What's In My Makeup Bag? #2

Hi ladies! So this past weekend the boyfriend and I went back to his for the weekend to visit with his parents. That and he also needed his dad's help to fix his laptop. Anyways, here's what I brought back with me!

Eyes:

Sleek Storm Palette: This is the ONLY eyeshadow I've been using this month. It's one of the four products in my 4 For The Month challenge, and I've certainly stuck to it! I mostly make use of the top row, but I'll talk more about it at the end of the month. Anyways, I love the neutral colors in this palette and it's excellent for very simple, everyday eye looks.

Urban Decay Primer Potion: Last time I traveled, I didn't bother bringing an eye primer, and I regretted it! So this time I brought along the very travel friendly version of UDPP. It's the primer I've been using the majority of this month and I've fallen back in love with it. Good thing, since I have the professional size of it to get through!

Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil in Zero: The only pencil I use for my waterline. Stays all day, it's amazing, that's all I have to say.

Maybelline The Falsies Mascara: I definitely prefer this one over the One By One mascara that I picked up along with this one. This one just does an amazing job of lengthening my lashes. I've never used something that made them look so long. But at the same time, it's not clumpy and my lashes don't look spidery. I can see why everyone raved about this one.

MUA Mascara in Shade 1: I just use this to brush and set my brows.

3 brushes: One's from e.l.f and the other 2 are from the Studio Tools line sold in Target. They're cheap, but I find they work well for simple eye looks.

Lips:

NADA! I know, how terrible have I been with the lips lately. I had my Summer Fruits EOS lip balm though!

Face:

L'oreal Studio Secrets Magic Perfecting Base: Probably the first and last primer I'll ever use. It does such a good job of smoothing out my skin and making my makeup last that I don't see a point in searching for anything else!

Vichy Dermablend Corrective Foundation in Opal: I'm still not quite ready to review this yet, because I'm still in the process of finding what sets it best and whether it's best used as an all over foundation or a concealer and blah blah blah. But at the moment, I'm using it as an all over foundation and I apply it with my fingers. The color matches me pretty well and it does an excellent job of covering, BUT, I feel like it's almost equal to the coverage I got when I mixed Neutrogena Healthy Skin and Revlon Photo Ready. But then again maybe I'm just not using enough, we'll see!

Garnier Tinted Eye Roll On in Light: I love this for my undereye circles. It just blends in so well and covers amazingly.

Bare Minerals Mineral Veil: I didn't want to use the Bare Minerals foundation to set my foundation, since the Vichy foundation is supposed to be so full coverage. But I found that this just didn't keep me oil free long enough, so I tried setting the Vichy with my Bare Minerals foundation and it worked out much better, but this did well enough at the time.

e.l.f Complexion Brush: Used this to apply the Mineral Veil. It's nice, doesn't put too much product on your face or make you look powdery.

What do you make sure to bring along in your makeup bag when you travel?

Collective Haul: Boots and Superdrug

Hi ladies! Today I've got a bit of a collective haul to show you. It's not THAT big, it's just from two trips to Boots and Superdrug, but I figured I'd show you anyways!

Boots:

Before work a week ago or so, I popped into Boots in hopes of finding a moisturiser to replace my almost empty Biore one. While I do rather like the Biore moisturiser, it's a bit pricey for what it is (around 8 pounds and it's a relatively small bottle) so I was sure I could find something similar for less. Of course I grabbed a few other things as well, because I wouldn't be a beauty junkie if I didn't!

Boots Tea Tree & Witch Hazel Nose Pore Strips: 4.59 pounds

I've been curious to try some nose pore strips for awhile now, so I picked up these ones because they were cheap enough! The first time I used them, nothing happened. BUT, the second time I used them with more success. I think the problem the first time was my nose wasn't wet enough. But this time, there was a good amount of dirt pulled out! And don't we all just love the satisfaction of looking at all the dirt we successfully removed from our pores? No? Just me? Haha. Upon looking at reviews, some people said they work even better when you're fresh from a hot shower, because your pores are open, so I'm going to try that next time!

Simple Clear Skin Oil Balancing Moisturiser: 4.07 pounds

In the end, I picked up this moisturiser to replace my Biore one. It was half the price AND you received about 25ml MORE of product. I've used this a couple times now (I'm still scraping out the last bits of my Biore moisturiser because I like to get the most out of a product that I possibly can, hehe) and as of now, I'm quite sure it works just as well as my Biore one, but I'm going to keep using it and see what I think.

17 High Gloss Nail Polish in Sphinx: 3.49 pounds

I couldn't help but grab this nail polish as well. It looked like such a lovely color and 17 are a very affordable brand, so I figured why not! (I say that a lot...)

While I still think it's a gorgeous color, I'm just not sure if it suits my skin tone. What do you think?

Superdrug:

The other day after work I went into town because I wanted to have a look at the new Sleek Primer Palette. I haven't been impressed by swatches online, so I wanted to see for myself. But, when I got into Superdrug I saw that they were all sold out. So I didn't bother swatching the tester because I didn't want to end up loving it and then not being able to buy it! So instead I went over to the Accessorize makeup because I've been dyyyiiiing to try some things from that range for awhile now. Isn't that always the case?

Accessorize Merged Blusher in Starlet: 5.50 pounds

Out of all the products, the merged blushers were the ones I've been wanting to try most. In the end, I picked out this one because I love me some pink blushers. I used it the other day and loved the pink glow it added without making me look like a disco ball or something.

Swatch:

Accessorize Icon Eye Shadow in Champagne: 4.00 pounds

There was a lot of pretty colors in terms of eye shadows, but I decided to grab one that I've actually use. I wore this over MAC's Bare Study paint point the other day and thought it brightened up my eyes. Not as well as Sin from UD, but that's okay!

Swatch:

Accessorize Nail Polish in Storm (bottom) and Magical Mocha (top): 4.00 pounds each

Sorry for the ugly tape marks all over them, but you know how Superdrug are, they tape everything to death. Which is all well and good to stop people from opening them in the store, but it certainly makes it hard to open them once you've bought them....Anyways, I'm slowly building up my nail polish collection and decided to add these two to it!

MUA Mascara in Shade 1: 1 pound

Everyone goes on about how they use this to set their brows and that they love it, so I gave in (I mean, it's only a pound!!) I don't normally do anything with my brows (makeup wise, I mean gosh I'm not an animal, I do pluck them! Haha) but they can go a bit crazy during the day so I figured I'd try setting them bad boys with this! I found that throughout the day they did stay in place so I'm rather impressed.

Well that's it! What have some of your recent buys been? Hope your weekend is going well!!

BIG Haul! (MUA, Sleek, The Body Shop, Bare Minerals, Primark)

I went shopping with a friend a couple days ago and picked up quite a few goodies:

From Superdrug I picked up some things from the MUA range. I've been wanting to try their products for awhile. For a pound each, I figured you can't go wrong.

I'm not crazy about the products, but they're nice for being only a pound each!

The lipgloss+blusher on me

Same as above but with flash

I also picked up a Sleek blush in Rose Gold just because I've heard good things about it and it looks gorgeous. At The Body Shop, I saw the powders that I've been wanting for agess and might of ended up getting both if they'd been stocked, but they only had the Berry one. When you bought any cosmetic, you got a brush half off!

Lol...as you can see, I had some trouble getting into the Sleek blush, and when I finally did, my hand slipped and my nails dove right in. Oh well...but anyways, I lovvvve the blusher brush!! I have one from e.l.f that's not really impressed me, so when I tried this I fell in love. It's so soft and applies the blush perfectly.

The Sleek blush:

The Body Shop blush (sorry for the lame photo):

The Sleek blush on me:

The Body Shop blush on me:

I also got something I've been wanting for awhile now. I'm afraid liquid foundation would make me break out even more, so I figured mineral foundation is the way to go. So I picked up the Bare Minerals starter kit. It's 45 pounds, but you do get quite a bit.

A guide and how to DVD:

It comes with a sample of their primer! Excited to try it.

Everything that comes in the box. A lot, right? You get two shades of foundation, a bronzer which they call warmth, a mineral veil, and a concealer. Along with that you get three brushes to apply it all with. A bargain really for 45 pounds.

So I'm far too embarassed to post the before photos, LOL, sorry, but I suffer from acne and yeah, it's not a pretty sight. So here's the after photos! I'm using the Light foundation, warmth, the concealer, and the mineral veil. The concealer doesn't cover my spots all on their own, so I had to put concealer on under it, obviously. I applied the No7 concealer, which I just picked up today with my No7 voucher. But that's for a later post! ANYWAYS, here we go:

Pretty good coverage if you ask me! You can still see my spots a lil bit, but that's bound to happen. It's definitely a huge improvement anyways. Quite happy with Bare Minerals.

Then from Primark I grabbed two things:

A stripey sweater. It's quite long, basically a dress, but I just roll it up a bit.

A big comfy white cardigan! Sooo warm, gonna be perfect for those cold winter days. =)

Any good buys lately?