Beauty Box Swap with FaceValueBeauty

A month or two ago the beautiful and hilarious Zoe of Face Value Beauty organised a blogger box swap. About 8 people volunteered and Zoe matched everyone with the type of box they were interested in and their budget.

My preference was "mainly beauty but anything goes" and my budget was £20, and I got paid with the loverly Miss F.V. Beauty herself! As she was of to china on her hollibobs so offered me the option of UK beauty products, or Asian beauty products. Never one to shy away from a new opportunity, we settled on the latter.

And this is the incredible selection of goodies I got:

I got two lip balms (I just couldn't wait to open the grape one, and the other is bees wax and honey with hyaluronic acid - not something I've ever seen in a lip balm before. I'm excited to try!):

A rubbish picture of some other beauty bits and bobs; an eyebrow wax pencil which I can already report is great, a Nicky Clarke calming balm for my lions mane, and a set of eyeliner appliqués - gonna wait for a special occasion to crack these out (they are GLITTERY! God I love glitter.)

And the craziest beauty tools I've encountered, all such good ideas, I'm absolutely kicking myself I wasn't aware of them before! One is a set of essentially velcro strips so keep your hair back off your face when you're washing/making up/facing mask. One is a little scrubbing pad that is pretty much to be used in place of a flannel - I've found my face absolutely glows after using this! It seems to boost circulation like nobodies business! And finally - the coolest thing ever, I'm not sure what exactly to call it, but basically you place it over your eyes post eyeshadow, open your eyes and go ahead and apply mascara and it helps stop get mascara all over your eyelid. This is pretty much made for me, because every time I put mascara on I might s well have just rubbed it all over my eyelids and missed out my eyelashes completely.

So cool. I'm so glad I got Zoe for swapsies! Go ahead and have a look at her blog (link below), she absolutely cracks me up.

Face Value Beauty

My MAC lipstick collection.

When I find a brand I like, I like to get stuck in. That isn't to say that I will swear off all other lipstick brands, but I will generally check Mac to see if they have a version of what I'm looking for first. Why fix what isn't broken and that.

Anyway, meet my babies.

From left to right, we have:

Diva (matte)

Russian Red (matte)

Ruby Woo (matte)

Lady Danger (matte)

Mehr (matte)

Faux (satin)

Myth (satin)

It's a pretty small collection compared to most, but I'm a believer in only buying lipsticks that I'll love. There are a lot more that are on the wish list at the moment. Current funds aren't really permitting a lipstick binge (you can's build a house out of lipstick. I know; I've tried) so they'll be staying on the list and in my heart, as opposed to on my lips for a while longer.

I know it's a terrible picture, and there are no swatches to accompany it, but that's purely because I haven't had time! I'll take swatchy kiss face pictures and either add them on and update this post, or post another.

Are there any MAC lipsticks or other lipstick brands you would recommend? 

And I stress... (Part I).

Veering off the standard "products, and skincare, and hairstyles, oh my!" path with this post. The plan is it's going to be a two parter, all about stress and anxiety. Cheerful, no?

Part one may well be super boring, this is going to be how stress manifests itself in my body.
Part two will be how I try and manage or control that stress.

The background, what prompted this?
The job I have can sometimes be really, really, really, stressful. Especially for someone who is not a stranger to anxiety. Before starting work, it was generally social anxiety but now I just feel anxious, all of the time. I can't remember how it feels not to be so tightly sprung that any little off the cuff comment is liable to send me into hysterics. And the effect is has on my body can be pretty odd too...

My head.
If there is a period that is particularly hard going my scalp becomes really really dry and itchy, everywhere there is hair. Like, right from the front of my hairline, right through to the hairline at the back! That wouldn't be so bad on it's own... but the dandruff. I get the worst dandruff when I'm stressed! It doesn't even need to be particularly bad patch, anything slightly out of the ordinary, anything that makes me feel slightly nervous and whatever colour cardigan I'm wearing will develop white shoulder pads. I get concerned that people see me and think it's snowing!

My face.
Pretty standard here. My skin gets a hell of a lot greasier, and I get a lot (a lot a lot a lot) of "under the skin" spots. I used to have skin that was pretty close to entirely clear, so developing a mass of spots out of nowhere is terrifying, especially seeing as I have no idea how to treat them! The worst part is they stay there, safely nestled in the layers of my skin until that period of stress is entirely over. It's rubbish. I recently had them for over a month!

My nails.
I have rubbish nails anyway, they're sensitive, peel off in layers, flake, and snap. When I'm having a rough time, I have to cut them all the way down so avoid them catching on things and tipping me over the edge (does is make anyone else feel sick when a loose part of the nail catches in something? I literally, physically gag.)

General Wellbeing.
Constant headache, hot and cold sweats, panic/anxiety "attacks" ( 2 or 3 a day is a safe bet), feeling like I can't take enough air to fill my lungs, waking up in the middle of the night (I have a terrible habit of counting, and it's usually 7 times). And I cry. I can't stop myself crying. Even when there is nothing in particular to cry about, my eyes will almost constantly water.

Does anyone else have any odd side effects to stress or anxiety?

How do you deal with it?

Nerx Rerve Der Merl.

I indulged. Because you can never have one too many extortionately priced lipsticks.

(I thought I had found my ultimate H.G. Lip Balm, in the Nivea Lip Butter in Caramel Creme. The premise was that with discovering a lip balm that was wonderful, and everything I wanted from a lip balm I wouldn't be drawn in to shopping for any others, I could just work my way through the ones I won and then happily reuse and repurchase and be happy forever and ever and ever. That was not the case.)

Enter.... Luxe Reve De Miel (I don't know how to pronounce it, so the titles is how I pronounce it, phonetically). I was in London, casually strolling about near Soho and I caught sight of this in the window of a chemist. I'd never seen it in real life before, and I had forgotten it existed even with reading 95 million positive reviews on it. So I went in to have a look. And I went out with a lighter purse, a heavier shopping bag, and a guilty smile from ear to ear.

I've only used it once so far so this isn't a full blown review. The one time I used it though, was glorious. It seemed quite rich, but after it was applied it sank in almost immediately. And I felt a difference for a long while after. I don't know how to describe it exactly but its made my lips feel like butter! Happy smiley lips!

(This is a boring picture of it on. It's standard transparent balm. Also my nostrils look huge, what's that about?)

Some things I went and bought in May.

So, the premise of this post was to not clog up blogger and Bloglovin' feeds with a "minihaul" picture every couple of days and get them all in one giant picture heavy post at the end of the month.

The problem is, I didn't take pictures of everything I bought I keep them in a special folder so I could easily add them to this post. I took the odd picture and whacked them on Instagram as I was buying them. As a result, I may have posted about these before, I may not have, and later on I may say that I mentioned something in the May Haul which I didn't... How very straightforward...

Plus, I dont have them all with me at the moment so there won't be much description. If you want any info on anything let me know (twitter/email/comment) and I'll provide as much info as I can!

This is all going to seem pretty eclectically put together because some pictures are from my phone, some are from my camera... I have no concept of how to organise it. It's going to be messy, kids.

On with the show!
TK Maxx: clothes

 Everything £5: Cape. Yep, you heard. CAPE.

 Ebay: Murderdolls t-shirt. Not the best picture but I gave up trying to work out how to get the text the right way around in the mirror. Murderdolls are a band I was a big fan of in the Myspace Days.

 Primark clothes:

Accessories and that:
Asos:

Left is the headband, featuring my years sans plugs....

And a selection of mini haul pictures, so that means clothes/make up/skin care/some accessories all mushed together in a picture:

Primark/superdrug/boots:

 TK Maxx/Fragrance Direct:

Body Shop 40% sale:

Illamasqua 50% sale, including lipstick in action,

Superdrug/New Look mini pay day spree:

Dr. Lewinns': I'm not entirely sure what either of these are, but one was reduced from £36 to £6, and £26 to £6 so I figured they had to be good. Also, delivery was around £3, Royal Mail signed for, and got to be in two days. Brilliant Show Dr. Lewinns!

So. That's most of it, I have an ASOS order on the way (only three things) so I'll post that when it arrives.

Other than that, the spending is being put on hold! We're going to Paris in July, and after that the hunt for a house is on, that calls for an indefinite spending ban.

Unless anyone knows of any bargains...?