Bargain Midi Dress

So as I've mentioned before, as a student, I am trying to fuel my shopping addiction on a serious budget. Because I can't face the idea of kicking my addiction altogether I am forever on the lookout for a bargain. Yesterday I definitely found one in Catch in Manor Mills Maynooth. I found this fab neon pink, orange and black midi dress for €10! Now I wasn't really sure if I could pull off the midi dress, as I'm quite tall and thin I thought I might resemble Olive Oil, Popeye's wife, not the condiment! I thought for €10 now was my chance to see if I could pull off the look. Admittedly it's not exactly "midi" on me, it just hits my knees, but I really like the length. I was initially sceptical of the fabric as it was quite thin and I was afriad it would cling to all the wrong places but after trying it on, I can safely say it is very flattering and I don't feel every lump and bump is on show! I origianlly bought this as a "going out" dress but I've since tried it on with white "converse" style high tops and loved the look. I think I will get lots of wear out of this forboth day and night. Catch had a whole rack of midi dresses for €10 and I have a feeling I'll be back stocking up on more very soon!

Seventeen "Instant Glow" Shimmer Brick

Now I don't know much about bronzers, I tend to stick to blusher and embrace my pale Irish skin. The furthest I usually go with a bronzer is a quick sweep of Rimmel's Sun Shimmer in the light matte shade if I feel my face is looking very pale. However, after seeing many bloggers raving about various different bronzers they use, I began to feel I may be mssing out on something here so went on a search for a cheap, shimmery, subtle bronzer - not an easy task mind you! I think of all things, good bronzers are quite difficult to find in pharmacies. Maybe it's because I'm quite pale so it's difficult to get a colour to suit. Anyway, I finally settled on Seventeen's "Instant Glow" Shimmer Brick in the colour "Pink Bronze". I liked the colour of it when I swatched it on my hand and for €6.99, I couldn't leave it go!

Now if you want shimmer, this is for you! It's very, very shimmery, well to me it is anyway. I'm not usually one for shimmer, but I thought I should add some to my make up collection for summer. This is perfect for what I wanted it for - a subtle glow for summer.

The colour is very subtle. So for those looking for a deeper glow, this may not be for you, however there is another colour available which I think is called "Golden Bronze", which I felt was probably a bit too dark for me. The brick is made up of four different shades - two more bronze shades and two pinker shades. The pinky shades, along with the shimmer give a more glowy effect rather than a tanned look, which I like. I aim my brush for the two bronze shades and the darker pink when I'm applying it and I think that this swept along my cheekbones and temples followed by a subtle blush (I've been mostly using MAC's "Dame") gives me the perfect summer glow.

Ok, it's probably not the greatest quality bronzer and I could probably get something far superior in a high end brand, but for €6.99 you can't go wrong and it's certainly doing the job of giving a subtle summer glow to an absolute bronzer novice like me.

Outfit of the night

On Saturday night last week my boyfriend and I went out for his brother's going away party. Here's the outfit I wore:

Apologies, photo could be better but our house is so tiny it's so difficult to get a good spot to take a picture. Must think to take pictures earlier in the daylight in future!

Anyway, what I'm wearing:

 





Dress: I'm not sure where I got it, I'm nearly sure it was one of the smaller boutiques like Catch, etc, but it's from the brand Evita, it's pink with black velour spots, a black bow around the waist and it has a skater skirt, so it's really flattering, especially after Christmas!

Close up of the polka dots on the skirt

Jacket: I got from Only. I love it! It's a kind of t shirt material, it has 3/4 length sleeves and really cool studs on the lapels.



Studded lapels

Tights: Pennys

 

Boots: From Forever 21. Saving the best until last. These boots started at €32.99 (I think!), then reduced to €17.99, UNTIL I got to the till when I was charged €8.99! Greatest bargain ever! They black ankle boots with a glittery platform and heel.

The bargain boots

 

VO5 Miracle Concentrate Argan Oil Treatment

Ok, so I haven't blogged in a while because being the clumsy person that I am, I fell and stood on my laptop. Needless to say it didn't survive. But for Christmas I got a shiny new laptop and am ready to blog again.

Ok, so something I have been loving lately and dying to blog about is VO5 Miracle Concentrate Intensive Leave in Treatment. This is an Argan Oil treatment which claims to reduce frizz, soften hair, add shine and reduce damage from blow drying.

My, almost finished, bottle of VO5 Miracle Concentrate

I had heard such great things about Argan Oil, but with most bottles costing about €20 I was reluctant to try it. I then came across this little gem which cost about €5 in Boots. The more expensive bottles may have been better value conatining more product since this little bottle is only 50 ml, however, since I didn't know how much I'd like it, there was no point splashing out on a big bottle.

This can be applied to wet or dry hair and comes with a dropper which is great to control the amount of the oil used. I have very long, thick, dry, curly hair and so I used 3-4 droppers to cover my hair and work it in from about the top of the ears down, I never really put any at the roots to avoid them looking greasy. I then brush it through to make sure it is evenly distributed. The first time I used it, I used it on my wet hair and just let it dry naturally. I was so impressed. As I mentioned my hair is very curly and often frizzy, after applying this, my hair was so much more relaxed, frizz was almost eliminated and I could leave my hair down for the day without adding any extra product. Pretty sure that was a first for me!

I use about 3-4 of these droppers on my dry, thick, almost waist length har

It did such a good job on my hair dried naturally, I decided to attempt to blow dry. I never blow dry my hair. It is too thick and frizzy. It never goes straight, it just gets big and fuzzy and awful, despite what brush, serum or anything else I use. So the fact that I coud put this in my hair, blow dry it and the result being, soft, tame, style hair that I didn't need to touch with a hair dryer or extra product means this product is nothing less than a miracle worker.

I rarely stay loyal to hair products because my hair is so difficult. This however is becoming a permanent fixture. I use it everytime I wash my hair and also apply it almost everyday when I brush it to keep my hair shiny and manageable (this probably will not work for everyone but I have very, very dry hair). Another huge bonus is its cheap! I'm nearly finished this bottle and I will definitely be repurchasing.

Pink sparkle nails

I love having my nails done. I do them every colour, have had gel nails, acrylics and pharmacy diy fake nails. I'm not a big fan of having my nails "undone", so a few times a week I change my nail varnish and often buy new brands to try them all out. NYC is a brand I am loving at the moment. Available in a few pharmacies around the country and in some Penneys (the one on Mary Street for sure anyway). Apparently nothing in this brand costs over €3.99? I think. And the quality of what I have tried is not bad at all. Today I've done my nails in their "In a New York Colour Minute Quick Dry Nail Polish" in the shade Lincoln Square Lavender. Firstly I love the colour, although it's called Lavender, its more pink than purple. It's not an in-your-face kind of pink either, just a kind of dusky girly pink. It has a super shine, which I love in a nail varnish! It also dries pretty quickly which is great, you don't have to worry about smudging your nails a half hour after you have painted them. And, the most important thing to me in a nail varnish, staying power, no you won't still be sporting perfect nails with this nail varnish, but it did stay completely chip free for at least three days, which is usually long enough for me to get sick of the colour anyway. At least with this I changed my nail varnish because I got bored rather than because my nail varnish was horribly chipped like I often do. So yeah, over all, a big thumbs up for this nail varnish and at €1.29 its definitely worth a try at least.

So today I gave myself pink glitter nails. How girly! But there you go.
So first I started with a two coats of NYC Lincoln Square Lavender polish

So that's the colour of the polish after two coats. You could get away with one cot, but I always use two, no matter what the brand as I think it gives it a nicer finish.

I then coated each nail in clear polish (I use Sally Hansen "Miracle Cure", I also use it as a base coat) and then dipped each nail in this gorgeous mother of pearl colour glitter I got in Penneys as part of a four stack for €1.50.

The glitter I used

And the finished product!

And there you have it. Not everybody's cup of tea, but I love them! They have resulted in glitter getting everywhere though, but that's the price you have to pay for sparkle!

Beauty on a Budget

Lately I've been reading so many beauty blogs and loving them all! I have such a love for make up and fashion that I thought I'd keep track of all the things I'm trying, things I'm loving or hating, etc. I also have a serious challenge to my make up addiction - being a poor student! While I adore high end brands like MAC, Bobbie Brown and how I loved my YSL foundation, however, since returning to college last year my income has been reduced to...well, very little. It certainly doesn't lend itself to my shopping habit. While I miss being able to shop when and where I liked, I am also enjoying the challenge of finding great bargains and little gems  in the pharmacy aisles. My aim is to find a high quality low price alternative to all the things I loved getting when I was a full time worker. Ok, it may not happen, but I'm enjoying trying.
My current loves for cheap little make up gems includes Kate Moss' range of lipsticks for Rimmel. Now previously I was very small minded when it came to lipsticks. I liked MAC MAC MAC and only MAC. There's nothing worse than putting on your lipstick, heading out, thinking it looks fab, then glancing in a mirror to realise there is not a trace of your lipstick left. Enter MAC, you put on MAC lipstick, head out for the night, return home, fall asleep, wake up, head to college, glance in the mirror and you still have some colour on your lips. I love love love it! Needless to say I have been very slow to try new brands when I have found one I love so much. Well Kate Moss' lipsticks from Rimmel were my first non MAC lipsticks in a long time and I must say I am so impressed! I originally went looking for a vampy red, I love red lipstick but never got a deep sultry red. I like other Rimmel cosmetics so thought I'd give their lipsticks a go, I also saw them mentioned on some other blogs over the past while so I may be a bit late on the bandwagon but anyway. Also, with Boots being the wondeful place that it is, I realised, with lipstick and Rimmel clarifying powder in my hand, that it was 3 for 2! So I got another lipstick. The two lipsticks I got were in 107, this was the deep vampy red for nights out and 101, a light dusty pink (I think, I'm not great at describing colours!) which I plan to wear during the day. Both were about €6 each, so huge bargain if you ask me!

So firstly this is the packaging of the lipstick. Nothing overly special, but I quite like it :)

Above is the shade 101 which I think I'll mostly use for day time. I wore it the other day, all day and only really had to reapply it once or twice and even then it was just to freshen it up, not because the colour had disappeared. It also feels really moisturising. I have quite dry lips and I didn't feel my lip going overly dry of flaky while wearing this, so big thumbs up there. I'm not sure if the colour is very well captured here, I'm still trying to get the hang of my boyfriend's super fancy camera. I think it shows better in the swatches I will post further down.

Here is the shade 107, again the colour isn't captured to it's best here I find it a much richer red, it looks brighter here than it actually is. I haven't tried this properly yet, other than sticking it on my lips to see how it looks. I think I'll wear it for nights out, maybe during the day if I'm feeling brave (I have only just started wearing lipsticks in the day time, so I'm easing myself in :P). It goes on lovely, really vivid colour. If the staying power of 101 is anything to go by, it should last the night, maybe not into the next day like MAC, but that may not be a bad thing! I'm looking forward to trying this one out properly.

And here are swatches of each one. So the lighter one is 101 and the deeper one is 107.

So there you have it I may start to step away from the MAC lipsticks for a while and see what other gems the pharmacy brands may have to offer.