MAC Face & Body Foundation

MAC foundations and I have never really seen eye to eye; I'm still plagued by memories of orange oxidization, cakey-ness and acne eruptions from my teenage years. In all fairness to MAC, that was probably due to the fact that face wipes were my best friend, and I didn't believe in colour-matching. Anyway, I digress. MAC Face & Body foundation has made me do a 180 on my opinion of MAC foundation products. I love this foundation. First of all, the packaging is wonderful - a hygienic bottle form with a nozzle for easily controllable pouring. The shade is perfect for me and best of all, the foundation is totally buildable. It's a really runny liquid consistency, but it thickens as it warms on your skin. One layer provides a super light, fresh coverage - not quite enough for me. Cue layer two, which provides a second skin-like finish. No cakey-ness in sight! I do still need concealer and a little powder on the t-zone to set this off, but I just love this foundation for lazy days where I can fool people into thinking that I'm not wearing any foundation. It's water based and actually wears really well on my oily, sensitive skin.

MAC, we have a winner!

A Tarte Affair

Let's not beat around the bush here, we're all beauty addicts and I admit, the main reason I was so excited to go back to New York was for the American beauty goodies that are seemingly unobtainable over here. There's one word that never fails to make me weak at the knees, and that's Sephora. The brand which was top of my hit list when shopping in the states was Tarte. I'd heard endless praise for this brand, and I'm so glad that I can now share these little beauties with you lot knowing that they're actually now available in the UK, stocked by QVC - hurrah!

Altogether, I picked up three of the Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blushers. Each time I visited Sephora, I just couldn't resist chucking another one in to my shopping basket! I purposely avoided the shimmer-y blush types, as I much prefer a matte blush colour so I opted for Flush, a pale baby pink that's perfect for us pale ladies, Fearless, a suit-all red-toned pink, and Tipsy, the infamous coral orange. Now, although these are pigmented, I do find that I need to swirl my brush quite vigorously to get a good colour pick-up on my brush. I've been using MAC blushes prior to these, and you need to be so light-handed with them, so this took a little getting used to. On the plus side, the lasting power is just incredible. No patchiness or settling into pores, just a lovely pop of colour that lasts all day. The other great thing about the formula is that it isn't chalky or powdery at all, so the colour really does look natural and blends so well with your skin.

You can get your mitts on Tarte products now from QVC! I'm dying to try their full coverage foundation - any other recommendations?

2 months later...

Sometimes, we all just need a little break. I blog as a fun hobby and unfortunately, life has taken over recently and I've been totally absent over the last two months. I'm not making any apologies for that, I've had some ups and downs and blogging just hasn't been my top priority. But I'm back now and I wanted to share a few updates from the last couple of months.

At the end of March, I jetted off to New York for a little break with my boyfriend. It was my second visit to the city, and it was even better than the first time. It was freezing cold, but we had an absolute blast and did everything we wanted to do and more. I also moved in with said boyfriend, which was a pretty big upheaval from my tiny little room in student accommodation to a lovely house in the country. I've been pretty under the weather recently, which has been a major factor in my absence from blogging. I'd been getting up at 5am every day to get to work, and wasn't getting home until post 8pm, so I was literally exhausted during the week. Weekends were time to recharge and get my energy back up for Monday. To add to that, my job was pretty much soul-destroying. I was often in tears, I dreaded going to work and the whole thing was just horribly stressful. I already have digestive problems which seem to really flare up under stress.

I'm not one for housing negativity in my life, so I got myself a new job which I start next week and I'm feeling so much happier at the moment. Which leads me straight back to here... I've missed blogging and the community as a whole, and I'm so happy to get stuck straight back in. I've also got a few other little projects on the go which are keeping me busy, and I'm sure I'll be able to share them with you soon!

PS: I have my driving test tomorrow, so wish me all the luck in the world!