XMAS BEAUTY GIFTS AND STOCKING FILLERS UNDER £10 - 2012

Not everyone has the luxury of having huge budgets at Christmas, so I thought I would help you all with some great beauty buys that are under £10! There are also some great ideas to help jazz up stocking fillers. Prices are just a guide line and may be different when you go to buy. It's worth checking out places like Boots for 3 for 2 offers! 

1. Models Own – Beauty Blender £8 Use damp to apply foundation for a flawless finish!

2. Nail Art Gold/Black Nail Set £7.50 

3. Topshop Lip Gloss Gift Set - £10 

4. Burt’s Bees Red Dahlia Tinted Lip Balm £5.99 

5. Maxfactor 2000 Calorie Mascara £7.99 This is probably one of my most loved mascara’s for creating big full lashes

6. Fearne Compact and Bijoux Mirror £8 A girl’s bag is never complete without a compact mirror!

7. Visit Wicked Nails for some great stocking filler ideas! Wendy has lots of Beautiful Nail Art gift sets available, at very reasonable prices! I love her Gold Gift Bag £4.50 Each bag includes Silver stickers, Gold stickers, Black 3d stickers, White 3d stickers, pot of mixed Rhinestones, 5 Hexagonal glitters in Silver, Gold, Red, Blue and Green and 2 nail files all supplied in a lovely draw string bag.

8. No7 Lift & Curve Eyelash Curler  £7.25 Eyelash culers are often over looked, but they are the best way to get the most out of your lashes, especially if they are very short.

9. Models Own Limited Edition Mini Nail Glitter Polish Trio Reduced to £6 online from ASOS 

10. No7 Mini Beautifier £10 This mini makeup palette with built in mirror, 3 eyeshadows, mini gloss, mini shimmer and mini mascara is great for travelling or to keep in your gym/hand bag for on the go beauty.

11. JK Jemma Kidd Air Kiss Duo Now only £4.50 online from ASOS! 

I appreciate that this would be quite an expensive stocking filler and is not under £10, but I had to include it because it’s awesome!

VictorinoxClassic Alox Swiss Army Knife– Mini manicure set swiss army style! £15.20 

I hope that this has given you some ideas for gifts this Christmas! Let me know what you found for under £10 or share your own ideas in the comments below. For more beauty Xmas buys, see my post for TOP 10 XMAS BEAUTY GIFT SETS 2012.

TOP 10 XMAS BEAUTY GIFT SETS 2012

Christmas is nearing kids, which means that there are all kinds of amazing beauty gifts in stores that should be on every girls wish list! It was so hard to pick a top 10 and I know that there are loads of great sets missing in my selection, so feel free to comment with products that are on your Christmas beauty wish list! Prices listed are just a guide line and could change by the time you go to purchase them.

So, my Top 10 beauty gift sets are (in not particular order):

1. NARS Andy Warhol Edie Set £54 I am in love with all of the NARS Christmas sets this year and would be more than happy for Santa to put any of them under my tree!

2. Ciate Cavier Mini Bar £20 Ciate nail varnishes are brilliant and this gift box displays them beautifully.

3. Bobbi Brown Uber Nude Lip & Eye Palette £36 Bobbi Brown never fails to put together some of the most amazing must have pallets around Christmas time, from nude and natural, to sparkly party colours.

4. Laura Mercier Signature Colour Essential for Face, Eyes andLips £45 I think that this might be exclusive to John Lewis as I can’t seem to find it anywhere else… Laura Mercier products are 100% in my top ten makeup brands! This is an amazing set that would suit almost every skin tone beautifully. It is really great value for money and I recently managed to persuade my Mum to buy it for herself and she LOVES it! My sister also took a liking to the lip gloss and it has now mysteriously gone missing!

5. Yves Saint Laurent Radiant Make-Up Set £48 Touche Eclat is a cult product and a beauty must have, especially around Christmas time with all the tired after party eyes! This is a real luxury product and a real treat!

6. O.P.I Limited Edition Bond-ettes Mini Set £12.95 Who doesn't want to feel a little like a Bond girl this Christmas?!

7.  Lancome Hypnose Mascara Christmas Set £21 Lancome mascars are about £21 on their own, so this is a great deal!

8. Clinique Lotta Colour Set £30.00 Cliniques chubby sticks are like tinted lip balms and are great for a sheer and moisturising hint of colour. Do you have a lot of friends to buy for this Christmas? Why not buy box set's like this and split them among your friends?!

9. Stila Brush Gift Set £20 Stila brushes are excellent and this gift set is a perfect mini collection.

10. Benefit Away We Glow Gift Set £29.50 Beautifully boxed beauty essential kit containing some of the best of benefit!

I hope this helps you find your perfect gift this Christmas!

WEDDING MAKE UP FOR BAHAR, CAPTURED BY DELIA MCDONAGH PHOTOGRAPHY

Gorgeous pictures taken by the amazing Delia McDonagh. She captured the natural beauty and happiness of Bahar and Graham’s wedding day at the Hare & Hounds Hotel, Tetbury. It was a pleasure to spend the morning making up such lovely ladies!

To find out more about Delia and see the full blog post, click here http://www.deliamcdonaghphotography.com/blog/.  

 

REAL TECHNIQUES MAKEUP BRUSHES BY PIXIWOO'S SAM CHAPMAN

I am going to start by saying that I love these brushes. I think they are great collections and amazing value for money. Since buying the Real Techniques Core Collection and Starter Set, I haven’t really reached for any other brush in my kit!

The brushes have been launched by Sam Chapman of Pixiwoo. Some of you may already be familiar with the youtube sensation that is Pixiwoo, but for those of you who aren't  Pixiwoo is  a makeup artist duo by the names of Sam and Nicola Chapman. If there was any makeup look out there that you wanted to create, but didn't know where to start or what products to use, guaranteed that Pixiwoo would have a video tutorial to help you out! If you wanted to know how to do a smokey eye, how to look like a bond girl or even the corpse bride, Pixiwoo has you covered. The girls are really great to watch and I have to say that I really enjoy their tutorials. There are a lot of tutorials on youtube, but I would highly recommend that you check out  the Pixiwoo Channel before looking elsewhere!

So, back to the brushes!

There are three collections, as well as, individual brushes to choose from and all are available at Boots stores and online. In fact, Boots currently have a ‘Buy one get one half price’ offer on at the moment, which includes these brushes! Bargain! What a perfect pre Christmas treat or gift idea! :) The Core Collection and Starter set are both currently priced at £21.99 each and I think the individual brushes start from about £6.99 each.

All of the brushes are made from Taklon, which is a synthetic material making them 100% cruelty free. Even though the brushes are synthetic, they are so incredibly soft and clean really easily. I have used them with both cream and powder products and I can’t really fault them. I’ve not experienced any fall out and I love that you can fold the brush case to make it stand up. If you want to know more about the brushes it would probably be best for you to visit the Real Techniques website at www.realtechniques.com.

The only problems I have are with the brow brush and pixel-point eyeliner brush… The brow brush is a little too thick for me and I find that I can’t quite get a precision brow with it. However, it is the perfect brush for smoking out gel liner with eye shadow for that smokey feline effect. It’s the perfect shape and density to really press the powder it and smoke it out easily. I have a similar issue with the pixel-point eye liner in that it doesn't really have a pixel point. The bristles are a little too long to control when applying gel liner and the thickness of the brush makes it hard to create a really fine line or pointed flick. My perfect gel liner brush will always be the Shu Umera 2R (Sable brush) .