No 7 Eye Shadow Palette for £10

There are some brilliant sales around at the moment but I have been recovering from a chest infection so I haven't been hitting the shops that much. 

However, I picked up this eye shadow palette from Boots for £10. 

No 7 is well known for their Protect and Perfect range and in recent years their makeup range has expanded. Nail polishes, mascaras, eye shadows and more. 

This rose gold eye shadow palette was £20 reduced to £10 in their up to half price sale recently. 

The palette contains 20 shadows with a mixture of finishes including mattes.

The shadows don't have names but each is numbered, they come from popular palettes already in No 7 collections. 

Shades 1,6 and 10 are from the Cappuccino Trio. Shades 2 and 20 are from the Moonlight Shadows Duo. Shades 3,11 and 15 are from the Night Shadows Quad. Shades 4,7 and 19 are from the Classic Matte Trio. Shades 5,8 and 13 were taken from the Good Earth Trio. Shades 9, 12, 16 and 17 were taken from the Chocolate Fondant Quad. Shade 14 was taken from the Golden Trio. Finally, shade 18 was taken from the Green Glades Quad. 

The colour pay off of all of these shadows is brilliant, each shadow is highly pigmented, the formulation reminds me of Urban Decay shadows. They blend together well which is another bonus.

For £10 I couldn't say no! Have you picked up any bargains in the January sales?

Beauty advent calendars 2014

It's that time of year again when the shops and department stores start bringing out all their Christmas goodies. I know Christmas is still a long way off but if there is one thing I have discovered about blogging is that bloggers go crazy for beauty advent calendars.

This year we seem more spoiled for choice than ever before. In previous years I know beauty advent calendars fly off the shelves. With that in mind I thought I would compile a list of what you can expect to be released this festive season.

Benefit Candy Coated Countdown - £60

This calendar is full of much loved Benefit classics including Porefessional, Stay Flawless, Watt's Up, It's Potent eye cream and many more. According to Benefit's website this calender will be available to buy from October 10.

The Body Shop - £50

Again, behind each window is a mini product of some of their best love products. I read this calendar will be out in selected stores from October 8. 

Boots No7 - £35

Mini products of some brilliant No 7 goodies including nail polishes, lipsticks and eyeshadows, This calendar will be available on Boots' website and in stores from October 29. 

Other brands bringing out beauty advent calendars include L'Occitane for £45 which is available on their website from November 3. 

Elemis have already brought out their calendar however they only have 12 skincare goodies and it costs £59.50.

Selfridges' calendar is full of a mixture of high end skin care and fragrance products. There are 24 goodies to discover and the calendar costs £85.

Nail polish brand Ciate are launching another varnish calendar this year. For £49 you will get 24 mini polishes. I remember Ciate being very popular last year. 

Jo Malone are bringing out a fragrance advent calendar which will be available in Harrods from October 20 and then nationwide from November 10. This is the most expensive calendar I have come across so far at £250.

What do you think of these calendars? Will you be trying to get your hands on any of them?

"Get in loser, we're going shopping"

It had been a while since I wandered round town. I didn't anything but here are a couple of bits I picked up a couple of weeks ago.

Nivea In-Shower Skin Conditioner - I have used this a few times since I bought it. I am not sure whether I would repurchase it. If I used too much my skin would feel oily and not in a good way. Perhaps in the winter this would be a great product, we shall wait and see.

Imperial Leather new foamburst shower gel in green tea and jasmine. These gels smell amazing! They brought out the foamburst line years ago, but these scents in the black cans are new. 

Boots had a buy one get one half price on all Barry M Nail Paints. I picked up a couple of the gelly polishes in Guava and Blue Grape. Not that I need anymore nail polish but I hadn't tried the gelly line before.

I asked #bbloggers on Twitter if they knew of any creme shadows similar to the Maybelline Color Tattoos. The popular answer was 17. So I tried the Wild Green pot.

Superdrug had Batiste dry shampoo on offer - better than half price- this supersized can cost £4.99 full price, but I picked it up for £2.48. Can't grumble at that. 

My mum bought me the Nivea Double Effect Eye Make-Up Remover. I usually use the Olay cream remover, so it will be good to try something new.

Finally, one of my all time favorites - No7 Revitalising Hand Saviour. This is an oily scrub for your hands. I cannot praise this product enough, it gets rid of dry, flaky skin instantly and leaves hands silky soft.

I finally upgraded my old phone and went for the Nokia Lumia 920 in bright yellow. I have only had the handset a few days, but so far, so good.

Winter Saviour For Your Hands

Recently I have been suffering with terrible dryness on my hands, especially my knuckles. The skin is red and sore, whilst there are flakey dry patches on other parts. This horrible cold weather we are experiencing in the UK at the moment is definitely not helping. This is my personal saviour for sore skin, I have been doing this most nights.

First up I use No7 Revitalising Hand Saviour (found in Boots for around £11 but I tend to stock up when Boots do the £5 off No7 vouchers)

This is an exfoliator for the hands and I adore this product, I have been using it for years, way before I began blogging, infact I have no idea why I haven't mentioned this before. I apply this on to dry hands and massage in for a min or so. The scrub has oil in it and this is what helps make the hands silky soft.

Rinse hands to remove the scrub granules (the scrub particles themselves are very fine and not 'scratchy' at all)

Next I slather my hands in hand cream, I find heavy duty ones work better for me, Body Shop Hemp and E45 are just two of my old faithfuls. 

I am very generous with the amount of hand lotion I apply, again I massage the lotion in for min or so. I tend to alternate between these two lotions the most, the E45 is cheap (I think around £3/4 but the Body Shop is around £10, but for me I know the BS one works well as I have been using it for years)

Then I wear gloves, yes gloves in bed, obv not normal day time gloves, these are special light weight cotton ones.

May seem odd, but trust me it works! Some people might not like sleeping in these but it doesn't bother me at all. In the morning my hands are soft, smooth and less red. What are your tips for dry skin?

No 7 goodies

This post is long overdue, I picked up a great deal whilst at the October Boots advantage points Christmas event. At that time Boots were also giving those £5 off No 7 vouchers when you spent  over a certain amount. 

There was an offer on a new mascara whereby if you buy that you get an eyeshadow quad. So I used my £5 off voucher to buy the mascara which I think was about £12 full price, so that dropped the amount down to around £7. So not only did I get the mascara cheaper, I also got the quad freebie.

The mascara itself is called Lash Adapt and is meant to give your lashes more volume, I didn't really find this is the case, but it is a good mascara, however, I wouldn't buy this at its full price. I don't feel it is worth £12 as I didn't think it made my lashes look amazing. 

The free eyeshadow quad is lovely though, you get a pearlescent champagne shade, a dark shimmer brown, a lighter shimmer brown, and a deep dark purple/plum toned shadow. This is called Smokey Rose Quad.

Even though the mascara wasn't anything special I am glad I bought it just for the eye shadow, this would be great for everyday office work makeup.