or continue) your university adventures this month (and because I love a good pun), I thought I'd dedicate this month to budget beauty buys, and what better way to kick things off than a top 10 under £10? This is the first instalment and we'll be focusing on eye products.

I've been loving cream eyeshadows in stick form lately and I've got two to mention today that won't break the bank, firstly theres the Bourjois ColourBand Eyeshadow Sticks. These are lovely, pigmented, long-lasting eyeshadow sticks that are easy to blend and come in a small but carefully selected colour range and you can pick these up in Boots. If a large colour selection is something you're after, the KIKO Long Lasting Eyeshadow Sticks are a little bit harder to find (I'd try the website if you're no where near a store) but the colour selection is insane and they're very comparable to much more expensive formulas.

I've picked out quite a few neutral palettes in a variety of sizes so there should be something for everyone here. If quads are your thing I have two that I like, Soap & Glory Lid Stuff is the most expensive product in this line-up at dead-on £10 but it's lovely and the shade selection in the neutral version is well thought out and comprehensive. If that's a little too indulgent I'd also recommend the NYC HD Quattro Eye Shadow quads, I have the shade "Best of Broadway" and it's lovely but their selection of these is really nice and they're well within the £10 budget.

If you're looking for a slightly bigger eyeshadow palette, again, I have two that I'd recommend. Firstly the Maybelline The Nudes Palette is a great pick, the 12 shades are laid out in the palette to be used as duos, trios or quads or of course you can mix and match the whole palette to create your looks, and the shadows are buttery smooth to apply. Alternatively, you can pick up the Revolution Redemption Palette Iconic 1 (which you'll hear more about later this month) for a mere £4 in super drug. The quality isn't quite as nice as the Maybelline but you're still getting 12 shadows and the price point on this is amazing.

If you're sat there thinking "just give me a loose pigment eyeshadow" you need look no further than the Barry M Dazzle Dusts, they're an old classic but they're brilliant and they're still available in a really good selection of shades (and if you ever manage to finish one, well done to you).

My favourite budget eyeliners are the Rimmel Scandleyes Eyeliners, the shade selection is nice for a high-street liner and the formula is up there with the Urban Decay 24/7 Liners. It was very difficult not to pick up every colour when they first launched.

The brow product I decided to include is the No7 Beautiful Brow Sculpting Pencil, mainly because it's the fuss-free high-street option. The pencil is nice and chunky which makes for a speedy brow application. The shade selection is great and the spool-y brush on the end is brilliant.

And finally, my high-street mascara pick is obviously the MaxFactor 2000 Calorie Curved Brush Mascara and I will continue to repurchase this until death or discontinuation (although the thought of it finding a way off the shelves of Boots makes me want to run out and buy 20 right now). It's a brilliant mascara that makes even my worst-of-the-wort lashes look somewhat acceptable.

So there we have it, a round-up of all of my high-street eye favourites, I hope you enjoy Skint-tember!

High Street Heros - Skincare

Part two of the High Street Heros series is going to be focusing on skincare. There's a range of products in here from the products that I'm considering buying back-ups for to the ones that I don't use often but they do what they should.

So I'll get this one out of the way, because we all know it's coming: the Superfacialist by Una Brennan Vitamin C Brighten Cleansing Oil is my absolute favourite high-street cleanser and it's the product that I use to take of my make-up pretty much every night unless I'm trialling something or trying to use up other products. Love.

Another product I've mentioned a few times on the blog that's become a staple in my skincare rotation is Serozinc by La Roche Posay. It's a spray-mist zinc-sulphate solution that I use in the "toner" stage of my skincare routine and it's great for clearing up the skin if you have any break-outs or blemishes.

One that I absolutely love but I don't mention so much on here is the L'Oreal Revitalift Filler Renew Serum. This is the one that comes in the bottle that looks a little like a needle, but don't be put off by the packaging, it's lush. It's a hyluronic acid serum similar to the Sarah Chapman Skinesis Hydrating Booster and Hydralyron by Indeed Labs and while I must admit that Hydraluron is my favourite of the 3, the L'Oreal is a good pick for those with a slightly tighter budget as it's under £15.

My budget facial oil pick is the B Replenished Facial Oil. Facial oils are one of those products where you get what you pay for and obviously, this oil isn't going to do what more expensive oils do for your skin but it's a nice pick and I do use this on quite a regular basis. If you have a bigger budget a few more pricy picks I like are the Clarins Lotus Facial Treatment Oil, Sarah Chapman Morning Facial and MV Organics Rose Plus Booster.

My go-to evening eye cream is the No7 Beautiful Skin Overnight Revitalising Eye Balm, it's a lovely hydrating eye gel that does the job. I use it overnight because I think it could be a little too thick for under make-up although I must admit I haven't tried it under make-up yet.

A good does-the-job product is the First Aid Beauty Foaming Cleanser, in texture, this is very comparable to the Omoravicza Cleansing Foam and the only reason I'd repurchase the Omoravicza is because for me, smell is a big part of my skincare ritual and that's the one thing the First Aid Beauty version is missing. Other than that, it's lovely.

Speaking of First Aid Beauty, their Ultra Repair Cream, is available in a generously sized tube for under £15 and it's my miracle cream. Whenever my skin is sore or irritated or generally unhappy, I reach for this and it brings my skin back to normality. Can't be without the stuff and have recommended it to lots of people. Love.

The First Aid Beauty Facial Radiance Pads would have also had a place in this lineup, but unfortunately, they were slightly outside of my £15 budget for this post, but a very comparable product that's even more affordable is the Nip & Fab Glycolic Exfoliating Pads. These are so similar to the First Aid Beauty version but come in under the budget for a good amount of product, they're a pre-soaked acid toning pad that exfoliate the skin gently.

Another pre-soaked-pad product from Nip & Fab that I've been enjoying lately is their Dragons Blood Hydrating Pads. Now I'll admit, being a Targaryen fan girl (sorry for all non-Game-of-Thrones fans for that reference) I may have seen the Dragons Blood reference and been intrigued on the name alone, but I did notice that these also contain hyluronic acid, which we've already established is an ingredient that my skin particularly enjoys. For me these are a hydration layer that I'd use if my skin was more in need of moisture than exfoliation, I wouldn't use them in conjunction with an exfoliating toner.

I've been enjoying the Origins Drink Up Intensive Overnight Mask for a while now and was keen to find a dupe and with me being a big fan of Una Brennans Superfacialist products already, I picked up their Rose Hydrate Mask to see if it was comparable. While it's not strictly an overnight mask if you apply it thinly it soaks into the skin and wont need removing but I just use it as a 5-minute-fix and it works well. Not quite a dupe but it's still a nice pick.

And then the rest of these are products that I don't necessarily use in my rotation all the time, but if you fancied a new budget item these are pretty good. I've actually gone through 2 bottles of the Good Things Miracle Mattifier Moisturiser before developing a love for facial oils that has left most of my once-loved moisturisers feeling a little unloved. This is specifically for an oily skin and it was great at keeping you hydrated whilst also providing some oil control.

While I really love the Omoravicza Deep Cleansing Mask, it's eye-wateringly expensive and I'm currently trying out a lot of clay masks at the moment but a budget option that works well is the Aroma Actives Skincare Deep Cleansing & Purifying Clay Mask. It's an almost skin-coloured clay mask that feels cooling and slightly tingly on the skin and dries down quickly. It doesn't leave my skin as dry or tight feeling as other that I've tried but it does leave me wanting to apply some kind of moisturising product afterward but it's a nice pick for around an 8th of the price of the Omoravicza.

When I'm feeling lazy and a proper cleanse isn't on the cards I have 2 products that I whip out. The Garnier Micellar Warer is great for those mornings or evenings where you just can't be bothered, it's gentle on the skin and not stripping at all but it removes make-up and general grime from the skin quickly. I do have a confession to make here. While I don't agree with using face wipes to cleanse all the time, sometimes, a good old face wipe is just what you need. Maybe your on the road or maybe it's just been a late one and you just want to get straight to bed, but when I'm reaching for a face wipe, I'm reaching for the Soap & Glory Off Your Face 3-in-1 Daily Purifying Cloths. Remove makeup nicely, gentle on the skin but still have a slight bit of an exfoliation to them. A good one to have on hand for emergencies.

And finally, while I normally use a moisturiser/facial oil and then a separate SPF, for days when I'm in a rush I like the Sainsburys SPF 15 Day Cream. It's a light moisturiser that plays nice with makeup and has a decent amount of SPF in for the weather we usually get here in England, and it's super affordable at around £2 a tube.

High Street Hero's - The Make-up Edition

In a bid to write posts that were maybe a little more budget-friendly, I've lined up what I'm calling "High Street Hero's" for this week, which is going to be a series of 3 posts that are basically a "15 under 15" type post. I wanted to put a price limit on it because I've been noticing recently things I like in Boots that are high-street brands are creeping up in price ever so slightly, and now L'Oreal eye-creams are on par price-wise with brands like Kheil's and I didn't see the point in recommending products like these as "budget" offerings.

So to kick things off we'll start with the Soap and Glory Sexy Mother Pucker Gloss Sticks, particularly in the shades "Nudist" and "Plum Jam". These are the perfect no-fuss lip colours that you can generally apply without the need for a mirror. They're sheer and super glossy which makes them a good comfortable lip colour and while they don't hang around too long they are pretty much my make-up jogging-bottoms equivalent.

One that everyone and their nan will have mentioned on blogs and YouTube channels a like is the Rimmel Scandaleyes Eyeliner Pencils. If the colour selection for these was as good as the range of Urban Decay 24/7 Liners, I'd have given up on buying UD liners long ago because they are pretty much just as good. The Rimmel ones come in a decent array of colours and my picks from the range are the nude, the taupe and the bright blue.

A product that I've harped on and on about on this blog is the Maxfactor 2000 Calorie Curved Brush Mascara. It's just a brilliant mascara for length but it still gives a little bit of volume and (most importantly) makes my limp lashes hold a curl without the need to go waterproof.

A couple of Soap & Glory base products that you'll have also heard me mention on multiple occasions are their Solar Powder and their One Heck of a Blot Powder. The solar-powder is a blogger-rated bronzer and it's lovey. As a pale-complexion girl I often struggle to find bronzers that work for me but as this one has the 2 shades in 1 I've really been enjoying using it. The one-heck-of-a-blot is now my go-to setting powder, have recently repurchased for the 3rd time!

The L'Oreal True Match Foundation is an oldie but a goodie. I've been using this on-and-off for years now and I always come back to it. The shade selection is brilliant and it's one of the few high-street foundations that is a perfect skin tone match for me. Super pale girls might want to give this one a try.

Another foundation I've been really enjoying lately is the Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation. While their lightest shade is definitely more my summer colour I find that mixed with moisturiser it gives a nice coverage that isn't too obviously dark on my complexion. I've been loving it now the wether in England has finally started to brighten up as it's giving my skin that slightly sun-kissed glow that we all crave this time of year.

My Holy-Grail brow product is the Soap & Glory Archery Brow Pencil. While the shade selection leaves much to be desired I find that the shade "Hot Chocolate" works well for me. I love the thin-nibbed pencil and the spooly brush on the other end of the product is a very nice one. I do mix it up with brows quite frequently lately but I'm finding that I keep coming back to this one.

So for a while I didn'y bother with high-street eyeshadows as they generally only came in singles, so when you could buy a high-end palette where for £36 you got 12 shades and it worked out at £3 a shade, it made very little sense to me to be paying £5-£8 for drugstore single shadows. Then the L'Oreal La Palette Nude (Blush) hit the high-street and I found myself getting excited about high-street eyeshadows for the first time. Okay, so the pigmentation and blendability isn't as good as my much-loved Urban Decay shadows, but for what you pay, it's a beaut.

One that I've mentioned before but not for a while now is the Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvets, AKA my favourite high-street lip products ever. I have the shades "Hot Pepper" and "Frambourjois" but I'm also eyeing up "Olé Flamingo" at the moment. They're just a great long-lasting matte lip that's comfortable and easy to apply. That being said, avoid the shade "Grand Cru", have read many a duff review on that shade and it seems to really let the line down, hopefully they'll reformulate that shade eventually.

Another budget eyeshadow find for me was the Soap & Glory Lid Stuff palette. This palette does come in a few different shade ranges but I like the one with the more neutral shade selection just because those are the types of shades I reach for most often. Not as god a deal as the L'Oreal as you get 4 shades for around £10 but the shade selection and the quality of these for me is what sells it.

When it comes to blush, Maxfactor have got it down. I've got a couple of their cheek products and I think both are brilliant. For the powder-blush lover their Creme Puff Blushes are lovely, lots of bloggers compare them to the Hourglass Ambient Light Blushes but since I don't currently have one of those I couldn't validate that claim, my faouvirte shade from the range is "Nude Mauve". And for the cream blush wearer? Their Miracle Touch Creamy Blush, particularly in the shade "Soft Pink" is delightful. Blends nicely and gives just the right amount of colour, I like to apply this one with a Rela Techniques Expert Face Brush.

Another Maxfactor base product that I've been loving is their FaceFinity Primer. It's basically suerglue for your foundation and it also has SPF 20 so if you like your make-up to have some SPF to it, this is probably something you'd like. It glides on the skin like a moisturiser and dries down under foundation for a super long-lasting base.

And finally a fairly recent find of mine, the Soap & Glory Hocus Focus Highlight, this to me is very much like Benefit High Beam. It's a liquid highlight that can be applied before foundation, on top of foundation light a targeted highlight or, my personal favourite, mixed into your foundation for a subtle all-over glow.

Sainsbury's Do Skincare

I was recently browsing the beauty isles in search of a few budget beauty buys for an upcoming series of posts Im working on when I spotted the sainsbury's own line for skincare. Everthing I could see in the range was £2 or less and the whole bunch were on 3-for-2 so I picked up the 3 products that looked like they'd work for me best for me to see how I liked the range.

The range was really small and was made up or 2 sub-ranges, the "Tea Tree" range and the "Vitamin E" range. Both ranges contained a foam cleanser and a scrub and then the vitamin E range also had a cleansing lotion and an SPF day cream. Despite my oily complexion I know that tea tree on my skin can be a little stripped so I picked up a few pieces from the Vitamin E range instead.

The first product I picked up was the cleansing lotion as I know this is a formula that normally works for me so I figured I was giving the range a fair chance by giving that product a try, and my verdict? It does the job. It's by no means a luxury but it cleans the face and doesn't seem to leave my skin feeling dry or tight afterwards.

The product I wasn't sure I'd like was the foam cleanser, but I gave it a go anyway and I as expected, it's a tiny bit too drying on my skin. It doesn't contain any sodium laryth/lareth sulphate and it isn't particularly foaming on the skin but it just left my skin feel a teeny bit tight.

My favourite product from the range is by far the SPF 15 day cream. It's light and scent-less and is just enough moisture for my skin so it doesn't feel heavy and it works fine under makeup. I'd normally use a day cream and a separate SPF but for days where I'm in a hurry but need that SPF protection this is great.

All in all? A slightly hit-and-miss range, but for the price-point, I'd say it's probably worth a try.

A Budget Moisture-Boosting Mask

I've been eyeing this one up for a while but kept forgetting to pick it up until recently. While I normally like something a little more luxe in my skincare, Una Brennan happens to be the maker of one of my favourite cleansers ever and so I was just itching to try some more from their range and my verdict?

Okay. Slow down. It's not the Superfacialist by Una Brennan Cleansing Oil that I'm constantly harping on about, but it is nice. I found that the mask applies nicely to the face and sets down in a semi-clay-mask type way, only not so firm. When you have the mask on, it feels like there's a hit of hydration every time you move your face a little which is nice and I can imagine that, for this reason, it would be a lovely mask to wear in the bath.

It says "Suitable for even the most sensitive skin" but I'm not sure how truthful this claim is, I don't normally get any sensitivity (especially not with products that target dehydration as a skin concern) but this mask left me a teeny bit red in the face on removal. My skin felt nice and soft after use however it's definitely not the nicest hydrating mask I've ever used for a 10-minute hydration hit I prefer the Clarins HydraQuench Cream Mask but if you have a little more time on your hands then the Origins Drink Up Overnight Mask still reigns supreme for me in the hydrating mask category.

That being said, it's still a nice product and a good budget buy if you're trying to stretch last months pay-check and it would also be good for the more youthful among us if you're out every weekend and you feel like your skin needs that extra boost.