Duty Free/Airport Haul

I recently went to Greece flying from Heathrow. I went to the airport with intentions that I was going to treat myself. I didn't go craaaazy, but if you've followed me for a while you'll know I have next to nothing in the way of 'high end' makeup (I didn't even really own anything MAC before this) so I wanted to get a few bits.

I started with MAC as I knew I wanted to get my first ever lipstick. I didn't even bother looking at the shades, I just asked if they had Velvet Teddy (£12.50) as I had tried my cousins a few months ago and loved it. She found it for me straight away and I was super pleased. Secondly, I wanted a highlighter. I was browsing them but if you've ever been to a duty free MAC, especially Heathrow North terminal, they are normally quite small with very few assistants so as soon as she was free I just asked her recommendation... She said the Mineralize Skinfinish in Lightscapade (£20ish) was her fave, I swatched it and liked it, so didn't even think twice and purchased it. It was quite a rushed, panic buying experience! 

If you haven't seen Benefits new releases, you must have been living under the rock. I had the Benefit Brow Zings a few years ago and loved it, although since something put me off buying it again (I think it was the price...), however my mum bought it a few months ago in Duty Free and I always use hers so I decided to pick a new one up. I went for Benefit Brow Zings 04 (£20) which I wasn't sure would be the right shade as I haven't tried the new shades but its fine, it matches perfectly. The only thing I would say is I'm sure they have changed the product as it doesn't overwhelm me like my mums does when I use hers....

I got Bourjois Bronzer & Highlighting Duo (£7.99) from Boots, in the airport so it counts, but I really don't like it, soz. I know its every bloggers fave bronzer but nah, I don't like it :(

And lastly, just to sneak it in, I actually FINALLY bought Mary Lou Manizer (£17.50) (before holiday but it also counts). I've been eyeing it up for the longest time, but when FeelUnique sent me a discount code I ended up buying it for about £12!! BARGAIN!! And I ADORE IT! I actually have a full review coming soon so look out for that. :)

Have you picked up anything from Duty Free recently? Let me know if you've done a haul!

I just wanted to mention the new blog design and a slight name change too, I love love love it so would be grateful for any feedback! :)

Daisy xxx

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

#eBayFinds

BooHoo.com Sparkly Top £2 | Missguided A-Line Printed Skirt £3.50

Welcome to the first in my eBay finds series! I have been super excited to finally get round to posting this because it means I can finally take all the tags off the items, wash them and actually wear them!

I must admit, go back a few months ago I would have never bought second hand. Never, ever. No way. I had the view that no matter how poor I was, I would never buy second hand as that is trampy and just generally not nice. Oh how was I wrong! eBay has fast become my newest and biggest addiction. With tags, without tags, you really can get the most amazing bargains. Although I wanted to write this so I could show off all my lovely new clothes, I also really wanted to show you what you can get from eBay. It's very underrated and I think sometimes has a bad reputation because of bad buyers/sellers but you could potentially have that with anything online.

Much like car booting, I am very much on the lookout for a good deal. If something goes over £5 I'm a bit like *eeek step back* which is mad because I probably wouldn't think twice about paying full price for the item in a shop. It's very strange. A lot of people asked me what I search as they don't have a clue but I normally just search 'Missguided size 8' or 'Topshop size 8'. It really is as simple as that!

I have also been suckered into bidding too much (several times) purely because I'm quite competitive; if I've bid for something and somebody outbids me, I bid back just to win. Crazy. Some things I do regret bidding so much on and unbelievably, luckily not me, but I have seen used items going for more then you could buy them brand new. That's when I know people are really mad. Enough of me talking about eBay.

The first two bits I want to show you are my two favourites.
Firstly, BooHoo.com sparkly (slightly cropped) top, brand new with tags. Price: £2 Delivery: £3.20
I don't know what bought me to buy this. It honestly isn't my style, and I'm not really sure what I can wear it with but I love it. So much. The sparkles are sequins and they are silver and white depending which way they are sitting. I mean, brand new with tags and totalling at £5.20 you cannot really go wrong! I'm thinking this will be nice with high wasted jeans but I'm not sure about shoes just yet. I will think about that later.

Missguided printed a-line skirt, brand new with tags. Price: £3.50 Delivery: £2.99
I wasn't letting this go, honestly. I wear very plain clothes with a pop of colour and print. I don't know why, I find it easier like this. I rarely wear just colourful things, it's always plain with a print or colour. Although my mum, my nan, my cousin and most of my family absolutely HATE this skirt I literally adore it. I love the print, I love the colours, I love the style, I love the material. I just love everything about it!! I really cannot wait to wear this on a night out or in summer with trainers. It is so cool and different to anything I've ever seen before.

Well here are my first two #eBayFinds, I hope you enjoyed it. I would LOVE to see your #eBayFinds, tweet me at @daisydaisyxxo with your pictures!

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.

BLOGMAS DAY 8 | THE COLOUR CONTACTS HUT

This is a very exciting post for me! I was recently contacted by the guys over at The Colour Contacts Hut to see if I wanted to review some of their contacts. Of course I said yes straight away as I've ordered from them before and was very pleased with my order.

I ordered the Crystal Blue Coloured Contacts as I didn't want to go to over the top with colour. I had previously ordered white contacts for Halloween which were amazing. The kit I ordered was £14.99 and they last for 90 days once their opened. There are other kits which are 1 day only, but I got the longer lasting ones so I could wear them again. 

I always have problems with putting the contacts on my eyes as I'm not experienced at all, so every time I've worn contacts my mum has had to do it for me (she's a pro!! Thanks mumma!)

The kit came with a big bottle of eye solution, 2 contact pots and mini pair of tweezers. As soon as they came I put them in, however I wasn't writing about them on that day so I put them both into the pots with solution. 

Well.. I thought I had. Unfortunately when I went to put them in today, apparently only one had survived. I was gutted but I thought i'd still show you the one so you can see what they look like, and luckily I had took a quick shot on my phone when I put them both in the first time.

My eyes before

With the one side contact lens. As you can see, when a flash is on you can really tell a difference, however when you look at them in person, I can't say you notice a MASSIVE difference. I'm gutted as I purposely picked some that I thought would suit me well but not over the top (the do every colour and patterned lens you could think of!).

Rubbish iPhone pic of them both in.

PROS: -the colour is amazing and all the colours they have are soooo cool

-they are defiantly 10000% much comfier than my last set and I think this is because of the thickness of the lenses

-normal colour ones actually look very real

CONS: -I'm not sure if this is the same with every person but they do irritate my eyes after a while

-one of my eyes is clearly a different size as the lens would NOT sit on my eye properly and kept falling down

Overall I defiantly would buy from The Coloured Contacts Hut again. The people were lovely to work with, the process was so easy and they're so cheap. As I mentioned the colours and patterns they do are amazing, and they defiantly have contacts for every occasion! Go and check them out! 

Have you ever tried any contacts? What colour or pattern?

*This product was sent to me by The Colour Contacts Hut to review. The fact that these were free has not effected my review in any way and all opinions are my own.