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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

Archives, Bargain Buying, Makeup

Sleek Whimsical Wonderland Collection

The new limited edition Sleek Whimsical Wonderland Collection contains three colours of their new gel blushes, three new limited edition complimenting shades of their VIP lipsticks and what I am showing you in this post, the ‘All The Fun Of The Fair’ eyeshadow palette.

I do love a Sleek eyeshadow palette so I was excited when I saw one left on the shelf in Boots while I was doing my new in makeup beauty rounds 🙂

Like all Sleek iDivine Eyeshadow Palettes, the shadows are packaged in a thin, matte plastic case with as always a large handy mirror in the lid.

The name ‘Whimisical Wonderland Collection’,I think is most fitting to the ‘All The Fun At The Fair’ Palette. To me, the other products are quite normal and wearable everyday colours, whereas the palette is a pretty assortment of matte and shimmery pastel shades.

So onto the swatching 🙂

As with all of the Sleek palettes, you get a plastic sheet over the top of the shadows telling you their names, which are all very cute and fitting to the ‘All The Fun At The Fair’ theme.

Here they all are swatched from left to right:

Carousel

Shoot The Chutes

Loop The Loop

Ferris Wheel

Twister

Teacups

Hit The Bell

Swing Boats

Hook A Duck

Helter Skelter

Dodgems

Hall Of Mirrors

On first swatch, I can tell that the shimmers definitely pack more of a punch than the mattes do. Unfortunately, this is the case for alot of palettes, especially when it comes to brighter matte colours. Overall, the shades feel really nice, none of them are powdery or hard to work with. I think there’s some good wearable shades in the All The Fun Of The Fair palette for the lid, the crease and transitioning, aswell as some interesting shades that will be fun to play around with maybe with a white base to help them pop a little more.

You can pick up the whole Sleek Whimsical Wonderland Collection from Boots in store as well on the Sleek website. Cloud10beauty have the whole collection here too if you want to have a closer look at the other products included. The All The Fun Of The Fair Palette will set you back €10.45 on Cloud10beauty.

xxx

June 15, 2016/1 Comment/by Gem

Haul, Makeup

Alice In Wonderland Urban Decay

I hauled the Alice In Wonderland Palette from Urban Decay in my latest Youtube video here if you fancy seeing what else I got too 🙂

The other half kindly bought me it as a very early birthday present, a month early in fact!

This is the second Urban Decay Alice In Wonderland Palette to coincide with the second movie being released by Disney, ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ I have a lot of Urban Decay Palettes, I can’t call myself a hardcore collector because I don’t get all of them, but I do enjoy the visuals that come with the fancier releases and I sometimes get sucked in. This was definitely one that sucked me in. It’s just too pretty!

The packaging is just so whimsical and fitting, Urban Decay really have nailed it, I think!

So, onto the stars of the show, the eyeshadows!

On the first row, from left to right, we have:

Second Row:

Third Row:

Fourth Row

There is 20 eyeshadow shades total in the Urban Decay Alice In Wonderland Palette and they are 1.3 grams each. In my opinion, the varying colours and finishes make for a maybe not practical day to day palette, but it is usable and you will get wear out of most of the shades if you do like to have fun with your eye makeup 🙂 There is a couple of transitional mattes and shimmery highlights to help pull looks together, no matte highlight colours though! The pigment is pretty amazing too as you can probably tell from the swatches. They are super buttery and were a dream to apply….on my arm at least 🙂

You also get a super cute dual ended brush inside the palette with a blending brush on one end and a flat shader brush on the other.

Can you tell I’m a fan? As someone who owns a good amount of makeup and is surrounded by it on a daily basis, I can sometimes be a bit numb to new releases, but just looking at this palette makes me happy 🙂

You can buy the Urban Decay Alice In Wonderland palette from Debenhams online here or in store for €49 It is limited edition though!

Let me know what you think?

xxx

May 15, 2016/2 Comments/by Gem

Haul, Skincare

Lush Winter Wonderland

Lush treated us bloggers and the press to an up close look at what they have in store (literally ha) for Winter and Christmas 2015. As a big Lush fan, I was very excited to see so many new and well known products back for the festive season. They have gift sets galore to suit any tastes and budget, and of course most of the products can be bought individually too.

We were very kindly gifted the fabulous Lush Winter Wonderland Gift Set, and so I wanted to show you what is inside, in case it’s something you would want on your Christmas list.

There are some old faves and some newbies up for grabs in this pretty huge gift box.

Snow Angel Bath Melt is in there. It contains cocoa butter and leaves your bath glittery.

We have Yog Nog Bath Bomb. This is a cinder toffee soak with spicy clove and ylang ylang.

The Ceridwen’s Cauldron Bath Melt looks really interesting. This plops into the bath as is and melts. It has sandalwood oil,oats and wildflower inside.

The Candy Mountain Bubble Bar has sparkles and fair trade vanilla to bubble up your bath with.

The Peeping Santa Bubble Bar looks funny right? This has shea butter and strawberry inside, so great for us with a sweet tooth.

The Yoga Bath Bomb is great for relaxing with. It contains olibanum and ho wood.

You can reuse this cutie. This is The Magic Of Christmas Bubble Bar. It has clove and almond in it. You can just sweep it across the water a few times and then put it somewhere safe to use again.

I get a Holly Golightly Bubble Bar every year from Lush. I think it just screams Christmas, and it smells like it too 🙂

Of course the Lush Winter Wonderland has a Frozen Bath Bomb this year. It contains grapefruit and Tunisian Neroli. Yum yum.

This is the Stardust Bath Bomb. It has vanilla and Rosewood in it.

Cinders is a lush classic. It smells like cinnamon.

I saw this Luxury Lush Pud Bath Bomb (mouthful) in action when we were in Lush. It dissolves into the bath just how it looks in the bomb it’s really cool. It also contains lavender so good for a before bed time bath.

My Father Christmas Bath Bomb got a bit bashed by its friends inside the box. He will turn your bath green though and smells like candy floss.

I think bubble bars are where you get the most bang for your buck in Lush. You can just break pieces off and get as many uses out of them as you want. This is the Bar Humbug Bubble Bar. It contains Liquorice, not my favourite scent, but if you love DollyMix this one is for you 🙂

The Lord of Misrule Bath bomb makes your bath wine coloured, so you could drink wine while you were having your bath and you wouldn’t even noticed if you spilled!

My So White Bath Bomb didn’t make it in one piece, but at least it means I can show you what it looks like inside. It contains bergamot and rose…yummy!

Golden Wonder is my all time favourite bath bomb from Lush. It has lime oil in it, so it smells really zesty and when it melts away it leaves little stars in your bath!

The Butterbear Bath Bomb is great for dry skin, it has cocoa butter in it like the Snow Angel…I might actually use these together for an extra hydrating bath time!

The Comforter Bubble Bar is probably my favourite out of all the Lush bubble bars and is one I purchase all the time. It’s really sweet but not in a sickly way. It contains cassis and cypress oil.

The Twilight Bath Bomb is the last on the list. As you would assume by the name and the look of this bath bomb, this is another good bath time bomb. It contains lavender and tonka and according to Lush makes your bath look like the night sky…we’ll see about that 🙂

The Lush Winter Wonderland will cost you €117.50, it is one of the priciest gift sets instore. I think if you are wanting to buy a hardcore Lush fan (or yourself) a really special gift this is pretty perfect though.

Any of your Lush faves in here? Any you fancy trying? Let me know 🙂

xxx

October 23, 2015/1 Comment/by Gem

Posts

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 🙂

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.

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

I hauled the Alice In Wonderland Palette from Urban Decay in my latest Youtube video here if you fancy seeing what else I got too 🙂