Myself and dry shampoo have a really close relationship, yep you read that right. I panic if I don’t have one stashed in a drawer ready for use. I have oily skin, which means I have oily roots. Generally, the second day after washing my gruaig, I will need a spritz. I am always a bit reluctant to talk about hair stuff too in-depth. I am not great with hair. I know how to wash, dry and use a hair straighteners or a curling wand on it. That is the extent of my hair abilities. But I guess when it comes to hair care, I know what I like and what works for me, so I am allowed dabble in it, right? 🙂 I picked up the new Soap & Glory The Rushower Dry Shampoo for one reason. Purely because it had the familiar scent the brand are known for.
They call it their Signature Pink scent which consists of Rose and Bergamot. I am a big fan of it. I love the kitsch packaging too.
I have to admit I am not majorly fussy when it comes to dry shampoo. I just want one that smells good, sprays evenly and doesn’t leave my hair feeling like I was rolling around in the sand all day. Ok, maybe I am a little bit fussy… I can say that the Soap & Glory The Rushower Dry Shampoo ticks all of them boxes for me.
It smells really good (in my opinion). It sprays really finely on the hair, so it doesn’t make your fingers or hairbrush sticky as you disperse it through the roots. It does a great job at mopping up any unwanted oiliness in the roots of the hair and gives it a bit of a lift at the same time. It also doesn’t leave a white cast on your hair, once you don’t spray it too close and give everything a good rub in!
One downside of the Soap & Glory The Rushower Dry Shampoo. It only comes in a 200ml can. And you can go through it mighty quickly! The mist is fine, so you do tend to go a bit nuts using it.
Overall though, I am a fan! I will definitely repurchase. The Soap & Glory The Rushower Dry Shampoo is available in store and online here from Boots now for €3.89.
I wanted to create a simple Summer makeup look and I made it a bit more interesting and used all affordable makeup products!
This is about as fresh and simple summer makeup like my oilier and dare I say more mature skin will get 😛 Obviously, there is the bb cream and lip balm option too. This is more the ‘put together’ simple makeup look. After I filmed this I went out and had some dinner and felt very much put together.
On a side note, how much difference does filling in my brows make??
I had made the decision not to do Christmas gift ideas here on Beautynook this year. It hasn’t stopped me for sharing things on social media though. But, when I share product here, I want to be able to stand by it and share because I know I love it. I’m not in a position as the blogger I am that I get sent a whole load of press samples and I don’t have the cash to buy everything I would want to share. Maybe next year 🙂 I did have a bit of Christmas fomo though not going to lie, so I’ve done some research and compiled a list of Kris Kindle treats for the beauty lovers in your life, or yourself. These are not too pricey goodies that I would genuinely be happy to get off someone for Kris Kindle or as a stocking filler.
I am kind of going back on my word I know, don’t judge me. I thought Kris Kindle/ stocking fillers was a good middle ground though. Not too pricey and I can still talk Christmas beauty. So John, if you’re reading, take note 🙂
My first choices are from one of my favourite shopping destinations Spacenk. On a side note, European orders need to be made on the website by the 14th of December in order to make delivery by Christmas.
The Eve Lom Kiss Mix is a really well known and effective lip balm in the beauty world. It hydrates and leaves behind a lovely sheen on the lips too.
For Christmas this year, it comes in a really cute disco ball for £16.
Super cute and super practical. You can get it in store or directly from the website here.
Next up we have the Merry & Bright Christmas Cracker from Oskia.
The Oskia Renaissance Cleansing Gel is probably one of my favourite facial cleansers….ever! It is pricey though. This cracker is a really good middle ground. You get a pretty packaged gift with a really luxury product inside. The normal 100ml sized bottle is 30 quid, where as you get this 40ml bottle for £18.50. Not cheap, but a little does go a long way with this product. It is listed on the website here.
Emma Hardie who are also knows for their facial cleanser have a really cute Kris kindle appropriate gift set too.
For £25 you get a 50ml or their cult cleansing balm, a cleansing cloth and a 15ml of the Age Support moisturiser. All in a little toiletry bag. You can click here to see it on the Spacenk website.
My next choice is a variation of something I actually got myself for Christmas this year. This is just more stocking filler appropriate. It is the Aromatherapy Associates ‘My Treat’.
They have different ones to suit all budgets and requirements though. This is their Revive Morning Bath & Shower Oil, again already in really pretty festive packaging. This will set you back £10 which I don’t think is too bad at all. You can get it on the website here.
My last choice from Spacenk is the Glow On The Go set from Becca.
It contains a mini but still substantial ‘Moonstone’ Shimmering Skin Perfector in pressed and liquid formula. I think any makeup fan would be delighted to open this on Christmas, me included. This is £20 from the website here.
Next up I have a few choices from Irish owned website Cloud10beauty.
The Cocoa Brown Golden Goddess Collection is a great reasonably priced stocking filler.
For €14.95 you get three shimmering dry body oils including their brand new one ‘Ice Goddess’.
Shimmering skin for the party season for whoever is lucky enough to be gifted it. You can pick this up from the Cloud10beauty website here.
The Pixi Glow Tonic is such a great addition to your skin care, so this Best Of Bright Kit, would be a great Kris Kindle for you or a beauty lover in your life :).
For €25.95 you get a 30ml of their glow tonic, 13ml of the Glow Mud Mask and a 13ml or the Glow Mud Cleanser. All full of glycolic loveliness.
My last choice from Cloud10beauty is the Real Techniques Your Picks Berlin.
This is a limited edition brush set containing their best selling brushes voted for by the fans. You get their buffing brush, contour brush, stippling brush, deluxe crease brush and the base shadow brush, I use all of these on a daily basis (except for the stippling brush). So, I thought this was a good addition to my list. It costs €29.95 from the website here.
My last website choice is Boots. You can of course go in store too. Now Boots have a huge amount of gift ideas. I just picked four things to add to my list otherwise this blogpost would go on forever 🙂
The first one is a bit pricey and probably over the average Kris Kindle budget. I thought I would add it in in case you have a little bit more to spend though.
This is the Marc Jacobs Daisy Rollerball Gift Set, We do not have enough roller ball fragrances on sale in Ireland. They are so handy and brilliant if you just want to try a perfume or just don’t want to commit to a full size bottle. This contains 3 10ml rollerballs with three different Daisy fragrances. Original Daisy, Daisy Drea and Daisy Eau so Fres. A bit steeper than the rest at €64 here. But I thought it was lovely so wanted to include it :).
Sleek Makeup are killing it this year with their gift sets. All of them are lovely. I thought the Palette Gift Set was particularly nice though so wanted to share.
This contains their Vintage Romance Palette, two True Colour lipsticks in Liqueur (on the left), Vamp (on the right), blush in Antique Blush and a makeup bag all for €28.99 here.
I thought this Molton Brown hand Cream Gift Set was really lovely.
It’s already gift wrapped and you really cannot go wrong with Molton Brown. This is €30 from the Boots website here.
I had to add in Soap & Glory here somewhere. They just do Christmas so right. There are an abundance of sets to choose from including makeup. I went with the Clean Get Away gift set for €15.
I just thought it was affordable, small and compact, so would fit in a stocking and would be easy to bring into work on Kris Kindle day 🙂 It contains travel minis of their The Righteous Butter, Clean On Me Shower Gel, Calm One, Calm All bubble bath and a mini Hand Food.
And that is my Kris Kindle for beauty lovers done! Well I could go on and on and on, but I have to stop somewhere 🙂
I had seen the Nyx Micro Brow Pencil when Nyx first released them all over social media. I was still using my Soap & Glory Archery pencil and was happy with it and although we now have Nyx stands in Ireland, we rarely get the new releases in store, so I couldn’t see it in the flesh. Then, I saw Sinead from The Beautiful Truth raving about it and had fomo, so I ended up picking it up.
And may I add, I am so glad that I did.
I’ve done the Anastasia Brow Wiz in the past. It’s a great pencil, but the damn thing just kept breaking on me. I think I lost probably half of the pencil to the floor. They’re not cheap, so that wasn’t ideal. I then discovered the Soap & Glory Archery Pencil, a very similar looking pencil. I love it, but it only comes in three shades.
The Nyx Micro Brow Pencil is super similar to both of these.
One one end is a spooley which is always appreciated.
Then, the other end contains the retractable brow pencil.
The pencil itself has a really fine nib.
I like my brow pencil to have a bit of hardness to it, so you can draw onto the skin without it crumbling and so you have control over what you are doing.
I have the shade ‘Ash Brown’. I did some googling and looked at some swatches beforehand and I got lucky, it works really well for me. I would deem it a neutral brown so no red or warmness to it.
You can buy Nyx online from Boots here and they have 8 shades to choose from. I ordered my Nyx Micro Brow Pencil from Asos here. They have 7 shades and I got free shipping because I ordered a few other things aswell.
The Nyx Micro Pencil definitely ticks all of them boxes for me. I have been using this for a good solid month now and the pencil has yet to break, it’s pigmented and easy to apply. It works really well for days where you just want to do the bare minimum to your brows or when you really want to beef them up.
So here it is in action:
My Brow With No Product
I Comb Through With The Spooley Before Application
I always hold my brow pencil with a loose grip and quite far back to get a lighter application.
Before
After
My brows are quite frankly a pain in the arse. I try in vein for a little symmetry and I rarely get it. I find with the Nyx Micro Brow Pencil, it’s a little easier to achieve some sort of brow shape that doesn’t make me want to cry. That alone is worth a tenner in my book 🙂
The formula does set, but you get a little play time beforehand. For some reason I get super oily around my brow area so I would usually then set the pencil with powder which I still do most of them time. But I have used the Nyx Micro Brow Pencil on it’s own to test it out throughout the day and it lasted really well on me. No smudging or oxidizing.
I think it’s safe to say I’m a big fan and now that we are getting our own Boots Nyx stand in Liffey Valley (opening the 4th of August apparently), hopefully we’ll be able to buy in store very soon too. Wohoo!!
I am a big fan of the Soap & Glory Archery Brow Filling Pencil & Brush. I’ve bought a few over the years. I ran out of my current one and went into Boots to stock up. For some reason I’ve never done a post on it, but you can see it on the Boots website here if you’re interested 🙂 Instead of going with my old reliable I picked up it’s chunkier friend, the Soap & Glory Archery 2 in 1 Brow, which is a sculpting crayon and setting gel.
I think Boots only stock two shades of this, in Ireland anyways, which is not ideal! You can get it in Blonde Ambition and the darker one which I have here Brown & Out.
The pencil itself is flat with an angled edge, it nearly has a triangle shape to in when you look at it head on.
It’s a hard waxy pencil, which I personally like in an eyebrow pencil,as you have more control over the product and are less likely to over do it. It’s a pigmented pencil and applies easily onto the skin. On first glance, the colour looks like a good neutral shade, however it does apply a little warm. I’m fine with that personally as my brows (and hair) have a got a bit of red warmth.
The pencil is quite thick though and as you use it, it does wear down and mine has crumbled a couple of times, although I feel like this happens with most retractable pencils, so I don’t really hold that against the product. You just have to be careful about the amount you twist up when you’re using it.
My brow with no product
Because the pencil is on the thicker side, it is hard to get a defined line with it. If you are someone who is not too blessed in the eyebrow hair department, I don’t think the Soap & Glory Archery 2 in 1 Brow would necessarily be for you. I am kind of in between, I do have brows but they don’t grow naturally on point, so I can get away with using it somewhat, I do have to be careful though! I generally add a bit of brow powder over any pencil I might use, just to help the setting process and fill in any gaps I might miss. I have used the pencil and setting gel on their own a few times though and they lasted quite well!
You sacrifice the spooley end like on the Brow Filling Pencil & Brush, for a setting gel.
It is a clear setting gel and does a really great job at getting your brows into formation (bit of a nod to Beyonce there 🙂 ), without making them hard or crispy…nobody likes a crispy eyebrow!
Overall, I like the Soap & Glory Archery 2 in 1 Brow. I have to admit though I like the Brow Filling Pencil & Brush more. You just have more control with it! If you have fabulous bushy brows and just want to fill in the gaps and clean them up a bit, the 2 in 1 brow works really well. I, personally just need a bit more definition in my life 🙂
The Soap & Glory Archert 2 in 1 Brow is available from Boots in store and online here and it will set you back €13.50.
I don’t think there’s one person in the world who enjoys the task of cleaning their makeup brushes. If you do I applaud you, for me it’s a menial task. However, the aftermath is so rewarding, seeing all of the white fluffy head peaking out of their flower pot homes 🙂
How I clean my makeup brushes is not a new way or a fancy way (have you seen the machines you can buy now to do it?) but it gets the job done and it gets my makeup brushes and sponges squeaky clean.
Over the years of being a makeup fanatic I have accumulated alot of makeup brushes, so it does take me a while to get through them and then that means when I run out of clean ones, I have a pretty mammoth job on my hands. I change up my foundation brush probably every three uses, of course you can just wash as you go, I just have a few to procrastinate with 🙂
Brush cleaning mats have become the norm in the makeup world. Sigma and Real Techniques have their own versions of them. They’re basically just a gripped rubber surface and so people have found cheaper alternatives be it in the household department (rubber gloves work great too), in Penneys, Dealz, or for me I found mine in the body care aisle of Boots.
This is the Massage Glove from Soap & Glory. I first saw Anna from ViviannaDoesMakeup using this. It’s rubber, it has grips and you can slip your hand into it for added pressure on your brushes. Even better news a lovely reader told me she saw these being sold off in her local Boots for nearly half the RRP, score!
In the past, I’ve used the Massage Glove in conjunction with baby shampoo and this works well, but for more stubborn makeup brushes like tightly packed kabuki ones, it can be a labour of love trying to get the bristles really clean.
There are specifically formulated brush cleansers too which are great but can be hard to come by. I saw alot of people using naturally derived soaps, and the Moogoo Fresh Milk Cleansing Bar has been spoken about very highly to get the job done well, so I had to give it a go. It contains Olive Oil (which is another great deep brush cleanser in it’s own right) and Cocoa Butter.
Both of these, with some added hot water of course do the job really well!
I take the massage glove on my hand. Another reason why I like the glove is that it protects your hand from the soap and water. I am not a fan of crinkly fingers 🙂
Wet my makeup brush with warm/hot water.
Swirl it in the bar of soap a few times.
I am firm enough to get into the base of the bristles, but I am conscious of the ferrule and the handle as if they can get damaged from water getting in, the bristles or even the actual brush head can become loose.
I massage the soaped up brush with the glove to lather it up and really get it clean.
And then rinse.
For brushes you use with liquid products, you might have to repeat the steps a couple times until the water runs clear.
It works really well on makeup sponges too. Here’s my well loved Beauty Blender.
And my Real techniques Sponge before and after.
It even works on the flat tightly packed brushes too.
When it comes to eyeshadow brushes, if I have only used them for powder products, I usually grab a few that are of similar length and clean them together.
When I am finished soaping up 🙂 I lay a towel on the floor under a radiator and place all of my makeup brushes down along it.
The towel helps absorb excess moisture and then if the radiator is on the residual heat helps the drying process too. If I need some of the brushes in a hurry I’ll put a few of them alot the top of the rad too, not ideal, but needs must 🙂
Of course if you lived in a hotter drier climate you could just use your window sill, or you can just air dry them or even put them in the hot press, whatever works for you!
And there you have it, my makeup brushes are now hygienically clean but also any product staining is also gone too, which is not always achieved with other methods.
Be sure to let me know if you found this helpful and if you have any brush cleaning tips or tricks 🙂
