The Autumn Beauty Edit

Autumn is without shadow of a doubt, my favourite time of year. Blustering winds, drizzling rain, golden leaves and dark days are the best, and when this time of year approaches, you'll find me stocking up on Zara Scarves, dark nail polishes, and spicy candles. I'm an autumnal girl through and through.

As with every change of season, the time has come for me to shake up my makeup and beauty routine, out with the corals and in with the plums, so I thought I'd show you the products I'm going for this season. I'll link in any full reviews I've done!

Face Bases

L'Oreal Nude Magique Eau De Teint - My current everyday pick. So light you can't feel it on your skin at all, but with enough coverage to even out the skin tone. Makes your skin feel almost powdered, and gives a matter finish. This is my favourite at the moment.

Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer - Oil Free - I thought I'd throw in a high end pick. During Autumn I tend to lean for matter finishes in my bases, but this is what I lean for when I want a bit of natural glow. Low coverage, light finish and all around lovely.

Max Factor Facefinity - For long days, nights out, or when I just need a little more coverage. My favourite full coverage foundation, lasts all day with a matte finish.

Nars Laguna - I tend to ditch the bronzer in winter, but I'm not quite ready to give it up yet. I've been using a cream bronzer in the last few weeks, but I'm heading back to my old faithful. Light on the skin and not orangey at all, just adds a little glow.

Sleek Flushed - A blush I reserve solely for the colder months. The perfect pink flush, I reach for this when I go neutral on the eyes and lips, as it's a little much otherwise.

Benefit Hervana - A natural, lilac tinged pink flush, warms up the complexion beautifully.

Honourable mentions to MAC Ripe for Love, Chanel Creme Blush in Revelation.

 Eyes

Urban Decay Naked Palette - When the warmer months leave us, I shun my Naked 2 palette and reach for this. The warmer colours are perfect for the cold months. I particularly love the combo of Toasted & Hustle.

Bobbi Brown Rich Chocolate Palette - The perfect wintery palette for neutral lovers. Warm colours, with the perfect mix of matte and shimmer shades. 

NARS Fairy's Kiss Palette - Beautiful purple tones, with that infallible NARS formula.

MAC Cranberry, Sketch, Blackberry & Satin Taupe - I have two MAC palettes, but this one is the one I reach for during Autumn/Winter. I love the warm berry shades, and Satin Taupe is just gorgeous. I'm going to do a post on my MAC palettes later this week!

MAC Constructivist Paint Pot - Melted chocolate in a pot. Perfect for when faffing with eyeshadow is not ideal.

Smashbox Eyeliners in Antique Gold, Bronze Citrine, Graphite & Imperial - Pretty liners that can be smudged along the lid, can work as a base, and generally look very pretty.

 L-R MAC Russian Red, MAC All Out Gorgeous, Korres Lip Butter in Plum, MAC Sheen Supreme Lipglass Tint in Glorious Intent, Benefit Hydra-Smooth Lip Colour in Fling Thing, MAC Plumful & Rimmel Let's Get Naked

Lips

 

MAC Russian Red - I tend to save reds for Winter, they make me feel Christmassy, but Russian Red is a touch darker, than most reds.

MAC All Out Gorgeous - A berry toned red that's super glossy on the lips. I love berry colours in the Autumn! 

Korres Lip Butter in Plum - Perfect for adding a touch of colour to dry lips. This is probably my favourite colour of the lot. 

MAC Sheen Supreme Lipglass Tint in Glorious Intent - A lipstain reminiscent of the YSL glossy stains. Beautiful dark berry shade.

Benefit Hydra-Smooth Lip Colour in Fling Thing - subtle and it stays on all day. What more could you want?

MAC Plumful - A sheer berry plum colour. 

Rimmel Let's Get Naked - When I'm going for a dark smokey eye, I love a nude lip. This is slightly peach toned so it doesn't wash me out!

Honourable mentions, Revlon Lip Butter in Red Velvet & MAC Brick O La

Nails

Barry M Texture Effect Nail Paint in Countess and Duchess - I love these glitter polishes, and these might just be my favourites. 

Essie Chinchilly - Gorgeous mink grey colour.

Revlon Vixen - A beautiful red wine colour. Super sophisticated.

Skincare & Scents

Hand Dream Super Cream - Because perfectly manicured paws don't matter if they're dry and scaley! A little more intense than Hand Food. 

Ultrabland - I tend to swap out my cleansers for heavier, oil based ones, that give my skin a little more hydration. I love Ultrabland because it gets all my makeup off in one go. Super easy.

Let The Good Times Roll - Ahh it's back! Keeping my skin breakout free and radiant, I always reach for this scrub in the colder months, mostly for the popcorn scent!

Trilogy Rosehip Oil - Instead of an evening moisturiser, I reach for this, which makes my skin crazy hydrated, soft & supple. 

Nuxe Reve De Miel - Soft lips for matte lipsticks. This is the best of the bunch!

Gucci Guilty - A spicy, oriental scent, with Mandarin & Amber. Perfect spritzed onto scarves!

Lush Vanillary - Just what it says, Vanillary! Warm and comforting, this is a solid perfume that can be dabbed onto the wrists and necks and smells so yummy.

Phew! I need a lie down after that one! 

What are your favourite autumn products?

Cooking With Jaye #2 - Super Easy Cookie Cakes

I'm a low fuss sort of baker, I love the finished product, but if I'm gonna spend time cooking, I want it to be super easy, fairly speedy (so I don't loose interest) and use as few utensils as possible so I have less to clear up.

I had half an hour to kill this week and decided to whip something up using what we had in the cupboards. I much prefer to make things like cookies and flapjacks, it's so much cheaper and you can tailor them to your fancies. Plus these literally took me about ten minutes to make, and then I baked them while I got on with my work. I made these by adapting an American recipe so it works off cups, but if you don't have cup measures, just use a small coffee mug as 1 cup!

What You Need:
One cup of soft butter
One cup of sugar (you can use brown or white, they are more cakey with white and gooeyer with brown!)
Two medium sized eggs
One tbsp of Vanilla Essence
3 cups of self raising flour (or use plain and add baking powder)
Chocolate (you can use whatever chocolate you want! I used Dairy Milk Caramel as it was what I had in my cupboards, but you can use anything, or a mix! I used two bars but you need roughly 250g)

It's all super easy, pre heat your oven to 180c/350f and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Then, in a big mixing bowl beat the butter til smooth and then mix in the sugar. Add vanilla essence and eggs and beat together. Then slowly add the flour, mixing as you go. I found that after two cups, it was easier to use my hands to kneed it in as the mixture got a little thicker. The consistency shouldn't be too thick though!

Then it's chocolate chopping time! I cut each square into four, because I didn't want massive chunks, but you can cut it as big or small as you like, or have varying sizes in there (probably easier if you aren't using caramel chocolate!). Also, if you're planning on using caramel chocolate like I did, it's worth sticking the chocolate in the fridge for five minutes before you cut it, to stop all the caramel sticking to your knife! Then just mix it into the dough, it's as simple as that!

 From there, it's simply a case of spooning the mixture onto the baking tray, and sticking them in the oven. I kept mine pretty small but they still ended up as monsters! If I did them again I'd probably do them a little smaller, since they ended up huge!

Baking them is a bit of a guessing game, I'd say around 8-9 minutes, but go buy the colour, I took them out when they started to go golden round the edges. They'll be squidgy still when you take them out, but they'll harden up as they cool. I stuck them on a wire rack to cool straight from the oven, and then put them on a wooden chopping board when they were cool and put them on the coffee table when the boyfriend got home! So domesticated!

 Yum! Enjoy!

Do you have any quick and easy recipes?

Make That Hair Grow

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you'll be familiar with my neverending quest to make my hair grow. If not, long story short, I wrecked my hair with dye and had to have the lot lopped off (try saying that three times quickly). Since then, if a product even whispers of hair growth, I have to buy it.

So naturally of course, I've been working my way through the Lee Stafford line aimed at nourishing your hair into the best condition for optimum growth - that's important, remember that, this will not make your hair grow, but it will give your hair the nutrition it needs to be in the best condition possible for growing.

And of course, the pink packaging swayed my decision too.

If you are familiar with any products from this line, chances are it's this product. Treatment for Hair That Never Grows Past a Certain Length (award for longest product name ever), did it's rounds in the blogosphere a while back, and in essence is a hair mask aimed at piling nourishment into your hair for growth. Smells good, leaves hair silky smooth, and yes, my hair does grow quicker when I use this. I've been repurchasing this consistently for the past year (I even have a spare in the bottom drawer of my desk, I'm that paranoid about running out), and it's definitely my favourite product from the line. It's pricey yes, around the £10 mark, but I use this once a week and it lasts me roughly two months. For me, it's worth every penny.

Since I loved the hair mask so much, I decided on a whim to pick up the Hair Growth Conditioner too a few months back, to give my hair an extra boost during the week when I wasn't using the mask. Unfortunately, this turned out to be the one product from the line that I really didn't get on with. Firstly, I don't like the packaging, the tube is made of plastic so rigid, it's almost impossible to squeeze the product out. Factor in wet hands, and a blast of water coming from the shower and you're looking at trouble. I found that when I finally got it out of the bottle, it would squirt off in any direction except that of my hand, coating the walls of the showers. Money, quite literally, down the drain. Packaging issues aside, I didn't like the actual product either. For thick hair like mine, the product inside is far too runny to do anything, this stuff doesn't even counteract the tangled mess left by shampoo. The least I expect out of my conditioner is for it to detangle my wet hair so I can run my fingers through it, but this doesn't even do that. If you have really fine hair, this might work for you, but after using this my hair just feels like I haven't conditioned it at all.

Before I started using this Split Ends Serum, I was literally using serum just to detangle my hair, so anything that did that was great, anything else was just a bonus. The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that this isn't from the Hair Growth Line, but rather the Breaking Hair Line. I'm not sure if Lee Stafford actually do a serum in that line, but when I bought this, this was the only one. Either way, there's no point in having hair that's growing if it's riddled with split ends, and this has definitely helped with those. I just run this through the lengths (ha!) of my hair, concentrating it on the ends, once I'm out of the shower.

And lastly the Hair Growth Leave in Treatment. I quite like this and I'm now about halfway through the bottle. I mist this through my hair after applying serum & before blow drying after every shower, but if I know I'm having a shower in the morning, I like to spray a ton of this all over my hair, concentrating on the roots, before bed and then wash it out in the morning. Makes my hair silky soft!

Have you tried any Lee Stafford products? Do you have any hair growth enhancing recommendations?

Don't forget to enter my giveaway to win an Urban Decay Lipstick here!

My MAC Lipstick Collection

Prepare yourself for a photo heavy post! I have wanted to do this post for a really long time, but if I was going to do it, I wanted to do it properly and I just haven't had the time! But just for you guys, I have finally got round to doing it.

So a bit of background, I don't own that many lipsticks, but the majority of them are MAC. I just feel like MAC has every colour down, so if you're after something in particular, it's easy just to go to MAC because 99% of the time, they will have it. Yes they are expensive, but in reality, they are much cheaper than most high end lipsticks, and I'd rather buy one MAC lipstick and know that the quality is great, than two drugstore ones. Also, a lot of these were gifts (my boyfriend is very attentive when I'm swatching away) so I didn't personally pay for all of these (if I had, I would be so broke). 

I keep all my MAC lipsticks in the bottom drawer of this Muji unit, I find it's the easiest way to store them so you can see all the names without pulling them all out.

 L-R Faux, Betty Bright, Sunny Seoul, Lovelorn, Viva Glam Gaga, Lustering, Plumful, Brick O La, All Out Gorgeous, MAC Red, Ruby Woo, Russian Red

So here goes, if I have done a separate post on these I'll link them too! Prepare yourself for a lot of pictures of my face (I'm sorry!).

 Faux is a brown toned nude that I picked up on a whim one day. I really struggled to find a good nude for me, but I quite like this one. It's brown toned but it's quite warm so it doesn't wash you out. It's a Satin finish but personally, I would say this borders on matte. I tend to reach for this if I've done a smokey eye, or if I can't be bothered with reapplying all day, as the wear time of this is excellent, and when it does fade, it fades really evenly. 

 Betty Bright was a limited edition Satin finish lipstick that came out in the Archie's Girls Collection. I love the packaging of these but a lot of people didn't (it was a very marmite collection overall). It's a very warm peach lipstick that is quite pink toned (although in the 'group photo' up there it photographed super orange!). I definitely find this a little easier to wear when I have a tan but I do really like it.

Sunny Seoul was my first ever MAC purchase, so I've got a little soft spot for this. It's a baby pink but it's definitely got a hint of peach, which makes it one of those colours that really warms your complexion. It's a cremesheen formula which is definitely my favourite, despite the fact it's probably got the lowest wear time of any of the formulas. It's super creamy though (as the name would suggest) and they're great in the winter months if your lips are a little dry, as they're pretty moisturising.

Lovelorn was the second lipstick I got from MAC (a bit stupid really when you consider how similar it is to Sunny Seoul but clearly I was in a pink lip phase). I find this a little more wearable than Sunny Seoul, though I can't quite pinpoint why. It's not as bright, it's a little more neutral, and a bit more of a true pink. It's a Lustre finish so I find that it's a little bit more sheer than it's Cremesheen relatives, but still quite moisturising. This tends to end up floating around in my handbag as it sort of goes with everything.

Viva Glam Gaga - not gonna lie, I literally bought this because it was Gaga. That was it. It's a cool blue toned pink that packs a little more punch than the previous two mentions. I lean for this on nights out because it's a bit bolder. The blue tones mean that it makes your teeth look whiter too which is always nice. It's a Lustre finish but I don't find this to be particularly sheer. I think this possibly is one of the smoothest to apply, it's almost silky on the lips.

The most recent addition to my collection is Lustering a Lustre finish (No! Really!), bolder pink choice that I am literally obsessed with at the moment. You can really notice the sheerness of this one, you can wear it like I am in the above picture, or build it up for a darker look (like here). It's got red undertones which I don't normally like, but I do in this! I just think this is a really flattering colour and I've been wearing it pretty much all the time. It's not too much if you've got a dramatic eye, but equally if you do something simple, it dresses it up a bit. Firm favourite!

 Plumful is one that I'll be wearing a lot more as we head into Autumn Winter. It's quite similar to Lustering, but it's more berry toned. Again, because it's a Lustre finish you can wear it sheer as above, or pack on a bit more. I love that the Lustre finishes are so versatile. Just as with Lustering, you can wear it to pull together a simple look, or to add a little something extra to a smokey eye. I love wearing this with MAC Cranberry Eyeshadow.

Brick O La is another one that's going to get a lot more love as it gets colder. This is the only Amplified lipstick I own from MAC and I really like it, it's got fantastic, full colour pay off from the first swatch. It's almost terracotta coloured, which is mighty strange but it's really wearable. It's sort of a browny orange, and I never would have gotten it if I'd only seen the bullet, but I had seen someone wearing it and I really like how it looks on. The wear time of this can be a bit iffy, sometimes it's fine and other times I feel like it's gone very quickly, but I love this!

Another berry toned, I think All Out Gorgeous may have been limited edition, from the Mineralize range, as I haven't seen this in a MAC store for a really long time. I absolutely adore this colour, it was a birthday present from the boyfriend and he got it spot on (impressive as well since I had literally only mentioned it once, and forgotten about it myself). I love the Mineralize Rich formula, it's sheerer than Lustre finishes, but when you build it up I actually find the colour payoff way more intense than Lustres. This is like my perfect Autumn lip shade!

Onto the Reds! I bought M.A.C. Red for when I want to sport a red lip, but my lips aren't quite in the condition to be going matte, like the other options. This is a satin finish, so it's not as creamy as some of the formulas, but that's good since it means the wear time is pretty damn good. This is your classic bright red, looks good on everyone.

I think Ruby Woo is the red lipstick from MAC that everyone has. The colour is almost identical to MAC Red, but my god it's matte. This might be my most worn MAC lippie, but I really do think this is a little too matte. Like, don't even attempt this if you haven't scrubbed and moisturised your lips within an inch of their lives before hand. This is probably my go to night out shade, I just love how it looks. It's slightly berry-y, so it's quite warming, and it's a great shade for Christmas! 

Last one! Russian Red is darker than the other two reds, and probably my favourite of the three (I left it on after taking this photo, and 6 hours later it's still going strong, not one touch up needed). Because it's darker, and not as bright as the other two, I find this one a little easier to pull off in the day. It's a Matte finish like Ruby Woo, but this is nowhere near as dry! I actually find that this applies creamy and sets matte. The wear time is excellent and it doesn't go all over your face either like some reds (ahemmm, Apocalips, Rouge Volupte, Bourjois Colour Boost). 

Honestly, if you made it through all of that, I salute you. That's no mean feat that. 

I kind of feel like I have all my MAC lipstick needs fulfilled so I can't imagine I'll be buying any more any time soon!

What's your favourite MAC lipstick?

Don't forget to enter my giveaway to win an Urban Decay Lipstick here!