Our HUGE USA Beauty Haul!

Tarte Tartlette in Bloom Palette

Lets be honest, I need another eyeshadow palette like a hole in the head but when Fleur de Force showed the Tartelette in Bloom clay eyeshadow palette (£32.40 QVCUK.com) in her April favourites I was sold! Once we got to Orlando and hit Sepohora it was one of the first things I wanted to seek out. Unfortunately for my bank account it was as beautiful in person as it was online and it 'fell' into my basket!

Sephora Favorites: Bronze Bares All

If you are a regular reader of ElleandMimi.com you will know all about our obsession with Sephora Favorites sets! Normally available at Christmas time the Sephora Favorites bring sample size products (and occasionally a full size or two) all together in one place so that beauty and skincare obsessives like us can try out some new products. These sets are usually great value for money and our newest acquisition is no exception. 

Sephora Beauty On The Fly: The Ultimate Travel Bag

We are huge fans of the Sephora Favorites sets and always try to snap a couple of them up when they are released - usually at Christmas time. However this past May on our very last day in Orlando (we were literally en route to the airport) We stopped by Sephora and discovered a brand new travel set called Beauty On The Fly: The Ultimate Travel Bag. We couldn't resist picking up one each as it was bursting with tiny travel sized products for the fantastic price of just $42.00. I believe that Sephora also released the Ultimate Travel Bag set in 2015 but the 2016 variety seems to have more products included which has got to be a good thing, right! The bag contains the following products and sizes:

USA Wishlist - Sephora & Ulta Edition

As promised here is our USA Wish List – Sephora & Ulta Edition. If you missed our Drugstore Edition it is linked here. Please leave your suggestions for products you love in the comments below. We’d love to hear your recommendations!

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.

Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit Palette

When we were in Orlando in November we were lucky to be able to get our hands on the new (and possibly limited edition for the holidays?) Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit Palette. To be honest, this palette has not had the best reviews. The main cause of contention has been that the amount of product in the palette is not the best value for money but lets be honest, how often do you use the entire contents of a palette anyway? Therefore the gripes did not put us off and we were excited to pick it up on one of our visits

to Sephora. 

 

It comes in beautiful gold shiny packaging and has a great size mirror that is ideal to use on the go. The palette holds three of their famous Ambient Lighting Powders, two Ambient Lighting Blushes and one Ambient Lighting Bronzer. Hourglass have included the powder shades; Dim Light, Iridescent Light and Diffused Light and the blush shades; Mood Exposure (a pinkish plum) and Luminous Flush (a coral pink). The palette is compelted with the bronzer in Luminous Bronze Light (a medium bronze powder with luminous light) 

L-R top row; Dim Light, Iridescent Light, Diffused Light
L-R bottom row; Mood Exposure, Luminous Flush, Luminous Bronze Light

After using this palette for a month now one negative is that the pans are quite small in size so it can be a little tricky for your brush to pick up just one colour. However with the Ambient Lighting Powers they also work really beautifully if swirled together so thats not so much of a problem with the powders. The blush and bronzer can be more difficult but using a slanted blush/bronzer brush means that you can target the shade you want and pick up the right amount! 

The palette has been used almost every day since we bought it making it a staple in our make up collection and one of our favourite recent purchases. Despite our initial reservations we are really pleased that we picked this up and if you are looking to treat yourself this Christmas then we would definitely recommend it and it's not too late to pick it up as a last minute Christmas present for a beauty loving friend! They will love you for it!

 

The Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit Palette is sold in Space NK for £65 and in Sephora (currently sold out) for $80  

A Food Festival, Halloween Horror, Universal Orlando Resort and a Sephora Splurge!

Welcome to our first ‘Review of the Week’. We will not be posting these on a regular weekly schedule as, believe us, our lives are not interesting enough to do that! However, when we have something fun happening or a particularly busy week we would love to share it with you all!

A couple of weeks ago we took an impromptu trip to Orlando, Florida on a top secret mission that we will be sharing with you in the new year. Until then let us fill you in on some of the fun activities, eating and shopping we did while we were there.

We set off on Saturday morning at 10am and had a great flight in which we watched Jurassic World (fab movie!) and The Age of Adeline (excellent film, many tears were shed!). We touched down at 3.30pm at Orlando International Airport and were whisked off to our Hotel, Radisson at Celebration. We had every intention of having a night out but the truth is we were so tired that we fell into bed super early, exhausted from a busy day travelling

Epcot Food and Wine Festival

We had a full itinerary for Sunday! We purchased tickets at the gate and headed into Epcot Food and Wine Festival at around 10am. We enjoyed the obligatory Starbucks (Christmas drinks are now available!) before the stands opened and 11am we started to eat our way around the world! Wow! We had some amazing food! We have inserted a sample  of what we managed to consume above so that you can get an idea of just how much we managed to get through! If you are in Orlando during Food and Wine Festival we cannot recommend this enough as it was a really great day out. We really enjoyed the food we sampled and it was so lovely to wander around Epcot World Showcase in the November sunshine and pick out the food we wanted to taste. We especially enjoyed the cheese and wine trio at the end of the day! Once we had eaten our fill we headed back to our hotel for a nap as we had a very scary evening ahead….

Universal Halloween Horror Nights

We purchased tickets in advance for Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) as the night we attended was the very last night and we didn’t want to risk missing out. We arrived about 45 minutes before the gates opened and joined the line with lots of suitably dressed guests! As the park opened fireworks were set off and we heard chainsaws jump to life! Halloween Horror Nights is an annual event at Universal Studios in both Orlando and California. The park is divided into ‘Scare Zones’ – or themed areas where scarily dressed actors frighten this life out of you (both with and without chainsaws!) They also have themed ‘Houses’ which are based on both popular horror films and original ideas. This year they included Freddie vs. Jason, The Walking Dead, Insidious, The Purge and an original house themed around the 25^th Anniversary of HHN. We managed to see every scare zone and walk through 6/9 of the themed houses before jet lag got the better of us and we were forced to stagger home to bed dreaming of zombies….zzzzz

Shopping Craziness at Sephora

No trip to the USA would be complete without a visit to Sephora We already had a list of items that we wanted to check out and of course once you start browsing you are always seduced by other pretty items you decide you can’t live without! We were excited to see that some of the holiday sets were already released and we picked up the Sephora Favorites  Superstars  $75 and Sephora Give Me More Lip $59 (apologies that we are unable to link to this but it does not currently appear to be available online) .We love these sets as they offer fantastic value for money and are a great way to try products without having to splash out on the full size item.

After the 'snapped in the suitcase Anastacia Brow Wiz debacle' of Summer 2015 we invested in a new and intact Brow Wiz and kept it in its box for travel purposes this time (in case of snappage! ) We also managed to get hold of the coveted (and pretty much sold out) Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector Jaclyn Hill Palette $49. This is a limited edition palette with Pearl/ Champagne Pop/ Blushed Copper highlighters, get it fast as it is sure to be popular! We were also delighted to be able to get our hands on the new Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit Palette which is sooo beautiful! It is available in the UK from Space NK and although it is a little pricey at £65, in our opinion it is worth it as it has been used every single day since its purchase!

We will be dedicating a whole post to some of our new Sephora purchases soon including photographs and reviews once we have tried and tested them for you all! Watch this space for details!

 

An Epic Universal Orlando Day

 

To finish off our incredibly busy week we decided to dedicate a whole day to visiting the Universal Parks - Universal Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios the day before we flew home. After an early lunch at Bread Box we started off in Islands of Adventure which was so much quieter that it was in August when we last visited! We rode some of our very favourite attractions including Spiderman and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey before jumping on the Hogwarts Express to Universal Studios and riding Escape from Gringotts. We couldn't leave without paying a visit to Mummy and Transformers (another two of our fave attractions!). We left in the early evening totally exhausted after a packed day of having fun!

Universal Orlando Resort

 

 

We spent our final morning at the newly rebranded Disney Springs (AKA Downtown Disney) where we had our traditional final day lunch at Earl of Sandwich and a quick look at how the Disney Springs building work was progressing since we last visited. We always seem to end up there on our final day as it is a great place to have a leisurely wander and lunch before heading to the airport.

 

By early afternoon the time had come for us to head back to Orlando International Airport to return our hire car and start the long journey home.

 

We had an amazing visit to Orlando and despite only being there for one week on this trip we managed to cram a whole lot into our 7 days! We hope you have enjoyed reading about our visit and we look forward to sharing our Sephora purchases with you very soon.  

 

Must Have Autumn/Fall Lipsticks

From the top: Nars Audacious, Kat Von D, Boujois Rouge Edition, NYX Soft Matte, Sephora Rouge Infusion

I must start by saying that I am obsessed with all things Autumn/Fall. Pumpkin spice, halloween, dressing in deep reds and black, wearing boots, wrapping up in comfy scarfs and of course the make up trend that always comes back around Berry Lips! I tend to have really dry sad chapped lips which does not work well with bold statement lip colours! However I think I have managed to find a few formulas and shades that work really well for me.

 

The first being Nars Audacious lipstick in Anna. I searched high and low for this shade after Anna from Vivianna Does Makeup posted about it on her blog but it was sold out everywhere. I did finally manage to get my hands on it and it did not disappoint! The lipstick formula is opaque and creamy but dry slightly matte and the shade is a gorgeous brown pink. It's the perfect Autumn nude lipstick.

 

The next came in a Sephora Loves sample box. Although I had heard a lot of hype around the Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipstick before and especially about this shade Outlaw I had not tried any. It's an deep berry blue toned red which, once applied is not going anywhere! This formula is slightly drying on the lips but that can be excused as the staying power is so good.

 

Next up is the only traditional UK drug store option in the bunch, Boujois Rouge Edition Velvet liquid lipstick. This is almost a drugstore dupe for the Kat Von D lipsticks in formula apart from the fact that it is even better! The product goes on the lips like water and is very light weight. It dries almost instantly but doesn't dry out your lips! I love this orange red shade Hot Pepper however I have heard mixed reviews about some of the deeper shades in the range.

 

I love NYX products, they are hands down my favourite USA drug store brand and their lipstick selection does not disappoint. Everything I have tried from them I have loved especially the Soft Matte Lip Creams. This one in the shade Copenhagen is the perfect deep burgundy purple shade for this time of year! The next shade up, Transylvania looks amazing on my best friend who has black hair but unfortunately not so great on this blonde!

 

Lastly another liquid lipstick! (What can I say they are just so easy!!!) This is the Sephora Rogue Infusion liquid lipstick in the shade 10 Red Essence another hyped product but for a good reason. These lipsticks have a great long lasting formula and I love this red since its more brown toned than the others. Plus these smell amazing!!! 

 

What are your must have Autumn/Fall lipsticks? Let me know in the comments!

 

Mimi

USA Beauty Haul - Sephora and Ulta

While we were holidaying in Florida during August we could not resist a trip to the beauty stores (lets be honest we made about 5 trips but who's counting!) We always like to check out the products that are US exclusives or difficult to come by in the UK and we got our hands on some treasures!

Lets start with Sephora (also known as the Mother Ship!). Our first trip to Sephora was at our favourite Orlando shopping destination, Mall at Millenia, where we picked up some of the excellent Sephora brand make up brushes. We have tried some of these brushes in the past, I own a crease brush and a blending brush, but we had not tried the Pro Brushes nor the Value Sets so we were interested to take a look at what was on offer. I had the Sephora Small Pro Stippling Brush on my must have list and snapped up one of those up along with the Pro Tapered Crease Brush which is amazing for a precise crease shadow application. Another must purchase was the legendary Beauty Blender. Now I realise I am a little late to the party on this one and I know it is available in the UK but it's sooo much cheaper in the US and for this reason I thought it was time I gave it a whirl. After 3 weeks use I can safely say that it has changed my foundation/concealer life! I am loving it for blending foundation, CC cream, tinted moisturiser, under eye concealer - you name it! I also picked up a new Beautyblender Solid Cleaner as Mimi said I used all of her last one (!). Another potentially life changing item was then secured - the Anastacia Brow Wiz. Until tragedy struck! On the flight home the holy grail item was safely packed in my make up bag in my case however when I got home I noticed that it has somehow snapped in half during the journey. I see a repurchase on the horizon.

I really wanted to try one of the Fresh Sugar scents and after smelling all of them settled on Fresh Sugar Lemon which is a lovely blend of their traditional sugar sent with lemons thrown in. I love it! Finally, when approaching the cash register and making my way through the aisle of temptation I grabbed hold of the Elizabeth and James Nirvana perfume duo and the cute Sephora TSA Approved Travel Bag to use on the flight home.

Next it was off to Ulta where I stocked up on my favourite L'Oreal Color Riche Balms which I now own in every colour with duplicates of my top two! I was very restrained in Ulta and only picked up a couple other items including the NYX Skinny Mascara that I wanted to try as a bottom lash mascara. So far so good! (lets be honest here, I bought two!) Of course it wouldn't be a trip to Ulta without throwing in a few - okay SIX - nail polishes into the mix! I love these L'Oreal nail polishes and Essie is our favourite nail polish brand so we had to get our hands on some new shades.

Special mention to the Covergirl Ready Set Gorgeous Foundation. I have seen some Beauty YouTubers praising this product and it is so affordable I thought I would give it a try. It is now my daily go-to foundation and I wish I had picked up a spare!

Since having LVL Enhance lash treatment I have steered away from waterproof mascaras. Therefore, when the new Covergirl Super Sizer Mascara caught my eye I was tempted to give it a whirl. You are supposed to 'twist' the brush as you apply at but that seems a bit weird to me so I have stuck to the traditional application method! The fine wand grabs hold of and makes all of your lashes stand out and it holds a curl nicely. So far, so good!

Usually when we travel to the US we find lots of things that are not available in the UK however I think that the UK beauty market is getting much better and we seem to be able to get our hands on most things and most brands that they have in the US with a few minor exceptions. This meant that I did not purchase nearly as much as usual - good for my bank balance!

Look out for our Bath and Body Works haul coming soon!

Have you tried any of the above mentioned products? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Elle x