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theBalm Cosmetics – New In!

I am sure you’ve seen buckets of social media pics of the new theBalm Cosmetics releases, so forgive me if this is repetitive.

I received them all in a press pack though and was very eager to swatch. So, why not do it in blogpost form, right?

I am a huge fan of theBalm Cosmetics. They do some great products. I actually did a post a while here back creating a whole face of makeup using just them, if you fancy checking it out.

The newest products on the block from the brand consist of:

A new eyeshadow palette called Meet Matt(e) Shmaker.

This actually has an intriguing concept. Every matte shade has a shimmery mate for company.

You get 12 shades, 6 matte, six shimmer. Here they are swatched from left to right.

First the top shades, which are lighter, more everyday colours.

Then, the bottom. These are little bit darker and daring.

Of course these are just swatched on my arm, so of course I can’t give a proper review, but they evenly and opaquely. Cloud10Beauty stock it online here.

Next up we have the Mr Write Long Lasting Eyeliner Pencils. (They have previously released Mr Write Now). There are six shades to choose from in the collection.

I have five of them to swatch here. They are retractable kohl pencils.The sixth is a green shade called Seymour Vacations. There’s a Seymour theme throughout 🙂

I have:

Seymour Datenights which is a nude. Seymour Romance which is described as a prune shade. Purple to you and I. Seymour Compliments is a navy blue. Seymour Loveletters is medium brown. Then finally Seymour Diamonds is a matte black.

I’ve only really tried the brown shade properly so far. It smoothly lined my upper lash line and it worked well and lasted decently in my water line too.

As of yet, I cannot find a stockist of these online.

The last releases are probably everyone’s most anticipated!

These are liquid versions of theBalm Cosmetics infamous Mary-Lou and Bonnie-Lou powder highlighters. Say hello to Mary-Dew Manizer and Bonnie-Dew Manizer. See what they did there? 🙂

They come in 5.5 gram tubes with a doe foot applicator.

Here is Mary-Dew roughly swatched:

And then Bonnie-Dew:

Cloud10beauty have them online here.

Any of them tickle your fancy?

xxx

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February 2, 2018/by Gem

Makeup In A Hurry

I’m feeling very makeup video-y this week it seems 🙂 I’m back with a more wearable everyday look. This is what I do when I am in a bit of a hurry but still want to look put together and presentable.

I would more or less do a variation of this makeup look most days I wear it. I would just switch up the eye or lip colour. But, the principle and the application would be the same. Unless, I am trialing specific products or I’m feeling really fancy…or lazy.

It’s really simple and honestly takes no major skills at all. I adore makeup, but I’m no professional. I even added in me (kinda, sorta), doing my hair too 🙂 Have a click here to watch the video in full, or you can watch it above.

Here is some of the main products I used:

Benefit Porefessional Primer. Buy here.
theBalm Put A Lid On It Eyeshadow Primer. Buy here.
Estée Lauder Double Wear Nude Foundation. Full review here.
LA Girl Shade Slim Eyebrow Pencil Buy here.
Benefit Gimme Brow. Buy here.
Rimmel Lasting Finish Concealer. Buy here.
Chanel 268 eyeshadow quad. Not available online anymore.
Makeup Geek Whimsicial Eyeshadow. You can see it swatched here.
Huda Mauve Obsessions Palette. Blogpost about it here.
Max Factor Creme Bronzer. Review here.
Mac Spring Sheen blush. You can buy here.
theBalm Mary-Lou Manizer highlighter. Available here.
Rimmel Eastend Snob lip liner. Online here.
Mac Syrup lipstick. Available here.
Too Faced Setting Spray. Online here.

Anything else you’re curious about just ask me, as always 🙂

Let me know what kind of YouTube videos you like to watch. Do you prefer watching to reading? I would love to know. I’m a big beauty YouTube fan, so I love making videos even though I’m not very good at it. Every time I edit it myself, I say, OK Gemma, next time enunciate more and stop saying ’em’. It never happens 🙂

xxx

December 15, 2017/by Gem

Fragrance, Hair, Makeup, Skincare

Beauty Advent Calendars 2017

I get asked every year to do a beauty advent calendar post, and I’ve always not ended up doing one. I generally always like to be able to use and give a physical opinion on products when it comes to the blog. I’ve been doing this four years now and that’s what kind of feels natural to me. To talk about products I have road tested and used. But sure there’s always exceptions and I’ve realised that now.

I’m a little blogger fish in a big pond and I can’t buy or get sent all of the fancy beauty advent calendars every year. So, I thought I would just compile the ones that are really taking my fancy in the run to Christmas for 2017 🙂

The first one is the one I am really considering buying for myself, although I have yet to justify it. This is the Beauty In Wonderland from Look Fantastic

This is retailing from their website here for €98. They say it contains product worth up to £300.

It’s a mixture of all different brands and all different types of beauty products. Also the packaging is pretty gorgeous. i blame Sharon Leavy from Behind Green Eyes for making me lust after this so much 🙂

Feel Unique do their own version too here. This costs €42 which is a little more palatable, I know.

They also give you a list of the products enclosed if you don’t want to wait until the Christmas countdown.

Clarins always do a really lovely beauty advent calendar and this year is no exception.

This is what would be deemed the more feminine version but there is a male offering too. This will set you back £52.50 here. This has been the cheapest I’ve found it online. It contains 12 minis including one of their Instant Light Natural Lip Perfectors, one of my personal faves.

Lancôme have a ridiculously lovely one this year with a 25 day countdown.

This costs €130 from Boots here, but you do get 25 mini products, ranging from skincare to fragrance.

If you want exclusively skincare, L’Occitane have a beautiful 25 day calendar chock full of it.

I actually think this is a really good deal at €59 from Debenhams here.

If Charlotte Tilbury is your go to brand, you’re in luck! She has released a Naughty & Nice Magic Box for this year.

It contains 12 makeup and skincare goodies. This is the most expensive one of the bunch coming in at €180 here.

If lipstick is your thing, Nyx have released their Kiss & Tell Advent Calendar again this year.

This is €67.57 from Asos here. Although if you buy in pounds it generally works out cheaper.

It contains 24 lip colours to suit any mood.

I know these are all pretty pricey, so if you are looking for a more budget friendly beauty advent calendar, hopefully I can cover you here.

The Tanya Burr 12 Sweet Days Beauty Calendar contains 12 products including nail polish and glitter liners.

I included this because you can still get your beauty hit with it, and it’s on sale from Feel Unique at the moment here. They also have it on 3 for 2 if you’re shopping for anyone else.

Asos have a budget friendly option too here from Mad Beauty.

This is a range of hair, skin and nail products and will only set you back €14.85.

My last choice is this years Makeup Revolution Calendar. This contains 25 full sized products.

It is on sale at the moment from Superdrug here. It was £50 and now it’s £30.

And there you have my beauty advent calendar countdown. Any take your fancy? Have you already bought one? Let me know 🙂

November 13, 2017/by Gem

Skincare

Lush The Man In The Moon Christmas Gift

Don’t be jealous, but last week I popped into Lush in Grafton Street to have a look at some of the new Christmas stock. Yes it’s not even Halloween yet and I’m talking about Christmas. This is the way of the retail world 🙂 I got to hang out, play with some bubbles and even got to make my own Butter Bear! I also very generously got to take home a goodie bag with me. Mine contained the new Lush The Man In The Moon Christmas Tin. Do you want to see what’s inside?

Lush The Man In The Moon comes in a really cool Christmas Tin. When I first saw it I was saying if you wrapped it up and gave it to someone, they would just assume it was a box of Roses or Quality Street. The theme of the tin is very much night time relaxing and helping you to drift off to sleep.

It comes with eight products within. Two bubble bars, one sparkle jar, three bath bombs, a shower gel and a body lotion. You can have a look at it in full on the UK Lush website here.

First up we have the gift’s namesake, the Man In The Moon Bubble Bar.

It’s very sweet and limey, but it has an underlying muskiness too. It will turn your bath green. Neroli and lime are the main components of the scent so that makes sense completely.

The Magic Of Christmas reusable bubble bar in the other bubble maker in the tin. I’ve actually had this before. I got it a couple of Christmases ago in the Lush Wonderland set here.

Cinnamon is definitely the main component for the Magic Of Christmas, which I’m sure isn’t surprising it all. The star is on top of a cinnamon stick 🙂

Almond is another scent front runner here as it contains almond oil. It’s very much Christmas in bath form. I am not usually a cinnamon fan, but I actually really enjoy this. And it looks so pretty too!

There are three Twilight related products within the Lush The Man In The Moon tin. If you like lavender, you will love these.

First up is the Twilight Sparkle Jar.

This is a massage bar, so you use it to moisturise your skin. Your body heat allows it to melt and then you can massage in the product. It contains lavender oil, cocoa butter, tonka and chamomile. It also leaves behind a gold sparkle, so probably not for everyday use. But nice for a special occasion over the festive season. You can press something pointy into the dimples of the crescent to get even more sparkle.

Next is the Twilight Shower Gel. You get a 100 gram bottle.

This again has lavender and tonka within. It also has Ylang Ylang oil.

The last Twilight offering is their well known bath bomb.

This contains all the main ingredients that the shower gel has with added benzoin resinoid. This is an anti inflammatory. This is one of my favourite bath bombs.

Next up we have the Sleepy Body Lotion. You get a mini 50 gram tub of this.

It has all the lovely ingredients of the Twilight shower gel & bubble bar with added oatmeal. It’s made specifically with sleep in mind.

The last two products are bath bombs. We have Shoot For The Stars.

This is honey scented with orange oil, bergamot and coconut cream. It turns your bath blue with golden glitter from the bath melt stars.

Last but not least is the Rocket Science bath bomb.

Mine got a bit of a bashing in transit, but he’s still lovely.

This is a slow fizzer so it’ll give you something to focus on in the bath 🙂 It has bergamot and lemon oil in it and turns your bath blue.

And there we have the Lush The Man In The Moon Christmas Gift Tin. I am a huge fan of Lush, so cannot wait to get stuck in. If I were more fancy, I would have shown you them all in action, but I didn’t want to waste anything 🙂 I’ve linked all of the goodies individually so you can see what they are priced at alone. What’s your favourite Lush product?

xxx

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October 23, 2017/by Gem

Lifestyle, Makeup, Youtube Video

Weekend In Berlin With Essence Cosmetics

In case you don’t follow me on social media, here is a recap. Essence Cosmetics turned 15 this year. To celebrate, they had a big party in Berlin, Germany. And I was one of the lucky people who got to go. Four of us in total got to go from Ireland. May I add the other three ladies who were on the trip were absolute legends.

I decided to bring my camera to try and vlog my’ Weekend In Berlin With Essence Cosmetics’.

Like it was a no brainer that I had to at least try! It’s not everyday that a girl (ahem, woman) like me gets to have a weekend in Berlin with a makeup brand!

I am still new to this vlogging game. I’ve only ever done it once before with John here. On my own I can talk to the camera, but I am still pretty shy about pulling it out in front of other people…that’s what she said 🙂

So the vlog consists of everything we got up to with a smattering of me keeping you updated generally in the comforts of my hotel room 🙂

We stayed in the nhow hotel on the East side of Berlin, which is a really cool music themed hotel. The party itself was held in the Tempdrom Berlin, which is a pretty epic venue! We weren’t allowed bring cameras, but I did have my phone and managed to get a couple of clips of the joint. I’m sure if you follow me on Snapchat or Instagram, you got the feel of it though.

The next day we got some site seeing in which was awesome. I really wanted to visit Kiko while I was there, but all the shops close on Sunday. That was probably a good thing though in hindsight, because it meant I had more time to explore the city a little.

I honestly had the loveliest time and I hope you coming on my weekend in Berlin through video form 🙂 As always you can click on the video above to watch, or head directly to my YouTube channel here.

Thank you so so much to the Essence PR here in Ireland for inviting me and of course to all of you for tuning in!!

xxx

July 21, 2017/by Gem

Bargain Buying, Haul, Makeup

Maybelline New In Products!

More Maybelline chat 🙂 I reviewed the new colours of the Eraser Eye Concealers here. Now, I am chatting and applying some of the new products out for Summer 2017!

Maybelline, as a brand for me can be very much hit or miss. I am not always a fan of the releases, so some of the products end up in bags for friends or for charity. Obviously, if I hate something enough I will tell you why and if I love it I will shout it from the rooftops too! But if something is just ‘meh’, it doesn’t always get a second look.

I have some of the new Maybelline Summer releases and I thought I would put them altogether and do a makeup look with the goodies I own. Some are PR samples, some I bought myself. Nothing majorly fancy or groundbreaking. But, it just means you get to see some of them in action on my chubby little face , and I get to give initial impressions 🙂

I will list everything I used below, in case anything particular takes your fancy and you want to investigate it further:

I have already linked the new Eraser Eyes in Neutralizer and Brightener above.
Master Blush Color & Highlight Kit. Available on the Boots website here.
Master Ink Waterproof Liquid Liner. Available here.
The Colossal Big Shot Mascara. Available here.
Great Lash Waterproof. On the Boots website here.
Master Fix Setting & Perfecting Loose Powder. Boots online have it here.
Vivid Hot Lacquers. Available here.

I did use some other Maybelline and non Maybelline products just because I had them and I didn’t have a whole face of newness in my stash. As always, you can click the video above to watch and go directly to my YouTube channel here to check it out.

I think my stand out favourites are the loose powder and the concealers. The Colossal mascara is pretty damn good too though!

xxx

June 11, 2017/by Gem

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