March Roundup: Favourites & Empties

Since buying the Barry M Aquarium collection (here), I haven't stopped wanting to wear Mediterranean on my nails. It's a beautiful pink/orange duochrome and by far my favourite from the set. I don't sleep enough so Seventeen Phwoarr Paint has been my go-to concealer for the past month, it really works wonders covering my dark circles and the little mirror in the lid is brilliant. I've been really loving coloured liners of late, especially now the weather has turned towards the warmer end of the thermometer, and rather than having to buy a whole range of colours I've been using the miracle in a bottle that is ELF Lock & Seal to turn my eyeshadows into liners which stay in place all day. It really is a wonderful (and affordable) product! Another newer purchase I've really been in love with this month is the L'Oreal Miss Manga mascara in Violet (though admittedly the purple doesn't really show through). With a change in hair colour has come a change in brow colour, I've been going between Femme Fatale Illusions (brown with a blue sheen here) and Innocent + Twisted Alchemy Contaminated Waste (brown with a green sheen and sparkles here) for my day to day brows. As far as eyeshadow goes, during the week when I just want a quick wash of colour I've been reaching for Darling Girl The Mummy (here) almost every day this month.

And now for some things outside of the beauty world I've really enjoyed this month:

The books of the month for me have been The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum's Alzheimers and Me by Martin Slevin (on amazon here) which is in equal parts funny and heartbreaking, especially as I'm watching my Grandparents memories deteriorate in much the same way, my Granddad in particular. The other was The Gates by John Connolly (on amazon here) which is a funny, dark, supernatural story. Aimed at the YA audience it's still a brilliant book for older readers too (I'm 23, it's still kind of young adult *ahem*)

Musically the warm weather has had me leaning towards the more chart-pop music end of the scale, and I've had One Republic - Counting Stars and Aviici – Hey Brother on quite often.

And for TV I am head over heels in love with The Musketeers on the BBC, which sadly ended on the 30^th March. It was a fantastic series and I'd rather like an Aramis and one of the fresian horses they've been riding of my own! And of course there's Hannibal on the NBC which was one of my favourite new series of 2013 and has stepped it up a notch, Mads Mikkleson as the totally-not-a-cannibal Hannibal Lecter and Hugh Dancy as poor Will Graham have really stepped it up a notch in tsrms of fantastic acting and exploring dicferent facets of their characters.

 

I seem to have gone through quite a lot of stuff this month, mostly using up the last little dregs of things. I don't often have this many empties!

Skincare

First up there's a set of Clarins Skincare samples (HydraQuench Cream, Water Purify One Step Cleanser, Hand and Nail Cream, Moisture Replenish Lip Balm) my mum got from an aeroplane. She doesn't really use skincare (or makeup or anything else for that matter) so she handed them over to me. Obviously with such small samples I can't get a full picture of what they're like, but I have no complaints. The hand cream and lip balm were both lovely and moisturising, the makeup remover worked well – it was only mascara that was hard to budge, as always. The moisturiser I used at night and some mornings just on my cheeks which tend to be very dry and it felt lovely. These were a great freebie, but I wouldn't go out and purchase them, mostly down to the prices. They were nice but not so WOW that I could justify £20+ a piece. (Full size prices: HydraQuench Cream £35, Water Purify One Step Cleanser £20, Hand and Nail Cream £21, Moisture Replenish Lip Balm £19).

Then there are two lip balms the Nivea Lip Balm in Soft Rose (£1.10) and a Betty Crocker Caramel Frosting lip balm (£1.99) I picked up in Camden a year or so ago. They were both perfectly functional as lip balms, I don't know what else to say! I would repurchase the Betty Crocker Caramel Frosting Lip Balm, just for the scent which was a gorgeous vanilla caramel scent. Almost edible. (And you would not believe the number of times I have typed blam instead of balm trying to write this up!)

Makeup empties for this month are the well known Maybelline Great Lash mascara (£4.99), which I didn't technically finish so much as I have had for as long as I can remember and never really use so I figured it was time to bin it. Honestly I don't love this mascara, it was great when I was a teenager but there are so many better offers out there nowadays and this doesn't do much for my lashes.

Another thing I've had for ages and mostly used up is a Collection 2000 palette that I don't know the name of, can't find the name of and never use. I did love the lighter shades for things like highlight and wash of colour on the lid (I think I did that back in college, oops!) and since it's so old and so unloved it's time to say goodbye.

The last two makeup products I used up are some indie samples, Femme Fatale Desecration (AUS$5.50 for 5, swatch here ) and Victorian Disco Jockey (US$1  swatch here ) both of which I really liked. Desecration made a smashing eyeliner and eyebrow colour and Jockey was a pretty sparkly highlight. I would repurchase both of these, though I won't be doing so any time soon – you'd understand why if you saw my indie sample drawer, I have way over 100! And there are always new colours I want to grab and use, I have a shopping problem where indie shadows are concerned.

This empty reminded me I never shared my latest crazy hair colour! You can see it here. I used the remainder of a pot of Directions Atlantic Blue (£4.50) to cover up a not so awesome attempt at orange and blue 'Portal' hair, which went more yellow and blue. I love Directions hair dye and this shade of blue is a gorgeous one, even if it looks more like teal/turquoise where I shoved it over the yellow! I would definitley repurchase this blue if I intended to dye my hair blue again, and Directions is my go-to coloured hair dye brand.

I also used up a couple of scents this month, The Body Shop Vanilla & Tonka Bean Body & Linen spray (£7.00) (it says body, I can use it on my body haha) which is possibly one of my favourite scents of all time. If I didn't already have another vanilla scent to use I would repurchase this. I also used up one of my Common Brimstone perfume samples (£5.50 for 5), I can't remember which it was as I managed to lose the label (and I lost a couple of my other sample vials :() but I think it was either Cherry Kiss or Absinthe With Faust. I wouldn't have repurchased samples if Common Brimstone hadn't recently changed from the rollerball (which stuck quite often and was a pain to use) to a small bottle format which I prefer.

I also used up some Asda cotton wool pads which are an obvious repurchase for using with micellar water (though the next set I got were from Sainsbury, they're the own brand and much the same to be honest). And finally I worked my way through a pack of Biore pore strips (£7.99 for 6) which were better than the asian pore strips from eBay I had been using before, but not so amazing that I can justify spending £8 on them again so not a repurchase.