MAC ~ Call the Hairdresser!

This is the one & only MAC item I picked up whilst I was in NYC, shocking I know, but it's a goodie!!

MAC Call the Hairdresser! is an lustre finish & is a beautiful pinky coral shade, perfect for summer.  Annoyingly though, I can't find it on the UK site so it must be unique to the States, sorry!!  I'll try & find a dupe & add it on if I find one.

What's your favourite shade of MAC lippy?

New York shopping

Well, after all my planning & preparation, to say my shopping 'haul' from New York was a bit disappointing is a huge understatement!!

A lot of the makeup I was after was sold out in many (many!!!) Sephora stores & even though we went into pretty much every CVS & Duane Reade we passed (so yeah, a LOT!), the displays were nearly always empty so I didn't get everything from there either.

Here's the few pieces I did pick up....

From Sephora, I only managed to snag a mini Sephora mascara for $5 (from the Aisle of Temptation!  You'll know if you've been there!!) & an Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade, which was $18.  From CVS I bought two lipsticks from Wet n Wild for a couple of dollars each (which are surprisingly good & give MAC a run for their money!)  I also picked up a MAC lipstick in Call the Hairdresser from Macy's from the rudest sales assistants I've ever had the 'pleasure' to come across.

I desperately wanted to find the E.L.F. store but the address we had, after traipsing up & down this sodding street several times in torrential rain, we discovered had closed down, grrrrr!!!  So I thought that'd be a no-go but then I found a small display of products in Old Navy & picked up 2 each of the brushes shown here (one set for my daughter) & a BB cream.  However, apart from the MAC & one of the WnW lipsticks, everything else is as yet unused waiting to be reviewed so watch this space!!

I didn't find one single bag that I liked enough to warrant spending a few hundred dollars on & no clothes were to be found either.  Anything I found that I did like, I knew I could buy cheaper here so I left them!  To be honest, we spent most of our money on bits for the kids!

But the one thing I did buy that I really wanted & is now my pride & joy, was my Tissot watch.  However, this was bought from Duty Free at Heathrow so doesn't really come under the 'New York shopping' heading but hey ho!!  I googled the price of the watch in NY & it would've been significantly more to buy there so as I was going to save £70 off the price buying from Duty Free, it was a no-brainer!!

So I'm sorry I don't have more to show you but now that my computer is working again, I'll get reviews of the bits I did get up asap!!

MAC ~ Brick-O-La

I put a photo of this on Instagram the other day & then realised I hadn't actually done a blog post on it, whoops!  We have here my favourite lipstick at the moment, Brick-O-La by MAC.

*Whoa, extreme close-up, scary!!!*

I picked this up on a total whim one day from the MAC counter within Harvey Nichols in Edinburgh & I adore it.  It's an amplified finish so it's creamy & very moisturising to wear.  Longevity is not fantastic if not worn with a lip liner but that's true of most lipsticks that are not 12-hour formulas so it's not a biggie.

I can only describe the colour as warm pink with a hint of terracotta to it, making it a very wearable shade.  I find myself wearing it a lot at the moment & it's already on my re-purchase list but I'm trying hard to eek it out until I can get to duty free in 6 weeks!!

It can (obviously!) be ordered direct from MAC online for £15.50 but if I can't get to a counter, I prefer to order via Debenhams so I can collect my Beauty Card points!!

Is anyone else a fan of MAC lipsticks?

What's in my bag?

I love these sort of posts as I'm such a curious nosey mare!  This was the topic today for the Instagram #JanuaryPhotoChallenge but I thought I'd share it on here for those of you not on IG.

A lot of posts like this consist of very neat & tidy bag contents.....well mine today was basically full of crap, crumpled up receipts & fluffy mints included!!

Today, I was using my lovely Nica bag that I bought in John Lewis last November.  When I carry a larger bag like this, I tend to chuck everything into my lift-out organiser from Primark, it's so handy!  In this, I always keep a notepad, pen, tape measure, tissues, paracetamol & mints - standard bag contents really!  My friends take the mickey out of me for carrying a tape measure but I can't tell you the times it's come in handy.  So much so that's it's falling to pieces!

My Cath Kidston pouch contains Kiehl's lip balm, Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream, Cath Kidston mini hand cream, plasters, my library card, a perfume sample & 4(why?) lipsticks (Revlon Lip Butter in Candy Apple, Clinique Chubby Stick mini in Super Strawberry, MAC Brick-O-La & Plumful)  

I've also got a sample pot of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Graphite that my friend had picked up for me the other day.  My new bar stools & bedside tables are going to get a hit of this!  Oh, and of course my phone (Samsung Galaxy S4 mini), my keys & my purse - which for some reason I forgot to add in the photo.

Please tell me I'm not the only person who has a stack of old receipts & fluffy sweets in their bag!!

I blame the babysitter!

I remember the day so well - our usual babysitter Jane had turned up to look after me & my sister & as she walked in, she handed us a bag of things to share out between ourselves.  In this bag was a huge collection of makeup that she was clearing out & my 8 year old self squealed with excitement!  We spent a happy couple of hours sharing out the goodies but the one item I really, really wanted - and that I hoped my sister wouldn't call dibs on first! - was a bright red lipstick from Estée Lauder.  I did end up with the lipstick & this was the day my love of makeup & beauty products began!

From that day on, I would take my crimped-hair self into town & my pocket money was spent in the local chemist buying all sorts of garish electric blue mascara & the only lipstick that made the whitest of teeth look like they were being subjected to 60 fags a day, Twilight Teaser (it was the 80s after all!), tiny cans of Insett hairspray that would leave my hair hard enough to take an eye out & the ubiquitous pink bottles of Impulse - I loved it all & just wanted to look like Madonna.......or Boy George, ahem!

Photo from Amazon

Photo from Sali Hughes Beauty

Now, 31 years later, I can't walk past Boots or Debenhams without going in & perusing the makeup aisles first.  I just love makeup - there, I've said it!  I love the whole artistry about it & how even the simplest of swipes with a mascara brush makes me feel sooooo much better.  If we have a big night out planned, 9 times out of 10 I'm not so much bothered about what I wear, but about what 'face' I'll be doing & do I complement or clash the nails?!  In fact, I've been known to choose my outfit after choosing what makeup I want to wear first! It's my favourite part of getting ready, whether for a night out or doing the school run & it would be extremely rare to catch me outside my home sans maquillage.

I don't see a problem with this whatsoever.....but for some bizarre reason, other people do seem to have a problem with this & this really upsets me.  For starters, it's nobody's business if I want to wear red lipstick when I drop my son at school at 8.50am & secondly, I would never judge anyone for not wanting to wear makeup so I cannot fathom why someone would feel that they can judge me for doing so.  

One of oldest friends always asks why I wear 'so much' makeup everyday, that I don't need it blah de blah but the truth is, I wear it because I love it & I feel more like 'me' with it on.  At a size 16, I am larger than I'd like to be & more often than not, feel extremely body conscious so I love to make an effort with my makeup, it just makes me feel so much better about myself - is this wrong...or too vain?   And can I just state for the record, that a regular day for me consists of foundation (I have acne scarring & pigmentation that I'm just not comfortable baring to the world!), blusher, mascara & lipstick or lip balm & takes me 4 minutes to apply in the morning - I know this because I timed myself this morning!  It's part of my morning routine the same as jumping in the shower or brushing my teeth & is not something I can see myself foregoing anytime soon.  (Obviously, lounging by the pool somewhere hot would be the exception to this rule!!)

So opinions, is it really such a bad thing to do something that makes you happy every day?  Maybe I'm reading too much into things & my hormones are rearing their ugly heads again!  Is anyone else a makeup lover like me?!

MAC ~ Plumful

Whenever I go to Edinburgh, I always pop into Harvey Nicks to have a gander at the MAC counter.  Admittedly, it's nearly always that ridiculously busy that it's nigh on impossible to even reach the stands but luck was on my side when I popped in in late November.

I had a list of potential lippies that I'd taken from blogger recommendations & one colour that kept popping up time & time again was Plumful.  After swatching it, I decided that it was going to be my purchase of the day & I've worn it so much already, it's down to the last quarter left in the bullet!

Plumful is a lustre finish lipstick & it feels so nourishing on the lips, it's lovely!  It's quite a high sheen finish so if used without a lipliner, it doesn't last for hours on end & can have tendency to bleed.  I have to reapply after about 3 hours but longer if I use it with a lipliner, which also helps to stem the bleeding issue.

I'm annoyed with the the photo of the product on my lips though as it doesn't look this Barbie-pink in real life, funnily enough, it's more plum than pink.  It has blue undertones so makes my teeth look nice & white & is not too bright or garish that it looks too much for day makeup.  This will definitely be a staple colour in my makeup bag from now on.

My daughters bought me MAC Hot Tahaiti for christmas so I'll do a post on this colour very soon!