NYX goodies


Swatches; Raisin, Spice, Burgundy and Rose

NYX isn't a brand I often come by, but I hear great things about it on YouTube / the blogosphere. When I passed a local beauty shop and saw they were having a 30% sale on the brand, I couldn't resist having a peek.

I picked up the powder blushes in Raisin (left) and Spice (right). Raisin is a light taupe colour which has a lot of brown in it. The pigmentation of it is good and the powder applies very nicely to the skin. I bought this to use as a contour colour as I'd heard it's good for pale skin. I find it looks very natural and works better than the bronzer I was using. Spice is a dusty rose colour which is very pigmented; it's very easy to over-do it with this blush! It has a very faint silver shimmer running through it, but this barely shows up on the cheeks.

I've been really enjoying wearing lip pencils recently, skipping the lipstick altogether and creating a long-lasting stain with a pencil. I did want to pick up a red colour, but they didn't have any. Instead I opted for Burgundy (bottom) and Rose (top). I'm not quite as impressed with these as I am the blushes, although they're not horrible by any means. They both have a very dry texture (Rose more so than Burgundy), but as long as you apply them to nicely moisturised lips, I find they go on ok. The rubbish weather we have at the minute means my lips are dry a lot of the time, but when spring finally rolls around, I'm sure I'll get more use out of these.

Have you tried any NYX products before? What are your favourites?

Belated Birchbox - February 2013

Box number two finally arrived after a pretty long delay. The contents were as follows:


Vichy Eau Thermale, 50ml. Although I've heard of the benefits of thermal water, I've never found a use for it or a place for it in my skincare routine. Perhaps this will come in handy when the warmer months roll around though.

Korres guava shower gel, 50ml. I've been curious to try more Korres products since my first foray into their lip butters a while ago (Quince, if you were wondering). The smell of this is lovely, very invigorating, and it lathers nicely. Not sure I'd pay for the full size version however, that seems excessive for a shower gel.

Nick Chavez Beverly Hills Plump 'N Thick, 59ml. This is a nice product, smells very zesty and does manage to add some volume to my hair. As with last month's KMS California Volumizing Spray, it should be applied to towel-dried hair before blow drying. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to do this often, but I'm going to hang on to this for those special occasions that call for big hair.

EBOOST. Meh, not bothered by this.

Gerda Spillmann Bio-Fond cream make-up, 4.5g. I'd never heard of this Swiss brand, so it was nice to see it included in the box. The packaging says 01 / Praline... 01 leading me to think it's the lightest shade in the range, Praline, not so much. I can't even see this colour listed on the brand website, so I'm not sure if it is the lightest colour available, but it's much too dark for me. I would hope future boxes are better tailored to customer's beauty profiles as I won't be able to get any use out of this sample at all.

Eyelash curler. Perhaps my favourite from this month's box, this Birchbox branded eyelash curler has made a welcome addition to my makeup bag, where my old curler was looking a bit worse for wear.



As with last month, I'm left feeling a bit let down by the samples. Unless March's box is really impressive, I think I'll cancel my subscription. It seems like at the minute I'm paying £10 a month (plus P&P!) for samples which, while nice, I'm not overly excited about. I'd rather save up my pennies and splurge on a full-size item every now and then after doing some thorough research online. Are you subscribed to Birchbox in the UK? If so, what do you think of it so far?

NOTD: Primark floral nail wraps

I've eyed up nail wraps before from brands such as Essie but I'm always put off by the price. For only one application, anything over a couple of pounds seems excessive. I was therefore very happy to find these floral print wraps for only £1. Good old Primark. The application was a bit fiddly, granted, but I was impressed with the finished result. I applied these last Sunday and have only just removed them today - not out of necessity I might add, just because I wanted to paint my nails. A few nails were showing slight signs of wear and tear, with some chipping and wrinkling of the sticker. The floral pattern helped to hide this though, so it was pretty hard to spot. I'm definitely going to check out more of these; £1 for 7+ days wear, fingers crossed they have other nice patterns!