ASOS Maxi Cat Dress & 10% Off

I can't take this no-money situation much longer, it feels like it's gone on forever! The £80 I'm supposed to survive on (!) every 4 weeks is going straight to my Mum (I pay her more than that each month usually, so I'm in debt to her) and I'm left with nothing each week...each month...it sucks BIG time! I'd been eyeing this Cat Face Maxi Dress on ASOS which was thankfully out of stock in bigger sizes meaning I didn't have to torment myself too much.
I'm a qualified stalker though (wish I got paid for that), so today they had an 18. Great....maybe. I had just enough money left in my account for it. So I've spent the last hour trying to justify it to myself, do I need it? Will it fit? Will I renew my Premier account which lapsed in December (well done me for not renewing before now) with it? Will it arrive when nobody is home, so I won't get 'caught'? Ah decisions, decisions! I'm pretty sure the cat will be distorted across my chest and there will be an unflattering fit on the hips/tummy area, but I ordered it anyway. Like I said, I can't take much more of this!
I'm going to The Big Reunion tour (5ive ahhhh!) in Glasgow next week (MAJOR for me to do all that travelling and actually go somewhere!), which was booked before the horrid money situation, so I'm thinking this dress would be perfect for wearing to that. If it fits. I'm actually having a panic about packing for an overnight and which shoes/clothes to wear. I want to be comfortable, not pack too much but still feel good. I'm struggling to come up with a pair of shoes that will go with multiple items and that I'll be able to walk in all day (any suggestions?). It's so long since I've done anything like this! Anyway, let's keep our fingers crossed the dress fits. It's still available here (no 4's, 6's, 14's or 16's just now but stalking can pay off) for £28 and I used MAYBDAY2013 for a sneaky 10% off too. Remember if you buy anything from ASOS using my links or any of the ads in the sidebar, I can earn a small commission and I'm determined to meet the required target so I actually get paid for the first time ever! Every little helps right now!
Oh and if I were made of money, this would be going straight into my basket. Moschino just do the best handbags and this Cheap & Chic 'Notes' bag has been on my wishlist for months. For a cool £380 I'm sad to say it will remain there!

Monster High Monday: Swim Class Lagoona

One of my newest dolls this week, Lagoona Blue from the Swim Class line (exclusive to Smyths if you're looking for her in the UK). Is she not just the most beautiful cutie-pie you've ever seen? I love her! For once I organised myself in advance for MHM (you'll have seen sneak-peeks if you follow my Facebook) as I knew there were several shades involved and it could take time to find matches within my collection for this particular doll. In the end all the colours were perfect dupes, I definitely need to try and prepare ahead of time more often! Lagoona has shimmering blue skin, green eyes with pink, purple and turquoise eyeshadow, purple eyebrows, lots of freckles and a bold but dull coral-ish pink lip. Told you it was tricky! I found the best lipstick for it though and I even attempted the purple brows this week.
On my face I'm wearing Pout Face & Body Illuminator mixed in equal parts to Lancome Teint Miracle in 005 Beige Ivoire. On blemishes and under the eyes is Dainty Doll concealer in 001 Very light and I finished with a light dusting of Clarins Ever Matte Mineral Powder Compact in Translucent Opal and I also added a little MAC Pearlmatte powder in Flatter Me on the cheeks (I think Lagoona would approve of the shimmer).
For the eyes, I applied Too Faced Shadow Insurance as my base with some Paul & Joe Eye Gloss in 05 L'Aurore (shimmery) concentrating on just under the brow. For even more shimmer like Lagoona, I applied the highlighter/base shade from my Lancome Color Focus palette in 103 Golden Frenzy.
I applied MAC Haunting eyeshadow (turquoise) along the lower lashline and above the crease. On the lids up to the crease I used the pink shade from MAC's Eyes On Manish palette.  At first I thought Lagoona was wearing a neon shade similar to MAC Viva Glam Nicki lipstick, but upon close inspection the lids are actually pink and not orangey or coral (phew because I have no idea how I would've duped that), so the pink from the Manish palette was the perfect colour.  I took a thin brush to apply Estee Lauder Pure Color eyeshadow in 29 Orchid directly along the natural crease. I also used this shade over my brows for a purple look like Lagoona. I finished with YSL Waterproof Eye Pencil and Lancome Artliner for a little flick and Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless mascara on my lashes. The images below are before the purple brows and without liquid liner (also the EL Orchid shade looks plummy, it's not, it's bright violet).
For the lips I lined and filled using V-Sculpt Lip Liner (Victoria Beckham) in 702 Cool and then applied lots of YSL Rouge Pur in 138 Pink Orchid.
So how do you think I did this week? I quite liked the fun brights and the application was easy enough.  If you want to see the whole outfit, then head over to The Shoe Girl Diaries where I've already posted that (fab  heel-less shoes that you need to see too).

Review: Braun Silk Epil 7 SkinSpa Epilation & Exfoliation System*

I've been busy working on a new video review this past week of the latest epilator from Braun (Silk Epil 7 SkinSpa Exfoliation & epilation System 7931). You will maybe recall I reviewed the Silk Epil 7 Dual Epilator back in 2011, well this device is basically similar (the Silk Epil 7), but without the Venus blades and with a really unique attachment of an exfoliating brush.
Now I would like to think my video review (below) this time is a lot better as I have my fancy camera and the sound has improved greatly. I was nearly tearing my hair out after spending an entire morning filming though, only to realise the continual focus was on and you could hear the whirring noise over my audio! So I had to delete all that and start again! As a side note, it's a strange system on the camera, because you either have to put up with the noise and have everything in wonderful clear, crisp focus no matter what moves where or lose the noise and deal with things going out of focus at times. Surely they could come up with a better solution? 

Anyway, I find video reviews of items like this a lot easier because it's quite a lot of reading in one blog post. That said, some things I didn't mention in the video are that the Silk Epil 7 can remove hair from as short as 0.5mm, that's like a grain of sand! So epilators have really advanced now, that there is no waiting for hair to be 'long enough' to epilate. Results can last up to 4 weeks, but you'll find the more regularly you use the system and longer you use it, the less often you'll need to epilate. Over time hair will grow in smoother, finer and the regrowth will be less and less. The system is a cordless device that can be used dry or in running (shower) water for extra comfort, which I think is great. It also features a high frequency massage system as it's epilating for extra comfort.
Yes it is uncomfortable (polite for "it hurts"), but over time as your skin adapts to the process that will go away. If you haven't epilated before or haven't for a while then you may experience redness, this is perfectly normal and will go away quickly. I think it's best to epilate at night and then you have no worries about the redness being gone by morning. I have to say I've never gotten into a regular routine with an epilator to be able to prove conclusive long term benefits and have only used Braun devices so have nothing to compare it to, but then everyone is different, your hair is different, your pain threshold is different, so it's all subjective really.
 
I think the addition of the exfoliation brush is a super idea. I really love it. The 10,000 bristles moving at 3000 micro-vibrations per minute make it four times more effective than applying a scrub by hand and offers similar results to professional exfoliation. It works brilliantly alongside the epilator to reduce the risk of ingrown hairs. You really are getting two beauty appliances in one.
Overall the whole device is simple to use with clear instructions. It's easy to clean and charge and with repeated use over time will hopefully provide visible and long-lasting results.  I hope you enjoy the video, thumbs up and all that!

Haul & Swatches: MAC Archie's Girls

This MAC post has been on my to-do list for weeks. I actually thought I'd already written it as I've had the photos sitting around for ages (bad times when you have to search your own blog to recall what you have/haven't written). So today I got stuck in and familiarised myself with my little haul.
I think one of the reasons I left it so long was because there was a bit of a mix-up with my lipstick. I placed my order with Debenhams and instead of receiving Girl Next Door, I got Oh Oh Oh. The colours are not even similar, there was no incorrect shade name throughout purchase or on my order receipt, so clearly there has been a mix-up in item numbers or something along the way. I emailed them to ask what to do as the colour I wanted had already sold out and I didn't see why I should miss out (especially as I'd sat for 2-3 days frantically refreshing the page, waiting to buy the second it launched). I had also posted a message on a beauty forum and to my surprise someone emailed me to say they had the same thing happen, but they bought OOO and got GND. So we agreed to switch lipsticks, it meant we were out of pocket another couple of £'s for postage, but seeing as I'd made my purchases during a 10% off event and the lipstick couldn't be bought elsewhere, it seemed like the logical thing to do. It meant though I couldn't rip into my lipstick until I knew the one I'd sent had arrived safely and so these products had been sitting unused for some time. By the way I still never heard back from Debenhams, tut tut! Anyway I was very restrained with my order and ignored the extremely expensive eyeshadow palettes and other bits and bobs and went for one lipstick, one lipglass, one Pearlmatte powder and one blusher. The collection was split into parts with certain colours for Betty and Veronica (btw is Archie's Girls an American thing or did it totally pass me by, because I have no idea who/what they are? Plus the ginger guy model (real not cartoon) really creeped me out). My lip products and blush happened to come from Betty, it would have been nice to get some of the Veronica packaging too, but it's just the colours I went for.  
So lipstick first and Girl Next Door is a lustre described as vivid blue-pink. It's got a hint of lilac and does swatch quite sheer, but a few layers provide a decent enough colour and coverage.
Summer Sweetheart is a light peachy gloss and I thought it was a nice refreshing shade for summer, plus you can't really go wrong with a nude gloss in my opinion.
The powder blush I chose was Cream Soda, a satin, described as a light neutral coral. Usually I love peaches, but this is a little too straight orange for me rather than having a pink element in it. I find the couple of times I've applied it, it's looked a little flat and fake. I need to play around with it more. 
There were two different shades of the Pearlmatte Face Powder. Usually I would go with the lighter one, but I have tonnes of pale highlighting shades, so I wondered if a darker one would work as a blusher on my fair skin. I opted for Flatter Me, a golden peach with (adorable) coral hearts. You know I always buy pretty powders then never pluck up the courage to de-pretty them...well I got stuck into this one for the swatches and have used it several times since (go me)! It is perfect as a cheek colour, it's got a lovely frosty sheen (unfortunately my swatches didn't show up as well as I'd have liked) and it's nice to get a different 'scene' on the compact.
Overall I thought this was a good haul of pretty shades that I'm sure I'll get a lot of use from and I haven't bought much MAC this year so it was nice to find a collection that appealed.  I was actually looking at the new Temperature Rising collection online today and some of the lip products in that look very interesting.

Monster High Monday: Rochelle Goyle

A wee technical issue (well big one actually) meant I didn't have time to post this yesterday. My MHM this week is the beautiful Rochelle Goyle, a (Parisian) gargoyle if you couldn't guess. She's very chic in pink, grey and black-I love her outfits!  I'm also a fan of the pink and blue streaked hair and and I love that she has speckled skin to really look like stone. I didn't realise my doll had such a dodgy eye until these photos though. The paint isn't in the right position.
Anyway, as with last time I totally struggled to find a matte pale pink eyeshadow. It was either too frosty or looked the correct colour in the pan, but applied too pale. I have literally thousands of eyeshadows and was becoming exasperated when I couldn't find a good dupe. In the end I went for the same palette I used for Lagoona. The lips came much easier, I literally tried two colours and the 2nd was a perfect match.
So on the face there's the usual; Lancome Teint Idole Ultra 24H in 005 with Dainty Doll concealers in 001 and 002. I added Urban Decay powder blush in Quickie (a sweety bright pink) on cheeks and finished with Clarins Ever Matte Mineral Powder Compact in Transparent Opal.
Over Too Faced Shadow Insurance (I've been finishing this tube for weeks now, it's never-ending!), I applied the pink shade from Hard Candy Eye Shadow Quartet in Pixie, over the lids and past the crease and also along the lower lashline. I used a thin brush to apply a line of MAC 'Showgirl' eyeshadow roughly following the crease and winging outwards. Other than finding the correct colours, the eyes were actually really simple. I would've liked to add a highlighter under the brow to soften, but I'm supposed to be stone afterall.  I added lots of YSL Waterproof Eye Pencil and Lancome Artliner for the big flicks, with Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless on my lashes.
For the lips I lined and filled in with V-sculpt (Victoria Beckham) liner in 702 Cool and the glossy looking lipstick is No7 Vital Brights in Blooming Pink which was limited edition a few seasons ago.  My lips look darker in the photos than Rochelle's, but in the flesh, they looked identical.   
I had a lot of fun with the pretty colours this week. The pinks looked fabulous against my new purple hair.  As usual if you would like to see the full look without pinkish/lilac eyes (the closest I could get to Rochelle's bright pink), then head on over to The Shoe Girl Diaries.  Did you like the sweet pink look this week?