Rimmel Pre Tan Exfoliator & BB Sunshimmer

Rimmel Pre Tan Exfoliator - £6.99

Rimmel BB Sun Shimmer Instant Tan - £6.99

I'm not a massive fan of fake tan but every so often, usually when I'm getting a few limbs more out on show than they usually are, I will reach for it. The problem is I use it so little that there's absolutely no point in investing in the St Tropez I used to, since it was always out of date before I was even as much as a third of the way through the bottle. 

I came across the original Rimmel Sunshimmer in 'Fair Matte' a few years ago and it seemed to be the answer to my problems - it applied perfectly evenly when used with my tanning mitt and was the ideal colour to just give me some glow without adding masses of colour. Unfortunately the 'Fair' shade seems to have been discontinued and the lightest shade I can now buy is 'Light', which is darker than 'Fair' was. In the regular sun shimmer though 'Light' is a shade I can just about get away with, when used with a light hand... 

When this summer rolled around I decided to try the new Rimmel Sunshimmer Instant Tan + BB Cream and, long story short, I really wish I hadn't bothered. Maybe it's because of the BB Cream providing more coverage but 'Light' in this range is nowhere near light, you can compare it to my non tanned leg for guidance on just how ridiculously dark this product is - and that's one coat.

In terms of application I used my Hei-She tanning mitt as I'd use with any tanning product and it applied evenly - it's definitely a thicker consistency than the usual Sun Shimmer but I expected that with a BB version. It showed its full colour straight away as the other Sun Shimmer instant products have done, but other than the much darker colour I didn't really notice any BB properties to it, though maybe if I had a bruise or something on my leg I might have been in a better position to judge, I've never actually bothered putting it back on after this first go to see!

I had to properly rub at it in the shower to come off so it's not a case of apply water and rinse of - thankfully for those of us who live in the UK and will be pelted with rain as soon as we get out of a taxi on our way out - but it is definitely a wash off, one use and you're done product.

Overall it's not a bad product but the colour is way, way too dark for me, despite it being the lightest offering in the range. If you're looking for something quick on a night out and you're darker skinned than me you'll probably carry this off well and it's a great option for a one stop instant solution for last minute nights out when you've been cuddling under blankets with the central heating cranked up met days this Autumn. If you're at the paler end of the spectrum this is definitely one to give a miss.


As for the prey an exfoliator it's a good product for a reasonably price point, if you're looking for an exfoliator. For some reason I presumed the 'pre tan' but meant it was a new type of exfoliator that maybe wasn't so oil based that you could use in the shower before slapping on the tan, but it's not. Which is my own fault for chucking the bottle into my basket without reading anything. When you assume you make an ass out of u and me and all that. It's a traditional exfoliator with an oily consistency and which is quite gritty and greta at exfoliating the body, but you do still need to use it 24 hours in advance of tanning. For anyone on the hunt for a body exfoliator at a good price point then I definitely recommend it, and I love that it comes in a tube and not a tub (see my empties video here for a rant about tubes vs tubs!) but it's not anything new or any wonderful alternative to any other exfoliators on the market (or already sitting in your cupboards!)

Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes Mascara Review

Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes 4-in-1 Mascara | $20.00 Sephora | £19.50 QVC

Last Saturday I talked about the L'Oreal Telescopic Mascara and this Saturday it's the Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes mascara. Who knew I was such a mascara fiend?!

Mascara isn't something that massively excites me all that often - I got this little small size in a set of Tarte products that I bought when I was in Florida at Christmas and I definitely wouldn't have made the effort to pick it up on its own, but once I finish up a few of my mascaras that I'm currently trying to get rid of, I'll definitely be replacing this - though the fact the Sephora price is so much cheaper thanks to the conversion makes me think I'll use it as an excuse to place my first Sephora order to be shipped to the UK (along with some more of the amazing brushes I fell in love with when I was over last time!)

Whilst the L'Oreal mascara gives defined individual lashes with a lot of length this one brings volume to the table as well, without compromising on the length. According to the Sephora website this claims to volumize your lashed by 424%, I don't know if I'd go that far but it definitely adds it by the bucketload. It also claims to condition lashes, but I'm trying to use up a few mascaras at the moment so I'm switching between them and can't comment on the long term effects of that. I'm fairly lucky in that my eyelashes are already fairly curly so I also can't massively comment on the curl power of this bad boy, but if it delivers the way the lengthening and volumizing promises do then you won't be disappointed.

This mascara feels so light on the lashes, no matter how much I build it up it never gets dry or flakey or crumbly, it feels like there's nothing on my lashes, and it never smudges. I'm not a massive fan of the snakeskin purple packaging, but it's what's inside that counts and what's inside delivers, so I'll forgive the tacky snakeskin print.

All round, discounting packaging, this baby is a 10/10!

The Round Up... Clay Masks

Best For... A Truly Deep Cleanse
Origins Clear Improvements - £23.00

When my skin is feeling particularly grotty - disgusting word but it's the only one that really sums up how congested and vile my skin feels sometimes - this is the one I reach for. You only need a tiny amount of this (this tube has lasted me the best part of two years - I have a second tube of this which I got in a set last Christmas that I still have never cracked open as this one is still going strong, so the price is really ridiculously reasonable!) as clay can absorb an incredible amount, I was told just how many times its own weight it can hold but I can't remember the exact figures!

The point is you need a really thin layer of this - no slather it on and waste a tonne of product here. This is the harshest of the three on the skin so I only apply it exactly where I need it, usually round my nose and chin otherwise it could end up drying out skin if it's not really required. Having said that when you put it on skin where it is needed the results are unparalleled, it's like a vacuum for anything that could be clogging up your skin and leaving you with clear pores and no oil build up. Dry skinned girls may want to avoid but for anyone with combination or oily skin this is definitely a must have.          

My only advice would be to make sure you moisturise well - even maybe use a moisture boosting mask or serum - as as well as sucking out all the oil and grime clogging you up, it can also strip even the oiliest skin of moisture, so make sure to replace it!



Best For... A Gentle, Non Drying Cleanse
REN Invisible Pores Detox Mask - £18.00

Of the three this is the one I like the least, it does it's job, but just not any better than the Una Brennan version. It's much more gentle than the Origins one and can be slathered all over - though I find my eyes sting if I take it too high up on my nose or cheeks, which doesn't happen with either of the other two options. Once it's slathered on though it definitely does what it is supposed to and removes the clogging dirt and oil without stripping the skin, so worth having if you're a REN loyalist or there's a 'buy two products and get x free' - which there currently is on Feel Unqiue, where I've linked up to. If you're reading this later and that offer is finished M&S are always running offers on their beauty hall - offers well worth keeping an eye on. Overall there's nothing massively wrong with this product or anything for me to put you off buying it, but I just think the Una Brennan one does a really similar job and is half the price.

With mentioning- you get 50ml of this product for £18, whereas you get 100ml of the Origins Clear Improvements for £23 or 125ml of the Una Brennan for £8.99, so it's half the size of the Origins and less than half the size of the Una Brennan.



Best For... A Gentle, Non Drying Cleanse On A Budget
Una Brennan Deep Clean Pore Purifying Clay Mask - £8.99

The packaging and name of this product seems to have changed since I picked it up - to the Salicylic Acid Anti Blemish Clay Mask, but I think it's pretty much the same product.

This does a really similar job to the REN version, it will clean out your skin without drying it - funnily enough I tried the cleanser from the Una Brennan Tea Flower range i.e. the deep cleaning range, and it dried my skin out horribly - I definitely don't have this problem with this mask. When I was commuting to Edinburgh over the summer for the Fringe Festival there was just something about being on a train for the best part of four hours a day (not to mention the 'grab it and go' nature of my diet - I was leaving the house at seven and arriving home at nine, every meal I ate was some form of fast food or, at best, an M&S sandwich) that left my skin feeling pretty congested. I slapped this mask on almost every second night to no adverse reactions and it definitely helped to prevent any of the grime I could feel living on my skin turning in to anything on the surface.

This only needs to be on the skin for five minutes to do it's job so it's also a great one if you're rushed for time and don't want to be sitting around for ages waiting on it drying it etc.




All in all, the Una Brennan is a great high street cleansing mask that I reach for quite a lot and will repurchase, but for a truly deep cleanse Origins is the only one to cut it. As for the REN? I'll use it up, it's not a bad product, but I won't bother replacing it once it's gone.

L'Oreal Telescopic Mascara Review

L'Oreal Telescopic Mascara

Now, here's the thing. This mascara isn't online. Not on boots.com or on Feel Unique, it does appear on the L'Oreal website but you can't actually shop from their own site?! And for about two years I could never find it in a store, so I'm not sure what's going on there. When I saw this in Boots recently I swooped in and grabbed it, unsure if I was dreaming or if this was actually reality - which it thankfully seems to be.

If you see this mascara in a store, grab it. That's the L'Oreal telescopic in the gold tube, not the silver. Whether it was discontinued and has only just been brought back, whether there's just been a strange shortage of it for a few years or whether it's back for good I'm not taking the risk and I'm prepared to stock up.

In case you can't tell I love this mascara. I grabbed it at the airport way, way back in 2010 and have been repurchasing since then - not many products can claim that in my collection - until the official drought of 2011-mid 2014 happened. It was a harrowing and heart breaking time which saw me only really buying high end mascaras as nothing else really satisfied me. But now it's back!

During the drought I did try the L'Oreal Telescopic False Lash Effect (the silver tube), hoping it would be the same, and boy did it fall short. It was clumpy, did absolutely nothing for the length of my lashes and smudged about under the eyes within a few minutes of application. Just not for me.

Why when they're from a similar range they're so different I don't know, but this one just ticks all the right boxes for me. It adds a good amount of length without being too much for day time, as seen in the above pictures, but you can also layer it up for a more dramatic look on a night out. And no matter how much I layer this mascara up it always seems to manage to not clump. You know that 'I may have really long lashes but I actually only have 3 of them' look? Yeah, you don't get that with this little wonder tube. In terms of lasting power it stays all day with no smudging under the eyes (a serious rarity) but it still comes off reasonably easily, the majority comes off with my cleansing balm and then I'll go in with a tiny bit of eye make up remover on a cotton pad to remove the rest. And it just comes off, no tugging or pulling required.

So, all in all? I'm back in love with this mascara and I have my fingers firmly crossed that it's here to stay this time!

Statement Eye and Statement Lip

Today's what's on my face post is worked around having a strong eye and a strong lip look and not coming out looking like a clown.

To avoid looking like a 5 year old gone ape in her mother's dressing room it's best to keep the eye colours not at the black end of the colour spectrum - here I've created a gold, green and brown look that is strong enough to make a statement without fighting the red lip for the most attention. I used a gold shadow from a Sephora palette I bought a few Christmases ago and placed that on the inner corner, any shimmery gold shade will work as it's just a tiny bit right on the inner corner, then swept the green shadow - Bella Pierre's Discoteque which is a green with gold chimer running through it, all over the lid and under the eye. I'm not a massive fan of mineral make up for the face but I enjoy using the powders on my eyes and they're a great go to for anyone with sensitive eyes like me who still wants colour choice and pigment pay off. I then used the Bella Pierre shadow in the shade Cocoa in the crease and swept it along under the join with the green/gold under the eye, all done using my Real Techniques Base Shadow Brush (set currently reduced on Feel Unique). So that my eyes didn't get lose amongst all the shadow I used my Mac eyeliner in the shade Mystery - a limited edition shade, but any forrest green eye liner would do, Mac's Tarnish looks similar judging by the website. To frame the eyes I used the Rimmel eyebrow pencil in the shade Hazel, and finished off with my Clinique High Impact Extreme Volume mascara.

Lip wise I used the Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet in the shade Hot Pepper. If I'm honest I'm not totally sold on this one, I love the same product in the shade Peach Club but the formulas of both feel completely different and this one is a lot wetter. Although it's not showing up massively in the photos it's quite a glossy finish on this one and just not what I'd expect from something called 'velvet'. It does last a really long time though and once it's set it doesn't move about the face despite the glossy finish so it's a good one if a glossy look is your preference, I'm just very loyal to the old matte red lip look.

The skin was definitely the background of this look - I used my MAC studio sculpt foundation, it has a dewy finish and is great for anyone with dry skin or for when you've gone on a holiday that's involved a long plane journey, but I'm not sure I'll be repurchasing when it eventually runs out. Concealer wise I went drugstore with the 17 Phwoarr paint, it's really similar to my favourite Mac Studio Finish concealer or the Benefit Boi-ing, so definitely worth a look for those of you on a budget who like some seriously heavy duty coverage.

I used the Kevyn Aucoin sculpting powder to try and create a little bit of definition to my round face using my beloved MAC 168 brush and blush wise I opted for Mac's Coppertone, an orangey copper that defines the face but won't fight for attention with the eyes and lips. I dusted the tops of my cheekbones with the Bourjois Java Rice Powder using the Real Techniques setting brush and that was me done!

Classic Red Lips

I'm so sorry I haven't updated in absolutely ages but between my internship and the Edinburgh commute 5 days a week my days off have been spent pretty bare faced and this was one of the first days I actually bothered to put some make up on my face!

My favourite look has always been classic red lips; growing up I was obsessed with old hollywood movies and glamour and all I wanted was to be grown up like those beautiful ladies in the films of the 50s with their immaculate red lips - which probably explains my out of control collection of red lipsticks.

One of the most glamorous I own though is this Dolce & Gabbana lipstick in the shade Devil (£24.00), the colour is just the most beautiful classic red which would suit so many skin tones, but that gold packaging really cinches it. If I'm off to a party this is always the lipstick I reach for, purely because bringing it out to reapply in the ladies will always cause a murmur of appreciation amongst my fellow powder roomers and always means I end every party with at least one new female friend after this little wonder has started the conversation. For me a classic red lip like this means precision and I lined my lips with Illamasqua's lipliner in Strumpet (£15.00) - doesn't the name make you love it a little bit more? Unfortunately Strumpet was part of a Valentine's Day collection and is no longer available but any red will do - MAC's Redd (£12.50) is another of my favourites and a safe, classic red to work with any red lipstick.

To match the perfect lip you need a perfect complexion - Estee Lauder Doublewear foundation (£29.50) provides a flawless base, whilst Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer (£22.00) brightens and conceals under the eyes. The newest product I used here was Bare Minerals Radiance Powder* (£19.00) in the shade Clear Radiance. This definitely added a soft blur effect to my skin and made it look a lot more perky, so it's a product I'll be reaching for more often from now on!

On my cheeks I went for MAC blush in Stubborn (£20.00), a beautiful berry shade I just can't get enough of, and since I'm apparently a MAC addict I also used their Soft and Gentle highlighter (£23.00) on the tops of my cheekbones.

To balance the lips I went for a fairly neutral eye, filling in my eyebrows with my Anastasia Brow Whiz (£15.50) and then went in with my Cargo Vintage Escape Eyeshadow Palette (£35.00) - using a base of Cuddle all over the lid and on the inner corner, Frolic in the centre and Rustic on the outer V, as well as sweeping some under the eye. Lashes are my favourite YSL mascara (£24.50) in the shade Rich Brown, just to stop the look from being too done and a bit more night time.

Green Eyes

When I first started out wearing make up I made a little bit of a rookie error and went through a phase (I say phase, this probably lasted several years) of matching my eyeshadow to my outfit. Blue dress? Blue eyeshadow. Purple top? Purple eyeshadow. Yellow jumper? Yellow eyeshadow. So on and so forth. As I became more comfortable with make up this evolved from purely being one shadow smudges across the lid to multiple shadows blended out in elaborate smokey eyes - three different shades of turquoise, one across the lid, one in the crease, one under the eye. And, due to my OCD, if I was wearing an outfit with more than one colour then you can bet your bottom dollar I'd have all the colours of the outfit involved on my eyes somehow. I also wasn't a fan of blending the edges and liked a nice harsh racoon look in whatever colour matched the outfit going on. *Shudder*

Anyway, I one day realised this probably wasn't the best look and went really far in the other way, I began to only apply things that were taupe or brown to my eyes and it was probably the best part of a year before I even went as far as applying a black smokey eye again. What this means is that I'd built myself up quite the collection of coloured eyeshadows and when I ordered my blogger-requisite Muji storage last year I did the final purge and binned most of the ones that were still lingering. But not all.

I have always been told green shades have really suited me as my eyes have green in them which sometimes comes out to play (they can range from gold to amber to brown to green in the space of a few hours) and something made me hold on to a few of these green eyeshadows.

You can see my first attempt at picking these back up in last August's London video here. Now, in all fairness I don't think I had the camera at the best angle and I was filming with my back to the light so I think the video is making it all look a little bit worse than it actually is, but watching it back was enough to make me put the eyeshadows safely away again.

It wasn't until recently when I was looking at photos of Olivia Palermo's wedding that I noticed just how heavy Olivia's eye make up was in comparison to her usual (I like to spend a lot of my spare time looking at pictures of Ms Palermo, or Mrs Huebl!) - she has a really dark brown across her whole lid but the eye doesn't look OTT or dramatic.

It got me thinking - could I use this theory to apply a coloured eyeshadow without looking like a 4 year old had gone rampant with the colouring in pens across my face? I think the above result speaks for itself.

I actually really, really like it.

By restricting the colour just to the lids the colour itself becomes much less of a statement and less overpowering to the whole make up look, although this eyeshadow is bright green the overall look is a really pretty, everyday make up look that I'd be happy to wear to run into the library at uni or head to the shops in - no matter what colour I was wearing!

To achieve it I used an Estee Lauder duo which is no longer - washing the basic light shadow all over my eyes and over the inner corners, you just want any old Mac Brûlée-esque shade, just to create a base and to be honest you could probably skip the step altogether if you fancied. I then went in with the green from the duo, which is Ivy Envy and still available to buy as an individual shadow, and took that all over the lid on a Prestige eye shadow brush - which is again no longer available but any blending brush will do. (I'm really showing just how long I've been into make up for here, and just how long it takes me to use products up or admit that it's time to just bin them because they're clearly way past their use-by date!)

Using the same brush I then picked up some of the brighter green shade by Urban Decay, Krush, and blended some of that just in a line in the centre of my eye lid so it would catch the light when I closed my eyes without making it into a dramatic 12 tones smokey eye. I then lined with a really thin line of Stila's Smudge Stick Eyeliner in the shade Moray (the green one!) just to add a tiny bit of definition. I didn't want to stray into making anything about the look besides the colour itself dramatic though, so it was a very very thin line. My top tip for a thin line of eyeliner is to draw it almost along your eyelashes rather than your eyelid - if you press more of the weight of the product on your lashes it means you get the thinest line on the lid and once you apply mascara any colour that might be on your lashes disappears. in terms of mascara I opted for the Clinique High Impact Extreme Volume Mascara which is starting to dry up and will need replaced soon but is still performing to the last - very impressed with it! As for my eyebrows, I filled them in with the Rimmel Eye Pencil in 002 Hazel and brush through with a MAC 204.

I had powdered with my Make Up Forever HD Powder (nice powder to have if you're into filming things but totally not necessary if you're not doing stuff on camera as it doesn't work well with flash photography so you'd only really get the benefits of it in day-time photos, depends how flawless you want those holiday snaps to be!) before applying the make up so was able to brush most of the fall down off anyway, but my top concealer for topping up after powder is the Estee Lauder Disappearing Smoothing Creme Concealer. It's not my HG concealer but it is the best for blending in and topping up without every going cakey and it works really well for topping up on a night out after you've applied powder as it blends in so seamlessly.

So there you have it - how I applied a coloured eyeshadow and came out of it unscathed! Going to experiment with different colours and see how it comes out - I will master you blue eyeshadow, I will!