An introduction to Too Faced... | Beauty

I'm not the type of person to ask for much for Christmas. For me, it's all about surprises. Now I'm at an age where I can afford to save and buy anything that I want, that's exactly what I tend to do, which leaves birthdays/Christmas pretty tricky for anyone asking me what I want. I love not knowing what I'll be receiving and that really is part of the fun for me - hence why I don't ask for much.

I had sent mum several links to different beauty bits and pieces I wanted, including a few bits from Too Faced. As my mum went away at the start of December, all her Christmas shopping was finished in November which meant I had even more of a surprise because I had forgotten everything I had mentioned to her - yey! Of course I didn't get everything (yup, I'm still upset I didn't get Mary Lou) but I did get some amazing bits.

Too Faced isn't really a brand I hear much about. Don't get me wrong, I hear people talk about it but not as much as Mac & Urban Decay. I had a tiny sample of Too Faced - Better Than Sex mascara last year which I was honestly obsessed with. I used it every day, even when it was dried out I still tried to make it work. I was stupidly upset when I had to come to terms with the fact it was all gone and I probably should just throw it away. 

For some reason, I've just never repurchased it. It's one of those things I never want to buy myself. It's £19, it's quite large and a big part of the price tag is the packaging. It's very heavy and sturdy, not plastic and it's kind of embossed, all fancy like.  I pay £10 for my HG mascara, so I don't see why I can't get my brain around spending an extra £10 on a mascara that I genuinely, really do love. I'd happily go and spend that £10 on sweets and crisps!! I think the fact I could only order it online put me off too, my local Debenhams has now got a Too Faced stand which makes it even more desirable to me! Bring on payday.

Another Too Faced item I was eager to try was the Melted Lipstick. Now, I (didn't even realise I'd) sent my mum the shade 'Peaony', that was just the shade option online. When I opened it, it certainly took me by surprise. A bright, barbie pink lipstick? Would I ever choose one of those? Most certainly not! We all know my hate for barbie pink lippys. Mum had assumed this was the shade I wanted as I sent it to her... oooopsie. However, you'll be pleased to hear I wore it on Christmas day and really did like it. If you don't smother it on, it's more of a pink nude making it easier to get away with wearing. Phew! I will certainly be getting some more though - although am I the only one wishing there was some muted colours in there? They are all fluorescent colours! Darn.

Have you tried anything from Too Faced? What should I try next?

Daisy xx

NPW Gifts - The Perfect Gift Shop For Anyone

Let me start this post by apologising. I must be truthful and tell you I've had this little box of goodness sitting in the spare room for god knows how long. My little break may definetely caused me to forget about these bad boys, but then I had the age old blogger problem of 'I haven't photographed it, so I can't use it yet' - even though I wasn't actually blogging at the time - c'mon, we've all been there. 

I found NPW Gifts when searching out brands to donate to the #SuffolkBloggerMeet. They were unable to gift anything to the meet up, but they still wanted to gift something to me *happy dance*. I had one of those moments where this arrived through the door and I didn't have a clue where it came from. After a little digging I found the emails between us and it all made sense. Yay.

NPW Gifts were SO generous to me and sent me several bits to try. Sadly, I have tried to register on their website so that I can find out prices but it won't accept my blog link as a web address. I'm not sure if they are a wholesaler, or if anyone can buy from them *will update this soon*. The packaging for every single item is just absolutely amazing, I would buy these products from that alone!

Beauty Junky Beauty Boost*

These tiny little pots come in threes; cucumber hand cream, paw paw & pomegranate face mask and almond hair mask. On the website it says that they are for 'woman on the move, one time use pods for on the go', which I really love the idea of. Picture being on a train and just whipping one of these out your bag - well, hand cream only. Imagine putting on a face mask on the train?! I must admit I haven't actually tried any of these yet however they sound lovely. Almond hair mask just screams out to me! 

Breakfast Face Masks*

These had me as soon as I saw the packaging. Little milk shape bottles in a brown paper box?! Again, I can't comment on the actual product as I am yet to try them but jeeees these sound amazing. I always remember I used to read about putting yogurt on the face when I was younger; they do coffee face masks which you can buy on the high street, and I'm sure oats will be good too.

Beauty Junky Tissues* | Beauty Junky Wipes* | Panda Cotton Buddies*

All of these are massive hand bag essentials. I use cotton buds on a daily and the Panda cotton buddies make them so much more fun! The hand wipes have gone straight in my handbag - ha ha, get it? - who couldn't want strawberries & cream flavoured wipes? And, *touch wood* I've not actually had a cold yet this year but as we go into the cold months I'm sure I'll be suffering. I always suffer from bad colds :(

Beauty Junky Duo Exfoliating Face Pads*  | Cooling Eye Masks* | Hair Glitter* | Beauty Junky Rollerball Trio*

I bought some exfoliating face pads from Primark once and really wasn't impressed. I just didn't feel like they were doing anything for me, I really didn't understand the point of them. However, I would try them again as that was quite some years ago and I might have a different opinion now! 

If you follow me on Twitter - and if you don't, do it now - you'll have seen that I have recently become a bit obsessed with face masks. Don't ask why, I have just been loving them and really noticing a difference to my skin when I use them. These cooling eye masks will be amazing when I have a pamper session using my new found love of face masks! 

Hair glitter is one of those things you love to use at festivals but probably wouldn't use it for anything else. Sadly festival season is over now but this will stay in my draw - I'm thinking a potential Christmas eye look?! 

Lastly these lovely rollerball trio. Do you remember rollerballs? I'm sure I used to have them when I was younger so this brought back loads of memories for me. Lipgloss, body glitter and perfume. A complete 90's throw back, eh! The lipgloss has flowers in it too!  

Wonderland Metallic Tattoos*

Yet again, these would have been perfect for festival season (although who am I kidding, I don't think I went to a single festival hahaha). I have a black tie & ball gown Christmas party to go to in a few weeks and I have this image of a low back dress with one of these gorgeous tattoos on my back.

Beauty Junky 7 Day Surprise*

I am stupidly excited about this one. Christmas is round the corner so all the advent calendars are creeping out, but this one isn't made for Christmas, it's mad for ALL YEAR ROUND! How bloody exciting. This year I bought Tanya Burr's 12 days of Christmas calendar meaning I won't have one for the whole month so I might double up and have this one too. It could work, right? I'll update Twitter/Facebook with the contents if you're interested.

SO, there we have it. My mammoth post is nearly over. I'm sorry if I've bored you to death, there was a lot to write about! I might do an update post reviewing everything once it's all been tried & tested - please let me know if this is something you'd like to see! 

xxxx

Makeup Revolution Ultra Brow Eyebrow Palette

Makeup Revolution Ultra Brow - £7.99*

Well this post has been a bloody long time coming. How long ago did I receive this in the post? Gosh, I don't even want to think. Have you noticed how slack I have been with blogging just recently? Well, I can't even say 'just recently', it's been for about a year or so. I reckon I'm probably the only blogging in the world that has 30+ drafts ready to be written but just no inspiration or motivation to write them. Feeling utterly crap about my blog on Tuesday I decided to try and have a clean up and ultimately ended up breaking everything. I've added buttons, have you seen? But they are too big and I don't know how to change it. It's a working progress but back to the reason you are here..

BROWS.

Believe it or not this was actually a 'new release' when I received it, the day it came out. Better late than never though, eh? Meet the new love of my life. Now we all know about my brows. You must know about my brows, it's not like I ever bore people to death with brow chat?! Me, no, never!! Until this brow palette came along I just got by with my trusty MUA £3.50 brow palette. Yup, you heard me right! I don't pay hundreds of pounds for brow products like some people seem to think I do. That has been replaced. 

When I saw this on the new releases page on the website, I thought it looked pretty compact and small. Easy enough to carry around every day. But much to my surprise, it isn't as small and compact as I was expecting. If you've ever had/seen the Makeup Rev eyeshadow palettes, its exactly the same size as that. I can't carry it in my makeup bag, thats for sure. Nevertheless I do end up carrying this around with me every day, it's my new favourite makeup item I own (and thats saying a lot!).

4 powders, 2 waxes, a cream highlight, a powder highlight, a pencil, 2 mini brushes and mini tweezers.. please tell me what more you could possibly want from an eyebrow palette? Weather your a pencil, powder, wax, wax and powder girl it doesn't matter. It has it all covered! And guess what?! They are all brilliant. With so much going on you would expect certain bits to be worse than others but they really aren't! I honestly could not fault it, and thats coming from the self proclaimed brow obsessive. 

This brow palette comes in 3 different ranges; fair to medium, medium to dark and extra dark to black. Not only does it come in 3 ranges, each has (technically) 7 shades of colour so you'd be very wrong if you told me you couldn't find a colour to match you. With so much product and at only £7.99, this palette is going to last you a long while and won't break the bank when you need to repurchase. I will 150% be buying it again, maybe even before I've run out so I can have one at home and one at the boyfriends. That way I don't have to carry it around with me! 

What is your brow holy grail? Any brow palettes you recommend?

KNOW YOUR WORTH | BLOGGING

I am in no means an experienced blogger and in no way am I claiming to be. I have been blogging a little over a year and in my time I’ve learnt a few things. One main thing that you learn when writing a blog is that people value your opinion. Strangers, people that you have never even spoken to actually value your honest opinion so whenever I get asked anything blog/beauty related weather it be simple questions like ‘what is your favourite mascara?’ or ‘how do I add BlogLovin to my blog?’ of course I try and answer as best and honestly as I can.

I am a member on Facebook of several blogging type groups. One of the main ones I use is amazing for any blog related help you might need. Myself and a few others have been noticing a few threads on there recently all relating to the same topic. It has become apparent that a certain brand (that I will not name) have been getting on a lot of peoples nerves lately. Firstly I saw others writing about it, and today I encountered it first hand. A PR company, and thats the only clue I’ll give. A lot of bossy, 'do this do that’ emails for pretty much nothing in return. Of course a lot of PR companies don’t always have budgets to pay people for blog posts and I completely understand that but can they really ask new (and old) bloggers to do all sorts, sometimes spending hours on blog posts for nothing? I think not.

Rewind 6 months and I would have jumped at the chance to potentially win a prize. Just writing a simple blog post and having the chance to win a PRIZE?! It doesn’t matter what prize, the point is you could WIN! I’ll be the first to admit I did a few of these ‘blog about us, promote us loads on social media and be entered to a draw to never win anything’ blog posts for a few brands but when you start getting better opportunities and you see your blog grow more, you realise that you don’t need to do that. I’d rather spend my valuable free time writing relevant blog posts or interacting with other bloggers than writing a pointless, non relevant post for nothing. I remember once I spent a whole college day perfecting a blog post (when I obviously should have been working!) to come third and ultimately, that meant absolutely nothing.

It’s all about knowing your worth. You, as a blogger are worth so much more than promoting brands for absolutely nothing in return. A lot of them try it on but you really need to remember you wouldn’t work for free so why should you spend your free time blogging, for free? You shouldn’t. And please don’t think you should. No matter what the companies tell you, it won’t get you anywhere any faster than a bit of hard work will.