Makeup forever smoky lash mascara review and FOTD

This mascara had been on my wish list for ages, so I'd built up some high expectations by the time I finally got my hands on it.

All MUFE products get a lot of hype, but I was attracted to the mascara in particular by the name - smoky lash - who doesn't want smoky lashes, they sound like they'd go perfectly with a smoky eye!

They're not afraid to big this product up either -


"Smoky Lash enhances lashes, for exceptional volume, infinite length and ultimate curl. Its formula is rich in ultra-fine mineral pigments to create the perfect smoky look: saturated lashes and smoldering eyes. Its ultra wide and dense new generation brush hold a maximum amount of product for instant spectacular lashes."  

Wow, sounds good!

So does it live up to all this trumpet blowing?  Here's my before and after.

I like the mascara, and I'm still glad I bought it and will use it up, but there's nothing amazingly special about it.  It does build length quite easily, but it's also prone to clumping, which prevents me from getting all that "exceptional volume".  It is a very black mascara, which I like, but I do find it can flake a tiny bit during the day - maybe that's the 'smoky' effect?!  It hasn't stopped me using it though.

Overall it's a nice mascara and I'm glad I've tried it out, but I'd have probably liked it more if my expectations hadn't been set really high by all the hype!

Other products used here: 

Garnier BB cream in medium | Revlon photo ready foundation in 005 natural beige | Mixed with Soap & Glory Hocus Focus 

Bobbi Brown creamy concealer in ivory | MAC MSF natural in medium | Paul and Joe brow pencil in 002 

Elf brow treat and tame | Sleek natural palette (used for eye shadow and liner) | Topshop cream blush in flush

Mac cremesheen glass in partial to pink

Erm... I think that may have been a FOTD! 

What's your favourite mascara?  

On my birthday wish list...

I have my birthday coming up in March, so I've been enjoying writing down everything I want instead of spending :) Here's what I've been dropping hints for this year...

1 Ballet wrap dress £42 2 Purple glitter tangle teezer £8.99 3 Real Techniques brush starter kit £21.99

4 Domed cake stand £14.99 5 Illamasaqua skin base foundation £25 6 Wii zumba £23.99

7 No7 airbrush away primer £19.50 8 Sleek contour kit £6.50 9 Super sparkly glitter nail polishes £2.19

I love wish lists.  What's at the top of yours? 

Soap and Glory "you won't believe your eyes" illuminating under-eye serum review

For the last few weeks I've been using this Soap & Glory product to attack the dark bags under my eyes.

I've tried a few roller ball under-eye products before, and got bored of them rather quickly as I didn't see any results.  But this one from Soap and Glory has had me hooked for the past few weeks, because it actually does reduce the dark circles, hoorah!

I don't really suffer from puffiness, which this is also designed to target, but I do get very bad dark circles.  The cream has a funny iridescence to it, which actually gives an instant effect on the dark circles - I think it's some sort of trick of the light, but the genuinely look immediately improved when I roll this on, and I like that.   

The idea is that you give the tube a little squeeze and product will then appear around the roller balls, and you then roll it on under each eye.  I've been using it every night and some mornings too unless I've used another eye cream.  My dark circles are still there, but I'd say they've diminished by about 50% so I'm certainly going to keep on using this and see if I get any further results.  

Even if this product can't completely banish the dark circles (is that even possible?) I'd definitely re-purchase as this is the only cream I've tried where I've been able to notice an actual improvement in this area, and I love the instant trick of the light effect too.  Saying that, I think this tube will last me ages - after a few weeks of use I think it's still about two thirds full.

"You won't believe your eyes" costs £10.50 and you can buy it at Boots where it's currently on a 3 for 2 offer with all other Soap & Glory products (and across other 'facial skincare' I think).

Do you also get dark circles under your eye no matter how much sleep you get? Any tips?

Eye Rock eye tattoos - not as scary as they sound!

Only recently I was getting excited about Eye Rock designer liner (stick on eye liner!) in this post here, and now they've only gone and out done themselves with elaborate stick on eyeshadow designs!  They call them eye tattoos, which conjours up the wrong sort of idea in my head really (who'd want a tattoo on their eye?) but they're gorgeous I promise, have a look...

The first two are my favourites.  Imagine wearing that floral one in the summer for a festival or some sort of out door event on a gorgeous balmy evening (yesterday's shock sunshine has me obsessing about Summer already).  And the black lace one would easily go down well for a variety of nights out.  

The black and pink leopard one (it's labelled giraffe but looks like leopard print to me) isn't something I'd see myself wearing, but the blue and silver stars one is amazing!  Not for everyday obviously - I think it's actually quite Chirstmassy or New Year's Eve appropriate - check me out planning ahead here!

I've read the instructions and it seems you can trim the tatoos to size and then you apply them just like the stick on tattoos we had when we were kids - wet the back and press it on!  They come off with normal make-up remover too.

Theses only £6 each, so next time I'm ordering something from asos I'll definitely at least get the floral one and prepare to rock it on a sunny evening this summer.  

What do you think, would you give them a go?

Primark haul February 2012

Everybody loves seeing what's in Primark (will they ever get a proper website?!) so last time I was there, I took photos of everything I tried on so that I could share.

Peter pan collar playsuit with belt - can't remember how much this was, I was too busy being disappointed that it was a playsuit and not a long top as I was expecting!

Bird print scallop detail top - £8 I think

I still can't decide if these Vivienne Westwood copy ankle wellies are cute or tacky - £10

Heart print sleeveless shirt £10

Coral and tan dress - hideous on!  I think this was £15.

I love this floaty top - such pretty colours with the taupe bow detail on the sleeves £10

Stripey shirt with gold buttons - proper 80s chic! £10

Dress from one of Primark's special limited edition ranges - £18

Chunky jumper with elbow patches - £12

They had this top with ruched chiffon sleeves in loads of pretty colours - £8

I loved this colour block dress for £10 - it came in other colours too but it was a really small and clingy fit :(

Tube skirt £6 - this comes in long and short in lots of colours and patterns

Pinafore type dress - so cheap for £10.  It also comes in black and pink

Cute contrast jacket £25 - I thought this might feel really cheap, it turned out to be really nice but they didn't have my size

I hardly bought any accessories for a change - just these pretty floral print bow earrings and ring

I went a little crazy in the shoe section, ooops!  I actually took a few of these back, so here's an instagram pic of the ones I originally picked up.

The t-bar flats were £8, the coral and navy bow flats were £6 and the coral and beige wedges were £12

I'm actually now wishing that I'd picked up these super cute flats.  I put them down at the time because I decided they were a bit childish and I wouldn't wear them, but now I totally regret not getting them! £8

I hope that's given you a few things to look out for on your next Primark raid!

What are you loving in Primark lately?

MUA Nail Quake crackle glitter nail polishes - review and swatches

Today I want to show you the range of glitter crackle polishes from MUA.  Here I have 5 shades from the range and last time I counted there were 5 fingers on each of my hands, so that makes Pimms o'clock.

I've painted these over a base coat of my favourite pale nude - Jack Wills blush as I thought each of the different coloured glitters would show up well on it.  I'm sure this would work equally well over a really dark or black polish.

Shades L - R - Green - Copper - Blue - Gold - Pink.  There's also a silver crackle glitter in the range.

I already had the green crackle colour and wore it in this post over a green polish for a Christmassy look.

The polishes didn't crackle a massive amount when I used them, but I think this is because I used quite a thick coat - generally a thinner coat gives a bigger crackle effect with these types of polish.  I also quite like these as glitters without the crackle effect and I've heard you can lose it by letting the polish dry out a little - this can happen naturally over time anyway but can also be fixed by adding a little polish thinner.  My tops tips for the day right there ha!

These are such a bargain at £2.99 each compared to the price of some other brands that have brought out crackles, and it's nice to see a different take on the trend with the addition of the glitter.  The gold one is my favourite :)

You can get these in branches of Superdrug and online at http://www.muastore.co.uk

*PR samples

Happy Pancake Day! A really quick and easy recipe for perfect pancakes

I love pancakes!  I made these at the weekend so that I could share them with you today (okay it was a good excuse to scoff) and I'll be making them again tonight!

In my opinion this is the simplest recipe I've come across and the pancakes always turn out lovely, so maybe give this a go tonight - all you need it eggs, flour, milk and butter, plus whatever you like to drown your pancakes in!

This recipe makes 10 pancakes if you make them quite thin, or less if you like them thick and fat like me!  I'll take you through it step by step, it's really easy I promise :)

Weigh 140g of plain flour and put it into a large mixing bowl

Add four medium eggs (yolks and whites)

Mix well

Add 200ml of milk (I used semi-skimmed but you can use whole milk too)

Mix really well with a whisk or a fork aiming to get rid of all the lumps

Weigh 50g of butter or margarine

Melt it in the microwave for 30 seconds or so until it looks like this

Add the melted butted to your pancake batter

Mix really well again until everything is combined and the batter is smooth

 

Put a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat, let it warm up for a few minutes (depends on your hob really) and add a little oil.  When it's nice and hot, ladle in some of your pancake batter - more if you want a thicker pancake

Tilt the pan around to coat the bottom fairly evenly with your pancake mixture

Keep a close eye on your pancake - they cook quite quickly.  If you've got a medium heat on this should be 1 - 2 minutes.  When the top looks set, poke at the edges with a spatula, lifting all the way around to stop the pancake from slipping.

If you're feeling flash, this is where you toss your pancake in the air.  Or if not, use your spatula to flip it over!

Continue cooking the other side for about a minute or so.  You can always lift up the edges with the spatula again to check if it's browning.  When it's done to your liking, turn it out onto a plate.

Squeeze on lots of lemon and roll the pancake.  Then sprinkle with sugar and devour!

I love my pancakes the old fashioned way with lemon and sugar, but you can also get creative with all sorts of scrummy toppings (which I might have done if I'd had the supplies in the house) like banana, strawberries, chocolate sauce and whipped cream - nom!

By the way, I don't do Jif Lemon, I think it's an unnatural substance - real lemons all the way for me!

Will you be nomming on pancakes for your dinner tonight?  If you follow my recipe to make your pancakes I'd love to hear about it :)

Moroccan Oil treatment for fine and light coloured hair - review

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll probably have heard me moaning before that I have nightmare hair that gets really greasy at the roots after just a day.  So, you might be wondering why on earth I'd want to use a hair oil - well, I have really dry ends and mid-lengths.  As I said, nightmare hair!  Because of this weird combo, I opted to try the light version of Moroccan Oil.

Moroccan Oil is designed to be absorbed quickly, creating instant shine and giving long-term conditioning benefits without a sticky reside.  Because my hair is so grease prone, I've only been using the oil on the bottom half before blow drying.

It's really good for de-tangling and I've not needed to use any additional products for styling my hair.  I've just realised that I've not actually used straighteners all week while I've been using Moroccan Oil, as it leaves my hair really smooth (I have naturally straight hair).

As I've got really dry ends, I probably could do with trading up to the original version of Moroccan Oil, but I won't because of my grease-prone roots.  On one of the days this week I ran my brush through the front of my hair when it must have had some of the oil on it from the ends, and it did end up looking greasy pretty quickly, so I have to be careful of that when using it, but anyone with normal to dry hair would be fine.

I've really enjoyed using this - it's got a really nice smell to it but I have no idea how to begin describing it!  I'm hoping to see a general improvement in the condition of my ends as I continue using up the bottle - at this stage I'm pretty sure I'll be buying the full size.

You can buy Moroccan Oil here at feelunique with free delivery - £30.45 for 100ml or £12.85 for 25ml

Have you tried Moroccan Oil?  Do you have any tips on using it?

*PR sample