NOVEMBER BEAUTY FAVOURITES

I cannot believe it's time for November favourites already, I didn't do an October favourites last month because there wasn't really anything different I was loving but I've had the chance to try out some new products and there's quite a few things I'm loving this month so I'll get on with it. The first product and overall thing I've been loving is just painting my nails, I go through phases of enjoying painting my nails and then dreading it and end up with chipped nails for a good couple of weeks. But with the help of some new nail polishes I've actually been quite good and as we speak my nails are freshly painted and not chipped at all. The first nail varnish is a lovely nude, brown colour from H&M called 'Nutmeg', I'm in love with this colour and bearing in mind H&M nail polishes only cost £3.99 they are such great quality, don't take too long to dry and then when they are dry they don't smudge or go gloopy. My other favourite nail polishes this month are all from Essie of course, which are slightly pricier than the H&M nail varnishes but who can refuse getting a few Essie nail polishes when it's 3 for 2 in Boots. I picked up the shades In Stitches which is so so lovely, Bordeaux and Bobbing for Baubles. To me these are quite Autumnal/Winter shades slightly darker even though the two of them are quite muted tones they're still dark shades which makes them perfect for this time of year especially considering one of them is called Bobbing for Baubles!

Although I have already done a post ranting about the new H&M beauty collection and how amazing it is, when I was in London I popped back in quickly and didn't plan on picking anything up but of course I did. The first thing I picked up was one of their High Impact eye colour's in the shade Anthracite purely because I don't really have any shades like this and I'm finding myself wanting to make my eye makeup slightly darker and intense now the dark and gloomy days are here with winter so this lovely dark, navy shimmer is great for creating the perfect smoky eye look. One thing I will say is that the fall out if this is dreadful, you just end up with huge chunks of dark shimmer all over your face but if you're willing to put up with that and doing your makeup taking slightly longer then that's fine, but this product really is lovely and I love pairing this with my Naked palette with the shade Smog. So I also picked up a hand cream purely because my hands have been a bit dry recently now we're in the colder seasons, so I picked up the Cashmere Haze hand cream and it smells so lovely, plus the packing is really aesthetically pleasing to me as well as all their other skincare and body care products but I ran out of time to look so I think there needs to be a H&M order placed quite soon.

I had been debating for a while whether to get this and if I was willing to spend that much money on this product but I finally took the plunge and placed an order to Space.NK for the...wait for it...HOURGLASS AMBIENT LIGHTING EDIT! This is the most beautiful palette I have seen, I'm so in love with it and have used it pretty much everyday for the whole of this month. I think this is a great choice if you want to try out a bunch of Hourglass's products but don't want to commit to a full sized product just yet, although this doesn't work out to be that much of a cheaper option I just think this makes such a lovely gift whether that's for someone else or if like me you had a bit of a shit day and thought about treating yourself, which I do way too much according to my last bank statement. This is a really handy product because if you're going away you pretty much have the powders you need all in one palette and don't have to take extra products with you, not to mention the fact that it is just simply beautiful and amazing, clearly I am well over excited to have this is in my life so obviously this has to be my favourite beauty product not only of the month but probably ever!

I have been trying to get my hands on some NYX products for what seems like forever, and since when did FeelUnique.com stock NYX and how did I not know this! Although I could have picked up almost all of their products I wanted to give some a try before I went and just threw my money at everything. The main product I wanted from NYX was a few of their Soft Matte lip creams, but I have a bit of trouble with matte lip creams because of how dry my lips are - side note if any of you know of any lip balms or miracle products that would help my little dry, chapped lips to sort themselves out please leave some recommendations below, I beg of you because they are quite literally horrendous this time of year... Anyway after that little meltdown, I like to give products a go before I commit to getting that product in every shade they make, but good news I love, love, love this product! I picked up the shade London which is a lovely brown, nude colour and now I desperately need every other shade and have my eye on the shades Cannes, Prague, Milan and Monte Carlo plus how great are those shade names. I also picked up one of their Butter Gloss's in the shade Creme Brûlée, this is a lovely pink and nude lip gloss that isn't too sticky on my lips so is perfect for night outs. Also Boots has come out with wonderful news that they now stock NYX!!!! This is where I now order all of their products...

As it's now the end of November, there is no excuse to why I can't and shouldn't pick up all of Lush's Christmas products! I picked up the Father Christmas bath bomb, this is a favourite from last year and smells so good, it smells of candy floss and sweets, this is probably my favourite from the whole of their Christmas line so I couldn't recommend this one enough! I also picked up the Yog Nog bath bomb, which I hadn't tried before and didn't think I was going to like the smell of this because it's quite spice scented but surprisingly I do, it smells a bit like toffee and really reminds me of Christmas and the spicy scents so I couldn't not pick this up. Another thing I hadn't tried or smelt before was the Rose Jam shower gel, and like everyone said it does smell really good and is lovely, I hadn't used any of Lush's shower gels or creams before but after using this one I've now added a few to my Christmas list like of course The Comforter shower cream as well as the Yuzu and Cocoa shower cream. I love Lush in general, but especially this time of year with all their lovely Christmas products and gift sets and think they make the best gifts if you don't know what to get someone, so Lush as a store is one of my favourites this month. 

My last favourite that I have to mention is the Garnier Micellar cleansing water, this is my favourite cleansing water and even tops Bioderma for me purely because Bioderma I think is slightly harsher and dries out my skin and really stings my eyes, I know your not meant to get it in your eyes but when you accidentally do oh my god it hurts! So purely for the reason that the Garnier Micellar cleansing water doesn't sting my eyes and is less harsh on my skin I had to include this is in my favourites plus not to mention it's so much cheaper than Bioderma! I hope you enjoyed this slightly rambling favourites, leave a comment of what some your favourites are this month and keep an eye out for my Non-beauty November favourites! 

THINGS I MENTIONED:
H&M nail polish - Nutmeg
Essie nail polish - In Stitches
Essie nail polish - Bordeaux
Essie nail polish - Bobbing for Baubles
H&M High Impact eye colour - Anthracite
H&M Cashmere Haze hand cream
Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit
NYX Soft Matte lip cream - London
NYX Butter gloss - Creme Brulee
Sleek Matte Me Lip Gloss - Birthday Suit
Lush Father Christmas bath bomb
Lush Yog Nog bath bomb
Lush Rose Jam shower gel
Garnier Micellar cleansing water

KIKO HAUL & REVIEW

It's taken me a while to get this Kiko haul sorted for some reason, but I've finally given them all a try, they took what seemed like a good couple of years to arrive but I can overlook that purely because of the lovely rose gold packaging. In store I managed to pick up a lipstick and a matching lip liner and miraculously they were actually in stock. I picked up the lipstick in the shade 02 , and I'm in love with this colour, it's a lovely berry almost mauve, wine colour, and for once I've actually found a berry colour that suits me. It goes on so well and lasts so long on the lips even after eating and this is one of the best lipsticks I have because it doesn't dry my lips out as much as my other lipsticks, so for this price I'm thinking I need to pick up some more shades for definite! The lipliner is also another great product and is a perfect match for the lipstick, to be honest the only reason I picked this up was because I don't have a lip liner in this shade but I'm glad I did because it is such great quality!

I was slightly disappointed when leaving the Kiko store in London because the one thing I really, really, desperately wanted was the Kiko Contouring Pencil set but they didn't have them in stock. But not long after that they had them back in stock online, thank god because I really wasn't happy. The main reason I wanted these was because I thought they would be a good dupe for the Clinique Chubby Stick - the contour and highlight ones that are £19 each and with the Kiko ones only being £9.90 for both I made a very wise decision. My favourite out of the two is the bronze contouring stick, I do think the highlighter is great but isn't as good as the bronzer. It is a little scary at first when your drawing a dark brown line across the side of your face, but they blend so well and are so easy to work with. I usually use this as a base and then maybe, depending how intense I want my contour I go back in with another bronzer like the Nars Laguna bronzer just to touch it up a bit, but I highly recommend these if they're still in stock, for the bronzer contour pencil alone and I'm so glad I didn't rush into buying the Clinique chubby sticks!

I think I definitely need to look into Kiko more because the quality of they're products are so good not to mention they're affordable, you should definitely check out they're new Christmas range, it looks amazing! But let me know what Kiko products are your favourite and if there's any I should check out!

THINGS I MENTIONED:

KIKO Intensely Lavish Lipstick - 02

KIKO Intensely Lavish Lip pencil - 01

KIKO Contouring Pencil set - 01 Light to Medium

A DAY IN CARDIFF

I'm always popping into Cardiff, mainly because it's the nearest place with any decent amount of shops and is only about half an hour away from where I live so it's such an easy trip to get there. I thought I would just do a quick post about a few places in Cardiff and maybe make this an on going thing if I go anywhere new or interesting the next time I'm in Cardiff. When I go to Cardiff with my mum we usually stick to the arcades mainly because she's not the biggest fan of shopping and once I'm in Topshop or Zara there's no getting me out of there anytime soon. So the arcades it is, that way we avoid a mental breakdown on behalf of my mother but I do love the arcades because there's a few different cute shops there and not your usual everyday shops.

One of my favourite things when I go to Cardiff with my mum is she always takes us to this little cafe that I absolutely love, it's called Barker's Tea Rooms and I'm in love with most of the furniture there especially the old brown leather armchairs, I mean if there was an option of buying some of the furniture then I'm all for that because it's all so lovely and comfy. They do such nice panini's, and everything just always looks so nice, I like that it's usually quite quiet because it's down one of the arcades and isn't one of your typical chain cafes. It's definitely worth skipping a trip to Starbucks and coming here instead!

Although most of the bigger shops aren't in the arcades, the arcades do have some lovely little stores with some great things, one of them being Home by Kirsty, which is a lovely design shop that do some lovely interior bits, the nicest cards and a few other things. I could have bought everything there and I need to go back and pick up some cards and also they had the cutest mugs with a constellation pattern on, and for some reason I'm obsessed with mugs but don't use them for hot drinks because other than hot chocolate I hate hot drinks so I literally have so many random mugs just everywhere in my room. But anyway, thinking of Christmas, they do some great little things that would make really cute presents if your not sure what to get someone that are different and something you can't get in your average store so your guaranteed your present will be slightly different to everyone else's - I will link them down below as well as their lovely blog.

I haven't been putting too many posts up lately due to the fact that I've been dying from the flu, I may be being slightly over dramatic but I have literally not moved other than when I've been able to get myself out of bed to go to work! But I'm feeling slightly better so there should be a few posts on the way, I'm also working on a huge home haul so fingers crossed that shouldn't take too long I'm just waiting on a few more things to arrive but I hope you enjoyed this post, and let me know if you like these kind of posts and want to see more of them!

HOME BY KIRSTY - link
HOME BY KIRSTY BLOG - link

H&M BEAUTY

It's about time I had a good rant about how good the H&M new beauty collection is, I mean you've probably already heard everyone else rave about them so this isn't exactly new news but I am absolutely in love with the new H&M beauty range - it's so affordable but such great quality and worth buying a good dozen of their products which I intend to do after trying a few products out. The first thing I picked up was a nail polish in the colour Nutmeg, I love these type of colours, nude browns are my absolute favourite and this one is no different. It's such good quality, dry's relatively fast and when dry doesn't smudge or go gloopy, I definitely need to pick up some more colours next time. I also picked up one of the cream lipstick because why not, I picked it up in the shade Firebrand, I had wanted an orange/bright red colour for a while from MAC but thought this would be a cheaper alternative. I do really love the shade and think it's a lovely quality lipstick I just wish it was a matte lipstick instead because I do prefer matte lipsticks rather than satin lipsticks but I still really like this product though. 

They also had some lovely eyeshadow products and I did like the look of their palettes but I had recently bought a few eyeshadow palettes so thought it would be a change to pick up something different. I managed to pick up one of their eye colour-to-go eyeshadow pencils in the shade Fairytale which is a lovely champagne shimmer colour that works great on its own and quite easy to blend out for a less shimmery look. I also picked up one of the Colour Essence eye pencils in the shade Copper Bullion, this is such a lovely copper colour that works great with the Zoeva Cocoa Blend Freshly Toasted and a bit of Subtle Blend in the corner and then just using this on your waterline/eyelash line for more definition instead of black eyeliner. I really love how both of these products work and at £3.99 each you can't go wrong, so you should definitely pick some up because I intend to go back and pick up a few dozen of them. I hope you enjoyed this haul and keep an eye out for a new post coming soon!

THINGS I MENTIONED:
H&M Nail polish - Nutmeg
H&M Cream lipstick - Firebrand
H&M Eye colour-to-go - Fairytale
H&M Colour Essence eye pencil - Copper Bullion

MINI SEPHORA & BATH & BODY WORKS HAUL

During the October half term my sister got to go to America with her school, I mean I did get to go when I was in her year as well but it would have been nice if I could of maybe hid in her suitcase and gone again, with them but apparently this wasn't an option. So obviously I had to give her some dollars to get me a few things which she kindly let me do, I mean if she hadn't I would have definitely  had to have hid in her suitcase for sure.

 

The first things I thought of was some beauty products from Sephora and I only asked her to pick up a few because I didn't want to then get them and them to be the completely wrong shades so I went with the things I'd been wanting to try for a while and knew I would love the shades. The first thing I asked her for was the Bite Beauty Matte Cream Lip Crayon in the shade 'Glace' which is a dusty mauve colour, I absolutely love this colour, it's such a perfect almost purple shade which is perfect for this time of year. I did originally want one of the Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipsticks but unfortunately my sister couldn't find them so instead I asked her to pick me up the Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour blush in the shade Exposed. I'm so glad I decided to ask for this instead, it's such a beautiful blush and the perfect shade, although I wish they had the Kat Von D lipsticks in stock but this just means that there will have to be a Sephora order soon. The last thing thing I asked for was the Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment in the shade Nude because I have heard such great things about these and my lips are beyond dry and chapped and thought this would be a nice little treat to help moisturise my lips and keep them protected and hydrated.

She also kindly picked me up some candles from Bath & Body Works which is a must when you or someone you know goes to America of course. I chose the medium sized tin candle in the scent Vanilla Pumpkin Marshmallow thinking this would smell more of marshmallow's than pumpkin's because I'm not a massive fan of spicy scents and unfortunately their Autumn range was full of spicy scents but luckily this is a really sweet scent and smells like cupcakes which is always a good thing. The last one has to be my favourite and I need it in their 3 wick candle because I've burnt this so much already, it's a mini candle in the scent Marshmallow Fireside and smells amazing and I need this burning throughout the winter season and Christmas time. Why Bath & Body Works don't ship to the UK I don't know, but that needs to happen soon otherwise I'm going to have to go to America purely for Bath & Body Works!

And obviously I couldn't let her go without giving her a long list of American Sweets to bring home! The first thing on the list was the Birthday Cake Oreo's and I'm going to be honest I'm not sure whether I like these, and still don't know, they taste kind of weird and I can't tell whether I actually like them or not. But one thing I do know I like is Reese's peanut butter cups of course, and I know you can get them over here but I made her get me a massive bag of them in the mini's because when they're mini you can eat twice as many of them without feeling too guilty because they're mini so...

A few of the other sweets she brought home were some Jolly Rancher's, Sour Patch Kids and the watermelon ones, peanut butter M&M's as well as Swedish Fish which taste so good and are now my favourite. 

I hope you enjoyed this mini American Haul and keep an eye out for some more posts and haul's coming soon!

THINGS I MENTIONED:

Bite Beauty Matte Creme Lip Crayon - Glace

Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour blush - Exposed

Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment - Nude

Bath & Body Works