Storing your makeup brushes

For a while now, I have just been throwing my makeup brushes into a bag and hadn't realized how much damage it was causing my brushes. I thought I would share with you how I store my brushes.

The Marilyn Monroe boxes were a gift and I store my brushes in the last box. I keep my everyday makeup in the middle box and small things (cotton buds, cotton pads, swabs, etc) in the top box. I usually keep the perfume I am currently using on top so that it is convenient. On the right, you can see that I try and keep my brushes neat so that they do not lose their shape.

I found these ideas online and I thought they were clever!

Using a office spindle to store brushes and other small things (source) 

Using old jars and filling them with beads (source)

June Favourites

Can you believe we are halfway through this year? Time has gone by so quickly. I have six months left of my degree (hopefully) and 7 months left till my braces come off!

Anyways, on to my favorites for June! Oh and I apologize for the quality of my pictures. My memory card of my camera has decided to play hide and seek with me.

Vitamin E moisture cream- I have been using this every night since I got it. You can read my review here.
Stila Convertible Colour- I love cream blushers and this one is perfect because it has a little mirror in side and it can be used as a lip color too.
Loreal Liss Extreme- This hair oil has been helping maintain my hair whenever I straighten it. It also makes y hair incredible soft.
Simple Moisturiser- I use this moisturizer during the day and I love it. I shall have a review up next week.
Essence Lash and Brow Gel- I recently became obsessed with maintaining my eyebrows and this is a good brow gel for its price (R29.99).

What were some of your favorite products for June?

PS: This is how my weekend has started.

May Favorites

Another month has gone buy and we are now half way through this year! Time really has gone by quite quickly. Today, as the title says, I will be showing you my May Favorites.

Sorry about the quality of this picture. I have been trying to figure out how to take pictures when there is absolutely no sun out. Got to love winter hey.

Here are this months favorites:
Lily Cole Puff on Radiance from The Body Shop
The Body Shop released the Lily Cole range a while back but I managed to pick up this adorable highlighter on sale. I love that the shimmer in it is quite subtle. I will definitely have a full review up soon.

Stila Hydrating Finishing Powder
This is the only finishing powder that I have come across that does not make my skin look incredibly dry. I do not think I could use another finishing powder after trying this one.

Nivea Naturally Even Moisturizer
Theres not much I can say about this moisturizer. Its perfect for combination skin and does not leave my skin looking oily, which is a look I always try and go for.

Mac Paint Pot in Groundwork
If you follow me on instagram, you will know that I picked up a few Mac goodies, including the Paint Pot. I love that I can wear this as a eyeshadow base or as an eyeshadow on its own. It is a perfect natural everyday color.

Estee Lauder Pure Colour Eyeshadow palette 
My sister received this palette as a gift a while back and decided to give it to me. I love that there are so many neutral colors in it and that it comes with a really good  quality brush.

If you would like me to review any of these products, please let me know.

Finding your perfect match

Have you ever wanted to A) buy a foundation online or B) go into a store and leave with a foundation without swatching 10 different shades? I have always been too scared to order foundation online because I was never sure if the shade would be right. I recently came across a website that helped me out so much with my two little problems.

Findation.com (have a look at their site here) is an online service that allows you to enter your current foundations and they will come up with the perfect shade in a different brand for you. You need to enter at least 3 different foundations to allow their site to help you.

You have to give them a few details of each foundation. They require the brand, the product and the shade that you are.

Above you will see the three different foundations that I use regularly and below you will see the foundation recommendations they gave me.

I found this incredibly helpful. I feel a lot more confident about ordering foundations online. I had a Revlon foundation nearby and I checked their recommendation for that foundation. They had recommended the exact shade that I owned. I was really impressed that they had gotten it right and I will visit this site before ordering a foundation online or before a shopping trip!

Have you ever used Findation? Would you?

April Favourites

We are already one week into May and I am a bit delayed but these are my most reached for products for April. I decided to make this a monthly feature on my blog because I love reading other peoples monthly favorites posts.

Sun screen may seem to be a strange on my list of favorites but I have found that Cape Towns weather is quite confusing lately. This bottle of sunscreen is tiny. I can pop it in my bag and if I see I require something with a higher SPF, I can just use this. The Stila Tinted moisturizer, in the shade Tan, is perfect for college because it covers quite well and it dries with a matte finish. I am completely obsessed with concealer and I am currently testing the MAC Moisture Cover concealer in the shade NC 35. I absolutely love it and I have no complaints. I have mentioned before that I love Pretty by Elizabeth Arden and I found myself grabbing that bottle every morning. My MAC creme blend blush in Posey is something I use daily because my skin has been dry lightly and a cream blush helps hide that.
I have saved the best for last. My Real Techniques Stippling brush. Real Techniques is not available in South Africa but a cousin of mine ordered this online for my birthday. I know you read my blog, so thank you! I can never go back to using a normal foundation brush now.

Have you tried any of the products I mentioned about? What products have you been using a lot lately?

Stila in the light review and eyes of the day

I was never an eyeshadow fan until I saw this Stila eyeshadow palette. This palette is called "In the light" and contains a mixture of matte and shimmery eyeshadows as well as an eyeliner in a dark brown shade called "Damsel". This palette also contains the very famous Stila eyeshadow, Kitten (which I have abused as you can see in the picture below).

Top row: Bare, Kitten, Bliss, Sunset, Sandstone.  Bottom Row: Bubbly, Glided Gold, Luster, Night Sky, Eboney

The palette contains 5 matte shadows (Bare, Bliss, Sandstone, Luster and Ebony) and 5 shimmer shadows ( Kitten, Sunset, Bubbly, Gilded Gold and Night Sky). The eyeliner I received in this palette works wonderfully but I found that once you push the eyeliner up, you cannot push it down again. I am not too sure if mine was faulty or if this eyeliner has a design flaw.

The shimmery shadows are more pigmented than the matte shadows which works in my advantage because I tend to wear matte shadows daily. Its easier to do an everyday look with matte shadows that are build able so that you do not end up with a dramatic look during the day time. They are also incredible soft and easy to blend. It is also long lasting and does not crease. I have worn this without an eyeshadow primer and it still looked good by the end of the day.
I decided to do a look with these shadows today and I only used the matte shadows and Kitten in the corner of my eye just to add a little bit of sparkle.

I placed Bliss all over the lid as a base, Sandstone over that to give it some color, Ebony in the crease and outer corner of my eye and Kitten in the inner corner of my eye.

I then added a coat of my favorite mascara, Mac's Opulash Optimum Black and I used the eyeliner that came with this palette on my lower lash line.

A very big thank you to everyone who read and commented on my blog this week. Your support is highly appreciated. I hope everyone has a good and fun filled weekend. 

College Essentials

Bag purchased from Woolworths. View their other cosmetic bags hereBesides having books, a laptop and a pencil bag (with absolutely no pens in it) I also have a very bright pink bag in my college bag. I keep my daily essentials in there so that they do not roll around and get lost. I cannot even explain to you how some of my friends laugh when I whip this bag out. I hear comments like "Bagception" and "Are you sure that bag is bright enough?". That is until they see what is inside and then they all want to use something. So what is in this bright pink bag?

The Body Shop Almond Hand and Nail Cream- perfect if you like having soft and moisturized hands

Clarins Moisture Replenish Lip Balm- my favorite lip balm (review here)

Mac Lipstick in Amorous- the perfect shade of dark pink for my skin tone 

QVS Shine Control Tissues- for those peaky oily spots on your face

Stila Long Wear Lip Colour in Flush- light pink lipstick that is very similar to my lip color. Perfect for those long days at college because it does last quite long

Hand Sanitizer- college doors, computers and desks carry all sorts of germs. You can never be too careful

Elizabeth Arden Pretty (10ml)- miniature version of my favorite perfume

Clarins High Impact Mascara (sample size)- perfect travel size mascara for those days you are in a rush and forget to put on your mascara

What item do you have to have in your college/hand bag?

Review- Stila Stay All Day 10-in1 HD Beauty Balm

There has been a lot of hype around BB (Beauty Balm) creams lately, but what is a BB cream actually?
In a nutshell, a BB cream saves you time with your beauty routine by being an all in one product. Depending on which BB cream you use, it can act as a light coverage foundation, a concealer, a primer, sunscreen and moisturizer. 

The Stila BB Cream claims that it has 10 functions (source). 

• Luxurious beauty balm glides onto skin and leaves a silky, powdery finish
• High-definition formula helps reduce pore size and provides oil and blemish control
• Contains innovative micro spheres, which have been shown to hide skin imperfections and reduce wrinkle depth by up to 84%
• Features an exclusive complex, which helps reduce redness and skin irritation
• Enriched with Tripeptide-37, bamboo and pea extracts, which help diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles
• Infused with natural, skin-protecting emollients which have been shown to increase anti-oxidant activity by up to 89.7%
• Uses the smallest particle size of coated pigments for seamless, smooth coverage
• Ideal for all skin types and skin tones
• Oil-free, paraben-free and dermatologist tested

Does it live up to its claims? In my opinion, yes it does. I wear this BB cream every single day just because it is so convenient to use. I have tried a few BB creams and some have an oily finish and others are really drying. Stila has perfected their formula to be moisturizing while not making your face look greasy. It takes away any redness on my skin and gives my face a very matte finish. One thing I do not like about this product is the smell. It smells very sweet. You only really smell this when applying the bb cream but it goes away quite quickly after that. 

The design of the packaging is quite smart too. The cap screws on instead of having a cap that flips open and close which could break easily and usually gets very messy. I also like that the nozzle the BB cream comes through is small. This way, you have more control over the amount of product that is released and you end up wasting less.

This BB cream only comes in one shade but once blended, it adapts to your skin tone. As you can see in the picture above, the BB cream is a lot lighter than my skin tone but it does adapt to my shade. Although it does not come in various shades, it does come in different versions. Stila has a bronzing version of this BB cream to give you an over all tanned look as well as an illuminating version that will give your skin a healthy glow. 

I hope this has helped and given you some insight on the Stila Stay All Day 10-in-1 HD Beauty Balm.