Horse Themed Cupcakes

My best friend and a few others are part of the equestrian (riding) team at university and asked if I could bake them a batch of cupcakes for their last ever competition.
 Now I am not in the slightest interested in horse related things and in no way would I be able to quickly create some fondant horses, so instead I bought some white chocolate carrots from Sainsburys (horses like carrots right?) and pipped some green butter cream on vanilla cupcakes! 

Nom nom nom! Good luck girls!!! :)

Kathryn x

Battle of the Brushes// Stippling or Expert Face Brush

Over the years I have owned many foundation brushes.. and by foundation brushes I mean them pointed flat ones that at first I thought worked wonders for my foundation until I noticed how streaky my face looked!

Real Techniques are absolutely brilliant for providing various foundation brushes (and all the other types) and I am currently torn between two that I love.. these are the Stippling Brush and the Expert Face Brush.

I'll begin with the newest brush added to my collection.. the Expert Face Brush by Real Techniques

This is a wider, ultra firm face brush used to help create a flawless base using liquid or cream foundation. It consists of highly compacted synthetic taklon bristles in a dome shape and I must say, it is absolutely wonderful! Because it is so dense the brush picks up lots of product and makes it so easy to blend to give a natural light looking feel, and somehow makes it feel like I am wearing very little foundation.

On to the other... the Real Techniques Stippling Brush

I had only just realized that this brush isn't only made for perfecting a flawless base but also for various makeup (hence I am now using it for blushers)!

Any who... this brush is dual fibered used to create an airbrush, high definition results for 'all types of makeups'. At first I loved this brush, I felt as if it worked wonders on my foundation but I have noticed that it isn't as soft and as easy to use nowadays (maybe because it has been washed many times).
 It works very nicely for getting the foundation right into your skin to provide a flawless coverage however I find it hard to get into some areas, such as around my nose and eyes as the bristles aren't as soft and dense as the Expert Face Brush.

Like I said, I currently now use this for cream blushers or normal blushers as I am finding it just a little bit uncomfortable on this skin. Saying this, if it does fall apart I probably would consider re purchasing ha :) 

So... overall I would suggest purchasing the Expert Face Brush for a beautiful base and always try out the stippling brush because you may well get along with it nicely :) 

Kathryn x

Body Shop Hair Chalk// Tickle Me Pink

I am so happy this chalk trend has stuck around! Back in summer I chalked my hair (using my own chalks) with purple, pink and blue shades and absolutely loved it... however it did slightly dry and ruin my hair! So when I heard that The Body Shop had released some hair chalks in their Spring collection I was fairly intrigued to try them out. I chose the pink shade named Tickle Me Pink just because I think pink looks so pretty in blonde hair :) 

These are very simple to use and come with very simple instructions as follows: 

'1) Place a towel around your shoulders to protect your clothes. 2) Gather a section of hair, place the colour pad on top with your thumb underneath and glide down to the tip. 3) Brush through the excess powder. Seal in the colour with hair spray. 4) Wash out with shampoo to remove'

It is literally as simple as that. If you are going for the very light pastel look brush over once or twice and for a more vibrant pink just repeat several times and voila! I particularly like the formula of this product as it doesn't feel drying on the hair at all, is so smooth and doesn't crumble or anything. It's fab and adds extra excitement to your hair instantly.. and best of all if you hate it, it washes out so easily!

It works much better on fresh clean hair and suggests that if you do have dry or damaged hair use a leave in conditioner before using this product. 

So last night I used this and I had so many compliments. It hardly took any time at all to do the ends of my hair and I used a curling wand to mix up the different layers! Yes it has ended up on my white top and I am hoping it'll wash out but who knows... 

Overall I loveee it, and I apologize for the photos! This isn't my fresh hair but it has still stayed in over night, bonus!!

You can find these in Body Shop for £5, and here is the blue shade (Falling for Blue) if you are interested :)

Kathryn xx

Garden of Eden Sleek i-Divine Palette

Sleek have gone and done it again! They have created this gorgeous eye shadow palette consisting of 12 super pigmented shades inspired by mother nature. This new Garden of Eden i-Divine palette has beautiful earthy brown shades with dusky purples and organic greens. 

Please ignore my goosebumps

There are 4 matte colours; Flora, Adams Apple, Entwined and Tree of Life leaving the remainder 8 as frosty shades which are all stunning! One thing I love about i-Divine palettes are the amazing pigmentation of the eye shadows, especially the frosty shades. The matte shades are a little bit harder to work with so make sure you have a good  eye shadow primer for them to stay on with good colour. The textures are wonderful and are super soft, almost like a cream feel.

I never venture out much with eye shadows but I couldn't help myself when I saw this lovely hues of green, especially the shade Evergreen. I can't wait to experiment with this Garden of Eden palette and would highly recommend it. One thing to note is that unlike my other sleek palette the matte shades really aren't as great as I hoped.

Overall though it is such a great palette for an amazing price (£7.99). It isn't limited edition however the snazzy packaging is!  

Sleek Blush By 3: Pink Lemonade

Seeing as the ever popular Nars One Night Stand palette sold out instantly I was eager to find another blush palette.I have always loved Sleek products as they are highly pigmented, cheap and have a fab lasting power, especially there eyeshadow palettes! 

Pink Lemonade is the new Blush By 3 palette by Sleek costing £9.99 and includes 3 blushes; 2 powders and 1 cream blush.

Icing Sugar is the first, a medium pinky plum shade with a silver sparkle. Overall this blush is okay. I had to layer is quite a bit to get the pigment I wanted which is slightly disappointing but I do love the colour once it is on.

The middle shade is Macaroon, a cream blush! I had never tried a cream blush before so I was a bit unsure how to apply it HOWEVER I love it and have had so many compliments saying my skin looks like its glowing! It is a medium pink that left me with a luminous finish and was very easy to blend on the skin.  

The third and final shade is Pink Mint, another powder based blush. It is a medium-dark muted orange shade with a frosty finish. The colour is very well pigmented unlike Icing Sugar with a soft texture. However this is my least favourite shade as it felt to dark on my complexion and I didn't find it that easy to work with. 

 

Overall I am glad I bought Pink Lemonade Blush By 3 even though I sound negative. It's nice to try a range of blush colours without hurting the bank account and I am glad I have tried a cream blush finally. The packaging it lovely as per usual however having a cream blush in the middle of two powders was not thought through logically was it? 

Kathryn x

Pastel Trend: Zara Edition!

Ah I am so happy pastels are back in trend.. although I'm not really sure they even went out. Zaras new collection is beautiful, bringing in the pastel yellows, nudes and whites! 

I wondered into Zara this weekend and these are the items that cought my eye! 

Firstly is the Wool Jacket at £69.99! I love Zara jackets as the quality is so great and it just looks somewhat expensive. It is a very thin jacket ideal for Spring and would look beautiful with some white jeans and either these nude Pointed Shoes or these Ballerina style crystal pumps. 

I didn't see this Zara coat (with pockets) in the shop but how beautiful is it! The colour yellow just shouts happiness and with a white blouse and white jeans this would look lovely. Only downfall is it's a longish coat and knowing me I'll be swamped by it! 

And lastly.. skirts! There have been a lot of skirts around recently, whether they are tube skirts, mini skirts or even skorts! This tube skirt with sheer detail comes in both black and white so would be perfect for a night out or for the summer months! 

All about Spring.. Saint Germain MAC

Aww, todays weather in the UK was glorious and I can feel Spring coming!! As per usual the weekend consisted of more shopping. One thing led to another and I ended up in Mac (Shock!). 

I wanted a highly pigmented, yet wearable pink lipstick ready for what spring has to offer and decided to buy the Amplified Creme Lipstick in the colour Saint Germain. As with any lipstick I am always weary whether I will pull it off, but I have learnt that I just need to wear the right colours with the right makeup look for the day and just feel confident in myself!

As soon as I put this on I loved it! Its a gorgeous strong pink and the amplified creme formula makes its opaque and creamy. I admit, it is a little streaky and you must apply it in the correct way and maybe a couple of times for it to even out but that may be down to the pastel shade talking. 

I wore it for the first time today to work and immediately got a compliment from it!
 Overall it lasted pretty well though my lips are fairly dry at the moment so I probably should of used some lip balm and exfoliated my lips before hand to make it last and not go into the cracks. One thing I dislike however is that I find it hard to cover my entire lips if that makes sense... With many lipsticks I don't need a lip liner and if I go slightly over then it doesn't matter but I think I'll have to buy a light shade lipliner for this little one!

Overall I am happy with the Saint Germain Mac lipstick and know it'll be a lovely shade for Spring, however like many lipsticks I do think certain skin tones will pull this off better than others, mainly the palest of the bunch! 

Happy Sundays xx

Valentines Day Coconut & Raspberry Cupcakes

Following on from yesterday's post I thought I would update y'all on what I have baked for the 'big' day.. aka Valentines Day! I didn't want to go down the lovey dovey pink heart and 'I <3 U' route so instead I baked some coconut and raspberry cupcakes :) 

Now.. I haven't had a chance to try one of these yet and am a little worried as, well like most of my cupcakes, it was a bit of 'oh I'll add a dash of this and that' to the mixture ha.

For a brief overview, they are a pink vanilla sponge (just added pink gel colouring) with some sweet desiccated coconut. I mashed up some raspberries and heated them with some caster sugar and water which was for the filling. Then a standard vanilla butter-cream with some dried raspberries and coconut! 

Hopefully they taste as yummy as they look!

Happy Valentines Day everyone :)

Kathryn xxx

Valentines Baking Ideas

According to my parents there is only one way to a mans heart... through food.

With this in mind and my love for baking, it is not surprising that yes I probably will be either baking some Valentines cupcakes or making some sweet treats for the boyfriend. I thought I would share a few of my favourite baking ideas that I have seen which are perfect for valentines day!

First up are these adorable heart cake pops found on Bakerella's blog. These are sooo cute and if you keep scrolling down there is a recipe for turning these into little strawberries. I have attempted cake pops but I can't say I have had much luck so over Summer I will try and improve my cake pop skills!

 Bake at 350 provide a recipe for this beautiful Made With Love Stamped Almond Shortbread Cookies. It is a very simple, yet affective recipe and even if you dont have the stamp you could cut using a heart cookie cutter or an 'I <3 U' cutter if you prefer!

Birds Like Cake has baked these cute heart shaped red velvet whoppie pies which are perfect for a quick snack. In addition how cute are these simple yet beautiful cupcakes! I have yet to try baking a 'Red Velvet Cupcake' mainly because the dairy free recipes just don't appeal to me. I am sure there are plenty of Valentine styles cupcakes out there but I think these look lovely with a quick swirl and a tiny heart on top!

 Mmmm... two desserts in one! BruCrew Life have created a recipe that includes both Cheesecake and Brownies, what more would you other half want!



Cosmetics Miniatures

 So over the years, buying endless amounts of cosmetics, I have accumulated some good and some bad miniatures/samples. Here are just 5 that I thought I would review and share for y'all.

1// Urban Decay Primer Potion. 

As I am sure you are all aware, this cute bottle came with the Urban Decay NAKED 1 palette! I had never owned a eye shadow primer before, god knows why?! After using this I  firstly noticed, how much more pigmented my eye shadows were on my lids, secondly how well my eye shadow lasted and thirdly no creasgin! This is the Original shade in Nude which dries invisibly, however there are three others: Sin (shimmering champagne), Eden (nude matte) and Anti Aging. Overall a brilliant primer! 

2// Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Benefit

I am very much a foundation kind of girl and believe that it is the most important part of a makeup routine, so when a lady from the Benefit gave me a small sample of this foundation I was very skeptical. 'Flawless' is defiantly not the right word to give this foundation. It's claimed to be 'an oil-free brightening liquid foundation that builds from light to medium coverage' but personally I found it not only to be an extremely light foundation but a very 'wet' foundation that when I applied it it virtually just fell off my face. Not good! I do love some benefit products but this was a massive let down. Maybe it works better on dry skin? 

3// Max Factor English Rose

I was never really a lipstick girl when I received this, nor did I ever use Max Factor products however I was pleasantly surprised. The shade is English Rose, a frosty pink with a lot of shine. It's beautiful and pretty long lasting with a lovely texture. Its a gorgeous colour and will probably purchase the full size once this has finished! 

4// Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation

Right, first things first. This used to be my all time favourite foundation and once I thought I had found THE one, they got rid of my shade and something crazy happened with the formula ( though they still deny it). Luckily in the airport I was able to find my old shade and the lady then popped the tester sized bottle in my bag. Clearly this is not my shade at all but it was the old formula. My shade was Fresco, it was perfect and made my skin look flawless. I have to admit, it probably was a little too heavy for me but I loved the full coverage! Fingers crossed the old formula comes back! 

5// Benefit They're Real Mascara

A very much love hate relationship! I received this with the full sized mascara and at first I hated it! It was too wet for my lashes and once I curled them they just went flat again. However I have been using it regularly and now I am finding it too dry for my lashes. Enough of the bad, because I feel that the goods are slightly overriding the bad at the moment. It does give me very high defined lashes and when I don't use this I can really see a difference. I would recommend getting a sample of this if you can just to test it out because, like with most things, it does take time to get used to it! 

Nars Sheer Glow Foundation

Ever since I entered the world of beauty blogging, it has been impossible to stop lusting over NARS Sheerglow Foundation after hearing so many amazing reviews. So off I went to Space NK to get colour matched and see what the fuss is all about. 

Oh my I am so glad I did and think I may have found THE one (foundation wise).

My shade is Light 2 Mont Blanc, which according to the shop assistant, is the most popular shade. At first I was weary as I am so used to having a very high coverage foundation however after applying primer (using Benefits Pore Professional) and then one coat of NARS, my skin looked flawless!

As for the texture, its perfect. It is so lightweight and feels like I have no foundation on. I agree with many bloggers out there, it hasn't got that 'glow' like the name suggests and is more matte but it doesn't make my skin look flat or dull so I am not too bothered. 

The packaging is standard NARS, presented in a beautiful classic bottle with a black lid. One massive downfall, which seems to be a regular occurrence for high end makeup brands, is the lack of a pump on the foundation bottle. I don't understand why they don't provide these but I will probably be giving in and buying one just so I'm not wasting and pouring excess foundation.

Overall, for £31 its an absolute winner and feel like this will be my go-to foundation for a very long time!

Thank you beauty bloggers :)  

Nails Of The Day

Going home only means one thing (well actually many)...Shellacs!!

Little did I realize that my mum had increased the collection even more and bought a gorgeous blue vanish named Azure Wish from last years Spring CND Collection. I have never been a fan of blue nails, but this shade is perfect. As with any shellac, the finish is to die for and brightens these depressing rainy days. 

I never seem to go for a plain nail so on the 'ring fingers' I applied GOSH silver nail glitter for extra sparkle :) 

Kathryn x

Revlon Colour Burst Balms

How beautiful are these new Revlon lipbalms! I am such a fan of these crayon lipsticks and since I love the bourjois paris colour boost lip crayon  collection, I decided to try the new Revlon balms.

I bought 3 colours, two of which are matte balms and the other a lacquer balm. 

The matte balms are a triple butter complex of Shea, Coconut and Mango butters making it a rich moisturizing balm with a velvety matte look. There are 10 colours in this collection, all of which are gorgeous in my opinion, I opted for Showy ( a deep fuchsia pink)and Elusive (a neutral tone).

The other collection is again, a balm with a triple butter complex but with a high shine lacquer finish! I purchased one in the colour Demure. 

Just realised I forgot the 'e' on the end of matt(e) oopsie!

Firstly I would like to say how impressed I am with these and I found it so hard to decide on which colours to buy! As shown Showy is a deep fuchsia pink but in no way is it over powering, Elusive is beautiful blue under toned pink with a slight hint of coral and Demure a glittery neutral shade. 

The texture is perfect and leaves a smooth satin finish with just one application! The pigment of these are amazing and they have yet to make my lips feel dry. One thing I do love about these is that you don't feel like you are wearing any lip product. They are so lightweight, with no sticky or glossy texture and have a lovely subtle hint of peppermint. 

Big thumbs up for Revlon!! :)

Kathryn x

MAC: Nicki Minaj Viva Glam

Yesterday just reminded me how much I love summer and how spring is nearly round the corner. I was going through my makeup bag and completely forgot about my Nicki Minaj lipstick! I have a confession to make.. the only reason I received this was because I am a huge Nicki Minaj fan so anything Nicki related would make me over the moon. 

At first I was shocked at the colour, there was no way I would be able to pull it off, however it actually looks lovely on! Yes it is very bright and maybe not for everyone but the colour seems to work very well with my skin tone and the coral shade makes it perfect for brightening any outfit or makeup look. 

It is a vibrant medium pink with subtle yellow undertones, giving it this beautiful coral colour with a satin finish. This means it has only a natural sheen with no gloss or shimmer to it and only needs one coat, applied evenly, to give you beautiful summery lips! 

I loveee this lipstick and I would happily say it is my favourite mac lipstick I have in my collection. The texture as well as the smell is perfect and its super lasting!

Kathryn x

Top 5 Perfumes

Every Christmas and every birthday without fail I (and probably the majority) will receive a new perfume. I feel like perfumes aren't something you buy for yourself hence why if I don't know what I want I'll just say a 'new perfume please'. With this in mind, here are my top 5 perfumes that I adore and are always on my gifts list:

1// Chloe 2// Chloe Roses 3// Miss Dior 4//Marc Jacobs Eau So Fresh 5// Benefit Lee Lee

 1/ Chloe: I could say sooo much about this perfume, it is absolutely beautiful and smells so chic. I'm not the best at describing smells but i'll do my best. It's has a strong floral scent (by strong I mean it'll last on your clothes for days) with a musky undertone. It can be slightly over powering but you will get lots of compliments I can assure you. I love everything about this perfume and the bottle with a cute ribbon is so classy. 

2/ Chloe Roses: This has been my 'go to' perfume at the moment! Just like the original Chloe, Chloe Roses offers a strong floral scent with an added freshness of roses, leaving you smelling lovely and elegant! It isn't as overpowering as the original hence why I am more likely to wear this during the day, and the original for evening do's. 

3/ Miss Dior Eau De Parfum: This is a timeless floral fragrance in my opinion and am probably most likely to wear this in the evenings/clubbing. It is bold and elegant with a soft woody undertone. I 100% would recommend this to anyone, its a classic!!

4/ Marc Jacobs Eau So Fresh: Unlike the top 3, this is my day wear scent. It is a bright, sparkling fruity-floral scent which isn't over powering and leaves me feeling fresh.

5/ Benefit Laugh with me Lee Lee: I don't know about you but I really am not a fan of the majority of Benefits perfume collection but Laugh with me Lee Lee is a perfume I have worn for several years now. Its a woody floral scent consisting of light blend of citrus, jasmine and lily blossoms making it a naturally light and classy fragrance. It's so beautiful and has a surprisingly long staying power! P.s how adorable is the packaging. 

Kathryn x