BLOGMAS Day 9: Beauty For The Festive Season...

As the winter sets in and Christmas draws nearer, I tend to reach for the darker nail polishes and lip colours. I've purchased a few new products recently, which I'll be using a lot this season, so I thought I'd share them with you...

1 - This is Barry M Nail Paint in Red Wine. I tend to think that darker shades suit me more than bright or pastel shades and this stood out to me straight away. It takes two coats to get it to the bottle shade, but one coat will give you a lighter shade of red, still deep but not as dark as it looks in the bottle. Both are nice to be honest, the only reason I put another coat on, after the first, is for more coverage, otherwise I probably would have left it as one coat. When I first applied this, I did so with a top coat and it lasted four days. You can get this for £2.99 from Superdrug.

Excuse the feet, but I thought you might like to see what the nail colour looks like on.

2 - I wanted to get a plum lip colour, so thought I'd get a similar colour lip liner. I've started to use lip liners more recently to line and fill the lips before applying a lipstick, which makes the lip colour last even longer. I didn't have a lot of choice in terms of plum coloured lip liners, but I found this Maybelline Color Sensational Lip Liner in Midnight Plum that I liked when I swatched it on my hand, so I decided to go for it. The packaging almost looks brown, hence why I swatched it before I bought it, but it's actually the perfect plum colour, especially to go with the next product I picked up :). This was £3.99 from Superdrug.

3 - I seem to have accumulated a lot of matte lip products (which I love!), so I wanted a plum colour that was a bit glossy. I picked up this Revlon Colorstay Moisture Stain in Parisian Passion. It feels really cooling and moisturising when you apply it and it has a lovely gloss to it. It isn't sticky at all and this is probably a weird word to describe a lip stain, but it feels really fresh on your lips. It is a dark, vampy, purple colour and this is my first lip product of this colour. I have other purple shades, but none as dark as this one. Even though it is described as a stain, I wouldn't say that it sets onto your lips. As it is glossy, if you're eating, you'll probably have to reapply this straight after. However, putting a lip liner underneath really does help it to last longer and if you do want a 'stain', you can achieve this by applying the product as normal and then dabbing/patting a tissue over the whole of your lips a couple of times. A subtle colour will then be left underneath, which isn't as dark or transferable. You can get this for £7.99 from Superdrug.

Left: Revlon Colorstay Moisture Stain in Parisian Passion.

Right: Maybelline Color Sensational Lip Liner in Midnight Plum.

Have you bought any new beauty items recently?

Don't forget to like, comment and follow to keep up to date with the rest of my Blogmas posts :).

Thanks for reading lovelies!

Gem XxOo

My Birthday Haul in London...

Hey Lovelies!

So, if you follow me on Twitter, you would have seen at the end of June 2011 I was ranting about me going to London for my birthday for a few days. My birthday is on the 1ST July and we went to London from the 30TH June 2011 until the 2ND July 2011.

The main reason we went to London was to see Take That at Wembley on my actual birthday-the lovely Fiance bought himself, me and my Mom tickets to go see them :-) bless! We also saw a West End show on the Thursday night-Jersey Boys, which is fantastic. Me and Simon (the Fiance) have seen it five times now! Ha....we love it!

On the Thursday when we got there we went to have a look around Camden Market and on the Friday we went shopping in Oxford Street, so I thought I would do a little haul post and share with you the things that I bought myself. As we had things booked we didn't have a LOT of time to shop, but I still found a few nice bits :-). Also, the week before we went to London I bought a few things from a Blog sale which I will also show you.

The first shop I came across and wanted to have a look in was Jane Norman. I heard that it was going into administration and to be fair I was gutted. I am a big fan of the brand and have bought a fair few bits from them over recent years. They had a sale on so I decided to go and have a nosy. The only thing I saw in there that I liked this time was some sunglasses-I needed some nice black ones. I have coloured sunglasses, which don't go with everything and I have some black ones that look a bit tacky now because they had all diamantes on the sides and half of them have fallen off, so I decided to buy some from there. After about 15 mins in a hot, stuffy shop (it was lovely weather and there were loads of people in the store due to the sale-so it was boiling in there) and asking my Mom which ones looked nicer. I decided on this pair:

They are Black Cats Eye Sunglasses and were £9, reduced from £12. They are medium tint, UV400 lenses and absorb 100% of harmful UV rays. I really like them and have been wearing them since I bought them, as the weather has been lovely lately! They are really comfortable and I love the case they came in, which will keep them protected when I am carrying them around in my bag. Overall a great buy! You can buy them here, but as the company is in administration, I am not sure how long they will be available for!

The next place I went into was TopShop. They had a sale on aswell :-). I always find with sales though, that items I like in a certain shop before a sale, are never there when the sale is on or just aren't in the sale at all. I must just leave it too late to get to the shop, because some people I know get really good bargains, but when I go I always leave feeling disappointed, probably 80% of the time lol. Oh well! Anyway the items I bought in TopShop, weren't even in the sale-typical! However, I had my eye on the top I bought for a while and as I had money to spend for my Birthday, I decided to go ahead and treat myself.

I bought this lovely coral orange scallop jersey top (this is what it said on the receipt). It was £15. I wore this for the first time a few nights back when me and Simon went out for a meal. I had it tucked into jeans with a little cardigan (it wasn't that warm, otherwise I would have worn it without the cardigan). It has the scallop edge on the straps, the front, the back and the bottom of the top. I love the shorts in the scallop hem style aswell-I have some cotton scallop hem shorts I bought from H&M (you may have seen these in one of my hauls on YouTube, you can see it here). It is really flowy aswell when not tucked into anything. You can buy it here.

I also bought some Jelly Belly Jelly Beans from TopShop aswell-random I know but they were only £1.50 and looked so nice with all the different yummy flavours, like Watermelon, Top Banana, Green Apple, Very Cherry and Lemon :-). I haven't eaten them yet as they were in the TopShop bag for this haul, but I shall be tucking into them after this post! They had a huge range of sweets and novelty items in the TopShop on Oxford Street. I don't think they sell these kinds of things in all TopShops (definitely not in the one where I live), but they do in London, just so you know :-). Here are some more pictures of me wearing the top I bought:

When we were at Camden Market, I came across this independent market stall at the inside market of Camden Lock that sold handmade soaps and bath bombs. There were loads of yummy looking ones in the shape of cupcakes, slices of cakes etc. I picked up this one:

As you can see it was beautifully wrapped and only cost £3! There was no company name on the packaging and I can't remember what it said above the market stall but if you do go to Camden Lock Market, go inside where there are plenty more stalls and you won't be able to miss it-it stands out cause it's so pretty! :-). This one smells like strawberries and cherries :-) can't wait to use it!

So onto what I bought from the Blog Sale. The sale was on a lovely girl called Charlotte's Blog and you can see her Blog here. The first thing I spotted was this gorgeous satchel bag and it was one of those things that I looked at, then carried on looking at other things in the sale, then I went back to it, then carried on, then went back to it and so on and so forth! I really really liked it so had to buy it lol. It is from Primark-but the Primark where I live must be the worst one because there are never any good things there. You know when you see other peoples Primark hauls and you see some really nice stuff, well when I go into the Primark here, it's always pants! In my opinion, Birmingham and London's Primark are the best ones-although they are always busy! Lol. Anyway, here is the little beauty:

I love this bag and Charlotte was selling it for just £5. I think they were selling it for £7 in Primark, but like I said they never have any of the good things in my Primark. Charlotte said she had only used it about three times, so I decided to go for it! My sister has also been eyeing this up, so no doubt she will be asking to borrow it soon! Lol. Unfortunately, Primark don't have an online store-but if you pop into your Local Primark you might be lucky enough to spot one of these. I know they have the bags in different colours aswell! :-).

The last thing I bought from Charlotte was the Collection 2000 Shimmer & Shade in No 3. Just Peachy. I spotted this in Boots a while ago but didn't really want to pay £4.19. I spotted it on Charlotte's Blog Sale for £1, so definitely wanted to snap it up! Mainly to use as a highlight and I love it. It was practically brand new aswell, you couldn't even tell if it had been used when I received it. I think I've used more of it trying to do swatches for this post ha! It even contains Vitamin E and Silk!

(Left to Right; Base Shade, Large Flower Shade and Small Flower Shade). They are subtle, highlight colours, so aren't really pigmented, but you should just about be able to see them. I haven't used it properly yet, as it has been in a bag waiting for me to do this haul, but I will probably include it in a make-up tutorial or look soon, so keep your eyes peeled! :-). You can buy different shades of the compact here (I can't find the exact one I have on the Boots website, but you might be able to find it if you pop into your local Boots).

The lovely Charlotte, realising it was my birthday put a lovely message in with the package thanking me for my purchases and wishing me a lovely birthday and a great time in London. I thought this was really sweet as she didn't have to do this. Bless her! Also she added some extra goodies in with the package-so sweet of her!

(Special Edition Glossy Tubes by Barry M. Left to Right; Coral/Peach Shade, Red Shade, Pink Shade). Unfortunately these Barry M Special Edition Lip Glosses don't have names on them, but these swatches are in the same order as the pictured glosses above. These were special edition, so I don't think they are for sale any more-but you may be able to find them on websites such as Ebay or MakeupAlley.

(17 Ultimate Volume in Pink Ice-you can buy this here).

(NYC Lip Sliders Tinted Lip Balm in Sugar Kiss). I am not sure where Charlotte got this from, but if you are after one she is available to contact on her Blog or her Twitter.

As you can see Charlotte was really generous with what she sent me and it really made my day opening the package! :-). Thanks again so much Charlotte-one for selling the things I bought and two for the extra goodies you sent me :-).

So that's it! I had a lovely Birthday and can now fully enjoy my purchases :-).

Thanks so much for reading my post-please follow, like and comment :-).

Much Love Gem XxOo

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Pictures: All pictures unless otherwise stated are my own. If you wish to use them please credit my name by them-Gemma Tranter.