The Happiness Boutique

Pearl and Diamond Statement Necklace £22.90*

I'm loving statement necklaces at the moment, I love throwing them on with simple outfits to make the outfit stand out more! I was contacted by The Happiness Boutique, a Berlin based company which makes beautiful jewellery including earrings as well as lots of statement necklaces! The one I chose was the Pearl and Diamond Statement Necklace as I love the neutral cream and pale pink shades, they go with so many different outfits so it's super easy to throw on with anything. This is a really pretty and elegant necklace, I sometimes wear it with the crystals facing outwards or if I want a more understated look, I turn it round so only the pearls are on show; sort of a two-in-one necklace!

The Happiness Boutique offer free shipping, great for those of us (me) who hate paying postage charges so I love that they do free shipping on orders! They also run a fantastic rewards program where you can earn points in a number of different ways including buying items, reviewing items, signing up to their newsletter and tagging them in your photos! Through their rewards system you can receive free gifts!

Have a look at their website here!

November Birchbox

Birchbox £12.95*

1. Living Proof Restore Instant Repair Cream £25

2. Cowshed Cow Pat Hand Cream £8

3. Lord and Berry Silhouette Neutral Lip Liner £9

4. Ren Wake Wonderful Night-Time Facial £32

5. Trilogy Makeup Be Gone Cleansing Balm £19.50

6. English Laundry Notting Hill Femme Eau de Parfum £60

This month's Birchbox is in collaboration with Skinnydip London! You can win some great Skinnydip London goodies and beauty treats if you shared a photo of you with this months box, tag your friends and use the hashtag #BirchboxUK! My favourites from this months box are the Trilogy Cleansing Balm, the Cowshed Hand Cream and the Lord and Berry Lip Liner. I constantly have hand cream in my handbag so I love getting it in the boxes, this one smells amazing, very wintery! The Trilogy Cleansing Balm has a really nice consistency, some cleansing balms are too solid but this one melts into the skin really nicely. I don't own many lip liners at all so I was really excited to get the neutral lip liner by Lord and Berry which can be used with any lip colour to create clean crisp lines!

What do you think of this month's box?

You can subscribe here!

Current Face

Face | On my face I have been testing out the L'oreal True Match Genius Foundation*, I'm really impressed with this. While it claims to be a 4-in-1 foundation, combining a primer, foundation, concealer and powder; I do still follow it with my usual concealer and powder. It's a medium coverage/buildable foundation which has a satin finish, it was more matte than dewy however I felt like my skin had a lovely glow to it. I followed with my usual Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer to hide my under eye circles and multitude of blemishes and then finished with the Ben Nye Luxury Powder in Cameo, which has become a firm favourite of mine. 

Eyes | I started by shaping and filling in my brows with my favourite product, the Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade in the shade Blonde to frame my face. I then used the L'oreal Nude Eyeshadow Palette in Beige* to create a subtle brown smokey eye, this palette is really pigmented which is fantastic and there is a really nice balance between shimmery shades and matte shades which I love! I then applied the Stila Liquid Liner in Black and finished off the eyes with the L'oreal Feline Volume Million Lashes Mascara*

Lips | For my lips I used the L'oreal Naomi Lipstick in the Shade Delicate Rose* which is such a pretty nude/pink, while this lipstick gives a matte finish, it feels really moisturising on the lips! 

Which products have you been using lately?

The Body Shop Shade Adjusting Drops

The Body Shop Shade Adjusting Drops £10

Having quite fair skin means I often struggle to find foundations that match my skin perfectly. I also shop online for foundations a lot and don't always get the shade matches right. I was so excited when I heard about these Shade Adjusting Drops from The Body Shop, in fact I read one review and then went straight away to purchase them! For ten pound, I thought it was really affordable and a great product to give a try! You can choose between either Lightening or Darkening drops depending on whether you need to make a foundation lighter or darker. It's really easy to use, I apply my foundation to the back of my hand, add a couple of drops and mix together. I've used white foundation before to try and lighten foundations and it didn't work very well and seemed to change the consistency of the foundation. This however lightens the foundation while the consistency and pigmentation remains! I'm really happy with this product, I now don't have to worry about blending my foundations all the way down my neck in order to try and make darker foundations look natural and I can keep the foundations I own rather than buy them again in the right shades! The above photo shows the foundation before, the drops and then the shade when I mix the two, as you can see, it also takes away any slightly orange tones to make your foundation match your skin perfectly! I'm so impressed with this product and I think for £10, it's a steal! I haven't shopped in The Body Shop for years however this is definitely making me want to try more products!

What do you think of this product?

fLash Eyelash Serum

Flash Eyelash Serum $45/£30*

I've always wanted to try eyelash serums as my eyelashes aren't the longest in the world. I was so excited to try this one from fLASH which promises "long, sexy, curled lashes. Fast." Sounds great. It's really easy to apply, you use it as you would liquid eyeliner and apply it along the lash line, I did it at night which is probably the easier option! It took about a month or so for me to notice a difference, it was definitely a gradual change and then one day I realised how much they had actually grown! The main different I noticed was the outside lashes, they grew a lot as you can clearly see from the before and after! It took a while longer for the other lashes to catch up but now they have grown to look more even! I'm really happy with how my lashes look after using this product, it's definitely a lot easier and cheaper than regularly getting eyelash extensions and I found it really easy to use. I have quite sensitive eyes but didn't have any issues with this product irritating my eyes or drying them out, which is great! I think this product is well worth the money, it's so quick to apply the gel as it's not a long boring process, it's just popping it onto your lash line and you're done! I'm so happy with the results and will definitely carry on using this!

What do you think of the results? 
You can buy the serum here!

Current Favourites

There's been a few new products I've been loving recently that I wanted to share! About two weeks ago, I had a really bad skin reaction and my skin started to flake off and turn red. Everything I put on it made it sting unbearably until my mum recommended putting some Vaseline on it, which worked incredibly! I also have problems with dry lips which no lip balm seems to solve, I've started using this on them, which works better than any lip balm! I ordered a few things from Lush, I added Snow Fairy Shower Gel to my basket after hearing amazing things about it. I thought "how good can a shower gel be?" It turns out the answer is: Very. This smells like candy floss and is incredible! I've almost used up this bottle and I'll definitely be purchasing some more. I recently blogged about the NYX Soft Matte Lip Creams, I have been obsessed with the shade Stockholm in particular, I love how easy they are to apply. You can read the review here! I've been using the Ben Nye Luxury Powder in the shade Cameo to set my makeup, it makes it look flawless and sets my makeup for the whole day. Finally is the nail polish I have been constantly wearing, Essie Bahama Mama. This is the perfect autumnal shade and I get so may compliments when I have it on! 

Urban Decay Naked Palette 2

I own the original Naked palette and the third one, however I never picked up the second one! Recently I had a rubbish few weeks so decided to treat myself to it! I pretty much only wear neutral eyeshadows so while it may seem a tad excessive to have all three, I get so much use out of all of them! A simple explanation of all three: the original is more warm toned browns, the second is cool toned shimmery shades and the third is pink toned shades. I personally think the first and second create extremely different eye looks despite looking similar at first glance, so if you're tempted to have both, I'd recommend it. As with all the Naked palettes, the pigmentation is amazing and the shades are always absolutely gorgeous, my favourites are 'Tease' 'Chopper' and 'YDK.' I tend to use 'Tease' in the crease and then the other two on the lids. The one thing I'm not a huge fan of is the packaging, I much prefer how to original palette was packaged. I may have bought a dodgy one but the tin doesn't close very easily at all! Like the other palettes, you also get a brush which I do find useful, usually brushes in palettes are absolutely useless and just get thrown in the bin however I think this one is good really good quality. Overall I'm so happy with this purchase, I knew I would love it as I adore the other two I own but I've been loving using it every day since I bought it!

You can buy it here for £38!

NYX Soft Matte Lip Creams

While I was browsing the Boots website, I spotted they now stock NYX products! I have never tried anything from NYX but have always wanted to as I had heard great things about them, plus the fact that they're so affordable! I decided to buy some of the Soft Matte Lip Creams, in the shades Milan, Stockholm and Copenhagen. Stockholm is an orangey nude colour, it very wearable and easy to throw on with any kind of makeup. Milan is a really pretty pink, in the swatch on my lips, it looks a very bright pink. However you can make it look slightly muted and less bold! Finally Copenhagen is such a pretty vampy red shade! Overall, I am really impressed with these, they apply just like a lipgloss and then take a while to set matte. I really like the consistency as I find it super easy to apply, I need to have a little bit more practice with Copenhagen as the first few tries weren't as neat as I would like! They last absolutely ages as well and don't dry my lips out like most matte lip products do! I think for £5.50 they are absolutely amazing and definitely worth the price, I am definitely going to buy more!

You can buy these from Boots in the UK here!