Affordable highlighters

Hey everyone and welcome back to the blog :)

So I just wanted to do a post on my favourite highlighters!! Anyone who knows me personally or through the blog will know that I love affordable beauty products and I own a lot of highlighters that cost me so little! So I like both liquid and powder highlighters and I find they both work well for me :) 

MeMeMe Beat the Blues

So first up is the MeMeMe Beat the blues highlighter in Moonbeam , a dupe for Benefit High beam and only €6.99. It does the exact same thing as the high Beam, the only difference I find is that the Benefit has a little bit more of  a thicker consistency. This gives you such a lovely glow and I highly recommend it. It can be purchased at any of the MeMeMe  stands, one being in the Medical Hall in Edenderry :) 

Essence Cinderella Highlight powder 

Next up is Essence. Earlier this summer Essence had the Cinderella brand out. I just fell in love with the display! I love Cinderella!! One of my fave Disney movies so I was very excited about this limited edition. So I got my hands on the Cinderella highlighter and I LOVE  it, I think this was only like €4.99 and I swear it gives such a nice glow, I  love to put it on my cheek bones after I have finished my make up for a final glow finish. 

Essence soo Glow! cream to powder highlighter 

Another Essence fave!! This cream to powder highlighter is so good and was only like €4 !! It's a relay nice light pink shade and it goes on so nicely and isn't sticky like most creams. Essence are such a great make up brand and do not get enough credit for their products. I lurve them  :) 

Seventeen WOW Skin

Next is the Seventeen Wow skin 3 way liquid highlighter. This highlighter is AMAZING!!! It comes in a bottle wit a pump and is so easy to apply. I like to apply it to my cheek bones, brows, cupids bow and my nose. It gives such an amazing glow and again it was cheap as chips. at the moment boots has some amazing offers on including selected 2 products for just €11 on the Seventeen stand. This highlighter is included. 

Catrice Pure Shimmer Highlighter 

This highlighter is so beautiful!!! I won this in a competition from A Judge Less Life (check out her blog she's amazing!!!) but I absolutely love it and it gives such a nice goldy pinky shimmer!! Again perfect for highlighting the cheek bones!!! :D 

Sleek Contour blush and highlighter kit

 Last but not least is the Sleek highlighter from the highlight, contour and blush kit. I swear by this palette for contour and highlight and its only like €10. The highlight is a powder and is so nice and sparkly. it gives an amazing glow!! This is def one of my most favourite ones!!! :) 

Most of these products can be purchased from most pharmacies nationwide. 

Have you used any of the highlighters mentioned above? If so which ones are your favourite??

Thank you all for stopping by 

Until next time 

Lots of love

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My Lifetsyle change

Hello again :)

I hope you are all doing well and are enjoying my posts so far :D 

So if you follow any of my social media accounts you would see me posting pictures and status's about my new healthy journey. So I have decided to do a blog post on it as I think its something that a lot of people are turning to lately and that is a healthier life. This post may be a little longer than normal so my apologies for that :) 

I reached a point about 3 weeks ago that I just got so down about how I looked and I just said I have to change this!! My biggest eye opener was at my best friends wedding when I had to go shopping the day before her wedding for a dress because nothing would fit me and I just got so angry at myself for letting myself get to that point. So I swore to my mam who came with me that day that I would never let myself feel that way ever again. I don't think there is any worse feeling that being so unhappy and so uncomfortable in your own skin. There's no escape from it. I got a dress which was a size 14 and I have always been between an 8 and a 12 at my biggest. You have to remember I am only 5ft2 so a size 8 would certainly not look too skinny, it's a healthy size to be for my height. Anyway I was so unbelievably uncomfortable at the wedding it stopped me from getting in to pictures, getting up to dance and overall just stopped me from enjoying the day. It doesn't help that I suffer from anxiety too so that on top of feeling like I did, you can only imagine what I was like. I just wanted to crawl in to a dark hole and stay there till I felt somewhat normal again. I am so sad that I couldn't just be content and happy with what I was wearing because it means I missed out on so much of my best friends wedding that I will never get to go to again. It's a vicious circle too, when you feel so low in yourself , it effects the relationships around you, which is just so bad. 

this is the only pic I took of myself at the wedding. A lift selfie... 

how true is this :)

So I have taken the plunge and I have started my healthy eating :) yay :) When I started 2 weeks ago I was 11st 6lbs, that's bigger than I was going in to have Lucy, at my heaviest pregnancy wight I was 11st 4lbs. So that was another eye opener to me too. After one week of eating clean with the very odd treat I lost 5lbs. Just goes to show how much crap I had been eating previous to that. We went to Cork for a little family holiday for a few days last week and I kept to a healthy diet but we were on holidays so I did have some treats and a few glasses of wine at dinner, so I weighed myself when I got home and I only gained a lb which I didn't lose sleep over. I know I will lose that this week too. So in just a week I can see a difference in my mood, I am more tolerant and patient and not as snappy, I am less tired and less bloated. I am drinking so much water, at least 2 liters of water a day. I am so bad a drinking water but to make it more fun I purchased one of the jars (pictured below) with a straw and I fill that wit some lemon, cucumber and strawberries to make it taste nicer and it also detoxes you so you're getting the best of both worlds. :) 

I got this in Tiger for just €2

My diet has gone from eating processed foods and take aways to eating home cooked, fresh produce meals. one of my favourite meals is salt n chilli chicken with mashed sweet potato, kale and onion or my new favourite Quinoa,  they are so tasty and so good for you. The salt n chilli chicken recipe I follow can be found here, it's also the slimming world recipe so it is syn free if you follow slimming world. That's another thing, I have always tried so many different programs such as Slimming world and weight watchers and I found them great for the time that I went but if I missed a week it would completely throw me off so this way for me I think will work better. Everyone is different in what works for them. If I have the word "diet" in my head chances are I'm not going to last long so instead I now just refer to a lifestyle change so it has to stay :) 

Salt n chilli chicken with mashed sweetpotato kale and onion

Quinoa with some stir fry veg on top :)

I will be doing regular updates on the blog of my progress. I don''t have a goal weight in mind I just know that I want to fit in to my old clothes again and feel happier in myself. I also want to lead a good example for my daughter Lucy and to introduce healthier tastier home cooked meals in to her diet too. So for now I am clean eating and I am going to continue this till I know it is just a part of me. Then my plan is to come up with an exercise plan. I find if I throw myself in to diet and exercise together I get fed up and want to achieve results immediately, whereas now I feel that if I sort my eating habits first then I can combine exercise with it. Therefore I know it's going to take time and I'm not going to be at my destination over night! I am going to weigh myself each week but I am also using some old clothes as an indicator to how I am progressing each week and any tips I have that I find are working for me I will share with you all too :) 

So I hope you all join me on this healthy lifestyle journey of mine and if you too can relate to this post and feel down about how you might look too then come join me on this road! WE can help each other!! Motivation, persistence and consistency is key!! Just remember too it's not going to change overnight, this is going to take time but it is going to be LIFE CHANGING!! :D 

Thank you all for reading :) 

Until next time 

Lots of love 

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My favourite foundation brushes

Love this :) (google images) 

Hey everyone and welcome back to my blog :) 

So today I want to share with you my favourite make up brushes to use to apply my foundation. I find foundation the hardest part of make up and the most important part to get right as it is your base, it really takes a good brush to ensure it is even and not patchy. You could use the cheapest foundation (well maybe not he cheapest :P ) but once you have the right tools to apply it with you will get the best results you want :) 

Beter Foundation Brush

So first up I am loving the Beter brand liquid foundation brush, I use this brush every day without fail and it leaves me with a flawless finish with my foundation. This brush can be purchased for just €9.99 from Ryan's Pharmacy. I love that these brushes are so affordable. The bristles are so soft but they don't budge when washing them, they are easily cleaned and just spring back in to shape after. 

Beter Fibre Optic Brush 

Another Beter brush I swear by is the Fibre Optic one. I love using this to apply some mineral foundation but you can use it for liquid and cream foundations too :). It blends so evenly and gives a really nice flawless finish. Sometimes I use my mineral foundation over my liquid foundation and this brush is just super for blending!!! I love this brush for applying powder highlighter too :)  Again a very affordable brush, I think this brush was only €14.99 and it can also be purchased from Ryan's Pharmacy.

Real Techniques Stippling Brush 

Next up is the Real Techniques Stippling brush. This brush is my multi purpose brush!! I use this to apply some concealer under my foundation, it's great for concealing the eyes as it gets right in to the corners of the eyes, so this is great for applying foundation as it leaves you with a flawless HD finish with no streaks and like I said before it blends around the eye area so well :) This brush can be purchased on Simply Foxy here  for just €10.71 compared to Boots for €15.99 :)  I also love this brush for applying cream highlighter to the cheek bones :) 

Real Techniques Buffing Brush 

And last but not least is the Real Techniques Buffing brush! Girls if you do not have this brush I highly recommend that you get it!! This brush is the holy grail of blending brushes!! It is amazing for blending out your foundation and also for blending bronzer for contouring !! This brush can only be purchased in the Core Collection brush set but you can get it on Simply Foxy here for an amazing price of just €19.42, in this set you get 4 brushes and the buffing brush is one of them! Highly recommend this set!! It is the best set I have purchased by far!! 

So there are my main 4 go to foundation brushes to achieve the flawless look us girls all want so bad :)  Have you used any of these brushes before?  If so please tell me your thoughts u the comments below or on ay of my social media accounts below :) 

Thank you all for reading

Until next time 

Lots of Love 

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L'oreal Paris LA Palette Nude - Review

http://www.ryanspharmacy.ie/

Hey everyone :D 

Oh my god it feels like forever since I've written on here!! I really missed it too! I hate not having internet it literally makes me feel like I'm missing a limb!!! However I am back now and I am reviewing the LA Palette Nude by L'oreal Paris!!! I am finally getting around to do this and I am so excited to share this palette with you because it is just BEAUTIFUL!!!!! 

So I was so kindly given this amazing palette by the fantastic Ryan's Pharmacy. Ryan's also got nominated best shop in Ireland recently so a massive well-done to them. It doesn't even surprise me though as it is a fantastic and friendly pharmacy/gift shop. I live in the place! If you want to find your nearest Ryan's pharmacy just click here :) 

So as you all know I go weak for nudes and browns and dusty pinks eye-shadow and this palette literally fills all my needs for an eye-shadow palette. When I fist swatched the palette I wasn't overly impressed as the shades seem to be quite soft BUT then I put it on my eye lids and I was so shocked by how pigmented it really was.... 

So the moral of the story here is don't always believe a swatch on your hand as it may be completely different on your eyes or where-ever you're putting the swatched products :D 

Below you will find me wearing a very subtle day time eye.  I wanted to keep it as simple as I could and this palette was perfect for delivering just that. I only had to apply a small amount of shadow and it gave fantastic pigment and also the shadow lasted all day without an eye-shadow primer being applied. ( I know shocking but I genuinely forgot to put some on!!! ) 

So you can use this palette for day or night time wear. It has 10 shadows starting from light to dark (as most eye-shadow palettes tend to do :) )  It retails at €19.99 but I promise it is worth every cent as it will last you absolute ages!!  You can purchase it in Ryan's pharmacy at the L'oreal stand :) Thank you again to Orla from Ryan's Pharmacy for giving me the opportunity to try such a fantastic make up product :) 

So I hope you enjoyed my review! I feel out of touch of blogging because its been so long!! But I'm back now so I'll be used to it again in no time!! Thank you for your continuous support and for reading my posts. You're all amazing!!!! 

P.S. Don't forget to enter the competition on my Facebook page to be in with a chance of winning loads of amazing beauty goodies including Cocoa Brown, Body shop and lots more :) Facebook link can be found below :D Good Luck xx 

Until next time 

Lots of love 

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