Freedom Brow Products - Review

L-R: Freedom Brow Pomade in Medium Brown, Duo Eyebrow Powder in Soft Brown

As we are such big fans of Anastasia Beverley Hills brow products we were so excited to find these dupes from Freedom in a local Superdrug store! Mimi is addicted to the Anastacia Brow Wiz however I have recently been using a brow kit from Collection that comes with 3 brow powders and a clear brow gel. I have never used a brow pomade product so I was very interested to use the Freedom Brow Pomade which I picked up in meduim brown and see if it was worth switching. I also wanted to compare the Freedom Duo Eyebrow Powder in Soft Brown to my trusty Collection brow powder so here goes!

L'Oreal Extraordinary Clay - Review

L-R: Re-Balancing Shampoo, Clay Masque, Re-Balancing Conditioner

As a regular user of L'Oreal Elvive hair products I am always interested to see a new variety hit the shelves. Even more so when it promises '3 refined clays in a hair care range to break the vicious cycle of oily roots & dry ends' Well let me tell you, I was definitely up for that! As a lifelong oily hair girl (didn't we used to call it greasy once upon a time?!) I was probably first in the queue for this range and dying to try it out. The range comes in one of my favourite colours, a bright turquoise blue and the product inside is a similar shade.

Anastascia Brow Definer

As someone who is obsessed with the Anastasia Brow Wiz I had a mix of excitement and worry when I got an email from Cult Beauty that the new Anastasia Brow Definer was in stock! Of course I had to try it straight away so I ordered it immediately! When I arrived I was shocked at how much bigger is it compared to the Brow Wiz. It has an angled pencil which means it is easy to create the shape you want in one easy swipe.

Weight Loss - The Journey So Far....

Like many women we had tried to lose weight over the years, with varying levels of success. You name it, we have probably tried it! So why was nothing working? This is a common question a lot of women ask themselves and we were no different. We would say "I just can't lose weight". Now we realise it has a lot to do with commitment, sticking with it and being disciplined. You don't achieve your goals by cutting corners! Everyone wants a quick fix but unfortunately there really isn't one!

We started off in January 2015; we decided to try Slimming World as we both knew people who had lost weight following their plan and it seemed pretty simple! At first we were both writing down our meals every day and counting 'Syns' exactly as the plan describes but we found after a few weeks we didn't need to as we became quite the experts on the plan! Once we got comfortable with the "diet" it just became normal life. To help with our meal planning we made a book of our favourite recipes from the Slimming World website and magazines that we rotate between and pretty much know what we can and can't have! Now we don't say to everyone 'I'm doing Slimming World' or 'I'm on a diet' because honestly, it just feels normal!

Nars Velvet Matte Skin Tint Foundation - Review

As a huge fan of the Nars Pure Radiant Tinted Moisturiser I was interested to try the brands new foundation product, the Nars Velvet Matte Skin Tint. I was delighted when, as part of my mothers day present this year, Mimi gifted me some Space NK goodies which included this foundation. I've been testing it out for a couple of weeks now so I feel that I have got a really good feel for the product and can give an accurate review.

Essence The Gel Nail Polish Review

A couple of years ago we tried some Essence Nail Polish and after just one day it chipped quite badly so we gave it up as a bad job and moved on to more long wearing brands. Over the past couple of weeks, however, we have been hearing some good things about Essence The Gel Polish formula so we picked up a few shades to try out. Essence have a really wide range of colours so we were spoilt for choice but we settled on 37 Serendipity - a pale greyish lilac, 30 Let's Get Lost - a deep sea green/blue, 08 Whatever! - a bright baby pink, 51 Miss Captain - a dark grey/blue. At just £1.60 per polish Essence The Gel Nail Polish is so affordable you can stock up on a variety of colours without breaking the bank! Gel polishes seem to be all the rage right now with every brand having their own take on a long wearing gel manicure so we were really interested to see how these polishes wore.  

W7 Dupes Haul

 Clockwise from top: Making Waves Eyeshadows, Honolulu Bronzer, Hollywood Bronze and Glow 

After hearing a lot about the W7 brand of make up we thought it was time we gave it a go for ourselves! We live rather close to a Beauty Outlet that stocks many W7 products and we couldn't help but notice a lot of the products looked familiar!

How To Save Money On Your Wedding

Clockwise from Top Left: Mini Chalkboard Place Settings, Wedding Makeup time!, Instagram Signs, Amazing Wedding Cake made by our friend

We have had a great (and at times stressful) time over the last 12 months planning and organising a wedding and have learned a lot in the process. Wedding planning is a fantastic time for a mother and daughter to have fun together, attending wedding fairs, shopping for outfits and accessories, checking out venues and making decisions together. However, when we read that the average cost of a wedding now is £20,500 we were outraged and immediately decided that there was no way we were going to spend that ridiculous amount of money on one day! We felt that over £20,000 was such a lot of money to spend when that could be the deposit on a new home! We got our heads together and started to think of ways in which we could make savings. We have put together a guide of some hints and tip to keep the spend to a minimum without compromising on your special day.

My Favourite Gym Clothes

In 2015 we had a lot going on with a big holiday (vlogs are on our YouTube channel now!) and a wedding and that meant one thing....get fit or die trying! Well maybe not die but I certainly felt like I was going to quite a few times! I soon realised one thing; if I had gym clothes I liked, I wanted to go and exercise. This may sound totally ridiculous but you all know it is true! Once you get into those leggings and trainers you are ready to take on the world! (and still look decent enough to pop into Asda afterwards to pick up some super healthy food!)

Cutting Long Hair - Taking The Plunge!

After having pretty much waist length hair for a long, long time making the decision to have it cut did not come easily. As I bride I did not want to take the plunge and have a drastic change weeks prior to the big day as I had an image of having long wavy hair and a flower crown on my wedding day and my dress and accessories were built around that image. Therefore I booked an appointment for the Saturday after my wedding at my local Toni and Guy salon and started to pin some images of the style I was after.

Those of you with long hair may understand when I say that for the past few years I have been reluctant to let anyone near my hair! Don't get me wrong, I did visit the hairdresser a couple of times a year for a 'trim' but it sent me into a panic at the thought of someone with scissors coming near my hair. I am embarrassed to admit that I was probably the worlds worst client! Bearing this in mind the fact that I decided to have a haircut was a monumental one for me! I scoured Pinterest and the internet for inspiration and a couple of weeks before my appointment I started to narrow it down to my favourites. Here are some of the styles that inspired me:

L-R: Jennifer Lawrence, Ashley Benson, Lucy Hale

Collection Primed & Ready Range

The Collection Primed & Ready Range

Affordable drugstore brand Collection have recently released a new, (ahem) collection, of primers that go by the name 'Primed & Ready'. We are always interested to test out new primers and of course we had to pick up the entire range to test out and review.

As huge fans of the Benefit Porefessional (in our humble opinion one of the best primers on the market) we were very keen to see how the Collection primers measured up.

L'Oreal Infallible Sculpt - Review

L-R: Infallible Blush Trio, Infallible Sculpt Contouring Palette.

We first saw this duo of products from L'Oreal featured in the drugstore hauls of some of our favourite USA beauty YouTubers and looked forward to being able to purchase them in the UK. Last week we finally managed to get our hands on them as the brand new displays started to appear in our local Boots and Superdrug stores.

The Infallible Sculpt range includes the following products:

Base:       Infallible Sculpt Base (in Light or Medium) 

Palette:   Infallible Sculpt Cream to Powder Contouring Palette  

Blush:     Infallible Blush Trio

We decided to give the base a miss as we already have far too many foundation products in our collection so we instead we went for the Contour Palette and the 3-in-1 Blush.