MUA Glitter Ball Palette Swatches / Review

I finally got my hands on the MUA Glitter Ball eyeshadow palette from Superdrug the other day for £3, and now I'm dedicating a post to it, if I added it to the haul post, it would of been way too long!


Here are some more photos of the palette itself:

Superdrug say:

"A palette of 12 spectacular shades in a range of high impact colours that will add instant sparkle to you eyes, perfect for partywear. "

 MUA say:

"Highly-pigmented shimmer colours, ranging from green to purple, allowing you to create endless looks fit for day or night. Each of the 12 shades can be applied alone for a dramatic effect or mixed to create a personalised look." 

I did some swatches so you can see how they look on my skin.
Top Row:

Bottom Row:

Told you I was pale! Some of that is down to the flash and the metallic finish of the shadows though. Overall, I was impressed, some are more pigmented than others, and some are way glittery than others too. The more glittery a shade was, the softer it seemed to be, and there was some fallout even just while swatching so that is one thing to be aware of. However, this only cost £3 so it is an absolute steal really. I will definitely purchase again. My favourite thing about this palette is the colour combos, they are all wearable for me, unlike other palettes I have tried previously. This has the thumbs up from me!

At the moment, MUA palettes have £1 off their usual price, but only if you buy from the Superdrug website or instore. On the MUA website they are still £4.

DIY: Soap: House of Crafts Soapmaking Kit Comparison

Hello again! Yesterday, we discovered the 4 ways of making your own soap. The method that suits me best is melt & pour soapmaking.  If this is something you want to try, you can either buy all of your ingredients or purchase a kit instead. In the long run, it is cheaper to buy everything separately but this means spending more upfront. I decided to try kits first. I purchased 3 kits from Hobbycraft, all made by House of Crafts.

House of Crafts - Soap Making Craft Kit

This kit cost £8.99 from here and includes a soap mould with room for 6 soaps, a pipette, fragrance oil, 3 coloured pigments and some clear soap base. It also comes with an instruction sheet. 

House of Crafts - Handmade Soap Kit

This cost £10.99 from here and includes a soap mould with space for 3 soaps, a pipette, fragrance oil, marigold petals, Irish moss, lemon grass and some clear soap base. It also comes with an instruction sheet.

House of Crafts - Organic Soap Making Kit

This one cost £14.99 from here and includes a soap mould with space for 4 soaps, organic lemon essential oil (the bottle has a dropper in it so a pipette is not needed, aniseed, linseed, poppy seeds, marigold petals and organic soap base. It  also comes with an instruction sheet.

The biggest difference between these kits is the amount of soap you get. 

With the first kit, you get aprox. 250g of clear soap, the second one is about 750g of the same clear base and the organic one has roughly 1kg which has a creamy colour to it. 

The kits are fairly good value for money just for the moulds as these can set you back from £5 - £10 each on average. The fragrance oils with the first 2 kits smell very similar, if not identical and it is a floral scent, not one which I am a fan of to be honest. The lemon essential oil smells divine though. Also, only the first kit contains dyes to colour your soap with. The first two kits can be melted in a microwave or in 2 saucepans over the hob whereas the organic one only mentions the saucepan method in the instructions. If you only buy one kit, you can only make very small batches each time as you need to wait for your soaps to set before you can remove them from the mould.

Personally, I would not really recommend the Soap Making Craft Kit as you don't get anywhere near enough soap.  The Organic Soap Making Kit is great if you want natural soap but my favourite has to be the Handmade Soap Kit just because it can be prepared in the microwave so it is easier to prepare.

When I bought these, they were on a 3 for 2 offer so I ended up paying £24.99 for all 3. If it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't of got all of them.

In addition to any of the kits, you also need something to cut the soap with before melting, a chopping board, something to melt the soap in (either a microwavable container or 2 saucepans depending on how you choose to heat it) and a spoon. Technically it should be OK to use your equipment for food after making soap with them as long as you have cleaned them thoroughly but I prefer not to take the chance. 

I have also purchased ingredients and moulds separately. It cost me a lot more than £24.99 though! Here is what I have:

Moulds

Soap Base

Fragrance Oils (must be cosmetic grade)

Pigments & Glitter (cosmetic grade)

House of Crafts also make a bath bomb kit but I would strongly advise you NOT to buy this one because it is not good value for money. All you need is Sodium Bicarbonate and Citric Acid and you use the same colours / fragrance oils and moulds as you do for soap making. 5kg Sodium Bicarbonate cost me £4.99 and 1kg Citric Acid was £2.99. Thats enough to make LOADS of bath bombs!

Bath Bomb Ingredients

Sorry for such a long post but I hope this info was helpful. I will post more photos when my soaps are done!

Mighty Rockstar Glittery Liquid Eyeliner

5 posts on 5 days in a row? Well aren't I being a good girl? I would also like to say a quick welcome to my new followers, I will be stalking  checking out your lovely blogs and responding to comments I have not yet replied to in due course.

I have another review for you today, on a collection of glitter liquid eyeliners. These are Mighty Rockstar Glittery Liquid Eyeliner from Fraulein 3°8 (it took me ages to find the symbol for degrees haha!) Anyway.. there are 8 in the collection each containing 5g of product.

8 bottles of shiny-ness

A view of the packaging

Firstly, the packaging is cute and the product isn't bad either:

Swatches!

We have black, pink, white, purple, silver, bronze, gold and green. The eyeliner contains metallic pigment along with glitter and dries to a smooth metallic glitter finish unlike other glitter eyeliners I have used in the past. I couldn't quite capture the glitter properly on camera but it is there I promise! It stays on really well and the brush is nice and thin and didn't shed any hairs. There is no smell to the product either.

Wait, there's more! The BEST thing about this is... the price!
It costs  €10.99 which at the time of writing is £9.33.. thats for all 8 of them! Thats £1.16 per eyeliner! What a steal! You can purchase these eyeliners here.


DISCLAIMER: I got a 50% discount on this product but that does not affect my opinion in any way & I did not recieve any kind of further reward for writing this post.

Veil Cover Cream

Happy Saturday!
I had a nice surprise this morning when this landed on my doorstep:

Its the Veil Cover Cream sample I got for free by filling out a survey a while back. I was expecting a tiny sachet of a "natural" too dark for me shade but instead I was amazed by the sample kit that arrived, including a massive 20 shades along with a little pot of Transluscent setting powder!

Mine was the light/medium kit but it seems more like a general mix of all the shades as some are far too dark to be considered medium. After looking through the website, they do have 40 shades available.

According to the website, it can be used to cover up birthmarks, Vitiligo, Rosacea, Acne, Scars, Veins, Dark circles, Bruising, Age Spots and Tattoos.




I still didn't find an exact shade match for my skin, but there are other shades available so I think there would be one to suit me better. I had to blend some colours together to make look right on me, and even though it looked OK on camera after blending, it looked like a had some kind of weird bruise on my hand in the daylight.

Swatches of White, Natural, Suede & Medium

Blended in

The coverage is very heavy and thick, as you would expect for this kind of product. You should use it on clean, dry skin so moisturise at night, not in the morning especially if using this on the face. You use this as you would a concealer, then use the powder to set it and then a water-based foundation over the top.
This product would be amazing for someone who would like to disguise a difference in skin tone on their body / face.

Personally, I wouldn't like to use this on my face every day, I would give my skin time to breathe between uses but that is because of how my skin behaves rather than because of the product.

A little goes a very long way so even though I have swatched and played around with these a lot, I still have loads left.

Unfortunately, because of the fact I would need to buy 2 or 3 different shades, the full size pots are wayyy out of my price range, as a 19g will set you back £23 (for 3, that's £69! Ouch!)  and the Translucent Finishing Powder is £24.50 but there is a more affordable alternative, in the form of kits you can buy, which are absolutely ideal for make up artists aswell.

A Demonstration Kit  costs £40.64 , A Tattoo Camouflage Kit in  light to medium or medium to dark costs £26.50 and a Cover Cream Sample Kit (which is what I have) which is available in light/medium and medium/dark costs £6.50 . Now that's more like it! Visit http://www.veilcovercream.com for more info!

DISCLAIMER: This was a free sample & I have not been paid or otherwise rewarded for this post.

The Body Shop Review (x2!)

Hi, hope you are all well! Today I have for you a review of 2 products from The Body Shop:
1. Sweet Lemon Body Scrub
2. Spiced Vanilla Body Butter

Please Note: I bought these myself with my partner's  own money & am not being paid in any way for this review.

There are nearly always special offers at The Body Shop online so it is best to wait until there's one that suits  you best and then stock up in my opinion. (e.g at the time of writing this, body butters & body scrubs are 2 for £15, delivery is free if you spend over £20 and if you spend over £25, you get a Strawberry Body Butter free AND on top of all of that, spend £50 get £25 off! Thats over 50% discount if you make use of all of those offers at once!!  )

Sweet Lemon Body Scrub 200ml (220g) - RRP £12.50

Here is the product info according to The Body Shop's website:

This exfoliating body scrub contains real lemon seed oil and peel. It lifts away dead skin cells and has a zesty citrus scent.

• Removes dead skin cells
• Leaves skin feeling soft and smooth
• Stimulates skin microcirculation
• Zesty citrus scent

Key Ingredients:

• Lemon seed oil
• Lemon peel
• Community Fair Trade soya oil
• Community Fair Trade organic cane sugar

Full Ingredients:
Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Sucrose, Sodium Chloride, Helianthus Annuus Hybrid Oil, Silica, Citrus Medica Limonum Seed Oil, Glycine Soja Oil, Limonene, Bertholletia Excelsa Seed Oil, Parfum, Citrus Medica Limonum Peel, Juglans Regia Shell Powder, Citral, CI 19140. 

The best thing about this product is the smell. It is lovely and refreshing yet sweet, just like fresh lemons and not synthetic smelling at all. This was actually my first time using a body scrub like this and it was a big change for me. The hardest thing to get used to was the lack of bubbles and the texture, which is very thick and looks like slush due to the sugar (sucrose) and salt (sodium chloride) granules it contains! It also has little bits of lemon peel in there too. It is a natural exfoliant yet gentle on the skin and it is suggested that you should only use it 2 - 3 times per week as it can cause skin to dry out if used more often. Although a little product does go a long way, I have noticed that this pot is emptying way faster than my body butter so I perhaps should of ordered more body scrubs. Oh well, I will know for next time!

Here are the photos I took:

Lemon is known to help combat the dreaded cellulite as is rubbing the skin in circular motions and is also good for your circulation too.

I would definitely purchase this again although and overall it scores 4/5 for me. I am not I would pay £12.50 for it though so check those special offers before you buy! You can get this from your local body shop store or online here


Spiced Vanilla Body Butter 200ml (192g) - RRP £12.50  - discontinued :-(

This body butter was a part of the winter/ christmas 2011 collection so is sadly not available to buy from The Body Shop right now, although you may still be able to find it on websites such as eBay.

Product info:

Our famous Body Butter scented with vanilla and a hint of spice. It is quickly absorbed and leaves skin feeling softer and smoother.

• Buttery texture
• No parabens

Key Ingredient(s)

• Vanilla extract
• Community Fair Trade cocoa butter

Full Ingredients
Aqua (Solvent/Diluent), Butyrospermum Parkii (Skin-Conditioning Agent/Emollient), Glycerin (Humectant), Glycine Soja Oil (Emollient/Skin Conditioner), Cetearyl Alcohol (Emulsifier), Cyclopentasiloxane (Skin-Conditioning Agent/Emollient), Glyceryl Stearate (Emulsifier), PEG-100 Stearate (Surfactant), Theobroma Cacao Seed Butter (Emollient), Cyclohexasiloxane (Conditioning Agent), Bertholletia Excelsa Seed Oil (Emollient), Lanolin Alcohol (Stabiliser/Emollient), Sesamum Indicum Seed Oil (Skin-Conditioning Agent), Orbignya Oleifera Seed Oil (Emollient), Parfum (Fragrance), Phenethyl Alcohol (Fragrance Ingredient), Caprylyl Glycol (Skin Conditioning Agent), Xanthan Gum (Viscosity Modifier), Disodium EDTA (Chelating Agent), Tocopherol (Antioxidant), Linalool (Fragrance Ingredient), Limonene (Fragrance Ingredient), Benzyl Salicylate (Fragrance Ingredient), Coumarin (Fragrance Ingredient), Sodium Hydroxide (pH Adjuster), Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone (Fragrance Ingredient), Hexyl Cinnamal (Fragrance Ingredient), Citronellol (Fragrance Ingredient), Vanilla Planifolia Fruit Extract (Natural Additive), Citric Acid (pH Adjuster), Caramel (Colour), CI 15510 (Colour). 

This smells absolutely lovely, good enough to eat! It is mostly vanilla with a mild hint of spice (not sure  exactly what spices they are though!) It reminds me of the vanilla Yankee Candle actually. (My boyfriend doesn't like the smell of it though. Boo!) This pot will last ages, it leaves my skin feeling super soft and moisturised without feeling too oily and the scent lingers on my skin for a good while afterwards. I actually can't really find anything bad to say about it. We have had cold weather lately and I did notice that the butter became harder to rub into the skin. This is because some of the oils in it are solid at room temperature and get harder the colder it gets, sort of like the butter you use on your sandwiches! I just store it in a warmer room now and I don't have this problem anymore. Hopefully this will be available to buy again later on in the year as I will definitely buy this again.

Here are my photos:

This one actually scores a big 5/5 from me! Some "body butters" I have used in the past had exactly the same consistency as normal

I hope you enjoyed reading and please feel free to comment with your thoughts / experiences and I will try to reply back to you. Have a great weekend!

DISCLAIMER: These were bought by myself but this does not affect my opinion of them in any way.

It's Skittles, but not as we know them!

So today I am doing my first ever review, yay! So a week(ish) ago I won a bag of skittles Crazy Cores from a Facebook game, and now that they have arrived safely I am going to review them!

So, it seems that these have been available in the US for some time as lots of those American food import sites sell them but now they are available in UK shops too!

This is what I received

Details of flavours

My first thoughts are that the packaging looks nice and bright, and the sweets look like regular skittles in size and shape.

There are 5 flavours. However, I think the flavour choices should have more variety. We have Lemon and Lemonade which I would think are basically the same thing, and then there's Watermelon and Melon, which again are very similar in taste. I get that they are trying to be different here and use a combination or flavours not usually seen in sweets, but I do think they could of made them better.

The other issue is that inside the middle of the sweets they are supposed to be different colours (left to right): yellow, pink, yellow, pink, green. You can just about notice a colour difference in the two end sweets but not really in the rest.  This doesn't really bother me though, as when I normally eat Skittles, I don't bite bits off to check what colour they are, I just eat them whole! :-)

Now for the taste test:
Blue Rasberry & Lemon tastes just like regular lemon  skittles to me but I still like it. I would of liked if the blue rasberry was stronger.
Mango & Peach tastes just as you would expect and I do like this flavour, although I wouldn't want to eat too many.
Cherry & Lemonade tastes just like the cocktail cherries you get in jars. Yum, I love cherries, and I'm actually glad that I can't taste the Lemonade flavour here.
Strawberry & Watermelon.. for me, they ruined the best Skittle of all time here! My favourite Skittle ever is the regular red strawberry one but I hate the flavour of Watermelon!
Melon & Berry actually tastes like pear drops to me, which is a good thing!

To summarise, they are edible, and overall I did like them. I would buy them if I saw them in a shop, but you just can't beat the original Skittles!

P.S I got my free bag from https://www.facebook.com/skittles.uk?sk=app_172257429525699  but this ends today, so if you are quick, you might just be able to grab one!

DISCLAIMER: These were a free sample. This does not affect my opinion and I have not been paid for this post.