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Foundation Frenzy with No7

You can find all Fox's Fads posts now at Strings and Laces  and so much more! 

You will automatically be redirected to the new home of Fox's Fads. 

Hate shiny skin? Want full coverage that lasts all day long? Or struggle to find the right shade? I have the perfect foundation for you.

                                       

No7 Beautifully Matte. I've been using this foundation for a couple of years now and love it. I haven't even thought about trying anything new. For those who don't know No7 do a colour match test that they hold a little device to your face to find the closest match to their 14 shades. Which is great for me as I struggle to find foundation pale enough to match my complexion.  

(Warning, here comes the before pic!) I have

 

As you can see the foundation blends great with my skin and vanishes the red/pink tone to my skin too (stopping me blending in with my hair!) I applied one pump of the foundation onto a sponge but then applied to my face using a foundation brush. It leaves no streaks and no orange line around the outside of my face. 

I then finished my make up using my Naked Flushed palette, powder, eye make up and a bit of lipstick to achieve a full face with no shine that will last all day long!

Urban Decay Naked Flushed Review

You can find all Fox's Fads posts now at Strings and Laces  and so much more! 

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Before being given a flyer including a tester of this palette, I'd never even touched bronzer, or highlighter never mind using them alongside blusher for the 'contoured look'. It all seemed a little daunting to me...but this tester changed everything.

There are four different sets in this collection, I use the original. They all range in different shades for darker and lighter skin tones.

Although £22 is a little pricey in my opinion you do not use a lot of the palette when you apply it, so I have hope for it lasting.

As I found it a bit daunting, especially as I'm rather pale and didn't want to look a multicoloured mess, I went for a more subtle look that adds shape to your face without looking sculptured.

Start with apply your foundation as usual, I use No7 Beautifully Matte in Calico shade.

Firstly apply your bronzer underneath the cheekbone, you then simply apply your blusher above it, make sure you blend them together nicely to avoid a striped look. Then using your highlighter apply this above the blusher and below the bronzer to add reflective areas. You can also add this highlighter on the middle of your brow bone, the bridge of your nose and your chin to add a bright glow.
                     

I then added a light coating of powder, did my eye make up and added a bit of lippy and ta-dah an easy subtle contour look. Great for adding that extra bit of colour to your cheeks!

Have you tried the Naked Flushed palettes? What do you think?

Absolute Lashes; with W7

Here it is, a new mascara review. Now I made it pretty clear that I love my No7 Extreme Length mascara however, this badboy has had my mind change! When I first opened my lovely box full of goodies from W7 my immediate thought was 'hmm this looks familar'. Benefit dupe perhaps? Well, heres what I thought of Absolute Lashes...

What I like about this mascara is that not once has it clumped up on my lashes, no clumpy splodges sticking my lashes together; hooray! I was rather surprised by this as for £6.95 I did not expect such a high quality.

The brush is great, I tend to prefer rubber brushes rather a bristled brush however this separated and grasped the lashes extremely well. The only downside is if you get too close to your eye lid the brush is a little scratchy, so watch out!

I like a lot of length on my lashes which I feel this mascara did brilliantly, as you can see in my pictures my lashes have been extended easily.

      One Coat                                          Two-Three Coats

Volume. Thats the biggest flaw in most mascaras. I find they either add too much volume for just daytime wear or too little volume that when you add extra coats it just clumps and goes horribly wrong. Absolute Lashes allows you to put a thin coat, perfect for work or college, but you can then build the coats up until you achieve the volume you want.

 One Coat

Two-Three Coats

Overall, I say this is a great mascara, especially for such an excellent price! 

*This item was given me free of charge for reviewing purposes 

Twilight; a bath time with Lush

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I've been shopping at Lush for years now, however I get stuck into only buying my favourite, the comforter bubble bar.

A lot of people on my Instagram and other social networking sites have been posting beautiful pictures of bath bombs swirling around their tub. So I stepped away from my trusty fave and bought myself a bath bomb from Lush, the one I chose: Twilight.

At first I thought I thought it was a little big and actually debated chopping it in half, but I resisted by savers thought of mind and 'launched it' into my bath as the label tells me too. 

It began to spin around and around in circles, bubbling and foaming. I couldn't keep my eyes off it twirling around giving off a beautiful pink foaming.

I move my eye just for a second and suddenly blue appears to be coming out of the centre. I can hear the bath bomb fizzing creating a force that shoots the bath bomb around my bath leaving a blue bubble trail behind it. 

The bubbles all over my bath were a beautiful musky pink with streaks of blue and hints of sparkles within them I couldn't wait to dive in and relax. Although the description of the website states my bath bomb will turn a 'shimmering deep purple' I'm pretty sad to say it was a dirty deep blueish colour rather than purple. Or maybe my bath is bigger than their testing baths! Either way, i was still satisfied with my pearly pink and blue foam explosion.

After I've been in the bath I always moisturise my legs with body butter (soap and glory or body shop are my faves to use!) but today I just didn't feel the need to. The bath bomb contains many different natural oils that moisturise your skin as you bathe.

I can't wait to get my hands on more bath bombs!

Do you have a favourite Lush product? Or can you recommend a bath bomb? 

Urban Decay Vice 3

Now this little beauty was a wonderful surprise from my Mum this Christmas. It nearly killed me not being able to immediately smudging my fingertips in the vibrant and stunning colours.

 For starters I was shocked at how beautiful the packaging was, the colours against the dark wash background really do show how colourful this palette is! You also got a great padded zip-up case for the palette, with is roomy so you can fit in your make up brushes, eye liner and mascara in there too: perfect eye make up set up.

You also get a double ended brush with the palette that has a standard eye shadow brush and a slightly angled one too. Now normally brushes you get with palettes are a bit rubbish, and we just use our brushes we're used to. However this one is different, yes I gave it a chance, it picks up the pigments of the eye shadows incredibly well because of it's layered fibres which also make the application onto the eye smooth and flawless.  The eye shadows themselves are also of a great quality, literally two dabs of a brush or sponge can give you enough eye shadow, so it's great value as they certainly are going to last me a while.

The colours. Wow. What a variety! On the left hand side you get some fabulous matte colours in light pinks to browns (Truth, Undone, Downfall, DTF and Defy), perfect for a day time neutral tones. I like to use the matte pink shade labelled 'Truth' as a base to start.
You then have your more 'in your face' colours including 'Freeze' a vibrant blue full of shimmer; which reminds me of Elsa's dress from Frozen a little too much. You have 'Lucky' a wonderful copper/gold colour which adds wonderful sparkle. 'Sonic' is a fabulous rich red with that beautiful party shine too.
I'm a strong lover of dark eye shadows, with deep purple 'Bondage', gun metal black 'Revolver' and the darkest brown 'Defy' this palette has some fabulous shades to work with and darken those lids. Then with a touch of 'Bobby Dazzle' you can highlight perfectly. 

Those are just a few of my favourites from this wonderful collection. With neutrals, vibrants, darks, shimmers and mattes this is the complete perfect palette for the all round eye shadow look. 

Keep up to date on my posts by following me on Bloglovin!

Christmas Blogger Gift Swap

I got very excited this week when a parcel arrived with 3 wrapped presents inside. Why? Because I knew they were off Sarah from A Shimmer of Sparkle, who was my partner in the Blogger Gift Swap I took part in. You can see what the gift swap is all about in my previous post here.

Sarah and I spoke about setting a budget, or even a theme between us and set a simple budget of £5. So heres what I got: 

How cute is this wrapping paper?! 

First of all, Dairy Milk Buttons, if you've somehow gone through life without having these chocolate buttons you are missing out, big time!
Next up is a small ball, inside is White Lily & Sweet Rose scented Bath Caviar and Pearls. I haven't gotten round to using them yet but my gosh they smell incredible so I can't wait to have a hot bubble bath with them. 

Finally, is my little red spotted tin, inside the tin is a candle. I'm not so sure on the exact scent of the candle but it smells fantastically festive, perhaps a bit of spiced apple and cinnamon! This one has been lit already along side all the candles in my room. 

This has been such a wonderful thing to take part in, just a little bit different and also a great way to find new blogs. Look out on twitter for the tag #apovgiftswap to see what everyone got.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Nails with W7

First of apologies for the quietness for the past fortnight, I've been having university interviews so have found myself very busy. However, I'm back!

The wonderful people at W7 sent me a wonderful little box full of goodies for me to try out to show you how amazing their products are. Which means, here is my first review!

The product I'm reviewing today is their glitter nail varnish in 'Christmas' shade, fitting for the time of year, right?

This nail varnish is a clear varnish packed full with red, green and silver glitter pieces. It works well on its own however I'm going to show you how I teamed it up with a Seventeen red shade.

This varnish acts great to dress up your nails to give that extra sparkle around christmas time. I personally feel that a full set of sparkly nails may be a little OTT so I've just done one finger nail on each hand with the overcoat. I feel this adds that subtle bit of glam to an outfit.

By layering the varnish over another you get the bottom coat peaking through the glitter. When doing this with any glitter varnish I recommend the bottom coat being a colour that's in the glitter varnish to avoid clashes.

The nail varnish itself is very easy to apply, I did find it hard to get a heavy coverage of glitter on my nails so I did apply a few coats of the varnish. This is the only flaw I found with the varnish! I find it stays on for ages but comes off really easily with a bit of nail varnish remover.

Overall I'm very impressed with the quality and the overall look of the nail varnish; definitely a must have this Christmas!

Mac Cremesheen Lipstick- Dare You

Mac are especially well known for their amazing choice in lipstick colours from perky pinks to powerful purples. They also now do matte lipsticks, extra sheen and gloss lipsticks-the range is truely fantastic!

The review I am doing today is of Mac's Cremesheen lipstick in the shade 'Dare You'. Reds can often be over powering, then when you try the shade up it's too pinky. This red is neither too bright, too pink or too dark; it's just right. 

 At first thoughts I thought it was going to be a little too dark, as much as I do love dark shades this autumn I still like my bold bright colours too.

For the price of £15.50 you are going to expect an excellent quality product here; with the application going on nice and smooth you get no part of your lip gets forgotten about. The shaping of the lipstick also aids the application of the lipstick.

What I would recommend is to use this lipstick with a lip liner as I do find it bleeds easily as it doesn't dry well and stays wet whilst on-which I like as my lips don't dry out and the colour stays glossy all day.

Halloween Make Up - Part Two

Last halloween make up a bit too gory, or time consuming, for you? This one needs a few eyeshadows and a little fake blood to give a great 'beaten up' look!

What I used:
Various eyeshadow palettes (mainly my Blush Professional one pictured)
Ben NYE Fresh Scab (or any blood paste/liquid)

 I started by putting a red/pink combination around the corner of my eye.

 Slowly build up layers of purple as well. Get the darker tones in the crease of your eye socket and red tones above this to create a inflamed appearance to the eye.

 Then begin to add more yellow and green going up the side of the bridge of your nose and on your upper brow on the eyelid. I also tend to add pinky red tones on my cheek bone to add to the bruised up look.

 You can add more purples and reds around the eye until you're happy with the look of it.
Tip: have a picture of a black eye to look at whilst doing it to get realistic bruising patterns. 

 Add a few finishing touches, like a nose bleed, and you've got a realistic 'beaten up' appearance perfect for halloween!

Halloween Make Up - Part One

Halloween is nearly with us so I'm very excited; I have Halloweentown recorded on my TV, a pumpkin garland hung in my art bay and now I'm spending my evenings making myself look spooky!

Costumes get quite difficult, especially buying one, they're either too sexy or too frumpy in my opinion. However, a black dress/outfit with some gory make up goes a long way (and often works out a lot cheaper too!)

Also; please excuse the lovely blue hair dye stains around my hair line! 

What I used:

Various Eye Shadow Palettes
Ben NYE Nose and Scar Wax/or other brand of skin/scar wax
Ben NYE Fresh Scab/or other brand of blood paste/gel
Fake Blood
Liquid Latex
Spirit Gum (and remover)

Now the list seems a little adventurous I know, however you can pick all these items up pretty cheap, I remember when I first bought some Liquid Latex and spent a fortune whereas now you can pick it up from fancy dress stores, the same for spirit gum too!

Firstly place some spirit gum upon the area you want your wound, leave it for a minute until it goes tacky. Meanwhile get a small ball of scar wax and make a flat shape for your wound. The spirit gum will be ready when the wax can easily stick on to your face by it.
         
 Next smooth the edges of the wax onto your face to blend it into your skin well, as I'm super pale I've added a bit of foundation so there is less colour change. Using some tweezers start to play around with the wax to create peeling skin and smooth out the centre a tad.

 

Coat the wax in liquid latex and leave to dry until fully clear.

The wax will be a little easier to mould now so you can create more of a peeling effect with the wax. I then put a light coating of red eye shadow upon the wax.

Using dark purples, reds, pinks, yellows and greens create bruises surrounding the wound.

 Fill the wound with blood paste (Fresh Scab) and fake blood.

 And you've got super spooky gory make up!