2015 was the year that we officially became obsessed with Charlotte Tilbury products and such is our obsession that we wanted to share with you our Top 3 products from the brand (in no particular order!). We could have made a much longer list but if you are new to Charlotte Tilbury these are our top recommendations that we would suggest you add to your collection without hesitation!
We were so excited when we were shopping recently and came across a Superdrug that stocks Freedom Makeup! Our local Superdrug stores unfortunately still don't stock the brand even after having recent make overs and as fans of its sister brand, Makeup Revolution, we have been very curious to try their products! The brand has such a a wide selection of products from skin care to lipsticks and we had to grab some products to try!
Advertised as a Pro Makeup Brand, Freedom state that they are a 'NEW Professional Makeup Brand to CHALLENGE and INSPIRE you and the MAKEUP WORLD' We were definitely interested in testing out those claims!
Of all the make up products in your drawer what is the one you get most excited about? Some people love mascara, some foundation, for me it has to be highlighter. I am always swatching products and searching for the most creamy, pigmented but not too shimmery glow that I long for.
From the top L-R Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit, Jaclyn Hill X Becca, Charlotte Tilbury Film Star Bronze & Glow Norman Parkinson Creme, Nars Steven Klein, Charlotte Tilbury Film Star Bronze & Blow, Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector, Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder, MAC Mineralize Skinfinish x 2, Becca Champagne Pop
In the makeup world highlight is often pushed aside for it's cousin the contour which has taken the world by storm! (Thanks Kardashians!) But as a girl with a rather round face I have tried and tried and I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how many ashy grey powders I try, I am not going to grow cheek bones any time soon! So...in comes the highlight! For me nothing beats a highlighted face. There is something so youthful and effortless about simple make up with an intense highlight. Think the boho beach babe - just rolled out of bed look!
Being a sucker for anything new and exciting I just had to buy the Urban Decay Gwen Stefani palette when browsing the Urban Decay stand at House of Fraser! I had no intention of purchasing it but after seeing it in the flesh I realised it was such an everyday wearable palette I really wanted to give it a go! It turned out to be money well spent as I have pretty much used this palette everyday for the last month!
We are huge fans of the Beauty Blender Blendercleanser Solid that we usually pick up in Sephora when in the USA (our favourite soap for cleaning our brushes and Beauty Blenders). However we do feel that there has been a gap in the market for a more affordable solid brush cleanser therefore we were very excited to see that Lottie London (a brand that are new to us)were releasing their very own version that would be available in Superdrug. With a cute name like 'Soap Star' we couldn't wait to get our hands on this in the hope that we could forgo the $20 price tag of the original and start to use this much more reasonably priced version for just £6.99. We are delighted to say that it is every bit as good as the more expensive version and pretty much identical!
When we started to plan my wedding at the start of 2015 I decided that I did not want fresh flowers. Having never been a huge fan of flowers I felt that it was a big expense for something that I did not really care about and we put the flowers on the back burner while we concentrated on other things. As the summer came to an end and the December 29th wedding date drew closer we continued to discuss options for bouquets including silk flowers, paper flowers and a brooch bouquet. We had an idea to make a hand tied bouquet from silk flowers and include some hand made paper flowers from the pages of a favourite book. We started to search Pinterest and YouTube for some inspiration and tutorials that could help us bring our vision to life.
I was excited to see that recently Maybelline had introduced a new foundation into their collection and was unable to resist the brand new stand in Superdrug. It featured the Maybelline Dream VelvetSoft-Matte Hydrating Foundation and Dream Velvet Blender. Admittedly I am a sucker for a new display and I cant lie, the applicator really caught my eye as I am a huge fan of the Beauty Blender and use it every day. The Maybelline applicator looks like a sponge on a stick and I was looking forward to trying it out.
Although Maybelline Foundation has never been a staple in my makeup routine I swear by their Age Rewind Eraser Dark Circles Concealer (I pick up a couple of the brightening shades whenever I'm in the USA as they don't sell it here) as I think it works wonders on my undereyes! I was really keen to try the foundation and was intrigued by the applicator!
We hinted in a previous post that in the new year we would
have some exciting news to share and we are finally able to tell you all about
it! Back in November we filmed an episode of A Place in the Sun, Winter Sun in Orlando,
Florida and it will be airing this week! In conjunction with its airing (on Channel 4 at 4pm Wednesday 10th February) we
wanted to share our experience with you. We have not seen the episode
ourselves yet so we are excited (and a bit scared) to see it!
To fully explain how it came to be we have to go back to the
start of 2015. Mimi was surprised with a proposal when her Orlando based
boyfriend travelled to the UK with a beautiful engagement ring! From that day
we started to talk about the future with the newlyweds living in Florida and
myself and Mr P living in the UK. We came to the decision that we would invest
in property in the Orlando area and rent it to the newlyweds. We spent some of
our August vacation looking at properties but drew a blank. That was when we
had the idea to apply to A Place in the Sun! We didn’t think we would hear
anything but a few days later we got a call from the Casting Assitant Producer who chatted
about our plans and invited us for a screen test in London. We went the
following week and soon after that we were being filmed at home for the ‘at home’
segment of the show! The following week we received a call to say that Channel
4 wanted us for the show and then the ball started rolling!
Within 2 weeks we were on a plane to Orlando International
Airport. Everything happened so quickly we didn’t have time to think! We were
directed to take with us 2 of the same outfit for our week of filming (things
can get a little sweaty in Orlando and for continuity we had to wear the same clothes all
week!) with a change of clothes for the
final chat. We pondered for ages over what to wear! We couldn’t wear dark
colours (we both live in black), or stripes, or weird patterns. We settled on
floral patterns and hoped they would pass the camera test!
We had no idea what to expect but when we arrived we met
with the Producer/Director and the Assistant Producer and from the moment we
met them we knew that we were in good hands. They were very welcoming and totally put us at ease explaining how the week would work and what we should expect. We were due to start filming the following day so we felt much more relaxed once we had a better idea of what to expect from our filming week.
Early the next morning (Monday) we met the crew and our adventure began! In addition to the producer/director and the assistant producer we had a cameraman and a sound engineer. All of the crew proved to be very supportive, kind, funny and really helped to make the experience a positive one. We had been excited to see who our presenter would be and we were delighted to meet the stunning Laura Hamilton. As our week wore on we were so happy that we lucked out in being assigned Laura as she was incredibly lovely, down to earth and friendly and we hit it off immediately. Mimi and I are very close and have a sense of humour that can take some getting used to but Laura got us from the start and was totally on our wavelength making our week even more fun.
We could not possibly have known how much we would enjoy the whole experience! On day one we set off at 7.30am to film the initial chat in front of a beautiful lake (with alligators!) and then after lunch we moved on to film a chat in a boutique in the town of Celebration where Laura chatted to us about our relationship and our blog! We then saw property number one which was a really lovely apartment with garage. We wrapped up the day around 5pm as the clocks had gone back the day prior and it was starting to get a little dark.
Day 1: Location and Filming with Laura
We started day two at an orange grove! I am sure that on camera it will look beautiful but what you will not see is that there were ants biting our feet for the whole time we were filming there and it was soooo hot! We literally laughed so much! Every time we started to film either a plane went overhead or someone was bitten by an ant! (boy does it sting!!) We were very glad to escape the orange grove and head into the attached shop where they made fresh squeezed orange slushies! Yum! We saw property 2 that afternoon and (spoiler alert!) a couple of tears were shed!
Day 1 & 2 Filming Locations; The Enchanted Boutique in Celebration and The Orange Grove
Day three was a long day where we saw properties 3 and 4 and we also filmed two separate chats with Laura (look out for a cameo from Mimi's then fiancé now husband!) Both properties we were shown were houses rather than condos and (another spoiler alert!) one of them was a game changer!
A beautiful location for day 3 chat
Day four was the final day of filming. We were shown property 5 and in the afternoon we filmed our final chat with Laura whilst sitting on the edge of a beautiful lake where water-skiing lessons were taught. The setting was amazing however it was very, very windy that afternoon which caused the sound engineer various issues! Once we started filming the cameraman was concerned that our hair was flying all over our faces so you will see that a solution was found in the form of sunglasses as a hairband! (Elle's sunglasses were kindly lent by Laura)
Our final filming day
By the end of day four we were sad to see our experience come to an end but so glad that we did it. After we applied to be on the show things happened so quickly that we didn't have time to think about it before we were there in front of the camera but we can honestly say that it was one of the most fantastic things we have ever done and wouldn't change it for anything.
Our final chat with the lovely Laura
Laura and all of the crew were so amazing and we could not have felt more relaxed in a pretty nerve racking situation. We thought that the experience would be much more formal but it was actually very relaxed and we laughed a lot.
We will not spoil it for you by giving anything away but safe to say that they helped us so much in our search and gave us the tools we needed to be able to move forward with our plans.
We also filmed a Vlog whilst we were there which shows you some behind the scenes footage!
We hope you enjoy the show and would love to hear your comments or thoughts below.
Elle and Mimi x
Many thanks to everyone at Freeform Productions especially Andy. Thanks to Laura for being so lovely. To the crew who worked so hard on our episode; Paul, Cristina, Sandy & Adam, thank you for making the process so much fun. We're glad we got you guys!
Revlon recently made the very risky move of completely overhauling their mascara collection and have streamlined it to a wardrobe of 5 mascaras to cover all of your mascara needs. All of their previous mascaras have been discontinued and the new 5 are currently the only available Revlon mascaras in production. We got our hands on 3 of the 5 and after a couple if weeks use we wanted to give you our thoughts and recommendations as the worlds fussiest mascara wearers!
