I'm Baaaaaaaaaack!!!

Bonjour Beauties!!!


It has been such a long time since I have logged on. Life has been kicking me in the butt as of late and I thought I would take a step away from everything for a while, but I am slowly picking up the pieces and putting them back together again and thought that now was a good time to come back to my little corner of the internet.


I have a few interesting posts coming up including one on how I stopping my makeup from sliding off my oily oily skin along with some reviews on some new products that I am either really really liking or think are totally and utterly overhyped!!!


I want to change things up a little bit too, get you my readers more involved with the blog, suggestions on what you would like to see and questions that you want answered!!!


It's a fresh year beauties and it's time to make this the best year yet


xoxo
Belle

About Me

I found this little questionnaire online and thought that I would fill it out for you :)


SKINCARE

How many times do you wash your face daily?

I wash my face religiously twie a day because I have really oily skin. If I don't wash my face this often I end up breaking out like crazy. The joys of oily skin!!!

What skin type do you have? (dry, oily, combo)

I have oily skin. I hate the fact that my skin gets so shiny during the day, but I have heard that people with with oily skin tend to have younger looking skin as they age? I’ll take whatever I can get!

What is your current facial wash?

I wash with Dermalogica Clean Start Wash Off in the morning, and Dermalogica Precleanse/Dermal Clay Cleanser at night.

Do you exfoliate?

Yes, three times a week.

What brand do you use?

At the moment I use Dermalogica Clean Start Ready, Set, Scrub.

What moisturizer do you use?

I’ve used Dermalogica Clean Start Welcome Matte SPF15 in the mornings and Dermalogica CLean Start Bedtime for Breakouts at night.

Do you have freckles?

I  a very light smattering across my nose but nothing that you could see unless you were really looking...and hard!!!

Do you use eye cream?

*hangs head in shame* no I don't use an eye cream. I know it a terrible sin and I am paying dearly for it because I have fine line under my eyes. But in my defense I have to be careful because most eye cream dry out my undereyes.

Do you or did you have acne prone skin?

I always seem to have one or 2 spots on my face so I guess you could say I have breakout-prone skin but I have never had really really bad acne.

Did you ever have to use Pro-activ?

Stupidly I choose to use Pro-activ once...and never again!!! I got to use it once and the next morning I woke up with the itchiest skin on my neck. Upon looking in the mirror I discovered that the Peroxide in it had burnt the top layer of my skin off. I had to wear a turtle neck for two weeks just to cover it up!!! Needless to say I would never recommend Pro-activ to anyone!!!

MAKE-UP

What foundation do you use?

I use Chanel Mat Lumiere in the shade Clair.

How about concealer?

I have yet to find a concealer that I am really happy with so at the moment I am trying to get through my Maybelline Fit Me Concealer.

Do you know your undertone color?

I have yellow undertones in my skin.

What do you think of fake eyelashes?

I adore false eyelashes!!! In still sometimes have trouble lining them up evenly but I get there in the end.

Did you know that you are supposed to change your mascara every 3 months?

I did know this yes, the question is do I always abide by it...no. I believe that 3 months is more of a guideline that a strict rule. Sometimes mascara last longer and sometimes it is useless in a few weeks.

What brand of mascara do you use?

When it comes to mascara I am willing to try just about anything. My HG mascara is CoverGirl Lash Blast (the original not the Las Blast Volume)

Sephora or MAC?

Since we don't have Sephora here in Australia MAC wins by default.

Do you have a MAC Pro-card?

No, and I definitely don't classify myself as a pro!

What makeup tools do you use in make up application?

I prefer to use brushes and my favourite brand is Sigma. I'm a bit of a clean freak so getting my fingers dirty freaks me out a little bit.

Do you use make-up base/primer for the eyes?

I use UDPP on my eyelids.

For the face?

Sometimes I use a primer and sometimes I don't it all depends on whether I am paying attention on any given day. At the moment I am loving L'Oreal Base Magique Transforming Smooting Primer

What is your favorite eyeshadow (color or shade)?

MAC Naked Lunch hands down.

Do you use pencil or liquid eyeliner?

I use both, that being said my fine motor skills and technique when it comes to liquid liner could use some serious improvement.

How often do you poke your eyes with an eyeliner pencil?

More than I am comfortable to admit!

What do you think of pigment eyeshadows?

I have a few MAC pigments and some NYX pigments. I don't use them as often as I like however I do really love MACs Cocomotion.

Do you use mineral makeup?

I have a few from The Body Shop but I don't think that they offer me enough coverage so I very rarely use them.

What is your favorite lipstick?

MAC Shy Girl. Although I do love me a nice red lipstick.

How about lipgloss?

I don't really use lipgloss because I find it to sticky.

What is your favorite blush to use?

I love Australis in Midsummer Night.

Do you buy your makeup on ebay?

I have before yes, but if it looks too cheap then I figure that it is probably a fake. I usually only buy those things that I can't get direct from sellers or in my hometown.

Do you like drugstore makeup?

Yes. I think that you can achieve just as nice looks with drugstore makeup as you can with the higher end brands.

Do you go to CCO’s? (cosmetic company outlets)

I don't think we have any CCOs in AUstralia but if we did...I think the answer would be yes...and my bank account would suffer greatly.

Did you ever consider taking make-up classes?

I have thought about it but that is as far as I got.

Are you clumsy in putting on makeup?

Only if it’s something fidgety like putting on false eyelashes or applying liquid eyeliner or if I am in a real hurry. Otherwise I don’t think I’m too clumsy.

Name a makeup crime that you hate?

Mis-matched foundation by far!!!

Do you like colorful shades of makeup (lipstick,eyeshadow) or neutral ones?

For myself I prefer neutral eye makeup looks with a bold lip. But if done properly colourful can look AMAZING!!!

Which celebrity always has great make up?

Umm...I have never really thought about this too much.

If you could leave the house using just ONE make up item,what would you use?

Just one??? Ummm...it would be a toss up between lip balm and mascara. More often than not don't leave the house without both of them.

Could you ever leave the house without any makeup on?

Yes, sometimes I am just too lazy to put any on!!!

Do you think you look good even without any makeup on?

Sometimes I do, and then sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror or the shop window and I think god girl go home and save the world from this frightful sight!!!

In your opinion, what is the BEST makeup line?

I don't think that any one make-up line is the best make-up. My HG products come from a range of different lines.

What do you think of makeup?

I love makeup and spend entirely too much money on it!!! My mum can't understand it.

Belle's Beauty Confessions and Product Review

Ok, I know it has been a lwhile since I have blogged but I have been super busy with mid-semester exams and assignments.


I have a confession to make. I have a disease...OCBD. Obsessive Compulsive Buying Disorder!!! This is serious business people and I have a chronic case!!!


I went shopping today and came home with a couple of mascaras. I went to put them in my little storage draw and found 9 other unopened mascaras in there...I mean seriously...seriously!!!


It's gonna take me forever just to get through the ones that I have and while I am trying to use them all up more are going to come onto the market. It's a vicious circle that I am stuck in...although I'm not really sure whether or not I am upset about that or not :P


I also discovered one of my new favourite products. Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector Daily All-in-One Moisturiser. This baby is the bomb!!!

It comes in two colours light and medium. I brought light because I have relatively fair coloured skin. I have read a lot of post for various people about BB cream but never really knew or understood what it was. Essentially This product is a BB cream and the first one that is available for purchase in my little town and I love the way this stuff looks. It covers all of my little skin imperfections but doesn't make me look like I am wearing a ton of makeup!!!

BB creams are blemish balms and are designed to be used by surgery patients after laser surgery to protect, soothe and regenerate their highly sensitive skin while also providing good coverage for post-laser scars and redness. But they seem to be making their way into the makeup draws of most beauty lovers these days.

I would absolutely recommend this product to anyone it lightweight enough to wear everyday day but also provides enough coverage. The only downside to this product would be that it comes in 2 shades only and the smell might be a little off putting, it kind of has a chemically floral smell...almost like over processed rose??? But that just might be my nose :P

Belle's Beauty How-to: Heatless Curls

I am about to commit a cardinal sin in the world of beauty bloggers. A whole blog post sans make-up. I know, I know but in my defence I had just got out of the shower, it was really really late and I was ready for bed.


We all know that continually using heat on our hair destroys it...but we all still seem to do. I will admit I am terrible for it. I have sort of fluff, wavy hair and if I want to wear it out I have to run the straightening iron through it quickly so that I don't look like a fluff-ball when I go out. In addition to this where I live "GHD curls" are all the rage. I see girls with their hair freshly curled everyday and I cringe at the thought of all the damage that they are doing to their hair every morning.


So I am going to show you how to create Heatless Curls or Pin curls...


For this style you are going to need a comb, a hair grip to hold up the hair that you won't working with, hair treatment (this isn't necessary but I love this product so much that I use it every time I wash my hair) and last but not least you will need bobby pins.

The first thing that I did was wash my hair. You will need wet hair for this to work properly.

After I wash my hair I alway put some Moroccanoil through it. Two pumps because I have longer hair.

Distribute your treatment evenly through your hair, making sure to focus on the ends.

Next you are going to want to section the top half of you hair and clip it up out of the way so that we can deal with later.

Now that you have the top half of your hair out of the way you will need to take a section of your hair about 1 inch wide. Don't worry if it's not exactly 1 inch because you will want to change the size of the sections so that you get a more natural outcome at the end.

Now place your index and middle finger at the root of your hair and twist the hair around your fingers until all of your hair has been twisted around your fingers. 

Next slide you hair off your fingers making sure that you keep a tight hold of the curl so that it doesn't unravel. Now pin the hair to your head with a bobby pin.

Do this to all of your hair so that you head is covered with pin curls. It should look something like this...

I sleep with my hair like this so that it has ample time to dry out. The next step is optional but because I will be sleeping on mine I want to make sure that none of the bobby pins come out during the night. So I place a head scarf over my hair.

The next morning when you wake up your hair should be totally dry. Take out the pins and you should have a curl that looks like this.

Just like you have done it with a curling iron or straightener but not damaging heat!!! Take out all of the pins and you will have something that looks like this...

From here simply style it to suit your own style or you could just spritz it with a little hairspray and leave it as is.

Hope so of you found this useful


xoxo
Belle

Belle's Beauty Bits: Product Buildup

Hands up if you have found a shampoo and conditioner that you have just fallen in love with only to find that a few weeks of even a few days later it seems to have stopped working on your hair altogether???


Using hair products like gels and hair spray and even shampoo and conditioner on a daily basis can take a toll on your hair in the form of product buildup. I wash my hair every second day and style my hair with hairspray every morning before I go to work, I also find that sometimes by the end of the week my shampoo just isn't leaving my hair in the silky state that it used to.


In steps my saviour the cleansing shampoo! I use Tresemme Deep Cleansing Shampoo every Sunday night on my hair before washing with my regular shampoo and conditioner. I find that this washes out any buildup that my hair has taken on during the week and gives me a fresh base to start working with Monday morning.

I think Tresemme is a nice cheap brand but there are plenty out there on the market. Bumble and bumble market a shampoo appropriately called Sunday Shampoo and it is designed to be used once a week to rid your hair of product buildup, hard water minerals and pollutants.

So next time the shampoo and conditioner you love suddenly stops working for you don't throw it out and buy a new one. Duck down to you local supermarket and invest in a bottle of cleansing shampoo.

xoxo

Belle

Lush Caca Rouge Henna Review

My hair is my crowning jewel. I take really good care of it and spend lots of money making sure that it looks and stays healthy, I only use certain shampoos and always match all of my hair care products from within the one brand and range. I do colour my hair on a regular basis though, usually about every 6 weeks, which is not the best thing to ensure healthy hair but my natural colour is a weird cross between/ combination of mousy brown and dark brown...sort of like it can't decide what colour is wants to be.


When I was younger my mum always used to colour her hair with henna, she said that it was better for your hair than having it chemically coloured, and if done correctly usually turned out brighter. I remember her walking around the house for hours with brown goop on her head, sometimes running down the back of her neck, thinking she looked so silly!!!


Years on and I decided to try henna after my hairdresser said that she didn't think that she could get my hair the colour that I wanted it. I went to Lush and order one of their Caca Rouge Hennas.

The website says that this is the really red one for hair like sunsets. It's red and no mistake. This is the finest Persian red henna with cocoa butter to make it adhere better to the hair and bring out extra colour; lemon juice and rosemary give beautiful shine, and clove bud oil smells good and stimulates your scalp. You should use this if you want really red hair.

It came in a block of six chunks along with some instructions. I thought it would be best to use 4 chunks seeings though my hair is on the longer side. The instructions say that you need to grate it with a cheese grater but we only have one in our house and I didn't like the thought of using utensils that I use for my food to grate my henna up. So I popped the blocks into a freezer bag and smashed them into tiny little pieces with a hammer...same effect...less time...no mixing henna with my food!!! You then need to mix the pieces with boiling water in a heat proof bowl and stir until you have the consistency of double cream...which for us beauty lovers is about the consistency of a medium thickness liquid foundation. You then sit the bowl in a simmering saucepan of water on your stove to keep it hot (NOT too hot though or you will burn your scalp which is never a good thing!!!) Pop on your gloves and scoop the henna up and apply it to your head starting with your roots and working your way to the ends.

Here is a before and after shot of my hair and in all honestly I can't really see one bit of difference and it definitely doesn't look anything like what I thought it would. 

I ended up leaving the henna on wrapped in glad wrap (saran wrap) for 6 hours so I was definitely expecting something a little bit redder. I was also really put off by the smell and even now 2 days on after washing my hair I can still smell it, it's a floral smell with something else that I can't quiet place mixed in as well it. In addition to this my hair feels like all of the moisture has been sucked out of it and is no longer smooth and tangle free. In short not only am I devastated that my hair feels terrible (leaving a hair mask on for an hour has done nothing to fix the smoothness issue) but my hair now has a terribly funky scent to it and it just stinks...queue the worlds smallest violin just for me :)

I'm not sure if I should have left it in longer or whether I should have used all 6 blocks but I am really underwhelmed with the results and overwhelmed by the terrible smell and will definitely be going back to chemical colouring in my quest to achieve the perfect red. I think that this product would work really well for people with blonde hair (and perhaps a not so sensitive nose) and they would definitely see better results but because I have died my hair dark in the past that might also have impeded the colour absorption process.

xoxo

Belle

Sigma Dry'n Shape Review

I hate cleaning my makeup brushes. I know I have to do it and I do, do it, but boy do I hate it!!! I think my hatred stems from the fact that once the brushes are washed they just take so damn long to dry and once I have washed them I always have this overwhelming urge to put makeup on...but because they are all wet I can't.

In steps the Sigma Dry'n Shape. 

The Sigma website says that the Dry'n Shape provides the necessary pressure to bristles to quickly and efficiently remove water from every fibre. The fabric used to shape the bristles was specially engineered to accelerate evaporation, resulting in a faster drying times for your brushes.

I think that this is a brilliant little device and it really does do exactly what it says.

The elastic loops at the top of the Dry'n Shape draw the water from your brushes bristles in an upwards motion leaving your bushes dry and shaped at the same time and all of this in just 4 to 6 hours, you can leave you Dry'n Shape sitting on your desk to dry of you can fold it up and place it in your make up kit and dry your brushes on-the-go. In addition to acting as a dryer for your brushes the Dry'n Shape also doubles as a brush holder. 

I washed my brushes today and placed them in the Dry'n Shape while I was out this evening when I came home 2 hours later my smaller face brushes like the F05 and F55 and my eye brushes where completely dry...2 HOURS!!! Normally it takes me all night. My larger brushes such as the F20 and F30 took 3 hours to dry mostly the whole way through and 4 hours to dry completely. I do live in the north of Australia where the whether is pretty much hot the whole year round so this may have had something to do with the speed in drying time but still completely dry brushes in 5 to 6 hours is just amazing!!! I have seen on a few blogs that if you sit the Dry'n Shape upside down this will make sure that all of the water is drawn to the bristles on the brush and none is left in the ferrel to loosen the glue.

I do have a two problems with the product, they aren't deal breakers by any means but just suggestions for a revised version of the product should Sigma come out with one. There are only 2 small brush loops and even these are too big to hold the eye brushes with any really amount of pressure to draw the water out. It's not really a huge problem because I just let my eye brushes air dry but with the time that it took to dry the smaller face brushes I would estimate that if Sigma were to add more smaller loops that eye brushes may in fact dry in as little as half and hour to an hour. That is however only my estimation. The second problem I have is that they website claims that the Dry'n Shape will shape your brushes. Now while I found this to be true for most of my brushes I did find that my F40 even without bring used has fanned out, I may have had some of the bristles caught in the elastic I am not sure but I will wash it again and see if that fixes it.

These two small problem though are far outweighed but the sheer effectiveness of this product and this ingenious invention retails at only $29.

All in all I would give this product a 4 out 5 and recommend it to anyone that hates washing their makeup brushes as much as I do :)

xoxo

Belle

MAC Semi Precious Colour Collection Haul

When I first looked at MACs Semi Precious collection I didn't really see anything that jumped out at me. I waited a few weeks and had another look the other day and order 2 Mineralize Skinfinishes and the Mineralize Charged Water.


The Mineralize Charged Water is a refreshing, hydrating mist that hydrates skin and enhances makeup application.

I admit that since I have done some research and finally work out how it is that I am supposed to use my Fix+ I am obsessed. I love doing my makeup and then spritzing my face once it is all done. MAC charged water has a green tea and citrus scent to it with is nice without being over powering. I am going to force myself to wait until I have finished my currently bottle of Fix+ which has about a quarter left before using this one, but I honestly can not wait to see it how it feels.

The next two products are the Mineralize Skinfinishes in Semi Precious Rose Quartz and Semi Precious Pearl.

I love MACs MSFs and these two are no different. Semi Precious Pearl is a little more on the glittery side, and you all know how I feel about glitter!!!!!. So I don't know how I am going to work with that as yet but I am sure that I will get around it somehow :P.

MAC has got rid of the marble design that most of the MSFs have had and they have replaced it with a solid circle of colour with a heart of marble. They are gourgeous. One thing that you have to be careful about it that the colour payoff is huge so being heavyhanded will result in clown cheeks!!!