Loves and loathes - February

OK so I know we are hurtling towards the end of March and here I am only just giving you the gossip on my faves and not so faves of February. But what can I say happened? Life happened is what.

My runaway winner for the month of February has been cake and lots of it (this theme is running into March as well dare I say it!). I do love cake at the best of times buuuuutttt at the moment I have a very moreish spot for anything a little bit spongy and swiss rolls are slipping down a treat, more specifically these Asda smart price (40p) raspberry mini rolls and they are sooooo mini that before you know it you have gotten through 2 or 3 or a packet (no? oh that's just piggy little me then ooops).

Next on my loves list is Rimmel's Stay Matte pressed powder. I won't hark on about it here as I did an in depth review only a couple of days ago which you can read about, well...in depth here.

My last love is this long forgotten but recently resurrected (read that as found languishing at the back of my dressing table drawer) eyeshadow by Natural Collection from Boots in the colour Heather, which looks a lot scarier in the pot that it does on the eye.

It's actually a really pretty purple-grey colour which looks really nice either as a wash of colour over the entire lid or used in a purple smokey eye look. Now as I've had this a while, I'm not sure if this particular colour is still available, but if you haven't tried the Natural Collection from Boots I'd definitely give it a go as I find the pigmentation in these little pots is excellent and at only £1.79 you can't really go wrong.

Finally for the month is this one loath. It's the Skin System eye make up remover from Asda.

I usually use Liz Earle's Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth system and although I do use the Eyebright Soothing Eye Lotion which is designed to remove light eye make-up, I always find it's not really enough to remove fully even the lightest of eye make ups, so I start my face cleansing routine by using a more heavy duty eye make up remover of which I am not faithful to any particular brand. So after coming to the end of my last bottle and seeing this in the supermarket I thought I'd give it a go. I wish I hadn't. I usually use a liquid type product (you can tell I'm not a beauty blogger can't you!) but this one is a cream and it does not matter how carefully I apply it to my eyelids with a cotton pad (and ladies we all know how gently we should clean the delicate eye area don't we now?), I just find all this product does is end up in my eye rather than remove my eye make up. So total fail and will not be repurchasing once this tube comes to an end.

So what things have you been enjoying/disliking recently?

 

Rimmel Stay Matte Pressed Powder Review

I know I'm probably really late jumping on the bandwagon with this product, but I just thought you might like to share my experience of Rimmel's Stay Matte Pressed Powder.

I have to hold my hands up and say, I am a lover of the higher end brands of cosmetics shall we say, but sometimes (read that as most of the time) my purse just can't stretch to getting ALL my daily essential cosmetics from the top brands, so when I needed to get a new pressed powder, and after seeing this product on so many other blogs I decided to try it out.

I am, in the cooler months (which seems to be many on our fair isle recently), a medium to full coverage type of girl. I will wear a medium/high coverage foundation and I like to keep my base much more matte and just let smokey eyes or a strong lip doing the talking. The is as opposed to the warmer months (where are you sun?), when I swap a heavier base for BB creams or my beloved Estee Lauder Double Wear Light when I want a bit more cover and I'm going for a more 'glowing' look.

I used to have much drier skin (which does have it's own disadvantages), but one advantage was once I'd applied my 'face' I didn't need to 'touch up' during the day. Unfortunately a number of years ago pregnancy changed all that and I have been left with much more oily skin, predominately on my t-zone but generally on my face overall and I find I have to powder or blot my face numerous times during the day. Over the years I've tried all sorts of foundations and powders to combat this to no avail, until this powder came into my life. Now I only have to re-powder once a day! I LOVE IT!!!

I picked 001 Transparent and as you can see it is quite a heavy duty powder, so gives great coverage, but without looking chalky. I generally go for a translucent powder as I think there is nothing worse than getting a great skin tone matching foundation only for it to be ruined by a too dark/pinky/peachy coloured powder. Although if you don't favour the transparent there are 5 other shades to choose from.

What Rimmel say about this product "Up to 5 hours natural shine control with natural minerals. Helps minimise the appearance of pores". I would say I definitely get my 5 hours worth and probably more.

So overall, if you have oily/combination skin, I cannot praise this little pot of powder highly enough and you get 14g for only £3.99, so even if you bought it and found it wasn't for you, it's not like you've spent a fortune. I've been using it for a couple of months now and it was worth every penny of the £3.99 I spent.

Have you tried this? If so what did you think? 

Any other powder recommendations you have for me?