Product review: Bleach London's White Toner Kit

From my Instagram: @coffeeandundercuts

I bought the Bleach London White Toner care when the salon’s home haircare range first came out - exclusive to Boots and Bleach’s own website - in October 2013, but have honestly only just gotten around to using it! I bought one of their “Super Cool Colours”, in the shade Out of the Blue (it appears to have been discontinued, but there’s still two blue shades: Blullini and Washed Up Mermaid) and had a rather unfortunate experience with it. Because my hair was already bleached, it grabbed onto the blue and would not let go. I was blue-haired until I finally managed to grow/cut it out about six months later. Not great for a “non-permanent hair colour” that was recommended for previously lightened hair and supposed to last “2-5 washes”… I think they probably had a fair few people complain, because I notice that the colour range now comes with more detailed advice: “fades out over time depending on hair porosity”, and the blue shades in particular carry the warning “because of it's blue base, this colour can fade to green/blue which can be stubborn to remove. We recommend you do a strand test before use”. 

Product Review: ColourPop Cosmetics Ultra Matte Lip and Lippie Pencil

I first saw ColourPop lipsticks on one of my favourite bloggers (as featured in this post), Nicole Alyse, as she’s a big fan of matte lip products. But they really appeared on my (/everyone’s) radar when Kylie Jenner’s “lipkits” were released; yes, unfortunately I fall prey to krazy Kardashian marketing sometimes (see what I did there). Consisting of a lipliner and a matte liquid lipstick in the same shade, they retail for $29/£20 plus nearly $8/£5.50 for (U.S.) shipping - if, that is, you can get hold of one (they frequently sell out in 10-15 minutes, and are restocked sporadically). So, naturally, many people - myself included - started searching for cheaper dupes. In fact, one conspiracy theory that went viral was that Jenner’s lipkits were actually ColourPop lipsticks simply repackaged. And whilst I have no idea if that’s true, a quick Google search for “Kylie lipkit dupes” throws up a ton of similair ColourPop offerings - at the incredible price of $6/£4 for an Ultra Matte Lipstick and $5/£3.50 for a Lippie Pencil (liner).

As ColourPop currently only ship to the U.S. and a select few other countries (with possible “additional duty fees”), I decided to take advantage of my American boyfriend by ordering some products to his student dorm in Washington D.C. for me to pick up when I next visited. As everything was so cheap, I ended up getting two Ultra Matte Lip colours and one Lippie Pencil; although shipping is $5/£3.50, you can get a $5 off coupon when you sign up for their newsletter, so my total was only around $17/£12! I’d heard some pretty bad things about the delivery, but mine got to my boyfriend within about a week and it was packed really well. I opened it up when I got to him a few days ago, and was really impressed with the packaging and appearance of the items.

Product Review: Estée Lauder Double Wear foundation

I’m not entirely sure how long I’ve been looking for a "perfect" foundation, but I know it’s taken me two BB creams and two liquid efforts to find it. Until I was about eighteen, I didn’t wear much make-up (or at least I can’t remember doing so!). I can recall using a lot of cheap Seventeen pressed powder compacts, and then making do with just a basic concealer dabbed on the most offensive spots. For special occasions, my sister usually made me up, so I wore whatever she had in her make-up bag! Then there came the big ‘Beauty Balm’ (BB) explosion, and - off the back of several rave reviews I read in magazines and the like - I bought Smashbox’s ‘Camera Ready’ version. This worked for quite a while, as it boasted SPF 35 and was a lightweight, low-coverage option for my low-maintenance needs. However, as those needs developed into more complex (some may say borderline obsessive…) demands on my make-up, I started casting around for alternatives. This was whilst I was living in Washington D.C., and when I heard that Benefit had launched their "bigger than BB" Big Easy "liquid-to-powder" product, I popped down to the Sephora in Georgetown to pick it up for (slightly) less than I’d be able to in the U.K. Unfortunately, all that did was convince me that I was definitely a liquid, and not a powder (or liquid-to-powder!) kind of girl. It also made me aware of how annoying it is that you can’t really test products before you purchase them. Sure, lots of beauty counters offer mini-makeovers these days, but if they really know what they’re doing they’ll use an abundance of things (clever lighting, mirrors, sales people etc.) to convince you to buy. 

So I was pretty pleased when I found an "invitation" (read: coupon) from Estée Lauder to get a "10-day sample of your perfect foundation" - Double Wear Stay-in-Place Makeup - in a recent copy of Elle. My knowledge on the brand had somewhat increased in the recent months due to my outrageous obsession with all things Kardashian (no judgement, please); Kendall Jenner is their newest spokeswoman (read: stupidly high-paid model). I started looking for opportunities to visit a counter and take advantage of the offer, but it wasn’t until the New Year that I managed to get to one. The process was quick and easy: a friendly Estée Lauder consultant matched my shade by working with me to narrow it down from her three original picks to the one I felt would work the best with my skin and its needs. This was 1N1, or "ivory nude", and I got a 4ml pot to take away with me, tucked inside a little leaflet with details of the shade written down. 

Birchbox Review: January

I really liked this month’s box; not only did it come with some great products, but there were two freebies in the shape of a cute “#nofilter” slogan pocket mirror and five awesome postcards with some lovely quotes and graphics on them! Again, it was apparently a collaboration with Pinterest but I've yet to see exactly why... Anyways, I’ve also just opened this month’s (always behind, me!) and it looks just as promising!

Birchbox Review: December

This month my Birchbox was actually a Birchbag; a really cute, emerald green/sparkly/velvet beauty. I haven’t had the opportunity to use it as a clutch yet, but apparently you can also buy a chain on the website and make it a cross-body bag too! Which is great because I always forget to pick clutches up (eyes covered monkey emoji). I also got two, as I bought my sister a subscription for Christmas! So I was a little cheeky and swapped a few things around (shhh, don’t tell!). To be fair, she’s pink-crazy so I was kind of doing her a favour swapping her red lipstick for my pink one!

Birchbox Review: November

This month's box was a collaboration with Skinnydip London, an awesome accessories company that I’ve known about for a while. It seemed like a bit of a random pairing, and bar the box design and an add-on phone case and voucher (which you had to spend £22 to redeem anyway) there didn’t seem to be much Skinnydip influence. I was disappointed in the phone case design, as Skinnydip do a lot of really cool, quirky cases - such as this one - but the Birchbox offering was the same shell print as was on the box. I didn’t go for it because you also had to pay a small fee to have it included. The brand did take over Birchbox's Instagram page for a day, which was fun, and the box itself was packed!

Christmas Gift Guide

As it’s getting so close to the big day, I wanted to do a last-minute Christmas gift guide! I’m normally the headless chicken running around on December 23rd panic-buying; amazingly, I’ve managed to turn that around this year, but here’s what I’d be pursuing if I still had people to buy for. 

Blogs baby!

I actually find blogs to read through Instagram. I am completely addicted to Instagram - I’m forever scrolling through my feed and furiously double-tapping! Even with blogs I’ve known about for a while, I often click through to new content having read an Instagram post about it. So when I was thinking about who I might include in this “fave bloggers” post, I got straight to looking at my Instagram likes. The four lovely ladies below are the ones whose photos I “heart” almost every single time, and I’ve tried to show you why they make my Insta-feed sparkle!  

Dear Santa...

I’ve seen lots of ‘Christmas gift guides’ around, and while it’s a bit self-indulgent writing about what I’d like to find under the tree, I thought I’d share them before doing a more traditional ‘gift ideas’ post. Let me know what you think in the comments: what’s on your Christmas list? What are you thinking about getting other people? Do you like surprises or have you already shared your Amazon wishlist with all your family and friends?

Birchbox Review: October

So since I'm on a bit of a reduced budget now that Student Finance isn't my main source of income, I decided to invest in a monthly beauty box. I spend way too much money on new products every month, so I figured this was a way to try out new things without breaking the bank (and my dressing table drawers!). After a bit of research, I chose Birchbox, and I've been recording the results by posting reviews on my new Villoid profile! But as that's a rather limited platform, I wanted to include an expanded version here. This month there were a few products that I’ve decided to save, so I’m not able to review them just yet! One of the things I like most about these kinds of boxes is the size of the products; I can keep them to use when travelling! This way I save money, and have loads of luxury beauty items to use whilst I’m away. Let me know what boxes you subscribe to (or would like to!) and your opinions on the products featured, and any others!

Product review: MAC Brow Set

It is a truth universally acknowledged (or at least by everyone that looks at them) that I have the unruliest eyebrows EVER. And the funny thing is, I never really paid attention to them until everyone else did - so, basically, when Cara Delevigne came along and seemed to single-handedly bring 'bushy' eyebrows back. Initially I was thrilled, but truth be told my eyebrows can't really be identified as 'bushy'. They're actually quite sparse, but very long and curly, so do need some taming. My first foray into this new world of brow-related products was a retractable brow pencil from Sephora, that had a handy mini-comb on one end. It soon became obvious, however, that I was going to need much more help than a tiny comb... I moved onto a Revlon Brow Fantasy pencil and gel duo, but disliked the brush (too bristly) and found that the gel dried out far too quickly. A quick Google suggested MAC's Brow Set as one of the best brow gels on the market, so on a visit to Cardiff with a friend I made the purchase.