The Christmas Presents: Bare Minerals, Dior, Essie & H&M

I thought I'd share with you a few of my favourite presents (sorry, there is favourites!).  Kat over at Does My Bum Look 40 recommend these Dior Lip Glow balm and glosses and being a fan of their Lip Maximiser (the tingling gloss plumps your lips) they went straight on my wish list.  I love them!  The lip balm is sheer in colour when it goes on (although as you can see from the below it looks pink) and has this special formula that adapts to your own natural colour, so it is different on everyone.  It makes my lips look pinker but is so natural and is perfect to use minus a lip liner and mirror.  It may be my new 'Chubby Stick'.  The gloss works in a similar way (don't be put off by how bright it is below) but literally its the gloss version, goes on clear and adapts to your natural colour.  If you want an easy, low maintenance pout then give these a try.  

I was thrilled to receive Miss Olivia Palermo's favourite 'Lollipop' Essie nail colour.  It's brighter than I thought it would be but that hasn't stopped me loving it.  I've got a little too used to a duller red.  This is refreshing on my nails, not as neon as below, but a slightly more orange tinge to it.  I think it will be worn loads over the Spring/Summer months.  I hurried a coat on for New Years eve and one coat still gave a great colour.  I didn't have time for a second so it did chip the day after, but I think a second  coat would have made it stay put a little longer. 

A favourite foundation brand of mine is BareMinerals.  My sister picked out this blusher set for me and it came complete with the softest brush.  I have used all three colours together which gives a definite shinier look but have also been using the cream and pink on their own.  I have been trying to get to a counter to re-buy my powder foundation as I have now finished it and love it to bits but I've so far been really unlucky and the staff have either finished for the day or been on a break!  I will get there soon as I miss it already.  

Finally onto the scarves.  My black cashmere scarf featured in this post was lovingly sent by Santa, thank you Santa so much.  It is yet to be worn but is a missing item in my scarf shelf so it's a definite keeper.  It's a lot wider than it appears so I am pleased with the extra cashmere for the money!  Now sadly onto a returned one.  I saw this one also from H&M a while ago and being an animal print lover and thinking it was a bargain for around £8 added it to my wish list.  Seen below, I was pretty happy with it so far (sign says 'Merry Christmas' by the way!) until I sat in the car and looked down at my cashmere top beneath.  It was covered in fluff.  I hadn't realised when I wrote to Santa (!) that it contained angora and it's never been a material I've liked due to the fluff factor.  However due to recent media coverage on how a rabbit is actually skinned to get the fur, it's further secured the fact it won't be present in my wardrobe.  I took it off immediately (it had literally been 10 minutes), sorry Santa!

Jeans; Topshop Baxter
Black short sleeved cashmere top: Joseph
Cardi: Jack Wills
Boots: Topshop Adios 

What's been your favourite gifts this Christmas?

PS I also got the lush River Island gem necklace from this post, 3 out of 6 from that post, not bad at all Santa!

PPS I'm off to spend a voucher in the Boden sale, it finished tonight in case you didn't know! 

Press Day Round Up's

I've been so fortunate of late to go to some fantastic press days (and many owing to my great blogger buddies passing on details - thank you!).  I went to some PR ones which was great as not only did they give me an insight to what was ahead for brands I already know, but they also introduced me to some brands I'd not heard about before.

I discovered My Beauty Emporium from the Modus PR agency press day, a wonderful on line beauty website who gave me some samples of Katima'A to try.  I've used the scrub and serum and so far I'm  impressed.  They contain Argan Oil (in my ignorance I thought this was for hair!) and what stood out straight away for me was the scent.  They don't claim to have any particular smell, so whether it's the argan oil I am attracted to I don't know, but it's like a rich buttery chocolate smell and I loved it.  The scrub felt like it did the job but didn't rip my face off.  I used the serum before bed under my night cream and although it was oily at first, my skin lapped it up and it felt like I was giving it a real treat for the night.

Serum £49.96, scrub £26

Next up I had a blast with fellow bloggers Kat and Avril last month at the Fenn Wright Manson press day.  We had a very privileged sneaky peak at their AW13 (sorry, not allowed to share any piccies but needless to say they had some fantastic key pieces and prints) but also got to play dress up with their SS13 collection.  Being such a petite one I struggled with the sizes they had so didn't manage a full outfit but I did love their silky top that Avril was actually wearing on the day and Kat looked great in the bold blue.   

My favourite look of their collection and also my favourite colour pallet 

Avril, Kat and myself all in FWM's Bella top (now £45)

My lush smelling Moroccan Blush Rose candle, thank you FWN!

And lastly a brand I had heard of but not paid a lot of attention to before, Kat & Bee jewellery.  Thanks to Emslie Creative I got to have a closer look at the amazing pieces of jewellery this brand has to offer in the coming months.  The rings stood out immediately but even more so when it was pointed out they all had tiny little skulls hidden within them.  Wow!

Stunning selection of their necklaces 

How different is this!  

Apologies to all my regular readers for the lack of posts this week.  Whilst I have this short term contract in London, my days are very long and I have little time left between getting home and hitting the sack.  I have so much still to share (I've been shopping - woohoo!) so bare with me, it's not for long and soon I will be back to more regular posts which I am missing writing.  

PS none of this is a sponsored post, just my favourites from what I've seen and wanted to share.