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.

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: 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.