Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside!

Hey lovelies, i've got another OOTD post for you today! The other day Motel Rocks had a 25% off discount with myunidays, so I decided to get this lovely red daisy print tea dress that i'd been lusting over for weeks. I love the pretty, feminine cut of this dress with the gathered waist and skater style skirt, when I first tried it on I couldn't stop twirling around in it!

As this is such a girly dress i've been teaming it with my trusty Topshop cut-out boots and tights, in order to "grunge" it up a bit! Here are a few photos that my boyfriend took of me  when we went for a walk by the sea the other day :)

This dress retails for £40.00 here, but you can get 20% off of this dress, or any other item from motelrocks.com with the exclusive code I have for you guys: bethstrong

Hope you liked this post, talk to you soon x

The Infamous Zara Skort

Hello lovelies, sorry my posting has been so sporadic recently but second year is intense! I seriously have so much uni work right now that finding even a spare half an hour to write a blog post is proving difficult. But enough of my excuses, onto the post haha.

As far as I can recall I haven't yet done any OOTD posts, but I wanted to share one of my favourite recent purchases with you, this "skort" from Zara. Now if you read any fashion blogs you're bound to have seen this already as it is a bloggers' favourite. I fell in love with it when I saw it on the Zara website and despite having absolutely no idea how i'd style it, I knew I had to have it. Today I teamed it with a cropped jumper from H&M, my favourite cut-out boots from Topshop and kept accessories simple with just a silver Casio watch.

I love this skort so much and i'd really like to get the white one too as it is such a versatile piece. It can be worn casually like I have here, or dressed up for a night out with a sheer blouse and heels.

This skort retails for £25.99 and is available in orange, blue, white and black here.  

What do you think?
P.S. The Casio watch was very kindly sent to me by thewatchhut.co.uk for free.

Blog Sale Bargains!

Hello again lovelies! Lately I have been really getting into blog sales. Despite the fact that I spend an alarming amount of money on beauty products, I still love a bargain and blog sales are a great chance to try out new brands and products for a really great price. I got all of these products from the Sophie's Beautique blog sale and I only paid £22 (including delivery) for everything which is amazing and means I saved about £70! I'm really happy with everything I got so I thought I would share them with you all.

First up is this beautiful Chanel Le Vernis Nail Colour in 493 Jade Rose. This colour was actually limited edition, so I was really lucky to get my hands on it. It is a classic, slightly peach nude which leaves your nails looking perfectly polished and sophisticated. In the bottle you can see some iridescent pink shimmer, although this doesn't really show up on the nails. This nail varnish does require two or three coats to achieve full opacity as it is rather sheer, but the final colour is so pretty that I don't really mind! 

Next up is another Chanel product- Le Sourcil De Chanel Perfect Brows Kit in the shade 20 Brun. I've been using MAC's Charcoal Brown eyeshadow to fill in my brows for months now, but I wanted to try something new. This beautifully packaged little kit comes with three different shades of powder, which can be used separately, or mixed together to create a perfect match for your natural brow colour. It also contains a little brush and teeny tiny tweezers, which actually work really well. The mirror inside is magnified too which is really useful. I haven't had the chance to use this yet so I can't go into too much more detail, but i'm really excited about trying this out.

The next thing I purchased was this MAC lipstick in Myth. It is a satin finish, meaning it gives quite an opaque, matte result which can sometimes be quite drying, but i'm sure that applying some lip balm beforehand will make it more wearable. Myth is a light nude, which usually I tend to shy away from as my natural lip colour is so pigmented, but as this is so opaque I find it a lot easier to wear. Cremesheen finishes are still my favourites at the moment, but overall this is a lovely nude and i'm glad it's now in my collection! 

The final thing that I purchased was this MAC 15 pan pro palette. It is one of the old style palettes without the clear lid, but I actually prefer this style as it comes with the pan inserts in it already, whereas with the new palettes they are sold separately. I only have two MAC eyeshadows as I rarely stray from my Urban Decay Naked palette (the original one), but I depotted them and put them in my palette and it has definitely inspired me to buy more! It will also work out cheaper in the long run, as now when I buy MAC shadows I can just buy the pro palette refill pans and save £2.50 on packaging each time.

(From top to bottom-Wedge and Charcoal Brown)

I hope you enjoyed this post, i'm really looking forward to trying out all of my new things! Have you ever bought anything from a blog sale?

Rimmel Lasting Finish Colour Rush Balm in "Give Me A Cuddle"

Hello again lovelies! A huge number of cosmetics brands ranging from Clinique to Soap & Glory have adopted the "lip crayon" and made it their own. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before Rimmel jumped on the bandwagon and launched their own version, which was released in early September. Personally i've never been tempted to try one out before, but i've really been won over by this product. First of all, could the shade name BE any cuter?! 

Adorable name aside, I love this product. I love the fact that the tube swivels up, meaning you don't have to sharpen it and make a mess and can easily twist it up when you need more. The actual formula of the product is great too. It has the moisturising qualities of a lip balm (this is coming from someone who suffers with chapped lips a LOT) and the pigmentation and creaminess of a really great lipstick. The colour pay-off itself is considerably more opaque in comparison to a lot of the more sheer, glossy lip crayons that are on the market and once the initial balmy finish has worn off, the colour remains slightly stained on your lips, so the longevity of this product is great. The other six colours in the range look great too, i've got my eye on "Drive Me Nude" and "The Redder The Better"!

The Colour Rush Balms have an RRP of £5.99 and can be bought from your local Boots or Superdrug, as well as any supermarkets with a Rimmel counter. 

The Superdrug website doesn't currently have this shade in stock, but you can get it online from Boots here.

What do you think? Have you tried any lip crayons?

NARS Foreplay Orgasm Palette Review

Hey lovelies! 

I bought this limited edition NARS palette in a blog sale recently and it's so beautiful that I just had to share it with you! Never one for subtle names, this palette is called Foreplay and is inspired by the famous Orgasm blush. 

I'm relatively new to NARS products, I only own the Laguna bronzer and the Orgasm illuminator, but i've wanted to try out a NARS blush for ages and had heard a lot about the Orgasm blush. Therefore, when I saw this lovely palette I thought it would be a great way to try a few different colours out. 

The packaging is lovely, the rubberised case looks very sleek and high end, but unfortunately I doubt it will stay this way for long as NARS packaging gets dirty very quickly! 

The individual colours do not have names, but there is a dark peach shade (1), a golden highlighter (2), a matte fuchsia pink (3) and Orgasm (4), which is compiled of all of these different aspects, therefore creating a peachy pink with hints of golden shimmer. I have read reviews online however which have claimed that the Orgasm shade in this palette differs slightly to the original Orgasm, but as I don't own it I can't really comment on this. Nonetheless, I am glad it is the biggest shade in this palette as on me it shows up as a beautiful pink/rose gold colour. That said, the two matte colours are also lovely and are the most pigmented. I actually think that the golden colour would double up as a great brow bone highlight too, so this is a really versatile little palette. 

The only major downside I would say this palette has is that the highlight colour in particular is extremely small, which makes applying it with a big brush quite tricky. Also, if you fall in love with any of these shades (excluding Orgasm), you can't repurchase them outside of this palette, which is slightly irritating as they're so lovely!

Overall, I love this palette and I think it is a great way of trying out the formulation of NARS blushes without having to invest in four different products. All of the blushes have a silky soft texture which makes applying and blending them into the skin really easy and results in a very natural looking finish. The compact packaging makes it ideal for travelling and the blushes themselves are really beautiful and I can tell I am going to get a lot of use out of this palette!

You can buy this palette for £39.50 from narscosmetics.co.uk.

Have you tried any NARS blushes? 

No7 Beautiful Skin Hot Cloth Cleanser & Quick Thinking Wipes Review

Just before I left for university a few weeks ago, my sister gave me a voucher she had got from Boots for £5 off No7 skincare. As you'll know if you've seen my Starting Off: Skincare post, I very rarely invest in decent skincare products and so I took this as a chance to try out the No7 Beautiful Skin range The products are more expensive than my usual Olay choices, but not as steep as some high-end skincare brands. 

The first thing I picked was the No7 Beautiful Skin Hot Cloth Cleanser. I've been wanting to try out the  Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser for a while now, but at £24.75 for 200ml in comparison to the £4.95 that the No7 version cost with my discount, it was a no brainer! In the box you get a 200ml tube of product, which I can tell is going to last me absolutely ages, because you only really need one pump of the cleanser per use. It also comes with a muslin cloth, which is great as it saves you having to go out and buy one, but to be honest it isn't that impressive and a hot flannel would probably work just as well. The actual product itself however is really impressive!

I use it about once a week, massaging the cleanser over my face, then running the muslin cloth under a hot tap, wringing it out and then placing it on my face. I usually wait around 5-10 minutes before taking it off, as the muslin cloth starts to get cold and quite simply I get bored! But it is really relaxing, has a lovely scent and leaves my skin feeling like it's been really thoroughly cleaned. Personally I suffer from dry skin and it really helps to exfoliate away any dry patches and as long as I moisturise straight after patting my face dry, my skin is left feeling really soft.

When I bought the cleanser, I was actually given another £5 off voucher and so a couple of days later I decided to buy the No7 Beautiful Skin Quick Thinking Wipes, which usually retail at £7. Now, you'd think that for £7 you'd be getting a pretty spectacular pack of wipes. Unfortunately not.

It's not that they're particularly bad, it's more that I really can't tell the difference between these wipes and the £1 packs of wipes that I usually get from Superdrug/Savers/Asda etc. Also, the Boots website claims that they're "suitable for all skin types and remove even waterproof mascara", yet when I use them to take off my eye make-up they make my eyes sting and feel slightly sore, which is strange because I don't really have sensitive skin and never usually get affected in this way by make-up removers. 

Overall, I was really impressed with the Hot Cloth Cleanser as it leaves my skin feeling incredibly clean and I would definitely repurchase it again, but I would still like to try out the Liz Earle equivalent just to see how they compare. The wipes however I have not really got on well with and I don't really think the price is justified.

Have you tried any No7 skincare products? 

The Procrastinating Beauty Blogger

Hey lovelies,

So i'm sat in my bed on this rather boring Friday night/Saturday morning and my boyfriend has fallen asleep so he isn't being particularly entertaining and i'm in the mood to write a blog post!

I've bought a few things lately that i'm planning to review, including a beautiful blush palette from Nars (check out my instagram for a sneak peak!), but the lighting is pretty horrific right now so i've decided to do a tag post instead. I haven't been tagged by anyone, but i've seen this post pop up on a few blogs i've been reading lately and it looks like fun, so here goes!

Rules:

• Thank the tagger and link them in the post.
• State that this tag was created by The Beau Bow.
• Copy and paste the rules.
• Tag some more beauty bloggers and link them to the post.
• Title this "The Procrastinating Beauty Blogger" post so that people know what the post is about.
• Have fun!

1) Name a beauty regime that you rarely do.

Taking my make-up off. I know this is awful and is doing no good for my skin whatsoever, but I am so lazy when it comes to removing my make-up at night and most of the time I just end up taking it off in the morning instead. (Then reapplying it all again haha!)

2) Is washing your make-up brushes something that you do regularly?

I use the MAC brush cleanser to do quick spot cleans quite regularly, but when it comes to deep cleansing my brushes properly in the sink I probably don't do it quite as often as I should and usually leave it for a few weeks between washes which probably isn't overly hygienic!

3) How long will you last with chipped nail polish?

Oh god, ages! I work in a shop so my nails get chipped all the time, no matter how often I repaint them.   I tend to wear a lot of nude coloured nail varnishes so chipping isn't that obvious, but if i'm wearing a bright, bold colour on my nails and they chip, I feel more obliged to redo them as they look so bad!

4) How long do you put off buying/replacing a beauty or nail polish product, even if you need it? (e.g. purchasing a new top coat or foundation)

I'm actually really good at replacing products, if I know i'm close to running out of something i'll generally order it before I run out completely so that I have a new one ready to go! (And I just love any excuse to buy more make-up!)

5) What is your worst beauty habit?

Applying too much blush on one cheek! I'm so heavy handed that quite often i'll apply too much blush, but oddly only on one cheek! I then spend about five minutes blending it in in an attempt to even them out a bit!

6) Name something non-beauty related that you put off all the time.

Reading! I'm studying BA History & English so I get set a LOT of reading. But instead of doing the sensible thing and spreading it out over the week I end up leaving it all until the night before and staying up all night reading at the speed of light to try and get it finished.

7) When going out somewhere do you leave getting ready to the last minute or not?

Generally when I know that i've got plans I will try and allow myself a couple of hours to get ready as I love getting ready slowly. However, sometimes I get distracted by online shopping, or Facebook, or Twitter, or food...and end up having to rush the getting ready process, which stresses me out immensely! 

8) Can you commit to a spending ban?

I'm actually supposed to be on one now as i'm saving for a trip to Paris, but I spotted an amazing blog sale this morning so...oops! 

9) How organised is your make-up and nail polish collection?

Most of my make-up is stored in my acrylic muji drawers, but i'm swiftly running out of room to fit everything so my dressing table is a bit hectic at the moment so i'm going to have to invest in a few more drawers. Again, you can see how well this spending ban is going can't you!? When it's all sorted out I might do a makeup collection/storage post if any of you would be interested in reading that! In terms of nail varnish, all of my nail varnishes are currently in a Liberty's washbag as I haven't yet found a place to house them since moving back to uni.

10) What is the longest amount of time you have gone without writing a blog post?

Unfortunately I started my blog back in March, just as uni exams were approaching, so I had to put it on hold for a couple of months so I didn't write any posts at all for about two months! Recently though i've been trying harder to keep my posts more regular.

Okay, I tag Natalie from Rose by Nature, Lorna from Studs and Dreams and Suzy from Cynical Suzy to do this post, but if any more of you choose to do it let me know in the comments below!