Makeup Revolution Primark Dupe!

Brush cleaning day, usually Sunday, is one of those chores that I huff and puff about having to do and a few months ago, I did a blog post on The Real Techniques Brush Cleansing Palette and the Makeup Revolution Pro Cleanse Brush Tool which you can find here.

Anyway, I have found a Makeup Revolution Brush cleaning dupe in Primark for £1.50 and they are so remarkably similar in how they look, how they feel infact looking at them, the only difference is that one is pink (Primark) and one is Purple (Makeup Revolution).

Designed to fit over your fingers, as you can see they have groves and knobbly bits to help clean your brushes. All you need to do is wet your brush, apply your brush shampoo and swipe the brush backwards and forwards along the grooves, as you do so, you can see all the makeup ‘stuff’ that has been lingering on the brushes run off into the sink and within seconds your brush is clean and ready to be left to dry. The Knobbly bits I use for my smaller brushes as I find it helps clean them much better.

So which one works better? The Makeup Revolution material is slightly softer and more pliable when washing the brushes, so instead of being rigid like the Primark one, there is some movement. Other than that, they are absolutely identical - same size, same number of grooves, same number of knobbly bits, same size part for your fingers to fit into. The only difference, other than the colour is that Primark charge £1.50 and Makeup Revolution £4.99.

MaxFactor Colour Corrector Stick Primark Dupe!

I am a huge fan of Colour Correcting products and adore the Makeup Revolution palette, upon which ive just hit pan on green *cries*. I find they work well with my skin to correct and conceal, more so with the redness I have on my cheeks, for which I do need the green. It took me a long time to accept that putting something green on my face would not leave me looking like Grotbags (remember her) and infact it would work.

The idea of using green to correct redness is a blessing as it neutralises redness whether that is blemishes, blochiness and in some cases a broken vein. You simply apply it to the area you want to correct, gently blend, add more if required and then finish off your make-up. 

Primark often has some hidden little gems and I was surprised to find they did colour correcting sticks, even better they had been massively reduced, so I bought one of each and this is what they look like - notice the similarity?

Yes, to me, they are the exact same colour corrector stick that is sold by MaxFactor, only the Primark versions are a whole £8.50 cheaper, should they work!  The swatches show the Primark crayon at the top and MaxFactor at the bottom, even colour wise they are similar, the only real difference is the formula and for me, the Primark crayon is much softer, though both blend like an absolute dream.

Do they work? Yes, I find it hard to choose who wins between them, both do an amazing job at concealing the redness but given the difference in price, then I would opt for Primark every time, purely to save £8.50.

Beautiful Bronze Highlighter - A Boots No.7 Dupe?

I am a huge fan of the Boots No.7 Instant Radiance Highlighter and have reviewed it HERE. It costs just £9.95 and has an amazing formula which dried incredibly quickly and creates an amazing highlighting effect.

I love highlighters in general and have a growing collection of them, so whilst in Primark, I came across the Beautiful Bronze range by Sunkissed, which looks amazing. The one product which caught my eye from the range was the Glow Stick Highlighter which is paraben and alcohol free and contains Vitamin E and costs just £3, so it quickly went into my basket.

It looks absolutely stunning and when I swatched it, I was shocked to find it is the perfect dupe for my favourite Boots No.7 highlighter. Infact it isn't just the colour which is a perfect dupe, but the formula is also very very similar which you can see below.

I am absolutely delighted to have found a dupe for my beloved highlighter and at a saving of almost £7 I am definitely going to check out the rest of the range.

Have you tried anything from this range?

Exfoliating Feet Mask

With Spring here and Summer on the horizon and the chance to hide away my winter boots and bring out my Fitflops, it is time to do something about my feet and and make sure they are in tip top condition.  Many of you will by now know that I have a hatred of feet, I can't think of anything worse than having to touch someone's feet and the thought of someone touching mine makes me feel quite ill. You only need to show me a contraption like a Ped egg and I am heaving. That said, like every other part of my body, I take care of my feet to avoid any eventuality of needing some form of specialist care.

In Primark, I came across this Exfoliating Foot Mask from Purederm, only it isn't a cream that you rub on, massage and wash off, it is more of a treatment in that it comes as a pair of wearable masks which are sock shaped and I bought them because for £1.50 curiosity got the better of me.

An exfoliating foot mask isn't something I would class as a must have product usually, BUT, get this bloggers , this product is amazing, there I've said it... Something amazing and it involves feet!  Yes I have a hatred of feet, always have had and probably always will have, but I love this product.

Once the packet is opened, there are two plastic socks. These plastic socks contain a clear liquid which is made up of papaya, lemon, apple and orange which with other botanical extracts work on breaking down the dead skin and calluses on your feet whilst using chamomile extract to help calm the skin. The socks only have to be worn for 60-90 minutes, and then after about 4 - 7 days the dry skin and calluses start to peel off, and eventually you end up with super soft feet.  Once they are on your feet, do not try and attempt to walk around because it isn't safe and is really hard to master.

Now I do apologise for the next few photos but as with every product you need to see how they work right?  These are my feet and this is the process of the product working

Top left day 4, Top right day 5, Bottom left day 6 and Bottom right day 7

As you can see within 4 days my feet began to look rather disgusting and the skin began to come a bit loose, then on the 5th and 6th day more skin became loose and fell off and finally on day 7 was the day of reckoning when like a snake, I practically shed a second skin.  The instructions on the packet state that you MUST NOT use a callus remover nor must you pick at and pull off the skin, which I will admit is really really annoying and I had to try really really hard to not pull it off.  That said, all of the skin has now come off on its own and I am left with very soft and smooth feet.

Not exactly a beautiful product that I have shared with you today, but it is one of the most useful ones I have ever bought and for an absolute bargain price.  It did everything it said it was going to do and it left my feet feeling in great condition so that now (should we ever get some sun) I can wear my Fitflops without worrying too much about my feet being on show.  A product I would definitely purchase and use again.

Have you tried this product or anything similar?  

Did you get similar results to me?

The Radiant Orchid Challenge!

When challenged to find an outfit for £60 to celebrate Pantones colour of the year being ‘Radiant Orchid’ I readily agreed but wow what a challenge it turned out to be.  For those of you who are not aware what the colour Radiant Orchid looks like, here it is:

Described as follows "Radiant Orchid blooms with confidence and magical warmth that intrigues the eye and sparks the imagination. It is an expressive, creative and embracing purple—one that draws you in with its beguiling charm. A captivating harmony of fuchsia, purple and pink undertones, Radiant Orchid emanates great joy, love and health".

So off I went in search of an outfit that I could purchase to celebrate this colour, I thought it would be easy because a lot of stores now have their spring items coming into stores, but oh how wrong was I when it came to finding something that might represent that above.  For hours I wondered up and down Oxford Street, went to Westfield before finally finding this:

Yes I managed to find a dress which I think suits the Radiant Orchid theme and it was priced at £13 which was at least a start, but an outfit is more than one item. So, as I have an event coming up in a few weeks time I decided that this dress would be the outfit for said occasion but I needed things to go with it and this is what I bought for the rest of the outfit.

Shoes which cost £10, Bracelet and necklace £8 from local boutique, Bag £29.50 from Marks and Spencer and the nail polish and tights are my own and all of that came to £60.50 and I have a lovely black cardigan which works really well should I get a little chilly.

One of the reasons I decided I would quite like this challenge is because I love black clothes, my Husband will tell you all that my wardrobe and drawers contain items that are mainly black with bits of blue and purple thrown here there, so predominantly darker colours which I am more comfortable with.  So, now was a good a time as any to inject some colour into my wardrobe, even if it does have black accessories.

Have you bought anything that could be classed as Radiant Orchid?

**SP

Primark Body Essentials Argan Scrub

I am a bit of an impulse shopper, a bit of a magpie when I see things that sound good, are a bargain price and make a few promises, I buy them.  Sometimes those products are amazing, sometimes they are disappointing - this product was the latter.

For £2.50 in Primark, I came across Body Essentials Argan range within which was a body scrub with Argan oil and a promise that it would remove dead skin cells leaving skin smoothed and polished. Hmmm £2.50 this could have been the product of all products had if worked, but for me it didn't.

It says "Treat your body with intensely conditioning argan oil. This body scrub removed dead skin cells whilst smoothing the skin leaving it feeling refreshed, polished and smelling delicious".

Well it does smell nice, but not what I would call delicious, when I think of a body scrub that is delicious I am drawn to the Soap and Glory a Breakfast scrub which smells amazing, this scrub smells like a weak coconut smoothie, though it doesn't contain coconut.

Then when it comes to using on your body, it does say that for a deeper exfoliation you can use it in dry skin before showering or when in the shower on damp skin massage it on using circular motions.  The cream is a fairly thick consistency and there are small exfoliating particles in it, but I personally think the cream is too thick for those particles to work as they should, so it doesn't do a very good job at exfoliating, it's main purpose.  When you do manage to get to the exfoliating particles they don't exfoliate that well and you can barely feel them on the skin, even if you apply a lot of pressure.  I found it particularly hard to use and ended up reaching for the Soap and a Glory Breakfast scrub to finish the job I had started.

I have used this quite a few times over the past few months, I say that because I feel it would be unfair to use it once and then state I am not too impressed with it.  I have tried using it before I shower, when I am in the shower and even when I am in the bath and I get the same result, well no result actually.  The only thing it does is make my skin feel really dry after using it, so I am instantly reaching for one of my moisturises as soon as I have patted my skin dry.

For £2.50 I am really saddened this hasn't worked for me because I had high hopes, maybe it works better for other people, but for me it is a product that I wouldn't repurchase and one that is heading for the bin because I won't be finishing the tube.

PJ's and Nail Polish

Whilst in Asda collecting a Christmas Gift for my Nephew, these PJ's caught my eye and I bought them, well they are fantastic and oh so comfortable and they cost just £12.  I had intended to give them as a gift, but well, they are now mine.

They come neatly folded inside a fabric bag which matches the PJ bottoms as you can see below and on the bag itself are two buttons which keeps the PJ's secure until opened:

Once the PJ's are in use, I wondered what to do with the fabric bag, I love the pattern of it and didn't want to just throw it in the bin because it woould have been a huge waste.  Then I remembered that I needed some new storage for my nail polishes, below is the bag I had been keeping them in, but it got so full that I could no longer zip it up.

Those are just some of my nail polishes and one random bottle of Moon Beam which I had been looking for and naturally am chuffed I have found, but in total there is almost 40 nail polishes shown there and I have around another 15 in need of a home, which they now have:

Now I have a lovely fabric bag to securely store all of my nail polishes all in one place.

How do you store your nail polishes?  Do you like what I have done with the fabric bag and would you have used it for something else?

Primark Haul!!

I won't lie - I love Primark and can happily spend hours wandering around looking at everything and indeed I do tend to buy a fair bit from there.

My latest purchases come from the 'Home' section, usually I tend to stick to clothes, but my local Primark expanded and the Home section grew a little bit bigger and now it stocks towels, bedding, cushions and other items you might want or need.

I am obsessed with candles, I have them in every room of the house and my recent purchases are these:

These candles cost a mere £2 each and they come in a variety of scents.  I chose Coconut and mango because when I opened the lid on one to smell it, I loved it straight away.  As you can see, the candle, which is white in colour, is encased in a lovely tin which is almost a lilac colour under the light.

The best thing about them, other than the scent which is simply divine, is the fact that they burn for 25 hours, the same as a small Yankee Candle Jar.  An absolute bargain!  I keep both of my candles in the bathroom, these are the second ones I have bought and even if you don't use them, they still omit the lovely scent.

Naturally, that isn't all I bought! Let me introduce you to a further product from this range:

You'll have to excuse the poor photographs, but this is a Reed Diffuser in exactly the same scent as the candles shown above and again it is totally divine.  It costs £3 and is packaged inside a cardboard box with the reeds themselves wrapped up to protect them.  Once the box is opened and you have followed all of the instructions, really easily, you simply place it somewhere within your home and the first thing you will notice after an hour or two is that the scent has come alive. 

I am really surprised at how long lasting they are too, past experiences with products like these is not a good one, infact I have been quite disappointed in every Reed Diffuser I have tried and that being the case, I haven't tempted fate by trying a Yankee Candle version!  I bought this Reed diffuser in the last week of January and here it sits on my shelf today with this much left:

So as you can see there is just over half the bottle left after 5 and a half weeks and this diffuser is constantly in use, it never moves off the shelf and the scent is just as strong now as it was when I first bought it.  Naturally to keep the scent strong, you should regularly flip the Reeds, which I do on a weekly basis.

Have you ever tried these products from Primark?  Do you have a favourite scent?  Would you even purchase them?