The Christmas Gift Guide: Benefit Love At First Shine

You guys know that I'm not big on lipglosses, I'm particularly fussy about stickiness, but I do have a soft spot for Benefit's glosses, so I jumped on this set when I saw it in Boots.

This Christmas gift set contains six of Benefit's Ultra Plush Lipglosses, which I love. They are completely and 100% not sticky in the slightest, they have good colour pay off, smell good, and they last a surprising amount of time.

A-Lister, is a nude peach gloss that kinda goes with everything. I've been particularly loving it with Rimmel Let's Get Naked and Bobbi Brown Sheer Lip Colour in Tutu. Fauxmance is a light brown toned nude, that looks awesome over lipsticks like MAC Faux. Kiss You is a striking purple gloss, that I love layering over plum lipsticks to add a purple toned, but it's definitely quite subtle. I particularly like this with MAC Plumful & Syrup. Lollibop is a bright blue toned pink that I like to wear alone, or over my Maybelline Baby Lips in Cherry Me, or my Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet in 37 L'Exuberante. Poutrageous is a bright orange peach, although it does sheer out on application. This looks great to brighten up nudey peach lipsticks like Rimmel Let's Get Naked, or on a brighter peach like MAC Betty Bright. Lastly is Ice Breaker which is completely clear, making it great for everything, but I particularly love it with red lips. 

If you are in need of a last minute gift for a beauty lover, or any teenage girly girl, this is definitely it! It's only £19.50, which means you could even get away with treating yourself...

What do you think of this set? Have you tried any Benefit lipglosses? What are your favourite glosses?

Check out my other Christmas Gift Guides here!

The Christmas Gift Guide: Gifts for Beauty Lovers

Benefit Groovy Kind Of Love Tin - £29.50 // Diptyque Orange Chai Candle - £45 // Nails Inc Three Week Manicure Kit - £25 // Laura Mercier Mini Caviar Sticks - £28 // Lipstick Queen Purple Festive Favourites Cracker - £25 // Aromatherapy Associates Miniature Bath Oil Collection - £32 // Origins Morning To Midnight Set - £40 // Giorgio Armani Si - £38.99 // Nars Crime Of Passion Face Kit - £35 // Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette - £37 // Urban Decay Eye Arsenal - £23

Ahhh Christmas beauty sets. Is there anything in this world better? I don't think so. You guys have probably seen a ton of them by now, but I thought I'd share my favourites with you. I love all of these, but on my Christmas list in particular is the Naked 3 Palette (I'll be outside Debenhams before it opens I promise!), a bottle of Giorgio Armani Si, and the Diptyque Orange Chai Candle (I'm gonna keep an eye out for this in the sales).

I think the Lipstick Queen Cracker is amazing, a lip brush, lipstick and nail polish in a little cracker, so cute! The Nars palette is perfect for any girls on the go, and the Urban Decay Eye Arsenal is amazing, such good value for money!

Check out my other Christmas Gift Guides here! 


What beauty bits are on your Christmas list?

The Christmas Gift Guide: Stocking Fillers/Gifts Under £30

Yankee Candle Small Jar - Christmas Cookie £6.29 // Juice Cube, Emergency Phone Charger - £24.95 // Merry Christmas Mug - £6.00 // Lush Candy Mountain Bubble Bar - £2.65 // Personalised Wooden Star - £10 // Soap and Glory Butter Set - £8 // Super Chunky Beanie - £19 // Reindeer Slipper Socks - £7.99 // Best of Benefit Gift Set - £29.50 // Origins Christmas Bauble - £12 // Christmas Character Nail Wraps - £6 // Uncommon iPhone 5 Case - £24.95 // Topshop Ditsy V Band Rings - £5.50 // Festive Pendant Diffuser - £5

I absolutely LOVE Christmas Stockings, there is nothing more exciting than waking up and realising a) it's Christmas morning, and b) there's a bag full of presents at the end of the bed. And since it is now officially December, we are allowed to get excited about these sorts of things. So here is a big mix of products that are on my Christmas list, and things I think are just so cute.

Yankee Candle Small Jar - Christmas Cookie: Candles are so great for christmas stockings, I particularly love the Yankee small jars, they're the perfect size for slipping in the bottom of a stocking. I picked out a festive scent that I love, but you could go for any fragrance! Much cheaper than Diptyque too.

Juice Cube, Emergency Phone Charger: This is top of my Christmas list this year. With phones getting more and more expensive with worse and worse battery life, this is a must for being out and about, particularly if you're a twitter addict! They come in so many colours too.

Merry Christmas Mug: How cute is this mug? I love the idea of getting a cute mug in your stocking, to make a cup of tea in on Christmas morning. 

Lush Candy Mountain Bubble Bar: For the girly girl, why not chuck in one of her favourite bath bombs? My favourite is Phoenix Rising, but the Candy Mountain Bubble Bar is a sweet girly scent, and you can easily get three baths out of it. 

Personalised Wooden Star: One of my favourite places to buy Christmas gifts is Not On The High Street. I came across this gorgeous Wooden Star, and you can have it personalised with any message or quote you like. This would look so beautiful on the unit at the end of my bed! £10 is such a bargain for this!

Soap and Glory Butter Set: For the beauty lover in your life, this little set contains three mini body butters from Soap and Glory. Since I have, ahem, the full size of all three included, ahem, I can vouch for how good they are! A good gift for little sisters and such.

Super Chunky Beanie: For someone who used to hate hats, I'm now a total beanie addict. This is a great option for men and women, since in England, you can guarantee January and February will be freezing.

Reindeer Slipper Socks: I LOVE novelty Christmas socks. Like I love them so much I want to run out and buy these right now. Primark, Topshop and Newlook all have great ones at the moment! And you need something festive on your feet for the big day...

Best of Benefit Gift Set: An awesome gift set for someone just getting into makeup, or as a treat for someone who doesn't normally dabble in high end makeup. I've used all the products in this kit, and they are all brilliant.

Origins Christmas Bauble: This is a brilliant gift for any woman. Mums, Nans, Sisters, Aunts, Girlfriends, you name it, they'll love it. It's a gorgeous bauble stuffed with five Origins miniatures. Origins is definitely one of my favourite skincare brands, I have yet to try anything from them I don't like!

Christmas Character Nail Wraps: How adorable are these nail wraps? Nail wraps are super easy to apply, so finding these in your stocking on Christmas morning would be great, you'd easily be able to pop them on before breakfast.

Uncommon iPhone 5 Case: I'm on the hunt for a new phone case, I'm trying to narrow it down between this one and one I've seen on Not On The Highstreet. This one though is really durable and the design is so cute.

Topshop Ditsy V Band Rings - £5.50: You can't really go wrong with jewellery in a Christmas stocking, I particularly love these cute rings from Topshop, they'd go with everything!

Festive Pendant Diffuser: I love this, it's a little pendant that you can hang on your tree or in your room, and it smells like gingerbread. Need I say anymore?

Check out my other Christmas Gift Guides here!

What would you like to see in your Christmas Stocking this year? Are you excited for Christmas yet?

The Christmas Gift Guide: NARS Promiscuous Lip Set

 What better Christmas Gift for a beauty lover, than a set of five miniature Nars Lip Pencils? 

Nars have really done well with their Christmas Collection this year, there's a really good selection and they are great value for money too. These pencils retail for £17.50 full size, so to get all of these, plus a makeup bag for £30 is a pretty good deal.

In the set are four Velvet Matte Pencils and one one Velvet Gloss.

New Lover is the only Velvet Gloss pencil of the bunch. It's a pretty light pink colour, the bullet looks slightly shimmery, but that doesn't translate on the lips. It's a great everyday colour, that kinda goes with everything, I particularly love it with this blush (Chanel Creme Blush in Revelation). 

Sex Machine is a lot lighter a pick than I would usually go for, and it's the mattest of the bunch. I exfoliated my lips and put on balm before putting this on and it still made my lips look dry and cracked, so I think it would probably need a balm or gloss on top. However, I do quite like the colour, more than I thought I would. I'll probably wear this a lot more in the spring!

Never Say Never is another colour I wouldn't normally choose, it's a barbie-esque blue toned pink, but again I really like this. This one didn't feel anywhere near as matte as Sex Machine, it didn't tug on the lips when I applied it, and it felt smooth. The wear time of the matte pencils is amazing, I got nearly eight hours wear out of this before I topped it up.

Dolce Vita is a weird one, in the bullet it looks like a terracotta sort of colour, but on the lips it's more of a dark peach pink, it's quite subtle and could almost be classed as a nude. I've been wearing this a tonne the last few weeks, and I really like it. 

Ahhh matte red lips. This is what I will be sporting for 99% of the Christmas season. Cruella is a true red, brighter than MAC's Ruby Woo, comparable in colour to M.A.C Red, but with a matte finish. This to me is the perfect holiday lip colour, the wear time is incredible, and whilst it's matte, it's not in any way drying. 

Nars did a really good job when picking what colours to include, each of these pencils is really wearable, and there's something for everyone. This is a great little gift set, for a fellow beauty lover, or a treat for yourself! I love the makeup bag too, it's perfect for keeping all my beauty bits together in my handbag.

After trying all these, I've started a bit of a love affair with Nars Lip Pencils, and I'll definitely be stopping by the counter to have a look at a few more...

Have you tried any Nars Lip Pencils? Which of these is your favourite?

The Christmas Wishlist

Le Creuset Mixing Jug in Teal // Cups Measures // Hand Blender // Amethyst GHD's // 40mm Pancake Lense // Giorgio Armani Si // Zara Leggings // Zara Scarf // Therapie Himalayan Detox Bath Salts // Lush Let The Good Times Roll

The Christmas season is fast approaching guys, after this weekend there's only 6 shopping weekends left. That's right, six.

So I thought I'd share the bits I'd love to see wrapped up under my Christmas tree this year. The main thing is a new pair of straighteners, mine died at the end of the summer and I've been using my mum's old pair, which to be honest, are not in the greatest shape. My Mum now has a set of the new ones, and when I'm back home I always borrow them, and I'm constantly amazed at how glossy and soft they make my hair.

I've been getting much more into cooking since I've had my new flat and a reasonable sized kitchen (i.e. not a microwave and a square centimeter of sideboard) but my cupboards are lacking a few bits. A lot of the recipes I try out are American and use cups as a measurement, which is great since I don't have any scales, but not so great, since I don't have any cups measures either. Cups are definitely an easier measurement to work off, so a set of these would be great. Also for the kitchen, I'd love a hand held blender so I can make soups, and the Le Creuset mixing bowl I spotted in TKMaxx (for a bargain £10) to replace my one battered plastic mixing bowl. I already have a couple of bits from the Teal Le Creuset range, so it would make a welcome addition!

Something I've had my eye on for six months or so, is a new lense for my camera. I currently have the kit lense, and the 50mm lense. I love the 50mm lense because it blurs the background beautifully, and creates super sharp images, but it's really zoomed in, so it's not really much cop for taking product photos, and it's also still very big! Because of that I tend to use the kit lense for taking photos for the blog, but the quality isn't as great as that of the 50mm. A tonne of research led me to the 40mm lense, which is expensive but seems to always be on offer for around £100 somewhere. The 40mm gives the same aperture effect as the 50mm, but the image quality is even better, and it's not as zoomed in. Also, another bonus, it's tiny, meaning when I'm lugging my camera around London, it won't be as heavy!

I fell in love with the Giorgio Armani Si perfume when it launched, I'm a sucker for sweet scents! I love this perfume, and I don't really have one similar. Somehow I have managed to resist buying this since September, but I feel my resolve slipping!

I already have one pair of these Zara Leggings, but I barely take them off, so I could do with an extra pair. I'm also addicted to Zara's Tartan Scarves, I already have a couple and I've wanted this one for ages but it's always sold out!

And last but not least, I'm going to be running out of my favourite skincare product right around Christmas! And who doesn't love skincare?

What's on your Christmas wishlist?

The Christmas Gift Guide - The Sweet Lushie

 I know, I know, you don't even want to think about Christmas yet, but the fact of the matter is that the season to be jolly is almost upon us, and the number of shopping days left are fast disappearing. So here I am with another Christmas gift set to propel you into motion.

It's no secret on this here blog that yours truly is a mahooooosive Lush fan (no idea where I get it from, my mum can't stand the stuff!), so you had to know a Lush gift was coming your way. I stood in front of all the Christmas gift sets in the Liverpool Street Station Branch, almost convincing myself to pay £125.95 for this bad boy, before the sales assistant pointed out this set, The Sweetest Thing, which comes in at a much more conservative £11.95.

So what's inside? 

Sweetie Pie Shower Jelly is one of the first Lush products I ever owned, way back when my dad did some work for Lush. This stuff is literally like jelly, it's soft and wobbly and it smells just like Vimto. It's not the easiest stuff to maneuver in the shower, it's so squidgy, but it's worth it because the scent absorbs into your skin, making you smell deliciously edible all day long. 

 Massage bars are another product that I haven't had in a really long time, so I was quite excited to find this inside! Shimmy Shimmy is a Vanilla scented massage bar, packed with iridescent gold shimmer, perfect for party season! It's super moisturising and leaves a gorgeous shimmer on your skin, so I'll be reserving this for nights out, but it's definitely persuaded me to pick up another, non-glittery one to retry!

Snow Fairy fans, rejoyce, because this soap is available year round and carries the same scent, which is bizarre, because I can't stand Snow Fairy, it's too sickly sweet for me, but I LOVE this. Lush soaps are relatively new to me, but this is definitely one of my favourites. It smells incredible and lathers up nicely. If you aren't a fan of Snow Fairy don't be put off, because this definitely isn't as intense, it's really lovely!

In short, this is a perfect Christmas gift for any sweet scent lovers out there!

Have you tried any of these products?

It's Christmas Time With Benefit

 It's that time of year again, I hate to say it but it's nearly Christmas already. I know, I know, it feels like it was only Christmas about a month ago, but somehow, we are in October, and Christmas launches are popping up like elves, left right and center.

Whilst Lush releases and Soap and Glory gift sets were high on my lists of products to check out, I was also excited to see what Benefit would pull out of their hat.

The Christmas Collection is mostly made up of sets of miniatures, so if you are looking to try out Benefit products, they're a great idea. However, I am no stranger to Benefit (read: I've got 99% of their products) so this set, Luv It UP, was actually the only set that didn't contain a single product I haven't got/tried.

I love the packaging of this set, it's a cute 20's style tin, which looks ever so pretty out on my side, and I definitely will be reusing it when I use all the products up!

First up, their three bestselling eyeshadows (neutrals of course), Call My Buff, a brilliant base colour or good for the browbone, Nude Swings, a beautiful peachy copper with a hint of shimmer and Thanks A Latte, a shimmery brown that is perfect for the crease or as a liner.

As expected, the quality of these shadows is great, they're super pigmented and soft, and they last well on the lid.

 RSVP is a peachy pink toned shimmery cream shadow, that makes the perfect base for shadow, a great inner corner highlight and it's also a lovely colour to wear alone on the lid, I find it really wakes your eyes up. In terms of formula, this stuff stays put all day with ease, not budging til you go wild with the makeup remover. I didn't expect to like this, since it does appear quite pink toned, but it doesn't translate that way at all!

Last but not least a mini gloss! I'm not a gloss girl at all, but everyone does go wild over Benefit Glosses so I was keen to see what all the fuss is about. This is Dandelion, which is slightly peach coloured but looks nude with a hint of shimmer on the lips. It's ever so pretty and not at all sticky which makes me more inclined to wear it! It also smells incredible, like sweet peaches, my favourite scent! I'm very impressed with this gloss and will definitely be looking at Benefit's glosses a little closer in the future.

Call My Buff, Nude Swings, Thanks a Latte, RSVP, Dandelion

So the verdict? This is a great little set. Especially when you consider that the Cream Shadow alone would retail at £14, and this set comes in at a bargain £19.50. Buy one for you, and all your friends.

What are your favourite Christmas gift sets?

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