Friday 21 August 2015

NEW WEBSITE!

Some exciting things are happening. We have now moved to our very own website which will start off as a continuation of this blog, with a shop to follow. That is the intention, but will still take some time before it actually takes off. In the mean time, please follow us on our new site to keep up to date with all our posts. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and soon we will make videos for the website on Youtube too. 





www.lebeautyhaul.co.uk

Hope to see you all there!

xo

Thursday 6 August 2015

Boots series #2 No7 skincare - my picks | Ayesha

You know sometimes Boots do an offer where you can get £5 off No7 skincare and £3 off their makeup? Sometimes I wish they did this voucher for other brands too - but hey ho. I enjoy £5 off their skincare, because I think their skincare is very good. 

My skin is combination: dry cheeks and an oily T-zone. My skin is also a little bit dehydrated but I am trialling a product by Kiehls (blog post coming soon!) to target that dehydration. On my right cheek, I used to suffer from something that I am unsure what it was but it resembled scales (as in a dragon or a fish or something) and no matter how much cream I applied, the scales wouldn't go away! I am slightly digressing so I will do another blog post on how I de-scaled myself.

Here is my current line-up of No7 skincare products.




Now, my most favourite No7 product is the radiance exfoliator (on the right). It actually does what it says on the tin. After using this, my skin looked so much brighter! It literally transformed. It doesn't have too many beads in it, so it is less harsh than some other scrubs out there, but nevertheless does a good job. I tend to use this every 3 days or so. 

The cleansing lotion (middle) is great at removing all traces of face makeup, but I haven't used it on eye makeup. I'm a bit unsure about whether or not to so I decided against the risk. It leaves me skin feeling clean and soft, without a hint of tightness. Some cleansers are very harsh and strip your skin of its natural oils, hence the tight feeling, so this one is a lovely choice to go for. 

Finally the toner (left). I do like this toner to make sure every last trace of makeup has gone from my face. Despite liking it, I don't see the point of toners in general. I have heard lots about them and how they get your skin "ready" for moisturisation but I've not noticed any difference! Oh well. 

Here's a cuteness break as this is a bit of a wordy post! I love owls, and baby ones in particular. In fact, babies and mini things in general.

image from pinterest

In the past I have tried their eye make-up remover which is a good dupe for Lancome's Bi-Facil remover. It felt very gentle and removed all traces of makeup. It is also oil-based and does leave an oily residue, but I quite like this feeling of extra moisturisation!

I have also used the essential moisture moisturiser which melted into my skin and lasted a long time. It is quite a rich cream so it would definitely suit drier skin times, without making your skin look shiny.

Lastly, and I almost forgot about this, I have also used their hot cloth cleanser. Now, I've not tried the Liz Earle version to compare, but this one is lovely and even comes with its own muslin cloth. The most noticeable thing, like the cleansing lotion mentioned above, is that it doesn't leave my skin feeling tight as some cleansers usually have in the past. 



Hope you found this useful! Let me know in the comments what you use your No7 vouchers for!

Wednesday 5 August 2015

Boots series #1 New things by Collection | Ayesha

Hi all! 

School's out for summer! It's actually been 2 and a half weeks, but again I find myself being too busy to post.

Anyway, after perusing the shelves at Boots many times these past weeks, today I found myself drawn to the Collection section. The only thing I buy from them is a clear mascara which I use as a brow setting gel, and tend to walk away thinking the other things wouldn't have staying power or be pigmented enough. However, just look at these:











I don't know why, but I have never seen these before! I was SO impressed by the swatches. They felt very soft and were highly pigmented, so much so that they would give the Naked palette by Urban Decay a run for their money. There were three palettes in total. One was called Nude which had lighter pinks and browns; Nude Bronze which is the one I bought; and Nude Grey which had cooler toned neutrals like greys, taupes and cooler shades of brown. 

The shadow sticks in particular made me literally say "wow" as I applied them; they are way more intense than they look in the pictures. The one labelled VB is called 'Vintage Blush' and is a pink shade with gold undertones. V is called 'Vanilla Sky' and is a very light shade of gold; almost like platinum. This looks like liquid gold.

Another thing to note is that when I wanted to clean the shadow sticks off my hand, a baby wipe just didn't work. They claim to be waterproof and long lasting which I now believe! However, I have very oily eyelids so I will test them out to see their true longevity.

If you are into shimmery shades then these will be for you. The Nude Bronze palette is definitely all shimmer, however I am unsure about whether the other ones contain some matte shades!

There are some other new things by Collection here.

All in all, on first impression, I am super impressed and as everything is less than £5 each, it is definitely worth it!

Which palette or shadow sticks would you go for?

Sunday 14 June 2015

The post-work Bond Street experience | Ayesha

I've been commuting from SE London to Hertfordshire for about 6 months now, and every single day I pass Bond Street on the Jubilee line to and from my journey. Never before had it occurred to me that I could actually hop off and be in Selfridges 5 minutes later...until last Friday.

Now, this is not a means for me to go there every Friday after work. A teacher's salary is not enough anyway and I have too much housework to catch up on. #wouldn'tmakeagoodhousewife

On this occasion, however, I intended to leave work at 4pm with a slightly untidy desk to pick up a free Origins Drink-Up overnight mask from John Lewis, an offer that was floating around on Facebook. I went straight there, then to Boots to pick up something boring that I had run out of... until I saw that Make Up For Ever had arrived in Debenhams. My pace quickened... then I went to Selfridges... and here is the damage. (Not including the boring thing from Boots!)



I'll go through each product in turn with a little mini review on some of the ones I have tried out.

Starting at the bottom, in the bottom picture:

This was the freebie from John Lewis. I have heard many amazing reviews on it and have thought about purchasing it on a number of occasions but refraining because I make my homemade chickpea flour mask anyway. I have to say I'm slightly disappointed with this one. It did make my skin feel a bit softer but nothing amazingly different to the overall look and complexion of it. Maybe it is only meant to be for hydration? I'm not sure, and perhaps I have to use it regularly twice a week to see an improvement over time.

I got a mini version of this to try. It is meant to be a make-up setter spray to help everything stay in place. I will test this out and let you know what I think when I do!

This is a lovely taupe-brown shimmery (but not overly so) cream-based eyeshadow that claims to be waterproof and long-lasting. I put it on around 12pm today and by 7.30pm there was only a very slight crease that you could only see if you looked really closely. This 7.5 hours also included an hour's worth of sweaty exercise outdoors, and my eyelids are also naturally quite oily, so I can definitely attest to its longevity. I am looking forward to creating easy, not too overpowering smoky eyes with this! 

I love this. It looks really scary and bright in the pot but when you apply it to skin, it makes it look really naturally flushed. You can apply as little or as much as you like because it's quite buildable. 

Ok so now we get to the more exciting stuff. This is a lip liner but is apparently very long lasting. You should see Charlotte Tilbury's makeup videos on Youtube where she shows you how to apply all of her products. Amazing! I have yet to try this on, but I will let you know my thoughts later.

Ok... this is the most exciting thing and yet also the most damaging to my bank account. Someone from the counter tried this on me and I was sold. The packaging is also so lovely - it seems to just glow. There are 2 compartments - the 'sculpt' side is a bronzer and then the 'highlight' side is self-explanatory. I have never been into bronzer but this product just did something to my face, and the highlighter claims to have a 'candlelit glow'. I was a bit afraid she may have applied too much so I might have looked like an actual candle on my way home, but once I had arrived and checked the mirror in natural light it was very soft. I'm sold! I will have to use this for years before buying any other bronzer or highlighter though...

Despite all of this, I saw a palette by Dior on this website. The Selfridges picture does not do it any justice, look at the second site instead. There is a certain quality about it that I can't quite describe. Somebody has to stop me!

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