Morphe 35U Palette and Ather Shehzad Master Makeup Palette Reviews

So it's been a while since I last did a post on here because I've been working on my make up tutorial videos on YouTube so please feel free to check out my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7jxrcaiPHIEcSZ0gtE-UfA

I bought the Morphe 35U Palette and the Ather Shehzad Master Makeup Palette a couple about a month ago or so now and I feature them in my latest video on my channel so for a more detailed look at them check that out.

The Morphe 35U Palette was around £15 from BeautyBay my new favourite website. It arrived within 2 days so pretty quick delivery. The palette has 32 colours ranging from dark browns and black to bright pinks, reds and greens. A great variety of colours to work with to create different looks with. The individual pans within the palette are quite big compared to the average palettes created by other brands so I was really impressed with that. £15 for such a high quality palette is definitely a bargain in my eyes. The colours are super pigmented and long wear. I've worn the colours with and without eye primer and the shadows definitely last longer with primer but still a good 4 to 5 hours wear without primer. You'll see below the swatches I did of all the colours. I applied them to my boyfriend's arm (hehe) just with my finger and no primer etc. The actual packaging of the palette is quite cheap flimsy plastic which is a bit of a shame. It doesn't come with a mirror which is a bit annoying as well. I really love the revolution palettes that come with a lovely big mirror so Morphe could do with improving their packaging a bit but the eye shadows are amazing and that's the main thing!

The Ather Shehzad Master Makeup Palette was £18 from Beauty Bay as well reduced from £29. The palette has 48 eye shadows, 3 blushers and 3 highlighters. The blushers and the highlighters are way to dark for my skin tone however my main reason for purchasing this product was for the variety of shades of the 48 eye shadows. The colours are all really pigmented and there's a range of matt and sparkly shades to suit whichever look you're going for. The packaging is really lovely too and comes with a mirror! Yay! Ather Shehzad is a popular make up artist and has some amazing examples of looks he has created with this palette so check that out. At £18 it's a bargain for the variety of colours you get. 

To see more about these palettes then please check out my vlog: 

https://youtu.be/aaa0gNi8Hvs

Instagram: @ginageogeorge 

ABSOLUTE MUST BUYS JAN 2016

I go shopping A LOT and my boyfriend moans at me all the time but when I show him my receipts he can't believe I managed to  buy (in his own words) "all this shite" for a tenner. The more often you browse the more bargains you'll find. You don't even need to leave your house to do this! It's all online peeoopplle...well some of it. So here's some must haves I've bought this month.

 

Candles

I loooove candles. I have loads of them but I like very specific smells. Ginger and cinnamon are my favourite smells when it comes to candles. They make my flat smell all homely. But weirdly it's really hard to find candles of these smells on the cheap that aren't Christmas themed. At Yankee I managed to get a really big Christmas candle for £18 in the sale but that's still a bit steep in my eyes. But Primark have brought out a new candle range, some of which have up to 40 hours burning time and they're only £3. SOLD! The Ginger and Oriental spice one is out of this world! I bought 2!

 

 

 

 

Lipstick

 

Another little treat I got myself whilst I was raiding Primark's candles was their £1 Rose Mauve lipstick. It's the perfect shade of purple/pink. It's not too dark and not too light and it's £1 :o

 

 

Superdrug Sale

 

Superdrug have got all their Christmas stock on sale including gift sets, sweets and more. They also have a clearance section in every store of old stock that needs cleared to make wake for new stock. Clearance stock is usually on a bottom shelf hidden away at the back of the store somewhere but it's worth the hunt. I got Loreal Sublime Bronze Exfotonic Body Polishing Gel for 80p and Loreal Body Oil Spray for £85p! There's not much left on there online sale so you're best going to your nearest store.

 

 

Gina xo

New Year New Pores

Happy New Year everyone! It's been a busy festive season for myself but it's all back to reality now. It's January 2016 and there are sales left right and centre, it's the perfect time (if you're like me) to max out that graduate bank overdraft and treat yourself. Whilst browsing online looking at beauty products on special offer and what the beauty must haves for 2016 are, I came across this wee gem. It's the No7 Beautiful Skin Pore Vacuum Mask from Boots. It's £14 which is quite pricey but it's 3 for 2 on No7 skincare and you also get 20% off when you spend £25 or more. Not too bad...ish. But it's worth it because it ACTUALLY works. Finally there's a cure for blackheads and it's none of that beaded face scrub nonsense. It's a peely face mask that provides real results.

Click the picture to visit Boots

You only need to use this product about once a week, if that depending on how bad your blackheads are. It's called a "Pore Vacuum" because it literally sucks out the blackheads (eww). Do not use this all over your face because it's so powerful that it even sucks out all the tiny hairs on your face. I made this mistake and it was effin' painful. The only area of your face you need to use this on is your nose, chin and upper forehead if necessary. Leave it on for 10 to 15 minutes until crisp dry and peel away!

The best thing about this peely mask is that it's black so you can see every blackhead that comes out which is very satisfying in a weird disgusting way. It's like peeling pva glue off your hands in primary school, kinda grose but highly amusing. For the best results, use a cleanser, toner and moisturiser afterwards. This will help minimise and close up your open pores leaving your face fresh and blackhead free! Yay!

Gina xo

Cleansing Conditioners and 2in1 shampoos. What's the difference?

 

Superdrug has recently brought out their own range of cleansing conditioners and to be honest when reading the back of the bottle, I thought it sounded pretty much the same as a 2in1 shampoo and conditioner. 2in1 shampoo and conditioners should be wiped off the face of the earth in my opinion. They're terrible for your hair, just ask any hairdresser. So are cleansing conditioners just a glamourised version of a 2in1 shampoo? I decided to do a bit of research online and this is what I found.

Cleansing conditioners were created by WEN hair care hairstylist Chaz Dean and he claims his cleansing conditioner is a "5in1 formula" because it's your shampoo, conditioner, leave in conditioner, de-tangler and deep conditioner all rolled into 1. Fair enough. So I checked out some Youtube reviews and pretty much everyone seems to love this stuff, especially people who dye their hair a lot and have quite dry hair. However, looking at the ingredients of these cleansing conditioners there's not really any ingredient that "cleanses". Here's a little bit more info that explains it better than I can...

"Instead of using typical shampoo ingredients called surfactants (such as sulfates, glucosides, or betains), cleansing conditioners use only a group of ingredients referred to as fatty alcohols, most commonly cetyl alcohol or cetearyl alcohol. These fatty alcohols do have moisturizing properties but they only have minimal ability to cleanse hair or remove the buildup of styling products. They certainly don’t clean hair even remotely as well as surfactant-style cleansing agent."(unknown source)

I decided to give Superdrug's cleansing conditioner a try to see what all the fuss was about and whether it was this glamourised crappy 2in1 conditioner or this 5in1 must have. Obviously you could argue that Superdrug's £4 cleansing conditioner is not going to compare in quality to the WEN £40 cleansing conditioner but I've checked and the ingredients are literally the same apart from WEN has fancier fragrances.

I used the orange and jasmine Superdrug cleansing conditioner (smells amazing I'll give it that) and I followed the exact instructions. It did just feel like I was applying conditioner to my hair. It's not soapy or foamy. After drying my hair etc, my hair did feel really soft, looked healthy and my ends did look better than they usually do. But, by the end of the day my hair was super greasy and that's unusual for me. I personally feel that this stuff is just a conditioner, it's not even a 2in1 shampoo, it's literally just a conditioner. I think if  you didn't use shampoo and just used conditioner you would get the exact same effect.

Shampoo does dry out your hair a bit and can have some harsh chemicals in them, but it's needed to break down excess oils and hair product in your hair. I read in a hairdresser blog that when using shampoo, you should just apply it to your scalp, massage it in and then let it rinse through your ends. I've been using this technique and it has been helping my ends. When it comes to deeply nourishing your hair, use oils like coconut oil and argon oil. These work really well and are natural products so no harsh chemicals. When it comes to cleansing conditioners, I wouldn't bother.

 

Gina xo

 

Tomato & Mascarpone Soup Easy Peasy Recipe

Last week I went to this small Italian restaurant called Novapizza which was absolutely amazing. If you're ever in Edinburgh then check this place out. It's a little cosy vegetarian Italian restaurant near Stockbridge with a wide range of beautiful veggie dishes. Most vegan restaurants have quite dull menus in my opinion (maybe that's because I'm not vegan) but this place has all your favourite Italian dishes that you're used to but with quorn meat and other veggie supplements. The most amazing dish that I tried there was the tomato and mascarpone soup which inspired me to make my own. So here is my very own tomato and mascarpone soup recipe on the cheap!

What you'll need:

tin of chopped tomatoes
mascarpone cheese
600ml vegetable stock
garlic
half an onion chopped
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 carrot
Tomato puree
olive oil
Salt and pepper
hand blender


I usually shop at Morrisons or the lidl and you can get all these items for less than a fiver. Some of the ingredients are your basics that you probably have in your cupboard already! In the herb aisle you can also pick up an Italian herb jar which is split up into different sections with different herbs and flavourings to sprinkle in to season and give it your own little twist.

Method:

Take a large saucepan and drizzle in some olive oil and bring it to a medium heat. Grate the carrot and add this and the chopped onion into the saucepan and cook for around 10 minutes. Add in your garlic, salt and pepper and some Italian seasoning, then add the chopped tomatoes and vegetable stock. Bring to the boil then leave it to simmer for 10 minutes. Add in the mascarpone cheese and use the hand blender to blend everything together. Keep adding in the cheese and blending until you get the desired thickness.

Serve with crusty bread or croutons. Mmm lush!

Gina xo 

 


 

Green Glitter Eyes

As we go into the party season I wanted to see what party/seasonal make up I could come up with. I always see those insta models with amazing glitter eye shadow so I went online to see what I could find that's similar and cost effective. I'm all about the 'cost effective' part. Barry M had a few glitter eye shadow pots but at £4.00 each I wasn't ready to part with my money. So I had a little browse on Ebay and I found this seller that was selling setting gel and pots of glitter. They have amazing colours for just 99p each and it's free postage AND it's buy 3 and get 3 free! Absolute bargain. The gel is £1.97 and basically you just apply the gel to your eye lids and dab on the glitter. The gel definitely works by the way. I went on a night out and woke up with my eye make up still in tact. These are the links:

Gel: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/231176493483?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Glitter: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281163189083?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&var=580223059369&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

Ooh I Found A Bargain

"Tis the season to be jolly, lalalala". It's not long till Christmas now peeps and if you're a huge Xmas fan like me  (I own 4 Christmas jumpers and I put my tree up 2 weeks ago....yeah in November) then you'll absolutely love these amazing novelty earrings I found in Primark for a bargain price of £1.50 each. I cannot wait to wear these to work!

Follow me on Instagram to see pictures of Edinburgh Christmas Market! @ginageogeorge