Soap & Glory Lid Stuff in What's Nude

Soap & Glory Lid Stuff in What's Nude | £10.00 | LINK

Nude eye shadow palettes are one of my biggest makeup weaknesses. Despite owning a bunch of different ones that all contain very similar shades and colours, I can't restrain myself from buying more! There's something so simple and classic about a neutral eye palette that makes it very easy to justify buying them. As I'm not a big lover of bold colours on my eyes, I just love to have a range of neutral shades to work from.

Today I thought I would share my thoughts on a great little eye shadow quad from Soap & Glory - possibly my favourite makeup/ beauty brand on the high street! This is the Lid Stuff eye shadow quad in What's Nude which contains 4 lovely neutral eye shadow shades.

The Soap & Glory Lid Stuff eye shadow quads come in a small square shaped plastic palette which is sturdy and great for travelling. This little palette doesn't come with a brush or a mirror, however these would have only made it more bulky and expensive so it doesn't bother me that much - plus I like to use my own brushes anyway! You get 4 great sized eye shadows and in the What's Nude palette they are all very pretty nude/ neutral shades with 3 being matte and the other a more satin like finish.

The 4 shades in this palette are: Vanilla which is a matte light off white shade which is great for subtle highlighting, Pink T which is a matte nude colour which is perfect for creating a flawless looking base, Mudhoney which is a matte medium brown shade and finally Aubersheen which is a satin finish brown.

All of these shades work really well together (especially all of the matte shades) to create a lovely everyday brown smoky eye. As Aubersheen is the only satin finish in the palette, this is also nice to pop into the crease of your eye look to add a different finish and to deepen the look up to make it more of an evening smoky eye. With this being said, this is a great day to night palette as the matte shades can be used for your day time look and then Aubersheen can be added for when you want to make your makeup extra smoky and glam!

I'm honestly so impressed with the quality of this palette. With most high street matte eye shadows I always find the pigmentation is quite poor and the staying power very lacking. But, as you can see from the swatches, these Soap & Glory shadows are super pigmented and last amazingly well on the eyes. They also apply and blend out really smoothly plus they don't look heavy and chalky despite being a matte finish. As Aubersheen has that satin finish it is also very pigmented and looks amazing in the crease.

I think this palette is amazing value for money as each eye shadow only works out at £2.50 each and you can get so much wear out of all of the shades. This is one of those palettes you can just pop in your makeup bag for a weekend away and know you're sorted for your eye makeup - you could even use Mudhoney as a shadow eye liner or as brow shade too if you have darker hair!

If you want something a bit different from nude shades this palette also comes in a smoky eye set called Smokey Dokey and a brighter set called Off The Wallflowers, both very pretty but unfortunately not colours that I wear very often! However I would highly recommend you trying out this amazing little eye shadow palette next time you're in Boots. This is definitely a staple product for anyone's makeup collection!

Have you tried the Soap & Glory Lid Stuff eye shadow palettes?

What's your favourite everyday eye shadow palette?

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Christmas Home Haul

Christmas is literally my favourite time of year; I love the cold, dark evenings, being able to burn candles all day long and of course the whole festive feeling of the next couple months. With this, I love decorating my room with Christmas decor and over the past couple of weeks I've picked up a few bits and pieces. It probably seems a bit early buying Christmas decorations already, but I always find that they sell out really quickly so it's good to stock up when you see bits you like!

Little Dears Duvet Set | £12.00 (double) | LINK

Every year I like to treat myself to some new Christmas bedding. I usually go for a set from Primark as they're always so cheap but I've actually found that Asda also do some lovely designs at similar prices! I spotted this cute deer and little girl duvet set on the Asda website and knew straight away I had to get it - it's so sweet! As you only use Christmas bedding for such a short time every year, you don't want to be spending loads of money on a duvet set, but I think £12 for a double is amazing and there are so many designs to choose from.

Red Deer Cushion | £7.00 | LINK

To go with my new bedding I also picked up the matching cushion that goes with it. I bought one of these cushions last year as well so I thought they would make my bed look really nice and Christmasy. This cushion has a lovely velvet finish and of course has the cute fawn print on the front. There's also a smaller one with a similar pattern, but I thought I would restrain myself so that my bedding wasn't "deer overload"!

Fawn Ornament | £4.00

The final Christmas item I picked up from Asda was a little fawn ornament and again, it matches my lovely new bedding! I love the look of this ornament as it's so vintage and retro looking and it's just a nice way to add a bit of character to your room. If you see this little fella I would definitely say pick him up because I had a bit of trouble finding him as he was always sold out!

White Polar Bear Ornament | £4.00 | LINK

Another cheap place to pick up some lovely Christmas decorations is Wilko's. I usually get my wrapping paper and ribbons from there as they're really good value for money and they have some lovely designs to choose from. I picked up this cute polar bear ornament as I loved the simplicity of it and thought it would look lovely sitting by my window. You can also get a range of sizes and positions of these polar bears which would make a lovely statement piece above your fireplace!

Polar Bear Tree Decorations | £1.50 each | LINK

Me and my mum went a bit "polar bear mad" in Wilko's as I also picked up some smaller tree decorations that would look lovely on the tree (obviously) or just hanging around the house. I love white decorations for the Christmas tree and thought these little bears would just look super cute!

 Yankee Candle Christmas Cookie Tea Lights | £6.75 | LINK

I can't seem to go shopping recently without picking up some form of candle - it's becoming a slight obsession! I had a Boots voucher that gave me 25% off a gift item so I decided to pick up some little Yankee Candle tea lights in Christmas Cookie which is one of my favourite Christmas scents! I haven't tried the Yankee tea lights before but I thought they would be nice to give my room a quick burst of fragrance. If you love sweet Christmasy scents then you should definitely try out the Christmas Cookie a try!

Yankee Candle Cranberry Ice Medium Jar | £18.99 | LINK

The final thing I picked up was a medium jar of the Cranberry Ice scent from Yankee Candle. This is a different kind of scent to Christmas Cookie as it's very fresh and fruity but still super Christmasy at the same time. I've wanted to get this lovely scent in a jar form as I go through so many sampler sizes of it. Luckily I spotted that this fragrance was 25% off in the Yankee shop (however this jar is 33% off online!) so I was super happy about that! I find that the medium jars last me ages so they're definitely worth investing into, especially if it's a scent that you love!

That's everything Christmas related that I've bought recently! I can't wait to start decorating my room, it feels such a shame keeping all these lovely things cooped up in bags! I've decided that I'm going to go all out and start decorating at the beginning of November as I'm just too excited! Be sure to give me a follow on Instagram (@amiehaffenden) as I'm bound to be snapping pictures of these Christmas pieces in action.

 Have you bought any Christmas home decor recently?

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Collection Illuminating Touch Foundation

Collection Illuminating Touch Foundation | £5.99 | LINK

Hello everyone! I just want to say sorry for not blogging for a couple of weeks, I've been super busy and haven't had a chance to sit down and type! However I did finally get my brand new laptop at the weekend - yay! Which finally means I can easily blog and edit photos whenever I please rather than waiting hours for my laptop to start up and getting my photo editor to finally start working (honestly it was the bane of my life!).

I thought I would share my thoughts on a new foundation that I have been trying out for the past couple weeks. Collection is a brand that I find has some real beauty gems - the obvious one being their Lasting Perfection Concealer. On a recent shopping trip I spotted the new Illuminating Touch Foundation for just a mere £3.99 and thought I would give it a try. I have quite dry skin so I'm always on the hunt to find cheap products that can give me that healthy dewy glow back to my skin.

The first thing that struck my about this foundation was the really lovely packaging. The Collection Illuminating Touch Foundation comes in a sleek mattified glass bottle which you wouldn't really expect for a foundation that you paid just under £4 for! I also love the fact that is has a good sturdy pump that feels really good quality - plus pumps are great for making sure you don't use too much product in one go.

The shade that I picked up was Ivory 2 which is the second lightest shade in the range. I'll be honest and say the colour selection wasn't that great from the shop that I bought mine from as Ivory 2 seemed to be the lightest shade they offered. As I do have quite pale skin I was sceptical as to whether this shade would match me well, but I'm glad to say it does and that I think the lightest shade would be far too light for me! This is great that there is a very light shade (Porcelain) available as I am aware that many fair skinned girls find it hard to match a foundation to their skin colour.

The product itself is much thicker than I thought it would be. If you have tried Rimmel's Match Perfection Foundation then that's the sort of consistency that I thought that it would be like. Despite being a thicker formula the foundation is still very light on the skin yet offers a nice light to medium coverage that is definitely build-able. I like my foundations to look like "my skin but better" rather than super heavy and thick and I find that this one does offer that lovely natural look that I love!

The staying power of this foundation is quite good but towards the end of the day I can definitely see that I need a bit of a touch up as it can start to wear off. I would say this is more of a day time foundation as the coverage is quite light and it does give you that lovely dewy finish. I have been very impressed with how well this foundation lasts, considering it's currently on offer for just £3.99 it's very good value for money!

So far I've been really enjoying using this foundation and will definitely continue using it. I'm not sure whether I would repurchase this again (maybe if I found it on another offer) as I do enjoy using my Rimmel foundations more, but it was nice to swap things up and try something new. If you are on the hunt for a nice everyday foundation then definitely give this try whist it's on offer!

Have you tried the new Collection Illuminating Touch Foundation?
What's your favourite foundation?

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